Of course, the party had afterparties, and somehow we ended up drinking in BonJovi’s suite with Remo and a bunch of the E-Street Band guys, though I don’t recall Bruce nor Jon BonJovi being there. I think it was ostensibly something about New Jersey that had glommed us all together. For the record, I was drinking ginger ale, and ice water, and I noticed Remo stopped after one whiskey, which didn’t stop it from being a kind of raucous time.

And then we were hungry, and there was apparently nowhere to go eat in the wee hours in Cleveland in those days, but we heard that on another floor of the hotel Chrissie Hynde (of The Pretenders, who was from Ohio) had catered in hot dogs and bratwurst. So we migrated to another part of the hotel. (Of course, it was a different sausage I was thinking of. Badum-ching.)

And it was while we were separated on opposite sides of a crowded room, while I was coming back from taking a leak or something, that I saw Ziggy talking to the bigwig J had warned us about. The guy was looming over him a little, talking a blue streak, but literally not looking Ziggy in the eye, and instead he was running the back of one finger up and down the tattoo on Ziggy’s upper arm (the one that matched mine). It would be one thing if the guy had done it for a couple of seconds like he was actually checking out the texture of the tattoo or something. But he just kept doing it without stopping.

Ziggy was gnawing his lip impatiently, and swiveled his eyes without moving his head, until he caught sight of me.

I was well past people’d out by that point, and having had some bratwurst, the only thing I was hungry for at that point was Ziggy. What I was not hungry for was getting us both on the radar of a powerful closet case who might retaliate in the press if spurned too hard. (Or if I marched over there like I wanted to and pulled Ziggy away and hissed at the guy like a cat. No, Daron, no.)

Instead, I had to leave that up to Ziggy. I pointed at myself, then him, then at the door, and jerked my head like he should follow as soon as he could. And then I went out into the hallway.

There were a couple of random conversations going on out there, too, and the smell of weed was pretty strong, and I definitely did not want to be there much longer, and I didn’t want to get pulled into yet another party. I went to where the hall made a 90 degree turn, and stood there until I caught the shine of Ziggy’s single rhinestone turn in my direction as he poked his head into the hallway and looked for me. I waved and went around the corner.

There was a door marked Stairs. It opened. I went in and then held it open a few inches until Ziggy went jogging past. I hissed and he came jogging right back. I took his hand and up we went.

Someone should have probably been asking, hey, is this a good idea? But when has Ziggy ever been the one to do that? And it was my idea, so I wasn’t going to question it.

We climbed up to the roof. I know, I know, hotel roofs and I don’t exactly have the best history together, plus that hotel and I overall didn’t have the best history together, but you make do with what you have. I didn’t want to go back to our room and just get interrupted again, even if now that it was like four in the morning it was unlikely.

The section of roof we were on had some bubble-like skylights sticking up, and a couple of brick outcroppings, but no noisy exhaust fans or anything like that. (No water tower either, if you must know.) I led us around the back of the stairwell outlet, took off my jacket, laid it down, and then flattened Ziggy onto it. There was a much taller building overlooking us, but it was all dark, probably offices, and I really did not care that much at that point.

I rucked Ziggy’s shirt up until I could get a tongue on his nipples and make him make that squeal he makes when he’s trying not to be too loud. Then he pulled at me until I moved my mouth to his.

What a luxury a kiss is. Ziggy once accused me of not liking kissing and that is not true at all. I just sometimes forget to do it. And some people are better kissers than others. But when it isn’t trying to stand in for something else, a kiss can be an indulgence. Unlike a lot of the other things we do in sex, it’s got a kind of balance and equality to it that make it a different kind of dance from all the this-on-that, this-in-that. Ziggy had a way of darting his tongue that was enticing to my whole being, and I couldn’t even tell you why. It wasn’t something I thought about: I merely experienced it.

There comes a time when the kiss becomes a cul de sac on the way to the destination, though.

(Censored! As per usual, smexy stuff is not online, but only available as a bonus! You can read it in The Side Sessions, though! As mentioned in an earlier post, you can either pay what you want for the ebook, or help us out with a review of books 11, 12 or 13 and get not only the book to review, get The Side Sessions as a bonus!)

A shower was starting to feel like a good idea.

“And a massage,” Ziggy suggested. “If I remember right, this is one of the hotels where they’ll send a masseuse up to your room.”

“Is it?” I had a sudden flash of hot and cold. “Wow, did I freak out for no reason?”

“Are you freaking out? You seem really calm.”

“I don’t mean now, I mean, then.”

“Is that why you said Cleveland, why did it have to be Cleveland?” he asked. Apparently I had said that aloud without intending to. “When are you talking about, dear one? 1989?”

“One time when we were here, I went to your room to talk to you, and I could hear a woman laughing, and I… I ran away.” I remembered that it had hurt at the time, but now I couldn’t really feel it at all. “Maybe all I heard was a massage therapist and I was freaked out over nothing.”

He sighed, nuzzling me. “Don’t play that second-guessing game. Even if one particular incident you took the wrong way, I was terrible to you and we both know it.”

“And I was a terrible closet case with my head up my ass, too.”

“Yes, dear one. It just shows how far we’ve both come.” He kissed me on the cheek. “You know what? I like it when you’re a little bit bossy. Proves you aren’t just letting me push you around. Plus two imaginations are better than one.”

“I don’t think I imagined sex on the roof tonight. It just kind of happened.”

He clucked his tongue. “You of all people know that improvisation is an advanced form of creativity.”

That made me laugh. Okay, sure. We didn’t run into anyone on our way down the stairs. I did get completely lost looking for our room, though, because I had forgotten the number. I was fully prepared to go down to the desk and plead to be told my own room number, but I didn’t have to, because Ziggy remembered it. Two heads are better than one.

When we got out of the shower I noticed the rhinestone had migrated from his cheek to mine.

The next day was the big concert, where all the gathered luminaries would be playing on stage. We stayed right up until the house lights went down. Then Ziggy slipped a piece of paper into Barrett’s hand, and we slipped away.

The paper said “Ibiza” on it. That might have even been where we went.

—

Of course when we got on the plane, we had to walk through First Class to our seats and of course what was there was a mix of one or two A-listers going to the same place we were and the rest were record company executives who, in the end, still made more money than 95% of the artists they represented, but whatever.

No, actually, not whatever: if you think I could go to a big glitzy industry insider event without getting steamed about record companies at least once, you don’t know me very well. But at least none of the people on that plane were people I had specific grudges against.

On the Cleveland side of things, on our way to the limousine pickup area, Ziggy exchanged air kisses from a distance someone—I think it was Sheryl Crow but her sunglasses were so huge I wasn’t sure—but our car came before the guys in suits’ did. Petty victory, but I’ll take it.

It was going to be a busy week for the limo drivers of Cleveland, that was for sure.

I knew we were back in that same big old fancy hotel we’d stayed in before when I saw the leg lamp in the lobby. Did I ever tell you about the leg lamp? It’s from some famous movie that of course I never got around to seeing, but everyone knows it and it’s hard to miss. (I might have told you about the movie before, but if I did, this is where I confess I never actually saw it, but since everyone else has seen it I pretend I have, too.)

We went to our room with admonishments from Carynne to hang up our clothes when we got in. The hotel had switched over from real keys to card keys at some point, so we swiped our way in. My goosebumps prickled as I looked around. This might as well have been the same room where Colin and I had once had a foursome with two groupies. The door opened into a narrow entryway and then the room widened, with a right turn to where two double beds awaited.

Ziggy looked back at me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“The Ghost of Christmas Past,” I said, “except instead of Christmas, it was the 1989 tour.”

He flung off his jacket and then flung himself back onto the bed nearest the windows, lying there with his arms and legs outstretched, like a starfish that had been flipped onto its back. “Decent mattress. So which one should we sleep in?”

The implied second half of his question was which bed was the sex bed. Best reason to get a room with two doubles instead of a king, then you don’t have to sleep in the wet spot.

To answer the question, I crawled atop him until our two zippers met…

(This part is censored. You can read it in The Side Sessions, though! As mentioned last post, you can either pay what you want for the ebook, or help us out with a review of books 11, 12 or 13 and get not only the book to review, get The Side Sessions as a bonus!)

…Carynne was on the phone, so I didn’t stop. I could hear her perfectly well, though. “Universal is having a reception upstairs tonight at 8, but if you want take a preview look at the museum, we need to do it today before 5pm, once we pick up our credentials.”

“And where do we do that?” Ziggy asked, voice only a little strained as he tried to sound like he wasn’t in the midst of what we were in the midst of.

“At the museum, also. Are you unpacked? Let’s head over there now. I’ll meet you in the lobby?”

“Sure. Be down in a few.” He tried to hang up the phone without looking, missed, and grabbed me around the ears instead. “Fuck, I guess we better go.”

“I could finish y—”

“Nah-nah-nah. If you’re going to walk around with a hard-on for me all day, I may as well do the same.” The phone started making an angry sound because it wasn’t hung up properly. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“You have a twisted sense of what’s fun.”

“You know I do.” He slid off the bed and tucked his glistening, still wet dick into his pants and zipped up again.

We hung up our stuff. Ziggy changed jackets, opting for a white denim one that was almost like mine, except that it was white and had rhinestones in various places, and he added a single rhinestone to one brow like a beauty mark. He also added a fresh bit of eyeliner. I know because I just sat there watching him, because I never get tired of looking at Ziggy’s face. “All right, I’m ready to go,” he announced. “Are you going like that? Of course you are.”

Ziggy was still annoyed at that point that my regular, boring wardrobe of flannel shirts and jeans had somehow become hip.

Down in the lobby I can’t say I was surprised to see Remo. He was talking to a guy about my height. I saw him say “excuse me” to the guy and then he grabbed me in a big bear hug. Remo had been getting more physically demonstrative in recent years, and more emotive in general. I sometimes had the urge to bust his balls about it, but of course that’s the exact toxic behavior that leads men to act like their feelings don’t exist in the first place, right? Let’s just say I was pretty sure therapy had been good for him, and his singing was more open and expressive than it had ever been before, too.

“Daron, this is Paul,” he said, introducing me to Paul Simon.

