Page 60 of Shattered Chords

“Absolutely. Gotta go. God bless you, brother.”

God and I weren’t friends, but I didn’t shit on him in front of Malik, not wanting to offend the big guy. Instead, I bid him my farewell and went on with my day, which sadly wasn’t as eventful as my evening.

When, hours later, I steered my Navigator into the familiar driveway on the cul-de-sac of the street in Woodland Hills, the tips of my fingers were burning and itching to play. It was a strange sensation, a mixture of something old and something new and something different.

Ever since the stroke, I’d been adamant about not picking up a guitar in front of another person. I practiced in the privacy of my own home where no one could hear me fuck up and fumble through the chords like a baby who was learning how to walk. But Ally didn’t see any of my mistakes, or even if she did, that shine of admiration in her eyes remained bright. There was hunger in her, hunger to learn everything that I knew. And for the first time in my life, I wanted to share it all, give it to someone who would continue my legacy after I was gone.

Because I felt it coming. I felt the end approaching like an express train. My body and mind were different from what they used to be. Broken and unfit for my previous lifestyle, and without that lifestyle, I had no idea what I was going to do. And this acute feeling of dissociation was a chain around my neck, a huge, heavy chain with some extra weight on it so that I couldn’t find my way back out of the depths I’d been tossed into by circumstances of my own doing.

Ally was the one who opened the door when I rang the bell, and as soon as I saw her, all the gloom in my head evaporated.

“Hey, Dante,” she greeted me with a grin splitting her face. The flicker of lowering light caught the stud in her nose.

“Hey, Hendrix.” The savory smell of something wafted over to me from the house. Black pepper. Cumin.Chile. Again, I picked only scents that had something to do with Camille. Then I realized she must’ve been cooking. There was noise in the kitchen, but she didn’t come out to examine me like the first time.

Ally had hauled her gear to the same spot we used for practice last week. “We’re starting, Mom!” she shouted and picked up her guitar. The Les Paul. The one I’d eyed for myself, but now that I saw her with it, saw her making music, I knew instantly that the instrument was never meant to be mine.

“All right, show me what you’ve been working on this week.” I sunk down onto the couch and watched her apply my previous instructions to one of her original pieces.

We spent the next hour going over various sweep picking exercises and playing some of my solo works. Hearing the riffs I wrote from someone else was weird, but not in a bad way. Just weird.

Toward the end of the session, Ally shared her experience at Jesse Catchum’s studio she’d visited with her band this past Saturday.

“It was so much bigger and so much cooler than the one Mac’s Dad runs.”

“Which one is Mac?”

“Our bassist.”

“Ah, the big dude who hides his face?” I remembered.

“You used to hide your face too when you played,” she pointed out. “Aren’t you worried people will recognize you?”

“Nah.” I grabbed one of the picks from the coffee table and flipped it between my fingers. The plastic was cheap, probably a beginner kit from the Guitar Center or purchased online, and it reminded me of my early days. The days before Hall Affinity. My gear was all beat up, my clothes from a thrift store. My attitude was the only thing that was mine—not second-hand—and no one else’s. And that attitude had led me to places I’d never thought I’d see.

Ally produced a few squeaky notes, then lowered her voice and asked, “So…you really don’t think you’ll be back on stage?”

“Doubtful as of right now.” I shrugged.

“It sucks. I never got to see you live.”

“Aren’t you looking at me right now, Hendrix?”

“Not like this. I mean performing.”

“How come?”

“Mom doesn’t really let me go to shows. Only sometimes, if Pauline’s parents go with us. And then you guys were on break.”

Break was one way to put it.

“Now you’re suing each other,” she concluded.

“We’re not,” I corrected her. “The label is suing Frank.”

“What about the rest of the guys? Why only him?”

Good question. It made me pause and think. I found it odd that a fifteen-year-old kid who had no idea what it was like to be a part of a multimillion-dollar enterprise posed the questions I, myself, was afraid to ask.

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