The clock struck three in the somber night as the four of us journeyed towards our grand performance. In music, the space between the beats is important. Life, too, unfolds in these spaces.

The relentless snowfall painted a thick veil of white upon the perilous black ice of the mountain highway. Our windshield wipers battled valiantly, their efforts hardly enough to reveal the treacherous path that lay ahead or the abyss of the valley beside. Shrouded by dense fog, in the bitter cold, we pressed on.

Then, in an instant, a booming thud resounded through the night air. Jerome, the valiant helmsman of our carriage, grappled with the wheel as it bucked and fishtailed violently along the icy road. In the back seat, I quickly accepted the fate that seemed imminent, a fate of being reduced to nothing but a mangled mess upon the desolate highway. Next to me, Keefer raised his arms and opened his mouth in dramatic slow motion.

But, onward we pressed, albeit amidst chaos.

“By the stars, thou hast done well, my friend!” I extolled Jerome for his admirable navigation.

“I aimed for the smallest of them,” he replied earnestly. “Three creatures there were, but alas, they appeared before I could discern their presence.”

“Aye, indeed,” added Thud Pumpkin. “Fortunate it was a deer and not a towering moose, for with their long limbs, they could thrust through the very windshield.”

Nonetheless, a hundred leagues still lay between us and the next village, and our headlights had relinquished their radiance to darkness. We found ourselves bereft of warmth, frequently halting in the middle of the highway to replenish the radiator now adorned with six antler holes, spewing the lifeblood of antifreeze. With steady perseverance, we inched closer to the next haven, repairing the beleaguered radiator upon our arrival. The culmination of our efforts allowed us to grace the stage precisely as the hour struck for the grand performance.

The evening greeted us with a throng that stretched for blocks, and the elixir of tequila flowed generously, akin to the flowing streams of Dionysian revelry. From the stage, we beheld the fervent punk maidens, their spirits alight with vivacious dance. As the night unfolded, Keefer and I ventured into the chamber of reflection, where a pair of shoes betrayed their presence beneath a cubicle. Curiosity beguiled Keefer, compelling him to peer over the cubicle, revealing a familiar fan. His unbuttoned sleeve, rolled past his elbow, bore witness to a needle embedded below a small tattoo of a heart with chains.

“Dude, dost it prove effective for thee?” Keefer inquired.

He seemed unaware of Keefer’s intrusion, but Keefer persisted, “Pray tell, does it avail thee, my friend?”

In that moment, I felt a gentle tap upon my shoulder. A fervent punk maiden appeared before me.

“Would you not desire to embrace me passionately?” she questioned with fervor.

“What might you offer in return?” I inquired with a measure of nonchalance.

“I knew it,” she exclaimed in excitement.

With that, we departed from the jubilant assembly and made our way back to the sanctuary of the hotel. The curtains had fallen upon the grand spectacle, and now it was time to embrace the space between the beats.

we, fearing Fortune’s fickle smile, did climb the mountain’s breast to drink our courage down.
There, where dawn’s pale breath unstitched the stars, I sought the slope alone,
hoping the maidens might descend and grant discourse
on matters grave — such as why their shoes and hair conspired in such strange discord.

But lo! mid-thought, I lost acquaintance with the earth.
The bond ‘twixt man and gravity was broke,
and down I fell — a hundred cubits deep into the pit of my own design.
Yet providence, mocking yet merciful, set me upon a lonely tree,
whose arms, though frail, received me as a sinner spared.

There hung I, bruised of knee and conscience both,
and mused upon my life — that poor concerto played in service of the Muse.
Call it not noble, this pursuit of sound!
I had sought art for art’s own sake, and found but vanity adorned.
For music and art, though oft they dance, do seldom wed;
and where I left my soul, I scarce remember.

Oft upon the stage I hear them prattle:
“He’s comely.”
“Would he but smile.”
“What monstrous hair is that?”
And I, poor fool, within myself reply,
“One day shall a princess understand.”
Yet even as I dream, a god — whose earthly name is Eddie Van Halen —
whispers, “Dream not, for dreams are but the opiate of the damned.”

Thus instructed, I hung upon my wooden cross
and pondered beauty —
She whom I loved was fair beyond my telling,
yet her knowing it made my silence wise.
Women perceive too soon how simple men really are.

