Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Then I figured out where I’d heard the words better late than never before. I’d been at this boy Richard Nester’s birthday party. It was a fancy white house, with a huge lawn we played Red Rover on. All the other parents picked up their kids at the end, and after a while it was just me and Richard and Richard’s parents. They kept calling Jane at Schnucks, but she wasn’t picking up or available, and when they asked me where my father worked, I said he didn’t work at a place, my mother did, and even at that age I could tell they were a little embarrassed for me. Finally he showed up in our crap Dodge, and he didn’t even come out to get me or apologize to them, he only honked a few times from the big circular driveway they had. When I got in the car, he said, “Well, better late than never, kid.” He must say that a lot. In the car he talked on his phone to Jane and got angry, and instead of going home he drove for a long time on the highway without talking. I didn’t know where we were going and knew he didn’t have a plan, either, but there was something cool about that. We ended up at a diner on the highway and he said I could order whatever I wanted, he didn’t care, so I ate French toast for dinner, and by the time we got home it was dark. They got in one of their big fights, I remember. They must’ve broken up soon after, because that’s the last time I can remember him driving me anywhere.

Nadine called out that break was over. I folded the letter again. It would have been smarter to tear it up and flush it down the toilet, but I didn’t want to do it. I kind of liked having it inside my pocket, even though it would’ve done bad on one of Nadine’s composition tests since it didn’t use evocative language, which was actually what we did next.

I was writing the composition, on Nadine’s logic question:

The police are separately questioning you and your friend about a crime, and offer you both the same deal. You can either testify against your friend (say he is guilty) or claim he is innocent. (1) If only one of you testifies against the other, then the person who testified is freed, and his partner is put in jail for 12 months. (2) If you both claim the other is innocent, you are both put in jail for 1 month. (3) If you both testify against each other, you are both put in jail for 3 months. What should you do?

I couldn’t think straight, because the last few words from my father’s email kept playing on repeat in my head, and it was like I saw them written all over the walls in a jail cell: a father’s love a father’s love a father’s love a father’s love a father’s love

I finally said, “You should say the other guy’s innocent and hope he says it, too, because then you both have just a month in jail.”

Nadine explained that you should actually say the other guy is guilty, because you can’t guarantee he’ll cooperate and say you’re innocent. So if he does say you’re innocent, you get freed, and if he says you’re guilty, it’s not as bad as if you said he was innocent, and the other guy is probably using the same strategy, so you have to plan for that. I bet Jane would’ve figured it out even if she hasn’t studied logic, because of her street smarts.

“That’s not very nice to do, if it’s your friend,” I said.

“Well, it’s the right answer for a logic problem, but I agree. In real life I’d rather hang out with someone who says his friend is innocent,” she said. “Hey, you doing okay today?”

“I’m fine.”

“I forgive you for being somewhat distracted. You’ve had a lot of stressors recently.”

“I’m good at handling stressors.”

She smiled and said, “I apologize for the pop-psychology jargon.”

“I forgive you, too,” I said.

This time she laughed. She has a pretty laugh. I should tell my next producer to sample it and see if we could use it somehow. I bet she wouldn’t charge us, either.

“Maybe you’ll be okay after all,” she said, like she was watching me from very far away.

“I’ll be fine. This is a blip on the radar. The vultures will move onto the next thing in a minute.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “But, yes, that’s true.”

I didn’t ask what she meant. The last line of my father’s email was still bouncing around in my head as we drove to the venue and during sound check and in the star/talent room before the concert and while the Christian opener, which was called 3 Days Dead, played their fake alt-rock. They’d been drinking beer preshow, which if it wasn’t against Christian protocol, it still probably wasn’t the most religious thing to do and definitely not professional, and it got me pissed that the Latchkeys had to go home when these guys were way worse people and musicians. The concert finally snapped me out of it. You really do have to focus when you’re singing and dancing, and it ended up being a strong show, since the crowd was into it and I fed off their energy. There were all these signs up about the nightclub incident like LET THE HATERS HATE, WE ♥ U JONNY and THIS BIRD WILL ALWAYS BEE THERE FOR YOU and NO MATTER WHAT, YOU ARE THE ANGEL TO MY EYES. I told my instrumentalists not to come out for the second encore, and did an a cappella version of “U R Kewt” instead because I liked how it sounded with the kids with leukemia even though it was an idiotic choice for them. At the end of the concert I stayed out extra-long when they were cheering and invited up two cute girls onstage, which I never do, since it looks like I’m not a one-girl guy, which is the image we want to promote, and looped my arms around them and let them kiss me on each cheek at once.

But the minute I got back into the star/talent room, I reread my father’s email and still couldn’t figure out if he meant he was coming to my Cincinnati concert. I was hoping for more clues to his life, like what sports he liked, or what he thought of my music. I’d want him to like it, but the idea of some guy in his forties listening to my music was weird, too. Except he wasn’t just some guy, he was my father, so maybe it was okay.

Jane came in but I’d put the letter away and was unwinding with Zenon, and she told me she was going out for a late dinner with a promoter, and Walter would take me home and she’d see me in the morning before our ride to Nashville. “You sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.

“I’m having dinner with another adult in a restaurant, Jonathan,” she said. “I think that’s allowed.”

I was going to tell her about the New York Times article, but I kept quiet because this meant she’d be gone from her room and I had a chance to get inside it and write back.

Me and Walter took the car service back to the hotel, and because it was our first real face time since the scandal broke, he told me not to give a shit about it, it was just tight-asses who had nothing else to do and they’d quickly move on to the next thing because they love getting worked up over bullshit so they don’t have to think about things like wars and people starving and bankers stealing from everyone, and anyway part of being a rock star is acting wild, and I reminded him, “I’m not a rock star, I’m a pop star,” since the difference is that rock stars might seem bigger to people like him but they also drive off a lot of listeners with either their sound or their image, so most only secure a niche audience, but pop stars have a chance at dominating the entire market because there’s fewer offensive elements. To be a rock star, you basically have to push your freakiness, but pop stars in my mold have to be more relatable and push their normalness, which is not the regular normal, it’s like a super-normal, so all I’m supposed to talk about in interviews is sports and girls and spending time with my family and friends even though the only family I see is Jane and now I’ll probably never talk to Michael Carns again, but if fans don’t love you as a person, they won’t love your music.