I said, "So, you know the whole story, right? About whatever happened to her on the rez?"
I had just let him listen to part of that song Wyatt sent me, while we sat at the big bar in one corner of his big living room. Sexy apartment in the sky, he had. One of the new, swanky buildings downtown. He was so different from Duke.
He said, "Not my place to tell, man. I'm sorry. But when she wants you to know she'll tell you."
I sighed and let that sink in. And then I asked him, "What's in that glass?"
He held up the little gold rimmed shot glass and said, "Red Breast. Dream Cask. Shit sold out in a few hours when they finally released it. Two bottles a minute, they sold, at $594 a pop."
"You're kidding me."
"Nope. My guy got it for me. One who gets us the good stuff for The Club. He's a member of their little online clique or whatever, so he got the heads up in advance."
"So pour me one."
He watched me for a minute, then grabbed a little glass, poured a little bit in it and handed it over.
It was kind of bittersweet, but it still burned going down. So I sort of coughed and then I laughed at myself and said, "Okay, not the best idea I've had all day."
Rick chuckled and said, "Apparently."
And then he sighed and said, "Look, he's kinda right, that principal guy. You bring up a lotta memories that were dead and buried. And then again, you make her feel like it could be different one day. Like there's hope."
"Don't we need hope?"
"Dude, what's she hoping for with you? Why would you even want her to do that?"
That was direct enough. Which meant they'd gone pretty deep, him and Wyatt. I wasn't surprised, just a little unnerved that it was out there, you know? That she'd been totally honest with him. More honest with him than with me, even. In a way.
"Okay, aside from the...other stuff, she could have a killer career," I said. "She could help create something that she'd be proud of for the rest of her life."
"Colton, the woman would be working with you. The whole time, she'd be watching you and Kendall out...truckin' around, saving the planet. Who wants to do that?"
"C'mon! That's...she'd be working with those people we found who build schools and all that. It'd be pretty much her running the show, not me."
He leaned on his arms on the bar and said, "Look, you...have it all. You do. If all this stuff went away today, you'd still have me, Joie, the girls and now Kendall, too. And life would go on pretty much as it always has and you'd be just fine, right?"
"So?"
He sighed and said, "All the women you've ever been with, except for Kendall, they all realized sooner or later that you didn't need them."
"They knew me when I first drove up, though, those ones. It wasn't ever, like...I mean, we were mostly..."
"What?"
"You know what the deal was. It wasn't built to last, what we had. I wasn't the man of their dreams, I was just this little wise ass they got a kick out of."
He sipped the last of his Red Breast, poured himself another and said, "Exactly. You were like this...wild horse they'd corralled but couldn't keep. Real nice to look at and wonder about. One helluva ride, too, of course. But this time, it's different. This time, you're chasing the wild horse. You're both wild, actually. But one of you is injured and the other one's got a mate. A good one, too--why isn't that enough, I wonder?"
"Whoa--wait. Who says she's not?"
He gave me a real wise guy smile and said, "Well, if she is, what are we havin' this conversation for?"
The challenge in his eyes just then, that was a new experience for me. He wasn't scolding me, he was just calling me out.
And I said, "I love that girl."
"Which one?" he asked. Another "ouch."
"The one I married, numb nuts. The one I'm with."
And he smiled and said, "Now we're getting somewhere."
"You knew that."
"Oh, but there's all kinda love. Kendall is your training wheel love. The love you learn with. And those training wheels are gonna fly off one day, so you'll be kinda wobbly for a while after that."
"Okay..."
"Wyatt's been riding without 'em for a real long time. Fell off a few times, skinned herself up pretty bad. So the one thing she doesn't need is somebody who's still learning how to work the thing."
"Was it that bad? Whatever it was?"
He chuckled and gave me a pat on the shoulder.
"Life's bad, man," he said. "For some people. Most people, from time to time. It doesn't have to be some big disaster. It can be an accumulation of little ones, even. Wears you down. But the point is, you got your disaster out of the way young. And you're boppin' along now, you're doin' the work, you're killin' it out here. Just as she's deciding all she wants is a rocking chair on a porch in...what? Sedona, maybe. Staring at the red mesas, blue sky. You may need that someday, but right now, you are burnin' rubber, son."
"So you know exactly how she feels, right? About me?"
He screwed the top back on the bottle. Kind of held the bottle up, like he was admiring it before he went to put it back in it's special place on the shelf.
And then he said, "Oh, yeah. But it didn't freak me out as much as it freaked her out. She's all kinda conflicted."
