The Artist by Mark Tiro

Author:Mark Tiro [Tiro, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948037099
Publisher: Second Dharma Books
Published: 2019-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

5

Five

“So that’s where you wrote the song that launched your career? In a hospital room?”

“I’d completely forgotten that until now. It was a long time ago.”

I walked over to the bar. “Would you like another gin and tonic?” I asked her across the quiet, empty space that separated us. “I’m tired. I need a drink.”

I pulled out two glasses and filled them with some ice without waiting for her answer.

“Sure,” she said, not missing a beat. “How is it that you’re tired? I thought the night was your time, no? Didn’t you say that it’s in the silence of the night—like now—that the music comes to you?”

“I did say that, didn’t I? Funny how when you live your life in the public eye, after a while your bright future turns into a past you can never quite live up to.”

“Well, you sure seem to have done well. Other singers, writers, artists—they come and go. But you’ve had hit after hit, album after album, year after year… for decades.”

“Yeah, and I’m tired now. It’s a burden, you know. It’s a burden, success. And I want to put it down already. Everything, my life, the music. Not the music, but everything around the music. The touring, the recording, being in the public eye, the performing—being me. All of it. I just want to go back, to the music. To pure music.”

“Being you?”

“It’s hard being me. You should try it sometime.” I paused a second, then added, “Or maybe not.”

She laughed.

“You want to know why I’ve had so many hits when all the other acts who were big when I started are all long gone and forgotten now?”

“Tell me, yes,” she said.

“Most people, it’s because they’re afraid if they stop frantically, continually—mindlessly—doing more and more, that everything will come crashing down.”

“You mean like a shark? They can never stop swimming or they’ll die? Like that you mean?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. For other people.”

“But not for you?”

“Not for me. For other people—yes. But not for me. You wanted to know the real reason I keep going? Let me tell you.”

“You told me—it’s what happened when you were sixteen.”

“I only told you the half of it.”

“There’s more?”

“There’s always more,” I said with a wry smile. “You see, something else happened there in that hospital room, too. I don’t know what, though. I went into that hospital so depressed, I tried to kill myself.”

“Healing maybe?” she said, shooting me back the same wry smile I’d shot her earlier. “It’s the kind of thing that happens in hospital rooms…”

“Funny. But there’s more to it.”

“What’s that?”

“When I walked out a day or so after that night I told you about already—something had… changed. It was different. I didn’t notice it right away. Looking back, it should’ve been obvious. And at first, I even liked it.”

“Liked what? What was obvious?”

“When I got out, I didn’t go back to school for a while. You know, the whole ‘having tried to kill myself thing.’ Anyway, my parents thought it would be best for me to rest at home a while, to recover.

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