The Music of My Life

Thank you to several of the crew at Specialized Iterations for their help.

I threw the final shovel of dirt on top of the grave, patted it all sort of flat, then sat down on the grass near-by and started to sob... not for the first time that day.

The funeral ceremony was long since over. Everyone who wanted threw a handful of dirt on the grave. Some, not many, picked up the shovel thrust into the dirt pile and threw a shovelful of the brown dirt onto the white coffin... the coffin she picked out for herself when it became obvious to all that she wasn't getting out of this... "adventure," as she liked to call them, with only minor scrapes and bruises. This time, her punishment was going to fit the crime, she had said.

Her crime, she knew, was being too selfish to live life like most other people. She had the gifts of music and beauty, and she used them like weapons of mass destruction to get what

she

wanted, and to hell with anybody else. She didn't care if you loved her or hated her, as long as she got what she wanted from you. It was better if you hated her, because then she would just use you for a while and toss you away. It was much worse if you loved her, because then she would heap all sorts of abuse and indignities upon you until there was nothing left, finally crushing you under her boot heel like a spent cigarette butt.

Of course, then there was me. I loved her and she loved me back, so she kept telling me, and I got the ultimate indignity of being crushed over and over again, like a cat with nine lives losing one every so often. All because I loved her, and she loved me back.

I don't know how long I sat on the grass sobbing, but I eventually noticed several of the cemetery workers approaching to finish up at the grave site. I picked up my suit coat off the ground, fished my handkerchief out of my breast pocket and dried my eyes. I folded my coat over my arm, nodded at the worker who appeared to be in charge, slowly walked to my car and drove off. That would be the last time I was sober for a month.

Everybody called him Father Ron, but technically he was Rev. Ronald Combs. He appeared one day when I was heading into my local liquor store, a 10-minute walk from my quiet country home. The store opened at 10 AM, and by 10:05, I usually had made my day's selection of a bottle and was heading home. Not on this day, however. On this day, Father Ron was waiting for me by the door to the liquor store.

"I know you know she's not going to show up again no matter how long you stay drunk," he said to me as I reached for the door handle.

I jumped back like I'd touched hot metal. I had no idea who the hell this guy was, only that he was dressed like a Catholic priest... and I wasn't a Catholic. At that moment, I couldn't have told anyone what religion I was, and I didn't care. I was one hungover son of a bitch, and I wanted my daily bottle of drunk. I was actually thinking it was going to be a tequila day until that Goddamn priest got in my face.

Maybe it was the hangover, but to me the priest sort of looked like Gene Hackman from the 1970s movie, "The French Connection." That struck me funny, and I chuckled. Okay, I actually coughed and choked a bit. I looked from the priest's face up into the sky, and mumbled, "You've got a helluva sense of humor there, Big Guy."

"You talk to The Boss, too?" Rev. Hackman Look-Alike asked.

I know I gave him my best "fuck you" look, but after being drunk for almost a month straight, I probably looked more like a pathetic asshole than a pissed-off drunk.

"No, former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner's been dead for a long time. I was talking to God, you yutz," I mumbled.

"That's who I was referring to, as well," the priest said in his best friendly tone.

"Then why were you talking about Steinbrenner?" I asked.

I was pretty sure he was sober, but he seemed to be making less sense than me.

"Reverend, one of us needs help, and I'm sorry to say it but I don't think it's me."

"You wouldn't happen to have a cup of coffee at your home, would you?" he asked.

That was an easier question to answer. I was starting to like this guy.

"Sure do. Why don't we head on over to my place, and I'll make you a good cup of coffee. Can't do any of that froofie shit with the creamy stuff and the crazy flavors, but good old black coffee I can do," I said.

We walked back to my house. On the way he told me his name and the name his congregation called him. He told me he was outside the liquor store waiting specifically for me.

"Was it God or George Steinbrenner who told you about me?" I asked.

"Neither. It was a friend of yours, Steve Rodriguez. He told me you'd had a rough go of it recently and figured I might be able to help."

"Yeah, Steve's a good guy," I said. "I knew he was just trying to help me when I threatened to throw him through my front door recently."