He gave me that smile again, then. And said, "I kept telling her that you weren't like other boys, but..."
"And the girls know?" I asked. "I mean, they really know?"
He just glared at me as if to say, "Duh."
So I checked my emotions for a minute. They seemed to be settling down. And they settled on one thing:
"Kendall's...everything," I said. "And she knows about Wyatt. Better than me, she knows. But she also knows she's mine. And I'm hers. Not a moment of doubt in her mind."
"Yeah, Kendall's got your number for sure. Gotta give her props, man. And it's not just that do-gooder thing in you that loves her, either. She's...well, everything, like you say."
Something about that made him laugh a little bit. And he said, "I like just looking at you guys. The way you smile sometimes--I never believed in it. That kinda love. But I'm seeing it. And it looks good on you two. I gotta admit that. You make a man want some o' that shit."
"And your guy can't buy that for you, either."
He leaned on the bar again and said, "And since you know that, once this prom shit's done, cut the cord. I'm serious. Let 'er go."
I paused to let that sink in. And he said, "Need another shot to take the edge off?"
"I'm good. No, wait--hit me."
He got the bottle back down and poured for us both. Raised his glass to me.
"To doin' the right thing," he said.
I clinked my glass to his and then downed the shot in one gulp. It didn't hurt so much. The whiskey. The decision...I'm not gonna lie. It didn't go down so smooth.
But I just sighed and said, "What kept you up so late last night, though?"
He smiled and let me get away with that segue.
"Got a call. Kinda like the one you told me about, but...a little more forceful."
"Friendly."
"Says we're stonewalling."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Avoiding him. Not taking him seriously. And to show us he means business, he called up our politician friend Joe talkin' about some info he had that could help his campaign, you know? That he was friends with Duke and knew some things about what'd happened to Duke---didn't rat us out. But Joe contacted Duke, wanting to verify the connection. And you have to wonder what all he actually does know that we don't. He had his finger in a lotta pies, that guy."
"You think he'll tell what he knows?"
Rick smiled and said, "If he does, it won't be what you know."
"For real?"
"We put a little spin on it. Lots of spins on it. He couldn't know the whole deal straight. We couldn't risk it."
He winked and said, "You've seen Duke do that. That thing he did with Joe."
That made me laugh. It was like Three Card Monte with words.
So I said, "What about that Petrov guy?"
"God, he's a slippery mother fucker, too. JJ got a call from him finally. He's in Greece or something. On a boat. At the last minute some guy he knew had him smuggled outta here. It sounds like a movie, that story. They sorta shipped him outta the country. In a big...container or something."
I had to laugh again. And he laughed, too.
"He's just some little Ukrainian guy, you know? Or he was. I mean, just some thug who did dirty work for Putin and sorta moved up in the organization gradually until something went wrong. Took what he learned, built himself a little empire elsewhere. Which also went wrong. So he winds up in a container on a boat headed for Greece."
I laughed and said, "A JJ story."
"Boy, that's true. You get that guy going, he'll tell you stuff you couldn't even make into a movie. Nobody'd believe a minute of it. But, listen...I wanna take you somewhere."
"Oh, that wasn't it? The Friendly thing?"
"It was, but the more I think about it...I dunno. I think it was the tone of voice, you know? He sounded sorta crazy."
"I told you that."
"Well, we're gonna hook him up. He wants Vegas, he'll get Vegas. Not with us yet, but JJ's got this friend who can give him a job over there in security or something. And I sent him some funds, for the family. And so he could pay his bills and whatnot. He starts blubbering, right? It was some messy shit, man. He goes from damned near tryin'a blackmail my ass to blubbering about what a standup guy I am."
"What do you want, Richard?" I said, kind of teasing him by using his whole name like Wyatt.
He downed the rest of his whiskey and said, "How do you mean?"
"What do you want? For yourself?"
He laughed and said, "That changes every few minutes, man. I'm not like you'n' Duke. I'm restless. Like those people who climb Everest and shit. There's always another mountaintop--did you see Lurleen, by the way?"
The whole drive to where he was taking me, he told me about what he saw for Lurleen. A whole "empire," that would start small with the grocery stores and restaurants and stuff.
I said, "So Danny's gonna be a rich kid, too one day, right?"
"I dunno. They're kinda nuts, the whole family, to be honest. So anything could happen. I could see them totally fuckin' up the whole thing, or spendin' all the money some weird way, but..."
