Hendrix
Armed robbery is a class B felony in the state of Kentucky, punishable by ten to twenty years imprisonment. Whoever robbed the convenient store with a Glock ran off with 250 dollars. That’s enough money to settle a cell phone bill and to fill the tank to an SUV. The payout doesn’t seem worth the risk, but I’m the one who did the time, so that makes whoever did it smarter than me.
Two hundred and fifty dollars. It’s still a kick in the gut.
Axle pulls into our neighborhood, and lights flash behind us as Dominic follows us in his car. Holiday’s asleep in the cramped back seat of Axle’s aging truck, and Dominic drove Kellen.
Me and Axle, we’ve been quiet. There’s not much to say. The whole world now thinks I robbed a convenience store at gunpoint. Won’t be long until someone does an internet search and discovers the trigger was pulled, the shot missed and that kept me from being charged with manslaughter.
“They painted you as a hero,” Axle says in a hushed voice. We pass box after box of the same house that are all stained yellow by the streetlight. It’s ten, and the night got darker once we turned down our street. “That’s what people are going to remember. You swooped in and helped the governor’s daughter when no one else would. That’s something to be proud of.”
Maybe. But I caught the expression on Elle’s face after I made the announcement. She wasn’t thinking about heroes anymore. She was thinking about a masked guy high on drugs waving a gun in someone’s face.
I glance back at my sister, and I take comfort that she’s in my life again. Holiday—the girl with the big heart and even bigger voice. Just like her namesake, Billie Holiday. “You want me to carry in Holiday?”
“She’s not six anymore,” Axle says as he coasts into the driveway. “She can walk.”
But she doesn’t look like she just turned sixteen. In her sleep, she reminds me of huge eyes, huge hugs, hours of coloring pages and her begging me to let her paint my nails pink.
There was a girl in the program, younger than Holiday, but she also had big eyes. During the day, she had an attitude a mile long, but at night she’d become terrified of the dark. First few nights, she didn’t sleep, and that made the hike the next day hell for her, especially carrying a pack that was a fourth of her body weight.
She was falling behind, she was getting down and with each new level of spiral she hit, her mouth got nastier. On the fifth day, she tripped. Mud in her hair, a tear in her athletic pants, blood on her knee and something in me shifted when her bottom lip trembled. I understood how she felt. Sometimes the weight of my problems and my pack was almost too much to bear.
I heard that she had never cried during her stay in detention, and five days into the woods, she was being cut off at her knees. I thought of Holiday then, and before this girl had a chance to break, I walked over to her, grabbed her pack and offered her a hand to stand back up. She took it and lost the attitude as she walk alongside me. After that, a lot of the younger people on the trip followed me like I was the Pied Piper.
“You’re right. Holiday can walk,” I say, “but I’ll take her in.”
“I’ll get her. Why’d you tell everyone? Your records are sealed. Only reason I agreed to this circus was because they promised no one would know what you were convicted of.”
Cracking of pleather in the back seat and Holiday’s groggy lids open, but her face remains pillowed by her hands.
There are some people you don’t say no to, not without there being consequences. The governor asked me to tell as a “personal favor.” He said it like it meant he would owe me, but I don’t believe that for a second. I rub the governor the wrong way, and he has the power to send me to prison. People like him don’t owe anyone; they own. Telling Axle that won’t make him feel better, so I lie. “Seemed like the right thing to do.”
Axle kills the engine and shakes his head at the wheel.
Dominic and Kellen lean against the back of his run-down 1980-something junker that’s put together with gray tape. Their dad doesn’t leave for his third shift job until ten thirty. Neither of them will enter the house until he’s gone.
I glance over at my front stoop, and my heart stops. “Holy hell, he came.”
Axle’s head rotates to the house so fast that I place a hand on his arm to calm him down. “It’s not Dad. It’s Marcus.”
My brother’s chest deflates, and I’m out the door. Marcus was my breath of sanity in the program. My cell mate. My fellow outdoor warrior. The guy who had my back. My friend. While some followed me around, I followed him.