"You wouldn't hit a man of the cloth, would you?" he inquired, not looking too awfully worried.

"Only if you try to put anything other than milk or cream in your damned coffee," I answered honestly.

"Fair enough," he said.

I'm not sure what Father Ron was expecting when he got to my house. It was a four-bedroom, 2,500 square foot ranch, with an attached professional music studio off the back end. Prior to my life coming from a liquor bottle, I was a pretty good music producer by trade.

The house was clean because I had a maid come in every day. I think the good father thought I was going to be living in a hovel... at least maybe a pig sty.

I made a pot of dark roast for my guest. I'll admit to getting the shakes as I started to sober up.

"Why don't you sit here and drink some coffee and I'll be right back. You interrupted my booze run, remember?"

"No, why don't you sit your ass back down in that chair and drink some coffee with me."

It was a command, not a request. I was confused.

"Wait a minute," I protested. "Priests aren't supposed to curse. That's my job."

"No, right now your job is to drink some coffee and tell me what's gone wrong," he said.

"It might be quicker if I tell you what's gone right," I responded.

******

We lived down the block from each other when her family moved into my family's neighborhood when we were both five years old. Even at that age, I thought she was adorable. She had what I call long "blondie blonde" hair and glowing bright blue eyes. She was just as skinny as I was.

At that age, I kept my distance from most girls due to them having "cooties." Somehow Kennedy Stevens was different. I wanted to be around her. We held hands almost any time we had to go somewhere, even when my friends made fun of me. She didn't play baseball and I didn't play dolls, but we did virtually everything else together. If I wasn't at her house eating dinner, she was at mine. We were Ick and Snick.

Kennedy gave me my first girl kiss, on Valentine's Day when we were six. She also gave me my first real kiss, on my birthday when I was 13. We dated exclusively through most of the first two years of high school, until Larry Thomas asked her to junior prom in the spring of that year. I was devastated when she accepted.

"He's a junior, Bobby. You can't even ask me to junior prom because you're only a sophomore," she said with a happy squeal when she told me about Larry asking her.

To say I was devastated wouldn't even have come close to how I was feeling at that moment.

"But I thought you were my girlfriend!" I whined.

"I am, Bobby, but a junior asked me out to the junior prom!" she cried. "I can still be your girlfriend, but just go on that one date with him."

I was hardly a worldly man at 16, but something just didn't feel right about my supposed girlfriend going on a date with another guy, even if it was the junior prom.

"No, Kennedy, if you go on a date with him, I guess you're his girlfriend," I said and walked off.

"Bobby!"

Kennedy didn't come to my house for dinner and I didn't go to hers for the next week before my mother said something at the dinner table.

"Did you and Kennedy have a fight, Robert?" she asked stiffly.

The formal parent tone in her voice told me she did not approve of whatever I did to cause the rift.

My father, older brother and younger sister all stopped eating and turned to look at me like I had just killed Mother Teresa. Dead man walking. I started to choke up, then realized that I didn't want to look like a pussy in front of my family when I didn't cause the problem. I grew a backbone before responding.

"Not a fight. Kennedy told me she's going to the junior prom with Larry Thomas," I said flatly.

"So? She's still

your

girlfriend, isn't she?" Mom asked.

I lost tons of respect for my mother right then. I mean, I understood she was a parent and had to honor some sort of parent code or something, but she was also a girl, and had to know that a girl can't go on a date with a different guy when she's got a boyfriend.

Everybody knows that.

"No, Mom. Not anymore. If she wants to go to the junior prom with Larry, then I guess she's his girlfriend. Jeez, Mom!"

"Attitude, Bobby!" warned my father from his spot at the head of the table.

"Come on, Mom, even I know that Bobby just got dumped big-time, and I'm only in eighth grade," said my sister, Susie, who was grinning like the mouse that got the cheese.

"This isn't any different than when Mrs. Sproat from down the block went out on a date with Mr. Sproat's boss," interjected my brother, Arnie. "Mr. Sproat divorced her so fast her head is still spinning."

Both of my parents blushed at that. I guess they didn't think we kids were old enough to figure out what was happening.

My father cleared his throat, which meant whatever he was going to say next was earth-shattering and should be written in stone to be remembered for all time by the whole family.

