Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

976 On a Plain

She clucked her tongue again, but her tone softened. "I know. I know. I'm sorry. I guess I'm just out of deal after spending a week with these people."

These people who happened to be our closest relatives. Yeah. "I don't know why you let yourself get so sucked into all that. I just stayed out of it."

Her tone sharpened right back up. "Let. Myself."

"I know it's hard, but–"

"You claim to be more functional emotionally now but, Daron, pretending to be dead from the knees up is not what I call emotionally functional."

"What?"

"Never mind. I just could have used a lot more support than I got from you this week, okay?"

"Support?" Another truck was too close behind us now and I put our own hazard lights on to try to give him a clue. "What do you mean, support?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean. Take my side in an argument for once, would you?"

"But why get into the argument in the first place? All Claire and Janine know how to do is pick fights. Why the fuck would I participate in that?"

"So you think you're above it all. You're immune."

"Wasn't that the whole point of growing up? Not to mention running away?"

"Oh, like running away was such a mature thing for us to have done. Well, I guess you technically had an excuse."

"I would have taken any excuse to get out of there, though, Court. I was just lucky my escape was semi-approved."

"Lucky and talented."

"And you were both ballsy and smart enough to realize you just had to get the fuck out." Shit, I suddenly realized we were at the airport exit and now I needed to get over. I hoped no one was being stupid and passing on the right because of the trucks being slow, because there was no way I would be able to see anything coming given how I was sandwiched in. "Court, listen. You did the right thing getting out of there. The mess Claire's in now is just proof of that. Well, I mean, not the cancer part, but you know what I mean."

She stewed on that for a minute while I got us onto the off-ramp, nearly put the car in a ditch but didn't, and then got onto the access road. She finally said, "Yeah. I guess it'll be good to get away for a little to clear my head."

"Yeah. Look. You're still super young. Four years ago I didn't appreciate just how fucking young I was, but now I do."

"You're not doing a very good job of avoiding the dad vibe here, you know..."

"I know, but just, look. If there's one thing I've learned it's that relationships can't work if people don't know what they want and can't be honest about it with each other. I had to go through it with Jonathan and with Ziggy–okay, I'm still going through it with Ziggy–but I think that goes for anyone you love. Family, too." Shit. I realized I'd actually gotten off one exit too soon. Hopefully that just meant we were now on the cargo road to the back of the airport. "I get that I'm apparently not being the brother you want me to be right now, but it'd help if you could tell me what you want. Besides wanting me to fight with people."

"So you'll fight with me, but not them?"

"I fight with you about stuff I actually care about. It's not worth fighting with Claire about artificial sweetener or... or... whatever."

"Yeah, yeah," she said, and looked out the window in the gray storm and mist at what I hoped was a long, flat area of runway and not just a cow pasture or something. "I still don't get why you're pushing me away."

"I'm not pushing you away! I would love for you to work for me. Hell, I've been supporting you for a couple of years already. At least then you'd earn your keep?"

She at least chuckled at that.

"Yeah, I'm stressed out and worried that it's hard enough to make a living in the music industry for one person, and that trying to support two might be too much." And never mind that Ziggy was technically worth enough right now to buy and sell the whole Marks family four or five times over, and Remo was worth ten times that much. I didn't want to count on any of that. "Until I find out what the hell I'm actually doing for the next year to eighteen months, I won't know what to tell you, either."

"Yeah, I get that. I do." She sighed. "I'm just feeling a little under-appreciated right now."

"Okay, how's this. I think it's awesome, if slightly intimidating, that you studied the entertainment business and did an internship at a record company just so you could help me. It really, really had not occurred to me that I was worth that much. And you know I don't mean monetary worth."

"Yeah, if your monetary worth was higher, Digger might've stuck around," she joked darkly and we both had a chuckle at that. "My God. He extorted the money out of Lili. I still can't get over that."

"I can't either." Unbrainwashing my oldest sister was going to have to be someone else's job for sure. Meanwhile, yes, that was definitely the shape of a plane I saw through the sleet and freezing rain. Hallelujah. "Anyway, what I was trying to say was I just want you to be happy, Court. Having you on my side is one of the best things that's happened and by far the best thing I've gotten out of the Marks family. I think your ideas are smart and you're undoubtedly right about the... the... About how underrated the artist-audience connection is." I wasn't able to come up with the buzzwords about "direct monetization" right then. "And I am on your side in every way that matters. But look how stressed out all the fights this week have made you. I just think it's a good thing I stayed out of it."

She said nothing to that. Maybe there was a bit of a shrug. I'm not sure since I was looking at the signposts telling me to keep right to enter the airport.

Here's the thing. I know I have a strong ability to fool myself. Sometimes it's a self-preservation move. Sometimes the only way to get out of a bad situation is to ignore the building burning down around you. But I also know that if you ignore the flames too long, you get trapped. So how do you tell the difference between when you're doing okay and when you're pretending you're doing okay? I really thought I hadn't been strongly affected by all the conflict among my sisters and mother. I was downright smug that I hadn't gotten sucked into their bullshit.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that I was wrong.

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Folks! We are coming up fast on DGC's 9th anniversary!
Join me Thursday, November 1st for a long overdue online chat to kick off the anniversary month!
From 8pm – 9pm eastern Daron will chat in the chat room here on the DGC site! (It's the blue "chat" tab on the far right if you're on a desktop browser and the little speech bubble if you're on mobile.)
From 9pm – 10pm eastern I will livestream, answer questions, read a little, tell stories... and maybe reveal some interesting surprises? URL forthcoming!
Check back in throughout the month for more special stuff, too. :-)
-ctan