by Dale Mayer
“Nice,” he said. “It doesn’t happen all that often to find a place like Hathaway House that is run by somebody with as much heart as Dani has.”
“That’s why she does what she does,” Jessica said.
“Well, maybe she can help me find a place a couple months down the road.”
“And those couple months will go by fast,” Jessica said. “Too fast, really.”
“Meaning?” he challenged.
She shrugged self-consciously. “Meaning, I’ll miss you,” she said.
He reached across and gripped her fingers. “I’m not going far,” he said, “and you said you were planning to move into town yourself.”
“Maybe,” she said, looking around. “This has been a really good place for me, but sometimes I wonder if it isn’t too easy to be complacent here,” she said. “I don’t get out and meet other people, and you know I used to love going to the blues club,” she said. “However, living out here, I tend not to go anywhere because I have to go into town to do it.”
“But, on the other hand, how will you feel driving out here to work every day?” he asked.
“I’m not sure about that either,” she said. “If I got something on this side of Dallas, where I don’t have to deal with the traffic, it would be a quick hop to work every day. Then I’m already three-quarters of the way there, if I wanted to go do something in town, so it’s not nearly as stressful.”
“Stress is the big progress killer,” he said. “That’s what Shane told me that I’m supposed to avoid.”
“Good luck with that,” she said. “It’s something we all have to deal with.”
“It is, indeed,” he said. “I’ll talk to Dani first and see if she has any ideas.”
“Do that,” she said. “Have you worked up your songs for tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” he said. “I was hoping to play just a few, to keep to Dani’s schedule, but that won’t work. I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
By the time he got there at four p.m. that Saturday, the songs thrummed through his body, and he couldn’t wait for his fingers to touch the guitar strings and the piano keys. He started off in the same community room, not sure if it would be the same size crowd again. He didn’t have the piano in the cafeteria. It was on wheels, but he didn’t know that anybody was prepared to move it. However, as he sat down at his place with his guitar, he frowned because the piano wasn’t here.
Dani walked by, smiled, crooked her finger at him, and said, “We’re in the other room.”
“It got bigger, did it?” he asked, with a sheepish grin.
“Way bigger,” she said, a mysteriously secretive air to her. She looked particularly smug.
He pondered that for a moment, then stepped into the cafeteria to see that easily one hundred people were here, all waiting for him. As soon as he arrived, they all clapped and cheered. He shrugged self-consciously, but he walked up on his crutches to his designated chair and sat down. As soon as he started to play, the crowd calmed down. He lost himself immediately in the music, starting with an Aretha Franklin song which flowed into another then another.
As the music flowed from his fingers, Lance also sang along. He would often sing when he did his music before, but he hadn’t done that since he had started playing again. He didn’t realize it now, until he opened his eyes at the end of the song to see everybody staring at him in amazement. He shrugged and said, “Well, I guess you never know what to expect here, right?”
There was a lot of laughter and clapping. Lance hopped up, grabbed his crutches, walked to the piano, and started ripping into some rock and roll. Before long, the whole dining area was filled with people stomping and clapping in time. Lance went through several of his favorites, and, when he finally came to a crashing crescendo at the end, and then stopped, he had timed it perfectly to be done an hour and a half later. He waited for the silence to fall, and then the entire room erupted in cheers. Just as he turned around, arms came around him, and he was hugged from behind. He twisted and wrapped his arms around Jessica. “I figured it was you,” he murmured.
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “How could it not be?” she said. “That was absolutely amazing.”
With a smile he realized that Dennis had come over with some drinks on trays, handing them out to everybody. When the tray was offered to him, Lance said to Dennis, “You never miss a trick to show what a good guy you are, do you?”
Dennis laughed with a pleased smile. “Tonight deserves something special,” he said. “You really outdid yourself. Do you have any idea how good this is for all these guys and gals?”
“I feel great,” he said.
Shane stood off to the side, nodding. “I heard that,” he said. “And that deserves a drink.” Everybody raised their glasses in a toast to Lance.
He smiled, raised his, and took a sip. It was hot chocolate, warm with a hint of cinnamon, and it was great. They sat down, as he just relaxed. He noticed a couple people he’d never seen before in the background. When he looked again, they were gone, but then he saw them near the door, talking to Dani. He raised an eyebrow at Dani, and she just shrugged. Of course she knew a ton more people than Lance did. Heck, he was still trying to figure out who was a patient and who was staff in this place sometimes.
But he headed off to bed that night with a smile, and his future had never looked brighter. A couple days later he got an email from the blues club in town. He stared at it because he hadn’t realized what the name of the place was, but it was well-renowned, and people flew in from all over the country to spend time there. As he read the email, his jaw dropped. He was being asked to come and do a debut session on the Friday night, two weeks hence. He just shook his head and stared.
What an honor, he thought, but how would they even have known about him? Surely that’s not the bar that Jessica had been to, was it? He racked his brain, wondering if she had mentioned the bar’s name. Because this one was bigger than big. He hadn’t even realized it was here in Dallas, mistakenly thinking it was in Austin. As he did the research on it, he realized that every blues singer that he had ever held in high regard had played there.
