Free Finding Abbey Road by Kevin Emerson Page B

He’s already taken down the Christmas lights he hung on the ceiling. There’s a blank spot on the wall where his vintage Rush 2112 poster used to hang.
    And it hits me that it’s really over. We’re not going to lose Jon.
    We’ve already lost him.
    I’m on the verge of tears again. “You’re moving out for good,” I say.
    Jon sighs. He doesn’t look up. I wonder if maybe he can’t. “They practice over at the Cubes, so . . .” He zips up his bag and stands.
    Caleb still hasn’t moved. We are between Jon and the door. Which means he finally has to look at us.
    â€œI’m sorry,” says Jon. One part of me wonders if he needs to be sorry for anything. He hated being overshadowed. He did get overshadowed. This band has been anything but normal. Still . . . we could have made it work. I want to launch into it with Jon all over again, about how we just have to get through this business of Eli White, and then things will be normal, except how true could that possibly be, especially if we find him alive?
    â€œIt’s cool,” says Caleb, which is musician speak for whatever. He’s done.
    â€œJon . . . ,” I start, because this feels wrong. No matter what went down last week, we were good, Dangerheart was great with Jon, and sure, there are a million guitarists, ahundred right here in the Hive, but they are the unknown.
    Jon was ours.
    And he was with us at the beginning. It’s never the same after a band’s original lineup. The ones who first took the stage together. There’s a bond there, some love that comes from starting it, from working your way up together. Anyone who comes after . . . it’s all a little bit less like family, and just a bit more like business.
    Jon looks at me, waiting for me to add something.
    I want to tell him that I’ll call him next week, that we’ll talk it out, but even saying a phrase like “next week” opens the slightest window into what we’re doing this week, and that’s a secret—there have been so many secrets—that we just can’t trust him with anymore.
    So instead, all I say is: “Break a leg.”
    Jon nods, eyes back to the floor. “Thanks.” He shuffles past us, lugging his amp, guitar over his shoulder. “See you guys around.”
    We should hug or something . . .
    Say something more. Anything.
    Hey Jon, remember that time driving to San Francisco? Singing Allegiance to North songs, you playing guitar in the back? When everything was new and we were free?
    Remember . . .
    But he’s out the door and gone.
    I start crying but I don’t want to be. There’s been enough of that. I hold my breath, keep silent. Dammit.
    â€œPostcards is a great fit for him,” says Caleb.
    â€œIt . . .” I can’t disagree.
    Caleb sighs. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”
    I nod, close the door, and work on the simple act of breathing and making it through each second, as Caleb digs into the recesses behind the sagging couch, gathering the hidden items that we need for what comes next.
    6:07 p.m.
    I slap the videotapes on the table.
    â€œThere you go,” I say. I draw my hand back and rest my fingers on the linoleum inches away. As soon I lose touch with them I immediately want to snatch them back, to tuck those little plastic cases safely back in my bag.
    But it’s too late for that now.
    There they sit, “Exile” and “Encore to an Empty Room,” the lost songs of Eli White. Videos from the great beyond, now back home on a chipped linoleum table, beneath an evening autumn sky, their sky, perhaps the very ceiling that inspired their creator in the first place, sitting here at Canter’s the night after a gig, so many years ago.
    For a second, Jason Fletcher doesn’t say anything. His hungry shark’s grin lessens, and he looks almost . . . shocked.
    â€œAnybody need a refill?”
    The narrow