Missing Dixie(39)

Dixie rushes into my arms and I hold her until I can’t stand. I rock her gently on the floor and we whisper comforting words back and forth. This is what Dixie is for me—what she always has been. Loving her isn’t trading one addiction for another—it’s finding peace and reassurance in a world of chaos.

Once she’s fallen completely asleep in my arms, I place her gently back in her bed, careful not to wake her.

My Bluebird deserves to fly and be free.

She deserves to belong to herself and not to me.

Now that she knows the truth, maybe she will.

“Gav, it’s me. Dallas. I don’t know what’s going on with you and my sister at the moment, but I need to know something and we need to rehearse if we’re going to do this thing.”

Delete.

“Hey, man. It’s me again. Look, neither one of you are returning calls or messages and I’m starting to get worried. If I worry, Robyn worries. Which puts our child’s health at risk. And Robyn’s health. Anything happens to either of them, I’m going to be pissed. Call me.”

Delete.

“Garrison I don’t know what in the ever-loving f*ck has gotten into you or why you and my sister have gone off the grid, but if one of you doesn’t call me in the next twenty-four hours, I’m driving down there and kicking some ass.”

I have no doubt he will drive to Amarillo from Dallas to do just that.

Delete.

“Hey. Robyn talked to Dixie and I don’t know what happened but she said it was bad and that she was upset. She won’t talk about it. That means you’re going to. Be there in a few hours.”

Delete. And then I make sure my door is locked. I guess if he really wanted to get in he could, he’s done it before. Fuck it.

Pretty sure my mom is spending her days blitzed out at a crack house up the street that belongs to her boyfriend.

“I’m here. I’m outside. I will break in if I have to but I’d rather not. Man up and open the damn door please.”

Delete.

“I’m guessing whatever is going on is your fault since you’re avoiding me. ’Preciate the timing. You can withdraw us from battle since you’ve decided to be a f*cking toddler. If you ever show your face at work again, that is.”

Delete.

“Hey, it’s me.”

My heart pounds because it isn’t Dallas’s voice on my voice mail this time.

It’s Dixie.

“Um, so I talked to Dallas and I’d really like it if we could go ahead and compete at the battle this weekend. The three of us. If you’re up for it.”

She pauses and I’m a burning man during that pause. Dying to hear more of her sweet voice and knowing it will wreck and ruin me at the same time.

“Anyway, we’re going to rehearse tonight at the same place downtown where we used to go.”

Another pause.

“We reserved two hours from six to eight if you want to come. Bye, Gav. I hope you’re okay.”

Repeat.

I play her message so many times, I feel beat to hell and back by the time my phone battery dies.

I put it on the charger for a while and when it comes back on I see I have another missed call. From her.

I play the message and it guts what’s left of me to gut.

“Hey. Sorry to be all stalkery with the multiple voice mails in one hour but I should’ve said something on the other message and I didn’t. So here goes. I want you to come to rehearsal tonight. I want you to play with us next Friday night at the Phi Kap gig and in the battle on Saturday. But mostly, I want us to not hate each other or hurt each other anymore. At least not if we can help it. I love you, Gavin. Bigger than your mistakes and bigger than the pain you cause me sometimes. Maybe that makes you mad or makes me seem desperate or stupid but I love you as much as I love music, maybe even more because I’ve loved you longer. Anyway, I do think we owe it to ourselves to see if the band has what it takes. Whatever happens afterward, I figure we’ll deal with when it comes.”

Since my mom hasn’t been around, there are no drugs that I know of in the house. Which means if I want any kind of fix, substance or sexual or otherwise, I have to go out. I suspect Dallas might be waiting to pounce on my ass or pound this shit out of me, depending on how much he knows.

I play her two messages a few more times and then I sit in silence until it nearly deafens me.

I can’t be what she needs. I’m not built to be the kind of man that could truly make her happy. But the thought of letting my mopey shit or temptations take away her dream is unthinkable.

If she wants the band, she’ll have the band. This much I can’t possibly screw up. If she wants a drummer, a drummer she will get.





15 | Dixie

“ACCORDING TO THE owner of the Tavern, there’s a drummer that sits in with the house band we might be able to hire for the battle,” Dallas tells me when I arrive at the studio downtown where we rehearse. “He says the guy has shit for brains and not the greatest work ethic but is a fantastic drummer.”

It wasn’t that long ago that Gavin and I stood on the rooftop of this very building and I wished for our dreams to come true. Feels like a lifetime ago. That was a different girl.

Gavin was right, though; that girl was honest and now it’s harder for me to open up about what I want. Though I did leave a perfectly good and thoroughly humiliating message on his voice mail. I can’t help but wonder if he ever listened to it.