Simon shook my hand. “Saw your unplugged show at Town Hall. Liked it. Had to leave early or I would’ve told you then. Glad to run into you.”

“Thanks.” I think I managed not to blush. Bart and I had done a rendition of “Me and Julio Down At the Schoolyard” for that. If I had known the original artist had been in the audience, would I have done it any differently? Probably not.

“Good to see you,” he said to Remo, and then off he went.

Turned out Simon was there to play in the concert. Remo, like us, was there to rub elbows.

Ziggy meanwhile had gotten distracted by another person I hadn’t necessarily expected to see, but shouldn’t have been surprised about. He put his hands over my eyes from behind and said, “Guess who’s here?”

I felt in front of me and touched someone’s lapel. “Jonathan.”

They both burst out laughing. “How did you know?” Jonathan looked down at himself. “I’m not wearing cologne or anything.”

“Just a good guess,” I said. “You’re in your writer uniform, after all.”

“Uniform?”

“Yeah, have I not said this before?” I looked him up and down. “You have a rock music writer uniform. It’s like the mullet of outfits, half party, half business. Who else wears jeans with a suit jacket?”

“It’s not a suit jacket, it’s a sport coat,” Jonathan insisted, “and it’s practical because it has pockets for extra pens and the tape recorder.”

Ziggy snickered. “The blazer is classic old school. Needs one of those hats with the little piece of paper in it that says ‘press.’”

Jonathan chuckled. Then he turned serious and looked around before motioning for us to lean in. “By the way, speaking of writers and all. I have a warning to pass on.”

He told us about another member of the press establishment who would certainly be there, who was gaining a reputation for making inappropriate sexual demands, particularly of other men.

I probably should have asked what the guy looked like, since I might forget the name, but Carynne arrived then, and Jonathan tagged along with us to the museum.

Turned out J was a good person to have along while looking at the exhibits. All I was expecting to see was, like, a jumpsuit of Elvis’s and John Lennon’s hat or whatever. But it turns out you can’t tell the story of rock and roll without telling the story of social change in the United States. Which was cool and how you could tell the place was not put together by, say, the PR departments of the record companies. (If the record companies had done it, I bet they would’ve put it in LA or maybe Las Vegas.)

Some of the exhibits were clearly aimed at explaining “why is the hall of fame in Cleveland.” So there was stuff about the influence of Cleveland radio deejay Alan Freed, who supposedly coined the term “rock and roll.” And other things. J pointed one thing out to me: “Did you know that one of the first rock concerts ever was called the Moondog Coronation Ball?”

“What? No, I had no idea.” I got goosebumps looking at the poster. “Haven’t I told you the story of the name?”

“Maaaybe…?” Jonathan hedged.

Ziggy chuckled. “J doesn’t remember it because there is no story. It’s a non-story.”

“I wanted something that started with M and that I liked the sound of,” I explained, but I was sure J had heard me say it before. “If I got the word ‘moondog’ from anywhere it was from a Yes song. It just… seemed like a good idea once I thought of it.”

“Maybe it was just there in the gestalt,” Jonathan said. Whatever the fuck that means.

Anyway, the exhibits were interesting enough that I forgot for a little while that what I really wanted to do was get back in bed with Ziggy, but you know, I might have forgotten above the shoulders, but the rest of me kept angling toward him like a cat trying to get warm. And then my reflexes not to be too-too demonstrative in public would kick in, and I would angle away again.

While there of course we ran into a bunch more people who basically split into two categories: those more famous than us, and those less famous than us. The funny part is that I didn’t treat any of them differently—I am pretty much the same awkward introvert no matter who I’m talking to—but the way they treat me is the tell for which group they put themselves in. Fame is weird, no doubt about that.

I don’t know what it is about walking really slowly through museums that always makes me ridiculously tired. Shopping malls, too, though I always figured it was that malls just bore me to sleep. After an hour of looking at stuff and reading the description cards, I was ready to fall down. (The fact we’d had to be up kinda early to get to the airport probably didn’t help either.)

We went back to the room. Ziggy was a bit peckish and I was people’d out, so we ordered some room service and I found myself lying down in the “sleep” bed.

I figured I would wake up when the food came, but I crashed into one of those really deep daytime naps where the dreams are super intense and vivid. When I came to a while later, it was dark out, I was under the covers, and a naked, damp Ziggy was curled up next to me. I did that thing of trying to remember where we were and why.

(Smexy bits censored again!)

He sprang off the bed, leaving me gasping and suddenly chilly, and I pulled the nearest bedcover over myself. He had pulled on a robe. From the bed I couldn’t see the door, but I could hear his voice.

“Daron just woke up from a nap. I’ll tell him to hurry.”

Then he came bouncing back, straddled me so his cock and balls were lying on my stomach and the palms of his hands were on my chest, and grinned. “Our presence at the party upstairs is requested.”

“Do we have to?” I asked, cupping my hands around his asscheeks.

“Dear one,” he said, eyes quite serious, “one of the perks of being together as we are is that we can have sex anytime—”

“Yes, but—”

“—whereas one of the perks of being at a shindig like this is to rub shoulders with our own heroes.” He regarded me from above. “I mean, Barrett didn’t fly us all the way here so we could stay in bed all day.”

“And yet, your cock is literally drooling on me right now.”

“I know. But Chuck Berry wants to meet you.”

Oh. So, you know how I spent a lot of time teaching myself to play the guitar when I was a kid by sitting around Remo’s house and playing along to his record collection? Of course there was a bunch of Chuck Berry in there. All I really knew about him was that he was called the “Father of Rock and Roll” and that he was one of the guys who basically invented the early language of rock guitar, one of those guys who was imitated by everyone from the Beatles to the Beach Boys. Meeting him had never really entered my mind, though.

“I’ve been told not to keep royalty waiting,” Ziggy added.

“Okay, okay! Let me brush my teeth, though. Wouldn’t want to meet royalty with my breath smelling like your ass.”

He let me up and I threw on some slightly more stylish clothes. Carynne had taught me a trick for people with really straight hair: brush your hair with your head upside down, then flip it back when you stand upright. Instant style, no gel needed.

Ziggy, meanwhile, re-gelled his hair upward again and put on an even tighter pair of black jeans, rubbing his crotch and giving a little groan as he looked at himself in the mirror.

“Okay, seriously, is delayed gratification your new kink?” I asked.

“No such thing as a new kink,” he replied.

—

I could see his lips moving, and I could just barely hear him through my earplugs, but I thought, There’s no way that’s what he just said. “Did you just ask if I want to go to Cleveland?”

Ziggy had the phone receiver up to one ear and said to the person on the other end, “I’ll have to call you back when there’s less construction noise.” Then he shouted, because the person on the other end could not hear him through the construction noise: “I’ll call you back!” Then, to me, “Let’s go over to the Coffee Connection. I can’t hear myself think in here.” He placed the receiver back on the cradle with a huff. The phone was sitting on a paint-spattered folding chair, which was the only furniture in the room.

On the floor below us, an electrician was boring holes in the newly installed ceiling and it was a noisy, noisy business. “Maybe by the time we get back, the first floor will have lights.”

We headed out. I don’t actually even remember why we were at the house that afternoon. We hadn’t officially moved in yet because of the amount of work the place needed. The phone and utilities were on and one of the bedrooms—-the one that needed the least amount of work-—was mostly finished and furnished, but the rest of the place was a mess of plaster dust and drywall. My possessions were still in Allston, but with the baby on the way, Christian and Maggie would be turning my old room into a nursery, so I needed to get my stuff out soon.

Over at the Coffee Connection, lattes were steaming and frappucinos were frapping. We had heard Starbucks had bought them to speed up their expansion in the East, but far as I could tell not much had changed. I got regular, Ziggy got unleaded, and no one batted an eye that two rock stars sat down at a table with their drinks. Which was proof we’d picked a good neighborhood. I’d gone to the grocery store last week, and while I was in the produce section a woman had sidled up to me—while eyeing an Asian guy who was looking through the pears—and whispered, “That’s Yoyo Ma.”

I had whispered back, “It’s not every day you see someone famous in the grocery store.”

She did not get the joke. Ma went about his shopping otherwise unbothered, and so did I.

“Now, what were you saying about Cleveland?”

Ziggy sipped his thing, which might have been just steamed, flavored milk, possibly soy, and grinned. “Barrett says if we want, we can be at the unveiling or whatever it is at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

“Ahhh. Does he mean playing there, or—”

“Just hobnobbing. Very high-powered hobnobbing.”

“That sounds kinky.”

He snorted steamed milk. “It would get us out of the construction zone.”

“Oh, you mean leave for Cleveland right away?”

“We’d have to pass back through the city.” By which he meant New York. “I haven’t got any of my decent wardrobe here.”

“We could go shopping.”

“Who are you and what have you done with the real Daron?” He felt my forehead for fever. “You hate shopping.”

“Yeah, but I probably will need something to wear for this and you’ll be better at picking something out than I am. Like, are we talking red carpet wear, or more like afterparty wear?”

“Not sure. I’ll get the details when I call back.”

“Who else is going?”

“Carynne, too, I think.” He did that thing where he saw my eyebrow twitch and knew that wasn’t what I was asking, and he went on to answer the question I had in mind: “Christian won’t leave Maggie’s side right now and Bart and Michelle are snorkeling in the Azores or somewhere, aren’t they?”

I think they actually went to Mauritius, but it might have been Malaysia. “Some islands somewhere, anyway.”

“It’s just as well. I get the feeling the tickets were very, very limited.”

“What’d we do to rate an invite to this event?”

Ziggy’s laughter was musical. “I think the fact ‘Get it Up’ was in the top ten all of last year probably had something to do with it.”

I mock-groaned. Everyone hears stories of rock stars who hate their most popular song and are then cursed to play it every night for the rest of their lives. To be clear, I don’t hate it. But it was my least favorite of any song we’d ever written. So of course it broke huge. If you ever see us in concert, and you wonder why the song has a really long instrumental intro that is different every tour, that’s why. To keep things interesting for myself I have to keep coming up with new ways to sneak it up on the audience. (For the record: Ziggy loves it.)