Marcus rises to his feet, a six-foot-two towering black man, and his smile pushes the darkness of my neighborhood away. He’s barely seventeen, and due to a messed-up situation, he’s a year behind me at school, but it doesn’t matter. I call him a man because that’s what he is. Both of us offer our hands for a shake, but pull in for a hug. A hard hug with pats to the back.
“You said I could stop by anytime. Hope you meant it.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” I step back and take him in. It’s only been a few days, but seeing him here feels like a lifetime has passed since I saw him last. He looks a bit different with his hair shaved close to his scalp, and I had no idea his ears were pierced. Fake diamonds are now in both lobes. Marcus is the same height as me, but has the build of Dominic.
“How’s home?” I ask.
The smile fades. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
I nod because I get it. “How bad?”
“Bad.” His somber expression jacks me in the head hard. Marcus is as rough-edged as they come, but this year broke him down, built him back up and I know he’s just as scared as I am of screwing the second chance up.
“Mom’s moved up in the world,” he says. “Went from dating a dealer to a gangbanger. Hanging at home isn’t healthy for my probation.”
When the plea deal was offered to Marcus after he stole three BMWs in a single night, then crashed one of them while high, his mom promised the program she had changed her life. Guess she did change, just not how Marcus needs. I understand having a crap mom. Marcus, unfortunately, doesn’t have an older brother who gives a damn like I do so I told him he could borrow mine.
I owe Marcus my life. His friendship kept me sane during this past year. His friendship kept me from losing my mind. His friendship, even in the darkest moments, gave me hope.
Slamming of car doors and Axle automatically has his hand extended to Marcus. They haven’t met, but I talked about Marcus in letters and emails. I don’t make connections easily, so that makes Marcus welcomed.
“I’m Axle.”
“Marcus. Things were hot at home, and I needed some place that was cool. Drix said I could crash when needed.”
Axle shrugs like it’s nothing to find a stranger on his doorstep. “Air conditioner is broke most days, and I can’t promise it’ll be quiet, but our home is your home.”
Marcus tilts his head to the house. “Mind if I use the bathroom? Bus broke down on the way here. It would have been faster to walk.”
Axle goes to unlock the door, and my eyes land on the guitar-shaped material case next to a backpack. “You really weren’t messing with me, were you?”
Marcus grins again. “I’m full of it, Drix, but music isn’t something I lie about.”
The light flips on in the living room, and Marcus meets my eyes. “Thought about what you said last week about making plans. If you try for that youth performing arts program, I will, too. Let’s get in and show those rich pricks how to play.”
He picks up his pack, and I lift his guitar. “Is the program going to help you apply?”
Marcus shakes his head. “They told me they’d help me get into a trade school, though. As I said, let’s show those rich pricks that talent beats money.”
Gotta get the audition first, but I keep that to myself. Marcus has a shred of hope, and that can’t be easy after getting out of the program to find no home fire burning. “Meet me in the garage. I want to know if all this self-hype you’ve been rattling about for a year is real.”
He slaps me on my back. “I see you quaking in those boots. You know you can’t keep up with talent like me.”
Axle holds the door open to our house, Marcus enters, and before Holiday goes in, I pull on her sleeve for her to stop. The front door shuts, and my sister looks up at me with those big dark eyes. “Everything okay?”
I keep my voice pitched low because our windows and siding are thinner than paper. “Do me a favor and offer him some food. Some of the leftovers from last night maybe.”
She nods and goes into the house not asking why because she understands. There were times in her life she hadn’t been fed either, and pride has a way of making you deny your aching belly. If Marcus is anything like me—which, from what I know about him, he is—he might not accept the offer with me in the room.
Dominic and Kellen watch me from the street. I don’t know if I’m ready to play music with Dominic again. Music, chords, strings, melodies...that was a shared bond between us, but I don’t know where he and I stand anymore. Not until he tells me the truth about what happened that night—even if it’s only an explanation on why he left me behind. Not until he thanks me for what I might have sacrificed for him. I should invite him, it’s what he’s waiting for me to do, but I don’t and instead head to the garage.
