Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

926 I ADVANCE MASKED

"Yeah."

"You're both looking a lot healthier than you did in September."

"Both of us, really?"

"Really. I think Ziggy does better when you do better. It's hard to explain."

"Is that what codependent means?"

"Um, no, not exactly. Ask your therapist about that."

Her phone rang then, and she picked it up. I decided I should wander out to find Ziggy and leave her alone to take the call. I left Wonder Woman standing next to the tissue box with her arms raised in triumph, but somehow it just made her look like she was about to do a cartwheel.

I didn't get far before I heard her say Remo's name, though. I stopped outside her office door and listened, even if that was probably rude. The conversation was short, though, and when she hung up I stuck my head back in. "What's up?"

She shrugged. "That was Remo. He...kind of seemed like maybe he was trying to ask about your availability for a gig without coming right out and asking. Like, he wanted to know how your rehab is going but you know how he is. He won't push."

A pang of guilt itched at the back of my throat. "I owe him a call. I haven't caught up with him in a while."

"Oh. No wonder he was so cagey. Although you'd think he would know by now to just say hey, tell Daron to get off his ass and call me. You want to call him back now?"

I checked the time. "Nah. We're supposed to catch a train in a little while. I'll call him when I get home tonight."

"He's on the road. Here's the number." She tore a piece of notepaper off a pad and handed it to me. I folded it up and put it in my leather jacket breast pocket.

Ziggy and I left for Penn Station a little while later. The afternoon commute hadn't really heated up yet, but Penn Station was always busy. Ziggy was in his stealth mode, wearing a black baseball cap slightly sideways, the lightest amount of eyeliner possible, and a gray hoodie under his leather jacket. As we took seats in the Amtrak waiting area, Ziggy looked around like a skittish cat.

"I still think we could have taken a limo."

"For what the train costs for the two of us, the limo wouldn't even get us to the Connecticut border," I said. I felt weird not carrying a guitar. I kept having these little moments of panic that I had laid it down somewhere and forgotten it, so I was a little nervous-feeling, too, but not for the same reason.

"We're only saving like two hundred, two fifty? I can afford that, dear one."

"I know you can. But that's two hundred and fifty bucks we could spend on something else. Hell, that buys a nice second-hand guitar."

He smiled, holding in a snicker. "That's the Daron measure of currency. How many guitars can it buy?"

We got onto the train without incident. The ride through Connecticut was pretty. Winter was about to arrive but some colorful leaves were still clinging to the trees, and the train line goes right along the beaches and shore a few places. Around New Haven it started to snow. Ziggy fell asleep with his head on my shoulder and I spent an hour or so just watching out the window at the scenery going by, hearing the soundtrack in my head. Today it was playing I Advance Masked by Robert Fripp and Andy Summers. I had pretty well burned it into my memory note for note by hundreds of repeated listenings when it first came out.

It was one of the few things I knew that well and that I also had never tried to play. It wasn't that I didn't have the skill: it's that those performances of improvised guitar duets really can't be recreated. It's impossible to tell on I Advanced Maskedwhich parts were improvised and which were composed, which were played together and which were overdubs on separate tracks. It's incredibly complex music sonically, and yet it's built on "simple" parts and rhythms, layered on.

I was getting the itch to play around with notes again, to find riffs and put them together. To write music. Okay. I guess I did miss it. I guess I hadn't lost the urge completely. My muse wasn't dead.

Good. That was a relief. I started doing my finger exercises against the window as some snow began to fall. It was a quiet moment of peace in the world and in my soul.

Which was good, because given what was about to come down the pike at us, I was going to need to hang onto that nugget of centered calm for as long as I could.

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(One of the rare chapters where the best title for it was the song mentioned in it. Apparently there are only grainy versions of this video available. Even Andy Summers' official channel doesn't have a good copy...)