darling, it's tour

We had a week and a half break before we went East. Ten quiet evenings without our ears ringing or our stomachs growling. No free drinks at the bar, but at least we could kick a few back with friends. We had all gotten used to waking up to eachother's sweaty bodies in the afternoon, and late nights together goofing around after shows. We would wreak havoc on rest stop parking lots. Ten days without having to worry about getting arrested for something stupid. Snow White probably went through a similar withdraw when she left the seven dwarves behind for Prince Charming. With that said, most of my next ten days were spent at Tony's apartment. We all went our separate ways.
Joey stayed with Stevi at our apartment. Their behavior was reclusive. Gavin and Justin would call me asking where he was, interrogating me like concerned parents. Why wasn't he answering his phone? Why wasn't Stevi? Was he mad at us all because we made a 'no girlfriend on tour' rule? Did that mean that he wasn't coming either? If so, who would drum for us? Should we call other drummers we knew so we could start rehearsing with them before we hit the road? Would I be able to come back for practice?
Ten days of not answering their calls.
Gavin went back to work for a bit, spent some time with Julie, and confirmed our upcoming shows. This created an illusion of productivity on his part, but most of his time was spent in a cigarette-whisky-pot fueled blur with Justin. When he did go to work he showed up late and hungover.
Ian spent a lot of time with his friends, going to local shows and spending late nights at coffee shops. Jordan pulled his usual forty hours a week at the Muncie music store.
It was a rest. But we all new the shows that really mattered were just days away. We hadn't put the highway behind us.


Throughout the early afternoon of July 8th we trickled into the band house. It was unusually cold for July. Leaky-faucet rain dripped from the sky. Gavin greeted us at the door with black coffee. We stacked our pillows, blankets and luggage on top of the equipment in the bus and waited. Quarter past one, we were packed and ready to go.. for the most part.

"What do you mean Jordan's not coming?"
"He's just not coming. He decided to stay here and work."
"What the fuck? So... no brass section?"
"We can do without it." Gavin's tone was nonchalant, but he was avoiding eye contact and kicking around his boot. He wasn't happy.
Jordan loved working at the music store where he built and repaired instruments all day. Violins, trumpets, cellos, bass guitars, you name it, he could fix it. His gift as a musician did not end with performing; he knew his instruments inside-out. He wasn't a big fan of life on the road. The minute he exited Muncie he felt misplaced. This was a fact that we all lived with. If we kept touring eventually we would have to replace him. He didn't want to play horns in a folk band for the rest of his life.
His timing on this decision was a kick in the pants, especially with how much we had depending on this leg of tour.

In a band as large as us every song is a balancing act, and once a song is written every instrumentation is crucial. We weren't just a folk band, we were an orchestrated folk band, or what some people call, "anti-folk." You have the bass and the drums as the foundation of each song. Sometimes they are the centerpiece, but most of the time they provide the listener with a sense of stability. Next up are the mid sections, the melodies you listen to most of the time. The vocals, the guitars, the banjo all fall into this realm. Many of Jordan's instruments were important contribution in this section. When Gavin and I weren't singing, it fell back on the bellowing tenor sax, trumpets, and horns to carry the hooks of the songs.
Jordan kept us organized on and off the stage. He prevented our songs from palling apart during the bridges. After performances he packed the bus. He drove the--

"Wait...who's going to drive?" The rain started to fall a bit more heavily. Gavin lit a Pal Mal and shrugged. He inhaled deeply. There were only two other people on our insurance policy.
"You and me I guess."

But the eastern leg of tour took us through the Smokeys, to Richmond, on to our nation's capitol, then straight into the heart of New York City, then back through Gettysburgh, PA, ending in Ohio. The predominant amount of our Eastern tour consisted of city streets, and mountain highways. Also, I had never actually driven the bus before.

"Gavin...there is no way in hell I am driving that bus through New York City. I can't even parallel park my chevy cavalier, let alone that thing."

He discarded his cigarette, smoked in a record short amount of time. He smothered it with his boot.
"We'll figure it out."

We piled in with our backs straight-up against the windows, Ipods in our ears, arms braced in a tense grip on our benches, with Gavin behind the steering wheel.
In silence, we headed east.

That morning my heal was bleeding so much my shoe turned mauve. The cut had been aggravated for so long by the backs of my shoes that, like a buddhist monk in meditation, I rose above my own pain. It wasn't until a mosquito bit my other calf that I noticed. Lifting my right foot to scratch the itch on my calf with my toe, I felt my heal stick to my shoe.
What I would do for a pair of sandals.
It was a bad idea to wear brand new shoes when we walked from the Lincoln Memorial to the Smithsonian a few days prior. I hobbled toward the door of the coffee shop. A sharp pain, like a ten inch needle going up my calf, accompanied me.
"Do you have any band-aids?"
The tall man behind the counter had dark curly hair and stood with the regality of a greek statue. I felt like Quasimodo trapsing into the coffee shop door. He raised an eyebrow at my question, and I twisted my leg so he could see. His eyes opened wide. There were spots of blood on the floor beneath my foot. He came from behind the counter and he led me, lightly, by my elbow, to a set of stairs in the back part of the sitting room. Despite his obvious strength he handled me as lightly as he would a bird with a broken wing. His gesture told me to sit down on he stairs, so I did. Then he left for a moment back into the kitchen.
I looked down at my heel. The woven fabric of my white flat was fully saturated with blood. It felt as hot and sticky as the July air outside. The toes of the shoes were now worn and grey, fringing around the edges. The dark maple hard wood shined beneath them. The bottom of my soles were wearing away and dark brown. I had bought those shoes two weeks before we left for tour. I thought about leaving, walking out the coffee shop door, and just dealing with my mess, but the man was coming back from the kitchen with a band-aid and a sanitary wipe.
He sat down on a stair below me and placed my leg on his knee. He took off my shoe and placed it on the stair next to him and began to clean off the cut, which had began to clot. I held his shoulder when the disinfectant stung. He did not look up. His hands were clean, he didn't even have any hang nails. They were clipped to perfection, no room for dirt or espresso grinds or anything of that nature to sneak under his nails. He opened the band-aid and spread it over the wound. His fingers spread apart over my heal. With the way the band-aid matched the color of my skin it seemed like the wound disappeared. It was then that he looked up at me, his brown eyes held mine steady. It felt like he had been looking at me the whole time.
"Thanks."
I was barely audible. I put on my shoe as he stood. It stung. We smiled at each other.
There's a scar where it was, but that's when it started to heal.