Time to Destination: 29 hours

Date: July 2nd

Destination: Ludington, Michigan

Background Music: The Clash, “Lost in the Supermarket”

I drove my bug-splattered Jeep around back and parked it next to the Scout. Paul used to watch Dad and I hunched over novelizations of popular movies, comparing notes we’d written in the margins. A chip off the old block, he’d say before disappearing behind another Mad Magazine. I moved bags of snacks and water to the Scout, along with my duffel bag and backpack.

Larry threw a duffel bag in the backseat and got behind the wheel.

“Places to go, people to see. You’ve been driving for weeks. Take a load off. Sleep when you need to. I’m doing the same. We’re cranking this out in one fell swoop. With one stop first.” 

            My tired eyes had no problems with that. My mostly full stomach initially protested the stop, which ended up being Rito’s Mexican Food, where we ate chimichangas. It occurred to me during the desert drive to Phoenix that I was on the right path. I chanced closing my eyes for a moment with the road bare. I asked myself how much I was on the right path and came back with 95%. Not too shabby, as Dad would say while eating a tasty meal.

            “You happen to know the history of the chimichanga?” Larry asked me. We leaned against the grill of my car, holding aluminum foil containers with deep fried burritos. 

            “That bit of trivia has managed to escape me all these years.” 

            “As you catalog America, let me add another anecdote to your quiver. Restaurants around town compete on who invented the chimichanga the same way they compete on who has the best one. My contention: you can’t go wrong with any of them. I’m an El Norteno guy, but how can you go wrong? It’s meat, it’s cheese, it’s beans, all wrapped in a flour – it needs to be flour – tortilla. Fry it in oil. Cover it in sauce, sides, whatever. It’s a chimichanga.” 

            My mouth was stuffed full. “It’s good.” 

            “Damn right. The story goes that Woody Johnson, the founder of Macayo’s, dropped a burrito into his fryer one night. Total accident. Happens to the best of us. Only his accident was as happy as Bob Ross sprucing up a painting with a huge pine tree. Another story goes that Monica Flin, owner of El Charro Cafe in Tucson, invented the chimichanga in a similar fashion. It’s late at night, she’s hankering for a snack, whips up a burrito for her and her niece, only the niece is a whippersnapper and knocks into Monica while she’s rolling the burrito. She drops it into the hot oil and yells a Spanish cuss word, loosely translated to a vulgar version of thingamajig, and thus we get the chimichanga.”

            We chewed and savored. Our stomachs smiled. It would hit me later, and I’d crash hard, but car sleep wasn’t easy. Any sleep would be welcome. 

            “And then you get other restaurants around town claiming they invented them. The newer ones are coming up with fictional stories to add to the narrative. There’s a Chinese food truck that sells amazing egg rolls. Their story is that Chinese immigrants came to Sonora, Mexico in 1903 and fused egg rolls with burritos. There’s a lot about this country that no one knows about. It was my favorite part about touring.” 

            We scraped our foil containers clean. Larry waved goodbye to a woman inside Rito’s. They had chatted about a food festival in August while we ordered. 

“You sure?” I said with little conviction as we got into my car. 

“I run a restaurant. And that touring schedule stays with you. Can’t remember a night I’ve slept before midnight.”

The empty passenger bucket seat felt different in terms of location and comfort. Different is just different, not worse or better. It’s how we learn to experience and appreciate new people, places, and things that separate us from the numbskulls. Dad, again. Or maybe Paul Newman. Neither of them would admit how similar they were. I settled in, already feeling the effects of the heavy food.

            Larry toggled the radio until static smoothed into The Clash, Joe Strummer singing, “Long distance callers make long distance calls. And the silence makes me lonely.” The V-8 fired, rumbled, and Larry drove on. “Not for long,” he said, steering for the highway.

            By the time we hit I-40 E towards Albuquerque, 15 of 1,929 miles down, I caught myself mid-snore, drool running down my chin. “Sorry,” I said, sitting up. 

            “Sleep. I can’t do this whole thing in one day, but I can do some of it for you.”

            I stuck my arms inside my shirt and hugged myself. I rested my head against a balled-up hoodie pushed against the window. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Where’s the missing Spin Cycle music?” My words came out like yawns. “The secret recording?” 

            “Beats me. Urban legend, like the egg roll chimichanga. Sleep, Buck. You’re close, but still a ways to go.”

            I slept and dreamt.

Time to Destination: 22 hours

Date: July 3rd

Destination: Ludington, Michigan

Background Music: Rush, “Limelight”

We swapped drivers at a Love’s five miles before Albuquerque. Larry tapped his card at the gas pump before I could get out of the car. 

“Really? It’s not like buying me Airheads when I was a kid.” 

            “I drove, I’ll pay. When you’re driving, you pay.” 

            I’d forgotten his Jersey accent. It came on thick when he was tired. I heard Deacon on the bus. “A Jersey boy from Pontiac. There’s a song in there somewhere.”

