Homing (17 page)

* * *

“Go,” Henry said, but the bird wouldn't go.

* * *

Come home, Leah silently commanded. But Harold simply wouldn't.

* * *

“You're incredible,” Johnny Parker said, his hands caught in Charlotte's hair.

“You're not so bad yourself,” Charlotte said, and she kissed him square on the lips.

* * *

Leah stood in the gathering gloom. In spring and summer, her study was flooded with light, but in winter it got dark so quickly. The lack of light made working in there all day difficult. The clutter wasn't helping. Leah was determined to change the things she could. She moved through the room, making piles of things that could go, things to keep, things to put in the basement. She stopped in front of the Hardy Boys bookcase, the guitar leaning palely up against it. She could not consign what was left of Nathan to the dank, cold basement. She just couldn't. She didn't want to go back, and she wouldn't go forward. She just churned in neutral.

* * *

A whole day had passed, and here came the night, and no bird. Nathan sat on the library steps and hugged his knees. He wondered if it was
something he'd said. He laid his cheek on the platform his knees made and waited for the bird to come back.

* * *

Henry put another log in the woodstove, pulled his hand back from the crackling sparks. He nudged the bird toward the open window. “Go,” he said. But the bird wouldn't go. Henry sighed. He'd have to leave the window open all night.

* * *

Leah began to know that waiting was futile. She stood before the case of Hardy Boys books and knew. He was just a stupid bird, and Leah didn't even like birds, but losing him was like losing Nathan all over again. She couldn't keep anything, anymore. She put her head down and cried.

* * *

The Ferris wheel kept spinning long after the music had stopped. Henry stood staring at it, absently winding up his various cords and cables and putting his pedals away in their bag. The lights on the Ferris wheel twinkled in the late afternoon; some distant, better city, always in motion.

It hadn't been the best gig he'd ever played, but neither had it been the worst. Without question, though, it was the only gig he'd ever played where half the audience was upside down or hurtling through the air and screaming their guts out. He could only imagine it made the music sound better to them.

The Place Holders were just what their name suggested. They played covers. They plugged holes. In lineups and in Henry's income. They'd do, till something better came along, both for the audience and for him.

He appreciated the opportunity to rock out with Johnny Parker. He was always glad to get a chance to hang toes off the edge of the stage and shred. Even if it did mean playing “Sweet Home Alabama” every night. He'd give it everything he had; play his guitar hard, behind his head while Johnny wrapped himself around the mic stand, as if they
were rock stars.

Still, the amusement park scene? He could do without it. You played your heart out for people who didn't know a damn thing about music. For people who didn't care to hear anything they'd never heard before. You played outside in winter, for chrissakes, and you might as well run your fingers over a set of freshly bought steak knives as play an electric guitar outside in subzero temperatures. It wasn't taking him anywhere, these piddling little fairground winter carnival gigs. But it was two hundred bucks in his pocket, and he wished he didn't need it, but he did. He shook his head and turned away from the Ferris wheel, back towards his guitar case.

Parker had his instrument all packed up, the soft case slung on his back like a machine gun he wasn't using. He raked a hand through his damp blond hair, then blew out, and moved the bangs off his forehead with his breath.

“You going out tonight?” Johnny asked.

Henry snapped the clasps on his guitar case. “Nah. I don't think so, man. I've gotta get at these songs.” He stood the case on its end, willing to be convinced.

“You sure?” Parker said. “Marko Marks is playing at The Awkward Stage. And then it's the open mic. It's going to be a massive show.”

“I don't know,” Henry said. He thought ruefully of the time he'd already spent that day on garbage, on nothing. The endless fairground sound check, as if it mattered at all in a place where the best you could do was to try to compete with the screams of giddy fairgoers. “I gotta stop fucking around some time.”

“Fair enough,” Parker said. He shifted, repositioned his guitar on his back. “Totally reasonable. But dude, this guy's a legend, man. And when are you ever going to see him again, especially in this town?” He punched Henry's hunched shoulder. Henry flinched. “Total respect if you can't do it. I can dig that, man. But man, it's gonna rock.”

