Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

“That’s like in Zenon,” I said. “A lot of times, the opposite of what you think you should do works best.”

He asked me more about the game, and I told him how to play and what it was like as we got closer to the star/talent room. It felt like when you’re in a party of adventurers in Zenon, which happens a couple times on certain levels, and you each have a specific skill. My father would be the cartographer, even though he didn’t bring maps when he hiked in Kansas. I’d be the bard, I guess, which wasn’t really a skill, but sometimes you did meet bards in Zenon, only I didn’t play any instruments. It reminded me of that time we were in the car after Richard’s birthday party, when we drove on the highway, except this time we knew where we were going. And it also was like when me and Zack ran through the hallways in the Memphis hotel. But Zack was only using me to get into the nightclub, just like he used my Walmart fans to broaden his base. Me and my father were on a real adventure together. And hiding from Jane and venue security in the Garden tunnels was way more like the Underground Railroad than the Memphis hotel was.

“Maybe we could go there someday,” I said. “I don’t have a foothold in the Australian market yet, but we’d probably still bring along my bodyguard, Walter, for security. You’d like him.”

“That would be nice,” he said.

When we got close to the star/talent room, I realized that Jane might be waiting outside for me. So I told my father that we had to go around to the rear. I don’t think he knew why I said that. We found our way to it, and the hallway was empty. I listened in at the door for a second, since I didn’t want him noticing it and asking me why I was being so careful.

I didn’t hear anything, so I turned the knob and cracked it open. Me and Walter had forgotten to lock it, which was stupid because anyone could’ve come in when I was playing Zenon and kidnapped or killed or molested me. It was empty and the front door was closed. “Stay here a second,” I said.

I went inside and ran to the front door and locked it, and opened the back door for my father. “Are you inviting me in?” he asked.

I didn’t know why he was asking such an obvious question, and why he kept using the word inviting, like I was going to say, No, I’m just opening the door to show you how cool the star/talent room is and then I’m closing it on you. But I said yes, and after he did, I locked the back door.

Man, if he was a child predator, this was like hitting the jackpot: Jonny Valentine locking himself in a room with you without a security presence.

He looked awkward in the star/talent room, sizing up the buffet table and beanbag chairs and flat-screen like he’d never seen anything like it before. I went over to the buffet and grabbed a plate. “You want some food?”

“Are you having any?”

I wasn’t even hungry, but I could tell he’d feel weird about eating if I didn’t, so I piled some pasta on my plate. It didn’t matter anymore now that the tour was over. I could gain ten pounds of chub and then me and Jane would go on a maple-syrup-and-cayenne master cleanse for two weeks. “Yeah. They’ll throw it out if I don’t.”

“Then I’ll have a little.”

He started with a small serving of the pasta, but then, just like Tyler, he took some of just about everything, the steak and salmon and quiche and all the rest. Even Walter didn’t eat this much at my concerts, and that includes days he’d lifted when he needed to replenish with carbs and protein. My father didn’t look like he lifted, but like he had lean muscle from his construction work, which probably toned specific zones, like how Peter’s forearms were so defined from cooking. Maybe me and him and Walter could squeeze in a session at the hotel gym together.

He looked around the room again. “I used to think you were special, the way you’d sing around the house,” he said. “But I figured all fathers think that about their kids. I had no idea how right I was.”

In some ways that was better than hearing we’d broken ninety thousand in Internet sales.

We were chewing while standing, so I booted up Zenon and plopped down on one of the two beanbags in front of the TV, and he sat on the other. I explained how I was finally at the Emperor but I couldn’t beat him. I put the TV on mute so no one would hear me playing.

The same thing as before happened when I went into the Emperor’s lair. I attacked, he deflected, and he fully damaged me with one cut from his halberd. My father kept saying things, like “Whoa!” and “Watch out!” and “Nice try!” Before my fourth try he suggested, “How about letting him attack you first and wear himself out?” which was a smart idea, but I still got damaged with the first hit. I kept trying and getting damaged to zero percent and restarting from my saved game.

“Did you do construction in St. Louis, too?” I asked.

“Yeah. Most of the time. Don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“And your mother never told you?” I shook my head. “Did you tell her I was coming tonight?”

“Do you remember that time I went to this kid Richard’s birthday party?” I asked. “You picked me up and drove on the highway for a few hours and we went to a diner?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But did you tell Jane I was coming?”

I didn’t answer his question again. “They lived in this super-nice house with a huge lawn. I was the last one at the party. You let me order French toast for dinner.”

“There’s a lot I don’t remember from those years,” he said. “It’s nothing personal. I’m sure we had a good time.” He watched me get damaged again by the Emperor. “Aw, I thought you had him!”

As my character was departing the realm for like the seventh time in a row and my ghost slipped up into the air, I said, “Why’d you have to go.”

I didn’t say it like a question. I just said it like it was too bad we couldn’t restart our life from then, from that time at the diner, and he could know I’d become famous and rich later on, and he’d stick around. I didn’t turn to watch his reaction, but I could tell he didn’t know how to respond, even though he’d probably practiced answering it. He didn’t say anything while my saved game restarted.

Finally he said, “It’s very complicated, Jonathan.”

It was the first time he’d said my name. Plus Jonathan sounded super-strange out of his mouth and not Jane’s, even if he’d called me it in emails and probably called me it when I was little. “Why?”

We both watched my character run into the dungeon and get damaged again. I didn’t know how I was ever going to beat this Emperor. “We had problems.”

“Like what?”

“Like money problems, for instance.”

“I thought you said you had a job.”

“You can have money problems even when you have a job.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. It was a long time ago.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m very sorry. You deserved better. Every day I’ve been gone I’ve thought that.” He pulled an envelope out of his jacket. “I brought you something. I know it’s not your birthday for about a month, but in case I don’t see you then.”

He took out a four-by-six photo of me as a little kid in front of the Cardinals’ old stadium, wearing a Cardinals hat way too big for my head, sitting on top of his shoulders like I was at the riverfront concert. Maybe he always did that after the concert so I couldn’t get lost in crowds. “Remember this? The first game I took you to?”

“No. I only remember watching a game once on TV with you while it was raining.” I didn’t ask if he remembered the riverfront concert.