When we got back to the house, it seemed most of the contractors had left, and just the electrician was sweeping up. He pointed out some stuff, like how he’d added a separate circuit to the first floor room that was going to be Carynne’s Boston-area office so that she could run her computer and a window air conditioner without blowing a fuse, and showed us where the track lights in the kitchen were going to go, once the track he had ordered came in, and after they finished ripping out and putting in a new floor.

Then he left, and it was just the two of us standing there in the quiet Victorian fixer-upper we had bought. I wrapped my arms around Ziggy from behind and held him.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking I can’t wait until we can actually move in so we can fuck in every room in the place.”

He snorted. “I mean about Cleveland.”

“Call Barrett back and get the details.” Of course in my mind I already knew we were going to go, so I was thinking, Cleveland, why did it have to be Cleveland?

Cleveland had borne witness to some of my lowest moments. Well, but some good ones, too, even if I didn’t feel great about how they happened—I’m talking about that first time with Colin, in case you don’t remember it as well as I do.

Come to think of it, I was in Cleveland when I figured out I wanted a wedding ring, wasn’t I?

—

Happy Pride Month, my moonbeams! ctan here with some announcements to liven up things around here…

1) Books 11, 12, and 13, which had been delayed since 2020 are now out in paperback, along with cover-update new editions of books 1-10! Find them at Bookshop.org, Amazon, and your fave indie bookseller, like Lovestruck Books (scroll all the way down!), or Porter Square Books! Or buy them direct from me via my website/Shopify.

2) In ebook you’ll be seeing all the books pop up on all retailers! The series was in KU for most of the past year, and now it’s going wide for everyone. See it at Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play (soon… still waiting for it to go through…), et cetera.

3) The chapter you just read above is part 1 of 3, but part 2 and 3 have naughty bits in ’em. So, you know the drill, right? A donation gets you a download (see the Pay What You Want page here: https://www.ceciliatan.com/product/darons-guitar-chronicles-the-side-sessions-ebook-pwyw) OR, as usual, do something nice for Daron and I’ll email it to you! See #4.

4) The new books are in need of reviews! Post a review of books 11, 12, or 13 on Amazon, Goodreads, Kobo, Apple, or any of the other book review places, or on social media! Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Tiktok, Tumblr, etc! Sign up here: https://forms.gle/WYYjrUfTsaM69TQNA or just email daron.moondog@gmail.com with either a screencap of your review or a link to your post, and I’ll email back an epub or PDF of DGC: The Side Sessions.

Yeah. Instead of just doing the one bonus story this time, I packaged up ALL the bonus material from over the years and put it into one big (120,000 words!) ebook. It will NOT be for sale anywhere but from me. It will be a freebie when folks buy the DGC ebook bundle from me, or by itself for “pay what you want.”

The Side Sessions includes all 14 of the bonus sex scenes (and the chapters that lead into them, which makes them more readable), all the bonus short stories including the erotic ones like “Daron’s Night Out” and Colin’s Story, and all the Christmas stories (Daron, Bart, Ziggy…), Ziggy’s Diary (of what happened in India, which did not make it into the books), Jonathan’s Story, and the whole retelling of the St. Louis Jewelry Store Incident from Ziggy’s point of view. I felt the collection needed to end with one more Daron & Ziggy adventure, so I wrote one new one, which is “This is the Call.”

5) Final way to get the Side Sessions is as a bonus when buying one of the bundles I’m offering for Pride Month. I’m selling bundles of all 13 books, either in EBOOK form or in PAPERBACK, direct from my store, for a little over 50% off. The paperbacks would be ~$308 at regular retail: only $149 plus shipping until the end of the month! Same with the ebooks: ~$83 at retail, but $39.99 from me. In fact, just click on these graphics below to go directly to the shopping cart:

The discount will be applied automatically, and so will the bonus Side Sessions ebook you get with the bundle!

Whew! Yeah, I’ve been a busy bee trying to get all these things finished, uploaded, and working!

To sum up! I hope you enjoy “This is the Call” and you can read the whole story in The Side Sessions bonus ebook, which you can get free for writing a review of books 11, 12, or 13 (sign up here), or by making a donation (here), or by buying either of the Pride Month bundles direct from me, in either paperback or ebook!

Much love to you all, and Happy Pride. (We’ll be going out to march this Saturday!)

-ctan (and daron)

It’s almost hard to remember that I hit “post” on the final chapter-chapter (before the epilogue) at the end of January 2020, and then got on a plane to Italy. I knew there needed to be an epilogue chapter but I wasn’t exactly sure when it was going to happen. On the flight to Venice, I suddenly knew exactly where it had to take place, and the whole thing came together.

I posted it after returning to the States, and less than a month later we were all in lockdown.

To keep myself amused, I commissioned a half-dozen little one- or two-page pandemic themed comics with “Daron and Ziggy in Lockdown” as the theme (posted on my Patreon) while I worked on the project many of you heard me mention, of re-launching the DGC book series with new covers.

Quick recap: at one point a romance book publisher was going to take over the series and put out new editions of books 1 through 10 and then get books 11, 12, and 13 out into the world… but shortly after we made that deal, they basically went out of business and everything fell back in my lap. At that point books 11-13 weren’t written yet, so I concentrated on writing them and finishing the series.

Well, the pandemic came, and with everything that was going on, doing the DGC re-launch myself ended up on the back burner.

The big news today is that I’ve been working with a new artist (Cheyanne Bueno, aka MilkyChai, who did the commissioned interior illustrations on the Kickstarted book of my genderqueer BDSM short stories, Bent for Leather — which btw is live on Amazon now…) and the cover art for books one and two is now done, with book three about to arrive!

I’ll reveal the new covers soon, over on Patreon! And…

The plan right now is to re-launch book one in January 2024, when it’ll appear in Kindle Unlimited for the first time. In April, it’ll then go wide for sale everywhere. Each volume after that will follow one month apart, so book 2 in February in KU, and in May it’ll go wide, and so on.

With 13 books to come, it’ll take over a year to launch them all. But hey, it took us, what, ten years to serialize? So 13-14 months is nothin’ by comparison! Besides, the final three volumes still need to have a professional copyedit and proofread, and that means *I* will need to re-read them for the first time.

If you haven’t been following me on social media, you might not know that my father passed away in March this year. I spent a lot of time with him in his final weeks, in hospice care at his home in Florida, supporting my mom and doing all we could to ensure his passing was peaceful. It was. Now, of course, I expect I’ll be reading the final segments of DGC with a different perspective from before. Wish me strength.

If you want to keep up on what’s happening with the book launches, here are a number of ways!
DGC fan email list: http://bit.ly/MoondogFans
ctan general email list: http://bit.ly/ctannews
ctan Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ceciliatan

also:
Daron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/daron_moondog
ctan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ceciliatan

but because twitter is unraveling, I’m also on:
Bluesky @ceciliatan.bsky.social
instagram: https://instagram.com/ctan_writer/
Personal facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cecilia.tan
Professional facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thececiliatan
Tumblr (recently revived): https://www.tumblr.com/ceciliatan

See you in a few weeks for the cover reveals for books one and two!

-ctan

P.S. Daron here. She forgot to mention that this is the 14th anniversary of the launch of the DGC serial to begin with! Happy anniversary to everyone, eh? From November 2009 to now so much has changed, but we’ve made it this far. Thanks for coming along on the ride.

Just the first time tonight. Ziggy pulls her against the wall between us and pretends to give her a hickey–her laugh is high and piercing, because Ziggy’s pretend-hickeys tickle like a motherfucker. My hand is on her stomach, then her hip–trying to look possessive–but all I can think is how rough the rhinestones embedded in her clothes feel under my palm.

“Let’s get her out of here,” I say into his ear.

“Good idea,” he agrees, and we start to maneuver her deeper into the room. Yes, deeper in, because we know we can go through the connecting room, around the corner, and out into the hallway without having to pass Mr. Tall and Chain. Because we’ve been here before.

Ziggy, as usual, is the one who’ll actually say the things that I’m only thinking. After we’ve tiptoed through one of the bedrooms (where the bed was in vigorous use–no, I didn’t see who) and out another doorway: “This isn’t the first time we’ve snuck out the side door to that suite.” He sails down the deserted stretch of hallway and pushes the elevator button.

“It isn’t?” Sarah asks. She ducks behind the two of us so people spilling out in the hall from the party can’t see her. “Shit, every other elevator alcove has, like, a giant urn to hide behind or something, but not this one.”

Ziggy laughs suddenly. “That might be my fault.”

“How is that your fault?”

“Once upon a time, a long long time ago, the band stayed here.”

“Our very first trip to LA, actually,” I feel compelled to add.

“And I,” Ziggy says, with a gesture toward the blank section of wall as if its a newly finished masterpiece. Come to think of it, the wallpaper doesn’t align properly there. “I had a fucking rock star tantrum, and Daron here had to…” He changes what he was going to say. Talk me down, probably. We don’t invoke suicide lightly, even now. “Daron was there when I needed him.”

I’ve never heard him describe that night like that before. The elevator comes and Sarah darts in, the two of us hurrying after her. Ziggy pushes the button for the mezzanine but doesn’t explain that he’s got grander ideas than just sneaking her back to our room to watch cable and eat room service–because Ziggy’s always got grander ideas. He’s busy explaining something else. “And I fell in love with him.”

“No shit,” Sarah says. “I thought you said it was love at first sight, though?”

“If you only fall in love with a person once, it’s not going to last,” Ziggy says sagely. “The big, long-term, forever-and-ever ones, you fall for them over and over.”

“Mm-hm.” She leans against the wall of the elevator, and despite the fact most of what she’s wearing is made of suede and has fringe and even those rhinestones I mentioned, she looks much more like she just walked off a fashion runway in Milan than off a cowgirl ranch. She’s flush with success–a show at the Hollywood Bowl, I think? Somewhere big. (We didn’t actually go to the show, just swooped into town for other business. Sarah’s party is a bonus.)

Ziggy sends a quick page as the elevator descends, and then we get out onto a quiet floor of meeting rooms. Sarah finally asks, “Where are you taking me?”

