Dillon caught up to Tom and they walked over to the girls. It was hard to tell whether they were more excited or nervous, but either way, they were committed now. The girls saw them coming, so there was no backing down.
“Hey, guys,” Amanda Armstrong said, and she flashed them a perfect smile. Tom noted that years of braces and teeth-whitening were definitely paying off. “It’s nice to see you, Dillon. I heard you were sick, but I can see you’re feeling better now.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
The girls moved closer. It was cool, but totally unnerving too. Dillon looked at Amanda’s friend, Marie Watson. She didn’t say a word, but she smiled at him and something inside Dillon lit up. Marie was in his English class and when they read Romeo and Juliet, Dillon thought about Marie. She wore blue jeans and her hair was always in a ponytail.
“Hey Marie, you ever go skateboarding?” Dillon was sure she never did and he wanted the chance to show her how.
“Yeah, I can ride.” She reached for his new board and he gave it to her, dumbfounded. Ten minutes later they were standing together at the top of the ramp, Marie on Dillon’s board and Dillon borrowing Tom’s.
“One, two, three!” she yelled as she pushed off the edge and soared down the hill.
“Whoa! That was awesome!” Dillon cheered.
It took Dillon a minute to reach her, and when he did, they were both laughing and catching their breath at the bottom of the ramp. Marie leaned down to give Dillon back his board and she lost her balance. She would have wiped out for sure, but Dillon saved her just in time. Of all the thrills Dillon had with his skateboard that day, holding on to Marie was by far the most exciting.
He held onto her a little longer than he had to, but she didn’t seem to mind. Walking back to Tom and Amanda, Marie slipped her hand into Dillon’s. When she let go, he found a note in its place. Unlike the scary messages he was starting to get used to, this note was welcome. Two glorious words: Call me. Dillon didn’t know quite what to say, but it didn’t matter anyway.
“Well, we should probably get going.” Amanda was grinning like a Cheshire Cat, and a moment later Tom and Dillon were watching the girls head out of the park and down the street. When Dillon showed Tom the note, he smiled.
“Aw, that’s nothing! Amanda kissed me!” Tom looked like he was flying again, but this time there was no skateboard involved. “It was awesome. When you guys went skateboarding, she just leaned in and kissed me!”
It was getting dark and they decided to get hot dogs and then head home. Both of them had dinner waiting, but as far as they were concerned, there was nothing better than a dirty water dog to celebrate the best day ever. Inter-dimensional time travel was nice and all, but girls were a much more interesting course of study.
Danny watched Ryan work all day. At first he felt a little guilty since he could tell that Ryan had no idea he was there, but he figured it was always a good thing to have more security around the guitar. Danny didn’t know what it was about that guitar, but ever since he first got it, he had felt like it was his job to keep it safe. It was like Danny knew he was keeping it for someone; he just didn’t know it would be Dillon.
Ryan headed over to Bill’s store on 2nd Avenue and Danny was right beside him. It had been a while since Ryan had seen Bill, but he was his usual warm and jovial self when Ryan called.
“You do realize this is going to cost you a nice steak dinner, right?”
Ryan smiled. “Yeah, sure. We’ll get together and go to the Oak Room.”
“No. I don’t think you get it. I mean tonight. I don’t hear from you for years and then it’s all hurry up and help me out. Well, that’s fine, but I want to hear what you have been up to and the way I see it, now might be my only chance.”
Ryan smiled again. There was nothing like an old friend. He and Bill had played together every weekend during college and even during Ryan’s first year of law school, but then other dreams eclipsed the band. Now, it was pretty much down to news through the grapevine and Christmas cards. Pathetic.
“Tell you what, take a look at this guitar and tell me what you can. Then we’ll head over to the Oak Room.” Ryan handed Bill the guitar, and his eyes lit up.