"I can't get over how easily they just accepted her," I said. "Big as she is."
"See, I like that she's big like that," he told me. "I like how she's totally what everybody looks down on and then she flips it upside down. She's that other America people make fun of, but she's sharp as a tack. One liners, she comes up with! Those country things that Duke'll come out with sometimes, too. You ask him where he got somethin' and he'll say, 'The gettin' place,' right? I love that shit!"
"I love that you're all revved up about it like that."
"That's what I mean," he said. "My mind just runs and runs--here we are! Check this out!"
He pulled over at this huge warehouse looking building and pointed to the sort of fancy decoration up over the doors and windows.
"What do you think?" Rick asked me.
I shaded my eyes to look all the way up and said, "What is it?"
"Buncha hippies tried to make it into a market like it says up there. A co-op, organic, all kinda fresh produce and stuff. But it just didn't fly."
"So the building's for sale."
"Yep. It's massive! A whole city block. And the buildings behind it we can have, too. I sent the info to JJ and the J Squad. I'm thinking living space up top, for when you're in town, you know? Maybe Nia and some others'll hang here permanently. Depends whether you want her with you all the time or not."
"I don't see why in this day and age."
"It's a lifestyle thing. The closer she is to you the closer she is to you. Think about it."
"Joie has her own place and we're still close. So do you."
"Duke's assistant lives on the place and they almost never even talk, except in the morning first thing," Rick said. "Or when he wanders in and out of her office."
"It's just...I want us to have places where there's no business. Even if I love the people I'm doing business with."
"Heard. But this right here--let's take a look."
He knew some code to get us in. And when we got in, I was stunned. It was all what you call Art Nouveau--I learned that later, of course. The "hippies" had restored a lot of the ground floor, which was a pretty much wide open space but the walls and windows, they were beautiful.
"We can put in some more walls and make offices, maybe. But some of the stuff you'll be doing would need to open spaces. There's two floors like this. Used to park their vehicles in 'em. Second floor, there's this ramp like in a parking lot. For the trucks to go down."
"What was it before they made it a market?"
"Few things. Trucking company, a bunch of different kindsa companies just renting space, factory--but that was a real long time ago. You got eight floors. Top three, I'm thinking would be living space. And you and Kendall would get the eighth floor, with access to the roof. There's this sort hothouse looking thing up there, like a sun room or something. And all kinds of space around it. You could have a whole party patio."
"I like that it's near Fourth Avenue," I said. "Near all the cool shops and cafes and stuff. We could hit the bars sometimes, after work, even. Hear some music..."
"They'd really like to make a deal, the owners. Cause the thing about this part o' town is, they buy and then they can't make it work 'cause there's not a lotta walk in type of traffic over here. And people have gotten wind of that, so they're being sort of skittish, the buyers. But you're not running a walk-in sort of business. So they figure you might be serious."
He took me to these elevators that opened horizontally. The designs on them were like the ones on the front of the building. And they "broke" into equal sort of mirror images of each other when the elevator doors opened, except that the bottom piece was like the top piece flipped upside down.
Imagine a drawing a diamond shape--a rhombus--on a piece of paper, and then cutting it in half. That's what I'm trying to say.
We headed for the office areas that had been used by the previous owner, I could see the way the offices were all off a central hallway. And then there was a large space at the back that looked like it'd been a break room or something, too. I got all into the light fixtures and whatnot.
I said, "This could be, like...a big meeting space where we could all get together and just chill and talk about what we're doing. At the end of the day, I mean. I'd like to have something like that happen at least a few times a week. Is that even a thing?"
"You make the rules, man," Rick said. "But I'm hearing a Theory Z kinda vibe."
"What theory?"
He Googled it right up and handed it to me:
William Ouchi made a comparative study of the Japanese and the American management practices and put forward a theory, called 'Theory 'Z'; which is an attempt to comine the best features of Japanese and American styles of management.
William Ouchi's Theory 'Z' features:
(i) Mutual trust and openness
According to Ouchi there should be mutual trust among employees, supervisors, work-groups, unions and management. In fact, trust and openness are closely related. When trust and openness exist in an organization; chances of conflict are reduced to the minimum. Thus trust and openness are the hallmarks of an effective organization.
(ii) Strong bond between organization and employees:
In order to make employees loyal and committed to the organization, there must exist a strong bond (strong connection) between organization and employees.
