Chapter 11

Griffin

I’d thought that once we got Willow settled at Lee’s on Saturday, we could turn the afternoon into a date. Instead, I found myself having a late lunch with him and his mom, and then heading home alone. Probably just as well, since I was signed up to play a gig that evening, but I still missed him as I wandered around my sterile apartment getting dressed.

I should’ve asked him to come hear me play. Except he wasn’t my boyfriend or my sidekick, to hang about waiting while I sound-checked and then listened to a bunch of other bands before it was my turn. He would’ve been bored. This “Rock on the Rock” fest ran closer to metal than the folk that Lee preferred.

I took a Lyft out to the site, about an hour out of town, for a price that would wipe out a chunk of what I was getting paid, and arranged for a ride home for another chunk. The driver was getting a hell of a deal since she revealed she had a ticket to the show, but I couldn’t begrudge her making money. I signed the ball cap she thrust at me and agreed to meet back at her car at eleven.

“The Rock” was a stony outcropping about eight feet high looming over a wide meadow. The event organizers had generators for the amps, and the bands would set up on that natural stage. I hoped no one would be drunk or stoned enough to go off the edge, even if it was a slope, not a cliff.

Security checked my ID, then let me past the temporary fencing back into the performers’ area. The first person I saw made me cringe. Sure enough, Duke spotted me and swaggered over. I hadn’t seen him in twenty years. He was a decade younger than me, but looked older now, his wiry build turned gaunt, which I suspected was due to all the crap he put up his nose back in the day. Maybe still did.

He tossed his long, unruly hair and cocked his head. “Griffin Marsh. Slumming it with us working musicians, are you?”

“I’m here to play,” I said. “Same as you.”

“Hardly the same, is it?” He took a couple of steps closer. “We’re all paying our dues the hard way. No HeartTrap to help us jump over the competition.”

“I was lucky,” I agreed mildly. “Jordan’s the best.”

“Jordan, huh? I bet you and those HeartTrap dudes are besties now? Ass buddies, right?”

I sighed. No doubt there were cell phones out among the crowd of musicians, roadies, and techs. Anything I said could end up online. “Jordan’s straight. And we’re not best friends, just casual friends. And he’s in his sixties.”

“Aren’t you?” Duke curled his lip.

Too damned close to true. “No.”

“But you are queer, right? That’s not just a rumor.”

“Why?” I looked him up and down, unable to resist adding, “You interested? Because I’m not. Jeez, dude, eat a cheeseburger or something.”

“Jeez?” he mocked, pretending my quip hadn’t stung, although I saw his eyes had narrowed. “This is a metal festival. No place for wimps who can’t even swear.”

“It’s a rock festival, like it says in the name,” I replied, although he was right about where the performances had drifted over the years. I’d be out on the fringe at this show. A few more cutting lines sprang to mind, but I suppressed them. I wouldn’t put it past Duke to “accidentally” unplug an amp if I got him mad enough. I settled for, “Good luck up there,” in a tone that made it clear I thought he’d need it, then turned away.

“Not just a queer but a murderer,” Duke called after me. “You don’t belong here.”

I waved behind me like I could care less and went to find my old friend Naylor who’d arranged my invite. Naylor and his band, Twisted Nayls, had staked out a spot on the far side of the hill. He waved as I trudged over. “Griffin! Long time no see. You’ve had a hell of a ride.”

We bumped fists and I followed him to where they had a couple of camp chairs and blankets set up on the meadow grass. Naylor took the last open chair so I set my guitar case down carefully and lowered myself to the nearest blanket, exchanging nods and “hey”s with his bandmates, none of whom were the same guys I once knew.

Naylor stretched out long jean-clad legs and scratched his beard. “Sure you don’t want a chair?” When I shook my head, he chuckled. “I get down on the ground these days and I’m way fucking slow getting up. You look good. Still working out?”

“Some. Not as much as I used to.”

He stretched to his left and took a joint from the man beside him, inhaled a long drag, then blew out a smoke ring. The musky scent of pot suffused the air. Naylor turned to me. “Want some?”

“Can’t,” I said. “On parole. I could get drug tested.” Technically that was true, although my parole didn’t include routine testing. Still, it was better than him thinking I was too stuck up to smoke with them after all these years.

“Shit, yeah, forgot. That was fucked.” He took another toke.

