Chapter Four
Four
All right, so my mom—and the entire internet, I guess—was not entirely wrong.
The guy is, at minimum, a poet.
And a spectacular vocalist.
And perhaps a musical genius.
I’m only three hours into the eight-hour bus ride to Memphis and I’ve already listened to his entire discography.
The snoring older woman with the trucker hat over her face to my left doesn’t seem to mind my finger-tapping and occasional humming, but the teenage boy and his dad across the aisle have given me a few well-deserved glares.
When I catch myself singing along with one song’s grandiose backing gospel choir, I turn two shades of pink and pull my ratty Cherry Grove High hoodie over my head.
I’ve also completed my Google research, and here’s what I’ve discerned: Thomas Patrick Halloran—Thomas Patrick Flynn O’Halloran by birth, per Wikipedia—is pretty private.
He doesn’t do many interviews. He still lives in some small town called Killarney.
He’s released two albums—a critically acclaimed debut, To the End , and the new release he’ll be singing on this tour, Kingfisher .
The first one is a little rougher around the edges.
It’s got a lot of thrilling, runaway power ballads like “If Not for My Baby.” Soaring reveries that overflow with Irish mysticism and stirring orchestrations.
But then there are also indie acoustic melodies, some with bucolic hand-clapping and folksy instrumentals, as well as a few bluesy tracks.
Everything is very Irish—sometimes he even sings in the native tongue, and I’m forced to look up words like buinneán (sapling).
He sings of solitude and ennui, the climate apocalypse, worshipping a woman’s mind and body and the “exquisite rhapsody” of falling in love.
But mostly, he sings of heartbreak. Yearning.
Begging on his knees. Someone clearly trampled this man’s heart into the ground.
And then threw it into a wood chipper. Repeatedly .
And judging by all the references to earth and soil, trees and wood, sunlight and bogs…
she broke his heart in a forest? I haven’t quite figured it out.
But whatever it’s about, the whole thing is very soulful and very raw.
This second album, though, Kingfisher , is more ambitious.
It’s replete with classical imagery and literary allusions.
There’s more rich, low drama. More gnarled bass line and wailing notes on his electric guitar.
He’s polished his sound and tipped into a few late-night funk and swirling disco stompers.
If the first album he released five years ago was about the anguish of heartbreak, this one is about returning to the land of the living with that heartbreak in tow.
Sometimes it’s an aching lonesomeness, but other times it’s rebound sex and too much whiskey.
It’s somehow brutal and buoyant. Devastating and fun.
And the lyrics…the writing is out of this world. He doesn’t sing about flimsy, top-forty love; he sings about soul-deep devotion . I’ve never heard anything like it. I’ve never felt anything like it.
“I’d slice out my own tongue, offer it to my baby in hands cupped, just to taste the perfect crookedness of her smile when she swallows me up.”
As evidenced by what Tony and Maria bring out in me, art has always served as my blind spot when it comes to the impracticalities of love.
Something about the way a story or a song can only exist within the finite moment in which you experience it.
For those three minutes, two acts, or thirty chapters, I am willing to suspend my severe disbelief.
The love that Halloran sings about just doesn’t feel the same as watching your lonely mom send out a Christmas card every year that says Still looking for our Mr.Claus and it’s just the two of you and your vision-impaired dog.
There’s a fantasy to music made about romantic love. A whimsy of sorts. Whether it’s describing elation or devastation—the narrative beauty helps the song Trojan-horse right past all my protective barriers.
By the time I get to Memphis, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve almost cried twice, and blushed about four hundred shades of red. A song called “Consume My Heart Away” off the first album has some particularly racy lines that had my mouth agape like a damn cod.
But I’ve also done what I set out to: I’ve memorized all the songs in his set list, and my lines in each of them, as if I’m in a play. I’m fully prepared for sound check and the show this evening. Not a stomach flutter to be found.
The passengers file out in the heart of Memphis, and I can’t help but gawk at the liveliness of the city.
It’s still the beginning of summer—not even two weeks into June—and the streets are flooded with people.
Buskers, artists, tourists. Every corner I lug my bag around, I find another Elvis statue or a sign for mouthwatering ribs.
There is more color, more soul, and more energy here than I’ve seen in any part of Texas, even Austin.
I tip my head up toward the magnanimous sun like a delighted dog out a window.