Henry bunched his shoulders a little further up toward his ears. The songs were not exactly going to write themselves. With every night that went by, Henry felt them moving further away, felt the juice bar moving inexorably closer. As if his life were a rope dotted with buoys, its possibilities and probabilities, climaxes and eventualities strung out along it and all he could do was pay it out a little at
a time, or feel it zip through his hands as he sped further away from what he wanted. He knew he was dropping himself clues, markers for where these things lay in his life. But at some point, he would have to come back, navigate back through these waters and haul up the traps. See what lay beneath, what he'd left behind for himself. Still, though. Parker was right. Marko Marks. And he already had his guitar, it wouldn't kill him to play a few tunes at the open mic, either. That was like working, he reasoned.

“What the hell,” he said at last. He lifted his guitar case. “Let's go.”

“Good man,” Johnny said, slapping Henry's back. “Atta boy.”

The Awkward Stage was crowded, but Johnny and Henry shuffled and bumped their way to the bar. They parked their guitars beneath it, standing them up on their ends. “Beer,” Johnny said to the woman behind the bar. “Make it two,” Henry said. “Ten Penny,” he clarified. She nodded and turned away.

“Busy,” Parker said. Henry nodded. His stomach felt jumpy. Guilt, maybe. The beers came, and Henry took a long swallow off his. It was cool and hoppy. It hit the spot.

“Yeah, the place is full,” he said. He turned to the bartender. “Has he already played?”

She nodded. “First set, yeah. It's his break. He'll play again, though.”

Henry smiled and raised his beer bottle in salute. “Thanks.” He turned and leaned his back against the bar again.

“Dude,” Parker said. “I met a girl.”

Henry stopped, his bottle raised halfway to his mouth. “Really,” he said, drawing the word out. This was interesting. Johnny Parker met girls all the time — hell, it would be a remarkable night for him if he
didn't
meet a girl — but he never felt a need to report these meetings as if they were something. “What girl did you meet?”

“Her name's Charlotte,” Johnny said. “She's awesome, man. Beautiful. Smart. Sexy.”

“That's pretty much the holy trinity,” Henry said.

“Don't I know it,” said Johnny. He raked his hand through his hair.
“I'm fucked.”

Henry looked at his friend. It was true, Parker looked done in. Henry couldn't put his finger on it exactly, but there was something diff erent in Johnny's face. Something open that had previously been closed.

“Good luck with that,” Henry said, lifting his beer bottle in his friend's direction. “It sounds terminal.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “That's kind of what I'm afraid of. Oh hey,” he gestured to the stage with his beer. “Check it out.”

A band was assembling on the small stage in the far corner of the room. Drums, bass, guitar.

“Have you seen this guy before?” Johnny asked as a tall man with long black hair strapped on a cherry red electric guitar.

“No, never,” said Henry.

“Man, he's going to blow your mind,” Johnny said. And if he elaborated on that thought it was lost in the first blast of music, a blast that parted Henry's hair and rearranged his internal organs. He squinted at the stage for forty-five minutes and at the end of it, wondered if he should check his skin for blisters.

“Christ,” he said, as the final chords died away.

“Yeah, I know,” Parker said. “I'm going to tell that guy he rocks.”

“I bet he knows,” said Henry.

“Shut up, dude,” said Johnny.

Henry hated the end of show gathering around the guitar god of the week. He couldn't stand feeling like a sycophant, even if — especially if — he genuinely admired someone's work. Instead, he drained his beer and went to get on the open mic list.

“Put me up first, wouldja?” he asked, “I gotta get home some time.”

* * *

Leah tried to sleep. She had left the window open in the hopes that Harold would find his way home. And though she was tired, Sandy's restlessness led to her own. The bird cried and turned relentlessly in the cage. Leah pulled the duvet up around her ears, to try to stay warm and block out the plaintive sounds. “It's too much,” she said aloud, her breath pooling in the cold darkness. “It's just too much. It has to stop. It has to stop some time.” She wasn't sure who she was talking to, who she expected to call a halt to things. She thought
about God who always seemed like yellow crayoning, a hand, some feet, the clouds. She wondered if God ate meatballs. More and more, heaven was starting to seem like a complex of condos in Florida. Retirement homes, populated by all kinds. And God, she imagined, was the superintendent. He must be busy fixing someone's faucet, Leah thought. Because still Sandy cried, and still Harold didn't come home.