            I restocked energy drinks and drove through Albuquerque. Sleep tried to hang on. I shrugged it off with one well-placed hard slap against my cheek. Larry didn’t notice because he was snoring. His position was leaned back in the seat, head back, mouth open. My position was how loud is too loud for a podcast about Top Gun on my phone?

            I drove through the night. 

            I-40 E turned into US-54 E. Texas and Oklahoma joined my list of states visited, although passing through the night hardly counted. 

Hey, Fender, what’d you think of Oklahoma?

You mean the time I cruised through the panhandle at pre-dawn, the light of the sun blinking over the horizon, realization dawning that in less than a day I was going to see my Dad, a man who would remember me, but who also might forget our reunion within a day, and all of this happening while Larry snored in time to the “Wake up, Wake Up” of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s “1st of Tha Month.” After, two guys broke down the casting what-ifs of Con Air, wondering if the movie would have worked with Christian Bale playing Cameron Poe, otherwise known as Nicolas Cage in a white tank top, with long hair, a beard, and a bad southern accent. You mean that drive through Oklahoma? Exhilarating. Painful. Frightening. Let me tell you this, whoever will listen: the closer you get to an undeniably necessary task, one that scares you, but that you know must be done, the more important it becomes that you breathe and realize that no matter what happens, you’ll be better for it after it’s over. The worst thing we can do is not do something because it scares us. Or, as I have so eloquently put it before: Eat the Toad.

Time to Destination: 14 hours

Date: July 3rd

Destination: Ludington, Michigan

Background Music: John Mellencamp, “Little Pink Houses”

I tried to get us to Wichita before stopping, but my rule was after two doze-offs, it’s time to stop.

            We stretched our legs at a rest area in Bloom, Kansas, a community of 92 people south of Dodge City. What was life like for those 92 people? How did it compare to people working in corporate buildings in big cities? Did the corporate people have any concept of what life was like in Bloom, Kansas, and vice versa? And why did that suddenly seem important? Dad grew up in a working-class family slinging concrete blocks. Would using the word “simple” offend the people of Bloom, Kansas? Or any small town for that matter? Someone at my company once visited rural Illinois to do an audit. They came back and said, “Can you believe people live like that? I would never.” There are complexities to every life, no matter where you live. 

            Larry leaned against a wooden fence railing. Across the two lanes of US-54, a field of corn stalks stretched for miles. Windmills spun far away in the northeast. Clouds bubbled through the blue sky like coffee foam. 

He said, “I dreamed I was in a chimichanga eating competition. Teams of three were given a fifty-pound chimichanga, served on an upside-down garbage can lid. The first team to finish won. There were hundreds of teams, all bands. Weezer. The Ramones. Pink Floyd. Fleetwood Mac. Nirvana. My team was me, Paul, and Brett. We got off to a lead, but then Paul started singing and Roy Orbison joined him because Roy was there with Petty and Dylan and that crew, the Wilburys, and it got me thinking about supergroups, and I loudly asked, ‘If you could create a supergroup of musicians– guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and vocals– who would it be and why?’ And one by one people stopped eating and started discussing, and then debating, and I woke up wondering what in the hell have I done?” 

            When we walked back to the car, a cardinal and robin were perched on the front of the blue roof. They bobbed their heads, nodding, dancing to whatever music birds listen to. The cardinal chirped, the robin answered, and they flew away. 

            “Okay,” Larry said. 

            “Yeah.”

            Signs, signs, everywhere there are signs. 

            “Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind.” 

            Larry drove, commenting on the passing heartland. I dozed, listening to him regale me, himself, anyone in a ten-mile radius. “Here’s a fun fact. In addition to being a vegetable, corn is also a grain and a fruit.” 

            “How?” I mumbled. 

            “It’s a vegetable. Starchy. Like potatoes. But it has kernels and those are technically grains. That’s why you can grind them down, mill them into flour. It also comes from the flower of a plant, which makes it a fruit. Think of tomatoes. Like many fruits, you can turn it into syrup. Versatile produce, corn. Or like us Michigan boys like to say, maize. Did you know where the word maize comes from?”

            On he went, my own personal podcast. I slept. I dreamed. I heard him mention a road trip with Val, his wife who passed ten years before from cancer. I heard John Candy say, “I haven’t been home in years.” I noticed a tear rolling down my cheek but was too tired to stop it. It stayed there, dried, a reminder that everyone’s going through something, no matter how they look on the outside. Music played, low and steady, like background singers echoing his anecdotes.

            I saw James with his red beard. It was hot in the middle of America, but he was wearing Dad’s old Levi’s jacket. How hot was it inside my head? What temperature does a brain have to maintain to regulate homeostasis? Or was it equilibrium? I tried spelling equilibrium with my eyes closed. I didn’t have the energy to check my phone.