To ensure and achieve this strong bond, the following management practices may be adopted:
1. Life-time employment of employees, avoiding retrenchment, lay-off etc.
2. Promotions based on seniority; making people stay waiting for their chance of advancement.
3. Concern for employees (Taking care of health, welfare of employees and paying attention to their personal problems.).
(iii) Collective decisions-making:
To elicit commitment of employees, it is desirable that employees are involved in the decision-making process. In Z type of organization, decisions are taken collectively by managers and employees; specially on matters affecting employees directly.
In some cases, however, only suggestions may be taken from employees and decision-taken by management on its own. Under the system of collective decision-making, decisions may be slow but their implementation is fast.
(iv) Free-form organizational structure:
Theory Z supposes no formal structure for the organization. The structure should be based on team-work and co-operation with sharing of information, resources and plan. Ouchi has given the example of a basketball team which plays well together and solves all problems with no formal reporting relationships and minimum of specialization of position and tasks.
(v) Role of facilitator and coordinator for management and paternalistic leadership:
Managers must play the role of a facilitator and coordinator of the actions of people, comprised in their work-groups. They must act as paternalistic leaders and create a family type environment in a work situation.
(vi) Common culture:
To foster mutual understanding, excellent human relations and co-operation in an organization, theory Z emphasises on common culture e.g. same uniform for employees irrespective of designation, common canteen for all etc.
(vii) Informal controls:
Managers should reduce their reliance on formal controls. Controls should rather be informal and flexible. There should be free flow of information in the organization; so that corrective action may be taken quickly, whenever needed.
(viii) Human resource development:
Theory Z lays greater emphasis on human resource development.
For this purpose, following strategies may be adopted:
1. Horizontal movement of employees to remove stagnation
2. Job enlargement
3. Career planning.
4. Training and development, etc.
And I said, "I'm not down with the uniforms and stuff, but the rest of it is damned near like I wrote it myself."
"It does sound like you," he said, sort of nodding like he was really taking that in. "I learned it in those classes I finally took. It's sort of project-based. Like, each team is working on a particular thing, like with a movie crew or something, you know? Each person has a particular role in the project, a particular skill. So nobody's more important than somebody else. So you've really got to be in love with each other or at least the project you're doing. I think it can work for the kind of things you you want to do. Music and movies and things like that. The Foundation would almost go that way naturally, too, I think. The kinda people who'd want to be involved in that, they're going to gravitate toward that kind of vibe."
"So what would I be doing? I mean, just...I'm trying to picture it in my head."
He went to see if he could crank one of the windows open. The little crank thing was so old and rusty from not being used for so long that he couldn't get it to budge. So he just leaned against the wall again.
And said, "Elon Musk does a version of it. I know he's suspect right now, but it's still a pretty cool approach. There's all this open space, all these cubicles but people walk around, talk to each other, help each other. And he walks around like one of the employees. Knows all their names, sits down at the computer with them, working things out. So he's the boss, but he's also a co-conspirator, you know? He's in on the jokes instead of the butt of the jokes. That's how I see it. There's videos of him playing with crazy shit they've made just to figure out something else--a flame thrower, they made once, because they needed to work out something on one or his rockets I guess. And that was the best way to see that in action. And then they sold flame throwers for a while, just for fun. So there's a video of him chasing people with one of those things--they weren't lethal or anything, but they did shoot a pretty good flame."
"That'd be dope as hell."
"Time consuming. Cause it's all about feels. Kumbaya stuff. People bringing their dogs to work'n' all that."
"I'll bring my baby, then. That'd be fun, you know? People would probably get a kick out of that. That I brought my kid with me."
"Yeah, you'll need a day care center and a playground--you could have a pre-school, even. Since you're so into education and whatnot."
"God, that's so cool! I like this!"
Rick laughed and said, "I can just see it. The whole building'll be your house. People lounging in the living room one minute and downstairs coding the next."
"Word. That's just what I want. The ranch for chillin', but this place...I want people to be all excited about the work here. Work they want to do."
"Well, you're gonna have to school the suits. Duke's guys and JJ's guys, they're comin' from hella traditional corporate shit. So they're going to need some people who've done it your way and done it well to help them work it through."
"Couldn't we just start with the people who've done it my way?"
He went and leaned on a wall beneath a big old window. Said, "Financial stuff and legal stuff, you're gonna want Old School at least at first. You'll need them to crack the whip, so people don't hear about the way you do things and think they can just blow you off. Think about, like...well, newspapers and magazines. There's the creative people, who do all the writing and photography and design, and then, maybe in another building even, there's the finance and marketing departments. Totally different worlds."
