Nashville Sunset

Charlie knew if he went much longer, he would need to turn on the light.

The Cumberland reflects the Nashville sunset

shedding light on all the things you are.

He flipped back to “Mary’s Tune”, rubbed his hands together, and set his fingers to the strings. The guitar hummed quietly, the fingerpicked chords rolling steady and sweet. Charlie softly growled beneath the sound.

When my heart is broken and I’m laden down with more than I can carry,

I pack my bags and hit the road to go lay all my burden down with Mary.

It doesn’t matter if the sun is shining,

as long as she is mine I’m feeling fine.

It was never a popular song, but Charlie loved it. His voice began to warm with these words for his first wife until the guitar choked as he coughed and reached for his glass of water. He set the instrument back in its stand and reclined in the chair, pulling out the letter he received earlier.

Hello Mr. Rogers,

I have been a fan of you and The Pirates since I was just a teenager (which fairly dates me). Anyway, rather awkward to ask this of you, so I will just do it outrightly. I am interested in a notebook of yours. I saw a magazine cover last week that featured you sitting with a girl and writing something in a notebook. I’ve searched auction histories and museum databases and found no mention of it, so I thought I would leave you this note through my associate in Nashville.

If the notebook still exists and you’re willing to part with it, I would be most interested in having it in my collection. I can offer you $20,000 for it. If you find this to be amenable, please contact my associate at…

Charlie stopped reading. He knew his address was no well-kept secret and he had had plenty of solicitations for personal items before. In all honesty, he loved giving them out. His kids had enough memorabilia and personal items to sort through after he shuffled off. ‘What’s one less crusty old volume?’, he thought. The black leather was softer to the touch after decades of dufflebags, knapsacks, and various wears. He flipped through the book, etched with lyrics, musings, memories and dirty thumb prints. The setting sun lit rose-tinted pages that slowly faded to shade.

He closed the book and leaned back in his chair to watch the sunset and think of the years stitched together between the black covers.

____________________________________________________

“Looks like you’ve got a package, mom.” Peter dropped the box over her shoulder and onto her lap. She inspected it. It was not from her brother-in-law’s office as she had expected, but directly from Charlie “Winky” Rogers. She grinned that he remembered the name after so many years. “Peter, grab me those scissors, would you?” Peter obliged and she made short work of the postage box. A small black notebook and a smaller envelope slid out. “What is it, mom?” Peter inquired, looking over her shoulder. “Just something from an old friend” she said, already thumbing through the pages. Peter briefly peered over her shoulder, puffed out a small “hm”, and went to the kitchen to arrange her prescriptions for the next week.

Mary remembered these pen scratches, that coffee stain, those gentle words that could twist so bitter so suddenly, but mostly she remembered the young man and his tender hands scratching out songs in attempts to find some sort of peace for his anxious soul. Then she remembered the letter. She tore it open and read.

Dear Mary,

Sorry to have seen through your plan, but I’m happy to have cut out the middleman. The next time you arrange an accomplice, it might require a further degree of separation than your brother-in-law. You forget that though it’s been so many years, your husband and I were good friends before he ran away with my wife. Truly sorry to hear about Chris, by the way. For whatever animosity I held, he was a good man and I trust that he gave you a better life than I might have.

Regarding the book. As you might remember, most of what’s in it is about you, so I suppose there is no one I’d rather see it go to. And regarding the money, I have a counterproposal. I figure a few hundred, maybe a grand for my flight out to see you and we can negotiate a nightly price for any guest bedroom or couch that you might deem fit for a roving scoundrel. From there, I assume we will need sustenance at some point. I doubt I can blow through the $20,000 on the first trip, so we may need to keep a running tally over a few trips.

At any rate, it would be wonderful to see you again. If you find my counterproposal amenable, we can open up discussion about when and how. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy muddling through mediocre lyrics and chicken scratch chord progressions.

With all of my love,

Winky

Mary put the letter down and opened the book to a song that was never recorded.

I can see you’re Westward bound and I am standing in the shade you cast

Wishing you would turn around and see me as your present, not your past.

Perhaps they were too young, perhaps they were disoriented by the sudden fame. Either way, it wouldn’t do her much good to figure that out now. Best to face the future until there is no more future to face, she reasoned. “Peter?” she called, hearing her son still rattling pills in the kitchen, “How much is a plane ticket from Nashville?”