A Past Life
By: Shauna Brock



Late at night, when the house is silent and even the cats are asleep, James paces and wonders about a past life that haunts his every step. Regret hits him the hardest when he’s driving home from hanging out at another show or when he’s flipping through the channels and stops on VH1 Classic to watch his younger self dancing around in tight black leather, wielding a guitar that looks like it weighs more than he does, and flirting quite blatantly with his lead singer. But late at night, when his wife and kids are asleep and he’s pacing the halls (he’s never learned really to sleep, not since giving up lucid dreaming) he lets himself ask the question that plagues his daylight hours but never penetrates his mindset. It’s then that he grants himself the permission to not just face passing regret but to wonder “what if?”

What if the last time they’d all come together, he’d told everyone to fuck off and shut up and that they were going to get back together and do it like it used to be done and because of that they’d be top of the charts again? Was it too late now? The fans on the message boards on which he lurks seem to think so. The fan base was waning; frustrated with Jess’s fading voice and Damien’s seeming dispassion with everything related to the band the rumblings that it was time for the band to pack it up were getting louder and louder. Was it really too late for them to find that musical perfection again, that moment in time when Jess’s voice would soar above the guitar solos and they’d look at each other, the fans screaming, the music pumping, and know that somehow they were touching God?

This current tour was a rehash of the old classics. No album to promote, just themselves. Those were the fun ones. No pressure from the record companies and fans singing along to every song. The band had dusted off stuff from almost thirty years ago and some kid who was young enough to be a son to any of them but old enough have a degree in music was using the very pickups James had once used on his guitar. James spent his restless nights on fan message boards, reading concert reviews and commentary about all of the guys and checking out the posted set lists.

What if they allowed themselves to work together again? What if he and Jess could step through time itself and go back to before Gavin found out about them and before Annie put her foot down? To that time before when James could still handle Jess’s near suicidal drinking binges and Andy’s never-ending goofing off and none of it mattered because they were on top of the world and when they fell, they always were able to help each other up again? What if they could go back to that moment back on the bus between Raleigh and Atlanta when the five of them had worked all the drama out? When they’d realized that no matter what else happened away from the band, they were brothers, were put together on the earth for a reason? Back to before that moment when Gavin had confronted him and Jess, Annie at his side; before James had come to the realization that really, he couldn’t take the bullshit of a dysfunctional family anymore?

What if they moved past all of it? Was it really too late?

What if people learned the truth about him and Jess? Would the fans turn away from the band or would it be a sigh of relief, a welcoming hurrah and understanding of something they’d always known about the two of them but refused to really acknowledge?

He clicked on the Mac book and the screen illuminated the near dark living room; his email client waited for him. Nothing. No quick “Hey, we’re in Salt Lake tonight. It’s nowhere near as boring as it used to be.” No long and rambling tour journals filled with half-disguised apologies issued over and over and over again. No tear-filled love letters that justified Jess’s actions even while he expressed how much he missed him. Nothing.

It shouldn’t have disappointed him, but it did.

He had hundreds of emails like that. All saved. Some with his own rambling, sometimes drunken replies of wishing he was there again.

When the guys were touring, Jess’s emails were the hardest to read. James closed his eyes and could see the music dancing before his eyes. He could reach out and touch it and play with it and the hole in his soul grew and grew. He could reach out and feel Jess’s skin against his and smell the scent of sex and the stage and the longing hit so hard he could swear bruises formed across his body.

Truthfully, James liked his quiet life. He liked his job and the kids he taught every day. He loved his own children and when his wife put her arms around him he knew he could survive anything. But when he stood in the back at a show or when he visited his friends in other bands or opened the dusty cases that held his custom axes and plugged them into ancient equipment, he knew what was really missing in his life – being up on that stage. But he was too old to start up another band and his side projects were just that. Side projects. Going back to the guys really was out of the question. The dynamics of the band had changed too much. Jess and Gavin were too close now. Annie would never allow him back on a full time basis. Her anger and jealousy were still right there on her sleeve and in every decision she helped the band make. (It didn’t make sense to him. Wasn’t music about healing?) And James really didn’t know if he could handle the shift back to the music world. But his fingers still remembered every riff. Every song. Every line. Every note and every breath. Everything.

Every argument. Every frustrated night. Every longing moment. Every kiss. Every touch. Everything.

Every morning he and Jess would wake, snuggled in each other’s arms, kiss, and then go about the day, the sexual energy spent and sated and ready to be poured into another show, another song. The easy parting when the creative energy was done. It had always been so much easier for James. His wife understood that his relationship with Jess wasn’t about replacement. It was about creative energy and fulfillment and joy and passion and that nothing he felt with Jess threatened his love for her. She never felt less than because of it. In fact, once she’d told him that it made her even prouder to be his wife because he’d proved he could love so completely in so many different ways.

If only Annie felt the same way. If only Jess wasn’t so blindly in love with her.

The screen jumped as his mailbox refreshed. A familiar address, one that James’ wife didn’t know about, stared at him. The subject line made him laugh. “We’re in Salt Lake and it’s not as boring as it used to be.”

He clicked on the mail and opened it.

“You should be with us. You’d like it this time around. I say that a lot but it’s true. Maybe I’m just lonely. Damien’s passed out drunk with his ear buds in and Gavin’s already asleep and Andy is lost in Warcraft and really, all I want is one of our late night talks. The kind of talks that inspired the albums we’re performing on this tour.”

James stared at the message, knowing what Jess really meant; that he wanted the relationship back - the love and the sex and the snuggling and the laughter and the understanding that they didn’t need commitment, they had music. But James also knew that even if he was there, the talks they both missed would never happen. Annie would be on Jess’s back, literally, keeping the two of them apart.

He clicked reply.

“Stop thinking like that. Life’s changed – even though it can’t have changed so much that Salt Lake is interesting. You guys are doing good work, so believe in yourself. Say hi to the people who will care. Stop smoking and don’t let the high notes fuck up your voice. We’ll find a way to have coffee when you get back. I miss you too.”

James hit send and stood up and moved back toward the bedroom where his wife was still sleeping. Pausing in the doorway before shedding his t-shirt and joining her under the thick comforter, James took a moment to look at her, to thank God for giving her to him, for her understanding of who he was and how he operated and her never ending patience with his constant restlessness. He missed his old life, but this was where he belonged.