Of course he liked to play all kinds of music, but this place offered the blues. And they were specifically asking him to come, not to audition, but to sit in and play for an hour and a half. He sank back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, dumbfounded. When Shane walked in, Lance looked up and said, “Problems?”
“I was going to ask you that,” he said. “It’s Tuesday, and you were due at my session ten minutes ago.”
Lance looked at him in shock. “What time is it?”
“Almost nine-fifteen,” Shane said. “And you’re still in bed. What gives?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I went to bed exhausted, and I guess I must have slept in,” he said. “I haven’t even had breakfast.”
“Well, you aren’t getting any now,” he said. “I want to make sure those shoulders and arms of yours are loosened up.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, give me two minutes to get dressed, and I’ll get down to the gym.” He twisted the laptop around and pointed to the email and said, “While I’m getting dressed, see what you make of that.” As he went to the washroom and quickly changed, he came out, then went back in. “I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing,” he said, “but I came out without the crutches and had to go back and get them.”
Shane looked at him with a smile on his face. “It’s a hugely good thing,” he said. “You’ll do a lot more walking without them from now on.” He tapped the laptop and said, “What are we talking about crutches for? This is freaking amazing. What an opportunity!”
“I knew that Dallas had blues clubs,” he said, “but I didn’t realize this one was here. Holy cow.”
“Dallas’s well known for its jazz and also the blues,” he said with a smile. “This club is world-renowned for their blues.”
“I know,” he said. “I don’t have a clue how they
knew about me, unless it’s the one that Jessica went to a few months ago. She just said, the blues club, and I got a case of cold feet, so we never really talked about it again.”
“That’s because, even though there are others in town, it’s really the blues club,” Shane said.
Just the thought of being invited kept a smile on his face throughout Shane’s hard workout. Then when he discovered he’d lost his wheelchair on a permanent basis, he turned cranky.
“Deal with it,” Shane said. “It’s holding you back at this point. Let the crutches be your crutch instead.”
“But sometimes, when I’m tired,” he said, “the wheelchair makes life so much easier.”
“That’s the thing about a crutch,” he said, “and you just can’t afford that right now.”
“And I need to do things in my own time frame,” he snapped back. When he hit the cafeteria for lunch, he was really hungry and could have been considered “hangry.” Hungry plus angry. He loaded up with protein and veggies and sat down on his own off to the side, digging into his food.
When Dennis arrived with a cup of coffee a little bit later, he said, “Man, you’re hungry today.”
“I missed breakfast,” he mumbled. “And Shane put me to work. Then we had an argument.” He sat back with a heavy sigh and said, “But I do feel better now.”
“Never argue on an empty stomach,” Dennis said. “It’s a well-known fact that hungry people don’t make a whole lot of sense sometimes.”
“Well, I was definitely hungry,” he said. “Now that I’ve eaten so fast, I don’t think I can finish this.”
“Give it a few minutes,” Dennis said. “You’ll probably find out you’ve got room for it after all.”
Laughing at that, he said, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot, and thanks for the coffee.”
“Not a problem,” Dennis said and moved on.
Lance realized that he really had been cranky mostly because of the wheelchair thing. He’d come down with his crutches, and, as he stood to return his dirty dishes, he realized he was walking without the crutches too. He slowly made his way back to the table, grabbed his crutches, and used them to get back to his bedroom. It was also his shrink day. Using his crutches, he headed down to the office, and, when he knocked, he was invited in right away.
The doctor took one look at him on the crutches and said, “Progress, indeed.”
“Progress on many levels,” he said and explained about the email.
“So, will you do it?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.
The doctor just stared at him, then slowly leaned forward. “You want to explain?”
“Because I’m not sure I’m ready,” he said. “Although I’m better, I don’t want to have some stupid deal where I fall off the stage or where I can’t sit on the chair and my back seizes up, or you know? It wasn’t so bad, but then Shane chose today to take away my wheelchair permanently,” he confessed.
The doctor, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth, sat back. “Ah, so you lost something that was part of yourself. Something that made you feel secure, so now everything else in the future looks scary, doesn’t it?”
He frowned at the shrink. “Surely it can’t be that simple, can it?”
“Life is often that simple,” he said. “And it makes sense, if you think about it. You were just getting really comfortable, but you also knew you had the wheelchair to fall back on.”
“I can go buy my own wheelchair,” he said, staring out the window.
“You can,” he said, “and maybe that’s what you need to do. Buy it and just keep it there as a reminder that, when things get bad, you can sit down and use it.”
“Most people don’t like their wheelchair,” he said. “So what’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing,” he said, “but change is threatening for you. It always has been. So, if you need to hang on to that wheelchair a little bit longer, than you hang on to it.”
He nodded slowly. “Not sure Shane will let me.”
“I’ll have a talk with Shane,” the doc said. “If you want it, you can have it. Just let me know.”
