Page 111 of Dirty Chorus

Just so I can make it right.

We can keep playing our song on repeat

Because you are every verse in me

You’re my dirty chorus,

But I wouldn’t change your lines.

Even when we’re falling flat,

Your heart still beats with mine.

We keep chasing the music

Through every mistake

I’ll come back again

For the song we make is the beat

I never want to escape

You’re my dirty chorus,

I’ll keep learning how to play.

So I can sing every verse of me with you

I pulled up to the apartment later than I wanted. Cops swarmed the venue after we finished playing. I didn’t get the whole gist of what happened other than a nasty fight broke out in the bathroom. By then I didn’t give two shits about who it was. Once we were done, all I wanted to do was pack up and leave. A crowd wanted autographs, and I usually stay to sign as many random shoes and tits as possible, but I threw my hoodie up, kept my head low, and vanished.

I stroll down the dark alley, and the first thing I notice is that the front door to the apartment is ajar. Lights bleed out onto the staircase. My chest tightens as if the devil reached in and clenched his claws around my lungs. I break out in a run and race up the steep concrete steps, spotting the footprints on the door that was kicked in, and the deadbolt splintered and hanging by a twisted thread of wood.

I drop my keys. They hit the floor as I take one step inside. The apartment I rage clean almost every night looks like a bomb went off.

“Gramps? Hello! Gramps!” It’s silent. Just the crickets outside and the hum of telephone lines.

I step over the wooden drawers from the television stand. “Gramps!” The DVDs snap under my shoes. “Shit...” I lift up a foot. Even the dining table has been flipped over, and a wooden leg is snapped in half. Glass crunches underneath my converse and then I see his arm lying limp on the floor.

I take one step into the kitchen and find him. “No... no.” He’s sprawled on his side with one arm curled awkwardly under him, like he attempted to protect himself. “Gramps!”

I crumble to the floor and slide to him on my knees. My heart slams hard against my chest, and I can barely breathe. I grasp his shoulder, terrified to feel cold skin. “Gramps, please, hey, hey, wake up!” I shake him gently. A low groan escapes his lips, then a cough. He blinks his eyes open, and they're foggy as he groans. His hand trembles when he reaches for me. Half of his face is drooping to one side.

“For Christ's sake, what the hell happened?” I ask. He winces, and starts to move, slowly and stiffly. The pain radiates all over me as I know every muscle and bone must be screaming inside him. He opens his mouth to talk, but it’s just sounds and muffled syllables that I can’t make out.

“I...I... can’t... shit.”

I think he’s having a stroke. “Can you move both of your arms?” His eyes just blankly stare at me. “Okay, I’m gonna move you.” I wrap my arms around him. I’m shaking all over the place, not because he’s heavy, but because I’m going to have to accept this fate and that this is going to hurt.

I help him into a standing position and get him to sit in his recliner. He rasps out as I climb over the clutter searching for the oxygen tank he likes to shove in the corner. I fight with the oxygen tubes and get them inside his nose.

I pull out my cellphone, unlocking the screen, and my finger hovers over the dial pad to call an ambulance, the police. Someone. My mouth goes dry, and my lips stick to each other. I can’t even register my own heartbeat anymore. All I have in my chest is a jagged knife cutting open my sternum. I crumble to the floor, my ass falling into the clutter tossed around. I stare at my cell phone, typing in 911 and pressing the green calling button. My vision tunnels as the emergency operator answers. “911, what’s your emergency?” And the words are stuck in my throat.

“I need an ambulance and an officer. I had a break in...” I say as I sit on the floor. My lungs burn, my head spins. “I think... I think my grandfather is having a stroke.”

Everything’s too white here and it's way too quiet in this hospital. The only sound is the steady beep of the heart monitor beside the bed. The Grim Reaper is right there again, this time he’s tapping on his wrist as if time is up. Gramps lies there, tucked under the thin blanket, wires running from his arms, tubes taped to his skin. His chest rises and falls at such a slow rate that I believe each one is his last.

“So run me through this again,” the cop says, clicking on his pen, glancing at his notepad. “You were playing at a concert.”