Mystery Musician

It was wrong to look at someone’s journal. I knew that. Everyone knows that. However, it had been sitting in our lost and found for two months. Every month, I cleaned out the lost and found of the thrift store I worked at, gingerly fingering through each little trinket. There was a pacifier, a keychain with no keys attached, a single earring, and that journal. I threw all of the items in the trash- except the journal- with a forlorn sadness. I have always been the sort of person who believes even the smallest item is a reflection of its owner, and lost things deserve a home other than the bin.

Which led me to the journal. I couldn’t toss it. I couldn’t read it. So I just took it to my car and sat there. It was well after dusk, and I stared at the cover until the lights in my car turned off. It was black, and square, and the cover had stickers on it. Mostly of band names. I drove home, and at every light I passed I eyed it as it sat in my passenger seat.

I got home, slipped off my shoes, fed the dog, and walked into my room. I sat at my desk, plopping it down, and I stared again.

No one was coming back for it. I remembered, a month ago, calling the owner. There was a phone number written inside the cover. That had produced no results, as the number was no longer in use. So, carefully, a little guiltily, I opened to the first page.

The writing was small, sort of scratchy, and the writer had only filled half the page.

I lost my job today. Which is fine, I guess. I mean, I was at a grocery store. I shouldn’t be sad about that. It’s not a forever job. It’s not a career. I kinda thought I’d have more gigs at this point. Which is stupid, because we aren’t even good. We’re pretty bad actually. When I was in high school, I was really good. The best in band, which is a really strange thing to brag about, but I thought maybe I’d be above weddings at this point. It’s frustrating to think I peaked in high school. Like, in my soul frustrating. I’m twenty-one, and I have my whole life ahead of me, but I feel stuck.

My fingers traced the indented page, thinking about how hard this person had pressed a pen into the page. In anger probably. This writer was a lot like me, I thought. Young. Coming face-to-face with the fact that childhood dreams are often left in childhood. When there are bills to pay you forget about what could’ve been and you focus on thinking about how many minutes of your life is monetarily equivalent to a squash, and you don’t even like squash. You eat squash because doctors are even more expensive.

I smiled at the note underneath that.

P.S- buy milk. And dog food. Toothpaste?

I flipped over to the next page. The timestamp indicated it had been a week. I wondered if this person had a journal before, or if the event of losing a job was the inciting event. The urge to be heard, even if by an inanimate object.

I went to the park today. I can’t remember the last time I went to the park. Anyways, there was this girl who called Charlie a “handsome young man” and for half a second I meant me, and I walked into a bench. Which was just great. Of course she meant the dog. No one under fifty says stuff like that to actual people. I’m an idiot.

I laughed out loud. Mostly because I could relate to the extreme irritation and embarrassment radiating off the page. I could picture myself doing that. I also had a few more pieces of information about this person. He was male, and had low self-esteem. He had a dog named Charlie.

I painted some of my trailer. It was one of those decisions you don’t really think about, and suddenly you’ve done it, and you’re not sure why. I have a blue bathroom now. I don’t mean robin’s egg blue or sky blue or any of the soft blues. I mean, Superman’s suit blue. Now it’s on my clothes and skin too.

I don’t hate it, actually.

I glanced over to the side of my room, where a dining room chair sat. I lived with roommates, and we had a dining table, and chairs. It was on the side of the road and something about that cardboard free sign was just so enticing. Maybe I took it just because I could. Maybe I took it because I hoped one day soon I wouldn’t have roommates, however unrealistic that was at the ripe old age of twenty. I couldn’t honestly tell you why, but I had a dining room chair, a lonely beacon of could-be’s.

I didn’t hate my chair. It held my laundry. Everyone needs a laundry chair, even if we as a society like to tell ourselves we don’t have an obligatory space to chuck clean laundry before we fold it.

We have a gig tonight. It’s at an actual restaurant/bar, and I’m nervous for the first time in a while. At weddings and parties people don’t actually look at us. They’re living their own lives with their own worries. At restaurants, when people can’t find the words to say to the person they’re sitting next to, they watch us. I should be used to that feeling but I’m not. I don’t think I ever truly will be.

I was on the edge of my seat, clutching the pages, unable to breathe. If I could figure out where they played, I could get the journal back to him. To the mystery writer.

Lo and behold, the next page nearly knocked me out of my seat.

Maybel’s Bar said we could come back again! I’m way too happy about it. It’s not that big of a deal. Not a hit song or album drop, but it’s progress, and I’m just so happy to finally say there’s progress.

I stood, spinning around, holding the book in the air, grinning like a lunatic. Maybel’s Bar! I’d actually been there too. I wondered if I’d seen him play. I stopped suddenly, realizing I was a grown woman spinning like a bronco in my room over some mystery boy. I glanced to the door, as if my mother would bust in suddenly and try to read my diary- that’s why I was normally very against reading someone’s journal- but no one did, and no one would.

So I kept grinning. I snapped the book shut and grabbed my laptop, combing the internet for any mention of the bands that came to Maybel’s Bar. I looked through their social media, but came to the realization that without a name or physical description, I didn’t really have anything concrete. I didn’t even know what instrument he played. I just knew he was young.

I glared down at the cover, fingernails rapping on it. The stickers were all famous band names. Favorites, probably. I wondered if they were his favorites, if maybe they’d be his bandmates favorites, and maybe they would play covers of said songs. So I watched every single video I could find.

It was three AM. That didn’t matter, I told myself, because I didn’t have work the next day. Just laundry and cleaning the shower and binging reality TV, and I really didn’t care about any of that.

