Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 6

409 LEARNING TO FLY

LEARNING TO FLY

So what do you do when you wake up after the apocalypse and find you're still alive?

If you're me, you jot down notes for a song about the end of the world. I was still too drained and wrecked to actually work on it though. I hoped the notes would make sense later.

Sometimes I look at pages in my notebook and I wonder what the hell I was thinking. Since the purpose of the note is supposed to be to remind me what I was thinking, it's frustrating when they don't. "Double-knotted shoelaces." That's in the margin of one set of lyrics. It's underlined twice like I thought it was important at the time.

I mentioned this to Bart once, way back when we were first writing songs together, in Providence. "I mean, I wrote it, shouldn't I know what it means?"

He had shrugged and said, "Maybe you're not the same person you were when you made the note."

I wondered, staring at the ceiling that morning in Remo's house, if Ziggy was ever the same person twice.

I could hear the television from the living room, and also Jonathan's voice, like he was on the phone.

I got myself together. Washed my face. My hair was damp. I barely remembered taking a shower before I'd gotten in bed. I still had that feeling like there was nothing left of me. No energy, no emotions, no thoughts, no ideas.

Well, okay, I had that one idea. I looked at the notebook again and jotted down a few more words. I put clean clothes on. It was going to be time to do laundry soon. It was very hard to care about that but at least I noticed, right?

Out in the living room Jonathan was facing the TV with the cordless phone on his shoulder. "I'm letting him sleep as late as possible. He was in bad shape last night."

I had a feeling he was talking to Carynne. How did I know that? Something about the tone of his voice.

"This whole thing has just wrecked him. I mean, what a one-two punch, right? First the BNC bullshit and now this?" He nodded, listening to the reply. "Who, me? I'm doing fine. It's hard to see him like this, but at least I'm here where I can help. Has there been any other news? Okay. I'll tell him to call you when he gets up. Yeah, I'll tell him."

He clicked off the phone and then turned the volume back up on the television. The MTV news was just coming on. Their slogan was, "You hear it first." I was half expecting them to mention Ziggy. But no, they were talking about something else and I quit paying attention partway through. J. changed the channel. CNN.

They were reporting that ten people had been killed, mostly teenagers studying music at the Royal Marine Academy in Kent, in an IRA bombing. The bomb blast had been so strong that an entire three story building, the barracks rec center, was destroyed. Most of those killed had been rehearsing at the time.

I wondered what piece they were rehearsing. Like it mattered. "Holy fuck. Kind of puts my problems in perspective, doesn't it?"

Jonathan whipped around. "You're awake."

"For the moment, anyway."

"Carynne's desperate to talk to you." He muted the TV.

"I bet she is."

"She heard from Ziggy."

That gave me a jolt. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. He sent a statement, anyway. Looks like it went to her and to Digger, a fax, from London, during the flight's stopover in Heathrow."

"Statement?"

"It's less of a letter and more of a PR statement. Call her and she'll read it to you." He handed me the phone.