Chapter 75

“Life equals running and when we stop running maybe that’s how we’ll know life is finally finished.”
—Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

17 NOVEMBER 2019

I have money I didn’t know about. Or I forgot about. It’s in a PayPal account that has been inactive for over a year. But the money is still there. I have (or have had, according to my account on YouTube) up to 130 subscribers to my channel. The money in my PayPal account comes from people who see the video and the little banner at the bottom that has my PayPal.me account written on it. So, I never ‘charge’ for a video concert, but people can donate to me. What’s more, non-subscribers can also tune in to my performances and many have donated. There is over $2,000 in my PayPal account. I need to find out about how to turn that into real money, like in a bank or something.

I can’t believe that all these people paid money to watch me play the guitar. And at the same time, I can see possibilities. There are still sixty-seven subscribers to the channel, most of whom probably just forgot they were subscribed when I went silent. A few are more recent viewers who subscribed, not realizing that I wasn’t posting anything new.

It just never occurred to me that I could make money playing the guitar. I need to rethink this seriously.

With four and a half weeks left in the semester—the half-week because of Thanksgiving—teachers were all assessing what they had covered and how much they had to speed up during the remainder of the semester to finish their material. I was luckier than some. Teachers who had two-semester courses were a little more laid back than those who had to cover the remainder of their syllabus before December twentieth. Unfortunately, that meant my entrepreneurship class with Desi was being accelerated.

The good part was that I’d had no idea what to use as a sample business for my start-up plan and now I had an idea. I would create a music business. I was online half the time we were in class, researching how people made money in music. We didn’t need to have an elaborate plan, but it had to include a market assessment, product or service development component, market entry strategy, and sustainability plan. The biggest thing I was stuck on was deciding if my music was a product or a service. There was nothing tangible, though people could download and share the videos. The key element was finding a way to actually sell it instead of just accepting donations.

I had a long talk with Em on her birthday Saturday. I’d just finished a full 10k run, trying to get my pace down. I could run a 5k in 21 minutes. Nanette wanted me to hold just under that pace for 10k. Fortunately, at 7:30 per mile, she and Livy could run the same pace. Livy dropped out at 5k and walked the shortcut back to our car. I managed a 48-minute 10k and just dropped when I reached the car.

Livy dropped on top of me.

After we’d cooled down and stretched, we still had time to sneak off into the bushes and make love before Nanette finished her run. She looked at us a little strangely when we got in the car but didn’t say anything.

The shine was already wearing off Em’s new job. She’d had two weeks of on-the-job training, working with a driver who was a year older than her. She’d had the past two days making deliveries on the route alone.

“You know they say the army is all ‘hurry up and wait’? Well, driving this damn truck is the same way. I have to be at the warehouse by six in order to get in line to load my truck. Any later and the line will be so long I won’t get out until ten and then it will be seven p.m. when I finally finish the delivery. So, I’m in line at six with about five trucks ahead of me but the warehouse crew doesn’t show up until seven and it takes forty-five minutes before my truck gets to the dock. By the time I’m loaded, I get on the road at eight and can finish by five,” she said.

“Are you driving a big rig?” I asked.

“No. A twenty-six-foot delivery truck. Everything I’m involved with is getting fresh fruit and vegetables to the various camps. There are fifty thousand troops and sailors stationed within a hundred miles and their kitchens have to be stocked with fresh food daily. We deliver food that gets prepared for the next day’s meals.”

“Seems like they’d want it fresher than that. At least they aren’t having you deliver at four in the morning.”

“There’s been talk of that, but the harvest trucks are loaded in the field during the day and get to the warehouse around eight at night. They keep coming in from various fields all night long, depending on how far away they are. Having us load to deliver would jam the docks. What would really save everyone work, would be if the trucks from the fields just made the deliveries. But of course, that would mean no dispatcher in the middle and the kitchens would get five or six small deliveries a day instead of one since the trucks from the field usually only carry one product. Say, lettuce,” Emily said.

“It sounds incredibly boring.”