"Well, just don't be mean to that girl, Bobby. We still like her, and who knows, maybe you guys will kiss and make up sometime."

"Yes, sir," I said as respectfully as possible.

Eating resumed at that point, and that conversation was over, even though I could tell my mom wasn't ready for it to be finished.

Kennedy went to the junior prom with Larry and had a good time, she told everyone. I guess she dated him for a while after. I really didn't pay attention. All of her friends made sure I knew about her relationship. It took several months before we resumed a casual friendship.

By junior year I was actually a football star of sorts, and didn't lack for female attention. I was still skinny at 6-2, 150, but I was fairly fast and had the gift of grab: I could catch almost anything thrown my way. I had several college scouts tell me I would have been scholarship material if I were just big enough. While it wasn't good enough for college money, my notoriety, long curly brown hair and big brown eyes were more than good enough for the girls at my high school.

Another thing I had going for me in high school was my musical talent. I was a pretty good guitar player and singer, and was a member of our school's concert choir band all four years. The old saying that "chicks dig guitars" is an old saying for a reason.

The choir director actually tried recruiting me for the choir because of my baritone, but I preferred playing guitar to singing and dancing. He wasn't happy with me, but the choir band director was ecstatic.

Kennedy made the concert choir our junior year. She loved music and had a decent soprano voice. She was also a pretty good dancer, which combined with her good looks meant she was often up front on most of the routines. She also always had her share of admirers hanging around her, which was fine with me, seeing as we were only friends at best.

At least that's what I thought.

I had already nailed down my date for the fast-approaching junior prom when Kennedy and her BFF Hailey sat down with me at lunch one day -- not exactly something that was a regular habit for either of them. I had to admit that Kennedy was a beautiful girl and her body had filled out nicely from the days when she was a skinny five-year-old. Anyway, after giving both she and Hailey a perfunctory up-and-down, I put my burger down and sighed loudly.

"What can I do for you fine ladies today?" I inquired in a formal manner.

"Well... I know you are aware that junior prom is coming up soon, and you seemed very upset about not going last year," Kennedy started. "So I'm here to let you know that I'm available to be

your

date this year."

She looked me right in the eyes without flinching. If anything, I thought I saw a hint of a smirk on her face. Hailey, on the other hand, looked anything but comfortable. Hailey and I hadn't been this close in proximity since I broke up with Kennedy.

"What about Larry... or who's the latest guy, Chad?" I asked confidently.

Kennedy flinched visibly. Hailey took a huge gulp of air.

"I just told you... I'm available now. I'm not dating anyone. I can be your girlfriend and we can go to the junior prom," she said.

"Just like that?" I asked.

"Just like that," she said.

"Well, not quite. Already got a date. Already got a girlfriend," I said.

It seems somebody wasn't up to date with my life. Kennedy blanched, then teared up. Hailey's mouth dropped open in shock. I resisted the temptation to smile.

"Uhhh... okay," Kennedy said quietly before rising from her seat and leaving along with Hailey.

I gained another 20 pounds during the next year and had another excellent football season, although I still wasn't big enough for a Division I scholarship. I did get a partial ride, though, to a D-II school, and decided to be a music major.

Except for a few passing hellos, I hardly talked at all to Kennedy during the next year. A few days before I left for college, though, we wound up at the same good-bye party for the kids going away to school. We nodded at each other, but didn't talk to each other for the first couple of hours. That didn't stop me from kind of keeping track of her throughout the night, and at one point I noticed both she and Hailey were MIA. I took a casual look around the house we were at, noticing one of the homes' bedroom doors was closed, but there were several voices coming from the room. The smell of weed was also coming from the room. I grabbed a beer and hung out near the closed-door room. Twenty minutes later, Kennedy and Hailey stumbled out of the room, giggling. I walked up to both, put my arms around them and hustled them off to the back yard, where most of the people were.

Since I hadn't been keeping track of Kennedy, I didn't realize she was into marijuana. I rarely did anything of that sort; it just wasn't for me. I was a drinker, though, so I really couldn't put down stoners too much. Anything harder than that, however, like coke, pills and heroin, was on my no-fly list.