Bill took the guitar lovingly in his hands. “Are you kidding me? I haven’t seen a beauty like this in a very long time." Bill laid the guitar on the table and turned on his overhead light. He took in every mark, plane, and angle of the instrument. He checked the strings and noticed the wear and tear on the fingerboard. He removed the capo and turned the guitar over. On the back he saw the years of playing and travel traced across the soundboard. It was a thing of beauty: a well-worn, well-played, and well-loved guitar.
“I’d say it’s at least thirty years old. I need to get my dental mirror to check the serial number on the inside, but I can tell you this much: it is a thing of beauty, no longer in production, and worth a lot of money to the right collector. Do you want to sell it?”
Ryan could hardly believe his ears. “No! I most certainly do not want to sell it, and even if I did, it’s not mine to sell.”
“Got that right,” Danny said, even though he knew no one could hear him. Danny didn’t like the guitar being anywhere but with Dillon. He felt like it was some sort of sacred link between them and he would be relieved when it was back where it belonged.
Bill shrugged his shoulders and disappeared into the back office. He returned a few minutes later with a small mirror angled at the end of a metal stick. He put the mirror behind the strings and into the belly of the instrument. A moment later he had all the information he needed. He walked over to the computer and put the serial number into the archival database and nodded with satisfaction. This was a pretty special guitar, custom made for one owner. This guitar was a 1967 Fenson Flame VII.
“Did you say this baby was from Memphis?” Bill was practically levitating with excitement.
“No, I didn’t. But, yes, it actually is from Memphis, Tennessee.”
“Yep. It sure is; in fact I can tell you exactly where in Memphis. Looks like this guitar was delivered to 3600 Highway 51 South, Memphis, Tennessee, in 1967.”
“Wow! All that from the serial number?”
“Yep. Do you have any idea who lived at 3600 Highway 51 South?”
Ryan was getting tired of this. It had been a long day, and Bill had to know he was not intimately familiar with the 1967 Memphis yellow pages. In fact, in 1967 the only guy Ryan knew of who lived in Memphis was E. Princely. Suddenly the penny dropped. Ryan looked at Bill and his mouth opened, but no words came out.
Bill was just about bursting. “This guitar was delivered to none other than Mr. E. Princely’s assistant.
Ryan was dumbfounded. Dillon was messing around with a guitar that might have belonged to The Ambassador? How was this even possible?
“Come on, Ryan, please tell me you’ll sell it. To a collector this guitar is priceless. I mean put-Dillon-through-school priceless.”
Ryan lifted the guitar off the table with a new respect and reverence.
“I’ll have to take a rain check on that steak,” Ryan called over his shoulder as he headed out the door.
Bill just laughed. “So what else is new?”
Ryan was so excited about this new discovery that he couldn’t wait to tell everyone, and on his way home he arranged for a meeting and a pizza at his place.
An hour later Ryan, Maggie, Dillon, Tom, and Thomas were enjoying a soda and a slice, and Ryan could wait no longer. Danny was there, listening in. “Listen up, guys. I have some amazing news to tell you. As you know, I took the guitar to Bill Butler today.”
Now he had their attention. Conversation stopped and cheese was left dangling in mid air. “According to Bill, this guitar might have belonged to E. Princely.”
“Get outta here!” Thomas’ Bronx roots were out in force. “Are you tellin’ me the E. Princely? As in The Ambassador of rock-and-roll?”
Thomas was a huge fan and he had a much easier time imagining
thought experiments and quantum physics than the fact that the guitar at his feet might have been played by the legendary Ambassador. His son, Tom, burst out laughing.
“Seriously, Dad? Calm down.” The twinkle in Tom’s eyes gave him away. The way he was smiling let his dad know he knew exactly how cool it would be to have The ambassador’s old guitar.
“I can’t believe Danny didn’t tell us,” Dillon said. Then it occurred to him that maybe Danny didn’t even know.
“Look, he said his dad got it for him from Memphis. Maybe he has no idea it might have come from Graceland.”
“Actually, he said his dad brought the guitar back from Memphis. He never said that was where his dad got it.” Ryan always was such a stickler for details. It’s what made him such a good lawyer.
