CHAPTER 8
Music in the rain
He knew where he was before he even opened his eyes. The strong hospital scent drifted up his nose, and he knew he was alive.
He could feel a hand covering his, and when he felt a ring jutting into his finger, he knew it was his Mother's.
For a few minutes, he savored the darkness that he was blessed with when his eyes were shut. He savored those last few minutes where there would be no questions. Sleep was always peaceful.
Tommy liked sleep.
"Oh Tommy, you're awake!" his Mother squealed, her grip tightened on his hand as she spoke. She was smiling at him, but Tommy could make out the dark bags under her eyes, framed with worry lines. He felt guilty for having put them there.
He couldn't even bring himself to smile back - happiness, he was sure, was dwelling somewhere deep inside him. But he hadn't found it yet. At least, not when he was awake.
"I was so worried! When Dave called me…" she paused as tears filled her eyes as she recalled the events "…I thought i'd lost you."
Tommy didn't remember taking the pills. He remembered skulking the alcohol back. He remembered sitting on the floor, and anticipating entering a better place. He would be lying if he said that he didn't feel a slight tinge of disappointment when he'd realized that place was gone again.
Memories do that. They only stick around for a while. Some stay with you forever, others simply fade into thin air until you find something that pulls them back.
"Mom, there's something i have to do", his words were quiet, laced with a croak but filled with determination "I need you to take me somewhere".
His mother just smiled at him, her hand still not leaving his. She nodded.
It had taken her years to work out her only son. But this time she knew.
It was time.
The car pulled up onto the gravel before coming to a halt. Tommy opened the door before digging into the back seat and pulling his bass out.
"Can you gimme a while?" Tommy asked, and he managed a small smile in an attempt to reassure her that she could leave.
"Text me, okay?" there was a hesitant look on her face before she nodded and pulled out slowly from the carpark as Tommy closed the door.
It was beginning to rain as Tommy began a slow trek up the hill, his bass strapped to his back - weighing him down.
It didn't take him long to find it.
It was no doubt the most colourful grave there. Flowers, notes and photographs all laid out on the grass - if it was one thing that Adam never had a shortage of, it was friends and fans.
Tommy carefully moved some of the flowers to clear a spot, before settling himself down on the damp grass. He pulled his bass onto his lap and looked up at the one thing he was scared to face up to.
A single smiling face stared back at him.
Tommy took a single deep breath. "Im sorry, Adam".
He didn't know if Adam could hear him. Didn't care if he looked like an idiot, surrounded by flowers, nursing a bass guitar in his lap, sitting in front of a headstone, talking as if it would talk back.
Slowly, he allowed his fingers to find the chords on his guitar, and for the first time since that night…he began to pluck away at a tune he once knew.
The sound was quiet without an amp, barely heard.
Rain began to drop on his fingers and the strings began to screech silently with the water.
He watched as his hands moved up the neck of the guitar, familiarizing themselves with the instrument again.
As the song finished, the rain stopped, and Tommy hung his head and bent over his guitar - water dripping from his blonde fringe.
"It wasn't just my thing…it was Our thing" he said quietly.
He wondered if Adam was happy. If Adam was smiling down at him somewhere. Tommy never believed in heaven or hell - or 'the promised afterlife'. But he liked to think Adam was watching him….and somewhere, he liked to believe that Adam was bobbing his head to the music.
Lost…in the music.
Tommy reached out a single finger and ran it slowly down the photograph made into the stone.
He felt the tears he hadn't allowed himself to cry, finally making their way to the surface. They ran down his cheeks, unnoticed in the rain.
But through the tears, the bass weighed in his lap.
A reminder that even though the man was gone…the music would forever live on.
And for the first time in a long time
…TommyJoe was smiling.