Sweeter Life Read Online Free Page B

snippets of melody, sketches of groove. Background singers coo softly, “All I’ll ever be … all I’ll ever be …”
    The voice returns, sounding friendlier somehow, not so strident.
    I know what’s makin’ you scratch your head, what’s prickin’ your behind.
It’s the music you find so hard to swallow, the tunes,
the riffs, the grooves, the holy roar. And don’t forget The Solo.
    Once again the band starts goosing the groove, the drummer in particular really laying into that snare drum now. Suddenly the rhythm is not so complicated. Hank can tap his foot.
    We always come back to The Solo, don’t we,
always come back to this same place in time.
We watch where it wanders, see where it ends up,
passin’ between us some sweet currency,
ever movin’ yet never changin’,
perfect, immutable, not of this earth
and yet, and yet.…
Here’s what I want to make clear to you now,
the single thing you should hold to your heart.
Time runs both ways, backwards and forwards.
Our lives will end and start over again—
oftentimes where you least expect it,
not in death but a new kind of life.
And The Solo itself’s neither here nor there.
A joyful noise, yes, that much is certain,
but anythin’ more is too hard to make out.
Better to ask yourself: “Where does it come from?
What sets it free? Why does it wind
like a river between us, liftin’ us up
where we most want to be?”
    And the search for the reason,
    the search for the meanin’ that has brought you this night
to this tent in the trees has brought us much closer—
it will
bring
us much closer if you step up dear friends
and stand nearer to me. The music is nothin’,
a sound still resoundin’,,, a spirallin’ shell
that still echoes the sea, but you must now forget it.
A whole other lifetime. The meanin’ is you
comin’ here to see me touchin’ you—and all of us
standin’ together. You’ve suffered my children,
now come unto me.
    When the song ended, Hank immediately turned off the radio and rolled onto his back. He touched the cool chrome of the antenna to his lips. The music or story or whatever you’d call it was unlike anything he’d ever heard before, and yet it felt familiar to him, like something you were supposed to remember but, for the life of you, couldn’t.
    CYRUS DIDN’T GET HOME until ten o’clock that night. He and Janice had talked for hours. They got takeout. They worked on tunes. Then he hitched a ride as far as the marina. From there he could see, out along the beach where bonfires dotted the sand, smelt fishermen dragging the silver from the water with their nets. The sky was clear and moonless. Even at Orchard Knoll, he could smell the heady perfume of wood smoke and frying fish and the sweet musk of a dying lake.
    He’d been tempted to bring the guitar home with him, afraid to let it outof his sight for even a night; but he knew its presence in the house would bring too many questions, Ruby always quick to notice something different. So he left it at the hall instead, pinching himself all the way home, his heart so light he was barely touching the ground. It was only as he walked up the driveway and saw Izzy’s car that he remembered she had been invited for dinner.
    “Sor-ry,” he called out as he stepped inside. “I forgot.”
    His aunt and sister were in the living room. They had the look of two people who had run out of things to say years ago. Isabel clutched a handful of red licorice that she flicked into her palm like a cat-o’-nine-tails. She was trying to quit smoking again, but the ashtray beside her held three butts, with lipstick halos around the filters.
    “Where’s Clarence?” he asked.
    His aunt rubbed her eyes. It was past her bedtime. “Where he’s supposed to be this hour of night. We didn’t hear you come up the drive he was snoring so loud.”
    “Sorry about dinner, Iz.”
    “It’s all right. We’ll talk some other time. Ruby here thinks you need to get something off your chest.”
    Cyrus