I inhale the pleasant smell of smoky barbecue, freshly cut grass, and the rushing Mississippi river.
It’s only a handful of minutes from the bus station to the Graceland Inn, which is extremely cute.
Fifties-inspired but not too kitschy, painted pale blue and adorned with sweet scalloped shutters.
I roll my bag inside and am greeted by blown-glass lampshades and a plush light pink rug.
My heart can’t help but swell. I feel like Alice, stepping into Wonderland.
I’d spent twenty-four years in Cherry Grove, Texas. Population: six thousand. And now—
Before I can do something as lame as ask the man at the front desk to take a photo of me for my mom, I’m interrupted by a frantic whirling dervish of a human.
“Clementine Clark?”
The kid who rushes up to me can’t be a day over eighteen. His baby face is wide-eyed and round, his fussy suit crumpled from the heat and a little boxy on his small frame. I’m going to guess this is Jen’s PA, Lionel.
“Yes, hi, you must be—”
“No time,” he urges, pushing sweaty dark hair from his forehead with a hand still holding not one but two phones. “We needed you at the venue hours ago.”
“Oh, no problem, let me just check in—”
“You aren’t staying the night! You were just supposed to meet the band here . ” Lionel turns to the man working reception. “Can you believe what I put up with?”
Front Desk Man offers a noncommittal shrug.
“Oh, no problem. But I was hoping to shower before sound check?” I smell like an eight-hour bus ride and the Goldfish I popped open wrong and spilled all over myself.
“Sound check?” Lionel looks as if I’ve just said nudist parade . “Sound check was at eleven. You’re late. We have to make it to the show .”
I feel as though I’ve tripped into one of those naked-taking-a-test nightmares. My mouth is almost too dry to mutter, “I arrived right at one, like Jen’s email said.”
“That was a typo! She meant ten! She’s a busy woman, Clementine.
Keep up!” I can’t even fathom the ridiculousness of what he is expecting of me as Lionel adds, “This first show is part of a festival here. He’s not on tonight, he’s on this afternoon at four .
Jen is going to kill me and then you if we’re not backstage in twenty minutes. ”
So I’ve already made a bad impression because I’m not a mind reader, and now I’m going to perform in front of thousands of people without rehearsing. And I’m late. The hairs on the back of my neck jolt up. “How far away is the venue?”
Lionel’s face is more grave than any eighteen-year-old’s should ever be. “Thirty-three minutes.”
—
To my surprise and marginal horror, Lionel successfully threatens our taxi driver into running two red lights and nearly clipping a tourist family of six. We arrive in nineteen minutes flat and I’m sure I look like I’ve been in a wind turbine.
I’m rushed through security, around men fitting all kinds of lights and fog machines for the show. Sound equipment and amps are filed past us on dollies and everyone seems to be equipped with, actively using, or talking about needing duct tape.
It becomes evident to me that Lionel is the only person in the music touring business who wears a suit and tie, and I decide that I love him for it.
“I like your shoes,” I tell him earnestly. They’re squeaky-clean black Skechers. I haven’t seen Skechers since kindergarten and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them. I’ve definitely never seen them paired with a suit.
“In this biz, I have to be ready for anything.” Lionel has enough sweat on his forehead to bathe a small duckling. I resist the urge to find him a paper towel.
“Clementine!”
We spin in unison. This time I know the woman who saunters toward us is Halloran’s tour manager, Jen Gabler. She’s the most Jen Gabler –looking person I’ve ever seen.
Late thirties, with a chic, shoulder-length haircut that conveys cool and casual , but I can tell by the fine layers and perfect dye job that it cost more than my car.
Her black jeans and relaxed button-down feel like something Everly has described to me as model-off-duty .
And her fingers are absolutely cluttered with gold and diamond rings, stacked on top of each other as if she is attempting to armor her hands.
“Hi!” I say, maybe just this side of too cheery. “Thank you so much for the—”
“Oh, thank God ,” she exhales to Lionel, cutting me off. “She’s kind of hot.”
“I know,” Lionel agrees, appraising me. “I had the same thought.”
Et tu, Lionel? I frown at him and receive a rueful answering shrug.
“Okay,” Jen says, faux smiley. “Off to makeup. You’re going to smash it!”
“No wardrobe?”
Jen brushes her hand through the air as if she could swat my question away. “Halloran asks everyone to wear what they’re comfortable in. But still edgy. Comfortable but cool, you know?”