It didn’t really matter to Dillon; he was excited to learn more about his guitar. He was getting pretty good at it. When he played, Dillon felt like it spoke for him when he just couldn’t find the right words. There was also the undeniable fact that, let’s face it, girls notice the guy with the guitar.
“Okay,” Maggie made a desperate attempt to bring the guys back to the point of this information. “So now we know a little more about the guitar. We know it was originally delivered to The Ambassador’s assistant and that it brought Danny and Dillon together.”
Maggie stood up and walked around the couch. Maybe she could hold their attention better if she became a moving target, like a football. One by one she recited a list of what they knew so far.
One, the guitar was sent to The Ambassador’s assistant in 1967.
Two, at some point, the guitar found its way to Danny’s dad, Clint Charles, and he gave it to Danny in Franklin, Tennessee.
Three, after Danny’s death, the guitar went from Franklin to Nashville.
Four, Dillon got the guitar and Danny appeared to him when he began to play.
“Okay. Did I miss anything?” Maggie looked up.
“No, not really.” Dillon smiled. “You know, just that I am an awesome guitarist and inter-dimensional time traveler.” Everyone laughed, and they finished off the pizza. When he was done, Dillon wiped his hands and took the guitar into his lap like a life preserver.
“You know there is one more thing,” Thomas said. “We know that this guitar became important to you. Now we also know that it was created as an important instrument, one likely to be preserved. I wonder if this guitar has more to tell us. Something like this would be a good place to put a message for someone because it is not just some random instrument. It was designed for preservation.”
“I guess so.” Dillon sighed. “But I have had enough messages from this old thing.” Dillon began to strum.
At first no one recognized what he played. Then Maggie’s eyes filled with tears.
“My brother, Joe, used to sing that like he was a real outlaw or something. Everyone knew he wanted to play guitar, but he just wasn’t very good at it. That’s why his friends just gave him a tambourine and told him to sing.” Maggie wiped a tear away and Dillon stopped strumming. His mom nudged him to go on. He wished he could have known his Uncle Joe better. They might have had a lot in common, both of them being musicians and all.
It was nice to hear his mom talk about him. Usually, all talk of Uncle Joe was relegated to 9/11 events, and then all they ever said was that he was a firefighter. That he ran in when all others ran out. His uncle died somewhere in Tower Seven that day and the last person to hear from him was his Captain, Fred Dunston. Uncle Joe’s last words had been “Play on.” No one seemed to get it until Maggie explained it. He had told his band the same thing just before he left for college. The other guys had another year of high school and without Joe they figured the band was over. The night before he left he went down to the garage and painted PLAY ON on the bass drum and the black curtain they used behind the band when they were on stage. The guys liked it so much they changed the name of the band to Play On.
“I guess Uncle Joe knew a classic song when he heard it,” Dillon said.
“He sounds like he had excellent taste in music," Danny drawled. Then Dillon had an idea.
“Danny! Can you talk to E. Princely?”
“No, fool, I cannot talk to The Ambassador.” It came out a bit harsher than Danny meant, but he was in a terrible mood anyway. At least Dillon didn’t seem to mind.
It had been a truly poor day for Danny. He might not know much about where he was, or how long he would have to stay here, but today proved one thing to him for sure: he was definitely not in heaven.
Danny tried to relax. He was still unsettled from his visit to check in on his mom and dad. He wasn’t ready to tell anyone about it, so instead he just listened to everyone talking about what he already knew about his old six string. While they rambled on, Dillon noticed that Danny could not take his eyes off Maggie. Suddenly, Danny realized that she reminded him of Clint; they both had the same undeniable sadness in their eyes.
Everyone reviewed Maggie’s list and Danny filled in that he was twelve when he got the guitar. “My dad brought it back from some business trip and I felt like a real cowboy when I held it for the first time. I played it like a bass at first because it was too big for my lap, but it wasn’t too long before it fit, and then I had the greatest love affair of my life. I played my heart and soul into that guitar, and I’m not sure that I could have survived high school without it.”