He was a violinist. His bandmates were all a mix of twenties to thirties, but he was the only one with a dog related sticker on his violin case, and he fit the age range. He also seemed to smile most when playing anything by The Beatles, which was a band on the cover of the book.

He was also passingly attractive. That was a lie. He was very attractive. Not that I noticed.

I was completely and utterly delusional. I’d built this person in my mind, someone who was a lot like me. Kind of bad at life. Lost. Wished they had more meaning than a very dull nine to five. A part of me almost hoped I’d get fired. Maybe then I’d have the time to reach for what I wanted. Or maybe that was an excuse. Maybe I was afraid.

Maybe I didn’t want to think too long or hard about it.

I was practically crawling out of my skin waiting for the next day. As soon as Maybel’s opened, I was there. I watched a very tired waitress glare into me as she flipped the sign from closed to open. I smiled awkwardly and pulled the door open.

She glanced me up and down, “Table for one?”

Rude, but I ignored it.

“I’m actually looking for a band,” I held out my phone, “Do you recognize this guy?”

Her brows drew, scared eyes glancing between the phone and me. I realized then, that I probably seemed like a stalker. I also realized that I was, in fact, a stalker.

My nervous smile only grew as I held the book up, “I’m trying to give this back to him.”

“Oh. Okay,” She still eyed me, “Yeah, they come in once a week. I think I have their business card.”

“Great, can I have that?”

Despite her obvious discomfort, she found and supplied me a card. I practically ran out to my car, clutching it. The band name was The Screaming Charlie’s- which, horrible name, but I was definitely on the right track. I dialed the number and held the phone up to my ear, chewing on my lower lip.

“This is Ben, manager of Screaming Charlie’s, are you calling to book us?”

I fumbled over my words, “Kind of? I mean, no. I’m trying to find one of your band members. He left a journal at my thrift store. I mean, not my thrift store. I work there. He owns Charlie?”

There was a beat of silence over the phone.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, um, you’re looking for Ezra,” Ben sucked in a breath, “He died a few days ago in a car accident.”

My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. I inhaled sharply, trying to make sense of the words. Suddenly, programming kicked in, that of manners, as if none of this meant anything to me.

“Maybe I can leave the book with his family?”

Ben said, “They weren’t close.”

“I could leave it with you?”

“I mean, I don’t need it. Right now I’m just trying to figure out what to do with his trailer and Charlie.”

“Okay,” I nodded even though he couldn’t see me, “Have a nice day.”

I hung up. I stared at the book, unblinking, unbreathing. This didn’t matter. It was a book. It was someone I’d never even met. It didn’t matter. Ezra was halfway made up. I should’ve just tossed the book in the bin and walked away, same as I did every month.

There were tears dripping down my nose and onto the cover, plinking softly. I leaned back in my seat, sniffling, drying my cheeks of tears and grief that didn’t even belong to me.

I went home. I chucked the book in the trash. I crawled into bed.

A rebellious voice deep in my head told me that there had been time. That I could’ve searched for him when I first got my hands on the book, and maybe he would be alive. It was silly, I knew. If I had found him, odds were, we would’ve gone completely separate ways and nothing would’ve happened. The image of him I’d created in my head was nothing more than a fantasy. We wouldn’t have run off in a whirlwind romance. This was real life. I worked at a thrift store. I didn’t understand the purpose of dryer sheets.

Overwhelming logic didn’t stop my body from lifting out of the bed and retrieving the book. It now had pasta sauce staining the pages, but I barely noticed.

We’ve played three times at Maybel’s. I still don’t have a job. Weirdly, I don’t even care. I started writing music again. My bank account is okay. I’m putting in applications but I’m not stressed. I think this is the least stressed I’ve been since I moved out. Which is a little concerning, considering I’m unemployed and live in a tin can and my neighbors curse me out for playing half the day.

I think maybe it’s because of a conversation I had with Ben. I found out he went to school for engineering. Then he worked at a restaurant, then an aquarium, then he lived in Alaska for a few years, then he was a TA, and now he works in a ceramics place. The man has literally done everything at thirty-three. It made me realize that I can start over whenever I want. Nothing I do, short of a felony, is really permanent.

It doesn’t matter. That should scare me, but it doesn’t. There’s no pressure. Maybe I just end up being an old man playing music in some sleepy town. I’m doing that, and it’s working pretty good.

I was crying again, for some reason.

P.S- Get bananas and flea medicine.

I laughed, an unlikely and throaty sound. I looked up at the ceiling, forcing myself to breathe. I wasn’t sure if that was his last entry because he’d passed not long after, or if it was because he didn’t feel so lost anymore. He didn’t need an object to cast his uncertainty into.

Only, he hadn’t ended up as an old man playing music in a sleepy town. He hadn’t lived a hundred lives. There was a privilege in that, I realized. The ability to grow old, to live lives, to leave marks. While I didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with the life I lead and the job I worked, I didn’t feel that feeling. I moved through the day like every hour was a burden. Like my dreams were something I could get to eventually.

That was a privilege, and there was no promise I wouldn’t lose it.

My gaze wandered over to the pushpin board on my wall. Most of it was very mundane. Bank statements, a calendar, an aspirational quote in frilly text. However, there were a few photos. There was one trophy, gold with a red ribbon trailing down. It was for a career day project from middle school. Sadly, it was the only trophy I’d ever won.

I pulled over my laptop, searching if any of the colleges near me had courses for veterinary work.

It wasn’t a degree. It wasn’t a job. It was progress, and I was happy with that.