Page 173 of Levi

A station in northwest Georgia announced this morning they’re pulling my records, real proud about it, and got buried under their own comments. Two names in Nashville big enough that I sang their songs into a hairbrush as a kid posted the clip. One wrote a single word under it. Finally.

Last night didn’t end me. It’s the most valuable card I’ve ever turned over. Years of songs built by committee, focus-grouped down to generic, meaningless music, and the biggest moment of my career is the ninety seconds I went off the script and meant it.

Maybe they don’t want the wholesome boy. Maybe they never did. Maybe they want the truest part of me. The part I was beaten as a child for having and paid as an adult to hide. Maybe it turns out that was the winning hand all along.

I set the phone down and look up. Dante’s watching me over his coffee, careful.

“You see it,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “I see it.”

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

“I can always eat.”

He sets a full plate in front of me. Eggs fried hard, edges gone brown and lacy, and instead of sitting he stands behind my chair and wraps both arms down over my chest, his chin on top of my head, and just holds on a minute.

I close my eyes, lean back and drink him in. To think that I almost didn’t get this.

“Whatever comes out of that phone today,” he says into my hair, “you don’t do one minute of it alone. That part’s already settled. I’m with you and I’ve got you now.”

The phone buzzes in my hand again. Freddie. The first one came in at four fifty-two, seven minutes after the car gave up on me.

Freddie: Where are you??? The driver says you weren’t there!

Then, over the next hour, the rest of them, a man’s grip slipping one message at a time.

Dante’s hand settles on the back of my neck, warm and heavy, and stays there while I read. “Eat something between catastrophes,” he says, and pushes the plate closer.

Freddie: Levi answer your phone.

Freddie: The label is calling me at five in the morning. Do you have any idea what is happening right now?

Freddie: This is a nightmare. We have to get ahead of it. I need you on a plane.

Freddie: We say it was a stunt. An artistic statement, taken out of context. We get you to Nashville and we control the story.

Freddie: LEVI. Call me now.

I drink my coffee. That phone has made me physically flinch so many times. The buzz of it in my pocket could stop my heart and send me hunting for the exits. This morning it’s a rectangle on the table, buzzing. A frightened man on the far end of it who used to own me and doesn’t anymore.

I type back.

Levi: I’m not flying back today.

The reply comes so fast he must have been staring at the screen.

Freddie: You don’t understand. This isn’t optional. The label, the studio, the schedule. You cannot just disappear. Get to the airport, there’s a late flight this morning I can still get you on.

I look at it a while. That voice, still talking to me like an asset it schedules. No idea the program quit working at quarter to five this morning.

I don’t argue. Arguing is for when the other fella holds a card you need. I type it out, and I call my own play.

Levi: I’ll be at the house by noon. See you then.

Then I turn the phone face-down again and finish my coffee. Dante comes around the counter and presses a kiss to the top of my head, right where the shouting used to land. When I look up, he’s beaming at me like he’s never been prouder of anything.

We take our time eating. And then we spend the morning doing nothing at all. The phone buzzes itself out somewhere around eight and neither of us turns it over. I stretch out on the couch with my head in Dante’s lap while he reads listings, and it’s the finest few hours I can remember.