            Unless there was a beach in my head, James wasn’t in there, not in this scene. He was sitting in a rocking chair on the beach, his toes dipping in and out of the sand, a great lake waving at him. A lighthouse stood at the end of a long breakwall, the beacon in the tower shining bright. There was a pin on the jeans jacket, circular and white, with a smiley face. There was an American flag badge sewn on, and another pin with a black heart turning red with the phrase, “Home is where…”

            Around noon I sat up and stretched. Larry was silent, contemplative. An episode of Paul’s podcast played on Larry’s phone, which he’d lodged in a cup holder. Paul and his guest, Flea, were talking about pre-show rituals. Larry was laughing at something inside his head. 

            “What’s so funny?”

            “Huh?” He turned the volume down. A mileage marker said 78 miles to Kansas City. “This thing we used to do before shows. We picked a category, like fast food restaurants, flavors of ice cream, and went around in a circle naming things in that category until someone repeated one or couldn’t name one. Whoever won got to pick the first song we played. And the set list grew from that.” 

            “I think that was a drinking game in college.” 

            “Everything that’s been done has been done before.”

Paul spoke on the podcast. “At our peak, we could do four, five, six rounds. I liked it when Larry won because he’d pick up-tempo songs like ‘Honey Do List’ or ‘Rocksteady Rambo.’ Popular, but not major hits. Ease the crowd in, you know? Brett was a wild card. He might blow his load with ‘Lazy Susan’ right out the gates. He’d say, ‘Let’s get that out of the way.’”

Flea laughed. Paul was in his element. “Right?! ‘Let’s get that out of the way.’ An hour and a half later we’re between songs, the crowd’s all frenzied, and Brett would say to me, ‘You want to just play The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle?’ And I’m fired up, I’m ready to fire up ‘Castles’ and ‘Labrador, the Country’ and ‘Hank, Hank Sheffield.’ The crowd’s ready for it. Larry’s tingling the cymbals.”

Flea cuts in. “And Brett wants to pivot to an entire Springsteen album.”

            “One with sax and keyboard and an organ. There’s a damn cornet on the title track. I say, ‘Brett, have you lost your goddamn mind? Look at these people. Let’s rock Castles.’ And you haven’t been around Brett that much, right?”

            “Right.”

            “He gets this gleam in his eyes. It’s a knowing. A decision has been made that he’s confident in. You ever watch 8 Mile?”

            “Of course.” 

            “It’s that look Eminem gives before the final rap battle, that knowing smirk right before he decimates Papa Doc. Brett gives me that look and absolutely rips the opening to ‘Rosalita,’ which isn’t exactly perfect because, again, it’s the three of us up there. We used to jam it in the garage though, and at bars around Pontiac, and on the west side of the state, G.R., Ludington. Brett made it his own, like we all do when we love a piece of art we want to adopt. The crowd cheers because they’ll cheer for anything. Some of them know what he’s playing. He plays more of it, and they start picking up what he’s throwing down. I joined in because why not, right? And Larry was game for whatever. Next thing you know I’m singing background to Brett’s lead, and before I know it, with the crowd dancing, he’s already transitioning to ‘Castles.’”

            Flea chuckled. Nostalgic glee covered Larry’s face. 

            “When’s the last time you all played together?” I asked.

            “Too long. Had to have been the benefit for the military veterans at Ford Field. Fifteen years ago. We’re going to be a bit rusty.” 

            Paul asked, “What were your pre-show routines? Did Anthony ever go off script?” as Larry switched over to the radio and let CCR do the talking.

            “You’re what?” I asked.

            “Hungry. And I need to get out of this car. Under an hour from KC.”

            “Are you sure you don’t mind? Quick stop. No more than an hour. Got to see about a girl.”

            Or a too cute for me woman. Who said if I was back around Kansas City on July 3rd, she’d be at the same spot at Kauffman Stadium. And because I was a sucker for closing the circle on things, and when I checked in, I got a strong 10/10 yes to go to the game, to the Royals-Red Sox game we headed. 

Time to Destination: 10 hours (hold please)

Date: July 3rd

Destination: Kauffman Stadium

Background Music: Organist playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”

Larry and I stood at a railing by the outfield bleachers. We ate coney dogs and mused about how long either of us could realistically handle direct sunlight at our respective ages. The Royals outfielders whipped balls around broad expanses of outfield with wrist flicks that made my shoulder hurt. 

            “When’s the last time you threw a baseball?”

            Larry unwrapped a second coney dog and held it up to the field for the perfect shot of baseball in the summer. “A thousand of these ago.”

            “I had a neighbor in college who liked to throw in our courtyard. All the things we did when we were younger. What happens?” 

            “You’re getting older, Fender. You’re not dying.” 

            Martinez for the Red Sox cracked a line drive single up the middle. Vendors sweating like warthogs wrapped in wool called, “Beer here! Beer here!” A father was standing to show his son how the Sox player had just swung, swiveling his hips and leveling a wooden collector’s bat. I tried to emulate the same stance while holding my invisible bat. 

