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Which brings me to now. Sitting on the balcony, under heavy cloud cover, my bare feet propped on the railing and a half-empty bottle of Two Buck Chuck sitting on the side table next to me, Taylor Swift’sMidnightssoothing my prickly feelings and filling me with female righteousness.
In my lap is a well-loved spiral notebook filled with pages of thoughts and lyrics. I’m not writing for me right now, but there’s comfort in the familiar process. I’ve been collecting words since I was a lonely teen in my bedroom while my parents worked through their bitter divorce. The unlikely but all-too-real contrast to my head cheerleader and weekend bridal model persona. Lines from poems, stanzas from songs, pages out of books, copy from glittering magazine ads. Thoughts borrowed from strangers that feel like connections. A stunning web of like minds, all carefully collected and copied down in blue ballpoint pen.
Whenever I’ve felt my craziest, I’ve gathered my courage from these pages.
You’re not alone,they’d whisper to me over and over.You’re one of us.
As of tonight, I have no recording contract, no credibility in country music, no tour with Drake Colter, and no agent. I’ve nearly run out of my savings, and I have no source of income to speak of. I have notebooks of songs, but they’re all pure country, so that’s a bust.
I could return to Michigan—to Shelby and Cameron, Maren and my students. There’s a pang in my gut, however, at the mere thought of leaving Nashville, and I’m not sure if it’s only about the music or if it’s something more. Someonemore.
A light drizzle starts to fall and with it, the smell of an impending storm. I slap my notebook shut and collect my bottle and pen just as the drops start to fall heavier and closer together and jog down the metal stairs and into my apartment, sliding the glass door shut behind me.
I turn on the light from the kitchen, putting away the rest of the wine and pulling out a jar of kalamata olives from the fridge. I grab a fork and then flop on my couch, pulling my tablet onto my lap, figuring to find a good serial killer doc to distract me from my current state. I’ve been avoiding email and social media since I left the radio station earlier, but I’m just tipsy enough to face them, so I make a detour from Netflix and click on my Instagram. I bypass all the DMs, since I already know that way lies madness. My notifications are so chaotic, I can’t even keep up, but from skimming the tagged posts, sound bites, and clickbaits, I have to say, it feels fifty-fifty on the hate scale. Which, honestly, isn’t terrible. There’s a clear separation between national coverage and conservative coverage, but at least no one is telling me to shut up and sing this time. I’m trending on Twitter, but it’s just my name, so I’ll take it.
My eyes snag on another trending name. WhoIsCraigBoseman and “Jonesin’.”
Huh. What?
I revert back to Instagram, and there on the home page is a face dear and familiar to me. He’s posted a video. He never posts videos. I click on the link and turn up the volume. Huck rarely sings. His voice isn’t really anything extraordinary, but I have to admit, the low, kind of growly tone of it sends little spasms of attraction through me, anyway.
He’s strumming a guitar, and if I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t be able to tell it’s not his instrument of choice. Not even the top three, but he plays smoothly.
But that’s not what everyone is talking about. It’s the song he’s playing.Hissong. I’ve heard it a million times. Everyone has. Drake made it famous, but this is different. It’s as though Craig is playing it the way it was meant to be played—the way it was meant to sound. Drake’s version is polished and precise. Manufactured in an expensive studio with the best, highest-quality equipment available.
Craig is playing it in a tiny, dark space. The sound quality is more than fine, but it feels intimate. Uncut and raw, somehow. Like he’s playing it from his bedroom the morningafter.Like I just left.
And then he surprises me—surprises us all—with an entire bridge never heard before.
So I’m here, my door unlocked
My bed unmade, my heart unblocked
I’m right here, begging you to come back
To reach across, to be my one
And only then, will I find peace
My soul can rest, I’ll breathe with ease
Until that day, here I’ll remain,
Craving her, I’m jonesin’
I press my fingers to my lips, my eyes filling with proud tears. “You brilliant man,” I whisper to the ceiling between us.
He’s done it. He’s found a way to claim his song.
20CRAIG
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Craigboseman ***Presented Without Comment***
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