But as personally momentous of an occasion as this was, the novel was easily a distant second to another event that happened two days after its finalization: the birth of my son.
Yes, I was able to host some events at bars and bookstores and distribute some information over social media and through small publications. And yes, the work's found plenty of readers, ones that have been able to relate to the story's characters, its relationship between music and its meaning, and its elements of love, family and the ability to wade through tragedy in order to find some sort of purpose.
But overall, I wasn't able to promote the novel the way it should've been promoted. I thankfully had (and still have) more important things to worry about, and distributing the novel's contents to a larger audience fell by the wayside. I'd like to change that, starting today.
Below, you'll find the book's first chapter, and the next five will follow on the next five Fridays, ending December 9. If you like what you read, you can pick up the rest of it inside local Buffalo bookstores like Talking Leaves and Dog Ears; in paperback and Kindle form on Amazon; in under-scanned Internet areas like IndieBound; or with the publisher at No Frills/Amelia.
In the meantime, please enjoy the Buffalo-inspired content below, and keep checking back over the next weeks.)
1
Once upon a time
I had a life in mind
But then one day along
the way
That dream was left
behind
-“What I Lost” by J. Nolan
Four years ago, I
was someone else.
I was Johnny
Nolan, an acoustic guitarist who performed at the Nighthawk, a glorious and
dingy downtown rock hole in Buffalo, New York. Every Friday night it used to be
just me, isolated on stage, straddling a creaky stool in front of a white
backdrop. The heat from overhead yellow, blue and red bulbs burned my eyelids.
My left fingers aligned between frets on Deirdre, my Martin D-15 guitar. My
right index finger and thumb clasped a small orange pick. The microphone waited,
alive and hot. When I would glance out over the bar, I’d see strangers clutching
beer bottles and pint glasses, taking sips of semi-cold Old Vienna and waiting
for action. They’d shout together, join in a rhythmic arena-like chant of
“Johnny Nolan” then clap five times (like John-nee
No-lan, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap).
After the chant
circulated five or six times, I’d bring the guitar to my knee and begin to
strum, slowly but fluidly. The first line of lyrics, then the second. During
the breaks in vocals, I’d shake my head around, like I was winding up for the
next lyrical delivery. Every line would pour out, would wail through the crowded
barroom, wrap around neon Budweiser signs and seep through the hairline cracks
of windows weathered from harsh winters. The guitar chords bounced off steel coolers
littered with Avail and Trashcan Sinatra stickers, walls that donned mounted
Fender guitars and a framed Elvis concert poster from 1957. One cover song, then
another. Once in a while, I’d throw in a Johnny Nolan original, just to make
things interesting. Pretty girls in the front gazed and smiled. Tough guys in
back nodded approval while ordering another round of beers. To others, those
nights may have seemed insignificant or amateur. To me, those Fridays meant
everything.
On one of those nights,
I attracted a fan, a wiry blonde named Sara.
“With no ‘h’,” she
insisted.
She had a sweet,
bright smile when she laughed and cornflower blue eyes that opened wide when
she emphasized the last word of every sentence. She also spoke about old punk
music at such a frenetic and jittery pace I feared she’d collapse mid-sentence.
Still, two hours after I stepped off stage that Friday, I sat in front of her
on a leather-seated barstool, listening. She just rolled along, standing up
straight for delivery.
“I love, love,
love, love the Ramones and I hate people that say all their songs sound the
same because, yeah, I know they sound the same because they’re all, like,
totally fucking awesome and I’m not sure they’ve ever made a bad song, except
maybe ‘Pet Cemetery,’ but I still like that song, but I don’t love it, and I
want to love it, but I used to have this dog named Charlie who was hit by a
school bus and every time I hear that song it reminds me of poor little Charlie
getting run over, and I cry and cry and I don’t want to cry because I love the
Ramones and all their songs and how fucking awesome they are, you know?”
I listened to her
talk and nodded along between sips of beer. She was definitely a shade off, maybe
on something. On Friday nights, I’d met girls way crazier, even ones who
straddled the line between odd and socially problematic. There was the angry
girl who gave a detailed explanation of the motivation behind her demonic wrist
tattoo; the Jack Daniel’s drinker who moaned about my lack of inspired Bon Jovi
numbers; the overtly flirtatious college student who’d send provocative
pictures of herself to my cell phone every Wednesday. When my guitar was near me,
I was approached by all types. Sara was one of them, and those hypnotic eyes
were one reason I didn’t grab my guitar and split for the door.