            “Keep that up and they might give you a tryout.” 

            I turned around to see the too cute for me woman. The look on Larry’s face confirmed that she was, indeed, too cute for me. She wore a Karate Kid tank top, shorts, and flip flops. Her ball cap and shades made me want to give her a high five, which I did, before I could stop myself. She took it in stride and offered her hand to Larry. 

            “Amanda.” 

            His big hand shook her much smaller one. “Larry. Great day for a ballgame.”

            “The greatest. I don’t know how long anyone can last in this sun, but they’re going to try. So.” She turned to me. “How’s the drive? You’re back this way. Does that mean you’re on the tail end?” 

            Larry finished his coney dog. “I need a beer. Fender? Amanda?”

            We said no thanks and I was forever impressed by folks with strong situational awareness. 

            You have any coney sauce on your face?

            I wiped my mouth discreetly with my thumb and forefinger. “Heading home. Although now that it’s almost over, I don’t want it to end.”

            She leaned on the railing, so we stood side by side watching a baseball game the day before the 4th of July. For the first time in a long time, I felt an electric tug. “Twenty words or less, how has it been?”

            “Under twenty words?”

            She didn’t look at me, just cheered at a strike at the corner of the plate. “That’s three.”

            I’d thought about the trip plenty. I’d written more. Where did I start? “Atlanta. Mobile. Mondo’s Market. Kansas City. Denver. Red Rocks. Big Sky. Seattle. Rogue River. San Francisco. McCovey Cove. Earnest Ernest. Phoenix. Kansas City. How many is that?”

            “Twenty-three. That’s a trip. You should list everyone you’ve met along the way.” 

            “And one word to describe each place.”

            “One word to rule them all.” She drank and took in the ballpark, visibly sniffing. She sighed pleasantly. “I love baseball.” 

            “So do I. What’re you doing in K.C., by the way? Do you live here?”

            Zach Grienke got Rollins to pop up to second to end the inning. The too cute for me woman named Amanda clapped. “Grienke still has a few innings in him. No, I don’t live here. I’m helping my aunt out. My uncle’s sick. In town until, probably, unfortunately, he passes.” 

            “I’m sorry to hear that.” 

            “It’s okay. It’s been a long time coming. He knows it. He tells my aunt, ‘The moment I stop kicking, you can finally date Bobby Hobgood.’ And she knocks him on the shoulder, and he coughs, and honestly, I feel like I’m with the two of them so I can see what true love is all about. And to catch some baseball games when they’re both sleeping.” 

            I had thoughts and jokes and references about true love, and love songs, and romantic comedies, about When Harry Met Sally, and about being open the prospects of another person, not that she had to be the one, but that my heart would allow it. I saw EJ in a shop front flipping the closed sign to open. 

            I could’ve riffed on love, but instead I said, “You’re a good niece.” 

            Her laugh came out fast. “Put that on my tombstone. Here lies Amanda, a good niece.” 

The announcer called Beckett up to bat. “Oh, Sherrie” played as he walked to the plate. I nearly shit my pants. “You alright over there, Fender Carradine? Look like you saw a ghost.” 

“You ever hear a song, and a lyric plays right when you’re reading something else with the same word, something innocuous like, turnip, or heart, and it feels like you’re on the right path? Does that make sense?”

“It does, and I have. Why? Were you thinking about Steve Perry?”

I shook my head and wiped sweat from my face. “Something like that. I’ve written about the trip. Let me try twenty words again.” 

            Dad and Paul used to do this with their songs. They’d finish writing one and then come up with a synopsis. “Lazy Susan” was technology run amok, but with a glimmer of hope, for instance. How would they recap my road trip? And why should they? I was overthinking the road trip and my life while Amanda watched the game, kind enough to not stare at me. I’d spent most my life worrying about what other people thought, deferring to their opinions on who I should be instead of my own. I patted my forehead, and it came away dry. Of all the times not to sweat.

            “A man with a broken heart goes on a road trip across America to learn about his dad’s rock and roll life. It’s a journey about music, memories, and mental health. It’s still long, but it’s a start.” 

            “Fix it in the rewrites. Thanks for sharing. I’m glad I made a guest appearance. Is there a sequel?”

            It was my turn to laugh. “I don’t even know how this one ends, although the picture’s getting clearer. I’m always open to the next episode. Where’s home, then?”

            I was talking too much, or not enough. The problem with rust is you have to shake it off. 

            “Michigan. But I live outside Atlanta.”

            “No way!” 

            Larry walked up with a huge pretzel and containers of mustard and liquid cheese. He set a beer on the railing and dried his head with a towel he had not brought into the stadium. I didn’t ask. We had ten more hours until home. Plenty of time for stories. “A tale as old as time. Vendor lines. What did I miss?”

            Amanda recapped on her finger tips. “Strike out. Martinez forced out at second. Pop up to second.” 

