AN: This is from John Kane's POV, just for a little change of pace before I try to wrap up some of my other stories. The song is "New Thing Now," by Shawn Colvin.
this is your new thing now
naked as a rose
everything exposed
but not quite
Other people dream of satisfaction and fulfillment but they never
get anywhere near it, or at least not anywhere near their ideal
of what it should feel like. I can honestly say that once I got
close, I almost had those elusive concepts in my grasp. And then
one night changed everything, and I've never come close again.
For years I couldn't bring myself to speak of those days at all,
could hardly stand to hear others say her name, or his. But
lately things have been changing for both of us. I see her all
the time now, in magazines, sometimes on television, or the
newspaper when she passes through town. But she's different now,
a different person from the girl I once knew. It's made it easier
to speak to her, to think of her as someone else, because it
seems to genuinely be true. She's got a new image every time I
turn around, always on a comeback from the last comeback.
this is your new thing now
cards out on the table
a genius with no label
but not quite, not quite
I was his friend first, of
course. I met her when he did. They married; we all became
inseparable, them, me, and whatever fortunate, adoring young girl
I was courting at the time. Everything was almost perfect. But
the deterioration started not long after the little one was born.
He withdrew-from his family, from his music, from his life. He
became obsessed, paranoid, distancing himself from everyone more
and more, even his own children, who continued to adore him. She
was damaged goods from day one, though, and to her this was just
another desertion. She made one last great effort to save them
all. She came to me, wanting me to try and convince him to get
help, to fix himself, to bring him back to her.
And I did try. But you couldn't have gotten through to him in
that state unless you were superhuman, which I am not now nor
have I ever been. So we commiserated, the band fell apart, he
drifted deeper into his nasty little hobby, and she and I grew
closer.
sometimes I see the half and
not the whole
sometimes I see the face and not the soul
sometimes I think this place has no part
for anyone who ever had a heart
I've read those interviews, we all have, where she says she "felt something" that night, she says she tried to warn him, make him stay. But I know what she felt, and it wasn't mysterious or supernatural or psychic. It was simply guilt, and I know because I felt it too, that night and a thousand nights afterward. That night, she was planning to tell him, or I liked to believe she was, although it could have been an empty promise, reiterated with a different deadline each time we were together. I don't know. It's easier to imagine her, in retrospect, as cold or uncaring, feeding off my affection, building her wounded ego back up. But in those days I never would have believed she was capable of that.
this is your new thing now
and it looks so good in print
just a poet and her pimps
but not quite
No, I don't resent what she's achieved since his death. I really
don't. Sometimes, I know, I say things, maybe I gave an interview
or two in an altered state back in the day. But I don't hold it
against her. She's talented. She deserves it. Maybe it wouldn't
have happened for her like this if he hadn't gone out that night,
but what does it matter now? Maybe I could have had a chance too,
if I hadn't been so wrecked back then. I don't mind what I've got
now. I lost my mind for a while when I discovered I couldn't play
anymore, but I picked myself back up, and maybe I've got her to
thank.
The last time she visited, I was out of my gourd, going on about
aliens and whatnot, and I imagine it must have frightened her,
like it was a curse or something, every man that's with her
destined to go insane or something. But she took the time, before
she left, to come and talk with me, and I won't go into the
details, but, I don't know, it just made me feel a little better
about the past and the future. God, it sounds pathetic, isn't it
- but it isn't as if I hold out hope, if that's what you're
thinking, for some grand reunion down the road.
this is your new thing now
a prom dress and a sneer
woman of the year
but not quite, not quite
We didn't speak for seven days
after his death. Then she came around, looking for comfort and
finding it. And afterward she just said, "This can never
happen again." She composed herself, dressed, collected her
things. The next time I saw her, a while later, she plastered on
that false smile, acted like nothing had ever occurred between us
that we might feel guilty about. I played with the kids, she made
dinner, I came home, and we never spoke of it again. That's how
my chance, the one I told you about, simply disappeared into thin
air, and never passed me by again.
And I swear this isn't resentment I feel now.
gee, it's good to see a dream
come true, people smile and bless all over you
and don't you love the leader of the band, equal parts butthead
and peter pan
all the other kids are sad again
a legend's not a legend 'til it ends
Over the years we kept in touch, but not as the people we once
were as we once knew each other, but as the strangers we'd been
before he unwittingly bound us together. When I urged-forced,
maybe-her to tell Fiona about the hobby she and her father
shared, I'd like to think that was my way of repaying my debt to
his ghost.
It's a nicer explanation than the other one that comes around
more often, the one that says I acted maliciously, intending to
drive she and her daughter further apart, divorce her from him
even more. No. It was repayment of my debt to him. I suppose her
disavowal of what we shared was simply her way of appeasing her
own guilt, trying to fix things a little too late.
this is your new thing now
and it makes the whole world spin
it's as least as old as sin, but not quite
this is your new thing now, and now you're turning, grinning
but maybe no one's listening, you might lose it all, my darling,
yes you might
So maybe we've both been forgiven now, by him. I pass by a church every day, walking home from the grocery store. I like to look at the sign, imagining that the pithy sayings that change weekly are a method of direct communication between God and me. Last week it said "Don't give up; Moses was once a basket case too." This week it simply says: "Forgiveness is canceling the debt." And I don't know why He's telling me that; I already did cancel that debt, a long time ago, when I agreed to help her out with that video, and when I called her up again to agree to help out with that record, too. She's forgiven me, whoever she is now, and I've forgiven her, though I don't think we agree about what's being forgiven or forgotten, what debt is being cancelled.
this is your new thing now
and it feels so good to doubt you
I could almost live without you
but not quite...
I felt that I was being punished
for what I'd done when I got the call that he was dead, and then
I felt that way again when my ability to play was taken away, but
now I believe those were just warnings, the first one being that
I should stop what I was doing--which I did, though not by
choice--and the second being that if I didn't wake up and move
forward, I'd lose the ability to do so.
So I moved forward. I picked myself up off the ground. I wrote
some songs for other people for a while, let them sing those
songs from me to her, endless bitter descriptions of a failed
love affair, of a torch stubbornly still burning and its angry
bearer. Then I taught myself the piano, some of the old songs,
some of the new. I play locally once in a while just to get that
old feeling again. And sometimes, when I see a young girl in the
back, leaning against the bar, or an infatuated soccer mom
re-living her youth, I come close to feeling satisfied.
But the only ones I still take home are the ones who remind me of
her.
