Part 4
“I hope I remember the words to this song,” flashes through my mind.
I sit down on a stool with my acoustic guitar and look out at the audience. I’m a little shaky. It’s a perfect day at Fallasburg Park in Lowell, Michigan, and the sun is shining on the familiar faces of friends and family. Mom is getting married, and we start the ceremony with a song:
“This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach...”
Tears well up in everyones’ eyes including mine. I finish the song and stand off to the side. JD’s dad Steve walks over to me, wiping a tear away from behind his sunglasses. He gives me a fatherly hug and whispers in my ear, “You’re a good soul, buddy. I hope I know you forever.”
The ceremony is short and sweet, and my mom is finally married to the wonderful man who is now my new stepdad. We make our way back to the recreation center for the reception. The wedding band consists of myself, JD, Steve on lead vocals, and JD’s little brother Sam as our special guest on trumpet. We play for hours, and every face is full of smiles at this heartwarming celebration of love…
It was an honor to play with those guys that day, especially with Steve, who I looked up to and respected in so many ways. He was bald and a little overweight, but he was a beautiful human with a strong constitution, and could sing like Mick Jagger. No one had ever made me laugh harder or think deeper than Steve. All-night road trips to out-of-state music festivals, hotel conversations about philosophy and religion, crying from laughter at Chinese restaurants - this is what I think of when remembering Steve. Hanging out with him came with the feeling that you were really living.
It was a calm summer night, and my mom had invited Steve over to hang out and play guitar with my stepdad. The two of them had played in a band together, and usually such an occasion would be cause for celebration, but the underlying reason for his visit that night was rather somber. Steve had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer, and the outlook wasn't good.
Although he was at our house to hang out with the parents, Steve was my friend and family too, so I lingered with them on the porch for a while, soaking in his limited presence. Even through the explanation of his diagnosis, new reasons to laugh would pop up out of nowhere until we were all in that unusual limbo between laughing and lightly crying.
I wanted so badly to tell him how much I loved him, maybe I could put it in a letter, or maybe the proper time would reveal itself later. But Steve didn't want to be seen as the cancer guy, and I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. Of course it was impossible for me to reduce him down to something so hopeless, when in my mind he would always remain a powerfully wise father figure who demanded great respect. When I finally left the parents to talk amongst themselves, I got into my car and drove around aimlessly, crying for the incredible loss that loomed over us all.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that I became an everyday weed smoker around this time. I thought I had found a natural cure for my ever-present anxiety, but I see now that I was merely escaping the world around me, failing to fill the God-sized hole in my heart.
From the time of his dad’s diagnosis, JD became increasingly preoccupied with family affairs, and rightly so, but that meant that our musical momentum came to a temporary standstill. I began producing a solo album in my mom’s basement with the same digital 8-track that JD and I used to record Stroboscopic Fantasy. I enjoyed the problem-solving nature of beat-making, and I continually surprised myself with my own upward progression. I drew unending inspiration from the solo albums of John Frusciante. I was playing a lot of bass as well. The songs were coming out alright, but after all these years, I still have to admit that my musical brotherhood with JD brought out the best in me, and I still struggle at times to unlock my full potential without him.
One afternoon, I was just wrapping up the final beat for the album when my mom called me upstairs. Steve was gone. Mom and I hugged each other and sobbed for a few minutes, and then I stepped outside and into my car. In remembrance of Steve, I listened to three Rolling Stones songs: Dead Flowers, Moonlight Mile, and Let It Loose, the last song being Steve’s publicly requested funeral send-off song. My mom and I spent the rest of the day driving around, talking for hours, telling our favorite stories about the friend we had just lost. I never even considered returning to the album I had almost finished.
About a month later, JD and I were grabbing a few things that were left in Steve’s house in Lowell. Our plan was to go back to my mom’s house in Grand Rapids, hang out, and maybe think about making some music if it felt right. It would have been a fairly normal day despite the recent loss of Steve, if it hadn’t been for a confusing text I got from a friend who shall remain anonymous. I’m reluctant to say who it was, because this particular friend was so deep into addiction that he had hardly been coherent the last few times I saw him, and had even been homeless for a while, or so I heard. Long story short, this person had lost all credibility in my eyes, so when he sent me a text that said Joe was in the hospital, I dismissed the claim as another one of his druggy delusions.
On the way back to Grand Rapids, JD and I put on the song Eye Opener, an ethereal and melancholy track by Dot Hacker. The song suited the cold, windy, and overcast atmosphere of our autumnal drive to the city. “What if Joe died,” said JD, with an incredulous half-smile on his face. We both feigned laughter, and shrugged it off, knowing full well that Joe was invincible, and that what JD had said was impossible.
But the question of Joe’s wellbeing still lingered in the back of our minds. When we arrived at my mom’s house, we decided to investigate further. I stood out on the porch and called my friend Andrew, who was a slightly more reliable source, and had supposedly been with Joe the night before. The phone rang, and I anticipated Andrew’s amiable voice on the other end, but what I got instead was someone who sounded hollowed out, void of emotion.
“Hey, dude! So, what happened to Joe?” I asked, with an inquisitive smile in my voice.
Andrew said plainly, “He died.”