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Order this writing in the 2009 book Crawling Through the Dirt

The Freedom of Music

Jon Brunette

    When Billy Marcus finished at the hospital, he stood proudly atop his low roof, in his two-level house built just off a small hillside, and strummed his Gibson Les Paul until his fingers bled. When sunlight broke, he entertained early commuters before he slept. Without music to play, he would never sleep peacefully. He would never be able to hold scalpels steadily in his job. He would never please his family with wealth from that job. And he would never find happiness, not truly anyhow.
    Atop the flat roof, he played skillfully, like always. Quickly, his fingers blistered painfully, and bled into red blotches over the wood neckpiece. Still, he played beautifully, like no way existed but beautifully, soulfully. Notes waltzed through his fingers, into metal wires, to bleat loudly from the amplifier. Through the fuzzy microphone, he bellowed as loudly, but joyously, too, and not just from the larynx but the immortal soul. Perspiration poured heavily, and frigidly, off his forehead and body, and wetted his ripped T-shirt completely. Between lengthy tunes, he waved to people below. They enjoyed his play-list immensely, applauded thunderously, like masses in open auditoriums, but probably enjoyed the music less than his mind.
    Below him, Billy saw sunlight off the mirrored badge. It blinded him briefly, not by the brilliance but the point behind it. When the officer walked to the roof, Billy kept playing aggressively, until his play-list finished. The officer pointed firmly, like a burly nun about to paddle to his wrists, and Billy laid the instrument into place and followed reluctantly. They found the wide-eyed body of Leslie, by a leaky pipe, below the basement window.
    “He killed quickly and cleanly.” The policeman said, “I believe the professional murdered medically—if such a way exists.” With blood on Billy, the man behind the horrible kill attempted not to hide but instead looked longingly into the sky. That compelled the buzz-haired officer to state, “Her life ended by a professional.” Looking into the face of Marcus, the husband, the blue-uniformed male said, “As will yours—by a legal professional.” He held metal to Billy’s tired arms and found little resistance.
    Billy Marcus had played his final chords. He would never bleed joyously, and never entertain musically, anymore. Still, he smiled, like he had planned to live in jail always and would now. Without job and family, he had no actual reason to play anymore. What the Gibson Les Paul had accomplished before, jail would now. It would allow him to live without responsibilities, how he had always wanted to live.

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