Where Are the Songs?

Jesse sat in the deepening twilight and gently cradled the worn wood of the old guitar in his arms.  His fingers lightly caressed the strings, and a melancholy chord echoed through the hills outside the screens.

Somewhere in his mind he heard the sound of distant laughter . . . their laughter.  Closing his eyes he could still see the way her crystal blue eyes crinkled at the corners and feel the soft warmth of her breath on his cheek.

“Beth.”

Startled by the sound of his own anguished voice breaking the pervading silence, his eyes popped open, and he stared out over the hazy mountainsides.

Had it really been so long since he had lost her?  Where had time taken her?  Was she happy with someone else? Or was she alone somewhere, longing for him as he longed for her? He lightly fingered the guitar strings and softly crooned the questions that flowed through his mind.

                             “Where are you now?  Where are . . .
                             All the songs we might have sung?
                             All the words we might have said?
                             All the things we might have done?
                             Where are you now?”

He remembered the way her eyes had shone whenever they were together.  His body ached for her soft touches and whispered words.  His arms throbbed with the need to hold her close.  He shifted the guitar and sang:

                             “We loved each other,
                             I know that’s true.”

But something went wrong.  What was it?

                             “I wanted power, wealth, success,”

Yes, that was it.  He had to ‘make it’ first.

                             “Then I’d have time for you.”

As he murmured the words of the refrain, his mind traveled back over the years.  He was just starting out then, with this same old guitar he discovered in a pawnshop.  It had been small gigs in small towns – Paducah, Kentucky… Shelbyville, Tennessee…Greenwood, South Carolina – and Beth had always been there.

He would look out through the smoky haze of small clubs and read the message of love in her eyes and the encouraging smile on her lips.  Occasionally, he would see her glance around at neighboring tables; he knew she was taking note of the reaction of other members of the audience.

When his fingers picked out the introduction to a song written especially for her, she gave him her full, misty-eyed attention.  Seeing her slightly-parted lips, he felt as if he would burst with the love he felt for her.  Impatient for the performance to end, he so wanted to take her in his arms,  aching with the desire to cradle her next to his heart and keep her there for all eternity.

When he finished for the evening, they would go to some little café where, over hamburgers and coffee, Beth shared her thoughts about the audience’s reaction to each of his songs.  They would plan their strategy for conquering the American Country Music Scene.

Blinking back his tears, Jesse caressed the strings and sang:

                             “You were patient for a while.
                             We dreamed, we loved, we planned.
                             We would make it, you and I.
                             Two against the Land.”

But then, somehow, they lost the closeness. 

                             “But you grew tired of waiting
                             Somewhere along the way.
                             You began to doubt my love . . .”

But why?  Why did it change?  Was it the meetings with agents and promoters; the courting of producers and recording studios?  Granted that took a lot of time, time they had previously shared.  Instead of hamburgers and coffee with Beth, he began having drinks with the power purveyors, some of whom were very attractive women. He had done it for both of them.  It was no wonder she doubted him, especially when he came in at dawn, more than a little drunk and sometimes sporting lipstick or makeup smudges on his clothes.  It was for their future together, at least that’s what he had told himself.  Slowly he shook his head.

                             “And so, what could I say?”

Sadly, he sung on:

                             “Now I have it all, dear.
                             Now I have it made.
                             Money, power and a palace
                             Resting in the mountain’s shade.

                             But has it made me happy
                             Throughout these lonely years?
                             I dream of you and view my kingdom
                             Through a veil of tears.”

The final chord drifted out into the night.  For a long moment, Jesse sat motionless, staring at the twinkling lights of the city in the valley below.

There was no recapturing the past.  No matter how much he had loved Beth, there was no bringing it back now.  Nor could he live on fantasies of what might have been.  He must live in the present – the now – and the present was spread out below him.  In his mind he saw the flashing neon of Charlie’s Lounge, his current gig.  With a deep sigh, he laid aside his guitar, stood up and walked slowly out into the darkness.