“On the anti-paparazzi route,” is all he says, ducking into a huge and empty ballroom, bare tables stacked in one corner. We skirt around the half-assembled dance floor and through the back door into the service hallway. Ziggy leads us through the maze and finally out through the deserted catering kitchen’s loading dock, where Tony has a limo waiting.

We pile in. “Almost caught me by surprise,” Tony says, but doesn’t say more about it. “You want me to just drive? Or should I head for the pie shop in Laurel Canyon?”

“They’re closed by now,” I tell him. “What about the taco stand in Silver Lake. You know the one I mean?”

“I think it’s in Los Feliz, actually, but yeah, I got you. Tongue coming up.” He gives me an ironic wink as he raises the smoked glass divider between him and us. Ironic because that could be such an innuendo, except he knows perfectly well that me, Ziggy, and Sarah are not about to have a threesome.

“You’re taking me to get tongue tacos? I thought you were kidding about those.” Sarah leans back against the seat and kicks off her rhinestone studded boots. “I would’ve changed clothes. These are itchy as hell.”

I lean against her. “I’ve got a change of clothes in the trunk.”

Ziggy lies across the seat opposite us. He’s wearing exactly one rhinestone, like a beauty mark beside one eye, and otherwise is only shining at 50% capacity, which is normal for him when being seen in public but not performing. Hair and eyes done but no lipstick, wearing plain jeans under his colorful, oversize shirt.

I like him with no lipstick because then he tastes like himself. He’s grinning. “That’s also the hotel suite where Lacey Montaigne OD’d, isn’t it?”

Lacey. Wow. We haven’t talked about her in a long time. “I’m sure she’s not the only one,” I add. That’s one of the go-to hotels for the rich and famous to fuck themselves up in, has been for decades, and that’s just how it is.

“So you were a regular enfant terrible,” she says, bringing the story back to Ziggy’s tantrum. “Trashing hotels at the first opportunity?”

“Not as such but…” He stretches like a cat, all elongating spine and limbs. “I was still figuring out my stage persona and where that persona ended and the day-to-day me began. Or, well, I hadn’t yet figured out that I needed to figure that out.”

“Did going to India help?” she wants to know. “Is that what they mean when they say people go to ‘find themselves’?”

“Um… yes and no,” Ziggy says, which is such a typical Ziggy thing to say that I snort. “I grew up eventually. It wasn’t just one thing that did it.”

“I wondered. Because you were pretty deep in the self-indulgent celebrity thing after you got back.” She pats me as if I need soothing, but I don’t, because I know how it turned out, of course. “I almost didn’t want to be friends with you. But when you weren’t surrounded by a sycophantic entourage, we’re so simpatico.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I got wrapped up in some pretty self-destructive shit. Daron coming back burst that bubble, though, thankfully.”

“He’s so grounding.” She settles against me. “Something about him is grounding, isn’t it?”

“Oh, definitely,” Ziggy agrees. “So who was the guy with the chain? Anyone important?”

“I hope not. I think he runs a club or something? Poor guy. He’s probably used to getting his way.” Her chuckle is musical. “And here I am being kidnapped by the two legendary masters of disappearance.”

That startles a laugh out of Ziggy. “So you’ve heard?”

“Barrett complains about you sometimes and he let it slip,” she says. Hopefully he didn’t tell her about that time in Barcelona, but whatever. I’m not going to bring it up. “Speaking of which–”

“I’m sure Tony’s already messaged Ahmad,” Sarah’s head of security, “or Barrett himself. I mean, yeah, we disappear sometimes, but we don’t like for people to worry. We always tell Tony where we’re going.”

“Almost always,” I say under my breath. Hey, we’re not perfect. But us running off on our own has become a regular thing. It’s all about picking when and where. Generally the main thing is to do it when we’re not in immediate danger of being stampeded by fans or stalked by the press. When the opportunity comes up, well, sometimes you just have to grab it. “It’s just as well we left before we ran into any of my other least favorite people.”

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Sarah sits up suddenly, dislodging me. “Mills is ‘no longer with the company.'”

That shocks me right into sitting up, too. “Really?”

“Really. He’s supposedly going into artist management, but the scuttlebutt is that he was strongly encouraged to take early retirement.”

Ziggy does not sit up. He lies back and puts his boots up on the window. “Wonder what he did to deserve that. Or who he crossed.”

“Or if any of it had to do with all three of our favorite ex-managers, Digger, Digger, and Digger?” I ask. It’s been a while.

“Patty did sort of imply when she first took over A&R that Mills had been cooking the books beyond what was acceptable,” Ziggy says. Probably why she was so adamant the lawsuits had to be settled out of court. Too much of BNC’s dirty laundry would have come out. “There was always that question of the tour support money we supposedly never got, stuff like that.”

“Stuff Mills could get away with before a multinational bought them and did their due diligence, maybe?” Sarah hmmms. “There aren’t a lot of reasons they run you out of this town on a rail. I’d put money on a sex scandal of some kind.”

“Ew.” I mean, seriously, ick. “Let’s talk about someone else, please?”

“Oh God, did you see my mom tonight?” Sarah puts her hand on my knee. “If so, I’m so sorry. You know what she’s like.”

I chuckle. Sarah’s mom is a piece of work. “You know every single time I see her she says the same exact thing to me.”

“I know. I know. But at least she says it kind of like a joke now, right?”

“She does, but you can tell she’s still really steamed about it.” I couldn’t really fault her for that. By Mrs. Rogala’s reckoning, my father had stolen somewhere around $400,000 from her daughter. She had wanted her money back and for Digger to rot in jail, or at least one out of two. But the powers that be had encouraged her to take a settlement because you can’t get blood from a stone, and with his medical condition and a judge who was typically very lenient on white collar first offenders, Digger was unlikely to see jail time over it.

He’d paid her $40,000, issued a half-assed apology, and was barred from membership in the professional associations of artist management. I don’t know where he got the money from and I don’t want to know. We’ve had zero contact and it’s been blissful. Last we heard, he was living in a rundown place out near Palm Springs but that was a while back.

“So, what is it Mama Rogue always says to you?” Ziggy has either missed this or forgotten it.

Sarah and I simultaneously imitate her mom’s midwestern drawl, “Hey, where’s the forty grand?” Then we dissolve into laughter. In Sarah’s mother’s mind, if Digger could fork over $40,000, then I should be willing to do the same…? Just cuz?

“Oooh, oooh, you know what we should do?” she claps her hands together once with twisted glee. “You know what would shut her up forever because it would embarrass the hell out of her?”

“What?”

“Next time you see her, actually hand over forty grand. ‘Oh, here you go, Mrs. R. Since you’ve been asking for it.’ She’ll absolutely die if you call her bluff.” Sarah grips her rhinestone-studded fringe and yanks it over her head, leaving her in a silky-looking tank top. “Would forty grand fit in one suitcase? God, let’s go to the bank and get the money out of my account right now.”

“I don’t think you can just get forty grand out of an ATM,” Ziggy points out.

“At midnight in LA? Sure you can. How else do all those cocaine deals go down?” Sarah laughs again, freely and easily. “Okay, fine, but next time. I’m serious.”

I pat her on the arm and she lies across my lap and lets me scritch her scalp with my right hand where the nails are grown out. “Moms are gonna mom. It’s okay. No need to go to extremes.”

“Think about it,” she says seriously. “You’d think she’d be over it by now.” Then she closes her eyes. “Oh my god, I love it when you do that.”

“I know. That’s why I do it.” I scritch her right into a power nap that lasts until we get to the taco stand. After the limo comes to a stop, Tony passes my overnight bag through the window and Sarah digs my denim jacket out. I’m in my leather one, and we all get tacos and probably don’t even get caught by long-lensed paparazzi, though if we do, that’ll be been fine, too. It’s funny. I’m not sure if it never occurred to the press that the truth might be that we’re all just friends, or if that’s just too boring to contemplate? When stories do appear, they usually assume “love triangle” or some John/Paul/Yoko situation, but none of the narratives fit particularly well? So mostly the tabloids have left us alone.

Mostly. I know better than to read them.

Once we’re back in the limo, Sarah asks, “Where to next?”

“How about the tattoo parlor?” I suggest. No way are we bringing her back to the hotel anytime soon. “I’ve been meaning to add to mine.”

“I wonder if we can find the same place,” Ziggy muses. He talks to Tony, they strategize for a few minutes, and then we’re off again. Tony’s on the car phone as we go.

We end up at a different shop from the place we went before, but it looks similar. This one offers a lot of piercing options, and Sarah talks seriously with the guy about the pros and cons of a belly button piercing–ultimately deciding against it.

Ziggy, meanwhile, wants a Moondog 3 rocket to match mine. “I bet we can talk Bart and Christian into getting them, too,” he says. “Someday.”

He gets his delicately framed by a crescent moon.

It’s well after two in the morning by the time it’s my turn under the needle. I also want the moon in the background, but I want the whole moon, the full moon. I’ve wanted it ever since that time in Tennessee, but it’s taken me a while to get around to it. Waiting for the right moment.

At three a.m., we leave lavish tips and promises of tickets to Sarah’s next show, and head back into the Hollywood night. In my mind we’re following the route we once did, he and I, on one of those nights when we fell in love with each other all over again, so long ago. We end up on a beach where the sand is cool in our toes among whispering pines, and then–because we’re hungry and morning is actually approaching–we’re the first people in the door at one of the Laurel Canyon places we like when it opens for breakfast. Tony does not argue when I tell him to come in with us: he knows better now.

And then, because no one wants to face morning rush hour traffic in LA after having been out all night, we head up the canyon to Remo’s place to crash. He and the family are out of town, but I let us in with my key. Sarah makes the obligatory joke about us “sleeping together.” Heh. It’s like a rule that one of us has to. Tony crashes on the couch while the three of us all climb into Remo’s rather gigantic bed together. I’m a little surprised to find myself in the center, but I’m certainly not complaining.

The last thing I hear before I drift to sleep is Sarah saying thank you for the kidnapping, and “Tongue tacos are the best.”

Yes, they are.

