Victory RUN: Collected Victory RUN 1, 2, 3

by Devon Hartford

  she is. I pretty much knew in my shower when my Switchblade fantasy wasn’t doing it for me that nothing was going to happen between us.

  But she’s unzipping her pants and says, “I’ll prove it to you! I have a pussy!”

  I joke, “Yeah, but you secretly wish you had a dick.” I’m treating this situation like she’s good for her word, and she’s really a lesbian. At this point, it doesn’t matter if she is or not. I just don’t want to send the wrong signals. “We’re born the way we’re born.”

  She stops unbuckling, drops her butt into the seat, and looks vaguely disappointed. A moment later, she leans over again and hugs me hard. “You’re the coolest, Kellan.” She sounds like she’s crying.

  I pat her on the back affectionately and mumble, “You are too.”

  I’m going to miss her bad because she is awesome, gay or straight.

  Eventually she releases the hug and I see tears on her cheeks. I wipe away one with my thumb.

  “Those aren’t mine,” she sniffs, “They’re yours, you pussy.” She punches my arm and starts crying quietly, but she’s smiling too.

  I say softly, “You should probably go home. I bet you have a ton of shit to do before you go.”

  “You’re right.” She slaps the steering wheel a bunch of times, excited again. “I’m playing guitar for Wild Child! I’m going on tour!”

  “Yes you are,” I say sadly.

  She starts spinning around again in her seat, “I need to pack! I need to tell my apartment manager I’m moving! I have a million things to do!”

  “You’re gonna blow the world away, Switchblade. They’re gonna love you. You’re gonna impress the shit out of everyone who watches you play at the shows. They’ll never forget you.”

  And neither will I.

  In a good way.

  I heave a sigh and climb out of her Camaro. I stop myself before I close the door and lean back inside, “You gonna be able to play the open mic at The Dive Bomb before you fly out?”

  “What night is it?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “I fly out Wednesday morning,” she winces, “Early.”

  “It’s up to you,” I say casually.

  She gives me a long look, “I wouldn’t have heard about the Wild Child audition if it wasn’t for you, Kellan…”

  I crack a grin, “We have to get video of you and me on stage at a gig at least once, right?”

  “Fuck yeah,” she smiles. “I’ll be there. And it’s not like you’re never going to see me again once I fly out.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I smile and close the door.

  I slap the roof of her Camaro and stand in the middle of the street as she drives away.

  Chapter 94

  KELLAN

  I trudge up the driveway of my building and to my apartment. It’s pretty hot inside, so I open some windows and leave the front door open with the screen door closed to let in a draft. The flies will have to buzz around outside. I stick my head in the fridge, enjoying the cool air as it slides out. I grab a beer from the bottom shelf and pop the top.

  I drop down on my couch and stare at my recording equipment. It reminds me of

  (Victory)

  how bummed I am that Switchblade is leaving. Finding a musician as good as

  (Victory)

  Switchblade is hard enough. Finding one as cool as her who’s easy to get along with is twice as hard. Finding one who is talented, cool, and sticks around, is apparently impossible.

  (Giselle)

  I heave a sigh and sip my beer.

  I think back over all the bands I’ve been in over the years. My high school buddies I thought I’d be touring the world with. They’re gone. They got jobs or had kids or joined other bands that went nowhere. Every time that happened, a little piece of my heart died.

  I notice the copy of Guitar World magazine sitting on top of my computer table with Eddie and Alex Van Halen on the cover. Those two guys have been playing together since the crib. Their dad was a musician and bought them instruments when they were barely out of diapers. Eddie and Alex have played together their entire lives. I know about zero musicians personally who can make that claim.

  If you want to form a successful band, you need more than musical chemistry. You need

  (Victory)

  human chemistry.

  And a total commitment to making it as a band. Without that, the band will always fall apart.

  Always.

  I guess I’ll have to keep searching for that kind of bond with someone

  (Victory)

  as dedicated as I am.

  I take another sip of beer and gaze around my lonely living room.

  There’s only one thing that can cure the sickness in my heart right now. I pull my Martin acoustic out of its hardshell case in the bedroom closet and sit back down on the living room couch with a pad of paper and a pencil.

  I start strumming some chords. Like every other singer, my voice works good in some keys, but not in others. Considering my mood tonight, I go with C and noodle around until I find the bittersweet

  (Victory)

  vibe I’m looking for. I settle for a chord progression of C major, F minor 7, E flat major 7, C major. I play it fingerstyle until I like what I hear. It’s got that sad ballad slow vibe which is perfect for heartbreak songs that everybody loves.

  Now all I need is a chord progression for the chorus. Something mournful. That’s easy.

  A flat major, B flat major, back to C.

  It’s interesting how the major chords, when you stack them like that, create the minor key. The power in the darkness is how I always describe those chords to my guitar students.

  It suits my mood.

