Not This Time

Jon: September 30, 1994

     "What about this?" Richie asked, holding up a piece of paper. His eyes shifted from me to the paper and he read, "I don't want to keep wishing, thinking--"
     "God, no, get rid of it!" I groaned. I couldn't even remember writing it, but just that start, I didn't even want to. I frowned at the horrible, whiney writing I'd done back then. It was a bad enough day to decide to go through all this, September 30th was always a bad day for me, but it didn't help that all the old lyrics we were going through happened to be from those first few weeks after Nina disappeared. Too much emotion, not enough songwriting.
     Rich took a deep breath and dropped the paper into the box we were using for trash. Most of the papers we'd been through so far were in that box. Rightfully so, because they were terrible. Most of what I'd written then was.
     Richie looked over at me with a sigh and a bored expression. "What are we even doing this for if you're just going to throw everything away? Just toss it all and be done with it."
     "I know there's a few good ones in here somewhere," I mumbled, looking at one of the many papers I'd set out on my desk, "I just don't remember which ones they were." Richie sighed again and stood. I watched him pull out a cigarette and head over toward the balcony, but then I returned my attention to the papers.
     There were whole notebooks and journals filled with crap I'd written when Nina left. I only wanted the ones that still made me feel something. I'd gotten a lot of the hurt out over the past few years, but I'd also buried a lot of it. The guys hated me during the New Jersey tour. Whenever we weren't on stage or out on the town, I was either mopey and miserable or bitterly angry. Dorothea had come with us for that one and she was probably the only thing that got me out of my hotel room.
     She was understanding and forgiving and I didn't deserve her. She had been so patient with me through the whole thing. She had absolutely no reason to take me back after Nina left, but she did. Then she came on tour with me and kept my spirits up. God knows I might have rented out the bottom of a bottle if she hadn't. She was too good to me for no good reason. So I married her. There was no way I was going to let her get away from me again. I was stupid to let it happen the first time.
     I shook my head and tried to focus on the papers in front of me. The breeze from the open balcony door was blowing Richie's cigarette smoke into the room a little. I pulled out another sheet and took a look at it.
     I was sure our love would stand the test of time.
     You were my Bonnie and I was Clyde.
     We were so perfect in my mind,
     but that was all a lie.
     I should have seen it coming from that very first night.
     All the clues were there, but I was just so blind.
     I should have listened when you said goodnight.
     You really meant goodbye.
     I closed my eyes and swallowed back a stab of pain. That was one of them. It wasn't great. It could use some work, but even years later, I remembered writing those words. I remembered taking a break before I wrote that last line, it hurt so bad. I was so angry. Finally, I opened my eyes again and set that paper in the stack I'd set aside on my desk. Most of it was poorly written shlock, but some of it would be usable.
     Richie came back in and sat down with me again. I didn't look over, but I could tell he was looking around at the mess of paper slips and notebooks I'd pulled out of boxes from my old apartment in Bradley Beach. It was almost overwhelming how much hurt I had tried to cram onto paper. I don't even remember most of it now. I probably blocked it out.
     "This one isn't lyrics, but maybe we can pull something out of it," Richie's voice said, pulling me out of my thoughts. I looked over to find him reading out of one of the journals. He glanced up at me and cleared his throat before reading from it. "I don't know how I keep ending up back at her apartment. I know she's not there. I never leave my house to go there, but somehow, that's where I end up. I should just set the whole fucking place on fire, that way there won't be any thing for me to keep coming around to."
     He paused and looked up at me again, but I was just remembering. I remembered stopping by there every few weeks, picking up her mail, and wondering where she'd gone. When the letter from the property owner came asking for rent, it finally occurred to me that she really wasn't coming back. Just like her letter had said. I had taken the landlord's letter with me when I left that last time. I bought the place from him after a while, and would drive by every now and then, but I never set foot in that apartment again. Eventually, the city bought it from me so that they could tear the building down and do something else with the space.
     All I had left of her, now, was the book and letter she left, a bottle of wine I'd stolen from her apartment, the blue mustang she'd left sitting in the alley, and our photo. The one photo we took together in Vancouver. It was the only one I had of her. I knew others had to exist, but that was the only one I had. I'd tucked it away somewhere a long time ago; it still hurt too much to look at it.
     "Nothing seems right," Richie read on, "The whole world is just wrong. It feels like the sky might turn inside out at any minute. Even my neighbor's stupid dog has finally shut up. It's like he knows something's not right. He knows she's not here. That sounds crazy."
     "Yeah, it does," I muttered to myself. Rich looked up at me and closed the journal.
     "The rest of the page is pretty much just various 'how do I let you go' phrases, over and over."
     I frowned at all the papers. I couldn't believe there was so much of it. The sheer number of scraps I had from those days was a little overwhelming. "I don't really want to do this anymore," I sighed. I hadn't expected my emotions to creep up on me like they had. "I don't think I've been this depressed about it in..." I trailed off with a lazy shake of my head, "....a long time."
     "Do you still miss her?"
     I glanced over at him and sighed again, not really wanting to admit it. Richie was staring, waiting. I nodded a little and leaned forward, propped up on my knees. "Yeah, sometimes," I managed, pausing for a moment to think about it. "There was this one time I had a dream about her. I don't know if I ever told you guys about it. Back when we were working on Keep The Faith. She's the blonde that gave me nightmares in Bed of Roses."
     Richie's eyebrows went up and he pursed his lips, but he shook his head. "No, you never did tell me that. That sucks man. I'm sorry."
