A Date with Greer Scotchley

Rock

 

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

If a wine glass breaks and you don’t mop up the spill, does it make a feeling?

The linoleum looked like a crime scene.

It was just cheap Merlot.

She’d clean it up later.

Shannon Kerrel plucked the essay from the shoebox, read a few lines.

The teacher gave her an A for content but marked her down for turning it in printed in pink ink.

5th Grade.

Fuck you, Mr. Venable, I’m forty-one and I have a worse idea than turning in an essay in pink ink.

Shannon walked toward the door, stopped, and deleted the rest of the dating apps.

It was dusk by the time she got to Greer Scotchley’s grave.

Her first trip, even though it was only a fifty minute drive from the house.

Greer’s fans were nocturnal, right? They’d visit at night, right?

Her therapist’s voice said, “Can we talk about this, examine it a bit?”

Shannon shook that off. They’d talk about it later.

No one was at the grave, but they had been. 

There were empty beers and full ones, one of the cans sweating as though it had recently been cold.

There were candles in glass and loose ones, votives and tapers.

There was a nearly illegible note signed “Chuck.”

A guitar and a tambourine were etched into the stone. 

Why a tambourine? Did Greer play tambourine on a song she hadn’t heard?

She sat as the sun slunk behind still pines, and when it was almost dark Shannon sang  “Veins of Alibi” and cried.

No one would approach without her seeing headlights in the cemetery, and no one who loved Greer Scotchley could make fun of her for crying at his grave.

She sang the song again, stronger this time.

When she checked into a MotoLodge Nine motel she knew she might be losing it a bit.

But…really…how much more dangerous was a rockstar’s gravesite than a dating app?

You could just drive home, Shannon, then come back tomor…no…she wanted to get there early. One whole day.

She hated the quotation marks etched around “Greer Scotchley”. 

The gravesite also bore his birth name, Daniel Van Serrivien.

Shannon had not included that in her pink ink essay.

Right around the time she started getting hungry for lunch, Mike showed up.

Mike was cute as hell, too young for her, and pronounced “Armageddon” with an extra long e after the last d and it annoyed her.

When Mike genuflected and left, Shannon decided she was happy that someone much younger appreciated Greer’s music, even if he mispronounced song titles.

Tara and Dublin stopped by, holding hands, introduced themselves and Shannon remained silent while they sang “Peasant Undertow.”

They did a good job.

Nick pulled up, way too far on the grass for Shannon’s liking. He was her age, but bragged about how many times he had seen Greer, how good his seats were, and he had a shoddy tattoo of the illustration of the trampled soldier on the back of the first album, “Guts.”

Her own voice, her therapist’s, her sisters’, all began screaming “You’re not gonna find your soulmate here, Shannon, pull it together.”

A Triumph pulled up, rider yanking off his helmet and hanging it from a clip on the saddlebags in one motion. 

Smooth.

The guy could have been Greer Scotchley, if Greer Scotchley had lived past 27.

His name was Art, he was panty-soaking good looking, seemed kind, articulate and couldn’t stay long because he and his wife and kids were headed for the Porcupine Mountains this weekend. 

He pulled a cold beer from a small bag, tapped it on the lower shelf of the gravestone three times, said “scar me like ya mean it, I’ll always drink to that,” from “Like You Mean It”, took a swig, left the rest, gave Shannon a quick hug that she would fantasize was an hour and took off.

Shannon folded her legs and sat in front of the grave.

She wondered what a young Daniel would have been like–not the brief biographical stuff that asshole Steve Silver wrote in his book–but really like to be a friend of.

She swore this was the year she would learn the piano part of Vulture Pageant, do that 5k, and…a shadow hit the gravestone.

Shannon turned, startled from her New Greer’s Resolutions, and looked at the older woman.

The woman smiled at Shannon warmly, but there was more to it.

“It’s quiet today. I can’t come on the weekends, it’s just such a madhouse.”

The look had been relief.

Shannon said “You come a lot, huh?”

The woman smiled. “Maybe not as much as I should.”

Shannon blurted “What’s your favorite album?”

The woman laughed, enough that she wobbled a bit and held herself steady with a four legged cane.

“Ohh, sweetheart, he was my son. I hate them all.”

The woman laughed again, heartily.

Shannon jumped up as though she was supposed to salute or…anything.

Shannon blurted “Carol?” Her brain chemistry had fired right, she remembered from an old, old magazine article. The woman smiled. 

“Yes, dear, have we met here before? I’m sorry. I meet so many of Greer’s fans that-”

“No,no, no…amazingly this is my first time. Other than yesterday.”

“Two days in a row? I’m so glad that he meant so much to you.”

Shannon could have spilled anecdotes from a lifetime of fandom.

Instead she said “I’m looking for someone who understands me.”

Carol paused. Her smile turned empathetic. “He’s been gone a long time. It’s so touching–”

“I meant another fan,” Shannon said, slowly and as politely as possible. “Starting a relationship off with some common ground, some…”

Shannon shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to…I…”

Carol stepped forward.

“You mean a man?”

Shannon nodded, blushing.

“Wanna talk about men, darling? There’s a great little Italian joint just off Metro Parkway and Harrison. C’mon. You hungry? Let’s go talk about men. Might ruin our appetite, but we’ll have fun.”

Carol Van Serrivien took Shannon’s hand.

“Let’s go have some wine and some pasta, honey, and we’ll talk.”

Shannon Kerrel looked back at the gravestone.

“C’mon, dear,” Carol said. “Lunch is on Danny.”

***