—
A NOTE FROM CTAN: Thank you for all the comments and well wishes about the end! Ten years is a long time, and it’s been really interesting to compare not just how Daron was doing at the start of the serial to where he ends up, but to realize how each of us has changed over those ten years in real time. I went from being a flat-broke self-publishing writer, deep in credit card debt and toiling in obscurity, to a “lifetime achievement” award-winning author in romance with a breakout mainstream hit (Slow Surrender) that wiped out my debt and put me on more comfortable financial footing.

In 2010, Adam Lambert was still in the celluloid closet, marriage equality was being fought hard around the country (and the world)–heck, even Johnny Weir was still in the closet when DGC began. Chaz Bono had yet to come out as trans. Sam Smith hadn’t begun their musical career yet. Frank Ocean hadn’t happened yet. Some folks have asked if I’ll keep commenting on issues around queerness in the public sphere now that DGC has wrapped? I’m sure that I will, and any future DGC stories, scenes, or books are undoubtedly going to carry those themes forward.

A couple of people have mentioned to me that they really miss hearing from Daron twice a week. I know. It’s hard when you get used to a presence–even when they’re only in the Internet, only a voice, only words–and then they’re not there anymore. I know a lot of folks are doing a re-read to ease the absence!

Daron’s still present for me, and I’m sorry I can’t share more of him right now. I’m just glad I was able to share him with you for so long. He’ll be back when he has more to tell. I’m not sure when or how exactly, but we haven’t heard the last from him, or the rest of his chosen family.

Thanks again, folks. You’ve given me the ride of a lifetime.

-ctan

—

Court and I stayed for a few more days in Tennessee after everyone else went home, to help Janine cope and to “be there” for Landon.

I didn’t really know what “being there” would entail, but it turns out that literally just being there was good. I have no idea how a six-year-old processes that his grandmother is gone, especially when she’d essentially disappeared from his life six months earlier, which is forever at that age. But apparently having a favorite aunt and uncle around helped. After we’d said goodbye to everyone who’d come to the funeral, we moved out of the hotel and into Janine’s house for half a week.

Speaking of goodbyes, I should tell you about the goodbye hug I had with Colin, because I know you’ll appreciate it.

I remember the hug, I just don’t remember exactly when it happened. It was at one of the stops on the Claire Farewell Tour, probably the reception at the hotel. A good, long hug from Colin made all kinds of things loosen up in my brain and my chest.

He asked when I was coming home. And it struck me, oh, yeah, what’s next? Where’s next? Almost a year earlier, Ziggy and I had put off making any long term plans about where–and how–we were going to live. There’d been the couple of months where we were in Boston trying to get healthy in body and mind–cut short by the whole Claire affair, but which would have been over by now even if we’d stayed.

It had been a good couple of months for us in Boston, even if there had been some angst. You know: my head feeling done in by the explosion of Nirvana, Ziggy feeling like grunge signaled the death of glam, us not listening to each other… That all seemed like small potatoes compared to the big stuff that had happened. The so-called big picture. Like us learning to trust each other, and losing our moms, and… holy shit, ending the lawsuits and resurrecting our band…?

Remember when I said I wanted to shoot the moon? I woke up the morning after Ziggy’s confession about what he did to Digger, exhausted, wrung out, but I felt… good.

I should have felt like there were gaping holes in my chest, but I patted myself like I’d woken up from a dream expecting to find bullet wounds and instead, everything was whole.

I lay there in the dark, only a crack of daylight making it around the far edge of the blackout curtain, thinking about shooting the moon and realizing we’d done it. Ziggy had done it.

All the pieces that had been floating around the board, all of the moves made by all the people in our lives–Barrett, Patty, Carynne, Jordan (god rest his soul), our lawyers, even Janessa and Jonathan–all lined up like the tumblers and pins in a lock. And Ziggy had the key in his back pocket.

The door was open now and it was up to us to step through it.

Funny thing about that door. When I was young and unsigned and desperate to make it, getting a foot in the door was the most important thing. You hammer on that door, try to beat it down, but all you can see is that door is there to keep you out. Once it cracks open, of course you rush through it, eager to leap right into the mosh pit at the party you’ve been trying to get into all your life.

Now I knew that the door was also there to keep you in. The big lesson I’d learned thanks to the water tank: you can’t just do it for the sake of doing it. Well, maybe some people could, but I couldn’t. If I loved myself, I had to love what I was doing, and if I didn’t love myself, I was going to end up dead. I’d also learned that to love someone else, I had to love myself first, or my heart wasn’t strong enough to take it.

I’d seen my mother through to the end and it hadn’t destroyed me. In fact, maybe my heart was stronger than ever? Battered, bruised, exhausted, but… beating steady. Conquering the pain in my fingers would be trivial by comparison. Returning to reasonable playing form seemed nearer, more attainable, than it had even a week before.

Ziggy cracked open an eye from the pillow next to mine, saw me looking at my hand, and without saying a word pulled that hand by the wrist under the covers and didn’t let go until he’d left a sticky mess in my palm. (And then he went back to sleep.)

One more sendoff to tell you about. Remo caught me and Ziggy at the breakfast buffet at the hotel before he left to catch his plane. I brushed crumbs off my jeans as I stood up to give him a hug.

“I’m off to LA,” he said. “Mel and Ford are there now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I told Landon he could come and visit my little boy someday soon. Since I became ‘Uncle Remo,’ Lanny’s decided that means Ford’s his cousin.”

“If you are telling me you’re going to need my help wrangling my sister–”

“I’m not saying anything of the kind. Just telling you that, you know, some Christmasses down the road there might be a lot less sex and drugs and drinking and a lot more… whatever normal families do.”

That made me laugh. Like this past Christmas hadn’t been “normal?” I mean, other than Claire dying. Neither of us had any idea what “normal families” did. And it was also funny to think about how Remo’s various attempts at getting “family” together for holidays had been the scenes of both his own surprise engagement (and wedding) and Digger’s ejection from his house. And I thought about just how much red wine Claire could drink. So maybe–and by maybe I mean certainly–the excessive drinking wasn’t exclusive of the “family” holiday.

“Where to next for you?” he asked, totally reasonably.

“Janine’s,” I said. Ziggy and I had talked about where to be next but we hadn’t actually decided our next long term move. The one thing I’d insisted was that we not go right back to New York and try to start recording an album, like, next week or something. The good thing was, we wouldn’t have to. Now that Digger had folded his hand, it’d take some time for the lawsuits to tie up, and we’d could wait to start work on a new Moondog Three album after that. Patty had told Zig at the funeral that she’d had an engineer already do a remix of “Into the Night” using DATs Jordan had left behind. Apparently the tapes included me playing four different solos for it. I wondered which one they picked, but I wasn’t in a hurry to hear. The single was ready to drop as soon as the publicity campaign peaked. My job in that process was just stay out of trouble and stay out of the public eye, which suited me just fine, actually. “We might take over Bart’s beachhouse at the Cape for the whole rest of the summer.”

Remo chuckled. “It’s funny. Usually when we say goodbye it’s all about where and when we’ll be hitting the road next. But we’re both going home.”

“Yeah.” Even my anxiety about Japan was gone: Ziggy’s solo tour plans had evaporated once the prospect of a full Moondog Three tour had been floated. And that I’d gladly do, once I was back in shape. I flexed my hands. Getting there.

“You still want to come out and do a little acoustic album together?” Remo wanted to know.

Yes, yes I did. But not right that minute. “Soon as I put my heart back together,” I promised.

He looked past me to where Ziggy was nibbling on a croissant and pretending to read the newspaper. “I have a feeling that’ll happen sooner than later. Give me a hand with my bags?”

“Sure.” I picked up his hardshell guitar case and a small travel satchel. He took his suitcase and garment bag and led the way to his rental car.

“You know,” I said, as we went out the sliding glass doors, into the summer heat, “it wasn’t that long ago you were warning me he was going to rip me apart, not put me together.”

Remo gave me one of those exaggerated skeptical looks. “It wasn’t that long ago you were warning me the same thing about him.”

“Yeah, it was.” I felt like I took the first proper deep breath I’d taken in a year, maybe longer. “That was a million years ago.”

Remo had a little smile on his face. “I was really worried about you when I didn’t see him at the church.”

“So was I.” If we hadn’t been through all that we’d been through, past-Ziggy might have skipped out just to even the score for me not going to Jordan’s memorial with him. But that wasn’t how things were with us now. Even thinking about it, that possibility felt small and petty and distant. Speaking of small, petty, and distant, Digger had reportedly left town before the memorial service was even over. We hadn’t filled Remo in yet on where Ziggy had been. I kept it simple. “He went to deal with Digger and keep him away.”

“Oh, really?” He popped the trunk and put the suitcase in. “I thought I’d be the designated Digger-wrangler.”

I handed him the guitar. “Ziggy had unfinished business with him.”

Remo strapped the case into the back seat so it wouldn’t rattle around and then looked at me over the roof of the car. “Should I ask how that went?”

I decided less was more. “It’s finished.”

Remo nodded. “Good.” He came around to give me one more hug, and then looked me up and down. I looked him up and down right back. He was pretty much the same old Remo, except now he had a wedding ring on.

So did I, though. I had some inkling of what he was seeing when he looked at me. I wasn’t any taller than I’d been when he ran into me that night in Providence in 1986, but I wasn’t a scrawny, closeted, flat-broke teenager anymore. Now my hair was halfway down my back, I’d put on muscle, and the tattoo of the rocket that Ziggy had designed stood out on my skin. To me it looked like the rocket was pointing right into the future, like a dolphin that just leapt out of the water, weightless for a moment before it dives back down.

I’d dive back into work and the industry and rehearsals and tour plans and composing and publicity schemes soon enough. Right then I let myself just say so long to my oldest friend, and then I went back inside to share a croissant with my soulmate.

And as I walked across the parking lot, I got an idea for a song.

—

[Yep. stared at this song on the 1992 song title list for over a year now, wondering if I could bring myself to use it like this. When it was way too happy sounding for Claire’s final chapter, it became almost inevitable that it would land here. Lyrics really work, no? -d]
—

Liner Note

Thus ends book 13 of Daron’s Guitar Chronicles!