And what, I thought, makes us more than beasts?
For like the simian tribe we mimic what we see,
aping the idols that dance within our glass boxes.
Were I their keeper, I would rule the monkeys thus:
I’d show them madness crowned, and bid them kneel.
I’d feed them poison, then punish thirst.
I’d have them brawl o’er the color of their fur,
and if my spirit grew ambitious, I’d found a faith:
“Renounce thy monkeying in this life, and lo —
in the next, a hundred golden harlots shall feed thee grapes.”
And when their faith did falter, I’d fake a voyage to the stars,
that they might once again believe.

The wise among them would name it imprinting,
this sorcery by which the greater ape commands the lesser.

Then from above — a voice, mortal and amused:
“Art thou well?”

“I know not,” quoth I, “for my bones yet argue the point.”
My knee was rent, my pride more grievously.

“Good thing thou art fair of face,” she called, “else thou’d be altogether witless.”

And so, limping down the lonely tree, I understood at last
why my god, the mighty Eddie, distilled this sacred drink.
Jack Daniel’s — philosopher’s stone of fools and kings alike!
For as art and music make uneasy marriage,
so too do whiskey and gravity quarrel unto death.
And thus I climb again, chastened, half-blind,
resolved to tread more softly —
for the world, like my bottle, is nearly empty,
and I, alas, am still falling.

Twelve years old.
Third floor, Block 49, Mayfair Apartments.

I delivered the Columbian to her door.
She paid me a few times—

Her hair a little messy.

There was something about her that felt caring.

I had a small crush on her.
Not the kind you tell anyone about.
Just the kind where you hope
she’s the one who answers the door.

She was a tomboy—
tough without pretending,
kind without trying.

She used to go out with Rod,
a red-headed kid from a standalone house,
behind the school.
Rod was the second toughest guy in school.

The first was Ed—
a fat kid with a silent stare
who’d get you in a headlock
Then he’d sit on you so you couldn’t breathe.

One day at lunch, C-Rane and I went to Rod’s place,
smoked cigarettes and listened to music
Kiss Alive I. First time I ever heard them.

Christine wasn’t there,
but her name was.

She disappeared on her way home.

Six weeks later,
they found her body by the dikes.

Stabbed.
Strangled.
Left.

At first, they didn’t even treat it as suspicious.

I still remember that afternoon—
delivering the Columbian,
her face on the front page
as I dropped the paper at her door.

That moment never left me.

She was one of us.

And then she wasn’t.

I found the tape years later in a shoebox at the back of a closet.

It was mixed in with old photographs and loose guitar picks. The case was cracked. The paper label had faded, but I could still see the letters pressed hard into it by a child’s hand.

Dad — Folsom Prison Blues

For a long time I just held it.

By then I had spent years recording things.

Hard drives full of songs and voices and late-night ideas.
Some found their way into the daylight. Most didn’t.

I found a cassette player in the basement.
I carried it upstairs.

The plastic creaked when I opened the lid.

For a moment I sat there, wondering if it would still play.

Then I slid the tape in.

The machine clicked.

The wheels began turning.

A little hiss filled the room.

And then the guitar.

Smaller than I remembered. A little thinner. The B string buzzing the way B strings always do.

Then his voice.

Low and half-smiling.

I remembered standing in the hallway with the recorder in my hands, trying not to breathe too loudly.

The tape was running slightly fast.

His voice sounded younger than I remembered. A little lighter. Like the morning itself had been preserved somewhere inside the plastic all these years, waiting for someone to press play.

I closed my eyes.

And I was back there again.

Bare feet on the hallway floor.
The little cassette recorder in my hand.
Trying not to breathe too loud.
Trying not to move.

Dad in the big chair near the window, bent forward over that old Framus guitar the color of whiskey.

Back then I thought I was sneaking up on something.

Now I think maybe I just caught him.

Not the larger-than-life version everyone else knew.

Just the man himself.

When I first made the tape, I thought I had captured a song.

Listening now, I realize I caught something else.

A moment that didn’t know it mattered.

I listened to the crack in his voice on the second verse.
The little pauses between lines.
The room around him.
The quiet that sat just behind the music.

Years later Matthew told me he had heard Dad sing too.

Not often.

But he remembered.

That made me strangely happy.

The song came to the end the same way it always had.

A last chord.
A breath.
Then a short silence.

Even on the tape you could feel it — the moment hanging there before anything else happened.

Then the faint shift of the chair.

I knew what came next before I heard it.

He turned.

Saw me standing there with the recorder.

For a split second he looked surprised.

Then he smiled.

I didn’t understand that smile then.

I thought it was just a father catching his kid doing something sneaky.

But listening to the tape now, years later, I think it meant something else.

I think he was just happy someone had been listening.

The tape clicks when it reaches the end.

The room goes quiet again.

And for the first time, that silence feels like peace.