Sunrise From Indigo
Back Porch: Joey
By skeabs

It's the end of a long day. Long because I had to find things to do to fill the hours from nine to five. The meetings that called you away are almost over now and I'm wasting the last few minutes on the back porch, fiddling with tunes and rhythms on my beat up guitar.

I remember you laughing when I bought it, because I had no idea what to do with it. I remember the righteous anger that drove me to learn an instrument, because I taught myself to play in protest to critics that claimed we couldn't play anything. Never mind that JC took his keyboard everywhere and wrote every song on it, from "Giddy Up" to "Game Over." He still writes on it, I guess, but more for himself than anyone else. He has nothing to prove to anyone.

Never mind that Justin never went anywhere without his own guitar, even before he knew how to play it. He learned not in protest, but so that he could write. It came naturally to him, music and rhythm, the notes pouring from him in a stream that felt like heaven and sounded like home.

And Chris, who wrote more because they told him he couldn't than because he really wanted to. But he could, and did, write and used his keyboard to do so, and could play well enough to get by.

You never bothered, because you knew who you were without it. You came in singing, and that's all we ever asked of you, all you ever gave us musically. You gave me so much more than you gave them. More than I ever asked for. More than I deserved.

I like to come out here as the sun begins to set. I like to watch the light depart and vanish from the secret corners of our backyard while I wait for you to come home. I'm barefoot, an open beer on the porch next to me, a cigarette dangling lazily from my lips, the smoke curling around me as I strum my guitar. The cigarette is a habit I don't often indulge in, but sometimes the setting is just so right, so perfect that it becomes the one thing missing.

You'll be home in a few minutes with stories of one of your rare days at work. You'll come through the house, setting down your briefcase, your coat, your tie, all the trappings of your job. You'll unbutton your shirt, roll up your sleeves, and kick off your shoes on your way out the back door. You'll pick up my beer and swallow half the bottle without coming up for air, and then you'll sit down behind me, your legs on either side of me, your hands around my waist between me and my guitar. You'll kiss my back before pressing your ear against it, and you'll listen to my heartbeat as you tell me about your day. Your voice will rumble through my chest, and my fingers will move to pick out deeper, more sustained notes that are more in tune with your low drawl. We'll sit like that till the sun sets and the sky is dark and the stars and fireflies come out.

We'll do all that because we've done it before, and we'll do it again, because comfortable routines aren't boring and aren't something to be fought against. They're something to fight for.

I am waiting for you.

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