You may or may not remember that book TWELVE (12) started this way, in January 2018, with a claim that it would be the last:

As I’ve said time and time again, I can never seem to estimate properly how long any section of DGC would be. I was always wrong by a factor of two, and this turned out to be true again! Book 12, and what I called “the final year,” actually took two books and two years, so at least in that way I was consistent…?

Maybe the reason things always take twice as long in DGC as I think they will is because both Daron and I have to have our say. (There’s a good one for some psychoanalyst/literature major to pick apart some day…)

Anyway, here we are, at the end of book 13, and Daron has told me–like he told Ziggy–he needs some real, quality downtime.

It’s not a stretch to realize that MIGHT be my subconscious trying to tell me that I need some rest, as well. And no wonder:

It’s taken over ten years of posting to get to over 1.5 million words. Over 1,111 posts (including liner notes, side stories, bonus scenes, etc..). And I’m so, so gratified and grateful that you’ve all taken this journey with me and Daron, whether you are reading this on the day it posts, or if you’re landing here years later.

I learned something about healing from you all, and from Daron.

I was talking with a friend recently who fell off the wagon reading DGC somewhere in book 7 — right after the “Jonathan section.” She said it wasn’t that she didn’t love Daron (and Ziggy) but that she realized she didn’t need him anymore. The healing part of the story for her, the part she needed in order to heal herself, was Daron taking those steps to not only reach the knowledge of himself and his sexuality to get into a relationship, but to get out of it again. Although she’d figured out her sexuality much younger than Daron, she said, it still took her years to figure out how those needs intersected relationships, and seeing him grow up before her eyes, and get out before it was “too late,” patched over a hole in her heart she hadn’t even realized was there.

My reply: “Yep. Same.”

Every section in Daron’s story patches up some hole in my heart, even ones I don’t realize are there. But I always felt it was too much to hope that it might heal other people, too. To hear that it has… well, that heals my heart, too.

Some people discover Daron at just the right time, when they need him most. Different parts of his story heal different wounds. I think maybe this is why some arcs of Daron’s story are “for” some folks, and some are for others. And that’s cool.

This is, and always has been, a Gen X story.

It was a little jarring to realize earlier this week that Michael Stipe just turned 60, and Matthew Lillard just turned 50.

Most of us Gen-Xers are in our fifties now, and a whole lot of us are going through the loss of parents, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that I went there. As some of you know from watching the DGC 10th anniversary chat, I’m going through the very slow loss of my Dad to Alzheimer disease, and there is zero doubt in my mind that my current anxieties about the aging of both my parents fueled the Claire saga.

The thing is… Daron’s story has always been about me processing things that already happened to me. This is the first time that Daron has “caught up” to my real life.

I’m also 100% sure that all his anxiety about what used to seem effortless–making music–becoming difficult both physically and emotionally is my own career anxiety coming out, too.

Which means one of the reasons Daron’s story has to stop–or at least pause–here, is because he’s now gotten ahead of me! Daron has lived through the loss of his mother (and in some ways his father, too, since don’t you think Digger was using the lawsuits as a way to hang onto controlling him? of course he was…). I haven’t. Daron has conquered his writers block. I haven’t. (tl;dr — my Tor urban fantasy series is still not done.)

But Daron has a realization in these last few chapters that healed a hole in my heart that has been there since 2012, when my lover and friend Brian died (in a motorcycle accident). I kind of knew, the moment I heard he was gone, that someone was going to die in one of my books, but I didn’t know who. I knew who it would be in 2015, in this post [https://daron.ceciliatan.com/archives/3870].

Daron knew it was coming, too.

Brian was a fan of DGC, by the way. I think he would have appreciated that ~200,000 words were written over the past 2 years to bring Daron to the point where he could realize what it is that I’ve needed to realize for the past seven years: that I don’t “get over” people dying. I don’t “let go” of them at all. I hang onto them and that’s OKAY. It’s actually really truly okay.

Huh. Therapy might have been a somewhat faster route to this realization, but then I wouldn’t have made this art, and maybe helped heal some other folks along the way.

Now…

This is the end of the arc, but unlike the song title, the “story” of course continues. What’s going to happen when Ziggy and Daron actually get back in the studio together? What fallout will there be from the “reunion” publicity stunt? Are they going to hate whatever producer works with them next simply because he’ll never live up to Jordan? What happens when they finally hit the road in Japan? When are they finally going to take Sarah to that taco stand in Silver Lake? And get that next tattoo Ziggy’s been planning? (I think somewhere in the story Ziggy says he knows what he wants next, but he never tells us or Daron? For that matter… there are a couple of other things Ziggy still hasn’t told Daron. Like the fact that he was the one who put Claire up to asking Daron to write a song for the funeral…)

And I’m not done. And this universe of Daron’s Guitar Chronicles is also not finished. To wit:

My plan is to re-launch books 1-11 through Kindle Unlimited, with revamped covers, and then move forward releasing the books that haven’t been out yet in ebook. Taking some time to do that will also give me a chance to fix up some stuff from books 11, 12, and 13 that are rougher than I would like.

Meanwhile, the website and the Wattpad chapters remain live and free to read!

So, for the final time on these pages, I’ll make these three suggestions for things you can do… as well as drop a comment below if you’re moved to.

ONE:
Tell your friends, your family, your role-playing group, your crush, whoever you feel comfortable telling (of course) that this rollercoaster of an emotional reading experience/coming out story/coming of age story is here to be read and experienced. The main way we gained readers, always, over the past 10 years, has been through word of mouth. Thank you thank you thank you for spreading the word!

TWO:
If you’ve been meaning to throw some money in the tip jar, now would be a great time. You can make a one-time donation via Paypal here: https://www.paypal.me/daronmoondog or you can become a sustaining Patron of all my writing via my Patreon: http://patreon.com/ceciliatan

THREE:
If you just want to get notified of anything new happening in the Daron and Ziggy universe — bonus story? new book release? kickstarter? whatever may come next? — get on the email newsletter list here: http://bit.ly/MoondogFans

I should also thank some people, and I know I’m going to forget and leave some folks out, because it’s been ten years and my memory is even worse than Daron’s, but here’s a start: Rikibeth and Brianne for jumping on early, MCA Hogarth for egging me on to do bonus “adult” chapters and brainstorming self-publishing serial ideas with me, Alan for website advice, J.B. for taking the encyclopedia/wiki by the reins, Joe for helping create the timelines, Lenalena for much help spreading the word and reviews, Chris for taking on the mammoth task of porting over a thousand posts–one every day until caught up!–to Wattpad, Sanders and Stef for fanworks-wrangling and also organizing the Louisville DGC meetup, all the creators of the incredible fanworks, Amy for art, Meg for songs, all the amazing memes… You’re all amazing and fantastic and this literally wouldn’t have been what it is without all of you.

Okay, I have to go dry my eyes now, and get ready to announce this everywhere else.

But truly, thank you for being here, for reading, for being a part of this journey. Many writers write in silence, in pain, totally alone. You all being along for the ride have made every twist and turn in that journey a joy. I love you lots and lots, and so does Daron. (And Ziggy, of course. Ziggy loves the attention more than all of us put together.)

*mwah*

– Cecilia Tan, January 29, 2020

P.S. One more piece of Daron art that I’ve been forgetting to share! By the fabulous “fairy prince of NYC” LewdAlfred (on Twitter as @HisMajesty)

Anyway, I went to set up the post again a little while ago, but like the previous one (with Ziggy’s “confession”), this post is an important one to get right/ I decided I had to fix something in it that I realized I had glossed over, and… next thing you know I’ve got the hood up and parts strewn all over the garage. So we’ll take this ride tomorrow. All right?

While I have you here, just a quick reminder that if you want to be notified by email when things are happening in the Daronverse, including new book releases, Kickstarters, chats, whatever, we have an infrequently used announcement newsletter you can subscribe to: http://bit.ly/MoondogFans

See you tomorrow.

-ctan

So I did. I went back inside. What I heard of the argument was Digger calling Patty a cunt, and Patty, laughing her throaty laugh and pointing at him, replying, “No. You’re a cunt.”

That made me laugh.

Like her death, Claire’s funeral was a drawn out affair with multiple stages. In addition to the memorial service where her body was presented and Remo and I sang, there was a separate mass, and then there was a thing at the funeral home where she was being cremated. And also the reception.

What is a “reception,” anyway? I guess in the case of weddings and funerals it was for the family to “receive” either congratulations or condolences, depending? Or maybe just receive guests. But I kept thinking of radio reception, how sometimes it was clear as crystal, and other times as full of static as my own brain.

The reception was back at the hotel, in a private function room they had off the lobby. There were mini quiches. Courtney must have arranged that because I sure as heck do not remember Claire ever mentioning to me that she wanted mini quiches at her reception.

Ziggy got me through the reception kind of like he got me through the set at the church.

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? “The set at the church.” But that’s what it was, or what it had turned into. Three songs, but it was… really something. I’m not sure which thing made me more of a zombie, flashbacks to Claire’s demise or flashbacks to the performance. My mind was really not on all the people around me and no amount of shaking hands and accepting pats on the back could break me out of that.

Bart was one of the back-patters. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Like what?”

“So… shell-shocked. Not even when you were on the verge of losing it in South America.”

“Huh. Maybe being at my mother’s funeral gives me permission not to have to hide it.”

“You’re probably right.” He pulled me into a hug, but I didn’t feel like crying. I had Ziggy’s voice ringing in my ears. It was just nice to know Bart was trying to comfort me. “That’s really perceptive of you.”

“Maybe that means therapy worked.”

He grinned and it felt okay to grin back at him.

“See you at home.” He combined the back-pat and the hug one more time and then left.

I got to say goodbye to Rose, too, in one of those moments when Ziggy was talking to someone else. “That hymn! Goodness, boy, I hadn’t heard that one since I was a little girl.” She kissed me on my cheeks, one and then the other.

“Um, yeah, that was…” I couldn’t explain Ziggy or anything about why he was late or… anything about him really. Well, maybe a little: “That was the singer in my band.” My band, which might be resurrected from the dead. “He and I have a vocal coach. She’s German. She made us learn it as a vocal exercise.”