That night, after
the Nighthawk closed, we sat on the bar’s curb, sharing a cigarette just down
the street from Lafayette Square. We exchanged drags, exhaled before we kissed,
then repeated through a warm lakefront breeze. During breaks in the action, she
rambled on about an old band called Brent’s TV who played California laundromats.
I nodded politely while intermittently kissing her neck and cheeks between
sentences. Eventually, she jumped up from the curb.
“Do you want to do
something crazy, like, right now?”
“Sure,” I said.
“What and where?”
“We have to go to
my car. It’s across from the square.”
She walked quickly
ahead of me as I plodded behind her, carrying my guitar case and wondering what
she had hiding in her car. Would we up the ante on the curb fondling, or did
she plan on taking this night in a whole new direction? Heavy drugs? Petty
vandalism? She seemed crazy enough that nothing aside from homicide was off
limits. When I got to her white Grand Am, though, she was already in the back seat,
taking off her pants. When I saw this, I lightly rapped on the window.
“Um, should I come
in?”
“No,” she
answered. “Just wait out there, please. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
I turned my back to
the car and let Sara finish whatever it was she was doing. I could hear her
shifting and struggling, her bare skin squeaking against the leather upholstery
while she prepared for whatever crazy thing we were about to do.
“Tell you what,”
she said. “Why don’t you wait for me in the square? I’ll be over in a minute.”
Under a bright,
full moon that shined on the windows of shuttered storefronts and closed
convenience shops, I headed over to the small park, complete with empty benches
and strewn debris from recent outdoor concerts. The sun would soon sneak up to
find me standing in the middle of a vacant park, waiting for this Sara. As I
leaned against a tree, hands in my jean pockets, I lit another cigarette before
she began her approach from across the street. In each of her hands, she held a
short rope with dripping, softball-sized spheres attached to the ends. In place
of the tight black pants and simple white T-shirt she wore in the bar were a
long-sleeved fitted orange tee and free-flowing, bell-bottomed nylon windpants,
navy blue with orange flames stitched on the outer seams. Her earlobe-length blonde
hair was now pulled back tightly into a ponytail to reveal dark roots. When she
reached me, she grinned mischievously.
“Can I use your lighter?”
“Can I ask for
what?”
“Just give me the
lighter and back up,” she said, like she was warning me to look both ways
before crossing the street.
I handed over my
green Bic and took a few steps back. With the lighter, Sara lit the end of the
first rope, saturated in kerosene. With one rope ablaze, she ignited the other.
When flames engulfed both rope ends, she began a maniacal dance, flinging the
ropes over her shoulders and around her legs. She tossed one up in the air,
then the other as I covered my face. Twirling the flames, she whirled around like
some fanatical dervish. With her blue eyes now wide to emphasize nothing but
fevered insanity, she was celebrating for whatever occasion the ropes and
kerosene and firepants were trotted out. Finally, as she spun both ropes around,
a portion of one of the fireballs detached and landed on a tree branch above my
head, sending down a rush of sparks. After I ducked, I darted to the right, away
from the tree. Sara was unfazed and continued to flip the ropes, despite the
detachment. For her finale, she rapidly and simultaneously twirled both ropes at
her sides, then dropped them to the ground. She leapt into the air, touching
her toes in a full split. When her feet came down, she landed on the ropes’ lit
ends and extinguished each with a single plant of her fireproof shoes. Standing
atop each, she posed, arms raised to the night sky, under the stars and
moonlight of downtown Buffalo. I clapped wildly while walking toward her as she
smiled and laughed.
“Very impressive,”
I said. “Definitely don’t think I’ll ever experience a show like that again.”
“Well,” she said,
grasping my hips before pulling me close to her, “if you think that show was
impressive, prepare to be dazzled twice in one night.”
She grabbed me by
my shirt and pulled me down to the shadowed grass. After mounting herself on
top of me, her thighs straddling my hips, she ripped off my T-shirt and flung
it toward a nearby bench. She ran her hands over my chest before she took off
her top and tossed it toward mine. As her soft hands ran over the inked
outlines on my arms, her mouth found my chest to kiss and gently nibble every
inch of it she could find. I lay on my back and grasped her hips, staring into
the sky and loving every second before a thick aroma overtook the moment.
