Chapter Text
Luke has been back home for a week, and he’s spent every minute running from club to club looking for gigs. His body aches from old wounds, and his dreams are filled with smoke and the echoes of screams, and he needs to play, needs something to keep him from tipping over into the pit of despair he’s been slowly inching towards. Every time he walks through the door of a new place to talk to the owner, he turns on the charm, plasters on a winning smile and tries to forget about the never ending dread that’s settled in his stomach, but it’s always the same answer. “We just got a new headliner, sorry.” “Our patrons want to hear the standards, not original tunes.” “The roster is already full, we’re not looking for any new acts at the moment.”
Every time, Luke has to take a breath and push down the bitter frustration that’s been growing steadily in him all week. The endless rejection wouldn’t bother him so much if he’d been new to the scene, but he’d played all these clubs years ago. He’d been that fresh-faced seventeen-year-old that gals were swooning over, and he’s certain that he could have played circles around the cocksure kids that were filling the clubs’ calendars these days. If it hadn’t been for his four years in the trenches, Luke knows he would’ve been as big as Sinatra by now. He could have had mountains of success and acclaim, but all he got instead were miles of nightmares and a wedding gig thrown his way out of pity.
After another day of fruitless searching, Luke returns home to a dark, dusty apartment. Bobby would have laughed at the state of him. “Don’t sweat it, kid,” he can hear him saying. “What’s one week of hustling when we’ve got our whole futures ahead of us? We’re gonna make it big one day, believe you me, we just gotta wait for our moment.” Shaking the voice out of his head, he pours himself a glass of whiskey and promptly throws himself onto the piano bench. His fingers gently brush over the keys as he takes a sip from his tumbler. He plucks out a few notes, playing the first bars of a melody that’s been running through his head all day, but he’s too exhausted to really put his heart into it. He knows he should really be going to bed, but every time he closes his eyes, the backs of his lids are flooded with flashes of rain and mud and blood, and his own fearful cries ring in his ears. “Get out!” So Luke rubs his eyes and opts to turn on the radio to distract himself instead.
Soon enough, the steady rhythm of the music and the burn of the whiskey have calmed him enough to clear his head a little. He finds his fingers bouncing on the keys again, at first mimicking the sounds from the radio, but then returning to the melody from earlier that day. It’s a slow tune, the notes steadily flowing up and down in a melancholy fashion. It feels mournful, but there’s a hint of hope buried somewhere inside of it.
Standing up with a sudden burst of inspiration, Luke continues to hum the melody to himself as he searches for a pen to write it down. The song is incomplete and lyric-less at the moment, but it’s the bare bones of something that could become incredible.
He might not be able to book any gigs right now, but Luke knows in his heart that his music is good, that it’s worth fighting for. It’s got depth and meaning and passion. It’s alive, a piece of his own heart that he’s plucked out and woven into melodies. People would connect with it, if only he had an opportunity to share it with the world.
And just then, the music that had been coming from the forgotten radio cuts to an ad. “NBC Radio is looking for the next great swing band to write their very own song to honor our boys in uniform. Yes, it’s “The American Songbook’s Tribute to the Troops,” brought to you by Covington Cola. A winning band from each state will compete in a nationwide broadcast, live from the Palace Theatre in New York on December 16th to determine who will appear in a spectacular new motion picture musical, and be immortalized in Hollywood history!”
Luke perks up as soon as he hears it. This must be fate, he thinks. It’s as if this contest had been created with him in mind. What could be a better way to spread his music than to have it featured in a genuine Hollywood picture? And a great song to honor the troops… He could probably write a winner in his sleep!
He has the talent, and better than that, he has the experience to draw from. The only thing he’s missing is a band. If he really wants to go all the way, he’ll need to find a group of musicians who’ll be able to pull it off. Not just talented players and performers, but people who would understand Luke’s music. People who had really seen the war the same way he had. A song for the troops by the troops. Now that would be a real winner.
Now practically bouncing in his excitement, Luke grips his pen and finds a fresh sheet of paper. Before he knows it, his hand is racing to catch up with his thoughts, already pouring out lyrics and melodies. This town may think that Luke Patterson is a thing of the past, but Luke going to show them that he didn’t come home after four years in hell to take it lying down. No, sir, he’s just getting started.