And we had love.

I had no idea why they stayed together since it seemed most the time, they hated each other’s guts, but that didn’t leak to me. Mom could be hard on me. Mom could make Dad lay down the hammer on me. But I knew others had it rougher.

Tim’s shit at home was whacked. He’d do anything to escape it.

And when I learned Preach’s story…

[Trails off]

But yeah, man. Yeah.

[Quietly] Yeah.

When Preacher said that to me, I grew two stories tall. I was goddamn Superman. I could conquer the world.

“Got a pen?” he said after that.

Hell no, I didn’t have a pen.

But you better fuckin’ believe I found one.

And with Tim and Ricky staring at us, Ricky not looking happy, Tim already fucked right the hell up in hero worship like me, Nicky walking up to us carrying Ricky’s snare and stand, doing that with his mouth hanging open, Preacher wrote his number on my palm.

When he was done, he said, “You wanna do somethin’ with that shit, call me.”

Then he walked away.

I’ll tell you what, I got home, and I wrote that number down on a piece of paper so fast, scared that shit would smear, my hand had to be a blur.

Bet if I still had that piece of paper, it’d go for a million.

No joke.

I’d never sell it though.

Frame it, yeah.

Sell it?

Not for a million dollars.

Okay, so me and Tim were seventeen, Nicky and Ricky already eighteen, Preach was twenty. I mean, [laughs] he’s like, adult to a seventeen-year-old, you know?

But he strolled into my garage in that way he moved for his first jam with us and Jesus.

Shit.

Just watching him move?

I could practically see the groupies straining toward us, screaming our names.

But then he played.

And sang.

Shit.

We had a band meeting after he left, and Ricky did not like Preacher at all. Wanted nothin’ to do with him.

“What’s an old guy like that want with us? It’s creepy, dudes,” he said.

Preacher was two years older than Ricky.

I gotta say, hindsight.

[Long pause]

“He’s totally gonna edge you out, Timmy,” Rick told Tim.

If I remember, Tim shrugged.

Everyone talks about it. How Tim was the light to Preach’s dark.

Man, when we…when we.

[Pause]

Preach stage left.

Tim stage right.

The fuckin’ bass, me in the middle.

Caught between light and dark.

My parents’ love for me. My sisters. Their hate for each other.

Then the band.

And then there was Lyla.

Caught between light and dark my whole life, you know?

Tim was not an attention guy. He wanted to play his guitar. He was more into the music than me. Definitely more than Nick or Rick.