Rooms - James L. Rubart [48]
After playing his version of the Beatle’s “Blackbird,” he set the Martin aside, picked up the Les Paul, plugged into an amp, and cranked the volume.
The riding-a-bike principle applied. It had been at least four years since he’d picked up any guitar, let alone his own, but this felt like it were yesterday. The Crate amp pumped out a warm stream of sound with just a hint of distortion, and it was high school rock ’n’ roll all over again. He lost himself in it, closed his eyes as the music washed over him, and remembered all those licks he’d learned through endless repetition. When he finally stopped, his eyes lasered in on the recording equipment. Why not?
He roamed around the mixing board and played with the digital editing software, trying everything. Amazing. The learning curve was phenomenal. Not how hard it was but how easy. It was instinctual, as if the room itself guided him along on two separate waves of intellect and inspiration.
By seven o’clock he’d made a CD of four instrumental pieces, with bass, drums, and a piano section to accompany his guitars. He took the CD with him to the kitchen and listened to it as he mashed up avocados for guacamole.
Was he hearing the music for the first time? His head knew he wasn’t, but his emotions didn’t. The soaring guitar solos ripped open his heart, and he wept. He fell back and caught himself on the kitchen counter. A thought filled his mind.
Songs from the deepest part of you: your heart. So many good things are trapped there. So much of My glory. Your good heart cries for that glory. Remember, Micah. Remember who you are.
He went for a long walk on the beach that night. The talk with God was even longer.
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The next morning he stopped for gas, and Rick stepped up to the pump.
“Wow, out among your adoring public this morning, huh?” Micah said.
“Yeah, gotta press the flesh every now and then. And give the paparazzi their weekly chance for a photo op.” Rick winked. “Still got the Washington State plates, I see.”
“I’m not down here permanently. Plus I’ve only been around for three months.”
“Really? Seems like more, ya know?”
“Actually I’d have no way of knowing that since I’m not you,” Micah replied, with what he hoped was a crooked smile on his face.
Rick pulled back his grease-smeared Rams cap and squinted at him through the morning sun darts. “But you’ve been here long enough for me to know I wouldn’t get an acerbic comment like that from you unless something, or someone, poured oil all over your Wheaties this morning.”
“I need to talk.”
“In my office?”
“My midsection says the Fireside.” Micah patted his stomach.
“Mine agrees. Meet you there in twenty.”
Micah walked toward Morris’s Fireside and debated how much to tell Rick. He still wasn’t ready to talk about the voice.
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“How do you stay so clean working on cars all day?” Micah said as Rick slid into the seat across the table.
“I’m an angel. We stay clean automatically.”
They both laughed.
“So talk to me. What’s going on?” Rick said.
“I think I’m losing it. Hold it. Make that past tense. I’ve lost it.”
“The insanity hasn’t reached your face quite yet.”
“Good sign, huh?”
Rick stared at Micah, his arms resting on the table, head tilted slightly to the side. Micah decided to start with a shocking statement.
“I think my house is alive. And getting bigger.”
Rick didn’t give him a strange look or pretend he didn’t hear right. “Tell me about it.”
After the waitress took their order, Micah told him about the new room—the music room—and reminded Rick about the memory room and the shrine room.
“Why do you say the house is growing?”
“The shrine room might have been there before I saw it, but the memory room and the music rooms definitely weren’t.”
Rick’s eyes widened. “Weren’t there?”
“Exactly.”
Rick glanced around the restaurant and leaned forward. “You’re saying the rooms weren’t there one day and the next day they were?”
“I went through the whole house the first time I came. They were not there. They are now. I wouldn’t have missed them.