After that I returned to the library, intent on writing October an e-mail.
How are you? I typed. Long time no talk. Congratulations on SFMoMA.
October had once told me that having a show at SFMoMA was one of her biggest dreams in life.
You did it, I wrote. Hope you’re well.
Even in my inebriated state, I knew this was a pathetic attempt at communication, particularly since it had been 949 days since I’d last seen and/or spoken to her, and I deleted the whole thing. That’s when I directed my attention to the tree, and then Patty came over.
The aspen knew I wasn’t brave. I could see it in its eyes.
“Do you know why aspens have eyes?” I asked Patty, who was standing near my chair, looking either worried or fearful; I couldn’t tell which.
“They’re shade-intolerant,” I explained. “They need light. Lots of it. They battle with their neighbors for sun, and the higher they grow, the shadier their lower branches get. So you know what they do? They basically cut off the blood supply to the lower branches so that the taller branches, the ones that get all the light, can thrive. They’re smart trees. They don’t want to expend any energy trying to save the branches in the dark. Not when the ones in the light can flourish. The lower branches eventually fall off, and that leaves a scar. That’s what the eyes are. Scars.”
“Mr. Harper,” Patty said, “I think it might be time for you to go home.”
“My home is in California,” I told her.
“Some fresh air would do you good,” she said, quietly but firmly. “Would you like me to call Sid to come and get you?”
Fucking small towns. Everybody knows everybody. Right away I started packing up my stuff because I didn’t want her to call Sid. He didn’t need to see me like that.
Sid had been my thesis adviser back at UC Berkeley more than fifteen years ago. He teaches at the Flathead Valley Community College now, twelve miles south of Whitefish. He and his teenage daughter, Maggie, had moved up to Montana after his wife died in 2009. We’d kept in touch over the years, and when I found myself wandering aimlessly around the Pacific Northwest, I called him and told him I was in a bad way. He invited me to come and stay in the little caretaker’s cabin on his property while I figured things out.
I planned on hanging around for a month or so, until I got my head back on straight.
It’s been almost three years.
Back in college, I’d written my thesis on Aristotle and his definition of happiness as it related to how well one has lived up to one’s potential as a human being, and Sid had called it exemplary. He said I was a bright, insightful thinker, and he’d granted me my degree with a warm handshake and the kind of encouraging pat on the back that could only come from someone who had no idea what a gutless failure I was going to turn out to be. Or, rather, what a gutless failure I already was.
Because, if I’m being honest, getting that degree was another failure in a succession of failures. I know that sounds absurd, but it’s true. Going to college wasn’t a risky decision. It wasn’t brave. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to do. It was what my father expected of me. The one thing I’d wanted to do with my life—the big dream that would have given depth to my soul and confidence to my heart—I didn’t have the guts to go after.
The last thing Sid said to me before he sent me off into my future was, “You’ve got tremendous potential, Joe. Promise me you’ll do something with it.”
Like I said, that was a long time ago. And for every step forward since, I’ve taken three steps back.
October called it doing the Hokey Pokey. The month before I abandoned her at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, disappearing without explanation, she said, “That’s how you live your life, Joe.” She leaned in close to my face and sang: You put your left foot in, you take your left foot out, you put your right foot in then you freak the fuck about.
It never ceased to amaze me, the way she seemed to perceive what I was feeling when I was feeling it. I’ve always been skilled at hiding my emotions, but October runs on intuition and empathy like cars run on gasoline. And when she addressed me in that voice of hers, full of love and compassion and other sanguine motivations few people possess with that kind of authenticity, I wavered between wanting to throw her off the Golden Gate Bridge and fuck her brains out. Not that I had the balls to do either.
Anyway, if you want to know what my big dream was, I can sum it up in one word: guitar.
I started playing when I was twelve, and by the time I was sixteen I was as good as a kid could be. And this wasn’t according to me; it was according to just about everyone who saw me perform, including the guy who played guitar for Journey, who had been a child prodigy himself back in the 1970s and lived in my hometown of Mill Valley, a small, woody enclave north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, at the base of Mount Tamalpais, Marin County’s highest peak. The Journey guy saw me and Cal perform at an open mic night in town; afterward he came over, shook my hand, and told me I was a genius.
Cal was my best friend all through high school, and to this day the best friend I’ve ever had. The summer we met he could already sing, play guitar and drums, and within days of our meeting, he informed me that as soon
