April 9th was our first night back at Savvy's after the unwelcomed down time. It also marked the beginning of the official countdown to the end of Savvy. On our second night back, dad had to go in for emergency exploratory surgery. It all happened so quickly that we didn't have time to really accept what was going on. We hadn't had a really serious, life-threatening situation in the family since my brother Ray's surgeries back in the 60's. There was an instinctive and wishful feeling that everything was going to be okay. We knew how to deal with that outcome. But not the other.

The news wasn't good. In fact, it was devastating. Dad had malignant prostate cancer. As horrible as it sounded, the doctors did their little trick to make us feel better. In the midst of our shock, they told us the good news was that it hadn't gone to the bones yet. But then they played the double whammy move and told us that it was only a matter of time before it would. I'd watched this scene on TV a hundred times, but being in the middle of it suddenly became overwhelming. My eyes were focused on the doctor's mouth as he continued to speak, but I couldn't hear him anymore. I broke into a cold sweat and got very dizzy. My stomach was churning and I thought I was going to pass out. All I could do was walk away and hope I could get to the restroom before it was too late. 

I washed my face in cold water and the feeling passed. When I returned, the doctor was gone, but the family was huddled in a corner of the waiting room where mom was fighting back tears. My brother Ray was talking like the manager of a team that's behind in the 8th inning of the World Series. He was going on about how we would pull together and beat this. Dad would be fine. We were the "fighting Joneses" by God! Cancer was no match for us. Bold words, but he'd managed to set the tone for a valiant battle that would last another ten years. 

We played three more nights and then Savvy's Nightclub closed for two days for a major remodeling project. A giant concert sized stage was built along the west wall and much more was done to give the place a facelift. The timing for it all felt strange to me, though. Frankly, it felt as if vultures couldn't wait for us to die before swooping in on us with only three nights to go. But there were no hard feelings. The club was still like a second home to me, and the Millers were like family. I spent those two days off at the club helping with the remodeling efforts. Most of it was spent on my back, high atop a scaffold, creating a beveled effect over the new massive dance floor. I was like Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, only without artistic ability.   

Within only five days of getting out of the hospital, dad was out in the back yard working on his car. I couldn't believe it when I went to visit, and he started working on the brake line of the old Volare'. There was no arguing with him. He said he'd never felt better and needed to get some things done before he started his radiation treatments. Dad wasn't one to ask what anyone thought. At least not yet. He made a plan and plowed into it. I'm a lot like that too. 

The last three nights that Savvy played together were completely uneventful. The only reason I've been able to write this story is because of the laborious and detailed notes I kept throughout those years. Unfortunately, I wrote nothing about those last eight nights as they pertained to Savvy. I wrote about dad's situation, and about the club remodeling - but not a word about what went on as we played our last nights, sets, or even the final songs. I'm sure that subconsciously I didn't want to remember it as being the last time. I wanted to remember it like it had been on any other night besides the last one. It was like a person who doesn't want to look at a corpse in a coffin because they want to remember them as they were when they were full of life. It was like that...  

In those final months, being in that band was like being an astronaut trapped in a spacecraft that was tumbling out of control on a collision course with infinity. But we'd grown up in a time of miraculous come backs. There was Apollo 13, and The Who even came back after losing Keith Moon. And of course, there was that time that we arose from the ashes ourselves after losing Ricky back in 1983. None of us expected - or wanted any part of a surprise twist, or last-minute reprieve. In fact, this time we just wanted it to finally be over. For real. For good. I was reminded of my relationship with Lilly and how even though I really did love her at the core of my heart, and had wanted her back so desperately so many times - I knew for both our good - it had to end. It just had to be that way. I couldn't explain it. Or this. It just had to be this way. We'd been watching this train wreck in a slow motion loop for long enough. I knew that Lilly, and the band, and so many other people and events would live on in my heart forever, but it really was time to let it go.

Once upon a time,  I was given the opportunity to live out my fantasies night after night, week after week, and year after year. Someone once told me that I must have been born in the shadow of a church to have had luck like that. Of course I wasn't born in the shadow of a church. Nor can I say with complete conviction that I was "lucky" to have lived that life. While it gave me opportunities that few people get to experience, it didn't come without a price. At only thirty years old, I faced the stark possibility that the best days of my life might have already been spent. 

Of course time would prove me wrong.   

the end

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