9 Letters (22 page)

“I can’t take you all
anywhere,” I said, pulling up another chair to the table.

Damon clapped me on the shoulder.
“Buy you a drink?”

“I’ll just take a
glass of whatever you’re drinking,” I said. Damon nodded,
approving, and poured me a glass.

No one had started yet, and I
went and signed my name on the list. They went by random order, to
keep people around. That was fine, except I had no real way to
prepare myself for stage fright. Just had to live it as a little
demon alternated between my shoulder—telling me I wasn’t
all that good and no one wanted to listen—and my gut, where it
told me that my stomach hurt.

I’d invited Rae, too.
Because why only have a little bit to be nervous about when you can
have a lot to be nervous about? I hadn’t seen her since her
party, but I’d been thinking about her a lot. And I was
thinking there’d been enough time for everyone to cool down.
Least, I hoped.

I smelled pie, kind of all of a
sudden, and I suddenly wasn’t as full as I thought I was.
Seemed like a pretty good way to quell the demon in my stomach, and
maybe that would shut it up on my shoulder, too. Or I’d just
get some pie out of the deal.

I went to the counter and bought
the whole thing, brought it to the table.

“We were going to clap for
you anyway,” Dave said. “You didn’t need to bribe
us.”

“I appreciate the bribe,”
Lindsey said.

“Hey Luke,” Damon
said, all casual. I looked up from my plate. “You still seeing
that girl from your work I seen you with sometimes?”

“Maggie?” I asked.
“No, I’m done with that.”

Damon shrugged. “That’s
good, because, uh, here she comes. With Lance.”

I turned around and saw the two
of them come in the door, him holding the door open for her all
formal and gentlemanly. A lot of things went through my mind, all
quickly, all contradictory.

First, I was jealous. Which was
insane, because I’d not only broken up with Maggie, I’d
never been her boyfriend. I’d also invited Rae.

Then I was mad at Lance, for
stepping in on...on what? On my territory? That made even less sense
than jealousy.

Then I was mad at Maggie. I
figured she went for Lance because he looked like me. As if she knew
I didn’t like him much, and she was doing it to get at me. This
made the least sense of all. Maggie had a type. Physically, I was her
type. If I was her type, then so was Lance. And hell, maybe they’d
actually be alright for each other.

Also, Maggie hadn’t really
met my friends, so the idea that this was some elaborate ploy,
well...hormones make people come to stupid conclusions. Me at least
as much as the next person. They came over and joined us at the
table, and I just went back to enjoying the pie. It was apple. I love
apple pie.

“Hey everyone, this is
Maggie,” Lance said. He did introductions.

“We’ve met,” I
said, at my turn. I was smiling, and it was genuine. I think Maggie
picked up on that, and she relaxed. Good.

See, Lance had brought her around
to meet his friends on probably their first date.

I’d slept with her for
months and never done her that basic courtesy.

Sometimes you hate people because
the things that are shitty about them remind you of things that are
shitty about you. Sometimes, you hate people like Lance because the
things that are good about them remind you of the things that are
shitty about you.

But I’d been too broken to
be good to anyone, and Maggie wasn’t mad anymore, so I let
myself off the hook. Let myself relax.

I kept looking up to see if Rae
had come in, though. No luck.

“So, you any good?”
Maggie asked me.

“Huh?”

“I didn’t know you
played guitar.”

“Luke’s alright,”
Dave said. “Used to play more back in school, a couple years
after, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just
trying to get back into it.”

“Well it’ll be nice
to hear you play,” Maggie said.

Lance bristled. God, that man. “I
play too,” he said. No one really noticed.

Holger spoke up next. “Luke,
if I sign up, can I play your guitar?”

“Sure,” I said.
Holger went and signed up, so Lance had to too. Holger was being
supportive. Lance was just being competitive.

The first person to go up was a
gray-haired woman with a banjo and a voice that should have already
been on the radio. She played three songs, none of which I knew, and
she set the bar high enough that I didn’t see any way I’d
reach it. Her fingers claw-hammered those strings and she sang about
far-off Appalachia. Her words had me wistful for a place I’d
never been, for a life I’d never had. It felt good to feel a
longing for a life other than the one I’d had ripped out from
under me. It felt real good.

