See Emily Play

I’m waiting for Syd, outside some building while he runs late. He always does. I tried to account for that, but I still managed to arrive with some time to kill on my hands. I could go into the shops, look around, look at some pretty things, but their eyes follow you around the shop while you look and even the materials used for the price tags are pricey enough to make my wallet scream. 

I look down and retighten my shoelace. Not because it’s undone, it’s just not how I like it to look and it’s something to do. Stay still in one place long enough and people start to think you are somebody to think about. People keep looking at me and smiling. If any of them do more than say hello, or expect more than a nod from me, I will hiss. I don’t know what they want from me. I swear to God, if someone starts to ask me questions I’m going inside. Retail workers be damned. 

I should’ve asked him where we were going. I could have just met him there.

The cold is biting at my knees and my ears feel like they are going to fall off. Flipping up my collar and sticking my hands in my pockets won’t really do much, but it’s something to do, I guess. I try to listen to the sounds of the city like Jen taught me, like I taught Emily. The sounds of the car horns, the shuffling of feet, the random snippets of people talking or singing. It doesn’t sound like it used to. 

I count the seconds between the changing of the stoplights and see who will make it across the crosswalk first. I figure it will be the businessman talking on his phone, he pushed by everyone else in the crowd to push the walk button over and over again. I could make out what he was saying all the way from here, I could tell I wouldn’t like him. He’s the kind of man who makes a lot of money just so he can gloat about it. I wonder if he works with Jen. 

10 minutes until. Dammit, Syd’s always late. Emily won’t know I was there, she won’t know that I cared. I will get stuck behind some blowhards, rank with cheap gin, and weed stronger than I ever smoked. I don’t want to sit in the front either, too much pressure. Eye contact, facial expressions, trying too hard to seem interested without being too intense. I’d think too much and ruin it.

I tie my other shoe.

A man passes by and looks me up and down, revealing a large gap in the front of his teeth. It’s not as endearing as Emily’s. I retreat up to the stairs of the building into an enclave, pretending to admire the dresses in the window. They’re actually quite nice. There's one Emily would quite like. I should get it for her. Nope, too expensive. Jesus Christ, for that price I expect it to be spun out of gold or some shit. Not even Jen’s wedding dress cost that much, but then again, it didn’t need to be expensive, just white.

I light a smoke and crush it under the heel of my shoe. I don’t want to smell like smoke when I see Emily. She hates the smell of smoke.

I look at my watch. It's almost starting. It’s annoying that so many places could be hosting this shindig. Before, there were only a few places I would consider going, like the Matrix, the Avalon Ballroom if it was a real good show. Hell, the Ark was always a real good time. Man, what I couldn’t give to see Jimi Hendrix one more time. I can almost hear the cheer in the crowd, the electricity surging through my skin, the smell of sweat lingering in the air. Jimi swaggering onto the stage, the essence of life and pure badassery dripping off his velvet clothes. Nowadays, everybody thinks they’ve got a little rock and roll in them. 

Fuckin’ posers.

I light another cigarette and immediately crush it under my shoe like before, much to the disgust of a woman my age, but in a more expensive coat, pearls, and a straight-from-a-magazine haircut. I run my fingers through my own hair, double-checking if it’s still smooth and shiny from the lime juice and scissors. Still good. Phew.

I look down at my hands and pull at the loose string on my fingerless glove, the one for the middle finger. I pull on it until the string is as roughly as long as my hand, then try to tie it around my finger and yank it clean off. I then turn my attention to my nails. They’re yellower and grodier than I want them to be. I trimmed and cleaned them last night over the sink after I shaved. I used the good razor so I wouldn’t get nicks and burns and saved up the last of my good aftershave. I hoped when I quit smoking my teeth and nails wouldn’t be so yellow anymore. I guess I should have quit sooner. 

