"You sound good, old friend," he said with a smile, unaware that he was speaking aloud. "I promise to never leave you in the case that long again."
He sat back on the couch and put the guitar in his lap, his left hand going to the neck, his right twirling a guitar pick. The room was silent, the only sound the muted roar of a vacuum cleaner from somewhere else in the condo as Manny did his housework. He strummed a few times and then grabbed a G chord — his favorite for improvisation — and picked out a brief rhythm. He winced as he heard it.
"That really sucked," he muttered.
He sat back, staring at the blank computer monitor on the desk across the room. Had he lost the ability to compose music? Had he been out of practice at it so long that he no longer had the knack? How had he begun before, back in the days before National Records, before Shaver and his Bolivian flake cocaine, before national fame and groupies in every city?
"A concept," he said. "I began with a concept."
He let his mind flow over everything he'd been through in the past two years, over everything that had been going on in the world, just and unjust, good and bad. Images and emotions flashed by as if projected by a kaleidoscope, images of Angie and their brief relationship, emotions of leaving her to go on tour and never speaking to her again, never contacting her again. He thought of the giddy elation of leaving Heritage to go to Los Angeles and record their first album, of the thought that they'd actually been signed to a record label, that they were really going to be rock and roll stars. He thought of the gradual realization that was brutally slammed home when the lifestyle of the rock star turned out to be far from what he'd expected. He thought of long bus rides and the boredom that went with them. He thought of the road fatigue that settled in after a few weeks on tour, when you could no longer remember where you were or what day it was. He thought of the absolute thrill of performing on stage in front of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people, of hearing their cheers and adoration. He thought of the groupies he encountered out there, of the difficulty in resisting the primal urges the sight of their young bodies and willing sexuality invoked. He thought of horrid fatigue ridden hangovers after the post-show partying, hangovers that could only be driven back by the hair of the dog, by a few more drinks, by a few lines, a few hits. He thought of Mindy and the raw sexual infatuation she still invoked in him to this day, of the sweltering, drug-like allure of being with her, of touching her, of knowing that she wanted him to touch her, that she craved him as he craved her, of the glorious knowledge that he was fucking a woman that most of America would kill to fuck. And then his mind turned away from his own life and onto other things. He thought of marines in Beirut, blown to pieces by a suicide bomber. He thought of the marines who had survived this bombing being pulled out of Lebanon in response. He thought of other marines in another part of the world, landing in helicopters on the island of Grenada. He thought of a Korean Airlines 747 being blown out of the sky by Russian jet fighters, how the terrified passengers must have endured five or six minutes of still-living, horribly conscious terror before the spinning aircraft mercifully crashed into the sea. He thought of protestors lining up in front of nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons production facilities. He thought of the constant threat of sudden, extinction level nuclear war that hung over the world like a pall.
"Too much," he said, shaking his head, closing his eyes in frustration. "There's too much in there."
He lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly, keeping the guitar on his lap but keeping his hands off of it. Yes, there were too many concepts to consider, too many ideas for him to focus on a single one. Maybe he should just give this up for the night and try again tomorrow. It was obvious that the conditions were not right for composition.
But he didn't get up. Instead, he let his mind go a little bit further, releasing the brakes and restrictions on it, letting it drop into a mode it hadn't been in for two years now. And soon, as it always had back in the day, it picked a concept out of the maelstrom of thoughts and began to focus on it.
It was a pleasant thought, one of the most pleasurable, perhaps the most pleasurable, he'd experienced over the past two years, something he'd experienced every night out on the road. It was the moment when they first stepped onto the stage at each performance, when the lights came on, when the crowd saw them for the first time and they began to play. To Jake, the applause, the screams, the appreciative yells and whistles that took place at this instant of the show were the best, the most gratifying. They were the yells and screams and applause of people that had been waiting for days, weeks even for this moment. And every night, when he heard this, it didn't matter how tired he was, how hungover or pissed off or burned-out, it always brought him to life. It was like... like... like he'd found himself again, his purpose, his reason for being.
"Found myself," he muttered, setting his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. "Yeah."
He picked up the guitar and grabbed the G chord again. He began to pick at the strings, throwing out a simple melody as it formed in his head.
"Found myself," he said, half-singing those words this time.
But it wasn't just that he'd found himself at the moment, was it? No, not at all. It happened every night — every performance anyway. And no matter how many times it did happen, the sensation remained strong, the feeling of finding one's purpose.
"Again," he said. "Found myself again. I've found myself again."
He repeated this phrase, fully singing it now, emphasizing the last word, and strumming out the developing rhythm as he did so. "I've found myself again."
He liked that thought, could see the potential it held. His mind focused more intently on it and while it did so, his fingers continued to strum the melody over and over, twisting it a little, throwing in some chord changes, firming it up. And, as always, the music focused his mind even tighter, letting him recall everything about that moment, letting him put into words exactly what that moment felt like.
"The lights come on..." he sang, slowing the melody a bit. "The lights come on, I hear that roar... and I've found myself again." A furious bit of guitar strumming and then, "I've found myself again!"
He stopped, taking a few breaths, the words he'd just composed running over and over in his head along with the melody.
"Yeah," he whispered, smiling, grinning from ear to ear in fact. "Fuck yeah!"
He set the guitar down and walked over to the desk, pulling open one of the drawers. He took out a pen and a notepad and scratched out the lyrics he had come up with so far. True, it was only thirteen words, but more would soon join it, of that he had every confidence. He knew, of course, that his efforts might be in vain, that the song, the concept he was now working on might end up sucking ass when all was said and done, might end up a balled up piece of paper in the wastebasket, but that didn't matter. He was composing. He hadn't lost it after all.
He went back to the couch, setting the notepad and pen down next to him and picking up the guitar. The melody and the words were still dominating the forefront of his brain. He began to play again, singing out the words he had so far.
"The lights come on, I hear that roar, and I've found myself again. I've found myself again!"
It was twelve-thirty when he finally went to bed. For the past three hours he had sat there on the couch, strumming and singing, thinking and composing, changing and changing back. During that time he didn't smoke, he didn't get up to go to the bathroom, he didn't drink or eat. The notebook, which he locked in the safe next to his marijuana and cocaine, now had the first three pages covered with lyrics and musical notes. The first verse, the chorus, and the beginning of the bridge were already composed.