The young woman to my left turned my way. “Did you really help Chaser Lost get their start? What’s Pete Lebraun like? He plays like a fucking god.”

“I’m going to open for them at Rocktoberfest,” I said, unable to help enjoying the thought. “Sixty fucking thousand people.”

“I’m surprised you’re here,” Naylor said. “Small Iowa potatoes like we are.”

“Parole,” I repeated as if that was the only thing keeping me from the kind of tour Chaser Lost was on right now.

The woman, who turned out to be Zena, the Nayls’ bassist, asked a technical question about the double neck guitar Chaser’s bass player sometimes used, and the music talk was off and running. We talked pickups and switching controls, sometimes detoured by the gossip their young drummer was fixated on, until it was time for our sound checks. Standing up on the rock, checking levels with the festival head tech out in the crowd, I felt strangely isolated and had to force a smile as I helped carry their amp back off. I gave Naylor the hundred bucks I’d offered to use the amp and speaker and the drummer joked that they could make a mint telling audiences Griffin Marsh played on their setup.

I laughed and wished that was true.

The first band had me digging out my earplugs within the opening three bars, but they weren’t bad. The Nayls’ drummer played along with an old pair of drumsticks on a clump of grass, headbanging away until Zena bopped his shoulder and told him to save something for their set. Naylor passed him a fresh joint. I felt old as fuck.

The second band was young, up and coming. They had something— lyrics that weren’t same-old, a few excellent riffs. I exchanged appreciative looks with Naylor and a bit of the old excitement rose in me. Hell, yeah, this was part of live music, hearing moments no one had recorded and massaged and packaged. “They’ve got a shot,” I bellowed, due to the earplugs, when they were done. “Gonna go check ’em out.” Naylor just waved me to it so I got up and headed across the grass.

The young guys were flying when I found where they’d set up, busy packing gear away but bouncing and high-fiving, eyes wild and grins wide. I hesitated for a moment, nostalgia hitting me like a freight train, before stepping close enough for them to see me.

Sometimes it was gratifying to be Griffin Marsh. The five of them hurried over to me, saying “Hey,” and “Are you really?” and “We saw you were playing later.” I gave them my opinion, at least the good parts, and the name of my last agent but one. She’d had more ethics than the last one, but worked out of New York and stuck to the East coast. Which was a long way from here, but if they used my name, she might hook them up with someone honest and local.

I hung out with them as the next bands played. Didn’t mind missing a front-and-center view of Duke butchering Black Sabbath. We talked lyrics and composing styles and which snack food was best for finding the right words at four a.m., and I was sad when I needed to break it up to go hear the Nayls.

I preened a bit at the guys’ excited whispers behind me as I strode away, pretending not to hear. I’d given them my number. Bringing along Chaser Lost had been almost as much fun as performing, and I was proud of helping Pete. Maybe I could boost another hot group now. Maybe I could add to the legacy I’d leave behind in the music world, and give some promising young musicians a shot at the brass ring.

Naylor’s voice wasn’t what it had been, but he still could shred like a demon. The rest of his band was middle of the road, but I found things to praise. Then they were done and I fist-bumped and high-fived as they came off, leaving the guitar amp for me.

I walked out onto the flat stone top of the outcropping, careful not to trip on any cables. Been there, done that. They didn’t tape down well on natural stone. Guitar in hand, I made my way to the front of the stage area, marked off with tape, lights, and a low rail. In the meadow below, a thousand cell phones lit the dark like fireflies. I couldn’t make out individual people in the fading dusk, but the floodlights strung around the perimeter showed a decent crowd.

The event organizer stepped up to the mic and said, “Now, a special guest you’ve been waiting for. I don’t need to tell you more than his name. Iowa’s own Griffin Marsh!”

The applause and screams from the crowd fed me, making me feel ten feet tall. I plugged in, tested a note or two, then leaned close to the mic. “Hey there, Rock on the Rock folks. It’s great to be back to my roots. I’ve been all around the world and there’s no better crowds than right here in Iowa. What do you folks want to hear?”

I listened to the screams of “Bite This,” “Wipeout,” “Snow and Ice.” I’d figured this crowd would go heavy and that fit the set list I’d planned.