            A bat crack like a pistol shot. “Oh, Sherrie,” I dead panned. 

            The ball no brainer landed in the fountains in right field. Water geysered in celebration. The fans matched the enthusiasm of the shooting water. She added: “And a home run by Witt.”

            “You two should catch a Tigers game when you’re in town,” Amanda said. 

            I didn’t ask how she knew I was going to Michigan. Maybe I told her. Maybe she could read between the lines. Larry cleared salt off his shirt. “West side of the state this go around. On Lake Michigan.” 

            “It’s beautiful over there. I used to go as a kid.” She broke a piece of pretzel off and dipped it in mustard. “Watch a sunset for me.” 

I offered her my hand to shake on the deal. Instead, she opened her hand, waiting. I didn’t know what to do, so I slapped her hand. She opened it again. “Phone, please.”

            “Oh.” 

            I gave it to her, and she typed. I knew Larry was watching and grinning, but I didn’t bother giving him the pleasure. She finished and handed it back to me. Her phone buzzed and she held it up. A text message from me to her said, “Fender.” She texted back, “Reminder to send me a photo of a sunset.” 

            “Deal. Thank you.”

            “You’re welcome. Okay.” She took another bit of pretzel and savored it while watching Bradley, Jr. strike out. “I’m going to let you two finish your food and get on your way. My aunt and uncle should be waking up from their nap. Larry, it was great to meet you. I love your music.”

            He nodded a thank you. 

            “Fender, talk again soon. Safe drive home.” 

            This time we hugged, and it was real. I smelled something light, fragrant, deodorant tinged with sweat. That my heart could feel again made me more nervous than I had been before she showed up. She strolled away, the furthest thing from a figment of my imagination. 

Time to Destination: 9 hours and 58 minutes

Date: July 3rd

Destination: Ludington, Michigan

Background Music: Electric Light Orchestra, “Mr. Blue Sky”

Larry was chatty after two beers. We moved to a shaded section for another inning. Back in the car, the chatting continued. I let it happen, was hoping for it, and with my heart growing two sizes, could have listened to him talk for days.

            “We’re under ten hours! How are you feeling? Are you nervous?”

            I had stopped overthinking it.

            This is true. Impressive, really, watching you not overanalyze.

            “I am. But also, it’s Dad, you know? Whether he remembers me or not, it will always be Dad. There’s nothing I can do to change it. But I’m always anxious on the way home. Whether it’s been a day or ten years. Just something about anticipation. What about you?”

            He had his hands held in front of the vents. “I can’t wait. Saw him a few months back when he was planning your trip. Got to sharing stories like the old days. Might have even picked up the drumsticks.” 

            “What’d you talk about?”

            We drove north on I-36, with an ETA just after midnight. The clouds had moved out, creating a blue so royal you could knit a queen’s robes from it. 

            “We talked about rust. How there’s rust from inactivity, and then there’s those cars you see in front yards out in the country, the shells of their former selves, haven’t been driven in decades. Broke down once and left to rot. I’m happy to report I’m more of an old truck parked in that grassy section to the side of the driveway. Gets started once a month to make sure it still runs, but no one actually drives it. The thing about music, for those of us who love it, is you never shut it off. I hear a song, like ‘All Night Long’ playing now, and my feet, my hands, they want to move. My head’s playing not just the base beat, but it’s thinking ahead to the chorus. I know this song, but I’ve never played it. Then I think how I might slow it down or speed it up, and how that might impact how Brett or Paul play it. It’s that psychic connection bands need to create. We had it early on. We talked about that, too.” 

            It seemed selfish, but I was thinking about Paul’s podcast, wondering how many listeners he had. Did he need a co-host? A producer? Could I call it a day at the firm and interview musicians for a living? Could I do that remotely from Georgia, so I could go on a first date with the too cute… with Amanda? And James knew how I thought because he was me. I was rolling with it because that’s how the brain works sometimes. There’s getting ahead of yourself, and there’s mulling opportunities so you make the right decision with your life. 

            “I hung out with EJ in San Francisco.” 

            “EJ! Saw him not too long ago. I’m looking into expanding the diner. Good kid. Interesting life he lives, collecting the obscure.”

            The radio shuffled to “On the Dark Side” from the Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. 

            “Preserving, too. What happens when those who preserve aren’t around? What records do we have? What logs do we keep?”

            He nibbled at a stick of beef jerky. “It’s a fine line between putting your phone down and living in the moment and capturing it before it slips away. The more shows we played, the more cameras we saw. And I understand that. You want to take pictures. You want to record the show. The audio’s going to suck, or at least not sound like it does to your ears at the show, but you want to share it with others. Let them know what you’re doing. I’m not immune to this particular disease. I recorded a guy playing on a patio last weekend. He bounces around town playing outdoors. Mostly covers, some of his own stuff, which is good, not tight yet. But there’s no iPad on a stand in front of him with the lyrics and notes. It’s just him with a guitar singing his heart out. Type of dude to go on one of them singing shows and win it all. I send it to Meredith and Paul and your dad. But it’s not to show them what I’m doing. It’s to introduce them to a new talent.”

