One More Day of August

I hated moving away from August. Joey swore and swore that we'd never get a gig anywhere in Milwaukee, and that the only place where a band like us would get any recognition is in California. Dream big and always shoot for the stars, that’s the type of person Joey is. Within the month of June, we picked up all we had.

Except for August.

I asked her over and over to come with me. I downright got on my hands and knees and pleaded for her to come with me to Hollywood. She fought with me through her meek and pleasant ways, saying that California wasn’t her cup of tea and that a girl like her is better off staying in her hometown. I pushed to the point where I was yelling but August was stubborn. She stayed behind and encouraged me to follow my dreams.

For two weeks after we made it to Hollywood, I tossed and turned in my bed, haunted by my high school sweetheart not being by my side. Everything what I did reminded me of her, or at least why I needed to be with her. We called one, two, three times a day, crying on the phone and whispering sweet nothings as if we weren’t miles apart. I used to lay her picture next to me each night on my pillow, and after I’d say my prayers I’d look at her warm honey-colored eyes until I fell asleep.

Days were long, and time begins to change everything, even when you don’t expect it to. The phone calls became more and more spaced out as my band began to get more and more gigs and August got a job at a nursing home teaching art to senior citizens. Our schedules became tight and we began to eliminate time for each other.

I remember the first time I slept with another girl without August knowing anything about it. I was a young man after all, and sometimes we don’t always use our brains to think. Joey and Don went off to a strip joint, and for once I came with them. By this time our band was taking off, and we were getting recognized everywhere. Joey and Don were already running around after women like school children after the ice cream truck. It was easy for them because they weren’t committed to anyone except to their ‘little friends’.

Her name was Jasmine Rose, or at least that was her stage name. She was the main attraction, and had everyone hard in their pants and longing to wrap their fingers through her auburn hair as she screamed their names in passion. I have to admit even I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her silky tan form as she swayed seductively around. She crawled on her hands and knees over to me onstage, grabbing me by the shirt and telling me if I wanted a private show to meet her at the bar in twenty minutes. I was a lonely man, and Joey and Don egged me on.

I waited at the bar nervously for Jasmine, and she came out wearing clothes that covered up most of her. I took her to my place and I was the one to get my desires turned into reality with Jasmine Rose. She knew what she was doing but she wasn’t like August. Afterwards we did a few lines of cocaine, because by that time I was already consuming the white drug a few times a week. I fell asleep and when I woke up sometime next afternoon August was gone. I would see her again a few times during her years working there, but I still couldn’t for the life of me tell you what her real name is.

I slept with a few other girls after that. My count was somewhere more than five but less than ten, but I can’t remember an exact number before August found out. One day after our gig at Whiskey A Go-Go, I got a phone call from August, surprising me because it was after midnight and she never stayed up that late back then. She was crying on the phone.

“Tell me Jamie, and tell me the truth. Is what I’m hearing true?” She asked, her voice quavering as she spoke my name.

“It depends,” I said, shifting my feet. “What have you been hearing?”

“That you’re not who you used to be. That you’re doing cocaine and sleeping with strippers. That you’re going to be posing for Play Girl magazine in a few weeks.” It was true, Play Girl had offered me a pretty nice deal a couple of days ago and I had taken it without a second thought. I was far from being a virgin, so what did I have to hide?

“Where did you hear all of that from?”

“It’s all over the news, Jamie! It’s all over the tabloids, the internet. What has happened to you? Did Hollywood steal your soul and sell it to Satan?” She shrieked, hysterical.

“Don’t start all of that religious nonsense on me, woman.” I snapped. “I’m sure your record isn’t completely pure ever since Wisconsin.”

“What are you talking about? You think I’m the one to blame here? Just because you’re screwing up I’m suddenly the bad person?”

“What do you want, August? I saw you a few months ago, didn’t I? Don’t you still get my checks in the mail? I’m right in the middle of something, actually. Not all of us have the leisure of a flexible schedule like you do. I’m busy working my tail off for the two of us and you’re teaching old people how to finger paint all over again.” I was furious at the time for her finding out about my secret life away from her. I wanted to hurt her and make her feel guilty for all that I do for her.

“What you do is for yourself, not for us.” She said, crying harder.

“Stop crying, what is there to cry about?” I asked.

“I’m pregnant!” She hung up on me. I held the phone in my hand, stunned at what August had just said. I felt nothing at first, and then when I went back to my apartment I felt anger. This was just solid proof to me that she had been cheating. The baby couldn’t possibly be mine. We only slept together once in four months. The only way she could be pregnant is if the whore hadn’t taken her woman pill. After that I became upset, realizing that I would never be there for the baby. A baby felt like the worst possible thing in the world at the time, like God was somehow punishing me.

But August didn’t want me in our baby’s life, because as soon as she had her, she filed for full custody. I got the papers in the mail one day after I had come back from tour. It had been waiting for me on my coffee table, and when I opened it, I was hurt but then fine. If she wanted to keep the child to herself, then she had done me a favor. I was finally free of responsibility. After that the only time I thought about my daughter is when I had to pay August child support each month. For ten years the family I had in Wisconsin was just a distant thought.

Hailey was already ten when I saw her for the first time out on my porch with her social worker. She had two beat up red suitcases in hand, and one garbage bag. I invited the two in, and as Hailey watched cartoons in the living room, her social worker Mrs. Allan and I talked on the porch over coffee.

On April 3rd, five weeks prior to meeting Hailey, August had passed away in a local hospital from diabetes. I was the only family Hailey had, but if I didn’t want her, Mrs. Allan said she would make other arrangements. I couldn’t say no.

Once again, I cried each night over August, wondering what had went wrong. I hadn’t known she was sick nor had diabetes. Her picture became a permanent fixture next to my bed, next to an assortment of pictures I had taken with Hailey during her middle and high school years. Even when I met Ellen and eventually married her, I never put August’s pictures away. Ellen understood the sorrow in my heart and never pushed it, because deep down I think Ellen knew. She was my wife, but I never loved her like I had loved August. She was a great companion to grow old with and a good maternal figure in Hailey’s life, but she was never a replacement for August.

If I could ever go back in time, even now as I’m an old man, I would. Even if it would only be as a chance to say goodbye to August I would. She had died alone in the hospital, without friends or family, without me. I would tell her how much I loved her and how much I will always love her. She is my everything, and a woman so good as her has to be an angel now. I tried to change my life, with the only hope that one day I would be joining August again in heaven. One more day is all I ask, because if I never see her again, my life would have been meaningless.