Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax (2 page)

I sit down and hand her the croissant and coffee she asked for. Then I sit back and watch. As her lips—
those
lips—close around the flaky pastry, I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. They make a perfect ‘o’ as she bites down and carefully tears off a piece. Her eyes close for just a moment, as the flavors hit her tongue, and I see her face relax, becoming even more beautiful in that one second, like some sort of a filter has washed over a photograph, brightening and softening the picture.

Inside my chest, my heart is racing, and something in my stomach leaps around. I want to watch
this
girl eat
that
piece of bread for as long as I can. It’s so simple.

I clear my throat and try to focus on my words. “So, why was that guy assaulting you? And please don’t say he was your boyfriend, he’s got to have twenty years on you at least.”

She laughs, and coughs a little as she tries not to spit out a mouthful of coffee.

“No, not my boyfriend.”

I wipe my hand across my brow in what is meant to be mock relief, but is more genuine than she could guess. “Thank God for small favors,” I say.

She gives another little chuckle. “He is…
was
…someone my dad knew.” She pauses, and I can see her debating whether to tell me the truth or not. “My dad owed that guy’s boss some money, and now they want me to pay it back.”

A loan shark. Kind of starts to make sense now.

My phone beeps and I pull it out of my pocket to read a return text from Nix:

Dude was coming to when we got there. He refused a ride to the ER. Watched him get in his car and leave. Everything okay?

Thanks, man. It’s all good.
I type back.

“Where’s your dad that they can’t collect from him?” I ask as I put the phone away.

Her face gets that taut, stressed look again, and it makes me regret the question. I don’t want to be the man that put that tension there.

“He passed away,” she says. “A few weeks ago.”

“God, I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “And your mom?”

“Gone. Since I was tiny.” Her voice indicates it’s not a topic she’s willing to discuss.

“So this guy just tracked you down and thought he’d beat the money out of you? I mean what are you, nineteen? They can’t think you’re able to pay back your old man’s debts,” I say, taking a sip of coffee just to have something to do with my hands, because all I want to do is take her in my arms and tell her it’ll all be okay even though I don’t know her or the first thing about her life.

I see the color creep into her face as she lowers her gaze to the table. Then she tenses even more as her head comes up and she looks me in the eyes, jaw set and expression guarded, daring me to challenge what she’s about to say.

“They know I don’t have the cash, but they’re saying my dad used me as collateral.”

“What?” I try to process what she’s told me.

“He sold me. To J.J. Lagazo, for a hundred thousand dollars.”

Anyone who’s lived in Bittersweet for more than a few months has heard about J.J. Lagazo. He’s the local strip club owner, escort service purveyor, and all-around scumbag who manages to keep out of the clutches of the local police, but just barely.

My head swims with the implications of the whole thing. What kind of person does that to his own child? That’s when the anger surges through me like some sort of poison spreading in my veins. I shake my head in disbelief.

“No way,” I tell her. “No way a dad would do that to his kid.”

Her chin lifts up a notch higher. “My dad loved me.” Her tone brooks no argument. “And I don’t want to believe Lagazo’s guys, but my dad’s not here to ask, so I don’t know what’s true or not, all I know is that they want me to work in one of his clubs, and if they catch me I’ll have to.”

I reach across the table and put my hand over hers. I get almost giddy when she doesn’t pull away. Her skin is soft and warm, it reminds me of heated satin. “Do you have someone to help you? Why won’t you go to the police and tell them all of this?”

“First of all, Lagazo has half the police in his pocket, and secondly, if I do happen to find one who doesn’t take bribes from him it’ll only make him more angry. The police can’t protect me twenty-four seven, and that’s what it would take to keep Lagazo from getting me.”

“What about friends or family?” I ask again.

She shakes her head. “I’m not going to get anyone else involved in this. It’s my mess, I’ll clean it up.” She pulls her hand from underneath mine just as her phone chimes. She looks down at the screen then sends a rapid return message. “That’s my roommate, she’s outside in the parking lot. But hey,” she pastes on a bright and unconvincing smile, “thanks again for the help. It was nice to meet you, Pax.”

