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EXCERPT FROM THE VOICE, by Robert Yehling
©2007 Robert L. Yehling and Word Journeys, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction Strictly Prohibited
CHAPTER 1
Almost done. Almost finished. A few more nails, a few more whacks of the hammer with his aching fingers, and this baby was done. It was a good hurt, Megan and her crazy marathoner friends used to say after suffering for four hours. A good hurt. Always emphasized, a badge of honor. The last time he finished something that produced such a “good” hurt, he stepped off a stage.
The imminence of completion dripped through mind and body, sweet but melancholic, like an 18-year-old leaving the house. Or leaving a stage. We’ve done our job, we’ve had our run, it’s time for her to go… now what? Completion never seems complete, does it? Especially when deep down, in the bones, it feels otherwise. What lies ahead with, say, a kid, as she turns away, doesn’t seek out mom or dad much anymore, explores and experiments in the quest to find her own life? The answers hollowed him out, not to refill for a day, sometimes a week, sometimes a month.
Sometimes, a helluva lot longer than that. Megan found her solace in running. He scratched for something big and long-coveted to consume the enormous space where half his heart used to be. Singing old songs and plucking guitar strings conjured up memories of the road, edges softened by the years. It tasted like candy wolfed down by a malnourished man, sating the sweet tooth, but not nourishing the gaping space.
The studio did the trick. How nice it would be to share his new creation with Christina…if she was actually flying in this time. Her romp through college seemed like a never-ending circus of everchanging plans and friends, few involving him, most of late involving unwelcome drama.
Can you see the way
She stared so deep into his eyes,
Dissolving his disguise…
The melody moved off his lips as he stared at the back wall and its already mounted rack of handmade guitars. The tune sought and form substance, sound emitted from the deep, a gas cloud shooting for stardom. It yielded enough words to fill his mind like a rising spirit. Making… realize… deepest… poet’s… The pieces of a future line chattered like someone trying to sing a Top 40 hit on the car radio with only a few words in tow, just enough to think he owns the tune… enough to kick up the laughs among passengers in the car alongside him.
Tom grabbed a nail. We’ve all been there.
He sang the words over and over, impaling them into his memory, as he positioned the last loose floorboard. All the planning, sketching, blueprinting, negotiating, permit acquiring, searching, sawing, hammering, planing, measuring, re-measuring and installing came down to this single piece of yellow oak. Tom knelt over the board, gripped the hammer and teed up a nail. As the words stopped flowing, he whistled, stretching out the melody, finding out how high to go before its wings melted. This was it, the ultimate home studio, his dream project after disbanding The Fever, now a reality … twenty years later.
Chalk one up for “retirement.” Any another word pack the disorienting punch of a depth charge in an echo chamber? Retire? Kick back? Hang out? Chill? Hah! What could be busier? Playing dancer-gymnast-soccer dad and marathoner’s husband, building, traveling, and assisting Megan with her causes gobbled up a couple of decades. So did backpacking and canoeing trips, scavenger hunts for relics and old buildings with Chester, teaching songwriting to inner city kids with Raylene—plunging deep into the nation’s sprawling jungle of poverty and desperation. Now that’s adventure, with tears attached.
…Dissolving his disguise
Making him realize…
That in the poet’s heart there lies…
No, no, not “the poet”. Her poet…
…Dissolving his disguise
Making him realize
That in her poet’s heart there lies
A place beyond his pain…
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack ! Only the top of the nail remained in view, like the head of a hapless wanderer entombed in Cholla Canyon quicksand.
Tom grabbed two more nails from his belt while humming for more words. He pinched one of the nails, and out popped that muggy afternoon two summers before, when he and Chester came upon the burned-out husk of a century-year-old backwoods church. They stood amidst gutted beams, blackened walls and sweeps of ash, feasting their eyes on the only part of the structure worth saving: the floor. After donating to the congregation, they removed nearly 200 strips of yellow oak. You couldn’t find this thick, hand-hewn wood anymore; it went the way of old-growth forests. Tom rubbed his finger along one of the spiraling knots. A minister with friends in the Pacific Northwest had bought and transported the lumber, then created a jewel in a hollow. Sermons and prayers rose from the fibers, the hardscrabble stories and supplications of Upper Cumberland Gap men and women. He remembered their voices rising heavenward when they sang, voices that blazed through the heart of a freckle-faced kid during his father’s visit to an old friend, Chester’s grandaddy. A half-century later, Chester stumbled upon the ruins while foraging for Civil War-era medicine and whiskey bottles, and called. Tom piled the wood into a moving truck for its mountain ridge destination. He had his floor.
