Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

“Thank you, but we’re late to Jonny’s sound check,” she said, which was a lie. Sound check wasn’t until after I tutored with Nadine and we could always cut that short and make up the time later.

“I’m going in.” Jane wouldn’t stop me now.

“I’ll wait out here,” she said. Her face was icy, the most since she’d been at the hospital, even more than in the burn unit. Her body was turned sideways, and she hadn’t looked inside the window once the whole time.

It was weird. When we walked into the room, I felt like I’d already been here, right in the room with all the premature babies, like at the start of the tour or something. That drawing of Jane as a baby in the New York Times had mixed me up. But I stopped thinking about it once I saw them. They were like half the size of regular babies and were sleeping in their little boxes, with bluish skin and pinched eyes and tiny arms and legs and scraps of hair. One of the nurses asked us not to go closer than a few feet and told the photographers not to snap any photos, so we stood and watched.

I wished I could hold one of them, since I’d never held a baby before and they were still pretty cute. It’s kind of hard not to find a cute baby. And it’s just as hard to find a cute adult. Jane says that’s a reason I’ll maintain my appeal, my naturally boyish looks. The second I develop facial hair I’ve got to learn how to shave.

The nurse talked about the challenges premature babies face, and it sounded bad, like a lot of them develop brain and vision problems, and unlike most of the other kids in the hospital who’d gotten bad luck later in life but at least they probably had some normal years first, these babies were damaged from the start all because they were born too soon. It could happen to anyone, but it happened to these babies. I could’ve been one of these babies, or the girl in the burn unit, or the kid with leukemia, or the girl in the wheelchair in St. Louis, or that fat woman Mary Ann in Schnucks, or Walter or Nadine or Rog, or the PR rep, or even Tyler Beats, which is the best of all those, but it wouldn’t be anything I chose, just something that happened to me, and maybe you choose a few things after that, but it’s mostly not up to you.

Right away I wanted to get out of the premature infants room and to leave the hospital completely, so I whispered to the PR rep that I was ready to go to my sound check, and she led us all out. Jane was typing on her phone a few feet away from the window with her back to us.

We went to the PR rep’s office, and she told me I could wait in there while her and Jane and everyone dealt with photo release forms in another room. Her computer was on, and the screen showed the hospital’s website. I didn’t wait, I just went around to her side of the desk and opened a new window and got into my email account. As I waited to sign in, I noticed a framed candid photo next to the printer of the PR rep and this bald guy with a big smile and a bulky polo shirt and dorky jean shorts and their son, hiking somewhere.

My email had tons of spam again. One message said “How to become rich and famous in 30 days!” which sounds like something only idiots would fall for, but I did do it almost that fast, if you time it from when Jane uploaded my first YouTube videos to when we signed with the label. Most successful musicians take much longer to make it, Rog always tells me, and I’m the lucky exception, and he thinks that when stories like mine get so much press, it gives young musicians the wrong idea that they can hit it big overnight, so they don’t work as hard at their craft, they just hope someone will come along and discover them on the Internet.

I searched for Albert’s name, and my stomach jumped up to my chest because there was one new email from him, written a few days after I’d sent him the photo. I opened it but it was longer than his others and I was afraid of Jane coming back and catching me reading it.

I’ve had to print Nadine’s homework instructions from hotel printers before, so I figured out how to print it. Except the printer got jammed, and I had to yank out the smeared page and reprint.

I heard different voices down the hall. The page started printing, and I signed out of email and closed the window and hoped the printer would work this time or else I was screwed.

The voices were coming closer. The page came out halfway and stopped for a second and I nearly punched the printer, because it was like it kept delivering a premature infant. But it restarted and got the rest out. I grabbed it and folded it into my pocket and sat in the guest chair and pretended to look bored while my blood drummed a hip-hop beat inside my head as Jane came in with the PR rep to get me. I couldn’t get out of that hospital soon enough, and neither could Jane. In the car service, she said, “I hope those vultures are satisfied.”

I didn’t get a chance to read the email since she took me straight to my room at the hotel and waited with me until Nadine showed up for our session. The letter was like a heat source in Zenon burning up my pocket as Nadine chattered on about word problems and why water freezes and other stuff I couldn’t focus on. Finally we took a break and I went to the bathroom and read the email.

So it looks like you might really know Jonathan or maybe I am writing to Jonathan himself. Please forgive me for being suspicious. When I tried to reach out in the past I only heard from people who are pulling my leg. If you aren’t him, please pass this on to him:

You must be turning 12 pretty soon. I don’t remember much about being 12 except that was when I started thinking about girls. I’m sure you have a lot more options than I did! If I’m able to send you a birthday present, I’ll do it.

Did you know I played drums in high school? I was even in a band for a year. We called ourselves the Wrecking Balls. It was heavy metal. We were pretty bad, so I know you didn’t get your musical talent from me!

I couldn’t get in touch the last few years on account of being in Australia and I feel awful about it. Jane doesn’t want anything to do with me. It’s hard to make amends when you’re not allowed to make them. There are many things I would like to say to you but I don’t feel comfortable saying them over an email. But I do want to say one thing, better late than never. I’m sorry to you for not being there because there are some things in life you can’t replace, and one of them is a father’s love.

Al

P.S. When you have your concert in Cincinnati I might be there too.

I had a million questions. Did he mean he’d be at my concert, or he was only going to be in Cincinnati? And if I even wanted to meet him, was it against the law because of the letter in Jane’s room? And when he tried to contact me before, did he go through the label and no one believed him or Jane stopped him like he made it sound and like I bet she did with Michael Carns because his image wasn’t cool enough, or did he just put it out on the Internet and I never saw it?

I pictured me and my father taking a plane to Sydney for the music festival there I almost played in and him inviting all the friends he’d made there to come hear me. He’d introduce me to the crowd, and he’d be as famous in Sydney as me, and he’d manage my Australia/New Zealand tour because he had so many connections there. He’d be like the Australian Jane. Except he’d also play drums to back me up, and for the drum solo in “RSVP (To My Heart),” when it’s supposed to sound like my heart beating faster and faster because the girl just sent her RSVP to be my girlfriend, I’d do my trademark spin move right next to my father while he played, and you wouldn’t be able to tell who the crowd was cheering for, him or me, because they all knew him and they didn’t really know me since I didn’t have a foothold in the Australian market yet. And at night we’d hang out with his Australian friends, who were normal guys who had no idea who I was. They just liked my father.