“Well, it was perfect. And what a set of pipes on him, hm? On both of you. I haven’t heard harmony like that since… oh, since…” She trailed off, looking at me carefully.

“Since who? It’s okay, Rose. I won’t be offended if you say some band I don’t like.”

“Well, I was going to say Donny and Marie, but then I thought, no, that doesn’t sound right at all.” She chuckled. “Sonny and Cher? But here’s hoping you two last a lot longer than they did.”

I remembered Sonny and Cher being on TV when I was a kid, but I didn’t really know the details of their private life. I had a vague memory that they had split up. A very public split, since they were on TV and all…

Patty wanted to use Ziggy and my reunion to launch a publicity campaign. She’d already left for New York without talking to me. I guess she’d come all the way to Tennessee to tell Digger off? It sounded like it felt good. (Or maybe I was projecting. It certainly felt great when I did it.) I smiled, thinking about the fact that Digger hadn’t even set foot in the service. And that I hadn’t had to talk to him at all. There was something wonderful about that. Like true miracles could occur.

But I wanted to know, of course, what Ziggy had said to him. Where Ziggy had been and what he had been doing.

The static in my brain started to resolve into something, like a radio station coming into range on the dial. A song, a chorus, hey Ziggy, did you sell your soul this time? Hey Ziggy, did you sell your soul?

Of course I couldn’t use his name in it, so I’d need something else that scanned. Heh. “Digger” would work, too, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to use that name, not when the next line was about how I’d go to hell and back for him.

I could almost hear the melody, feel the texture of the riff. I’d need to get my hands on a guitar soon to make sure I noted it down before the idea faded away. Fortunately our room was just across the building, and things were beginning to wind down.

I gave Ziggy’s arm a squeeze and retreated to our room. I tuned the guitar and kept hearing flashbacks to the way it had sounded in the church. I hoped Patty had liked Claire’s song, because it was definitely up there in the list of things I wanted to work on. And it was a list, I realized. We had the song we’d written in Ziggy’s living room, too. And “Infernal Medicine,” that one was just hanging there waiting to be plucked like a fat, juicy pear. And “Moving Parts,” I hadn’t thought about that one in a while, but I knew it was out there. I’d given a lot of songs to Jordan–dozens–but some of the gems I’d held back.

Ziggy came in while I was plucking away softly at the melody, and he said nothing, just closed the door quietly behind him and moved around trying not to disturb me.

It didn’t work. I ended up looking at him over my shoulder. “Hey.”

He slid onto the rectilinear couch next to me. “Hey.”

“You said to trust you.”

“I did. And you did.”

I nodded. “Though I’ve gotta say… I really started to doubt you in that last… oh… half hour or so before you showed up.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He kissed me on the temple. “Digger did everything possible to fuck things up. But I threatened to bring the hammer down.”

I didn’t ask. If he was going to tell me, he was going to tell me. All I cared about was the logistics. “Did he sign the paper or whatever it was Patty faxed you?”

“He did.” His smile was a bit wan, a bit tired maybe, but his eyes were bright. “He’s calling off the dogs. He’s settling. And he’ll be out of our hair very soon now.”

“Good.” I kissed him on the mouth, just a peck, just an I love you.

Ziggy looked me over. “Don’t you want to know?”

“Do I? You tell me if I’ll sleep better at night not knowing.”

He considered for a moment, then said, “You remember a couple of times I told you I had something to tell you later?”

“Yeah?”

“At least a few of those times it was that I had something on him. I’ve been carrying it around for a very long time.”

“This is starting to sound like something I don’t want to hear.”

He tipped his head, considering me somberly. “What kind of thing are you expecting?”

I put the guitar down flat on the table so it wouldn’t fall over and took his hands in mine. “It wouldn’t be unlike you to have set up some kind of blackmail situation, you know.”

“Oh, you mean like inviting Digger to an orgy and getting photos of him with every fruit from Carmen Miranda’s fucking hat up his rear?”

We both snorted at that image, although I thought that sounded awfully specific. But that’s sometimes the kind of graphic Ziggy could be. “Well, for example,” I said.

“True, dear one. True. But this was nothing like that.” He kissed my fingers in that way he often did. “You remember when Colin went through the records that Janessa had turned over?”

“Yeah.” That was a while back, but then again these lawsuits had taken years to come around.

“One of the things he found, but which he didn’t realize was something until I figured it out, was something involving my mother’s money.” His eyes narrowed and I could almost feel his temperature rising just from thinking about it. “After all, if no one ever looked at his records, who was ever going to notice that payments were still going on for months after she died?”

“Wait, you’re saying he took money out of your dead mother’s bank accounts?”

“No no no. Worse. Paying for her was coming out of my accounts, remember? Something like ten grand, sometimes twenty grand a month, paid to the fancy assisted living place I’d put her in. Wouldn’t you think it weird that he’d keep sending that money after she’d passed away?”

“They didn’t notify him?”

“Oh, he tried to tell me that. He didn’t know and that I should sue the place for fraud. But guess where Antonio’s brother Ferdinand worked as a physical therapist?”

So that’s what his name was. I was pretty sure Tony had never told me. “Ziggy, this is too much of a coincidence.”

“It’s not a coincidence at all, dear one. I heard about the place from him to begin with, when I was looking for the absolute best place to put her.”

I guess that was logical, but…

“He’d been working with a bunch of residents there for a while and was going to full time on staff, right when I was looking to move her into a home. And I wanted a place where I knew someone on the inside, you know? To make sure they weren’t abusing the residents or whatever.” He gave me a look, because I guess I was giving him a look. “This just makes sense. I wasn’t going to put her somewhere I knew nobody. It worked out perfectly.”

“So what did Antonio’s brother tell you?”

“One of the reasons he’s not working there anymore is because of the dirt he’s got on someone in the finance department there who was taking Digger’s checks–my checks–and cashing them, and then kicking the money back to Digger.” He squeezed my hands. “So, yes, there’s another scumbag out there, but I’m satisfied with screwing the one we know personally. Whose idea it was to begin with.”

“Okay, and you what, confronted him with the truth and he confessed?”

Ziggy snorted. “Does that sound likely?”

“Not really.”

“That man has no conscience whatsoever. But he’s weak.”

“So you… scared the shit of him.”

Ziggy nodded, a gleam of relish in his eye. “I had him believing he could be in Riker’s Island by next week if he didn’t sign everything I put in front of him. Your oldest sister helped, you know. She told me where to find him.” A wider smile spread onto his face. “It was glorious. You should’ve seen it. I made him beg. I made him think I didn’t give a fuck about any of the record company bullshit. All I wanted to do was nail his fucking balls to the wall and literally let him die in prison.” His eyelids fluttered as if he were recalling a particularly ecstatic orgasm. “When he caved, and I let him realize there was a way out, that I’d ‘settle’ for him calling off the suits as a way to pay me off, he broke down and bawled like a baby.”

“You are terrifying and I love you.” I rubbed my nose against his.

“I know. I deserve a goddamn Academy award for the performance, too.” He kissed me softly. “But it took a long time to wear him down.” Two days, right? Or had it been three? I’d lost track. “And I am exhausted.”

“Me, too.”

I think it was still early in the evening, but so what. We got in bed and we slept the sweet sleep of the righteous.

—

As the sun set, I could see my reflection in the glass of the sacristy window. Court had packed these clothes for me months ago. I had hung the suit jacket over a chair. Black tie, black shirt, black pants, black boots that would have looked a bit odd in Boston but were just very Johnny Cash here in Tennessee. Huh. My hair was back in a ponytail and the red stripes were pretty much invisible.

You’re supposed to let go of people who die, I think. I think that’s what the common wisdom says. Funerals are so you can say goodbye.

I realized, standing there, looking at a transparent image of myself that I barely recognized, that I had never said goodbye to Jordan. Was that because I didn’t go to his memorial? Or was it because I just… didn’t? And was that because I still didn’t accept that he was gone?

I don’t think so. I think it was that I had subconsciously decided not to “let go” but to hang on. Jordan was gone, but what he meant to me wasn’t. I wasn’t going to say goodbye to Jordan because he was part of who I was, part of who I had become.

And Claire? A parent is pretty much by definition a part of who you are. The people who needed to let go–Remo, most of all–that’s who the funeral was for. Not for Claire and not for me.

I know. I’m weird. But coming to realize that made me feel better. I stopped crying. I made my peace with death by realizing that I didn’t make peace with it at all. And that was fine.

Flip was at the door, beckoning me. Time to go on. Jeezus.

I took the guitar and went out into the church. I was forcibly reminded of the power of silence. Like that day in New York when the entire marching crowd of hundreds of thousands of people went silent in remembrance of the dead, here in the church it was like the entire crowd was holding their collective breath. The shape of the vaulted roof magnified the sound of my boot heels on the floor as I crossed the side aisle to take my place. Every little sound, every tiny cough or rustle of paper, was audible through the entire space.

No wonder people believed angels could hear a pin drop.

From where I was standing I could not see into the casket, but I knew what dress she was wearing. I could hear my own breath as I realized I hadn’t even warmed up my voice. Every eye in the place was pointed right at me.

The microphone was also staring me right in the face. Remo, who had sung the song before me, had introduced me, so I didn’t have to say anything, but since I couldn’t seem to make myself start a song, maybe I should say a few words. But what? Hi. She was my mother. We didn’t get along for my whole life until six months ago and even then…

No. How about… A wise man sitting in the audience once told me you don’t spend a lot of time holding someone’s hair while they puke and not develop strong feelings for that person…

Yeah, no. Just shut up and sing, Daron.

But I was frozen. Starting to hyperventilate. I could feel the sweat of my palm against the neck of the guitar.

Come on, Daron. This is what you do. This is what you supposedly were put on Earth to do.

I started to think about that midnight mass I played at all those years ago. Was I fourteen then? Remo wasn’t there: he’d already left for Los Angeles. But my mother–

I couldn’t think about that now or I was really going to lose it in front of all these people. Loss hurts. It just hurts, you know?

I pretended to check my tuning, and the sound of the picked strings reverberated all the way from the far wall of the church back to me, a wave of sound that threatened to knock me right over. It wasn’t loud, but it seemed like it by contrast with the silence.