I had to assume the weed made Kennedy horny, because after a few minutes in the back yard she was all over me, running her hands up and down my body and trying to check my tonsils with her tongue. At first I thought she was just goofing around and I played along in front of our friends, but when things intensified I stopped playing and started getting serious, especially when she started rubbing her big tits up against my chest. I was getting very uncomfortable in my jeans, and quickly revised my plans to ignore her gyrations. I walked my giggling ex-girlfriend to my car, where I pushed her into the backseat and got serious.

Forty-five minutes later, I had tasted forbidden fruit to the tune of three noisy orgasms, and fucked Kennedy to two more. I found out that neither of us were virgins when we began our activities. I have to admit that for a moment I was disappointed that I wasn't the one to take Kennedy's cherry.

Once we finished and got re-dressed, I took Kennedy to a near-by International House of Pancakes. No surprise, she had the munchies. I also wanted to give her time to come down from her high, just in case she encountered her parents when she went home.

"Damn, Bobby! How come we haven't ever done this before?" Kennedy giggled. "Why the hell did you ever give up on us in the first place?"

It was easier to take knowing she was high as a kite. Otherwise I would have been tempted to jump a lot harder than I did.

"I didn't give up on us, Kennedy. You did. You just had to go to the junior prom with Larry," I said quietly.

"But that didn't have to end us, Bobby. That was your choice. It was just one date," she moaned.

"Maybe in your world it didn't have to end us. In my world, we don't have timeouts in our relationships. Ever. You were asking for something I just could not give."

She dropped her eyes to the pancakes she was eating. They stayed there for the rest of the meal.

"When did you start sparking up? That a new thing?" I asked as we drove home.

"Nothing to worry about," she answered. "Hailey and I just do it from time to time. You're not going to give me the lecture about weed today, heroin tomorrow, are you? Isn't that kind of hypocritical considering you drink?"

"No lecture from me, and for the record, I don't make the connection from pot to heroin. What I do worry about, though, are the people," I said.

******

The band was setting the house on fire on a Friday night in a Nashville, TN, hotspot when I spotted her at a table near the front, but off to the side. She was sitting with three other friends, who all looked to be hot, but it was easy to see she was the hottest. She had on a short jean skirt, tight pink top that clung to her boobs and her blonde hair was in a high ponytail that came down to mid-back.

It took a few minutes, but we finally made eye contact, and I saw the glow in those blue eyes. I was playing to her and she knew it. She got up and walked to the edge of the playing area, where she encountered our lead singer, Rick. Like all lead singers, Rick thought the hot girl was up there for him, but when she pointed to me, he moved out of the way and she practically got face to face with me while I was playing. We hit a groove and moved in sync, our eyes locked on each other. I was in the middle of it, and I could still tell it was hot. It went on like that for another two minutes as we finished the song, me playing and us swaying while Rick, obviously inspired, hit a new level on his vocals. Even with everything going on, I could hear and feel the crowd buzzing. Rick did a big arm circle as the song ended, and once I took my pick away from the strings, Kennedy and I stepped toward each other and kissed, soft and gentle on the lips, as the crowd roared.

We stood like that, in our own little world, for about five seconds, the crowd on its feet clapping and loud, before I finally came to my senses.

"Hey, I've got to go back to work. Hang around, got a break coming soon," I half-whispered.

She smiled brightly, nodded and went back to her table as we lit into another song.

Our break came 10 minutes later. I unplugged, turned my gear off and headed for Kennedy's table. She was standing up, waiting for me and when I got within a few feet of her, she moved into me and wrapped herself around my body while we kissed like lovers, really hot lovers.

For the second time in a few minutes, we lost ourselves in each other, until one of her friends brought us back to the moment by loudly "coughing." We separated about a step and both of us inhaled deeply.

"Ladies, this is Bobby Winkler, and if you can't tell, he's a very old and very good friend," Kennedy said. "We've known each other since we were about five years old."

A waitress put a cold Corona in my hand, and I sat down at the table with Kennedy and her friends. Kennedy held my free hand the entire time. After a few minutes, I had to get back up and play, but Kennedy promised to stick around until we ended our show.