So I launched into “Wipeout.” Just me and the guitar, amped to hell and gone, and it was still a lot thinner sound than the bands that came before me. But I had the advantage that the whole damned crowd knew my songs. They sang with me, screamed the lyrics, stomped and pounded. I ran through crowd favorites, nothing deep or soulful here, and ended with “Snow and Ice.” They quieted for the last guitar solo and I let the notes scream out into the darkness, playing as well as I ever had in my life. Then I trailed the last chord off into silence.

The screams could’ve launched me into space. They wanted an encore but my throat hurt like a bitch and I couldn’t top that anyway. I said into the mic, “You folks are the best but I need to get my ass off this rock so the band you’ve been waiting for can set up. Don’t go away. Marsscape is up next.” Backing up, I found the case for my guitar and then helped Twisted Nayls schlepp their equipment off the stage section.

“You’ve still got it.” Naylor thumped my back as I coiled a cable.

“What do you mean ‘still’?” I grinned at him, though.

“Want to come party after?” he asked. “We got good booze, good weed, a little acid, cute groupies. Probably some guys as well as gals, if that’s what you’re into.”

“Sorry, dude, I can’t,” I said, although I wasn’t really sorry. The performance high I was on felt fragile, like a bubble that a gust of wind could burst. A bunch of youngsters getting high and trying to get laid would sure as hell pop it. “Got a ride waiting for me.”

“Shit, that’s too bad.” He held out a hand. “Don’t be a stranger. You know where to find us.”

“Yeah, I do.” I shook his hand, my fingers still buzzing from the strings. “Thanks again, a whole ton. This event was just what I needed.”

“No problem. Once I heard you were around, it was a no-brainer they’d want you. Did you hear the crowd?” His smile faded. “I do envy you that, the luck on top of the talent that took you to the top.”

“Not denying it,” I agreed. “Right place, right time. Until this year.” That reminder took some of the shine off my bubble. If I hadn’t looked down at the wrong moment, would Linda Bellingham have been out in that crowd with her husband, rocking out to the local bands?

Probably not. But my awesome night had come at someone else’s cost. Don’t think about it. I picked up my guitar. With a wave to Naylor, I headed toward the parking area. The last band of the night was just taking the stage but my driver was waiting by her car.

“Sorry to take you away from Marsscape,” I said as we pulled toward the gravel road.

“Nah.” She lined up to get out the gate. “My kids have to get up for school and the parking lot will be a zoo. I planned to leave early anyhow.”

She didn’t seem inclined to chat as we drove, so I sat quietly, watching the dark countryside turn to city. My fingertips burned from the strings and my throat felt thick and dry. It’d been a long time since I’d done a performance like that, focused exclusively on my hard rock songs from— what, now?— must be fifteen years back. Back in the period when the label had me grow my hair out and learn to growl. Yeah, I still sang those in practice, and sometimes shredding the hell out of my guitar was the best therapy in the world. But usually I mixed it up with the more folk and classic stuff that didn’t demand as much of my voice.

ColdNova Records had signed me, but not really known what to do with me. I’d begun in folk-rock, suited to the small venues and cafés I’d played for over a decade, but after the HeartTrap tour, the label had wanted to steer me to something more commercial. The contract I signed, back when I was too stupid to run it by a lawyer who knew the biz, kept me locked in. So they pushed me to harder rock, verging on metal, switching up my backing bands, bringing in session musicians to record the albums.

When they swerved me into pop six years later, I’d tried to put on the brakes but they owned my ass, so I did that for a while too. Those songs could keep gathering dust as far as I was concerned, although I heard them in store Muzak now and then. Which was not good for my ego, whatever my mom had thought. My backing musicians from that tour had probably been glad to see the back of me too. And I’d gratefully leaned back into my classic rock roots.

I tried to remember the name of the keyboard player who’d filled in for the last date on that tour and failed. So many folks I’d played in front of, good, bad, and indifferent. Some I’d hated to see go, others not so much. I’d fallen out of touch with most of them…

I’m so damned lonely. The thought hit me like a sandbag to the head.

What Naylor had with his band, that sense of unity, creating something together and hanging out afterward, sharing the buzz, was something I’d never had. I’d been the name, the star, the others the backup, and with the way the label had cut people loose, the impermanence kept me from getting really close to anyone. Some had tried, yeah. Colby was the drummer from my tour sixteen years ago, when I was on the fast track to fame, and he’d kept me from freaking out more than once. Calm personality, great hands, and a musicality that’d grounded me on stage and given my songs strong roots. He’d let me bounce song ideas off him and had a great ear. We still texted sometimes. But he’d had small kids, and had declined the next tour.

