Out of Tune: The Original 2015 Draft

Chapter 1

Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand

-Stevie Wonder

For as long as I could remember, music had been a part of my life. It was the little things that no one really noticed. The rain on the windowsill, the wind in the trees, the tapping of a pencil against a desk. Of course, it was in other, more ostentatious things too. The strumming of a guitar, the radio playing in the car, my father humming under his breath as he tried to conjure up a new melody.

My dad had been a musician. He wasn't overly popular, only having one hit album and playing at nightly bars and clubs to pay the bills. But he loved his job, and that was what put a smile on his face. I had always loved spending time with my dad. There was just something about him that drew me in and made me never want to leave his side. He was always so full of life and energy, that I had often felt his enthusiasm spreading onto me without a conscious thought.

When I was nine, my parents got a divorce. My mom had realized around that time that my father loved music far more than he would ever love her. I wasn't sure if this was necessarily true. My dad loved music, and he loved my mom. However, what my dad wasn't good at was expressing his feelings in simple words. Not once had I ever heard him tell her that he loved her. But, while he couldn't say it so easily while speaking, his songs always could. He never verified this, but I knew that the majority of the songs he wrote were about her. Too often I had come across a verse or a chorus that sounded exactly like my mom.

She was just unable to see it, or if she could, she decided not to acknowledge it. She said that I was just naïve about the situation; I said that she was blinded by her newfound interest in the new male partner at her law firm. Needless to say, I was grounded for about a month for that little remark.

When I was eleven, I ran away from home to live with my dad. By that time he'd been living in New York, my mom had been in back home in Nebraska. My mom, who had remarried the man from her firm only two years after divorcing my dad, was, to say the least, extremely pissed at me. I told her that I didn't want to interrupt her 'honey-moon' stage with my new step-dad. I told her that I wanted to live in New York with my dad and, after nearly four months of arguing, crying, and numerous threats, I was granted my wish.

I think my dad was happy that I was living with him. It felt like the good old times, listening to music, commenting on the new groups and the old ones, and, of course, going down to the local watering holes every other night for a concert. Life had never been more perfect for me.

At least, they were perfect for a while.

I lived with my dad for three years. I spent the summers and school breaks with my mom, and Brad, my step-dad, down in California. In that time, my mom had gotten pregnant and given birth to my half-brother, Tyler. Every time I visited with them I felt out of place. They were the epitome of a perfect family, and then there was me.

I was a good student; I had a ninety-three percent average. Despite living with a musician, I didn't go to bars to drink and I didn't smoke. I didn't do a lot of partying, I preferred to stay in and work on new songs with my dad. But still, no matter how well I did, it was never enough for my mom or Brad, not that I cared what he thought, but it hurt to know that I didn't have my mother's approval.

Three and a half years after living with my father, I was fifteen; he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Only a month after getting diagnosed, he died and I was forced to go back to live with my mom. It was hard for me, living away from him and knowing that no matter what I did, I could never live with him again.

Before he died, we had been working on some new songs and since his death I had since wrapped them up in a box and dutifully hidden them in the back of my closet. I couldn't bear to see the things that he had loved so much lying around, reminding me of him, so I had packed away his song books and his demos and his beloved guitar which I could hardly stomach thinking about, much less see. Now, it sat in my basement, out of tune and broken stringed.