Just Wanted to Learn

by William Swafford

  We were hanging out with my dad and I was playing guitar. My dad talked me into singing a couple of songs.

  Jeff had asked me why I was working construction. He said I should have been playing music for a living.

  I was thinking the whole time that he would say that I sounded like crap. I had felt embarrassed the whole time that I was playing.

  I had been trying to learn how to block out how I feel about my playing while out in a bar. I just can’t seem to get over feeling embarrassed about singing in front of someone while sitting around the house.

  My dad and I did play around the house for a while. It was only when he was drunk and bored. It didn’t take long for him to get restless.

  There weren’t too many places that a person could just walk in and play anymore. Bars like DJ’s and karaoke.

  We did play at a coffee shop a couple of times. They had an open mic night once a week.

  The crowd was different than what we were used to. It was a younger crowd and they weren’t drinking beer.

  We didn’t do badly. My dad would be drunk. There was a bar a few doors down.

  I didn’t like it when my dad kept telling them we were North Cherokee. They had no idea what he was talking about. I wanted nothing more to do with the name.

  My dad and I had started jamming with Doug again. He wasn’t playing drums. He was on the guitar.

  Doug had only two songs that he could do. The one song that he did and everyone liked, I didn’t think sounded good. They were the same two songs that he was doing when my dad and him was hanging siding together.

  I would get rude with him whenever my dad wasn’t around. I had no reason. I just didn’t like the man.

  People treated him better than what he was. He was a drunken bum. He never paid his own way while with my dad.

  Jamming with Doug lasted long enough for a couple of arguments to happen. That was the last time that I talked to Doug.

  I had seen the music slowly coming to a stop. Playing music at my dad’s house was slowly stopping.

  I try and blame it on my dad, but it wasn’t his fault it was mine. I was losing trust in my dad even though he was the one who was still trying everything.

  My dad had found out about a little contest in New Paris. A friend of his told him about it. He had made it out to be bigger than what it was.

  It was in a very small town. It was hard telling if any other bands would even show up. The winners would receive a hundred dollars.

  The contest was in the parking lot of an old high school. The other bands were younger and playing newer music. The crowd was different. They were the older generation.

  When we first got there, I found out that my dad’s friend Larry was one of the judges. His wife and daughter were judges too. The mayor of the small town was the final judge.

  As soon as we got there, we had to go on stage. I barely had time to tune both guitars.

  I did my song first and then my dad did a couple of songs. We got a good reaction from the crowd. They had like the older stuff that my dad did.

  We had got done but had to wait for the other bands to get done. My dad didn’t want to wait, so we walked a couple of blocks to the bar.

  We sat at the bar and had a few beers. He said that he was proud of me for how I handled myself. He thought it was good that I handled my nerves without a bar or anything and had just gone up to play.

  We walked back to where the contest was being held. When we got there, they had said that they had already decided on the winner. The last band was still on the stage. They had decided that my dad and I had won.

  The hundred dollars was split between us and we had gotten our pictures taken. The picture was supposed to be in the local paper. I don’t know if it ever was or not.

  I wasn’t too proud of the win. I felt like it was set up with my dad’s friends as judges and the last band hadn’t even finished yet. I didn’t do much bragging about the contest.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  My dad had wanted to do one last show at the bar that we had played at every Wednesday night. He wanted to bring in everyone that had played there with us. He had talked about it for months.

  He had always thought that he was the local star at the bar. It had might have started out that way before I was there. When we had stopped playing there, he was more like the local drunk.

  I had thought it was pointless to go back. It had already been years since we had been there. It had been a while since I had given up on that bar. I didn’t tell my dad this.

  My dad had really hoped that everyone we played with would show up. He thought it would mean as much to them as it did to him. He did what he could to contact everyone. I couldn’t even say if he even got in touch with anyone.

  Nobody who had played with us had showed up. It was just my dad and me. This had upset my dad and wasn’t a good way to start the night.

  The bar was just like it had been when we had played there. The crowd wasn’t the same as it had once been. They were a younger crowd. We didn’t get the same reaction.

  We didn’t even play as long as we usually would have. Only the few that knew us from us before cared about what was going on, everyone else didn’t even realized that we was there.

  My dad’s guitar that he had always played had played its last show. He wanted it to be hung up over the bar. They hung it over the bar.

  I know that my dad had struggled with that part of his life being over. It had given him something to hold on to and a reason to keep going for.

  The bar had helped him get through some hard times. I know it was hard for him to live in the town that my sister’s accident had happened. Playing music at the bar gave him a way not to think about things if only for a few hours a week.

  He didn’t understand why I didn’t feel that same way. I hadn’t experienced as much as he had in music, yet. I was young and knew that there was more out there.

  Things had started slowing down after that. There wasn’t anywhere for just two people to play. A lot of time it seem like my dad was just trying to go out and play for free drinks. Bars are not into that kind of thing anymore. I was never really into playing just for free drinks.