I didn’t want to be here in the back of a Lyft car, silent in the dark, after playing a great show. I wanted to be talking off the performance high with someone who’d shared it with me, with someone who cared about me as well as the music.

I didn’t want to tour alone again, all those nights in hotels, trying to remember what city I was in and where we were headed next. Of course, after what I’d done to Linda, the label had cut me loose, so touring probably wasn’t an option anyway.

Am I just trying to pretend that rejection is my own choice? I fucked up my career so I’m going to pretend I don’t want it anymore? My thoughts spiraled downward.

At my apartment, I gave the driver a bonus tip and dragged myself upstairs. Once inside, I took care of my guitar, poured myself a giant glass of water, and retreated to my bed. When I plugged my phone in the charger, it lit with the most recent text from Lee.

~ I know you’ll rock the hell out of that show tonight. Have fun.

I couldn’t resist tapping the icon for a call.

His phone rang, then I heard his voice, sleepy and thick. “Griffin? Are you okay?”

I realized it was after midnight. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“No, you called me for a reason. What’s up?”

“Nothing. Show went fine. Great, even. I just…” My voice trailed off, my throat clogged. I took a slug of water.

“What, hon?” Then Lee chuckled. “Ignore that. My brain did a time warp.”

I tried to push away how much I liked him calling me hon. “I think I’m going to stop touring.” I managed a rough laugh. “Assuming I even have the option anymore, which I probably don’t since ColdNova dumped me. That’s my big ego talking.”

“You don’t have a big ego, Griff. That’s one of the best things about you. What’s making you so down tonight?”

He knew me too damned well. “I just… spent my whole career as the frontman, the star in the lights, and I shouldn’t complain. I made money, way more than I could’ve imagined as a drywall installer here at home.”

“Money’s not everything.”

“Right? I feel like I never connected with anyone, not really. I have casual friends, but it’s been too easy to drift apart. We chat on social media, maybe hang out if we’re in the same town. The guys I dated,” — or mostly just slept with — “were usually not part of the music scene, but that meant they didn’t care enough to stick around when music pulled me away.”

“Like me.”

“No!” I hesitated. “Well, yes. But that was different.” That was real. “Neither of us had much choice, back then. It wasn’t about how much we cared, it was all the rest of life.” I drank more water, then admitted, “I cared about you more than I let myself see. I missed you so damned much, and not just that first year.”

“Same,” Lee murmured. “I told myself I hated you to try to miss you less. Kind of worked. Wasn’t true, though.”

“It was shitty of me to ditch you right when your family was going through hard times. I should’ve tried harder to call.”

“I told you not to. I blocked your number.”

We breathed on either end of the line for a while. I pictured Lee propped on a pillow, his red hair probably already messy from sleep, his eyelids drooping, lips parting… I said, “I should let you go. You have to get up earlier than me.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’m off.”

I sucked in a breath and said, “Can I take you on a real date? Tomorrow night, maybe? Dinner and a movie?” I deflated a bit. “You’d have to drive, though. Sorry. That’s stupid. I can’t take you anywhere unless I pay someone to chauffeur.”

“Hush. It’s okay. I don’t mind doing the driving. And yes, I’d like that. Text me tomorrow when I’m more than half awake and we’ll figure it out.”

“Is Willow doing okay?”

“She’s awesome.” Lee chuckled. “Jumped right up in Mom’s lap after dinner. I think she’s on her bed now. I should’ve adopted a cat years ago, although I think she’s the right cat at the right time.”

“I’m glad.”

After another long silence, Lee said, “I’m falling asleep. Have your three-ginger tea and get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Good night.” I watched the red dot go off. Have your three-ginger tea. After all this time, Lee remembered my post-performance drink and reminded me to take care of myself. Maybe tea would soothe the thick irritation in my throat. And at least, it would remind me of evenings sitting in my apartment after a show, Lee nodding off beside me on the couch while he valiantly listened to me ramble on about how my performance went. The days when I had someone who cared more about me than the music.

He said yes to a date tomorrow.

That hope got me up off the bed and into the kitchen. The scent of ginger and honey was more comfort than I expected and I sat at the table, sipping the familiar brew, and letting the buzz of the performance seep from my bones.