your knuckles or jacking off. Nothing he does is showy or over the top. It’s simply good. Cal is a star, but for people who don’t like stars.
Nevertheless, watching the show was a roller-coaster ride. The culmination of everything Cal had done and everything I had not, each moment was a forensic study, viewed through a microscope, of Cal’s successes and my failures, his bravery and my fear.
Emotions dipped and swelled inside of me as if they were dancing to the beat of the drums. I experienced everything from respect to resentment, jealousy to pride, anger to overwhelming affection, with a steady stream of saudade and desiderium above it all.
The most crushing moment came after I spent an entire song studying the guy playing lead guitar. While he wasn’t dog shit, he was hardly remarkable, and for the first time in my life I knew for a fact that it really could have been me up there, and the despair that overtook me then made me sick to my stomach.
I still hadn’t spoken to October. By then, I’d convinced myself that our relationship had been a mistake. I was going to call the whole thing off. I didn’t want her. I didn’t care.
And she could feel me crashing, I was sure of it, because she took my hand—to comfort me, to glean information, or both—not minding that Cal was just a few feet from us.
I pulled away with a sharp jolt and hissed something unkind at her. And for a long time afterward it wrecked me that I couldn’t remember what had come out of my mouth, because it was the last thing I’d said to her before I left.
The drizzle was picking up, and although we were under cover of the stage, sheltered from the rain, it was cold enough that when October spoke I could see her breath in the air.
“Let’s go back downstairs and talk.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and pretended I hadn’t heard her.
In other words, my destiny had come full circle.
I’d reverted back to the shithead I was when our story began.
For the first half of the show, Cal had a four-piece band backing him. About an hour in they left, and he played a solo set. Three songs later he thanked the audience and exited the stage.
Wyatt scuttled up beside me, animated, as we waited for Cal’s encore. “Chris tells me you’re quite a guitar player. Favorite acoustic—Martin or Gibson?”
I gave Wyatt what Cal would have called a guitarded answer—his made-up, politically incorrect term for when we geeked out on guitars. “Most Gibsons are more brittle sounding to me; I grew up playing a Martin, so they hold a special place in my heart. My Martin grabs every note I touch and hands it to me like a gift.”
Wyatt shook his head. “You can’t be sloppy on a Martin.”
“Oh, sure you can. Have you seen Mr. Callahan play one?” I laughed. “That’s his intent though. His is the warmest slop there is.”
The crowd was chanting Cal’s name, and he walked back onto the stage with a bottle of water in his hand. He set the water down on the drum riser, went to the mic, and said, “I’ll keep playing as long as you guys don’t mind hanging out in the rain.”
Another eruption of applause. Behind Cal, two crewmembers were setting up stools and guitar stands. Justin the guitar tech ran over to Wyatt, they spoke briefly, and Justin ran off again.
Cal wiped his face with the bottom of his T-shirt and extended his arm out to the side, in the direction of where October, Wyatt, and I were standing. “Got a special treat for you tonight. That is, if I can convince my buddy to come out and play with me.”
Cal started waving me over, and I felt myself retreating backward, shaking my head.
Wyatt said, “Don’t be shy,” and dragged me toward Cal, and before I knew it I was standing in the middle of the stage.
Justin came over with Cal’s stunning 1964 Gibson Dove and a beautifully battered 1949 Martin D-13 I’d never seen. He placed them on the stands beside the stools.
“Say hello to my brother from another mother,” Cal shouted. “Joe Harper, ladies and gentlemen.”
Eighty-five hundred people cheered, and I didn’t dare look over to see if October was one of them.
While Justin adjusted the mic stands in front of the stools, I turned to Cal and said, “I can’t do this.”