Danny couldn’t help wondering about how the heck his dad got a guitar meant for E. Princely. He thought about it until it became like an itch.
Thinking about what he found out in Tennessee only gave him more questions. The most pressing question was How could this be? Danny needed some time to think. He just wasn’t ready to share what he had found on his parents’ farm, not until he had some idea how all these new pieces fit together. Nothing made sense to him. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it. In fact, even now, seeing was still not the same thing as believing.
Dillon knew something was up and he tried to lighten the mood.
“Geez Danny, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s up?”
Danny looked at Dillon. “You have no idea.”
A moment later Danny was gone. He had to go back to the farm and think. If he could even just sit under the old copper beech tree, maybe he could figure this out.
It was a moonless night and the stars were infinite in the sky over the Danny’s Tennessee home. he lay on his back in the grass. He looked up through the twisted branches of the old beech tree and smelled the air. A sign swinging at the end of the lane proclaimed “The Charles Family Farm.” Danny shook his head. What did that even mean? Were they really a family? Danny missed his mom and dad more in that moment than he ever had before. He wished he could walk up to their new house, open the door, and have some of his mom’s pecan pie with a ridiculously large glass of milk. Heck, he wished he could just stand on the porch and be seen or heard by his parents.
He didn’t like looking over their shoulders and rifling through old papers he didn’t understand. He felt dirty going through their secrets and not being able to talk to them. He would give anything to be able to just ask them, just confront them. The whole thing was so hellishly frustrating. All his pent-up emotion gave him a burst of energy and Danny lifted a small rock and tossed it into the pond. The splash was somehow satisfying until he heard his father’s voice.
“Who’s there? What’s going on?” Clint was up like a shot and came around the tree. Danny stood up too and jumped out of the way before he remembered his dad couldn’t see him anyway. At the edge of the water he could see his dad’s fishing tackle and the line dangling in the water. Danny knew there would be catfish for dinner tomorrow, and he missed it down to his bones; if he still had bones, that is.
Clint walked all around the tree and scratched his head. He knew what he had seen, and he knew that rocks were not usually in the habit of hurling themselves into the pond. Clint also knew there was no wind and
no sign of anyone anywhere near him. Still, he relaxed and laughed out loud. Clint didn’t know why, but out of nowhere he felt tension drain away. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to fishing. Clint never saw it, but he sure did feel Danny put his hand on his back and lead him back to his lawn chair by the water’s edge. Clint felt foolish, but he said it anyway. “Hey Danny, is that you? I miss you, kiddo. I miss you.”
October 25, 1984
Joe was standing in front of the two-burner stove in his two-room apartment in Brooklyn. He had a new job, a new apartment, and a new girlfriend. No doubt about it, life was good. He had just about everything he wanted; everything, that is, except for one thing. He had no clue how to make a decent pot of chili, and no self-respecting firefighter could take his turn as cook if he couldn’t even produce a pot of three-alarm chili.
The buzzing of the door interrupted his thoughts. By the time he washed his hands and put down the towel, he was convinced that the buzzer would be broken by the time he got to the door. Then came the knocking. No doubt about it, Clint was here. He and his wife were in the city to see some kind of special doctor. Everyone knew they were desperate to have a child, but this hotshot in New York was their last chance. It must have been a tough day because Clint had called earlier to say that his wife, Sara, was going to stay at the hotel and try to have an early night.
Clint and Joe had met in college and become fast friends. The cowboy and the city slicker were all but inseparable. Before they knew it, college gave way to new jobs and they each returned to their own hometowns. They tried to keep in touch, but visits like this were a luxury neither one could afford very often.
Maggie stopped by Joe’s place on her way home from the hospital where she worked. She opened the door with her key and was surprised to see Clint. “Oh. Hello, Clint. I didn’t know you were in town.” Maggie gave Clint a big hug.
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