Taking The Walk
October 8, 2007
Days go by and the tour goes on, moving from promotional tour to full on regular tour. It turns out that Taylor’s plan, which I hadn’t listened to a word of, was for us to take barefoot walks with the fans before each show. It was supposed to be raising awareness or something. To be honest, I didn’t fully follow even after I had it explained to be a dozen or so times, but I knew there was no point but to just suck it up and do what Taylor wanted.
That was always sort of how things worked, anyway, whether it was to do with the band or in our private lives. Naturally, this most recent fight – if you could even call it that – didn’t change a thing.
It was hard to characterize it as a fight, since we hadn’t spoken a single word to each other, aside from business, since the day Kate called. In public, we were completely civil to each other. In private, it was as though some spark between us had just gone out, even more quickly than it had been rekindled. What should have given us more in common somehow only drove us apart and put a palpable wedge between us.
We arrive in Nashville early in the morning with just a few hours to get in a quick nap before we give Taylor’s newest wild idea a test drive. I have no idea what to expect from it, but again, I know I’m just along for the ride. We check into the first half-way decent looking hotel with enough vacancies and again I long for the days when Taylor and I shared a hotel room. Then again, I’m glad those days are over, because at least now there’s an actual wall between us and not just the metaphorical one he’s built.
It feels like I haven’t slept at all when a knock comes at my door. It’s high and light, as though it’s possible for a single door to have so many different knocks, and somehow I know it’s Taylor. Maybe it’s in the way it’s just so damn insistent. Everything about Taylor lately gets under my skin, so if this is annoying, it must be him.
I stumble out of bed, still in the jeans I wore when I fell into my bunk on the bus the night before, and swing the door open. Sure enough, it’s Taylor staring back at me. He looks just as annoyed as I am, and I’m sure it wasn’t his choice to be the one to wake me.
“Come on. You don’t have time for a shower.”
He says it like I’m a child who can’t take care of myself, and I guess that’s how he sees me. It’s kind of how everyone has treated me since the coma, with so much concern that I might not be okay, but with more disdain. He’s reminding me that I’m too young to be a father, like I’ve forgotten that he was younger for two of his childrens’ births. Fucking hypocrite.
I don’t even bother speaking to him, because what’s the point? Another argument? It’s too early for that, even if it’s practically afternoon. I grab my wallet and cell phone, smooth down my bedhead the best that I can and I’m out the door, having to practically jog to keep up with Taylor. Now he’s putting physical distance between us, too.
Our hotel rooms are on the top floor of the hotel, which means we’ve got a long, long elevator ride down the to lobby. I suppose I could take the stairs, if I really want to avoid him. To be honest, I’m not really sure if I do want to avoid him. But he seems hell-bent on avoiding me that I’m actually surprised he doesn’t head for the stairs.
Since we’re stuck in the elevator together anyway, and I don’t foresee another chance to get him alone any time soon, I might as well seize the opportunity. Worse case scenario, one of us ends up strangling the other. But considering there would be no one else to blame, that’s not such a bright idea. We might both be blonde, but we’re not quite that dumb.
The problem is, I have no idea where to begin – aside from being obvious and blunt, which we all know I’m quite good at. So, I simply turn my head to him as the elevator door slowly closes, and say, “What the hell is your problem, Taylor?”
“I don’t have a problem,” he replies but his posture, the way he crosses his arms and huffs, gives that away as a lie.
“Yes, you sure as fuck do,” I say, feeling my anger already beginning to boil. No one can push my buttons like Taylor does, for better or for worse. “You’re acting like a damn child, just because I’m going to have one. It’s bullshit.”
“And you’re throwing around cuss words like a child who just learned them,” he replies with a smirk.
“You’re just determined for this conversation to go nowhere, aren’t you?”
He shrugs. “There’s nowhere for it to go. There’s no problem you can solve. You’re going to be a father – good for you. A bit sudden, but whatever.”
“You’re one to talk about sudden fatherhood.” I actually snort with laughter as I say that.
He stares intently at the numbers counting down. “Maybe that’s how I know you’re in over your head. Haven’t I always known? Haven’t you never listened?”
The elevator dings loudly, announcing that we’ve arrived on the ground floor. Taylor takes long strides out of it, increasing the distance between us so that I can’t reply, effectively ending the argument.
I blink, and realize the elevator doors are closing. I quickly squeeze my way through them, mumbling beneath my breath as I try to catch up with Taylor, “Haven’t I always followed in your footsteps.”
We’re shuffled onto the bus as soon as we reach the parking lot. I get there just a few seconds behind Taylor, and I don’t get another chance to speak to him. The argument, if you can even call it that since our voices were barely raised, isn’t finished, but at the same time, it is. Anyway, if we kept it up much longer, it would get into territory that I don’t want to tread with anyone else around, and the bus is teeming with people. So I leave it be and check my email while Taylor retreats to his bunk for god knows what.
