a loud, sweeping crash, the final thud actually a symphony of thudding, because a skyscraper tree doesn’t fall in isolation. It catches other branches and trees, often dragging down whatever its weight can raze.
That’s the soundtrack I heard in my head throughout my last day in California. I was a rotten redwood, weak enough for the wind to knock me over. But instead of falling by myself, I was going to take my friends—the ones whose roots were helping to keep me stable—down too.
The night before the show I slept in my apartment. It was the first time I’d stayed there in weeks, but I had an asinine notion that if I didn’t, Cal would be able to smell the bed, his pillow, his girlfriend on me, and I wanted to delay the inevitable for as long as I could.
Before I left that morning, I stopped by the house to see October. I made cappuccinos, and we drank them in heavy silence. I couldn’t look at her, and she wouldn’t stop looking at me. She didn’t think it was a good idea for me to pick up Cal, but I told her it was important to me, and she let it go.
I was rinsing out my mug when she said, “I forgot to show you something yesterday.” She handed me her phone, open to a photo album. “It didn’t seem right to take it from the dirt, but I snapped a few shots.”
The pictures were of the folded piece of paper she’d found in the middle of the labyrinth, the one she’d been pointing out to me. On the front, someone had written: READ THIS. The note inside said: I miss you more than you know, my brother. But every day I feel your energy and hope you feel mine. I love you and do my best to help. One day you’ll find the strength to make right all that you’ve wronged. One day you’ll understand.
“What the fuck,” I mumbled, shaken.
“Maybe it’s a sign.”
Of course it was a sign. But if I’ve learned anything from Sam, it’s that signs are only helpful if you have the guts to follow them.
October tried to put her arms around me, but I stepped away and said, “I have to go.”
As I turned to leave, she said, “Joe, everything’s going to be all right.”
I nodded, but by then I was already starting to doubt it.
I got to the airport absurdly early and had to wait in the cell phone lot for more than thirty minutes before Cal texted to say he was walking off the plane. Much like the day before, the weather was cool, damp, and gray, and as I pulled up to the curb I had to turn on my wipers in order to spot Cal when he came out.
He exited through the sliding glass doors carrying a small leather duffle bag with shiny silver hardware, and he made a beeline for my truck, ducking into the passenger’s seat headfirst like a linebacker about to make a tackle. Right away he thanked me for picking him up, his face dewy from the few seconds he’d been outside.
“That’s all the luggage you have? You’ve been gone for months.”
“Most of my stuff is on the bus. Band and crew drove up from San Diego after last night’s show.”
As I headed toward the freeway, I could feel Cal peering at the side of my face. He shook his head, laughed, and said, “It still trips me out to see you all grown up.”
I tried to think of something to say, but my head was a clogged drain, all my words clumps of hair in the pipes, and I thought, I was mute when Cal and I started our friendship, and it looks like I’ll be mute the day it ends.
Cal was in a talkative mood and didn’t notice. And he had October on the brain. He reclined his seat, rubbed his face, and said, “It’s been a long month, bro. She and I have barely spoken. I call her and instead of calling back she texts. It’s bullshit. I mean where is she that she can’t talk to me?”
It wasn’t a rhetorical question. He looked to me for an answer.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Cal.”
“Fuck. I know.” He fiddled with the radio, couldn’t find anything he wanted to listen to, and shut it off with a smack. “Has she said anything about what’s going on with us?” But then he waved me off.