Tom resumed whistling, pounded the nail and scooted six inches forward on his knees. The decision to build a studio grew from an urge to grow old playing music with the other hillfolk on the ridge, in the spirit of a tribe huddling around the drum. However, the construction awakened his muse, his ultra-creative imp, (MUSIC MUSE) with knock-out thighs. This time, she appeared in the guise of a Roxy Music album cover while he was dusting off the collection. She returned to him the sheer excitement of drawing words and original sound from the same dark space that dawning birds access, an excitement lost to the demands of superstardom—only to resurface in the rocking chair years. He wiped sweat off his brow with his headband. Go figure. This tune, the newest, kicked back in, clutching at him, the muse a most jealous lover.... pay attention to me! The words still didn’t amount to more than a catchy verse — but the melody…the melody! It was rich, plump, consuming.
Sing me!
With it came the tingle he felt early and often with The Fever, the tingle of five hundred published songs, the tingle he never realized he missed until he whistled, hummed and sang this studio into being…and new songs emerged. When a tune tingled like the one gobbling his heart and craw, he followed the feeling because it carried a slice of universe, a touch souls felt, a piece of ground from which memorable songs sprang …
Can you see the way
She stared so deep into his eyes,
Dissolving his disguise
Making him realize
That in her poet’s heart there lies
A place beyond his pain
Where lips and whispers kiss deepest dreams
And tears give birth to sky
Catchy. Engages the heart. A tad psychedelic. Good sound. Storyteller’s cadence. Worth building around.
Tom sang the verse again, then again, each time more and more quietly, taking it inward like an affirmation, where it would never be forgotten…another tune hatched by hammering nails and running with the feelings that shot from nearly 64 years of life on Earth…the growing-up years.
The wood resisted the nail—a hidden knot. He moved the nail an inch forward and whacked it home. Finished. His hands throbbed. Two years of chipping away at the studio…over. Two years of staring at those sublime slats of yellow oak after their arrival… complete. The decade’s preparation for this studio involved the building of rocking chairs, a sunroom for Megan, a stone fireplace in the master bedroom, built-in bookcases for his Alexandria-sized collection of LPs, 45s and 78s, and two guest cottages out back... done. The one-man construction boom…finished.
It started with the smell and texture of wood and sawdust. It seized him. He enjoyed almost the same rush from bringing two pieces of wood together as he did when carrying Fever fans to nightly crescendos. Almost. That rush of invincibility, of creating something that stands time still and anchors in people’s hearts and souls, was intoxicating as hell. The memory shivered through him in the sun-baked studio. Forget about what shrinks and album censors say: Most artists communicate benevolence. We feel it, we share it. Not a bad thing to be hooked on. It’s only when singers start believing themselves to be the lone possessors of this all-embracing energy that misconceptions occur. Such as tying the oversized ego to an overpriced concert ticket. Nothing pissed him off more than bands taking a hundred bucks a head, then giving the fans a short show, during which the singer preens and shouts self-gratifying remarks. See enough of that and it’s time to step away—which, he remembered, was another reason they hung it up. If he’d told one wannabe star, he’d told a hundred, the speech so imbedded he could boot it right up, twenty years later: “They bought your albums. They put you there. Without them, you’re playing ten sets a week in a bar. Give ‘em heart, night in and night out. Strut your stuff, but strut it for them. That’s the greatest rush of all! Give them some magic. Make them feel magical. Look into their eyes, and connect. That’s why they bought a ticket, to connect with you.”
Then, when the music’s over, sail into retirement and find something else to fill the cup.
Building became his song, his album, his concert…his antidote for the nest Christina left behind. Except for one missing piece: When he finished with a project, like now, 15,000 delirious fans weren’t screaming. Now, he plucked the splinters out of his hands and fingers and presented his completed works to Megan and Steppenwolf, who simply licked his feline jewels and gave him deeply uncaring stares—then chased shadows in the new corners. Finishing a project was a very private experience.
He twirled the final nail, the ceremonial nail, between thumb and forefinger. He’d add it to a frame of ceremonial nails hanging in the office, one for each completed room or structure. He pulled the San Francisco 49ers bandana from his forehead and stuck it in his back pocket, the new song playing from his pursed, whistling lips.
