Tangled Weeds (The Road to Rocktoberfest 2024)

Eight

Easy

L iam and I got the practice room early and started messing around with some music we’d been working on. I loved that he and I shared the same love for music, and I loved that we worked together so easily. “What if we add a little more twang like this,” I said and proceeded to show Liam what I meant. He sat on another chair facing me and listened intently with his guitar held close to his chest.

“It sounds a little country. I like it,” Liam said, and put his own spin on it. I loved this back and forth, and I loved him. More than I could ever tell him.

“Yeah, it’s a different sound for us. Ever since we played at that country bar, I’ve been thinking of trying something like this,” I replied. Liam was very talented at guitar, and I’d never admit it to anyone but him, but he was way better than I ever was. His creativity knew no boundaries. If he had an idea, he tried it and if it didn’t work, he moved on to the next idea. His fingers flew over the strings as he ripped up a lead, he’d made up just a moment before without a second thought.

“You’re amazing,” I whispered. He ignored me and kept playing but his eyes never left mine. He had no clue how truly talented he was and was humble almost to a fault. Everything he created was both beautiful and original and I wondered how I had ever doubted he’d be great in the band. He made Blinding Light so much better.

“Hey, guys, how’s it going with the music for the new song?” Rory asked as he walked in, completely oblivious we were having a moment. Well, I was having a moment, Liam was just really getting into playing. His eyes fluttered before he looked in Rory’s direction and smiled.

“Hey, Rory, it’s going good, we were just working on it. Want to hear what we’ve got so far?”

“Hell yes, I’ve got a few lines down, but I wanted to wait to hear where you were going with it first,” Rory said. Sometimes he wrote the lyrics, and we wrote the music around it but lately we wrote the music, and he wrote the lyrics as the music grew. It worked so well that we didn’t want to change it. He grinned when Liam hit the country bit we’d just been working on and glanced at me.

“Nice,” he said and started plucking his bass along as the two of us played it again.

“Did anyone hear from Glenn?” I asked when he still hadn’t shown up. He’d left yesterday in a flurry of dirty, cranky kids and I’m pretty sure a dirty diaper or possibly two. We looked at each other but none of us spoke.

“Great, well hopefully he shows up soon. I really want us to work on a few things before we play Vegas.” The three of us continued to play, tweaking the rhythm of one song or a chord on another. They were all subtle changes, but we knew it worked and if changing it made us happier with the music, that was what mattered.

“This is what I have so far,” Rory said when we stopped for a break. He handed me his notebook and Liam and I leaned in close to read what he’d written.

Stumblin’, I’m tumblin’ and runnin’, and I can’t seem to catch up.

Life is either leaving me behind or rushing by too fast.

We say we want it to last forever while hurrying through it all. Always onto the next thing without stopping a moment to look. To really look.

Show me the way to slow it all down. I want to live every minute and love each and every one.

Runnin’ runnin’ runnin’ and I need to slow down.

Runnin’ runnin’ runnin’ it’s how it seems to go, everything goes rushing by while I live in the past.

“I like this, it’s going to work really well with the music, I think we need to up the country feel to go along with the lyrics. What do you think?” I asked and reread what he’d written.

“Yeah, I like that,” Rory said.

“Hey, guys,” Glenn said as he walked into the room. The three of us looked up at the same time.

“What the fuck?” I said and rushed over to him without taking a second to put down my guitar. “What happened?” He had a cast on his right arm, not a small cast either. The kind that went from the tips of his fingers all the way to the top of his arm and had some kind of brace holding it in a certain position.

“Glenn, man, what happened,” Rory said while Liam stood there silent.

“Fuck, you’ll never believe what happened. After we left yesterday the kids all fell asleep on the way home so I thought great, now I can get a break. I took them all in the house and put each of them to bed before I passed the fuck out on the couch. Well around six this morning I woke up and I could hear noises coming from their rooms, so I went to check it out. When I started to step into Asheley’s room, there were fucking Lego all over the goddamned floor. It was like some big trap for adults. I hit one of them and when I tried to get my balance, I stepped on another then another and ended up tripping into her table and flattening it. She started crying because she loved that table, but when I started to get up my arm was bent in some weird position that no arm should be able to do. I had to call a fucking Uber to drive me to the hospital along with the kids because I didn’t know who to call. Yeah, it’s been a morning,” he said on a long sigh.

For a long moment none of us spoke as we all stared at his arm, then Liam snickered, and it broke the dam. We all laughed because who breaks their arm tripping on fucking Lego. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not funny but fuck, Glenn,” I finally managed to choke out.

“How long do you have that thing on?” Liam asked and that sobered us all up.

“That’s the part you’re not going to like. It’s a bad break, both bones all the way through. They’re saying I can’t play for at least six weeks, but most likely closer to twelve.” He rolled his eyes and grimaced when he moved slightly. “I’m really sorry, guys, but I’m not going to be able to play out the rest of the tour.”

I sat down on the stool I’d been using and for what seemed like forever none of us spoke. We’d been lucky so far, none of us had been injured seriously enough to not play. We had no backup musicians lined up just in case. Just when it seemed like we were doing good, and things were about to get better, we get knocked down once again.

“Are you okay?” Rory finally asked.

“Yeah, I mean they put me on pain meds, it wasn’t fun, and the Uber ride was a straight up nightmare. Screaming kids, screaming dad, I was trying not to start crying from the pain and the craziness. That poor driver,” Glenn said, once again making us laugh.

“Sorry, I know it’s horrible, but I’ve never heard of so much bad shit from fucking Lego,” Liam finally said.

“It was so much worse than you can even imagine,” Glenn said with a weird far off look in his eyes that I thought had something to do with the meds he was on.

“Where are the kids?” I asked.

“My parents took pity on me and have them. I think they were worried I was going to just lie on the couch and let everyone run wild. Which was highly likely.”

“Have you told Vance?” I asked.

“Not yet, I wanted to talk to you guys first. I have a solution but I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it. You know my nephew Devon,” he said and looked at Rory.

“Yeah, your sister’s kid. Hasn’t he always been a handful?” Rory asked.

“Yeah, he’s not known for being the most responsible. But he’s an amazing drummer and I think he would kick ass on the drums until I can get back to it. It would also be good for him to see how it’s done when you’re not fucking around all the time,” Glenn said.

“Are you sure about this? We can cancel and wait until you’re all healed,” I offered even though I fucking hated the idea of cancelling all those shows.

“I’m sure, and it’ll give me time to get my house back in order with more help for Jess. I’ve already talked to him and he’s available. What do you think?”

The three of us looked at each other, and I knew everyone’s decision before a word was said. I hoped like hell this wasn’t something that would bite us in the ass, but in the back of my mind I knew for a fact shit would eventually hit the fan.

“I’m in,” I said followed by Rory and Liam.