It’s not a place where we park. A car hasn’t been in here for years. What’s in there is more sacred than any church I’ve stepped foot in.
Using the key, I unlock the knob, then use my shoulder to shove the aging and stuck door open. I flip a switch, and the shop light overhead flickers, cracks and snaps to life. The scent of dust, mold and motor oil fills my nose, and I briefly close my eyes with the familiar mixture.
In front of me are guitar stands, cords, amplifiers, speakers, a keyboard, a piano and cases filled with guitars. There’s an electric, a bass, an acoustic and anything else to be thought of, and it’s heaven.
In the back, covered with a tarp, is the only place where I’ve felt like I’ve belonged. More than the house, my room or even my bed. Behind the drums, I used to feel like I was flying, like I was free. Anywhere else, it’s like I was constantly a snake trying to shed dead skin.
I pull off the tarp, a cloud of dust rolls into the air and there’s a tightening in my chest. Last time I saw my drum set was after the gig. I had broken it down, then placed it in the back of a truck. Axle. This is Axle’s work. Only he would spend the time to have tracked down my drums. Only he would have set it back up and covered it up with such care. My throat thickens, and I rub at my face to push the emotion away.
The last words we had said to each other before the arrest had been in anger. He mad at me. Me mad at him. I was the idiot. He was justified. I thought I was smarter, better, but I was too stupid to listen.
I was playing the drums for a band that was going places. Locally, we were becoming royalty. Regionally, we were making a name. Nationally, we had people starting to look at us. The fame filled my inflated ego, and I partied and behaved like I thought a rock star should.
That last fight we had was Axle trying to tell me what an asshole I was becoming, and I told him he was jealous. Now my gut twists. Yeah, like I was someone to be jealous of. There’s so much I wish I could take back.
My sticks sit on the stool, and my fingers twitch with the need to pick them up, but what does it say about me if I do? That I’m weak? That I’ll return to paths I don’t want to go down again? I felt like a god behind the drums, and when I was behind the drums, I made every bad choice available. But the thought of playing sends a rush through me that’s greater than any high provided by a needle stick or inhale of smoke.
I slip my finger over the cymbal, careful to move slowly enough and soft enough to not make a sound. Smooth but worn, cold but warming under my touch. A winding inside of me at the thought of hearing the high-pitched crash.
“You should play,” Axle says, and I withdraw, shoving both of my hands into my jeans pockets.
No, I shouldn’t. When I was behind the drums I had no self-control. When those sticks were in my hands, I went to another level in my brain, another realm of consciousness. It was raw freedom, and that freedom made me feel invincible. I was addicted to that feeling, addicted to thinking that I could never die.
But I did die—at least the old me did—and I don’t trust myself to allow that sensation of flying and freedom that comes with playing the drums again. I wasn’t strong enough to handle who I became with those feelings before, and I don’t trust myself now. I’ve got to be better than who I was. I deserve that and so does my family.
“It’ll piss the neighbors off. We’ll do acoustic.” I’m also good at the guitar, and playing the guitar never gave me that manic rush playing the drums did. Maybe I can keep music if I go down another path because the feelings associated with the drums lead me to hell. “Where’s Marcus?”
“Eating and chatting with Dominic about Fender guitars. And the late excuse is sad. We’ve always played late.” My brother leans his shoulder against the door frame. “That’s nothing new.”
“Don’t want to wake up Holiday. I saw she was tired. She’ll want to head to bed.”
“You playing would make Holiday’s year. Since you’ve been gone, there hasn’t been a beat. No one will touch those drums.”
“Because they’re cursed?” I meant it as a joke, but seriousness leaks through.
“Because they belong to you.” Axle goes silent like his words are somehow meant to sink in and make everything okay, but they just bounce off me and hang in the air.
