The Long Road

I had been up since three in the morning, pacing around my small room. I was fully dressed, and I had my suitcase and Gibson electric guitar sitting at the end of my bed. I glanced at my watch and sighed in frustration. I was waiting for Harry to come and pick me up from my house, and we were going to miss our flight to America if he didn’t get there soon, and we would have to cancel our tour!

Our band, Black Beauty Boulevard, had been saving up for this trip for years, performing almost anywhere to get a good pay. And after all that time, we had made $50,000, performed at major music festivals and secured a best-selling unsigned album under our belts. Yep, we felt it was time to stretch our wings and give our music to the world. And plus, I was born in America, so I was more excited than anyone else to be going!

Finally, I heard the sound of Harry’s bashed up 4WD pull up on the curb outside my house. Not wasting a single millisecond, I took my suitcase and guitar and jumped down the stairs three at a time. But I skidded to a halt when I bumped into my mother.

‘Oh! Morning Mum!’ I stuttered, my hands becoming shaky. There were two reasons for this. One, because my mother was not the most delightful of people when it came to talking about my musical career. And two; I hadn’t told her of my tour to America.
‘Morning Leslie. I heard Harry’s car out the front, are you going this early?’ she questioned suspiciously, moving to the kitchen to get a mug from the cupboard.

I nodded nervously, my confidence digging itself into a hole like a scared meerkat. If my mum found out what I was actually doing, my band would be devastated and my mum would murder me and bury me in the backyard. She thought I was going to Canberra to visit Harry’s cousins

While I was silently panicking, my mum eyed my guitar with disapproval.
‘Well, make sure you socialize and not play that guitar all the time.’ And with a quick hug, she moved quietly back to her bedroom.

Sighing in relief, I raced out the back door and pelted as fast as I could towards Harry’s car. I threw my luggage in the back, which was hard to do because everyone else’s instruments and bags were squashed in the back as well. I jumped into the warm interior of the car and sped off before my mum could peer at us from her bedroom window.

Harry, who was our bass player, ruffled my hair and gave me a smile as he stopped at a traffic light. He always made me feel like the kid, because I was the youngest member in the band, even though I was 15.

‘Hey Leslie, sorry I was a little late, the traffic was terrible when I got on the main road!’ he said.
‘That’s bullshit Harry! We actually got lost because he couldn’t remember where you lived!’ Justin our drummer yelled from the back.

Katie our keyboard player and Hamish the lead singer and guitarist both wound down their windows and the cool morning air rushed into the stuffy interior of the car.

‘Can you believe it? After all this time, we are finally going to America!’ Katie sighed, staring out the window dreamily.
‘I know! I’m so excited!’ Harry laughed, honking the horn and yelling out the window, which sent everyone into hysterics.
‘And maybe when we get there, I can find out who my dad is.’ I said to myself more than to anyone else.

Katie heard what I said and put an arm around my shoulders.

‘Of course we will! Didn’t your mum once say he lived near San Francisco?’ she said quietly as everyone else talked to each other.
‘Yeah, somewhere around there.’ I said, a shiver going up my spine.

I fiddled with the necklace around my neck, which was a silver guitar pendant on a dog-chain. It was a necklace my father had given to me when I was only two months old, and then he left us according to my mother, never to be heard of again. I was taking this chance to find him while I was in America, to find out who the hell he was. The only thing I knew about him is that he was a drummer in a punk rock band and that was it.

But my thoughts were distracted from my father as we arrived at the International Airport in Sydney. Realising that we were really late, we grabbed our luggage and pelted through the crowd, not caring wether we knocked people over or not. We put our bags and instruments on the plane and ran to Gate 4, where the plane was boarding. We managed to just get on the plane before they closed the doors on us. Annoyed looks were thrown at us as we ran down the aisles, laughing our heads off. We all sat down, Hamish and I sitting together while everyone else sat in the three seater next to us.

As the plane backed out onto the runway, a sudden feeling of guilt passed through me. What would happen when my mother found out that I had ran away to America for six weeks to play with my band and in the process find my dad? Well she would mostly be hurt and angry at me for sure.
And I knew that she had never really wanted me to know him, from the way she talked about him. But I couldn’t take it anymore. I was going to find out who he was, whether or not it killed me in the process!