“Do you smell
something burning?” I asked.
“I was just
tossing some burning ropes around. You think that might be it?” she deadpanned,
then brought her lips back to my chest before her fingers left to fiddle with
my belt.
“No, no,” I said.
“I think it’s something else.”
After I said this,
I looked to my right. In the leaves of a large nearby oak tree, smoke wafted
out as small flames emerged within. It had taken a few minutes, but that detached
fireball from Sara’s dance routine had ignited the fresh leaves and branches
above.
“Um, Sara?” I said.
“What do you say we go back to my place?”
“What? Why? This
is so—,” she said, then turned to see the nearby smoke and flames. “Oh shit! Yeah,
we should go.”
She hopped off me,
tossed me my shirt and feverishly pulled her own back on. I jumped to my feet, buckled
my pants and grabbed my guitar. I took hold of Sara’s hand before she ran me to
her car across the street. At the doors of her Grand Am, we heard a police
siren wailing, approaching in the distance. We slammed both doors behind us,
Sara hit the gas, and we fled a scene of accidental arson while laughing
hysterically. The next morning, Sara the Fire Dancer was gone. I never saw her
again, and our fling existed as a one-night affair. Unfortunately, that
downtown tree was irrevocably affected. Our evening generated a giant bare spot
it still has within its branches today.
These days, when I
stroll past that Lafayette Square tree, I remember those wild Nighthawk nights,
when everything was still carefree and unhinged. But those Fridays have been
gone for four years now. They were the nights before I was married, before I
prepared to become a father; before I left the stage and found a desk. It was a
time before everything changed and transitioned as quickly as power chords,
sliding from fret to fret. It was before the diagnosis, the hospital bed, the
endless tears from the eyes of my father, my uncle Finn, my sister Meghan. It
was before breast cancer snatched my mother, before a clutching hand on the
chest of a navy ski vest became the last living image I’d have of my father. It
was before everything in my life was transformed in a matter of weeks. It was
before things that once seemed so important were dwarfed by the enormity of
death and loss.
My mother went
first, lying emaciated and still in a Mercy Hospital bed on a cold December day.
As I peered down at the once beautiful Colleen Nolan, her pale, freckled skin
yellowed and thin, the memories flowed forth. The nights she served up cold Dr.
Peppers and Neil Young records on our front porch as Lake Erie breezes whisked
up our street and kissed our faces; the frosty winter mornings she stirred up bowls
of apple cinnamon oatmeal and mugs of hot chocolate. The sight of my mother as
she took her last breaths curdled my stomach. The harsh realization that the
aforementioned maternal moments would never be replicated stabbed it, ignited a
sharp pain in my right side. Instead of succumbing to the sting, I clutched my
mother’s limp hand, moved my fingers around in her palm and hoped her eyes
would flutter open one last time. When I watched Finn walk into her room
dressed in his blacks and Catholic collar, I knew it was too late.
“I
know this is hard on everyone,” said Finn, standing at bedside with the three
of us. “But we have to trust there’s a reason for this, a reason only God
understands. Please, somewhere in your broken hearts, try to believe. Let us
pray.”
Tears
streamed down Meg’s face as she reached for my hand. My father clenched his
teeth, held back his tears. Looking out a window and into the falling South
Buffalo snow, he grabbed for Meg’s hand before he clutched onto Finn’s. I still
held my mother’s hand, staring into her closed eyelids as I panned across her freckled
forehead, her hanging auburn locks that dusted each mark. I reluctantly closed
my eyelids and bowed my head under Finn’s prayers. For one moment, I stopped my
mind from spiraling wildly into darkness, into pain and hopelessness. For one
moment, I reached out to God and asked him to take my mother into his welcoming
embrace. And just like that, she was his. Not mine. Not ours.
A
month later, it was my father, struck with a heart attack as he shoveled the
heavy lake-effect snow at the end of our driveway. As I cleared our sidewalk, I
saw him drop the metal shovel before he tumbled helplessly into a snow pile. I ran
to him and found him struggling to breathe, his hand scratching at his chest as
his body lay twitching, encased in white. When I leaned over him to help, he
grabbed my navy pea coat collar and pulled me down to his face as I struggled
to break free and get to a phone. With his teeth clenched tight and his dark Irish
eyes frightened, he stared right through me, but wouldn’t let go. He let the
pain in his eyes act as the saddened and desperate voice he didn’t have.