            He mused while looking out the window. The suburbs had turned to green fields. “I remember lighters. You don’t know how it feels to hold a lighter into the air for an entire song. Even a three-minute record will burn your thumb. That’s okay. I’m glad kids aren’t burning themselves as much.”

            “It’s cell phones now. Flashlights.”

            “Different kind of light. Lasts as long as the battery. Easier. And safer. We used to rig the lighters so we didn’t have to hold the flicker down. Even that way, lighters can’t stay lit for more than a couple of minutes before they’re too hot to handle. Things need to evolve. Just how it goes.” 

            I tried to recall the last time I watched live music with Dad. It must’ve been a small show in Mount Pleasant. College band at one of the pubs in town. Blackstone. The Bird. He was in town meeting with a professor from CMU, a guy named Roberson, to talk about movie scripts. They collaborated on a project that never got the green light. More music lost to the sands of time. Which sounded too dramatic when I thought about it. It was probably stored safely and available to anyone he trusted. 

            “I mentioned EJ because he was there for Dad’s rooftop show.”

            “I would’ve loved to jam with him on that set. He needed to do it on his own, but I would’ve loved to play with him.”

            “How did that work out for you? When he started writing soundtracks and getting into movies.” 

            I needed to record this and share it with Paul as part of my podcast audition. Like Dad, one thing I never had a problem doing was talking to people. He’d make friends with anyone, just for that moment, paying more attention to them than to himself. I thought of the guy in Denver with the rooster tattoo. Like Dad, I was curious. He wanted to glean something from everyone, so there was some selfishness, but he genuinely cared. He also had an insane brain that stored the information immediately so he could pay attention to the person he was speaking to while simultaneously logging the conversation. He wasn’t a cyborg, to my knowledge, although he behaved like an advanced one.

            “At that point, we’d all made a good chunk of change. And we were good with our money. My momma taught me to budget. We grew up on Spaghetti-Os and frozen Salisbury steak, the kind with the grill marks added in a factory. I wasn’t supposed to leave Waterford. I was a Springsteen dirge waiting to happen. But a funny thing happened on my way to staying in a small town: I learned how to drum. First, I see John Bonham playing with Led. Anyone asks me, ‘Who’s your favorite drummer?’ and they expect John Bonham, Neil Peart. Who I do love listening to. Who doesn’t? My mom played Buddy Rich records. The Beatles. The Who. My thing was, I wanted to hear them all. No one was better than anyone, it was just which sound I gravitated towards. That make sense?”

            “Of course. Subjectivity.”

            “That, and also, we had no money. I had a set of sticks I bought at Laurel’s Old Music Shoppe. Laurel saw me eyeing up the drum set through the front window enough times to come outside and hand me a set of nicked up sticks. Told me to play on anything. Pillows. Suitcases. Laundry. I’m hammering through the house like a blacksmith in a drum brigade. You met Momma. Italian with the patience of a volcano. Used to be, she’d blow up over my reciting movies on the TV late at night. She’d be back from work and I’m still awake, copying Luke and Han Solo. I kept the house clean so she could sleep as soon as she got home. I tried to be quiet, but you get caught up in a movie or a song, you get louder. It’s hard to contain. She’d throw whatever she could find within reach at me. Telling me to shut up. 

            “I figured she’d do the same with my drumming, and I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. It possessed me. The way you were with counting, and writing, and playing video games. You know how it feels when not only does it interest you, but you want to perfect it? And not only perfect it, but after you do it, you feel better, like it’s a type of therapy?”

            “It is therapy.” 

            The radio shuffled to Hall and Oates, “Out of Touch.” 

            “Playing music made me feel better. Reflective. Intentional. And momma didn’t care, no matter how tired she was, unless I missed a beat and lost the rhythm. Hagar singing ‘Right Now.’ Something fell into place once I picked the sticks up. Eventually, I knew I needed a drum set, but I was determined to not have Momma pay for it, which I knew she would if time went on.”

            He stopped to drink water and gaze out the window. A row of metal silos stood at attention like alien soldiers in a grain field. 

            “Laurel gave me a job on the condition that I didn’t stop working after I earned enough money to purchase a drum set. I agreed. She sold it to me on a payment plan. A 1976 Ludwig set for $300. Nowadays, that set in good condition sells for $800 easy. Sounds as crisp as two boulders colliding in a cave.”

            “Where’d you put it?”

