Chapter 33

Tony walked up to the door of the bar and knocked. He knew that Jack would probably be there. So he waited and then knocked again. Langston was in his car.

Finally, the door opened and there was Jack. Tony smiled.

"Hi, Jack. Can I come in and play?"

Jack rolled his eyes at how Tony had phrased his request and then stepped back.

"Come on in," he said. He waved at Langston and then followed Tony inside.

Tony walked over to the piano and sat down. For a few seconds, he did nothing more than run his fingers over the keys.

"You want to talk about it?" Jack asked from behind him.

"No. I just want to play."

"Okay. Go ahead."

"Thanks."

Tony sat there for a few seconds more and then, he started playing the piano.

Billy Joel, of course.

He started out with "Piano Man" and then shifted into a couple of instrumental songs. Then, he played "New York State of Mind" and then, he started playing "My Life" and for whatever reason, he really got into it. He almost forgot about Jack, who was probably doing necessary work. He just belted it out, especially the chorus.

"I don't need you to worry for me 'cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore; this is my life
Go ahead with your own life; leave me alone."

He kept playing it, almost, he went into some improv before singing the final lines.

"I don't care what you say anymore this is my life
Go ahead with your own life; leave me alone!"

The defiance expressed, Tony felt a little deflated. That hadn't solved his problem at all. Not that he had really expected it to. His problem couldn't be so easily solved.

Then, he started playing one song that he'd never played voluntarily. "Everybody Has a Dream." It got to him like it always did. And, suddenly, he had to play a different song. Jack had told him not to play it, but at the moment, disregarding Billy Joel's motive in writing it, it expressed how he felt. He played through the first verse and then headed to the second.

"So I listen for an answer
But the feeling seems to stay
And what's the use of always dreaming
When tomorrow is today

Still I'm waiting for the morning
But it feels so far away
And you don't need the love I'm giving
So tomorrow is today."

He skipped the weird gospel section in the middle. It had always seemed strange to him. He didn't understand the reason for it and it really didn't fit the rest of the song at all. It was like Billy Joel had forgotten what he was writing for a few seconds and then went back to it again. Instead, he just played some instrumental before getting back to the last part of the song.

"I don't care to know the hour
'Cause it's passing anyway
I don't have to see tomorrow
'Cause I saw it yesterday

Though I'm living and I'm singing
And although my hands still play
Soon enough it will all be over
'Cause tomorrow is today."

Then, he stopped and ran his fingers over the keys again.

He was startled by the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor. He looked up and saw Jack bringing a chair over to the piano. He set it down beside the bench and then sat and looked at Tony expectantly.

"You ready to talk about it, now?" he asked.

"No."

"You should."

"I know."

"What's the deal?" Jack asked.

Tony turned back to the piano and ran his fingers over the keys once again.

"I know what to do, but I don't know how to make the decision to do it." Tony sighed. "It's so easy here, even with all the chaos that was part of it. I always wanted to know who I am, but now that I do, I don't know if I can be that person. Tim says that I already am that person, but am I really?"

"I don't know. Are you?" Jack asked.

"I don't know."

"Come on, Joel... or rather, Tony. You said you know who you are. So were you a completely different person? Because I don't see much difference right now. You remember your life before and it doesn't seem to have changed you."

"What do you see?" Tony asked, looking at Jack again.

Again, that eyebrow raise that was so reminiscent of Gibbs.

"Please, Jack. Tell me what you see."

Jack looked at him for a long moment and then shrugged.

"I see a guy who thinks he's all that and a bag of chips, but at the same time, worries that he's not. He can talk his way out of pretty much anything. I see a guy who doesn't like having to be serious, but he will be if it's necessary. He has some real skills and he has the confidence to use them. Not everyone is like that. Some people can do things but they worry about showing it. I see a guy who is fine in a fight, but doesn't like his life to be hard. If he can make it easy, he will... even if it's the wrong choice. I also see a guy who is loyal to a fault. If he decides to be on your side, you can trust him all the way and then some. He wants to be completely independent, but he hates having to be alone. He needs people more than he wants to admit it."

Tony looked back at the piano.

"That's Joel. So... is Tony any different from that?"

Tony didn't answer.

"Come on, Tony. Is he?"

"Not really," he whispered.

"Then, you're not choosing who you are. Even when you forgot the details, you were the same person, more or less. You don't have to give up playing the piano or anything like that, but you'll have to give up this easy life. It's not really your life. It's a placeholder, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that. I'll have to get a new piano player, but that can be done."

"You could do it yourself," Tony said.

"Nope. We already had this discussion. I'm the owner. I have to be able to watch things and I'm a classical pianist, not an entertainer. I'll get some other wannabe star and he'll stick around for a while, getting gigs as he can until he either moves up or gives up. Most people aren't like you... but if there is another guy like you who needs the job and the security of it, even at the low pay I can offer, I'll help him out like I helped you. So I know what my plan is. What's yours?"

Tony didn't answer. Then, he was surprised when Jack patted him on the back.

"It's gonna be hard, Tony, but you can handle it. You just need to have the guts to deal with your life being hard for a while. It won't always be, but it probably will be to start. I don't see how this kind of thing could lead you to anything else."