“You’re done…”
Tom flinched. “How long you been in here?”
“Maybe a few minutes.” Megan walked toward Tom in a blue sarong, all legs and arms. Her wide mane fell across her shoulders and chest, thick, mostly gray hair a few hints of its original strawberry blonde. “Finally, baby, your studio. I hope I don’t lose you to it.”
“That won’t happen.”
Megan smiled and rubbed her hand on his chest. “That’s a really nice song you whistled. Beautiful. The kind that can get a green-eyed girl to fall in love with you.”
“Didn’t that already work?”
“We can replay it any time you’d like.”
“Falling in love…”
“A feeling I will always treasure.”
“I didn’t know you were into re-runs.”
“What re-run?”
Tom leaned forward, found Megan’s lips, and dabbed his tongue into her yielding mouth. “Ummmm…nice kiss, Mr. Timoreaux. Just like a teenager on his way to second base.”
“Well, we are teenagers. We marry, make a living, have Christina, retire, send her off to college. We become teenagers again.”
Megan’s eyes widened and brightened, their deep-seated flame accentuated by her arching eyebrows and uplifted cheekbones. “Teenagers with experience in all the right places.” She patted his denim-covered butt.
His treasure held him as he held her, smack dab in the center of the creation he’d spent years harnessing the skill and moxie to attempt. He felt like an old artist who knew his greatest work, his masterwork, his magnum opus, was pouring in, demanding to be seen. Getting started was the hardest part: ten years from blueprint to this.
Which made finishing so sweet. Megan spun around so that his hands fell directly on her half-covered breasts, broadened by a collarbone line that ran from one shoulder to its equally sexy counterpart and ten pounds she added after ailing knees ended her marathoning days. Megan and Tom embraced in the 1,500 square-foot space soon to be filled with instruments, speakers, monitors and microphones. The hot mid-May sun poured through unwashed windows, veiling the studio in a scent of high mountain light and space that would draw Monet. The yellow oak floor slats ran to a half-moon stage big enough to a house concert band or play actors at a future party. On the wall behind the stage, a gaping hole awaited the large flatscreen that would fill it. Banks of empty light fixtures hung from the ceiling. Hidden within the walls were panels of deep eggshell insulation that swallowed outside sound. The windows welcomed the shimmering view of Sierra Blanca and its daily playmate, the sun . A room and its double-paned sliding window jutted out ten feet from the far corner alongside the stage…Tom’s newest workshop, the production room, its 64-track mixing board, bank of computers and CD burners in place.
Megan reached her hand back to cradle his face against her shoulder, strengthened by the yoga and push-ups with which she replaced running. “You’ve got some serious stubble, dear one.”
“Got caught up in finishing the studio…just forgot.”
“Well, Handel didn’t eat or drink for three days while he wrote The Messiah…so you’re a relatively mild case. Guess it goes with being married to you. Like it always has.”
“Guess so.” He scratched her neck with his chin.
She squirmed. “The buck scrapes his tree.”
He kissed her neck. What could be richer than growing old on a secluded ridge with a woman so splendid? During many moments, now being one of them, Megan hit him flush between the eyes , heart…and lower. Even after thirty years, she remained an equal opportunity seducer, with a soul and body more luscious and lithe than her mountain tan.
In a few days, they’d ascend the hill: Chester. Raylene. Will. The replacement keyboardist, old Harlem horn player Ulysses Washington’s grandson. The big question burning in his head: Could they rekindle the old magic? He and Chester allowed Jason Robiski to remaster and release a boxed set of their eight biggest CDs, along with DVD bonus clips. The holiday release debuted at No. 2 on the charts, shot to No. 1 in a week and stayed there for a month. “Never underestimate them baby boomers—or that iTunes,” Chester said.
As spring arrived, and Tom pounded the floor into place, The Fever: Full Affliction remained well-entrenched in the Top Ten. Astonishing. Who could predict listener response to a band that had done nothing in the ensuing time but play the signature songs, “West of the West” and “When A Place Goes Mad,” at its Rock & Roll Hall of Fame enshrinement—then disappear again behind the curtain of retirement? Ten years ago? Tom couldn’t figure it out.
Then Robiski called. “You guys writing again? “
“I started tinkering again, “ Tom replied. “And Chester’s been writing since we retired…Why?”
“Those backwoods porch songs?”