I looked up and saw someone who looked just like Patty in the audience. Oh, shit. Either she was actually here, or I was cracking under the pressure.

Open your mouth, Daron. Time to sing. Time to sing. I could barely breathe. How did I used to do this every night in front of thousands of people?

How is it possible to forget who you are?

I licked my lips and was about to say something like I’m sorry, I just can’t, and let people think it was just that I was too deep in grief to do it, when the back door of the church opened. And for one horrifying second I saw Digger.

And then Ziggy came sailing up the center aisle.

He was all in black. The only detail I could take in before he reached me, hugged me, and said gently–into the microphone–“Sorry I’m late”–was that he had a diamond stud or pin in the center of his chest, right through a black satin tie.

He had one arm around me, and when he took a breath I took a breath, and when he started to sing something in my back brain kicked in and I did, too. I didn’t even realize what we were doing until we were on the second or third word.

It was the German hymn Priss had made us (well, me) learn the year before. The one I hadn’t done in forever, but, you know, we’d repeated it a lot. Ziggy had written a harmony line for it.

It almost didn’t feel like me singing, like the words were just being pulled out of me like wind filling sails, like some force of nature just propelled my voice along.

Ziggy. Ziggy is a force of nature and don’t you forget it.

When we came to the chorus I heard a female voice join us, in German, and it gave me goosebumps. No, not my imagination nor my mother risen from the dead. Rose, the former chorus director.

When the hymn finished, Ziggy whispered in my ear. “Candlelight next?”

He had said like a question but it was clear to me he didn’t mean it like a question. Good decision. I could play that one in my sleep. Anytime, anywhere. Of course. And no more fitting setting than this. I was completely on autopilot, which was fine.

And as we came to the end of the song, Ziggy hummed and la-la-la’d over my usual outro, and then he held a long, long note, filling up that entire church with his lungs…

And segued right into the new song. Oh boy. I nodded. it made sense. I wasn’t in any way ready for it, but I remembered the chords. I didn’t flub the picking. I couldn’t really concentrate on his singing because I was trying too hard to keep up and not make a mistake.

I saw an interview with a tightrope walker once. She said some days, when you’re on, it’s like running across your living room. Then there are days when you’re not on, and it feels like… you’re walking a tightrope. Ha.

But just because I feel like I’m on a tightrope doesn’t mean I’m going to fall off. We finished the song, and people applauded–which I wasn’t even sure was appropriate given the venue, but I guess people felt moved to–and then Ziggy hugged me one last time and led me down to the front pew where there was a seat for me.

I sat down next to Remo, who had his guitar resting on his foot, and rested my guitar on my own foot, and Ziggy went to take a seat somewhere behind us, blowing kisses as he went.

I love him so goddamn much.

—

So I sat there, without moving, just breathing. In the back of my mind I think I was going over the song, but maybe I was just blank. When I try to meditate, I can never get to that state. Seems unfair, doesn’t it?

Maybe I was just tired. I woke up hours later, lying flat on my back on the couch, the guitar on top of me. I put it in its case and brushed my teeth and crawled into a proper bed and slept, which was merciful, because the previous night I’d just lain awake thinking again and again about Claire’s last moments. I’d cycle through thinking about various things from the past seven months, and then I’d come right back to standing in that room beside her bed. The moments at her bedside stacked up like a deck of cards, each one similar when riffled through and yet unique.

Not this time, though. Maybe I was finally past that? I slept right through until the morning when the phone ringing woke me.

I went to grab it and then my brain locked up. What if it was Patty? Or Ziggy?

Or just Remo wanting to know if I wanted breakfast, which was the most likely option. I picked up the receiver, and croaked out froggily, “Cohen’s Deli and Financial Advisors. Lox or stocks?”

A familiar laugh greeted me. “You nut. I’m looking for a ride from the airport.” Bart!

I wonder if I’d subconsciously known it was him, given the greeting I’d picked. “I’m the nut? You started it.”

“I’m pretty sure Christian started it. He sends his condolences. Michelle’s here, too. And Colin.”

Oh. Wow. It hadn’t occurred to me so many people were showing up. “Um, let me see. You’re not renting a car?”

“Court seemed to think we wouldn’t need one.”

“Aha.” I looked around for the car keys and didn’t see them. “I think maybe she’s already on the way to pick you up, but let me–”

“Whup! Never mind. Michelle sees her. See you in a bit.”

“Yeah, bye.” If Court had told me who was showing up, I didn’t remember. I recalled her saying Claire didn’t want the church too empty for her memorial service, but if my sister had given me names, they’d gone in one ear and out the other.

But my friends weren’t really there for Claire’s sake. They were there for mine, to support me. I really didn’t know what that meant. I guess I was glad they were there, even if there wasn’t anything I could really say I needed from them specifically. Carynne came on a later flight, and Alan Mazel (but not Alex). And so the next thing you know I spent that entire day and evening with people coming and going and getting meals and so on, and the next thing you know it was midnight and way too late to practice without waking people up.

It’s funny. A couple more people asked where Ziggy was. I guess I’d perfected the “he had something to do” line because they all just nodded like it was okay. Or maybe they took their cues from me. As long as I seemed to be okay with it, it must be okay? Or maybe there were enough subjects being avoided that it was merely another one.

People act weird about death sometimes. I suppose that’s to be expected. I mean, when it comes to things that freak people out, death is high on the list. Everyone’s trying not to say the wrong thing, trying not to add to the pain, but then everyone’s got their own issues, too. It meant being with people constantly for two days leading up to the actual memorial service was not exactly low-stress socializing, even with people I knew. The good part about having all these folks around was that they insulated me from my older sisters somewhat, which I think was generally good for my health.

Flip and Chief showed up the next day. Flip quickly cut me out of the herd. “You look like you need something.”

“Do I?”

“We don’t have the trailer, but I’ve got–” He stopped mid-sentence, reading my face. “How’s your hand?”

I held them both up. “Getting there. But Zig and I wrote a song the other night. He was supposed to sing it. But he’s… not here, and so I’m trying to get up the nerve to sing it myself and it is just not happening.”

“You mean tonight at the church?” Flip ran his meaty hand through his hair, which was currently somewhat spiky on top and short all over. “Can you teach it to Remo?”

“It’s for a high tenor,” I said. “So that means Ziggy. Or me, I guess.”

“You guess.”

Flip didn’t know about Priss’s repeated insistence that, actually, my voice and Ziggy’s were very much alike. Or they could be if I strengthened the transition from my chest voice to my head voice. I felt a pang of loss over the routine I’d been in when Ziggy and I had first set up house in Boston, last year, when I’d been doing all my exercises and singing the hymns Priss had given me and working my fingers with the rubber bands… If only I’d kept it up, by now I’d surely be in great shape.

But I hadn’t.

“I’ll figure something out,” I finally told him. “I know Remo’s going to do a song, too. There’s a whole agenda. It’ll be fine.”

“You sure? I can always step in and do an acoustic ‘Amazing Grace’ or something.”

“You want to?”

“I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones do it and had to work it out for myself,” he said. “But if anyone is going to be doing any shredding up there, it should be you. And Reem,” he added. “This is about you expressing how you feel about losing her through your performance.”

“Huh. I figure I’m doing it because it was one of her dying wishes. But you’re probably right.” How I felt about her was complicated. How I felt about losing her was equally complicated.

Just thinking about it, I started to break down. Next thing you know I had both Flip and Colin holding me up in a kind of three-way hug while I bawled a bit. Soundcheck was only a few hours away; it was almost like old times. After that, they even got me dressed in a black suit with a black shirt, and I buckled my belt on the side so I wouldn’t scratch the back of the Miller.

More and more people showed up at the church who I hadn’t seen at the hotel. I caught sight of Jake with Landon on his hip. And there was Rose, good old Rose. (“Damn it, boy, she beat me to it. Oh damn, I said damn in a church.”) Lots of folks I didn’t know were there, too, but who I assumed were parishioners at the church.

Soundcheck was really more of a stage walk through than anything else, since there was only the one microphone right below the pulpit and so we were only going to use it for introductions. The music would be in plain air. The casket would be in front of the altar.

They call this kind of memorial service “The Reception of the Body.” I don’t know how other churches do it, but the way this was arranged, there would be three different services. This one was the “big” one, with the readings she chose and the performances, and where her embalmed body would be on display. On Sunday during the regular mass there would also be a reading and a presentation. And when her ashes were interred, there would be a short one at the graveyard.

Claire had at first insisted that she didn’t care what we did with her ashes. The church is kind of down on people keeping their loved ones remains on their mantelpieces or whatever, though. In the end she’d told us about the family plot in a cemetery in Westchester, where her own mother was buried.

Talk about things I’d never really thought about: Claire’s own mother died well before I was born. There had been a portrait photo of her and my grandfather hanging in the stairwell of the house where I grew up, but no one ever mentioned her or talked about her. My grandfather hardly ever said a word when he’d come to dinner on Sundays when I was a child (and then he stopped coming to
those). He was a gruff, distant, joyless man.

I wondered if he was still alive and if anyone had contacted him. I did not bring it up.

You know that priests have to have somewhere to hang their fancy robes and put their props, right? That means every church has a green room, only they call it a sacristy, which made me feel like maybe they were making an exception to let a heathen sinner like myself tune my guitar in there. The one in this church was on the south side with arched windows facing the setting sun. If I ignored the parking lot there was an okay view of some green hills.

Performing at your own mother’s memorial service doesn’t have to mean you spend the whole thing in the dressing room, but that’s where I spent mine. Remo and Flip were there for the first couple of minutes with me and then they joined the congregation and left me alone.

I sat with the guitar in my lap, my hand over the strings to keep them quiet, listening through the open door. I couldn’t really make out the words of the Bible verses being read, not very clearly, and did it matter? At my funeral they better not read from the Bible. They’ll have to find some other solemn and cryptic ancient text to read. Maybe some King Crimson lyrics.

I should have been thinking about Claire, I suppose. But all I could think about was the fact that Ziggy wasn’t there. As the sun sank over the parking lot, reality set in. He really wasn’t there.

I was going to have to do this alone.

If I could stop crying.

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