"Neither do I," Tony admitted.

"Then, you need to figure out what you're going to do. And if you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that your plan really has to involve going back."

"Yeah."

"Why don't you want to?"

Tony smiled a little. "Because it'll be hard... because maybe I won't really be able to fit back into where I was before... because maybe I'll get back there and I'll really hate it."

"I hear quite a few maybes. Do you really think those are valid possibilities?"

"No."

"Okay, then. What's the real problem?"

Tony sighed again. "I really don't know. That's the problem. I know what the right answer is, but I'm afraid every time I think of doing it. And I know that I'm not usually like this. So... maybe this all happened for a reason. Maybe my life isn't supposed to be my life."

Jack actually took him by the shoulders and forced Tony to turn toward him.

"Tony, I hate to say it, but you're being stupid about this. It's not as hard as you're making it. You have a hard path ahead and you get yourself back into the life you lost, but... is there something else that's holding you back from at least trying?"

Tony really wasn't sure. He wasn't just pretending. He didn't know, but as Jack pressed him to think about it, what kept coming up in his mind was Tim, lying in a hospital bed, injured and worn out by what he'd been doing. ...and Tim lying in the dumpster, seemingly dead.

He looked Jack in the eye.

"What if I don't deserve it?"

"Deserve what? Being yourself?"

"Yeah."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I... I abandoned Tim. He fell. I thought he was dead, and... and I know it wasn't a conscious choice I made to forget, but part of me must have wanted to escape from seeing Tim dead. If I hadn't let that happen..."

"What? Your friend spontaneously wouldn't have fallen?"

"No, but... but he was so afraid that he had done something wrong. He still doesn't remember that night. His injuries were so serious that... that he completely lost his memory. He spent months trying to recover, but he was so afraid for me that he put all that at risk. I don't know if I deserve that."

Jack shook his head. "No, Tony. The choices your friend made to find you aren't about what you deserve or don't deserve based on something that happened when you got shot. All that means was that he cared enough to ignore what was probably the best thing for him so that he could keep searching for you. People do that for other people all the time. I'm not saying it doesn't mean anything, but it does show how important you are. So instead of looking on what he did as evidence of your unworthiness, look at it like he must be. You matter that much."

"But I didn't always treat him very good. I teased him and I put him through stuff that I didn't need to. I pretended it was training but it really wasn't. I wanted to torment him and so I did."

"And?"

"And that was wrong."

"Tony, what you seem to be saying is that you weren't perfect in how you treated him and that means that, with what he did for you, you're somehow unworthy. Well, that's ridiculous. You know that's ridiculous. If Tim hated you, he wouldn't have done this much to find you."

Tony wasn't sure he wanted to think that way, either. It was what he had said he wanted. He wanted to know that he was somebody. At the very least, to Tim, he was.

"You can do whatever you want to try to find a way that the choice will be taken away from you, but it's not going to happen," Jack said. "Tony, go back to your life. Your real one."

Tony sighed.

"I'm going to go up to my apartment for a bit, okay?"

"Sure, okay."

Tony stood up from the piano and started to walk to the back of the bar.

Suddenly, he heard Jack start to play.

Billy Joel.

Tony recognized it right away. It was "Vienna". He wondered if Jack was actually going to sing. He had no idea if he could or not. He turned around.

And Jack started to sing.

"Slow down, you crazy child
You're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart tell me,
Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You better cool it off before you burn it out
You got so much to do and only
So many hours in a day."

His voice was okay. He could keep on pitch but it wasn't as good as his piano playing, and while Jack had claimed that he wasn't really a performer, he could play much more like Billy Joel than Tony could.

But the words struck him. If there was a Billy Joel song that more perfectly encapsulated what he was struggling with and advice he should take, he wasn't sure what it was. Then, Jack moved into an extremely impressive instrumental part. It was played by an accordion in the original recording but Tony didn't miss that at all, listening to Jack. Then, he moved into the final verse.

"And you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through (oooh)
Why don't you realize... Vienna waits for you?
When will you realize... Vienna waits for you?"

While Tony stood there wondering what to do about this, Jack finished the final instrumental lines with an amazing flourish. Then, he reverently put down the lid over the keyboard and turned around.

"If you hired someone to sing, you could totally perform," Tony said, softly. "That was amazing."

Jack smiled a little. "I'm not a performer. That was a message, not a performance. Are you going to get what you want, Tony? Or are you going to hang around this dead-end place and wait for something important to happen? Because it's not going to happen here. I'd have changed the words, but I don't think the meter is quite right. Your life isn't here. It's in D.C. and you know it."

Tony took a breath and let it out. He looked down at what he was wearing and realized that he hadn't really changed in two days.

"I need to shower," he said.

Jack laughed a little.

"Go ahead. Don't need to ask permission from me."

Tony smiled weakly and then went up to his apartment. When he got inside, he looked around. It was easy here. Crappy as it was, it was easy.

"Is this really what I want?" he asked himself.

And really, he didn't need to ask the question. He knew the answer without asking.

It was just a matter of having the guts to carry through on it.