Free Exile by Kevin Emerson Page B

become my faults, can’t stay clean, destroy all the love that comes my way. I know these things. How did I get here? How now brown cow? Life is all just nursery rhymes. You already know everything you need. I’d love to say them with you .
    I look up. “I’m not sure he was sober when he wrote this.”
    “I know.” Caleb nods at the page and I keep reading.
    I can’t go on with the charades anymore. My costume is threadbare. And anything else my heart conceives is just going to be taken from me. They’re going to take it all. Like any of it even matters .
    And that’s the cruelest joke: I know what’s important, now, finally, and I can’t have it .
    But do you know what? The universe works in mysterious ways. Two years staring at the blank page and I finally had a break through. I can finish the album. I have the final pieces and they’re my best yet .
    Exile. Anthem. Encore .
    I finally know what to write about, thanks to you.
    But first I have to get the house in order. These songs, these gifts are too precious to let the bastards steal .
    I’m going to hide the tapes. And then I may have to do something drastic to clean up this mess. Or maybe I’ll just mess it up more, so much mess that we just drown beneath it .
    “Whoa. Drown?”
    “I know,” Caleb answers quietly.
    It feels good to write to you. I can’t trust anyone else .
    Maybe with some luck, years from now, we’ll gotogether to see Vic, and get a Reuben with pickles. Then get a kiss from Daisy and search for a hidden yesterday .
    For now, though, while I die in the spotlights tonight, at least I’ll know that you’re sleeping peacefully, unaware of me .
    We are far comets, on impossible journeys. Maybe some day our paths will cross, and we’ll find each other in all that dark .
    —E
    I sit back, heart racing. “Wow. Not all of that made sense to me, but . . .” I glance at Caleb, and can’t resist looking around to see if anyone is close enough to hear. “This is obviously written to you.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Do you think this is a suicide note? That he—”
    “Meant to drown?” Caleb shakes his head. “That didn’t happen for another four months. But he thought something bad was going to happen to him.”
    “He says, they’re after me . Who do you think he meant?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Maybe it was no accident that this bag ended up in Randy’s car. Do you think Eli hoped someday this would get to you?”
    Caleb just nods, eyes on his yogurt.
    “And then . . .” I look back at the letter. “Is he sayingwhat I think he’s saying? About hidden things?”
    “Have you ever seen the old tracklist,” asks Caleb, “from Into the Ever & After , the album they were working on when Eli died?”
    “I remember hearing about it. There were missing songs, right?”
    Caleb taps the letter with his finger. “The three track titles were ‘Exile,’ ‘Anthem for Penelope,’ and ‘Encore to an Empty Room.’ He was working on them.”
    “But he wanted to hide them,” I add. “He didn’t trust . . . who? Band mates? Drug dealers?”
    Caleb shrugs. “I think he wanted me to have them.”
    I look over the letter again. “What do you think he meant by Vic and Reuben with pickles ? Daisy and all that?”
    “I don’t know. I did searches for those words, combined with Eli and Allegiance to North and everything, but there was nothing.” Caleb suddenly slaps the table. “He was stoned when he wrote it. The whole thing might just be nonsense.”
    “But the songs might be real, Caleb. These tapes might be out there.”
    “Yeah,” Caleb says quietly. “If they are, I have to find them.”
    I take his hand. I worry about getting his hopes up. Hidden tapes from his long-dead dad? How likely is it that they even exist? And if they do, how likely is it that they’re even still out there? It’s all hard to believe, especially consideringthis is the same guy who bailed on his band during the biggest tour of their lives, who