There’s still no time to talk at the venue. There’s equipment to be carried in, a stage to set up, a tech to send out for the guitar picks that have gone missing and a replacement for the drumstick I forgot I busted at the last show. And then we’re outside in the early fall sunlight for this thing Taylor is calling a Walk. You can practically hear the capital letter when he says it, and his enthusiasm for the project would be completely infectious if I weren’t so frustrated with him.
We rally together the fans that have gathered in line for the show and for this crazy Walk thing, which Taylor posted about on the website at the last possible minute, hoping to attract a few fans. There’s more of them than I would expect, spilling over the sidewalks and angering the manager of the restaurant next door to the venue. Taylor doesn’t seem to notice. He’s in his element, pulling out a megaphone that I didn’t know he owned and telling everyone to shed their shoes. We do as he says, because with Taylor, no one really ever has any other choice.
I fall to the back of the crowd, allowing the fans to swallow me up and keep me away from Taylor. Isaac is somewhere in the middle of the crowd, but I’ve lost him. Taylor, though, is visible even from back here. He stands head and shoulders above most of the fans, his blonde hair shining in the sun and his arms carving figures in the air as he tells some enthusiastic story to the girls surrounding him.
I want to run up and join in the hearing, even though I’m sure I’ve heard the story before. I’ve heard all his stories, except for the ones from those two months I was gone. I don’t think he’ll ever share those with me, and they’re definitely not the kind of stories he would be telling these girls now. I imagine I can almost hear their laughter from back here, almost see the way they’re falling in love with his every word and motion, and I want so badly to be a part of that.
But I can’t. I stay in the back, faking a smile and nodding my head as one fan or another chatters away about how our music has changed her life.
We pause halfway through the one mile trek and no one is really quite sure why until Taylor manages to find himself a bench to stand on and pulls out his megaphone again. He looks like a giant now, and I’m just as drawn to him as any girl there, maybe even more. I weave my way through the crowd until I’m just a few feet away, as close as any of these eager fans will let me get.
If you ask me later, I couldn’t tell you a single word he said. It’s all about pretty depressing subjects – AIDS, poverty, Africa, etc – but there’s such life and hope to the way Taylor talks about it. He’s so inspired to change things, and I knew he had this drive, but there’s this new fire in him that I never noticed before. It draws me to him like a moth, like it always has. How could anyone not be drawn to this man, looking a little bit crazed, barefoot on a bench, urging the crowd around him to make a difference, make something of themselves.
I don’t know if I’ll ever make a difference or make anything more of myself than a drummer in an almost popular band, but I know one thing. I will follow Taylor anywhere, no matter how he treats me, no matter if he even wants me there. It’s just the simple fact of Taylor and me. I’ll always be a few steps behind him, always wishing to be closer. No fights can change that for long, and never permanently.
The concert that night has an energy to it like none of the others so far on the tour. I don’t know what’s changed, but something most definitely has. Taylor still only glances back at me when he needs to, never just to share those secret little looks. But I can feel something in the air, I just don’t yet know what. When the show ends, he doesn’t seem so hesitant to hold my hand for the bow, but he still won’t look my way. It’s not perfect, but it’s enough for me.
There’s still not a chance to really talk to Taylor again once we’re offstage, but I don’t mind. Somehow, although he acts no different, I feel a change. Maybe it has nothing to do with me. Maybe he’s just energized about the Walk. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it soothes my nerves just enough that I think I might be able to get a decent night’s sleep once we’re back at the hotel.
We all stumble into the hotel still stinking of sweat and that strange concert smell that can’t really be likened to anything else in the world. We mumble our goodnights as we part on our floor, with one last reminder from Bex about how early we need to be up so the bus doesn’t leave us behind. Taylor’s eyes almost land on me when he speaks and it’s close enough that I could jump for joy.
Since I don’t actually remember my last shower, but I’m positive it happened in an entirely different city, I decide that’s the first order of business, even before calling room service to order something to settle my rumbling stomach. I still don’t take much time in the shower, though, since I do still have that hunger to take care of, not to mention the need for a few hours of rest.
It probably hasn’t been ten minutes since I opened the hotel room door, and I’m already out of the shower, my hair still wet, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers I hope are as clean as I am. It’s tough to say, really, especially after this long on the road. Clean starts to become a relative term. I pick up my discarded towel and start absent-mindedly drying my hair while I search the room for a room service menu.
A knock at the door, less annoying but just as insistent as the one that morning, distracts me from my search. I’m not sure, but the butterflies in my stomach when I hear the sound make me think it must be Taylor. No one else could get to me on even that subconscious of a level.
I flip the lock and swing the door open, and sure enough, there’s Taylor staring at me. He looks sheepish. I don’t think he’s ever been sheepish for a second in his life, but I can’t find a single other word in the entire English language to describe the way he looks right now, rocking back and forth on his heels, hands tucked into his pockets.
“Tell me about your other world.”