He pushes off the frame and enters the garage. “The rest of us know how to play, can do the counts, but none of us can hold it steady like you. We can’t shift fast enough with the change up in rhythms and still keep the beat. We couldn’t release the sticks like you do to get the same sound. When you played, Drix, it was all emotion, all heart. It was the type of beat I could feel in my blood.”
Yeah. I used to feel it in my blood, too. Playing consumed me, and that was my sin. “I was becoming Dad.”
Silence. The heavy kind. The type I dread. A pit in my stomach because part of me said it so he would disagree. It hurts he’s not offering up a denial.
“You didn’t commit that crime,” Axle says, “but I was relieved when you were arrested.”
Concrete fist straight to my head, and I hear bones snapping.
“You needed that year away. You needed that program. It gave you something I couldn’t. You were going one hundred miles per hour toward a cliff, and I couldn’t get you to stop.”
Because I wouldn’t listen.
“I know coming home is tough. I know you don’t know how to fit back in. It’s okay not to fit back in. It’s okay to be the person that’s come out on the other side.”
I crack my neck to the side. “That’s it. That’s the problem. I don’t know who I am.”
“But you know who you aren’t. That’s a big step.”
I pick up the banged-up guitar Axle bought me for my birthday when I was younger, claim one of the hundreds of picks left out and sit on a stool. My fingers begin moving before I give conscious thought to the motions. I’m listening to the notes, closing my eyes with the vibrations, twisting the tuning pegs searching for the perfect pitch.
After a few seconds of silence, Axle grabs his acoustic guitar, sits on a stool across from me and starts tuning his instrument by ear, as well. I’ve dreamed, literally dreamed, of this moment for a year. Me making music again...there’s not another feeling like it in the world.
“I’m thinking of applying to that youth performing arts school,” I say as casually as I can. Marcus is a good guy, but he can have a big mouth. If I don’t spill, Marcus will. “The application deadline is in a month.”
Axle’s fingers freeze, then he’s smart enough to keep tuning. “What instrument will you audition with?”
“They have to accept my application before the audition.”
“What instrument?”
When the hell did he become an optimist? “The guitar.”
“You’re a beast on the drums. Don’t throw that gift in the trash.”
I don’t want to, but I don’t trust myself. “We all switch up playing something one time or another. It’s time for me to give up the drums.”
“The drums are who you are. The rest of that bull you had going on before you were arrested, that was the aftermath of ego. That was you allowing Dad to play with your brain. Dad’s on tour, and I told him if he rolls back into town, he’s not welcomed here. The house is mine. Custody of both of you is mine. He’s gone. Playing the drums doesn’t make you Dad. How you decide to behave once you get some fame, once you succeed, that’s what’s going to separate you from Dad.”
Dad taught me to play drums. He was the one who hooked me up with a band that had success. He was the one that showed me how a real man celebrates his success—with a needle. “I can’t risk it again. I don’t want to return to who I was from before.”
“You won’t.”
My hand lies over the strings to stop any sound. “You don’t think I know the drums aren’t to blame? I know it was me. I know I made the wrong choices, and I’m scared as hell that I’m going to choose wrongly again. Getting back into any type of music scares me, but it’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s my only shot of doing something worthwhile. I can choose to look at it that music destroyed me, but I’m not. I felt like a god when I played the drums, and I don’t trust myself to feel like that again and make the right choices. I’m trying here, Axle. Try with me.”
“I’ll try with you.” Marcus walks into the garage, half of a ham sandwich in his hand. “Not sure what we’re trying, but as long as it doesn’t violate parole, I’m in.”
Marcus unzips his case and extracts his electric guitar and wiring. Outside the garage door, in the shadows, there’s movement. First Dominic hopping the fence to go home, then Kellen leaning against the fence between our house and hers, watching me.
Guilt feasts on me because playing without Dominic is sacrilegious, but so is how Dominic is dumping on our friendship by not opening up to me about why he left me behind after I passed out the night of the robbery. I’ve done my part, a year of it, and it’s time for him to tell me the truth. Only then will he and I play.