Daron's Guitar Chronicles Vol. 13 (contd)

1099 Rocket Man

Rocket Man

One of the advantages of Ziggy being in stealth mode a lot then, was that his hair didn't have a lot of stuff in it. Which meant I could run my fingers through it. Right then it was silkier than a conditioner commercial.

So was mine. He buried his nose in it and breathed. "You used the hotel shampoo."

"Is that good?" I looked up at the hotel ceiling, which was like a flat eggshell above us except for the smoke alarm. A tiny red light blinked every now and then.

"Yes, it's nice, without going all the way to smelling like flowers."

"Christian started using this fancy stuff for a while–supposed to be good for long hair–that was rosemary something or other."

"I'm surprised you noticed."

"It was hard not to. Every time he walked past me I wanted to order a pizza."

He laughed and his breath was soft against my neck.

"I'm serious," I said, but it was good to hear him laugh. I sighed and let myself smile.

Ziggy rested his hand in its habitual position–on my heart. "So. You want to shoot the moon."

"Yeah." I knew there were so many ways it could go wrong. Some of which might get decided in courtrooms. "A guy can dream, right?"

"I like to hear your dreams," Ziggy said.

"Oh yeah? Did I ever tell you about the one with the flying burrito of doom?"

He snickered. "You did. Where it was ominously floating after us while we all ran away?"

"Yes, that's the one. And I wasn't even on any drugs."

"Your brain is weird enough without any drugs, dear one." He tucked his cheek against my chest then, his head in the crook of my arm. "I keep trying to imagine what it will be like to get back in the studio together."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," I said, then stopped to think. Why did I say that? That was kind of an odd thing to say. It came out automatically, like when someone asks how are you and you say "I'm fine" even when you're not. "Um, I think maybe I'm trying not to think about it, because I might jinx it." Or maybe because I wasn't ready to face what it would be like without Jordan.

Which got me to thinking about what recording 1989 had been like. In the loft in Chinatown that had been converted into a recording space. Ziggy and I had been... so hard on each other then.

"You just had a bad thought, didn't you."

"Can you tell?"

"You sort of seize up, like you're getting ready to bolt." He rubbed my chest in a circle and I made myself relax. "You don't have to tell me what it was if you don't want to."

Which of course made me want to. "I was just thinking about when we recorded 1989."

"At Mondo Z? You know I think it's gone. I think that whole building in Chinatown's empty now. Probably redeveloping it."

"Huh. I haven't been by there in ages." I wondered when he had. Or maybe he read it somewhere. "Yeah. I was thinking about how... hard it was."

"Recording?"

"Well, I mean how hard we were on each other." The moments when we were actually recording were the easy part. "I still regret the fight."

"Oh, man. Me too." He lifted up on one arm and looked down at me. "You know I don't think I ever really told you what was going on that night."