Because, if I’m being honest, getting that degree was another failure in a succession of failures. I know that sounds absurd, but it’s true. Going to college wasn’t a risky decision. It wasn’t brave. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to do. It was what my father expected of me. The one thing I’d wanted to do with my life—the big dream that would have given depth to my soul and confidence to my heart—I didn’t have the guts to go after.

The last thing Sid said to me before he sent me off into my future was, “You’ve got tremendous potential, Joe. Promise me you’ll do something with it.”

Like I said, that was a long time ago. And for every step forward since, I’ve taken three steps back.

October called it doing the Hokey Pokey. The month before I abandoned her at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, disappearing without explanation, she said, “That’s how you live your life, Joe.” She leaned in close to my face and sang: You put your left foot in, you take your left foot out, you put your right foot in then you freak the fuck about.

It never ceased to amaze me, the way she seemed to perceive what I was feeling when I was feeling it. I’ve always been skilled at hiding my emotions, but October runs on intuition and empathy like cars run on gasoline. And when she addressed me in that voice of hers, full of love and compassion and other sanguine motivations few people possess with that kind of authenticity, I wavered between wanting to throw her off the Golden Gate Bridge and fuck her brains out. Not that I had the balls to do either.

Anyway, if you want to know what my big dream was, I can sum it up in one word: guitar.

I started playing when I was twelve, and by the time I was sixteen I was as good as a kid could be. And this wasn’t according to me; it was according to just about everyone who saw me perform, including the guy who played guitar for Journey, who had been a child prodigy himself back in the 1970s and lived in my hometown of Mill Valley, a small, woody enclave north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, at the base of Mount Tamalpais, Marin County’s highest peak. The Journey guy saw me and Cal perform at an open mic night in town; afterward he came over, shook my hand, and told me I was a genius.

Cal was my best friend all through high school, and to this day the best friend I’ve ever had. The summer we met he could already sing, play guitar and drums, and within days of our meeting, he informed me that as soon as we graduated we were going to move to Brooklyn, start a band, and become legends. We even cut the tips of our thumbs and sealed the deal with our blood so there could be no turning back. We were going to call the band Blood Brothers in honor of our commitment.