I don’t want Emily to see my hands. The callouses I don’t mind. I earned them with every guitar string I strummed and picked. It’s the one thing Emily and I matched with that she was proud of.  She never complained about those blisters once I told her they would end up making her hands strong like mine and I gave her advice on how to lessen the pain. Her hands would be tough like mine, and that made it better. Back when being like me made things better. 

I wonder if she thought about me and our lessons together. I wonder if she thinks about me when she picks up her guitar and plays. I wonder if people notice she strums and picks and tunes and adjusts the same way I did. Back when I did those things. I wonder if she still plays like she used to.

The sounds of the city aren’t comforting like they used to be. There is no music here I would like to hear. Every business pipes in their own hollow, soulless interpretation of music, suffocating me until I can’t breathe. Even the electronic beep of the door chime makes my skin crawl. I need to focus on something else. Chris Isaak moaning about a wicked woman over the store speakers makes my ears want to bleed. 

That could also be from the bitter wind coming off the bay. 

All I know is back when I was behind the guitar, in front of an audience, we played real music about real things. Politics, religion, the goddamn war. Syd and I and the rest of the group shredded our instruments with the precision of surgeons. Not like the sloppy punk music Emily plays, or the whiny boy bands on the radio. There is no real artistry in those, no real feeling, just dumb kids. When Syd and I were on stage, nothing could stop us. We were kings. We weren’t angry maniacs or lovesick fools. Not enough of us had girlfriends to be lovesick. Then Jen came along.  

A car alarm cuts through the noise and gets my heart pounding against my one clean shirt.

Only hearing the frantic clicks of that goddamn Syd’s feet coming down the street can calm me down. Always so goddamn late. You’d think I would get used to it, but I’m still waiting. Syd hates coming into the city, especially the Tenderloin. He says all the cars make him nervous, though the SUV he drives is the biggest you’ll ever see in your life and could easily run over anyone that gives him trouble. I bet it’s because it reminds him of the old days, back when we played a set a night and he overdosed backstage. I would drive, but you never need to in the city, and I lost my license. Syd knows where we're going. Emily likes Syd. Everyone does.

I’ll give Syd five more minutes, then I’ll leave and go home. Back to my bed and kitchen. Play some music, maybe play the whale song record. Emily used to think it was cool that I had a record player. Now Emily thinks records are lame and collects CDs instead. When I get home I’ll put on the whale record, break open some beers, make a grilled cheese sandwich, and feed the cat. It’s not my cat, of course, but my neighbor doesn’t seem to be taking good care of her. Glinda can’t even take care of her goddamn children.

I can’t go home though, not yet. Syd could be arriving any minute. He might have told Emily I’ll be going, and she’s excited to see me. I hope. When I walk in through those doors her face will light up, knowing that I still care. She’ll be so excited she’ll play like she never has before. The crowd will go crazy. We’ll be happy again.

Jen never understood my passion for music, or Emily’s. It was exciting when we were young, and I was a psychedelic guitarist playing gigs at a bar around the corner, and she was a sweet looking business student in a short skirt and some wild oats to sow. But it’s hard to be exciting when one of us is still bouncing around bars playing every night and the other is bouncing a baby at home on their knees. It’s hard to be exciting when the person you love most makes you give up the thing you love most. It’s hard to be exciting when nothing excites you anymore. Not your daughter’s first words, not your first mortgage, not even your wife.

Since the divorce, Jen hasn’t stepped foot outside of Pacific Heights, let alone San Francisco. She stays in her ivory palace with Tom and their dogs. I don’t like Tom.

I just wish Jen would try. Our little girl only has one last gig before she leaves and it’s our job to be there. I’m trying, and Emily doesn’t even want me there.

However, if I was a better father, I would have known where her gig was. I wouldn’t have to wait for Syd to come pick me up, like some sort of baby sitter. I wouldn't have to rely on outside sources to know my daughter is in a punk band or that she collects CDs and never got her gap tooth fixed like Jen wanted her to. That goddamn man better be dead if I am going to miss this.

All I want is to see her play. See her one last time before I never see her again. Before I didn't know her anymore.