  We did go to the local bar on Saturday night. I had been in the bar plenty of times before. The new owners wouldn’t let my dad play in there. We had tried before. They knew how my dad drank and how he could get when he was drunk.

  The band that Doug had always drummed for was playing. My dad still talked to Doug on occasions. Doug had wanted my dad to stop by.

  They had a full band and even had a keyboard player. They had asked my dad to play a song with them. He brought me up on stage to play too.

  We had played a song with them and they rocked the house. I had watched my dad be the rocker that he used to be. It made me wonder why he didn’t play like that in his North Cherokee band.

  I had gotten off stage and my dad had gone off into the crowd. I had seen two women that I had known from school. I was trying to talk to them when I was interrupted by Daniel.

  Daniel is Kathy’s younger sister. They keyboard player was their dad. Daniel had also dated Chad.

  She was blond and eighteen with a hot body. The brains didn’t fully match the body. She wasn’t even old enough to be in the bar.

  She kept talking to me. She was trying to keep my attention off the two women that I had known from school. I was trying to decide who to talk to. Well, to be honest I was trying to figure out who I had the best chance with.

  She had some guy with her. He had kept telling her that he wanted to lick between her legs. She had originally planned to go home with him. She had asked me to go with her to drop him off. Then she had gone back to the motel with me.

  She had looked great without her clothes. She knew how to move in the bed.

  We fooled around for a couple of weeks. I got to meet her dad outside of the bar. She had tak
en me to her house to meet her parents. Her birth mother had died when she was younger.

  Everyone always talked like her dad was some great keyboard player. I can’t say that he sucked playing keyboards, but on a personal level I wasn’t impressed.

  Daniel was a nice girl, but she wasn’t in her right mind. There were times that she freaked me out.

  She was lying on the bed by herself. She had started talking and I thought that she was talking to me. She had told me that she had a boyfriend in prison. She was talking to him.

  This had freaked me out. She wasn’t on the motel room phone. Cell phones weren’t being carried by everyone yet.

  They were apparently able to talk to each other without being in the same room. They had some special bond.

  This did mess with me. After two more nights of sex, I decided I couldn’t be with someone who talked too locked up boyfriends in their heads.

  She did give me a picture of her without a shirt on. It was a good picture. She had a lot of wild pictures. This was before taking pictures with a cell phone had taken off.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I was twenty-five and still living at the motel. Hanging gutters had slowed down a little and so did the music. I had started spending too much time alone in a small motel room.

  I wasn’t saving any money. I had never had a job where I could make good money on a regular basis. I was making a good hourly wage on hanging gutters. I wasn’t getting in enough hours.

  My dad had started losing motivation. He wouldn’t even play around the house. He kept talking like he was done with playing music.

  It had gone this way for a while. Then my dad had met Jimmy. My dad thought Jimmy was going to be his next project.

  My dad had taken me to Jimmy’s house thinking that we didn’t know each other. Jimmy and I had gone to school together. I knew his sisters as well.

  Jimmy and I had never really been friends. My brother and I would call his sister names when we were young and stupid boys. On a personal level, Jimmy wasn’t my biggest fan.

  Jimmy was putting a band together. He had a nice set up in his basement. Jimmy wanted to be a country singer.

  My dad was going to help him with lead guitar. Steven was going to be on drums. Jimmy played guitar and singed.

  My dad wanted Jimmy to let me play guitar and sing a few songs. I just did what I was asked to do. I thought I had done well, but I don’t know how they had felt about it.

  Things didn’t go bad that night. I was never asked to go back. Only they would know why, because I wasn’t told.

  I finally got a trailer outside of Camden. There was a lady who was friends with my mom’s cousin. Connie owned a house trailer that wasn’t being used.

  Connie was a nice lady. She had dark medium length hair. She had a bad weight problem.

  The trailer sat on her property about 100 feet from her house. It was in horrible condition. I didn’t care though, because it wasn’t a motel room.

  The trailer set off the road. I didn’t get bothered by anyone. I didn’t know what to do with having more than one room.

  I had started doing coke again. I had never paid for it till now. I stopped when I had gotten ripped off. My dad’s girlfriend’s son was the one getting it for me.

  I had met Ashley while standing on the side of the road talking to my dad’s girlfriend’s son. Ashley and I had started spending some time together. The relationship didn’t even start off good.

  I didn’t like her friend or the sister of the friend. I didn’t agree with some of the things they were doing. That started problems right away.

  My dad and Ashley didn’t get along. If I ever did get a chance to play, it would have started a fight that would have never ended. She was the jealous and insecure type. My dad didn’t think that she was good for me.

  The relationship probably should have ended when it had gotten started. There were signs that we weren’t meant to be together. We both kept trying at it for some reason.