  While I work all the chords into my muscles, I start to hum a melody on top of everything. I jot down phrases and words on my pad of paper as they come to me. I already have a clear idea what the song is about.

  It’s about wanting.

  I’m not talking some passing thing, like a spoiled kid who wants some new toy really, really bad, and he begs and begs for it until his mom is going nuts and finally she gives in and buys the stupid thing, and when the kid finally gets the magic toy out of the box, the toy he needed more than his next breath or life itself, he’s done with it two hours later and tosses it on the floor with the rest of his shit, to be quickly forgotten.

  No, I’m not talking about that.

  I’m talking about a once in a lifetime treasure.

  (Victory)

  The kind you never forget.

  (Giselle)

  The kind you know is meant for you the moment you meet them.

  (Victory)

  The deepest bone yearning a human being can possibly have.

  (Victory)

  The kind of wanting I’m feeling right now.

  The desire to find true love. The kind that doesn’t walk away. The kind of love most people only find one time in their entire life, if they’re lucky. The luckiest people of all find it when they’re young. Others don’t find it until late in life after going through one failed relationship after another. The unlucky ones never find it at all. But for the ones who do, they know they need to hold onto it with everything they’ve got, because it’s not gonna come back around if they let it go. They protect that love, do anything to keep that love, because it truly is the ultimate treasure life has to offer.

  I thought I’d found that connection with Giselle.

  Boy, was I fucking wrong about her.

  It was good with her for awhile. Incredible. I can still picture her beautiful smile.

  Too bad that smile was a lie.

  Too bad it hid a different person underneath. How did I fall for it? I grab my beer off the coaster beside the couch and pull a swallow. Giselle was a master of disguises, that’s why. I sometimes think she had nothing beneath her disguises except maybe a logic computer or whatever. But not a heart or anything remotely human. The strange thing is, she wasn’t so heartless in the beginning. At
least I thought she wasn’t. Either way, she changed.

  Fucking Giselle.

  But I’m an optimist.

  Giselle is way behind me now.

  I’m looking forward.

  Love is still out there. And I’m gonna keep looking for that one special person

  (Victory)

  until I find her.

  That’s when I realize the song I’m writing right now is about Victory. It’s about not having her but wanting her so bad it’s driving me crazy.

  And it’s about Giselle.

  It’s about thinking Giselle was it, that she was THE one, but finding out the hard way she wasn’t.

  I scowl to myself.

  Giselle wasn’t shit.

  But I’m over her.

  The next thing I work out for my song is the verse lyrics. I play around with various vocal approaches to the melody while strumming the chords:

  “Whispered kisses

  on my lips

  from the ghost of you

  We’ve never met

  yet it’s true

  your the one I seek”

  I know some people will think it’s a song about a lost love who died because of the word ghost, and that’s okay. The secret to good lyrics is leaving them open ended enough that every listener can find a way into the song.

  For me, it feels like Victory drifted out of my life as quick as she came into it. And yeah, I’ve already met her, but I know that everyone on the planet can relate to the feeling that your true love is out there waiting for you to find them, but you’re still looking and looking and looking.

  Some people give up looking after awhile. They settle for the best person they can find and call it good enough. I guess I’m not like that. Not because I’m picky, but because I’ve never felt any sort of real connection with any of the women I’ve seriously dated. Not that there’ve been many I dated longer than a few months. In fact, there was only one.

  Giselle.

  We had an amazing connection. Too bad she had nothing going on in the commitment department.

  When she tore my heart apart, I think she took any sense of commitment I might have had and shredded it to pieces.

  That’s why I’ve been wasting time with soulless women like Savannah or Red, or any of a thousand other nameless faces I barely remember. I didn’t want to go through the same shit Giselle put me through.

  But some corner of my heart is still looking for true love anyway. Like a dopey dumb dog, loyal to the last, too stupid to know any better, a corner of my heart still wants that special connection with a woman who gets me on every level. Not just one who thinks I’m hot. I’m over that. It doesn’t mean anything.

  I want someone who I can get wound up about even if we’re both wearing blindfolds.

  Victory.

  Yeah, her.

  From word one, talking to her was like talking to an old friend. That was something I never thought I’d find with a woman in my whole life.

  My eyes pop open and excitement rushes through me. That’s it.

  The title for this song.

  My Whole Life.

  I jot it at the top of the page and underline it several times.

  The words for a pre-chorus and the chorus come quick. I carve them into the pad of paper as fast as I can.

  Then I start singing them over the chords.

  Before I know it, I’m singing the entire song with all my heart. Victory is forefront in my mind the entire time. She’s the girl I’ve been looking for since forever.

  I set up my computer and a mic to record the song. Once it’s running, I replay the beginning verse over sad gentle fingerstyle guitar work. It’s totally soft and haunting. Then I transition into the pre-chorus, which is plaintive but picking up speed:

  “My whole life

  I searched for you

  my need like a disease

  I can’t live

  without your love

  you bring me to my knees

  I’m thinking about Victory.