***

Henry felt good. The crowd had thinned out some, but not much. The room's mood remained buoyant, and he felt like he was bobbing on its friendly sea. It was a little strange to have his electric on his knee instead of his acoustic, but whatever. The songs were what they were, no matter how he played them. They either worked or they didn't. He felt like he'd find out, one way or the other. He felt nervy. Like he was in love. But maybe he was just projecting how Johnny must be feeling. Johnny, who had left early after fielding a cell phone call. “Gotta go, my man,” he'd said, and winked. “Gotta go,” Henry had agreed.

Moments later, MJ had called Henry's name, and there he was on stage. There were a few familiar faces in the crowd. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was playing the songs. Henry cleared his throat into the mic. The noise level in the room increased a hair then subsided Henry shrugged.

“Here goes,” he said into the mic. Nothing, he said, in his mind. He closed his eyes, found his place on the fretboard and was away.

He had no illusions that his songs would bring some kind of magical change upon the room. The Awkward Stage was a somewhat dingy bar, perennially well attended, so it didn't have to try too hard with décor or menu. You could get nachos or poutine, or chicken strips if you were feeling hungry. You could get draught beer or bottled, or mixed drinks. The bartenders smiled, but only as much as they had to. The stage was small but mighty. The best came to play here, but so did the worst. There were open mics most nights and you never knew what you were going to see. Most nights, you saw a lot of crap. But once in a while, someone took your breath away.

Henry was having a good night. The level of conversation in the room stayed steady, or maybe abated a little. It was hard to tell from where he was sitting. But it didn't get louder, and no one called for
him to leave the stage. He'd seen that happen. Not often to someone like him, someone who knew how to be on stage, knew how to work a crowd, when to woo them with stories, with details about each song, when to simply shut up and play. Henry had a certain amount of confidence that he had every right to stand where he stood, his guitar sturdy on its leather strap. Usually, guys in his league were safe at The Awkward Stage, but not always. Henry had seen it go ugly, fast. But tonight was diff erent. Tonight, Henry could do no wrong. He sang four songs, to healthy applause after each. By the end of his fourth song, there were whistles. Some tapped the tabletops with their beer bottles. Henry grinned, nodded at the audience, thanked them and, in his head, thanked Yahweh, Allah, the Universe, whoever was responsible. It had gone alright. It wasn't much, but it was something, and it had gone alright.

Afterward, he put his guitar back in its case for the second time that night. He folded up the hem of his t-shirt, used it to mop his brow. It was fucking hot. His t-shirt was damp already, and couldn't accommodate much more. But he mopped anyhow.

He felt a hand on his back. “That was great, man.”

“Thanks,” he said, twisting around to see who it was. A guy he didn't recognise. “Yeah, thanks a lot. It was fun.”

“Looked like it,” the guy said. His hair curled slightly, artfully, around the collar of his expensive-looking leather jacket. He sized Henry up with canny brown eyes. “Dave O'Dell,” he said, sticking out his hand.

Henry took it, shook. “Henry Menard.”

“Nice songs,” Dave said. “They all yours?”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “I've been writing a lot lately. Still working out some rough patches with them, but they're coming along.

“Have any more like that?” Dave asked.

“A few,” Henry said. “A few more I'm still working on.”

Dave nodded, reached into his pocket and smoothly pressed his card into Henry's hand as he shook it again. “You get them finished,” he said, “you call me.”

Henry nodded dumbly, closed his fingers around the business card. He managed to keep himself from holding it up in the dim bar and scrutinising it — at least until Dave O'Dell turned and walked away.
Henry clutched the card in his hand as if it were the key to untold secret riches. He hustled to the urinal-cake-stinking bathroom and held the card up in the light. Dave O'Dell, it said, Independent Record Producer. And then a list of awards Dave O'Dell had won. Henry raised his eyebrows at himself in the mirror then slid the card into his pocket. One more beer, and then he'd go home. Tomorrow, he'd have his work cut out for him.