"But I don't want them to be like that. I want the creative people and the number crunchers to be into it the same way."
"You can do that. But you need people who don't necessarily wanna sit in the circle and share. Respect that. And stand up for them, too. If a guy brings his laptop and wants to keep checking today's totals and stuff during the gabfest, let 'im do it."
I stood there sort of looking around at everything--the really sharp light fixtures, especially. And then I said, "I'm gonna hate firing people most. I know I'll have to, but..."
He got up, stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugged.
"Some people delegate it," he said. "But I think you gotta do it yourself. You gotta sit with the person and tell it like you see it. Or like the chips fell. Sometimes it's just money. Something you can't help. But if it's for a reason other than that, you really have to say it and you have to say it straight. Not mean, just exactly what went wrong and why that matters--don't' forget that part."
"You ever get into it with somebody you fired?"
"Oh, hell yeah. But I never did it 'til I couldn't help but do it. They'd just gotten to the point where letting them go on was going to fuck things up for everybody. Or make the people who were doing it right feel like I didn't give a shit. If people know you're thinking about them when you do things, they'll do things for you. If they think you're only thinking about yourself, they'll only think about themselves. It'll be CYA, not kumbaya."
I laughed and said, "Does Duke know you know all this?"
He laughed and said, "Duke taught me all this! By osmosis."
"What the hell?"
"I used to go to the office with him a lot as a kid, on the way to something else. Ballgame or something. You could see that people just liked being in his presence. So I'd ask him about it. Why people liked him so much or why he liked them."
We started walking in and out of some offices. And he told me some of Duke's secrets.
"What he would do--see, the businesses were kinda boring themselves. Oil and whatnot. They had some radio and TV stations and stuff for a while, but they were in rural areas. Damned near run by computer, later on, the radio ones. So that wasn't so great, either. So he would think about their families and little things he knew about them. Even the way they acted. How his secretary liked to pull on her earlobe when she was stumped about something. He would see them like kin folk, almost. So if one of 'em said something shitty about another person in the office, he would bring 'em in and go, 'You think you're better'n' me?' In a teasing voice, right? And they'd get all weird and say, 'What? Of course not!' And he'd say, 'Well, I'm no better'n' that one you said that thing about and you sure as hell think you're better'n' him.'"
"Sounds just like that guy."
"Yeah, that round about way of saying you're an asshole, right?"
That cracked me up. Because it was the way Aisha would say things, too. All the time. Not, "You suck, you son of a bitch," but some story about some son of a bitch she knew that made you see yourself in it.
And when I told Rick that, he said, "Those two are ridiculous. They're like twins that got separated at birth or something--you know how you can't get her to sing except in church? Sings her ass off and sends these little videos to him--another friggin' Joni Mitchell song she sent him the other day. You wouldn't expect her to sing something like that, but--here, wait. I've got it."
He took out his cell and made my day. Swear to God, she sang this little song called "Lucky Girl."
Goes:
I'm a lucky girl
I found my friend
I've been all around the world
Mission Impossible
Chasing the rainbow's end
Wise guys
Shy guys
And sly lover boys
With big bad bedroom eyes
I never loved a man I trusted
As far as I could pitch my shoe
'Til I loved you
You're my lucky star
You're my magician
You make the night prowling disappear
Vanished from the star wars bars
Empty repetition
I get my heart full here
Playboys
Stray boys
And "Say, hey, hey" boys'll
treat you like a toy
I never loved a man I trusted
as far as I could pitch my shoe
til I loved you
Woman beaters
and Huck Finn shuckster
hopping parking meters
I never loved a man
I trusted
as far as I could pitch my shoe
'til I loved you
I'm a lucky girl
I found my friend
I been all around the world
Mission Impossible
Chasing the rainbow's end
Wise guys
Booby prize guys
and sly lover boys
with big bad bedroom eyes
I never loved a man I trusted
As far as I could throw my shoe
'til I loved you...
Is that not amazing? How the words fit exactly what was happening to those two? And she funked it up, made it her own song, just snapping her fingers and having a great time. It was like she was doing it with him watching, the little winks and wiggles. I loved it.
"Where the hell did she even hear that before?" I asked him.
"That blues singer you went with, she sang it sometimes," Rick said. "The one that reminds me of what's her name..."
"Bonnie Raitt. That's right! That's true! She sang it to me one time--it was my birthday. I remember that."
"Aisha said it sounded just like what someone would say about you."