  As my heart pours out of me, all I’m thinking about is Victory.

  Then I kick in the chorus, which is wailing, driving and powerful. It’s a song about a man who is never giving up until he gets what he’s always wanted:

  “My

  Whole

  Life

  (I’ve searched)

  For

  A love

  Like you

  (I’ve searched)

  The past tense refrain, “I’ve searched,” reflects the feeling we’ve all had that we’ve looked and looked and looked, but we can’t find our true love.

  I found Victory, but she isn’t anywhere close to being mine. I have to go after her and make her mine. Somehow. Otherwise, I’ll never find what I’ve been looking for since day one.

  I alter the repeat of the chorus to a present tense refrain, “I search,” to reflect the fiery idea of never giving up. Of searching until you crumble to dust, you want your true love so bad.

  No way am I giving up on Victory.

  “My

  Whole

  Life

  (I’ll search)

  For

  A love

  That’s true

  (I search)”

  The lyrics totally capture the feeling I’m going for. We all know it. It hums beneath the surface of every human being who has a beating heart.

  In my case, my heart beats for Victory.

  I’m never giving up on her.

  She’s the one.

  I’ve known it since I saw her playing at The Cobra.

  I knew it instantly.

  I sing over the hard, melancholic chords, my voice sliding between desperate and determined. From choked with emotion to smooth and clear, then gravelly and passionate:

  “I still search

  For a love

  That’s you

  On and on

  I crawl

  I still search

  For You”

  I slowly pluck out the final notes of the last chord, my heart spilled all over my apartment.

  A female voice drifts through the screen door, “Kellan?”

  Because it’s dark outside and I’ve got the lights on in my apartment, I can’t see who it is.

  But I recognize the voice.

  I know it well.

  Chapter 95

  KELLAN

  “What up, Em,” I say as I open the screen door.

  “Hey, Kellan,” she smiles. “I heard you singing.”

  I sigh, “Sorry if I distracted you.”

  “Oh, no worries. I needed a study break. And I brought Chunky Chips-Ahoy.” She holds up the bag.

  I arch an eyebrow, “You wanna come inside?”

  She smiles, “Sure.”

  Emily Needham, who I call Em, lives upstairs. She’s a med student at UCLA, which is about two miles east of our building, just past the 405 freeway.

  She’s always wearing a UCLA t-shirt or sweats or whatever, whether she’s studying or jogging or going to the grocery store. She has glasses, which look totally cute on her, and her long auburn hair is always in a ponytail. She also has a tight body from all the running she does. If she ever let her hair down and took her glasses off, she’d be hot.

  I honestly believe she doesn’t realize this. She’s been my neighbor long enough that I know her brainy vibe isn’t an act. But she’s cool.

  We hang out randomly like this pretty often, but we’ve never hooked up. I think she’s too straight laced for my tastes. And she’s ultra focused on med school, which means her life revolves around studying. I know she has friends, but they rarely visit. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her date anybody. Maybe she’s pining for me. Who knows. I never asked. I just like kickin’ it with her when she needs a study break. And she always brings Chips Ahoy.

  She walks inside and I ask, “You want anything to drink?”

  “For sure.”

  “What can I getcha?”

  She sees my bottle of
suds and asks, “Do you have any more beer?”

  I arch an eyebrow, “Does beer go with Chips Ahoy?”

  “I don’t know,” she grins as she sits down on my couch next to my acoustic guitar.

  I smile-frown, “I don’t remember you ever drinking.”

  Emily rolls her eyes, “My neuroscience reading is giving me a bad headache.”

  I snicker, “That’s funny.”

  “What is?” she asks, confused.

  I wait a second to see if she connects the dots. When she doesn’t I say, “Isn’t neuroscience studying the brain?”

  “Yeah?”

  “And it’s giving you a headache?”

  She nods, lost. Emily is smart enough to get good grades in medical school, but she’s way too literal.

  I say, “Studying the brain is making your head hurt?”

  “Oh,” she smiles, “I get it.”

  But she doesn’t really laugh. Now you see why Em and I haven’t hooked up. I say, “How about some milk for those cookies?”

  “Sounds perfect,” Emily smiles.

  I walk into the kitchen, set my empty beer bottle on the counter, and pour two glasses of milk from the jug in the fridge.

  “Anyway,” she calls out from the living room, “I couldn’t help but listen to your song.”

  I walk to the couch with the glasses of milk and tease her a little, “You stalking me?”

  “Oh,” she says defensively, “I didn’t mean to eaves drop, but you were singing pretty loud.”

  I smile and hand her a milk, “It’s okay. I guess I forgot the doors and windows were open.”

  “Is it a love song or something? I really liked it.” She already has the bag of cookies open and nibbles on one.

  “Sort of,” I say. There’s not room to sit on the couch with Emily and all my notes from the song and my guitar, so I stand.

  “Is your song about anyone I know?” she asks, sounding slightly hopeful.