            “My bedroom, at first. That meant moving my bed to the living room. It was a small single mattress with no bed frame. Momma had her own bedroom, but most of the time when she got home from work she’d make a bowl of cereal, turn on the TV, and fall asleep with it half-eaten on her lap. I’d dump it and wash it and usher her to the living room bed. I’d turn the TV volume up and go rock the bells. I’m telling you here and now, the world streaming past us one mile marker at a time, she would be dead ass asleep on that mattress, snoring, the TV blaring the CBS Late Movie, and I’d miss a beat – not that I was playing any actual music, it was all free style and getting the rhythm down – and she’d holler from the living room, ‘You’re off!’ And I’d play until I got it right.”

            I’d eaten his momma’s carbonara and Greek salad and cannolis. The last meal I’d had at her new house in Ann Arbor, she watched me twist spaghetti on the tines of my fork and put it in my mouth. I didn’t have to fake positivity. The food was delicious. Her expression was neutral, waiting for a reason to explode one way or the other. My gratification was her cause to grin. I saw the scenario where she went in the opposite direction. And then saw her after two shifts while trying to sleep and her music-obsessed son insisted on pounding the drums all day and night.

            “I held up my end of Laurel’s bargain. Minimum wage was $2.30/hour back then.”

            “$2.30!” I yelled. 

            “Not like it’s much more now. I was 13, working 20 hours a week. I paid her off after two months, and then kept working to help pay the bills. Music has never been about money for me, but the money is nice. Don’t let anyone fool you. It’s a demon, but it can be a good friend, too. I dreamed of being in a band that got so famous our records sold out and the music companies waged bidding wars to work with us. I got so good I could play songs by heart, daydreaming of huge paydays and buying Momma a house. By the time I got introduced to the guys, four years had gone by. I hadn’t played to a single audience other than Momma and my invisible crowd. My cousin knew about me through Momma.”

            My knuckles stretched on the steering wheel. “How did I not know any of that?”

            “We were caught up in the mix once your pops brought you around. Plenty to talk about, but none of it that. And you know me, I like to talk, but not so much to reporters. You can be my reporter. Share this with the world, Fender!”

            “I’ll do my best.”

            He swigged more water. “You know the rest. When it came time for us to call it quits, like I said, my hands and feet and head were going to play no matter what. I didn’t need a stage. But I needed something, anything, a distraction, a creative outlet. There you go. That’s what I was looking for. And it just so corresponded with the interesting work Brett was doing. 

            “You were visiting him on set?”

            “How that played out was he’d written the Should’ve Been Gone soundtrack. A masterpiece. Even Paul will admit that, even though he’ll couch it with what they could’ve done together. But only together, ya know? Some musicians need their counterpart, the same way in life we seek that counterpart. True love, by the way, is the soul’s recognition of its counterpoint in another. Someone said that once and it stuck. It’s how I knew Val was the one. It’s how you knew Laramie was the one. Sour grapes and all that, Buck, but it is what it is. She was the best. Should’ve been the one. But here you are. That Amanda woman? Who knows. Good energy is good energy, and she’s got it in spades. Give it a rip.

            “Picture this. I show up on set. I’ve been watching movies my whole damn life. The television set was my babysitter. I’m that same old story. Momma working day and night. Spending extra money on things she shouldn’t – booze and cigarettes – which made it harder on her and meant more alone time with me and the tube. I’m memorizing lines from TV and movies. I’m watching how and where the actors stand. I remember this Hitchcock documentary. There’s a story about a kid who can’t hit his mark. Keeps stepping towards the camera. Hitchcock finally loses it, screams ‘Cut!’ and goes up to this kid and says, ‘If you don’t stay right here, on this mark, I’m going to nail your feet to the floorboards.’ And this kid is shell white, pale as a ghost, exactly what the Hitch wanted on screen. Hitch goes back to his chair, settles in, and hollers, ‘Action!’ And the kid nails it. And all I can think about is how I want to be part of creating something.

            “That turns into my cousin introducing me to Paul and Brett and, ahem, 150 million records sold, and a country traversed, friends made and lost, and so much learned. But when you’ve created for so long, and it stops, you start to tilt over. A body in motion stays in motion. The moment I walked up to that studio lot in L.A. I knew I would find a way to get into acting. Stevie was already doing it with The Sopranos. He had that Jersey thing, which was my only concern. He laid the blueprint. Would they want to see another Jersey boy on screen? Lucky for me they did.”

            The guy could fucking act. I always knew it.

            “You’re so good, Larry. The Torino Brothers was Laramie’s favorite movie. We watched it all the time. You got robbed for best supporting actor.”

            He was shaking his head before I could finish my sentence. “It was never about awards. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Oscars. All trophies do is collect dust. The process of creating music, of acting in a scene, makes me feel good. I’m healing myself. I’m a broken record, no pun intended, but it’s therapy.”

            “Still,” I said, giving him side eyes. The day was turning into night. “You know you got robbed.”

