And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Sometimes the best things in life are those you aren't even aware of.
Terry stood in the middle of the weed covered driveway and tried to remember what it looked like then.
Staring up at the top of the empty hill, there should have been a house here. Acute single story white clapboard home with pastel yellow trim. He stared up at the top of the empty hill. Now at the top of the hill Now the only thing standing was a fire blackened chimney.
What he did remember about the small house was the massive collection of porcelain figurines that were scattered throughout the house on shelves and counter tops and every flat space in between. He noticed them immediately when he entered the house. But then it was a quick look. The instant they two of them and entered the house, it was a race to get each other's clothes off. The rest of the night they were fucking on and under anything that would hold the two of them. As he approached the foundation, he began to notice white and colorful objects on the ground between the weeds. A small head, with a painted face. An arm, the bottom half of a ballerina. As he walked, he spotted dozes of other pieces scattered around the yard at the front of the house. Three steps up to the porch and front door what wasn't there and he was inside, following that beautiful swaying ass. The same that he saw moving on the empty pool table as she danced for him after the place closed.
Now the place was just a shell if it was that. Only the chimney remained upright, scorched on one side, the inside. Not a wall remained. He walked up the sloping drive where the weeds were taller.
He remembered the last time he had been here. Twenty four years. What had happened here in that time?
The low idle of his five year old, Harley Davidson, Fat Boy behind him seemed to assure him that he was still in the present although his thoughts were in the past with more questions than answers. It was purchased with one of the few royalty checks that occasionally rolled his way that covered the two hits that were still played on oldies radio stations. There could have been so much more if things had just turned out differently. But he thought he had kicked that down the road years ago or so he thought until a recent find brought it all back again.
Life was full of "what-ifs"
His band, Zenith, had been scheduled to play in Missoula that night as a favor to a friend was the DJ who played their first single on his station the year before it broke nationally. The friend was a local DJ who had given them their first big break by playing there song all night long on the radio.
Jesus....so many years ago
They were on their way to Chicago for another concert, but had the time to give the city one night of balls out rock and roll. After that show they were to begin a fourteen month European tour with the Monsters of Rock tour that included some of the big names of the late eighties and early nineties.
Terry kicked at the gravel and saw something familiar. He bent and picked up the small piece of what had been a porcelain figurine out of the ground.
She had loved these and now they were scattered across this empty lot.
What had happened here?
He wandered across the lot and found more memories of her. Various bits of figurines and occasionally and entire unbroken figure like the small long eared puppy he held in his hand now. Had she just left? What the hell had happened to the house?
He searched through the knee high weeds and kicked at broken and fire scared chunks of wood as he crossed the property, keeping his eyes on the ground then began noticing small pieces of figurines, porciline figurines that seemed to be scattered everywhere.
What he remembered of her was crunched into a seven hour marathon of drinking and nonstop sex.
He stood by the bike....remembering, feeling his heart grown heavy again as he let the old memories flow in again.
The driveway, sheltered from the street in the empty and melancholy afternoon, half listening to the drone of an unseen airplane and to the distant sound of a train whistle fading in the distance.
The house wasn't in a neighborhood but on a solitary stretch of road three miles outside of Lolo, a small town five miles or so down the highway from the city and hadn't changed much over the years.
He remembered where he had met her. Was that where he would find her? He couldn't get her face out of his mind. He knew she must have aged but the way she looked then, she would still be a beauty.
Was the old place even still standing? At the time it had been the only bar on the small main street. He started the bike and rolled out of the driveway toward Lolo.
The Xanadu.
It was the kind of rundown dive that most would pass on the way to Wendy's and Pizza Ranch.
His shoes kicked the small bits of gravel as Terry slowly coasted into the nearly empty parking lot and stopped. There was a couple eating at a table by the window and paid him no attention as he left his helmet on the seat and walked through the new metal front door. approached the building. Newer front doors. The single door with cracked glass was gone.
A tall wooden pole that looked as though it had withstood generations of termites, still held a yellowed sign high above the gravel parking lot.
VIV'S HOME COOKING
Somewhere behind him a train's horn vanished in the distance.
His heart pounded a strong steady beat as his tires bit into the gray rocks. He stopped the bike and looked at the building. Two tall pickups sat in the east end of the lot. Three imports and a battered old ford pickup sat out front. He took a deep breath and smiled, then shut the engine off. The moment of truth. Would she even remember him? Would she hate him for disappearing?
After 24 years, a lot could change.
He had experienced that himself on the road with Zenith. They could have been huge, the band. The tour. The last and only a partial European tour and two hits on the charts but then, fate had stepped in and dealt a new hand.
He remembered the last time he had talked to her. There was a hesitation in her voice during that old phone call.
"I want to tell you, you have a surprise waiting for you when you come back."
Her last words. That soft sweet voice still echoed through the fog of years past. That was the day the phone calls stopped After that, he couldn't reach her anymore.
It was at the same time the band fell apart.
He had spent a grand total of eight hours here with Hope. For the life of him, he couldn't remember her last name. Had he asked? Had she offered?
Hope.
That was the only name he knew her by for the entire time they were together. She must have told him her full name. Was he even paying attention? But that's all he knew of her. She was the hottest, sexiest woman he had ever met. But it wasn't just the sex. There was something deeper about her, the way she talked, carried herself. And she knew so damn much. He could have spent the entire week with her and possible could have learned so much just talking to her. He knew this woman was the one.
So much time had passed by after that night. A lot of water under the bridge, maybe many bridges. Friends came and went, careers vanished in a blink. Once he was riding high. His group, Zenith had two hit records and was in the middle of a tour through Europe, fronting for headliners like Def Leopard and Aerosmith. The tour was the monsters of Rock but it was happening under the impending dark cloud of Grunge and they would all soon disappear.
Then Glen, his best friend and co-founder, the fucking lead singer of the band, with a voice equal to that of Boston's Brad Delp, killed himself with a drug overdose, then a year later, in came Grunge to destroy whatever there was left of the rock n roll he knew.
The trains were long gone by now even though he had crossed three sets of tracks, he knew they were knew they were no longer in use.
A surprise, she had told him. It was the last time he heard her voice.