“Can I at least have your phone number so I can check on you?” I ask. “I feel like, now that I’ve rescued you, I have responsibility for you or something. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
      She laughs softly as she stands from her seat. Then she looks down and gives me a sweet smile. “No, the way it works is I have to rescue you back—and I’m going to do that by not giving you my number because being around me is bad for anyone’s health.” Then she turns on her heel and walks away, leaving me with nothing but the lingering scent of her perfume.

**

The Pacific Ocean, where I’m from, is so different from this part of the Atlantic. I grew up in Portland, and my folks had a place at Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast where we’d spend summers. The ocean there is gray and a little fierce. Even though the summers were pretty warm, the beaches were rough, brown sand and wild, rocky patches. Here in Alabama, it’s white sand, blue waters, and heat. Lots of heat. Some days, I miss home—the Pacific Ocean, my little sister, Lyric—but I can’t focus on it. It might be a long, long time before I can see it all again, and it’ll eat me alive if I let it.

After I get back to my townhouse, which is just a half mile up the beach, I shower off and throw on a clean pair of shorts before I go to my patio on the edge of the sand, and get my guitar out. I love the way the smooth wood of the guitar feels on my bare chest. It’s like a woman’s soft hands touching me. It’s soothing and exhilarating all at the same time. I sit thinking about Carly and what
her
hands would feel like on me, stroking down my abs, wrapping around…I shake myself out of it. Getting a hard-on right now won’t solve anything. I have no idea how I’ll ever see her again, but I can tell already that I’m going to be looking for a way. That car of hers is pretty distinctive, if I have to cruise town all day watching for it I will. I shake my head and mutter, “Stalker,” to myself. But it doesn’t matter, I’m going to do it anyway.

I have a couple of hours before I have to be at the bar I’m playing in tonight, so I work a little on the song I’ve been writing. I wish so much that I could play it for Uncle Joss and get his take, but I swore to myself that I was going to do this without my family, so my parents aren’t the only ones I have to take out of the equation; it’s Uncle Joss, Mike, Colin—all of them. Even Aunt Mel is off-limits, although I know she’d give her left arm to do my promo photos for my website and gigs.

I’m a musician, and my family is rock and roll royalty. Sounds like a great combo, right? Yeah—until you spend your every childhood moment being followed, questioned, and compared. When you can’t go to any bar, club, or recording studio in your home state without the manager saying, “Oh, hey, you’re Walsh’s kid, right?”

My dad and his band mates are Portland legends. They’ve been the rulers of the alt rock scene there for over twenty years—since before I was born. But as much as I admire them, learned from them, and flat-out miss them, their very presence makes it impossible for me to have a career that I earned. And that’s all I want—a career that’s about me, not my father.

After high school I did what was expected, spent a couple of years at a small liberal arts college in the Northwest, not too far from home, but far enough I could feel like I’d left. It didn’t take. I knew it wouldn’t before I even went, but I wanted to make my parents happy. Neither of them has a four-year degree, and I knew they’d love it if I got one.

But, music is the one thing that calls to me, and sitting in a lecture hall listening to some old dude talk about classical composers in the seventeenth century wasn’t going to help me answer that calling. So, after my sophomore year I told my folks I was done, then I picked the farthest place I could find, changed my last name, and announced that I wouldn’t be coming back to Portland until I’d made it on my own. My mom, who can be a little intense at times, cried for three days. My dad told me, “No one makes it on their own. Success is about using whatever advantages you’re given and not acting like an idiot when good fortune smiles on you.”

Then he called Uncle Joss, the lead singer, who came over to the house and told me that he knew the perfect manager for me, a guy who wouldn’t be star struck by my family and would help me find my own sound and my own audience. Yeah, he wasn’t getting it either.

When Colin, the bassist, heard, he looked at me like I’d lost my mind then said, “Dude, why would you make something harder than it has to be?”

Mike was the only one who seemed to understand what I was doing. Maybe it’s because he’s a guitarist too—one of the best ever, in fact. Maybe it’s because he’s got a complicated relationship with his extended family. I don’t know, but when he was sent to talk to me—because they all were, Mom wouldn’t quit haranguing until every single one of the guys had a sit-down with me—he said, “Sometimes, you’ve got to leave your family to realize just how much they mean to you, and some things in life you have to do on your own. Just remember that time happens, people change, and people leave, and you might expect them to be waiting for you, but they’re not. You can decide if that’s a risk you’re willing to take.”
      I only understood what Mike was telling me in a theoretical way, but somehow, I knew he
got
me better than my own parents did right then.

