Page 42 of Hittin' the Right Note
Luke almost responded with a snarky comment, but he kept it to himself. He was enjoying the banter, and he didn’t want to ruin it.
I’ve done too much of that already.
“I’ll take it under consideration,” Luke said. “But I don’t want you to get a big head thinkin’ I’m going to be takin’ your advice.”
Something about the way they were joking and teasing each other made his stomach twist. It was all just a bit tense. They were each a little wary, each of them not quite sure where this was going and what their words meant to each other.
Just take it easy, Luke,he thought.Don’t try to rush it. Just see where it goes. If it goes anywhere.
That was starting to be a mantra where Mikey was concerned.
“So,” he said, a little desperate to change the subject. “Have you given any more thought to how you might want the concertto go? Or what kind of music we should try to write? I mean, I know we reached a bit of a compromise when it came to the difference between tradition and history and what’s cool now, but I was wondering if you had any more specific ideas.”
Luke started to feel like he was rambling, and so he shut up.
Mikey didn’t say anything right away but instead seemed to be thinking seriously about how to answer the question.
“Well, I mean, you were right about the history of the Ohio Valley, and about the musical heritage. I think it’s important we acknowledge those things in whatever we choose to write.”
Luke couldn’t resist the urge to needle Mikey a bit, putting his hand to his ear and leaning over.
“I’m sorry. Could you say that again? I could’ve sworn you said I was right about something.”
Mikey just rolled his eyes.
“Don’t get too full of yourself,” he said. “I’ll have you know I’ve been right plenty of times in my life.”
Oh yeah?Luke thought.Were you right to break up with me when we were teenagers? Were you right to ignore me for a decade?
Luke was tempted to ask those questions, if only to see just what Mikey might have to say. Once again, though, he found himself unwilling to ruin the magic of the moment. Maybe it was Mikey’s charisma, or maybe it was just the beauty of a West Virginia spring day, but for whatever reason he actually found himself feeling happy. Even more importantly, he found himself enjoying Mikey’s company.
“Okay,” Mikey said, sensing Luke’s thoughts. “I’ve made some mistakes during my life, some of them quite bad. I…I do regret some of those.”
Luke waited for him to say something else, perhaps for him to even come right out and say sorry for the way he’d broken hisheart all of those years ago, but Mikey went silent, just staring out the window.
Luke tried not to feel too disappointed, but it was hard. He couldn’t shake the sense Mikey had been so close to saying the thing he needed to hear, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he’d stopped at the last minute.
Just be patient with him,he reminded himself.He’s changed…I think, but it’s still going to take him a while.
They drove in silence for a while longer. Luke wasn’t in any great hurry to get back to the cabin, because he liked the feeling of being in his truck, of being in between one place and another. The stretch of road between Moundsville and the turnoff to Fish Creek had always been one of his favorite places; he felt out of time. He was free.
“You know,” he said at last, when the silence had started to feel more than a little oppressive, “I always think there’s somethin’ special about this stretch of road. I know some people think the power plants and stuff aren’t pretty to look at, but I think they’re beautiful in a kind of industrial way.”
He looked out the window at the plants sprawling along the banks of the Ohio. Towers–some of them thin and others fatter–reared up, while below them the land was crisscrossed with pipes and all the other clutter associated with industry. It might be ugly to some, but to a lot of the people around here it was the difference between poverty and employment.
Luke started to think of some lyrics, words to capture some of the complicated love he had for the Ohio Valley, which contained so much hurt and yet so much love. It wasn’t until Mikey started to hum along that he realized he’d been saying them out loud.
“Smokestack rearin’ on a pale stretch of road,” he muttered to himself, “sunset gleamin’ like an old sack o’ gold…”
Luke’s pulse went faster as he realized what was happening: despite all the things standing between them, despite the factthey hadn’t spent so much time with each other for a decade, a creative energy still thrummed between them.
They didn’t need to say anything about what they were doing; doing so would ruin it. Instead, they both just themselves stay in the moment, each of them bringing something unique to the table. Luke even let himself start to sing again and, though his voice was a bit rusty at first, he soon found himself back in the old rhythms, his rich baritone blending surprisingly well with Mikey’s high tenor.
Is this the first time we’ve actually sung together? How did that happen?
He didn’t have time to think about it too much, because the creative juices were flowing and, with some back and forth and some tweaks to the lyrics and the harmonies here and there, the two of them had managed to hash out the beginnings of what was, by Luke’s estimation at least, a pretty good country song. It wasn’t quite as good as some of his best early material, the songs that had landed him at the top of the charts, but it was nothing to be ashamed of, either. And Mikey’s input made it really special. Though he didn’t want to admit it, Mikey was still remarkably good when it came to finding just the right notes for a song. Luke could do it too, of course, but with him it usually took more effort, and he generally had to see the notes on the page for them to really gel in his mind.
We make so much sense together.