“It’s great music, Jason. He’s put out a half-dozen CDs of it since our day came and went. Try listening to it—broaden your horizons.”
“Whatever…let’s do an album again.”
“We just did—the boxed set.”
“Those are old tunes.” Robiski’s impatience leaked through the phone. “You’ve whet your fans’ whistles again. It’s a new day. New spirit in the air. Give ‘em something fresh, new, another reason to love you guys.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’ll come around.”
Tom knew how to irritate Robiski, but, like his old man, the producer anticipated future moves with uncanny precision. He stood in the studio, Megan in his arms, questions he never imagined asking again moving through him: Would those three dozen songs he’d scratched on notebook paper over the fall, winter and spring amount to an album? Did Chester want to contribute tunes, or stick to what made The Fever—touching up Tom’s music and lyrics? Now that she had grandkids to spoil, would Raylene enjoy this? Would her health hold up?
That led to the big collective question: Could they play together in front of an audience now either gray, raising kids or not yet born when they hung it up? Tom stroked Megan’s breasts with his fingertips. Well, who cared? Just jamming with the gang again demanded celebration. Wasn’t that the promise of music, getting old friends together and jamming?
Tom moved his hands to her arms. “Raylene didn’t call today, did she?”
“No.”
“Let’s hope we see her beaming face.” The results of another batter y of tests were due. Breaths drew and held from Tennessee to New York to San Francisco to New Mexico….the breaths of fourth-fifths of a legendary rock band.
Megan read the concern on his face. “It’ll be so great to see everyone together again. You guys always did have a family vibe. I think that’s why it worked for so long.”
“Well, everyone except Treg.” He last saw Treg when they’d played at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
“God bless him,” Megan said softly. Cancer …what a beast.
“We’ll never see another like him… I just hope we can hold a note so he doesn’t give us a beat-down from on high.”
Megan turned around and slid her hand inside Tom’s t-shirt. She rubbed up to his chest, down to his soft but not overhanging belly, back up to his chest. “Honey, trust me: You’re holding a note. You’ve been singing a lot while building this studio—that’s evident.”
“Maybe I’ll give you a special performance…after hours.”
“I’ll be all ears. And hands.” A low, sensual, sassy tone. She ducked her hand inside Tom’s t-shirt and rubbed his belly. “But first, my hard-working studio-building music-making wife-loving man,” she said, her voice snapping to center, “I would like my office back.”
“I can’t wait to get started.” Another of those unsolved mysteries of womanhood, in the cup of her voice: How could she shift from a purring, caressing seductress to business-as-usual in two seconds flat?
Give it up, Tom. Trying to solve it creates a deeper hole…and who falls in?
“Why don’t you get all your stuff sorted out and moved in the morning?”
“No problemo, but…isn’t Christina coming in tomorrow?”
“Next weekend. She’s studying. She said she’d call in a day or two.”
“Studying the greater Los Angeles night life…”
Megan poked his ribs. “So what? She’s discovering who she is. Just like her daddy, once upon a time. And, substantiated rumor has it, her daddy had night life down…to…a…science.”
She worked her finger down his ribcage, poking with each word.
“Don’t remind me.”
“Don’t worry about Christina.” Megan pointed to the office, its window visible from the opened studio door. She resorted to sketching fashion and interior design ideas, writing rural performing arts grant applications and painting while staring at a drop-cloth. Underneath the cloth lay Tom’s toys—mike stands, speakers, foot pedals, music stands and a trunk filled with more than a hundred rattles, castanets, a Cajun accordion, finger cymbals, kirtals, harmonicas, tambourines and bongos, some of which he’d collected, some souvenirs and gifts from Fever fans and other musicians. The pile looked like a swollen landfill.
“Can you wait until the guys are here? We’ll move it together.”
“Tom, honey, honestly…a few more days? Let’s get it ready for their arrival. You show off your new playpen. I’ll show them the return of mine.” Megan kissed him on the cheek, bit the empty hole on his ear lobe, then pecked him on the lips. “Why don’t you take a shower? I’m going to get dinner started …”
“What are we having?”
“Fish, wild rice, veggies, the last of the venison…fuel food.”
“Sounds great.”
“I want that special performance you promised. Need my man fortified for it, you know.” She walked toward Tom, a spatula in her hand. “Can you use the shower room? The bathroom is…a mess.”
The glint in her eye offered another explanation.
Prequel
Chapter 2
The Rest of the Story: The Voice online