I’ve been in Bittersweet for two years now. For two years, I haven’t seen my parents, my sister, or my dad’s band mates because I won’t go see them and I won’t let them come see me. My dad’s band makes headlines every time they hit an airport, a train depot, or a limo lot. If Mom and Dad descended on tiny Bittersweet, my anonymity would be up in a heartbeat.

So it’s been two years since I’ve seen the Pacific Ocean. And it still hurts. Every single day. But I can’t go back. I can’t give up. My dad and the guys will never understand what it’s like to spend your entire life as
Walsh Clark’s son.

Even if I wanted to be a banker or a doctor, it would be tough. As soon as anyone figures out who I am, they treat me differently. They can’t help it. They want to see things in me that are
him
—his songs, his voice, his face. And then they want to feel connected to the rest of the band through me. “What are they like? Did Mike
say
that? Did Joss
do
that? Who’s the bass player again?”

My dad and the guys can’t get what it’s like when no one ever sees
you
. Just you. Not a reflection of your parents, not some guy falling into the family business because that’s easy, but
you
—a guy who loves music because, yeah, he spent his whole life with it, but also because that’s just the way he’s wired. I would have been a musician no matter what my parents did. It’s in my DNA, and I can’t help that.

I sigh and strum a few more chords, jotting them down in the notebook I keep for songwriting. I’m trying to remember everything Uncle Joss taught me about song structure and lyric formation, but sometimes, I can’t help but just wing it, going with whatever flow hits me. Not much is hitting me today though, except the memory of Carly’s lips, so pretty soon, I pack it up and decide to head over to the bar early.

**

The place I’m playing at tonight, The Taphouse, is a smaller bar. Some basic bar fare for food, a modest stage, and the South’s best selection of craft brews outside of Ashland, North Carolina, where New Belgium rules the South’s microbrew market.

The owner, Blake, is a good guy, and he has me in to play once or twice a month. Their live music is usually booked Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Most weeks I do a Thursday here, sometimes a Friday, saving my Saturdays for Burn, the biggest, most popular venue in town.

I walk in the front doors, standing still for a moment to give my eyes a chance to adjust to the lower lighting inside.

“Pax!” I hear Blake call from his station behind the bar.

I blink a couple of times then turn and walk over. He high-fives me over the bar.

“The usual?” he asks.

I nod and watch as he makes up my club soda and orange juice. Then I set my guitar down on one barstool and my ass on another. Blake hands me the drink and I take a sip, relishing the sting of the bubbles from the soda water as they work up into my nose.

The memories this drink brings slam into my chest without warning. I see
him
sitting at the long table my mom always set up outside our Portland house in the good weather. It seated fifteen, and my dad would be at one end, Uncle Joss on his left, and then Mike and Colin on his right. Dad loved those long summer dinners with family and the band. My Aunt Mel would always be lurking around with her camera, snapping shots of the various kids as they ate and ran around the backyard. My mom would be bustling, bringing out huge platters of food that my Nona DiLorenzo had made.

And whenever I’d sidle up to Dad, wanting to get my share of his attention, wanting to be one of the guys with him and Joss and Mike and Colin, he’d pull me over next to his chair, put an arm around me, and hand me his glass. “You want to make a toast, Pax?” he’d always say. “Say cheers to everyone and remind us how lucky we all are.” I’d make a toast, often something outrageous. The guys would cheer and clink glasses, and then I’d get to take a big swig of my dad’s club soda and O.J.

My dad’s an alcoholic, and he hasn’t had a drink since the night I was conceived—yeah, that was more detail than I needed about it too—so his O.J. and Club is a family tradition, and it’s been my favorite drink since before I was even old enough to say ‘Orange Juice.’ I have the occasional beer too, but because of my dad’s disease, I’ve always been very careful about my own drinking, and honestly, ninety-nine percent of the time, I’ll choose the O.J. and Club over alcohol anyway.