A Gift: Part Deux

It was some time later that our flight was to be called, and so I decided to grab some coffee to kill time. Mum dozed in an airport seat, first getting my word that I would be back shortly and I wouldn't talk to anyone or go anywhere with strangers. Pretty standard, I thought, and she could more or less see me from her perch, in case she needed to interveane.

I was standing in line when something rather heavy slid into my leg, almost knocking me over. I'm not coordinated at the best of times, but a surprise assault with a duffle bag will disorient most. I turned around to see who had, for lack of a better assumption, kicked it at me.
I noticed the buzz cut before anything else, but the young man standing behind me was on the whole rather noticable, decked out as he was in full camo. A Soldier. A member of the US Armed Forces, it looked like, standing in line at a Starbucks and apologizing to an extremely surprised middle school girl for almost knocking her over.
"Shouldn't have kicked the bag, sorry kid."
I think he took my wide eyed stare well, because I remember him smiling and then pointing me in the direction of the (also smiling) next available cashier.

In the moment, it had felt wrong. I had never seen a soldier up close before, or at all, actually. I'd heard about them, yes. It was the third year of then-president Bush's second term, so you heard a lot about the war. Seeing the young man there baffled me. Here was undeniable proof that they Existed, and that they were Real People who had Duffle Bags and Urges for Coffee.

I can't say that I know anything about this young man. From what he ordered to where he was heading, whether to the Middle East or to a training facility, or even back home; i couldn't even hazard a guess. But I do know two things. Had I heard what he ordered at that starbucks in that North Carolina airport, I probably would have gone through the rest of my consumer life at Starbucks never drinking anything else. I can't explain this impulse, but it has stuck with me all these years.
The other thing I know, or strongly believe, is that I'll never see him again. No matter where he was going, it does not seem likely that our paths will cross. Even if they did, unless he was wearing the uniform and had the cropped hair, I probably wouldn't recognize him. I don't even have a first name. Then again, he would not recognize me, either.
But I believe in a lot of things, and he's always been one of them. Whenever I hear about injured soldiers or men on duty dying, he swims up to the forefront of my mind and I replay this whole scene. I pray that he's alive and well, but it's something I know I'll always do in vain and never have a real answer to.

And sure it might be silly, but I look forward to meeting him again someday and asking him those questions. What his name is, where he was headed, what happened while he was in uniform. If he remembers the brown haired girl in line in front of him. If he ever got married, had a family. Or even if he died young and largely unremembered. It won't be for a while that I get to ask these, that I know, but I'm patient. I can wait until that day comes.

Running Down Daylight

It's just hurried footfalls on dark pavement
Alone, under an overcast sky
Alone with the world, or alone in the world?

I wonder all this out loud, but I don't have any answers....

Picture something, please. Just you, running down the middle of the street. If a car came at you, anything above 15mph would do, and didn't see you, well you'd be in trouble. But there's always the chance that he will. In the meantime, it's you all in your own bubble, your own personal space, but as you run further and further away, you're running closer and closer to where you want to be. Cars coming at you are the least of your worries, even getting caught doesn't seem all that important.
All you know is that every moment, your feet will slam back down on the blacktop, upon streets you've seen at all times of day, in many seasons. They look the same, they always do, because they have their own way of leading you to a place you might belong, but feel no right in claiming.
In my defense, I'd do it again. I'd risk close to anything at all for those nights; even in the cold they're beautiful. The snow falls. Everything is pristine, untouched, doused with twinkling light and the smallest hint of magic. In the middle of the summer, the heat is never stifling. I simply hide my face from every car that passes, just in case, and the world flows on. If you pass someone on the street you'll both nod - you share a secret reason for being out this late. Or early, if you care for that.

All I know is, between 2 and 4 every morning, the world sleeps. And then the world wakes up at 4, and dances past midnight.

We're all like that, in a sense. We have our highs and lows; we have moments and some are great and some are terrible, but we get through it.
Maybe running around at night is like that. But who am I, really, to judge?

Sounds Like William

"So, how's it feel to be in the gig mobile?"

"Pretty good, actually. Tiring though." Shrug. Ambiguous hand gesture around at the inside of the van.

"Yea, me too. Though this is nothing," and here Billy pointed at the dashboard. "11:40? Me and Brian would be lucky to get out this early on a gig night. Add three or four hours, that's what it really feels like. But it was fun, I hope you've had a good time." I nodded that I had, not trusting myself to say anything more on the subject.

Conversation had ambled across many subjects since we'd loaded up the van. Much of it was centered around how he'd gotten involved in sound engineering and what he was up to these days. I hadn't seen him in a number of months and it was pretty great to catch up, especially if we were going to be working together more often.

"See, I went to Point Park for a year but I couldn't deal with the collegiate bullshit. I was so bored and it wasn't worth the time or money, not for me. I had no patience for it."

"So you think I should take some time off to do this before college?"

"Oh if you've got the patience for it, go ahead and go to college. Really. If you're the kind of person that can stomach it. There's only so much I can teach you."

I smiled again and glanced out the window, out on streets that I recognized from Kevin Smith's Dogma, but had never actually seen in the flesh. Like the Kevin Smith movie, I had stumbled upon sound mixing quite accidentally, in a sense, but had stuck with it because of Billy.

It meant a lot that he was now sticking around to teach me the finer points of it. I didn't have anyone else to do it, and something told me I wouldn't be as successful in teaching myself as he had been.

"Truth is," he said breaking the silence sometime later, "I can't keep doing this forever. It gets me by but to survive off of this? I need real steady gigs. Man, I'd love to get in with a band, travel with them. That would be..." he took his hands off the wheel at this point, momentarily waving them through open space as if there wasn't a word for it.

He was right though - really, there isn't a word to describe it. It would mean endless hours in the van, living out of it. It would mean live shows every night and a frenzied schedule. But it would be sound, and it would be music, and it would be - well I too can only describe it by moving my hands through the air, just as he did. It's not something I can describe to you unless you've been there, or you too have found something that you would give almost anything to do for the rest of your life.

But at that moment, sitting next to Billy in his van, I knew exactly what he meant. Maybe that's the best part of everything he's taught me so far - to appreciate the music; not only that but to appreciate how the sounds intertwine in the mix, the noise of it all. The kick drum, the bass; rim shots, chords, vocals, everything coming through the amps and through the board and finally out to the stacks....

We've both been there. We've been to the shows where everything seemed to go wrong beyond belief but you kept going because it was your job to fix and the only thing you knew how to do. But we'd also both mixed shows where the sounds swam through us, where everything worked as it should and you could only sit back and smile. You couldn't truly describe it, but we knew what it was.

Sitting there, I wished that I could grab the blanket from the seat behind me, wrap myself up in it and fall asleep against the car door. That way, my mind whispered, I could wake up in Tulsa, Nashville, Detroit, or OK City. Somewhere in Freeport, Lincoln, Dallas, Chicago, or New York. How about Indianapolis, Denver, Atlanta, Seattle - anywhere at all. I was tempted to glance over at Billy and say "if you ever get in with a band, take me with you." But even then I knew I wasn't ready for something like that, not yet. I wished I could turn to him and explain how much it all meant to me, the sounds and that he was willing to teach me what he knew. But I couldn't say it. I hope he understood. I hope he saw through my silence.

He pulled up in front of my house and I got my keys out.

"Thanks again, Billy. Thanks for everything." I told him, and for the second time that weekend, I walked away from the gig mobile, knowing that sometime soon, he would call me back.