Page 41 of Lonesome Moon

Grant

Movies sound fun. What can I bring?

Luci

Yay. Just yourself. I’ll take care of everything.

I hadn’t seen her at breakfast or lunch. Holly told me she and Ivy had gone into town together to do some shopping. I had an appointment to meet Blake for an interview at the lodge. After the noon meal, I headed that way.

I found her in a room off the main lobby.

“Hey, Grant,” Blake said, standing. “Nice to see you.”

“You too. Am I too early?”

“My father always says early is on time, on time is late, and God forbid you’re ever truly late.”

“Sounds like we have similar fathers,” I said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Blake said with a kind smile that did nothing to hide the pain in her eyes.

She asked me to have a seat on the chair situated across from her. She turned on the camera, then sat in a chair behind it, presumably so that I could look at her when I answered questions.

“Let’s get started then,” Blake said. “Camera’s rolling.”

“I’m ready.” I felt stiff and kind of silly, but I trudged forward anyway. This film would help Luci’s clinic, which meant I’d answer whatever Blake tossed my way.

“Tell me about how you started drumming? Were you young?” Blake asked.

“Sixth grade. I was supposed to pick an instrument for the school music program. I had no idea what I wanted to play, so our teacher steered me toward percussion. Mr. Ferris was his name. He changed my life. I asked Mr. Ferris one time—after I’d been playing with Jack for a few years—what did he see in me that made him know I would make a great percussionist? He just smiled and said, ‘Kid, I knew it the minute I met you.’”

“What do you think he meant by that?”

“He said I had a few unique qualities that he’d seen in drummers before. A combination of listening skills with physicality. I was this athletic, tall kid, even at ten, always moving. And he was right, I’m innately more of a listener than a talker. He was also the first person who said I was good at something. Made me want to do better as a way to thank him. Please him too, I guess.”

“Listening plus physical abilities in combination makes a great drummer?” Blake asked. “That’s really interesting. Tell me more about that.”

“Yeah, okay.” I thought for a second about how to describe it. “I call it physical intelligence. I don’t know if I made that up or if I read it somewhere. But basically, my four limbs may be performing different patterns, at different strengths, while my body stays loose enough not to seize up. There’s an element of sensitivity too. Great drummers don’t merely make a song faster, slower, louder, or softer. We create urgency, sensuality, menace, tenderness, swagger, or safety. A drummer can be the most physically forceful person in the band and also the most attentive. We control everything without standing in front, which suits me just fine.

“People think it’s keeping time, but any decent drummer can follow a click. A great one hears what everyone else is doing—and sometimes what they’re about to do. You know when to push, when to pull back, when to leave space so a lyric can land. And if somebody loses their place, you don’t panic. You find them and bring them home.” He shrugged. “Mostly, you hold everything steady enough that everyone else feels safe taking chances.”

“That’s absolutely beautiful,” Blake said.

I flushed, embarrassed by how much I’d just said. “It’s all about my heartbeat. Everything comes from there. Until I found the drums, I didn’t realize that our heartbeats are an internal sense of time from which everything flows.”

“I’ve never thought about it that way,” Blake said. “What do you love about it the most?”

“It’s meditation, prayer, wordless escape. I never feel closer to God than when I’m drumming.”

“Do you think of it as a calling?” Blake asked.

“Absolutely. It’s what God put me on earth to do. The joy of watching how people move when they don’t even know why they’re moving makes me feel like a … superhero. I know, that sounds arrogant.”

“Not at all. You found your way to give to the world and to yourself at the same time. That’s what most of us strive for.” She looked down at her notes in her lap. “Tell me about how you ended up in Nashville and with Jack Wilder?”

“I left home right after high school. My parents wanted me to go into the military like my dad, but I had no intention of doing so. I’d never rebelled, you know, until I found music. At first it was just practicing away from the house. Mr. Ferris always let me hang out in the band room after school. Later, the high school band teacher was the same. The only time my dad approved was when I joined the marching band.”

“Why do you think that was?” Blake asked.