Chapter 17
Something was going on that Jessica wasn’t too sure about. Lance seemed excited and ready to tell her something and then had backed off several times. She went up to Dani on Thursday and asked, “Do you know what’s going on with Lance?”
Dani looked up at her, surprised. “What do you mean by going on?”
She frowned and said, “He seems really excited about something, yet he won’t tell me what it is.”
“Maybe you’ll have to wait for him to share it then,” she said.
“I hate waiting,” she said, “and, during all the time that I’m waiting, it always seems like I’m looking at the negative side of life instead of the positive.”
“So then patience in this instance is a good thing,” Dani said gently. “And you can do whatever you want to do, but it’s up to him to tell you when he’s ready.”
Jessica started to nod and then looked at her and asked, “Do you know?”
Dani grinned. “I know something’s going on. I don’t know what it is you’re talking about in particular though.”
With that, Jessica had to be satisfied, and she headed off.
As she headed down the hallway, Shane called out to her, “I’m going into town and maybe to the blues club just to get away for a bit. Do you want to come? I think a group of us are going,” he said.
“You know what? That would be nice,” she said. “Music tonight and then potentially again tomorrow night with Lance.”
“We’ll miss him when he’s gone,” Shane said. “A couple more weeks and he’s likely to have his strings cut.”
“He’s sure come a long way, and that’s what we want for everybody,” she said warmly. But, in her heart of hearts, she also knew that she would be lonely as heck without him. And that’s not what she wanted. But she was willing to do whatever she needed to do in order to help him fly. “So what time are you going?”
“Well, it’ll start around seven-thirty, I think,” he said. “So we should be there by six-thirty or seven to be sure we get seats.”
“Good enough,” she said.
“We’ll take the van after dinner.”
“Okay, that sounds good. Thank you for asking me.”
As it was, baked sea bass was served for dinner, so she thoroughly enjoyed her meal, and then she found a group of about eight of them gathered and ready to go. They got into one of the big Hathaway vans and headed into town.
“We don’t usually get this many people to go,” she said.
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “No, we don’t. But that’s all right. Sometimes we have special events for everybody.” The drive into town went by quickly, and, in another five minutes, they were at the blues club. As they drove in to the parking lot, she was amazed.
“Just think, it’s only a quarter to seven, and the place is packed.” Then she cried out, “Oh, look. Another group from Hathaway House is here.”
“Yeah, I heard that,” Shane said, then hopped out, opened the panel door, and everybody climbed out.
“Now we have to get seats,” she said.
He nodded. “Hopefully it won’t be that bad.” As they walked into the dusky atmosphere, already some music was playing up front. He grabbed her arm and pointed to a bunch of tables roped off in the back. “It’s full enough now that we might go in there.” Another Hathaway House employee was back there too, so they all sat down together.
Jessica smiled. “Gosh, it’s too bad Lance isn’t here,” she said. “This would be perfect for him to see how this place works and all.”
“Yeah,” Shane said, as waitresses came around, and they all ordered drinks. As she sat here talking to another nurse, one of the announcers stepped onto the stage.
“Have we got a treat for you tonight, guys. He’s new to our blues club, but he certainly isn’t new to the blues scene. We knew his name
many, many years ago, but we never had a chance to bring him in. His life took several turns—some up, some down, and, in his case, the last few years have been pretty rough. But he’s on the road to recovery now, and I want you to welcome Lance Mayfair for the next hour and a half. He’ll be a treat for your ears and a sight for sore eyes.”
Just then, the light shone on the man sitting in the center of the stage, his fingers immediately picking at the strings of the guitar and pouring out music the likes of which she had never heard before. Her jaw dropped, and she looked over at Shane and caught sight of his big grin. “You knew?”
He nodded. “He got the invite a couple weeks ago. He was going to come alone and was trying to arrange with Dani a way to get here. We decided that, if we support them at Hathaway House, we’ll support them in town too. And, once we got word out that he was coming to play, we all wanted to come and see him. Look around,” he said, as he pointed out about two dozen other Hathaway residents, thoroughly enjoying the outing.
But her gaze was stuck on Lance. With his head back and his throat full, he sang songs that she’d never heard come from him before. When he substituted a trumpet for the guitar and lit into another blues number, everybody crying and cheering, she had tears streaming down her face. “Oh, my God,” she said. “He is so incredibly talented.”
“He is,” Shane said. “And, up until now, I think he was just a broken soul. He’d walked away from all this to serve his country, and now he’s at a whole new place in his life where this can be his new world.”
And to see him up there without his wheelchair, only then to realize she saw no crutches … “How did he get on the stage?” she marveled.
Shane reached across, tapped her hand gently, and whispered, “He walked. Just like he’s been walking everywhere recently. Haven’t you seen him?”
She nodded, yet frowned. “Sure, but it’s been so crazy again lately that I’ve been late coming to see him at lunch or just stopping in his room, so I haven’t really seen him walking on his own,” she whispered. “That is incredible.” As she looked over at the other Hathaway House people, she saw Dani sitting there with Dennis, who caught her gaze, and he lifted his drink.