“I like the people. Most of them are my age or just a little older. We all have the same issues. There’s a whole fashion line of ‘Repeal 28’ clothing now. The supervisors have made threatening noises about getting rid of them, but a few are wearing them, too.”

“Say, Em, this will sound really off the wall but it’s something I forgot after the accident. I think maybe there was an association that I didn’t want to make. Did you know I have a YouTube channel?” I asked.

“Oh, J! You remembered! I was so afraid you had buried that part of your past. I helped you set it up. I was ... I was uploading your last video when you ... the accident,” Em sobbed.

“Would you be upset if I started doing it again?”

“No! I’d love it.”

“Then consider it a birthday present, my love. I’ll do one tomorrow morning.”

“Call me if you need help uploading! While I’m probationary, I have weekends off. In two months, I’ll probably get the grueling weekend shifts. That’s what usually happens to junior drivers. Either way, I’ll be tuning in to hear you play.”

I was committed. I called Livy and Nanette and told them I wouldn’t run until Sunday afternoon. When I told them why, they both promised to listen before we ran. I was not going to play live, so they could listen any time they wanted to.

I studied all seven and a half hours of V2’s videos and picked up where they were recorded and how. He used the computer cam. It wasn’t great quality and the camera never moved as he played. If this worked, I was going to buy a higher def camera and a good digital pickup. I reminded myself to put that in my business startup plan as a capital expenditure.

I had to bite my tongue in order to not say anything or to apologize. V2 had never spoken in any of the fifteen videos. I was going to stay as true to his style as possible. I wasn’t sure how much prep work V2 had done for each video. Obviously, he practiced what he planned to play, but he never announced the name of the piece or anything else about it. He just pushed the bed to one side and played in front of that graffiti wall. I would do the same thing.

This was more to me than just playing my guitar and a business proposal. In a way, this was a tribute to V2—the young man I’d never really known who gave his life so I could live. That’s how I thought of him now. He wasn’t just a younger version of myself. He was the tortured young artist I hoped never to become. He was a soul separate from my own. He begged the powers to let him die and give me his body. He left me this incredible talent and I determined to honor him with it.

I made a couple of goofs so bad I had to start over on a piece. That meant I had to do some editing. I was sure people would notice, but it wasn’t too bad. All I had to do was review the position I was in just before the piece started and get back in it as closely as I could. The video editing software on my computer was pretty good and I was able to make the edits without pulling out all my hair. Then I uploaded the video and went to have Sunday dinner with my parents.

Our Sunday afternoon run was an easy three-mile course and we ran together slowly enough for conversation. Both Livy and Nanette gave me a strange look when I got in the car. I checked to make sure my tackle was securely caught in my jockstrap. Once we were on the trail, the talk was all about the upcoming run. Livy had a basketball game Tuesday night, but we were off for Thanksgiving Wednesday through Sunday. We’d drive down to Bloomington on Friday morning and check out the course for the three races. I guess there was a fourth race—an ultramarathon—that started in Greencastle about four in the afternoon on Friday and the first runners were scheduled in Bloomington not long after the completion of the marathon.

I was seriously thinking about my AP US History homework by the time we got home. That was not to be. Livy’s car was at our house, of course. I also recognized Rachel’s and Joan’s. There were two other cars I didn’t recognize parked in front of the house. What the hell?

Peyton hit me like the sixty-pound dynamo she was as soon as I stepped up on the porch. I almost fell backwards off the steps.

“Hey, kiddo. What’s up?”

“It’s so beautiful. You won’t kill yourself, will you, J?” My little sister sobbed into my chest as I carried her into the house with Nanette and Livy right behind me. All our girlfriends were there. Livy’s parents and Rachel’s parents along with their younger siblings were there. Brittany’s sisters and aunt were there. The place was packed.

I heard guitar music. Turning toward the living room, I saw someone had connected my YouTube performance to the TV. There I was in all my glory, playing the guitar. I nearly threw up.

“You could have told us,” Beca said as she hugged me. “Did you think we wouldn’t want to know?”

“I ... It just never crossed my mind.”

“Livy called me this morning as soon as she heard it,” Rachel said. “I called everyone else.”