     I sat back with a deep breath and blinked back tears that felt like they were trying to well. I refused to cry. I was not doing that anymore. After another moment I shook my head and let another deep breath out.
     "Nah, it's fine. I'm just tired of hurting about it," I mumbled. There was silence for a moment. I had never gotten an answer about why she left, aside from that stupid book. Time travel. Yeah, right. I still said it was Matt, that psycho. He kidnapped her. I closed my eyes again and took another deep breath, letting the anger go, like I'd learned how to do over the years. "It's been over for so long," I grumbled, crossing my arms, "There's no reason I should still have pain like this so many years later."
     There was another pause. Seemed like Richie didn't know what to say, but then he did. He took a deep breath too before he spoke. "Sometimes it never goes away."
     "It's not fair," I growled.
     "You and I both know that's just how life is, Jon. Shit's not fair."
     I glared at the papers on the floor as the breeze coming in through the still-open balcony door shifted them a little. In the back of my mind, I knew it did me no good to be bitter about it, but there I was, being bitter about it. I shook my head again.
     "Yeah, I know." I huffed and looked around the room. Anywhere but at him. I knew he was looking at me and I couldn't meet his gaze. I hated when he was right. And I hated that this was a problem. "I just hate that this happens every year, right after Dotty's birthday, without fail," I complained, finally willing myself to look at him, "And of course, Dotty's a saint about it. I'm just tired of it. She doesn't deserve it."
     "Of course she doesn't," Richie agreed. He leaned forward, resting his arm on the desk. "But the pain's not going to go away until the wound heals, Jon. And ignoring the wound and pushing it away like you did for all of New Jersey is not going to heal it."
     "How do you suggest I do that? I don't know how to vent besides songwriting! And this," I argued, motioning to the papers all over the desk, "this is just so....depressing!"
     "Huh, it's almost like you were depressed when you wrote it." I just glared. Richie was giving me a half-hearted smirk until I looked up at him, then he dropped it pretty quick. "Jon, listen, you just gotta do what you gotta do," he said, "You've got to get it out, get over it, and get on with your life. It's the only way. If that means songwriting, even if it's these shitty songs, then let's do it!"
     "I'm not going record shitty songs, Richie."
     "Well damnit, Jon, then let's make them not shitty!" he argued, "But you've got to get it out or you'll be miserable the rest of your life, thinking about her!"
     "I'm fine pretty much every other day of the year besides today!"
     Richie shut his mouth and gave me another knowing look. Then he spoke gently. "And her birthday."
     I stopped and pressed my lips together. "I said pretty much.."
     "Your point is?"
     I glared at him for a second more. He was right, of course. Again. I looked away with a frown, flipping through a few pages of one of my old journals absently. One page caught my attention. It had only a few words on it.
     If you don't love me, lie to me. I would give anything in the whole world to hear you tell me that lie one more time. Come on. Lie to me. I can take it, baby. I can take it.
     I stared at those words for a moment. I didn't know yet what I could do with those words, but I liked them. I thought about it for only a moment more before holding onto the journal and tearing out the page. I could feel Richie watching me as I set the page over on the little pile of things I was keeping.
     "So..?"
     I looked over at him with a tired sigh. "Don't make me tell you you're right, Rich."
     "No, you have to," he joked.
     I let out a small huff sort of laugh and shook my head. Richie smiled a little, too, as I looked down at the stack I'd gathered. Then I looked over the journals on the desk that we still had yet to go through. And that wasn't even including the other boxes in the room. I chewed on my lip for a minute, trying to decide whether I really wanted to keep going. It really felt useless.
     With another huff of almost-amusement, I relented. "If you'll help me make them workable, maybe we can put some on an album." Richie grinned as I looked around the rest of the room with a shake of my head. "But I think we're done for today. I'll probably go through most of the rest of this on my own later."
     "Works for me!" Richie declared, rising from his seat. I got up too, ready to get out of this room. As I started to put notebooks back in boxes, Richie picked up another piece of paper. It wasn't a big sheet, but it was folded over. Richie opened it up and took a quick glance over it as I set the box on the floor. "Woah."
     "What?"
     Richie held the paper out to me. I took it and looked it over too. Holy crap. It was covered in my messy scribblings. Stanzas lined the length of the page. Lines were crossed out and rewritten. Arrows pointed lines to other places on the page. There were even guitar chords. I could feel my mouth fall open a little as I read it.
     Misery likes company
     I like the way that sounds
     I've been trying to find the meaning
     So I can write it down
     I sank back into my seat, rereading the rest of the page. "Damn, I remember this," I whispered, "I wrote this whole thing one night a few weeks after we got back from Slippery in '87." I looked up at him, but I wasn't seeing him. I remembered that night. "I was staying in a hotel," I recalled, "Because it felt more like home than home did. I was way up on this high floor, away from everyone else and I just couldn't sleep. I just kept staring at this stationary thinking, 'I wanna write. I wanna write something.' But I just didn't know what."
     "Put it in that fucking pile, it's going on the fucking album if it kills us," Richie spat.
     I blinked and looked up at him from where my gaze had drifted. He was pointing to my little stack of keepers. I glanced at the stack and then back at the page, forcing myself to ignore the pain that was trying to rise in my throat. But I put it in the stack all the same.
     "If that song does not get all the hurt out, I don't know what will," Richie said.
     I collected the things I was keeping and rose to my feet once more, giving him an uncertain look for a moment before turning away to collect my jacket. "Yeah." I mumbled, "We'll see."