my shoulder and said, “Harp, you could do this upside down in a tub full of molasses, and you know it.”
He grabbed the Gibson, sat down, and motioned for me to sit. And God knows what the expression on my face was, because Cal looked at me and burst out laughing. That made me laugh too, because when Cal gut-laughed he looked like the kid in the photo he’d shown me earlier, and for a brief moment it was as though I’d stepped back in time, to 1996, to open mic night at The Sweetwater.
Before I sat down I took out my phone and snapped a couple photos for Ingrid—one of the crowd, and a quick selfie of me and Cal, because I knew it would mean something to her to see me up there beside him, for what I guessed was going to be the first and last time.
I thought of my brother then. I searched for his presence in the sky, in the rain, in the roar of the crowd, and I really and truly felt it. Then I wondered what Bob would have made of me up on that stage, and I knew in my bones that I had something to prove. To my father or to myself, I wasn’t sure.
“Let’s do this,” I said to Cal.
I pulled off my shoes and socks and took a moment to feel the cool, damp softness of the rug beneath my feet. Then I sat down and picked up the Martin. And I felt Sam there too. Inside the guitar. In the strings. In my hands. In my fingertips. In my heart.
I looked at Cal and said, “The usual?”
He nodded, grinning.
I counted to four and we both hit our D chords in unison.
The rest of the performance is a blur. I have no recollection of whether it sounded good or bad. I only know it felt like magic. And repatriation. And when we put down our guitars and stood up, the clapping and cheering surged through my bloodstream like a drug.
Cal took my hand and held it up in the air as if I’d just won a boxing match. “One more time, give it up for Joe Harper.”
I glanced at October then. Her palms were pressed together underneath her chin, frozen in mid-clap, and her face was blank, as if she was unable to find an existing expression for what she’d just witnessed.
Behind us, Wyatt was ushering the choir onto the stage for the last song. Another crewmember dashed over and picked up the acoustic guitars. Justin walked out and handed Cal his 1966 Olympic white Jazzmaster.
I remember Cal smiling at me, lofty, proud, and emotional, like he thought we’d just accomplished something momentous together. Justin nodded for me to follow him off the stage, and I bent down to grab my shoes and socks. As I stood back up, I saw something shifting in Cal. He was focused on the ground, and the joy was draining from his face, his features seeming to absorb it like butter melting into a piece of warm bread.
At first Cal only seemed confused. Then I saw something click.
I looked back down at the ground, trying to identify what had triggered him. That’s when I realized he wasn’t looking at the ground. He was staring at my feet. My toes. The little animals October had painted on them.
The rest of the band had returned, and Justin was now pulling me by the arm, trying to get me out of the way before the last song began.
Cal’s hands began to shake. His jaw pulsed, and his eyes darted back and forth from my feet to my face, searching for something that might suggest he’d come to the wrong conclusion.
A long line of lights went on above us, so bright they illuminated the rain. I swore I could make out every drop, and I remember having a strange, momentary insight that raindrops weren’t drops at all, they were sharp, vertical lines, like little knives of water falling from the sky.
Cal’s hawk eyes locked on mine. His face was like a piece of petrified wood.
“You,” he said, with a disappointment violent enough to feel like a punch.
And then the blue robes of the choir overtook me like a flight of western scrub jays. Justin had me by the shoulders now, and he dragged me and didn’t let me go until we’d made it to the outdoor lounge, where the afterparty was already in full swing.
I didn’t know