            “I did crush that scene. Channeled a memory of my old man, who you never met. Real asshole, but authentic. Grew up in Raritan, New Jersey. Resident coke dealer when Momma got pregnant. She gives birth, six years goes by. She warns him she’s leaving him if he doesn’t give up the drug gig. He’s high and strumming a guitar, pointing the neck at me like it’s a gun, calling himself the Italian Johnny Cash. One day a strung-out wacko comes by the apartment, skinnier than a corpse, wearing a tank top with scabs on his arms like crusted anthills. Half his teeth are missing. He’s scratching himself while my dad goes into his closet. The wacko follows him into the bedroom. There’s a shout, a thud, and a gun blast. I’m reading Winnie the Pooh on the damp carpet. Momma’s screaming at the top of her lungs. She yanks me into her arms and points at Dad. ‘We’re leaving now. One inch, Gio. And all you’d have was me and your cocaine.’ I don’t know what she’s talking about until I track where Dad’s eyes go, a hole in the wall and a hole in the carpet next to my Winnie the Pooh book. An inch from where I was sitting. We left that day and drove to Michigan, where her sister lived.”

            Music played, but I didn’t hear it. I tried to talk, but questions didn’t feel right.

            “It’s okay. At a certain point, as adults we have to move on from our past and control our present and future, which is what I’ve done. But when it comes to art, like the random songs I wrote – ‘One Shot to the Right’ or ‘An Inch Away’ – or acting in a movie where Scorsese let us improvise, my inspiration was my life. For the better.”

            I finally had the words. “Like you said… therapy.”

            “Like I said. Alright, enough about me. Turn it up and let’s get your ass home.”

            “Yes, sir,” I said as Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” wafted from the speakers.

Time to Destination: 3 hours, 57 minutes

Date: July 3rd

Destination: Ludington, Michigan

Background Music: Bachman Turner Overdrive, “The Boys Are Back in Town”

Larry took over around Pontiac, Illinois. The terrain had begun to blend together, vehicles on the road turned into the neon lines seen in time lapse videos of nighttime highways. Fatigue had set in back in California; exhaustion had taken its place. I slept to Larry’s humming.

            My dream would soon be real: sitting on a chair at Dad’s house, watching Lake Michigan. Meredith would be there with coffee. The scent of roasted beans mixing with a lake breeze. Dad in a chair next to me, talking while gesturing towards the lake, as if it had more answers than he did. Maybe he was the great lake, and I was the buoy in the distance, marking where it was safe to swim. Or the seagull swimming through the air, searching for a volcano to drop the ring of power. I was half awake when I showed up as a seagull in the dream. I added Larry as a chubby carrier pigeon by my side. He dove towards the water and only looked back to say, “Come on, before it gets too late.” 

            The car stopped and the engine sighed. 

            “Last stop!”

            We’d taken I-55N to I-80E, passed an hour south of Chicago, and switched onto I-94E until Waterford, Indiana, a small town outside of Michigan City. 

            I stretched and yawned under the gas station canopy. Fluorescent lights buzzed with summer bugs. “Do you know why they call it Michigan City?” I asked Larry, who had reached a point of perpetual stupor, a road trip staple only the best could maintain. 

            “Because the Michigan state line used to be further south?”

            “Good guess. Do you know what Michigan means?”

            “Something about the lakes, I think.”

            As he replaced the nozzle, I tried to quickly count the number of times I’d refueled on the trip and got to fifteen before getting back on topic. “It comes from the Algonquin word Mishigamaw, which means ‘great water’ or ‘big lake,’ or ‘great lake.’ Michigan City was at the end of the Michigan Road coming from the Ohio River.”

            We headed inside for the final piss break of what suddenly felt like a very long trip. “All of this info tumbles around in your head? You have room for anything else?”

            “You know who it came from. He’s going to say my grandpa, but before that? Hard to say. It used to be about oral tradition passing down history. I’m trying to do my part. If I don’t get it out, my head swells. I’m not too smart, my brain’s just shrinking the older I get.” 

            Back on the road, the blue Pure Michigan sign soon greeted us. Midnight approached and damn the torpedoes. I’d driven two weeks without a ticket. A few extra mph would get us home before we turned into pumpkins. I-94E turned into I-196N around Coloma, a town I only knew about because I overheard Paul mention a group of swingers from there on his podcast. In reference to what, only he knew. Like any rocker, he mentioned them in passing, a footnote in the audiobook of his life. 

            I didn’t hear waves crashing the closer we got, but they were there, had always been the real soundtrack. The familiar signs waved, too: Saugatuck, Holland, Grand Haven, Norton Shores. I steered left at the fork for Ludington, remembering the time Dad and I ate chicken wings in Muskegon on the way back from him closing on his house in Ludington. He could’ve brought any number of confidants with him for final approval. He brought me. 

            The fight at Red Rocks was six weeks later. 

            Then life with Laramie, and his Europe travels, and his prognosis, and my stubbornness, all excuses saying the same thing: you’re afraid. Under an hour to go with the wind at my back and a sidekick eating handfuls of Gardetto’s but leaving the rye chips for me. My eyes heavy and my back hurting, I hit the gas on the final stretch.

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