Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The 'Rents

Chicago was the slow start of the tour. We didn't have another gig until the next weekend, so we had a couple of days to kill. The next day, Sunday, I slept in until one or two in the afternoon. Since my parents lived nearby, I decided it was time to tell them what I was doing for a living, it was a chance Morrison also took and it was the last confirmed communication he had with his parents. He sent them a letter telling them he was in a band and, "what did they think of that?" They, especially his father, had disapproved citing failed childhood piano lessons. I wasn't going to be as confrontational as he had been, I hoped. My parents were quite a bit older than me. I was a late life baby for them. As a matter of fact, my older brother and sister were often mistaken for my parents. My father answered the door. He was a tall, lean man even in his seventies. An Annapolis graduate, after he left the military he had become a corporate lawyer who took stock in lieu of his full salary. Around the time I was in high school he owned so much of the stock he was given the chance to buy the company, which he did. Then he turned around and sold the company again within the year. The new owner breached their contract and my father took them to court and won. Winning several more millions of dollars. He had a cocktail in his hand when he answered the door.
"Hello Mikey," he said, as I breathed out a sigh of exasperation. Surprisingly, he didn't seem surprised to see me, "come on in, your Mother and I were just having a cocktail." My mother was in the den. She was still a handsome woman, who had helped my father's career by being the charming, witty hostess, wife and mother, for both the military and corporate worlds. Her only real failing in life was wearing perfume that was much too rosy smelling.
"Mikeee!" She said, as she got up from the couch to give me a hug, "its so nice of you to come down for a visit."
"I didn't come down, for a visit. I'm actually in town on business."
"That's good to hear," my father said. "What business would that be?"
"Here, take a look." I said, handing him a scrapbook that I had put together with the few reviews there were. He handed it to my mother. After a couple of minutes of leafing through the pages and skimming the headlines my mother asked,
"I don't understand this, Mikey, what do you have to do with this band?"
"I'm the lead singer."
"Oh, Mikey!" My mother said, disappointment clearly in her voice. "You have so much potential, you could be doing so much with your life."
"I am doing something with my life."
"Mikey," my father said as mildly as he could, "your mother and I gave you so much more than even your brother and sister. You were practically raised as an only child we had such great hopes for you. True, a great many things were expected of you," he paused, "but then again as of late, not that much has been forthcoming from you." My eyes started welling up from the usual litany of disappointment. I tried to think of anything else to staunch the tears.
"That's really not true," I said, "you gave money to Jonathan for medical school and money to Ilene to buy into that software company."
"All loans that were paid back with the appropriate interest. Look Mikey, your older brother and sister were always more self-directed than you. You got a liberal arts degree and then you wanted to go to graduate school. I'm still not sure what you were planning on getting a post graduate degree in."
"And since then what have you been doing, Mikey?" My mother asked. "Doing drugs, and living by that college and dating those little girls."
"Michael," my father said, "your mother and I have been talking." My parents looked at each other. My mother, tears streaming down her cheeks, nodded her head to my father almost imperceptibly. "I'll loan you the money for graduate school. You’ll have to give up this band thing of course, get a job in the area of the graduate degree, and pay the loan off within five years. The same deal we gave your brother and sister." I started gathering up my scrapbook.
"Mikey," my Mother said, "you don't have to give us an answer now, take a couple of days."
"That's all right," I said, "you've never believed in me or let me do what I wanted to do anyway. You made me take all those science courses when all I was interested in was music."
"Mikey, we've always encouraged you in your endeavors. Like when you got that job as a disc jockey."
"And what happened with that?" My father said, sternly.
"I didn't take the job."
"And why not?"
"It was a small market station, I didn't want to move to the middle of nowhere New Mexico. It was beneath my talents."
"Mikey, you have to start at the bottom. How many times have I told you no one is going to come to you with a job no matter how talented you are. You have to go seek them out."
"Thanks for the moment of failure, I was trying. I am trying," I took a second to compose myself, "never mind. This is what I want to do," I said clutching the mostly empty scrapbook. I left.

(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)

Chapter 27: On We Go

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