While sitting in this dark and lonely prison cell, my mind takes me back to a day that I enjoyed with my niece, Molly, when she was five years old. The weather in Milwaukee was as unpredictable as it always is, but on this particular day, it was the perfect combination of sunny and breezy, so I decided that while I was on babysitter duty, Molly and I would go by the lake and play on the beach.

There's something about staring at a large body of water that puts everything into perspective. Living in a congested city with a lot of buildings and a lot of cars could make you feel claustrophobic, but staring out into a lake or an ocean can make you realize how small and insignificant all our problems are.

"Molly, you need to stay close enough where I can reach you" I yell out to her as she chases after the waves and then runs away from them in her carefree way.

"Come here then" Molly shouts back, urging me to get up from the blanket laying on the sand. Temporarily letting my mind forget about our shoes and possessions on the blanket, I run after her, lift her up and throw her on my shoulder. She responds with a sound that mixes a high pitched laugh and a squeal. It's the sound she makes when she's at her highest level of elation. There aren't many sounds on Earth that I love more than the sound of Molly's laughter.

After twenty minutes of running around on the beach, Molly is finally tired enough to want to sit on the blanket and have a snack with her Uncle.

"Are you enjoying school, Molly?" I ask her as she gulps down the water from her water bottle that she's holding with both hands.

"It's so fun, Torrey" Molly says

"Make sure you enjoy all of it while it's fun" I respond, "School's not always going to be singing songs, playing on the playground, eating snacks and taking naps" Molly is unfazed by my negativity as she goes on to tell me about all the things that happened to her in the last week including which friends she's currently not speaking to and which friend is now her favorite. We could have this conversation a few days later and those people would be switched.

"Molly, what are you going to be when you grow up?" I ask her, changing the subject, knowing that Molly could go on for hours if she wasn't interrupted.

"I'm going to be a singer" she responds with no hesitation at all.

"A singer?" I ask, "Like your Uncle Torrey?"

"No, not like you silly" Molly hurtfully replies, "I'm going to be a real singer like Taylor Swift or Katy Perry"

I understand that Molly is only five at this point, but I did believe, even then, that she had the talent and the confidence to do this if that was what she really wanted.

The truth is that at this point in her life, Molly has no reason to have any doubt that she would be able to become a rich and famous singer. She's only five and she's standing straight because the world hasn't pulled her down yet.

How gradual the process is varies from person to person, but it seems like eventually, people give up on their dreams and start settling for things that are safer and make them more comfortable.

The reason I look back at this particular day is because it was a much more simple time. At this point in our lives, everything that we both wanted was right in front of us.

Molly's answer takes me back to my own thoughts when I was a little boy her age. I have always had an unconditional love for music and a belief that someday I was going to write and sing songs that people all across the world would hear. It's a pretty common thing to believe, but it had taken me longer than usual to outgrow that thought. Ever since I was 14, I have always been in a band, desperately looking for shows and people who would want to hear us.

* * * * *

My name is Torrey, I am a musician in my mid-twenties and I have been writing music for as long as I can remember. I have never been able to relate with someone who doesn't love music. Music is everything. It doesn't matter how big and wide the world is, you can set your feet on any land anywhere on earth and you will hear music. There is nobody alive, whether they know it or not, who doesn't need music. Music is meant to comfort you when you feel down and nobody or nothing can help you get back up. I always had the belief that music would be the tool is fixing the world and I had desires to be the person using it.

I had big dreams, and the night that was supposed to set those wheels in motion was the night that put the nails in that coffin.

Henry's is the name of a bar that promotes local music. There is a lot of competition from local bands fighting for an opportunity to play at Henry's because it's very popular and a good place to get noticed. It's such a big deal that people don't usually call them and and ask them if their band could be booked for a show. You are always auditioning. If you play shows at other places and start picking up some steam, someone from Henry's will call you and invite you to a play a show there. Important people come to the shows and sign bands to their labels, and when a band gets signed to a label. That's important because being signed is a big step in enabling bands to do things that they wouldn't be able to do themselves. After a few years of playing shows in small venues, including our High School talent shows, garage shows and small bars owned by friends of ours, our time had finally come to play a show at Henry's.

The people who play in the band with me are all friends of mine. They aren't professionals but they are people that I trust and have known for a long time. I don't doubt that you could find more talented musicians, but for some reason, I have always felt safer playing with people that I know. The show at Henry's meant a lot to all of them, and they were freaking out because they were unaware at the time that the day of our big show was also the day that I got arrested. All they knew was that we were thirty minutes from starting the show and I wasn't there.

Saturday, Sept 29th 2018 (The day of the arrest)

"Has anyone heard anything yet?" Laurie asked as she walked into the tense room backstage.

"No, we've kept calling him and leaving him voicemails but he's not picking up the phone" Davey responded.

"This is so petty of him" Kevin said

"Petty?" Laurie furiously asked in response

"Torrey didn't want to do the show, we kept telling him it would be a great idea to do the show and he kept saying we weren't ready and he didn't want to do it" Kevin replied.

"Don't be ridiculous Kevin" Laurie said, "Are you really trying to suggest that Torrey is sabotaging the band that he's spent so much time and energy on?"

"I'm just saying that Torrey didn't want to do the show, he knows that we can't do the show without him, and he's not here"

"This isn't helping" Davey said, "I'm going to drive over to his house and see if he's there. It's very unlikely but there's a chance he could have fallen asleep on the couch or something like that"

"Davey, you can't leave" Riley said, "We don't know where he is, he might just be on his way right now"

"What if something's happened to him?" Laurie asked with a slightly shaky voice.

"Don't let your mind go there" Riley responded, "Torrey is fine, I'm sure there's a very logical reason for him not being here"

"I'm going to call Ben" Laurie said, "Davey, you stay here just in case he shows up in the next couple minutes, I'm going to have Ben try to find him"

Allow me to give you a brief introduction to the people in the band. Riley sings and plays guitar, an outsider would stare at us and wonder why we're friends because she's clearly more rock and roll than the rest of us. Kevin plays the drums, like most drummers, he just wants to have fun. He doesn't need to practice as much as the rest of us, he just sits down whenever we're ready and bangs things in rhythm. Davey has been my best friend since I was four years old and he plays the keyboards, but he's mostly in the band because I like having him around. Michael is the exception, he didn't grow up with the rest of us, he was introduced to us by Kevin and he joined the band when Javier left. Like I said, this is a brief introduction, and as you keep reading you'll get to know who all these people are on a much more personal level.

There was a slight buzz filling up the room as people started getting news alerts on their phones. Word began to spread about why I had not shown up yet.

Ten minutes before the show was about to start, the people at Henry's received a phone call letting them know about my whereabouts. One of the people who work there got on the stage and apologized to the crowd and explained why I wasn't going to make it and why the show had to be cancelled.

You know that this story is not about the show at Henry's. Unfortunately, this story is not about a small band from Milwaukee who worked really hard, got a few lucky breaks and ended up selling out stadiums across the country and the world. There's a part of me that likes to believe that if the show took place at Henry's like it was supposed to, all those things could have happened for us.

This is a story about the couple weeks before we were supposed to play the show at Henry's. This is a story about the most important people in my life, and why I'm never going to see any of them again.

A Nuclear Family - Lightning

A Nuclear Family - Restless Heart (Bonus)