The Figure in the Frame: ch. 6 cleveland

 

6. cleveland

He dreamed of being a rockstar.

Ever since his parents put a guitar in his hands on his seventh birthday, he wanted to know all there was to know about how to compose music.

In middle school he was shunned by his teachers for being too "out there," too focused on his passions. Later, he would hate himself for more complex reasons that still stemmed from that flaw embedded in him. He studied, only because he was told he had to.

High school came around and he kept playing, except now, he was stupid enough to write his own lyrics. They were middling anthems about sex (he wasn't get any), drugs (a toke on a joint at a party once gave him the authority to write about high times), and rock 'n roll (he preferred alternative, technically). He kept these in a journal his father bought him when his mother ran away with a younger man named Tim. This was grade nine. His father told him she was dead. When he found out the truth years later as an adult he decided he still hated his father less than her.

Hate. Such a strong word. He didn't think he had the capacity to feel such a feeling. Like love, it required a lot of effort. He just didn't have it in him. All he wanted to do was write music, perform, and make a living off of it. He played in local Battle of the Bands competitions; he even actively pursued gigs in local coffee shops, where customers sipped overpriced coffee and spoke about their own issues in their own lives, uninterested in what he had to say about whatever topic he decided to tackle that week. Nothing stuck. Not even the perseverance he knew he needed when he finished high school to get done what he had always dreamed of doing.

Today, he stood outside the Hall of Fame, where better musicians have captured the masses with their talent—talent he severely lacked.

What does he stand for? Fuck if he knows.

For him, the Hall of Fame is more a reminder of his own inability than it is a commemoration of the achievements of others. Seeing it wrenches his guts. 

Still, he takes a photo.