  I had spent so much time alone at the motel. I wasn’t used to always having someone around anymore. I was getting frustrated when I wasn’t getting any time alone.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The words good job hardly came out of my dad’s mouth. He might have said about other things, but a compliment for music was hard to come by. When he did, I didn’t know how to feel about.

  My dad gave me a compliment once. We were sitting at his table drinking a beer. I had stopped by on my way home from work. I wasn’t in a hurry to get home.

  He said that I was the best rhythm guitar that he had played with. I don’t know if it was the truth or if he just felt guilty about something and thought he needed to say something nice. It did make me feel good.

  There were times that I thought that they only reason my dad didn’t want to play music with me was because I didn’t drink like he did. I didn’t fit in because I wasn’t satisfied with the bar life. Maybe, it was just because I might have not been good enough.

  It could have been because we didn’t have the best relationship. He knew that I was holding in anger and resentment from the past. He knew my brother was also. There were issues in all our lives that we just didn’t know how to deal with.

  My brother and I had put him through some hell. We would never let him forget what he had done in the past. I didn’t get as bad like my brother. I usually left things alone unless Lee dragged me into things.

  My brother was bad about trying to make my dad cry. It was hard to be around them both when they were drinking. It seemed that most times Lee would only go over drunk and wanting to get something off his chest.

  The past would always be brought up. Sometimes I would feel that my brother had gone too far, but I wouldn’t say anything. My brother would look at me and I would back him up.

  It was hard to watch and listen to Lee some times. I honestly would feel bad for my dad. I know what he had done in the past. My dad might have deserved punishment for what he had done. I just know who should have been responsible for handing it out.

  Things would always end up with both of them crying. I would sit and watch. I just wanted to move on with things. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person or not. Getting and crying over things wasn’t my way of dealing with things.

  It was hard to know when my dad was saying something that was meant to be truly nice. A lot of times I didn’t feel like I deserved someone giving me a compliment. Was he doing it just to make up for the past?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Things with Ashley and I wasn’t getting off to a good start. We started arguing over little things. She had a friend that didn’t like me and I didn’t like her.

  Ashley’s friend tried a lot to get her to leave me. When she told me about some things, I didn’t even want them talking to each other. They still did behind my back. Then she found some stuff that I had.

  She had found the picture that the stripper had given me. Then she had found the picture of Daniel. I would go through hell because of it.

  I even went through hell for still having the copy of Lori’s poems. Ashley had thought that it was an old girlfriend. I tried to explain to her why I had them, but she didn’t believe a word I said.

  The worst thing that happened was when I had to pawn off my red acoustic and pa/amp. Ashley had found out that Carrie had helped me get them. I wasn’t allowed to get them back.

  I had to pay for my past relationships. It seemed that there was supposed to no other girl before, during, or after her. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

  I was always used to spending a lot of time alone and then I wasn’t able to. I wasn’t doing well with dealing with my frustration. Ashley turned out to be not like any other girl that I had ever been with. I don’t mean that in a good way.

  Then she got pregnant. I decided to tough it out. There was always the question if that was the right decision.
Also keep smoking a lot of weed and so did Ashley.

  I did my best to take her to her appointments. We still fought at the doctor’s office or wherever went. She had her attitude and I had mine.

  I turned twenty-six and my daughter was born. At first it was hard start being a dad. I wasn’t happy in the relationship.

  I couldn’t see myself spending the rest of my life with Ashley. The fight was just too bad and it wouldn’t stop. We did our best to be good parents.

  I was so happy when she was born. I felt that unconditional love for the first time. I couldn’t believe that she was my daughter.

  I always told myself that there would be something in my house that would spark an interest about music for my daughter. That was a part of my childhood that I wanted her to have.

  We had our mistakes. We both loved our daughter very much. We just couldn’t stop fighting with each other.

  We did visit my dad sometimes, but it was just to smoke. Ashley would flip out sometimes when we were there. I could never understand why.

  I didn’t want to spend time with my dad. The music was over for me. He was still playing and not telling me the truth about it.

  Steven would pick him up and say that my dad was helping his band. They were playing in Jimmy’s band. Was it because Jimmy didn’t want me in his band?

  I didn’t care if they wanted me in the band or not. It was an all country band. I wanted to go back to rock. I didn’t understand why he would lie about who he was playing with.

  My relationship with Ashley still wasn’t the best. I tried to stay working and make sure I showed up every day. Everything seemed to just keep getting harder.

  I was learning how to be a dad. I knew absolutely nothing about it. There were mistakes.

  Grace had gotten sick once. She wasn’t taking her formula and we were afraid that she was dehydrating. We had to take her to the hospital for a night.

  When she was home she had a hard time sleeping. It was hard to calm her down. I couldn’t handle all the crying.

  I would play my guitar for her. The door would be left open a little to let in some light. I would sit on the edge of the bed close to the crib. It seemed to calm her down and help her sleep.