"And Miss Vivian?"
He snorted. Smirked. Said, "She pretty much told him, 'Over my dead body.'"
"And he said?"
"He told her she was in for a world o' hurt, then. And she said she'd been in that world for a long time."
"Ouch."
"Yeah, I gotta say, it gave him pause there for a second or two. That she felt like that. But..."
"It's on anyway, I guess."
"Runaway train, man. Couldn't stop it if you wanted to."
"Save those songs, okay? Send 'em to me."
"Why?"
"I dunno, maybe they'll be the first thing we do, right? A whole album of songs about Duke. That's the only way we could get 'er to agree to it, if we said it like that."
"Now, you're thinkin' like your Dad, son," Rick said. Giving me this little wink. And then he asked, "What about this place? You like, you don't like? They're sorta hiding it for a while, 'til we decide."
I nodded and checked out the windows. Some of them had stained glass at the top. Really cool designs. There were all kinds of little touches like that. Old timey. Thoughtful, sort of, if you know what I mean. Like somebody was trying to make it more than just a "work" place.
And I could actually see myself going from room to room, schmoozing. I could see people leaning over each other's shoulders, pointing at screens or drawings on their desks. Sticking earbuds in their ears to hear the latest beats. Casual, not all cramped up. Loose. Free.
It had soul, this building. Spoke to mine.
So I said, "Yeah, I'm feelin' it. Steep price tag, though, right?"
"I think you can afford it. I mean, I think you can afford damned near anything."
"Yeah, well...it's huge, this thing. And we'd have to do all that stuff upstairs, to make apartments and whatnot."
"Son, believe me, you can afford it. We'll get into that in a few days, too. How JJ's setting up your finances and funds and whatnot."
I folded my arms and said, "What'd you guys do now?"
"He wants you to be independent. In case he gets incapacitated in some way all of a sudden, he wants you to have what you need right now, okay?"
"Is something goin' on? Is he sick again?"
Rick smiled and said, "Lookit you, bein' the good son. No, he's fine. But he's got issues. The meds he's on, they kick his ass sometimes. That's why he didn't come to the ranch."
"Then he is sick."
"They adjusted it. He's fine. He just got a little wobbly."
"You have to tell me these things," I said. "Even when he tells you not to. I won't call if he's tryin'a hide it but I want to know at least. And I also don't want him just doling out money all the time. We can do things slow. Baby steps."
"You need space for all this, right?"
"Yeah, but maybe we could use the ranch or something."
"Oh, sure! I can just see all these city kids chillin' in East Hell, Arizona."
"But is has all those cabins and things. It'd be kinda dope. And he wouldn't have to buy anything else."
"Look, how do you think all those damned Kardashians and Hilton's and whatnot got what they got? Those businesses, the perks they grew up with, the connects they have--that's all passed down. It's the way o' the world, son."
"Well, I'm gonna pay him back with interest. Watch this space," I said, looking around one last time.
And Rick slapped me on the back and said, "Wanna show it to the wife first?"
I hit her up on my cell and got, "Get it before someone else does! It sounds amazing!"
Rick just shook his head and said, "I guess that's that."
So we went up on the roof, looked out over Tucson. You could see everything from there. The future, too.
Yeah. I was feelin' it.
And something else, too. The more I listened to that song Wyatt sent me--I couldn't get it out of my head. So I decided to find myself one of these Joni Mitchell songs with lyrics that made you crazy.
Went to her Web site and just looked at the whole long list of all the songs she ever wrote until I one called "Nothing Can Be Done," which sounded about right.
And man, was it ever. Nailed it. Best lines for me were:
Must I surrender
With grace
The things I loved when I was younger
(Sweet embrace)
Must I remember your face
So well
What do I do here with this hunger?
Oh I am not old
I'm told
But I am not young
Oh and nothing can be done
Don't start
My heart
Is a smoking gun
Oh and nothing can be done
Nothing can be done...
I mean, damn.
I almost sent them to Wyatt. But I thought of Kendall. Kevin.
Wyatt's eyes and her balled up fists.
And Rick. Who was rarely wrong and loved us both.
So I swallowed real hard and just saved the song in Spotify, in this playlist of songs people told me I just had to hear. Stuck out like a sore thumb. She's not exactly "of our generation," Miss Mitchell.
But it was probably the most important song in that damned list. And I go back to it a lot, even now. Not as complicated as Wyatt's choice or as cute as Aisha's. But it just says it all. It just does...