“Pops,”
I yelled. “Pops, you gotta let me go. Pops!”
With
his grip still tight, his dying sight emitted one more glare, one more emotive
stare that said goodbye. Those browns rolled to the side under weakened lids
and I stared at him, petrified. His clutch on my coat loosened and I broke
free. I tore up the driveway and into the kitchen, grabbed a phone and called
for an ambulance. I screamed into the receiver with frightening urgency,
stammering details. Then, I ran back outside to find Tom Nolan unconscious, his
eyelids closed as his face rested in the snow, with more falling from the sky
to sprinkle across his navy vest and brown wool cap.
Frozen in shock, I
could only stare at his body and mumble inaudible hopes. I could only hope for
some spiritual intervention to right this cruel injustice. I could only linger
until God realized his mistake. There was no way he was taking them both. No
fucking way. As minutes disappeared with my father motionless, my mind raced
with evaporating moments. Paul Simon’s voice soothing from the old man’s stereo
and out a screen window, over his canned beer and into our backyard; the sight of
him at the Nighthawk, leaning against the bar with a bottle of Genesee, nodding
approval as I sat on the stage. As those times were fading, my father slipped
away, unable to be awoken by my screaming pleas or the blaring sirens that
arrived too late.
And this was when
the lights went out, when the darkness of loss dimmed the Nighthawk bulbs and
transitioned me toward another life, another existence. It pushed me away from
the stage and into the arms of family, into an embrace that soothed the trauma
of absence. That absence irrevocably loomed over the isolated stool and
microphone that projected my voice over the Nighthawk’s revelers. I could no
longer appreciate the adulation of the beer sluggers and booze sippers who
huddled in the bar’s dark corners and yelled for Springsteen covers. From my
spot on that stage, I stopped enjoying the cheers of those present and became
hollowed by the evidence of those missing, the empty spaces once filled by my
mother and father. In this state, I walked away from the Nighthawk. I packed up
Deirdre and let my moments of Friday mayhem fade into memory. As painful as it
was to exit, it had to happen. The act of performing had merged with a pain too
significant to play through.
There was a time when
I could play through any problem, when one strum of my guitar cured all. When I
clutched that Martin’s mahogany, all worries dissipated with a simple touch of
its rosewood fingerboard. I didn’t care about anything except the strings, the
chords, or the sounds; every issue I had disappeared. These days, I bring that
guitar into my kitchen, set it on my lap and tune the strings. I caress the
brown finish, run my fingers over the Nolan family crest sticker still clinging
to the back. I run my left hand down the seductive neck, feel the nicks and splintered
spots on the wood. I line up a chord and flick my fingernails against the
strings. I slide from one chord to another and ignite a sound that doesn’t
bring about sadness, but recollection.
Each note ushers
in a moment from those Friday nights at the Nighthawk, the nights sweat glazed
my Celtic arm tattoos, rolled down my long brown hair and collected on the
stubble of my unshaven face. I think of the bottle of Budweiser that rested
next to my stool’s leg. I’d pick it up, take a swig under the burning bulbs. If
I took a long drink, hoots came from the back to encourage a finish. Someone
else would yell out and jokingly ask me to play “Freebird.” After I put down
the beer, I’d run my hand through my hair, flip the long strands away from my
eyes. I’d start to strum, concentrate on the chord changes before I glared out
to the crowd and exhaled one of their favorites. As I sang, people stood
clapping, stomping and singing. Couples would swing around as my strings
jangled and twanged. When I finished, drinkers applauded my homage to another
great, to a group of geniuses so brilliant that their song was replicated on a
dusty, sweat-soaked Buffalo stage. This was my release, my drug that made cheap
Canadian beer taste like honey. Made the stale, sweat-tinged barroom breeze
smell like cinnamon. Made dilapidated Rust Belt streets into parade routes.
This was my life, and I loved every minute of it.
But that was four years ago. I was someone else then, an unscathed idealist addicted to the euphoria a crowd’s roar could instill in a man. I had to move on from nights infused with intoxicating rhythm, the mornings filled with sporadic reverberations. I don’t play at the Nighthawk anymore. Those nights are gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment