The overcast skies teased me and I wondered when it would finally rain. Even with the clouds, sweat covered me from head to toe and my jeans were no match for the bench that I was seated on, heat emanating from the metal into my thighs. But I sat, patiently waiting for someone to pass by. Minutes slowly crept into hours until someone finally did. I shot my thumb into the air.
His name was Flynn. He picked me up down the road from a hotel that stood by an old gas station that looked like it may blow away if the Nevada winds got too strong. His car was cool and smelled like pine or a camp fire. Like something in a large forest that makes you feel safe and happy. Like the tiny green room in an old blues club or a well-worn book shop. He had a handsome face with strong features. When he spoke, his words curled and danced with a romantic English accent. I asked him where he was from.
He told me that he grew up near London and that he’d always wanted to see America. But he never thought he’d be here under such circumstances that he was.
Then he told me that when he was a boy, he dreamed of being a rock star, a true, real-life, rock star. So, he devoted his days to learning the guitar and the piano. He even took voice lessons to better his subpar singing voice. He didn’t go to college, he started working at a jazz bar as a bar tender, and he made good money there. One night he made a drink for an old, withered man who had a large nose and little hair. The old man’s belly gave away his love of beer and cheap booze. Still, he was nice enough, maybe a little rough in his bed side manor. The old man confided in Flynn that he always preferred classic rock to anything else and that he used to make such music. After four rounds of bourbon and eight long jazz numbers, the old man invited Flynn to make music with him. Together they created five songs that made up an album called Moldy Limes. The only five copies were cassette tapes with a sticker of a mango on each of them. It wasn’t much in the way of normal albums, he said, but it’s not about how many cassettes, or who hears it. It’s about the process. He told me that he had never felt happier or more content then when he was making that album. Life was peaceful and good, he said, I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do in this life.
When he and the old man decided that their epic masterpiece deserved an encore, they started on a second album. And that’s when he met a girl. An elegant and mysterious American girl. Who was exploring the United Kingdom. Who had a taste for undiscovered musicians. Who had short messy black hair and clothes that told the world that she was serious about being a photographer, or a poet, or a painter. A girl who liked sex rough and music loud. Flynn decided that the album could wait and that love needed to take the wheel for a while. So, he followed her back to Las Vegas where they made a home in a too small apartment and lived like the lost boys for however many months.
When he proposed, the magic stopped as quickly as it started. First, she said yes. Then she quickly got angry and said no. Then she said that there was a plan and a future for her that he didn’t fit into. She couldn’t be a wife, let alone a wife to a burnout. Someone who had no future, no talent. What would her mother say? Then they broke up. And she said she hated him for making her do that.
Flynn told me that he’d never felt such emptiness in his whole life. The despair was suffocating him. He had cried until the tears ran dry. He cried for the girl, who had held his heart so carelessly and selfishly. He cried for himself, not knowing who he was anymore or where to go. He cried for his music, the lost time, and the old man. But mostly he cried because he was worried that not crying might hurt more. Being forced to feel the pain would be unbearable. Soon he didn’t have to worry about pain, because he told me that when his heart broke, it shattered over, and over again until it was hard to feel anything at all.
The only thing he wanted to do was finish the second album with the old man; who was now in Miami, drinking his own sorrows away. The old man told Flynn to come find him and that they would finish their album there in the tropical heat. The heat will cleanse you, the old man told him, the album will be your savior and you will not be alone anymore.
I cried hard after he finished his story. I felt my heart ache as his might have and I didn’t stop the tears from falling as he drove. I held his hand for the rest of the way, a gesture of friendship and understanding. When I did this, he cried too. Silently with his jaw clenched with focus on the road ahead of us. We didn’t talk for a long time after that. Eventually I would tell him my own story of life and struggles and hardships. But for now, I just sat and cried with him. Feeling the same things he might have felt. Longing for the same things he might have longed for.
Flynn gave me a copy of Moldy Limes when he dropped me off at the local grocery store in Colorado. I gave him my address so that he could send me his new album.
Months later, I received a thick letter, the envelope stained and worn, the stamp pressed hard into the paper, leaving wrinkles all around it.
Flynn had finished the second album, dedicating it to the old man, who had passed away before he could hear the final product. In his letter, Flynn told me how he was finally reunited with the old man in Miami, His skin had tanned into old wrinkled leather, his hair bleached white by the sun. Together, they drank and wrote and sang. Filling the days with music and companionship; grieving together often as they remembered what had once been. When the old man died, there were five songs completed, with four more to go. Inconsolable, Flynn disregarded the album, swearing through tears that he would never be able to make any music now that his partner was gone. After weeks of drinking and sleeping, isolating himself in an attempt to remember any details he could about the man, He listened to Moldy limes. He heard the old man’s voice in the background. Gnarled and raspy, the man sang softly behind Flynn’s main vocals, his fingers smashing against the piano with joy and enthusiasm. Flynn then cried again, emotion overwhelmed him and he began to create music. He created new songs in honor of the man. And he named it after the man’s favorite drink.
Flynn knew the heartbreaks he had experienced were harsh on his soul. He told me that he is sadder than he used to be, that he’s found comfort in the quiet and loneliness. But he was filled with love for those around him and he was not hesitant to share his music, be it good or bad, hoping that it will ease life’s burdens for them as the old man did for him. He thanked me for our car ride, holding each other and crying together, allowing one another to speak freely and without judgement. He remembered his promise to send me his new album when it was finished. He hoped that I liked it.
In the envelope, I found a cassette tape with a sticker of an orange on it. I flipped it over and read, “Old Fashioned, in honor of Eli”.