She’d set the bar pretty
high, but the next guy, he would have tripped over it even if she’d
left it on the floor. I hoped he’d only been playing guitar for
a couple of weeks. I hoped he had that excuse. But I cheered him on
something good, because it takes a real backbone to get up in front
of strangers and open yourself up. It was an open mic night. It
wasn’t about being great, it was about doing your thing.

Hell, that’s what I was
counting on myself.

So he finished his two-song set
and I clapped fierce and so did the rest of my friends. Even Lance,
because he’s not actually a bad person, I just don’t like
him.

Holger was next, and he played
California Girls by Katy Perry in a thicker accent than he spoke
with, and he broke the ice and got everyone laughing. He just played
the one song, then he came and sat back down, handed me my guitar.
“Thanks,” he said.

Two college poets came on after
that, and I figured listening to them is the cost of entry. Then I
was up, and I suppose those poets thought listening to
me
was the cost of entry.

Rae wasn’t there yet, or
maybe she wasn’t coming, and I thought about trying to trade
spots with Lance. But everyone was waiting on me so I walked up
there, took my guitar out of my case. Holger had played it a little
rough, and everyone in the audience got to hear the tuning song.

“Hey y’all,” I
said. “Name’s Luke Cawley, and it’s been a minute
since I’ve played for no one.” I talk like that even more
when I’m nervous.

“You got it!” Dave
yelled.

I started in kind of rough. I
knew I would, so I didn’t do anything special. Just a song I
wrote a couple years back, a little after the wedding. It was kind of
a love song to my truck. It was really about my granddad, though.
Thanking him for the house. It’s easier to miss Granddad Cawley
than it is to miss Mrs. Cawley, that’s for sure. Feels easier,
coming out of the throat. But still, I started in kind of rough.

That one was for me, so I figured
the next one should be for the crowd. I was loosened up, feeling
alright. Glad I had that one drink in me, glad I didn’t have
more. So I went for what I think I do best: outlaw country covers of
pop country songs. Florida Georgia Line. The crowd knew it, was
singing along. Dave hadn’t heard me play that one before, but
he was standing up singing, and soon my whole table was.

Even Maggie, who hated that band.
Bless her heart.

Now, to be fair, it’s not
like I won the whole cafe over the way that first woman did. I just
managed to put on a good show. And my friends were a little
overenthusiastic.

But people were cheering when I
finished, and someone I didn’t even know shouted, “One
more!”

I thought, though, that I should
do something real honest. Something I would have played if Rae were
there, let her see who I was. Let her see I wasn’t just the
kind of guy who’d throw another guy into her fence.

Johnny Cash, he sings this song,
“I still miss someone.” So I did, too.

That brought down the energy, but
I didn’t care.

It helped people feel how I felt,
and that made me feel better.

God, it felt good to sing. It
felt like I was finally communicating. Instead of just saying things.
I was never any good at just saying things. This was real
communication.

Then I finished the song, put the
guitar away, went back down to the table.

It was all backslaps and
congratulations, and I was with my friends again. It’d been so
damn long, too damn long, since I’d been with my friends.

A couple more acts, then Lance
went up.

Lance, maybe here’s another
way he was like me, he didn’t communicate great in person.
Sure, he talked a lot more, but he said even less. But I saw him
play, fingerpicking on that guitar Spanish style, and that’s
how he communicates too. Maggie was looking at him with the kind of
eyes she’d never used to look at me. She wasn’t just
hungry when she looked at him. She honest-to-God liked him.

That was good.

It even
felt
good. I knew I’d done the right thing, leaving her. Even if
yeah, maybe I was a little bit jealous. Maggie’d come. Rae
hadn’t.

I was sad about Rae not showing
up, but it was alright. It wasn’t about that. I hadn’t
played to impress her, it was something I did for myself. For Emily.

We stayed through to the bitter
end, and I had another drink but I wasn’t looking for another
long night lying in the bed of my truck.

One couple went up, a fellow with
a guitar and a woman with a fiddle, and they played covers and folk
songs and there was so much love in what they did that it didn’t
really matter that they weren’t the best at what they were
doing. Didn’t matter that her voice drifted out of key and he
kept a loose rhythm. I should talk to Rae, see if she played fiddle.
Maybe she’d come out and we could play there.

This one woman, she must have
been seventy or ninety, she walked up and took the mic in a tattooed
hand. She had a six-string in her lap and a biker’s jacket on.
She was my favorite, because she was so damn weird.

Turned out, the owner of the
place was that tattooed old woman’s husband. He stepped out
from behind the bar when I was getting a glass of water, cornered me.

“You could come back here
anytime,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you do country music
right. At least, the way I like it. Entertaining but you’ve got
your heart in it. You could play a set sometime, if you’d like.
I could get you opening for someone. This ain’t like your big
break or anything, but you’d be welcome to it.”

“I appreciate that, sir,”
I said. “I might be back for an open mic sometime. But not a
full set. It’s just a hobby, is all.”

“Best thing in the world is
a good hobby,” he said.

His wife came up and joined us,
and I tipped my hat.

The two of them were happy and
they were old as all hell.

Maybe I’d get that too,
someday. I headed back toward the table, water in hand. Just then my
phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, thinking maybe it was Rae
saying she was on the way or had just parked her car, but instead it
was my dad on the caller ID. For the first time in God knew how long,
I picked up.

“Dad?”

There was a pause. Maybe he’d
hung up already. “Luke. How’s it going?”

I looked around the café,
at my table full of friends, my guitar case resting on my chair, the
soft light still spilling over the stage. “Good,” I said.
“It’s going good.”

Woke up early the next morning,
because there was something that needed doing. I felt good about it,
too. I stared into the mirror, stubble was getting a little thick,
moving closer to “beard” than stubble, but I ignored it.
Brushed my teeth, showered. That hot water, it does me good every
time.

“Hey King,” I said,
and the beast followed me down the stairs into the kitchen. He knew
what was up. I wish it wasn’t so cut and dry that a happy Luke
gives his dog bacon, but that’s the way it is.

Because a happy Luke cooks the
hell out of some bacon and eggs and I even cut up some spring onions
and grated some cheese, because I was going to do breakfast right.

Because I was going to get my
not-even-a-job back.

Got my jacket, got King and went
out to the truck and opened the door.

“Load up,” I said. He
looked at me, and I met his eyes, then looked into the truck. He
hopped in.

Hell yeah I could train a dog. I
was Luke Cawley. I could do anything.

It was one of those mornings. I
live for those mornings.

It was getting warmer all the
time, too. I put the stereo on so loud my speakers complained, rolled
down the windows, and drove.

Passed an overturned
tractor-trailer on the shoulder, right in the middle of town. I ain’t
never seen a wreck like that. Ambulances and cop cars and only one
lane of traffic sneaking by. I rubbernecked as bad as the rest of
them, and King howled his damn fool head off when he heard the
sirens. Smoke was coming from the cabin.

My granddad had driven a truck
like that.

Trucks like that, they didn’t
crash much.

Whatever, it wasn’t going
to do nothing to my mood.

I pulled into the parking lot a
couple minutes later than I’d hoped to, though, but I caught
Morris on his way to his truck in the lot.

“Mr. Cawley,” he
said. He wasn’t angry or nothing. Maybe he’d cooled down
as much as I had.

I got out of the truck, and King
came after.

“Sit,” I said, and
King sat down right next to me.

“Morris,” I said.
“I’ve got a whole slew of excuses that you don’t
care the slightest bit about. If you ever want to know, I’ll
give them to you. They’re good ones, even. But they’re
excuses. A man shouldn’t act like how I was acting. I walked in
here like I’d be God’s gift to Heartland, like I was
doing you some kind of favor just by showing up.”

Morris nodded. “Keep
talking.”