I could tell you when, I could tell you where, I could tell why — but I could never tell you how. My brother and I were close. We grew up beating our timpani drums together but never synchronized. He’d beat his with a closed fist and its sound would implode deep in our chests — a single resonant tone. Eternity, it seemed. He’d look over and laugh while I rattled away at mine, trying to mimic the crackle of the snare I heard in the backfire of daddy’s old jalopy, the wind rolling its way through the trees, the drum rolls before the crescendos of my favorite songs. It didn’t sound right to slap the timpani in that way — that’s what I was told, anyway. The timpani needed time, needed space, but that was really in short supply back then. I was too enamored with a single blade of grass.

My brother was always content sitting, observing. From what momma said, I was like that at some point, too. But no, no, no, I couldn’t stay the same for long — give me two years on this earth and I’d have such a new identity, I could fool God.

I could tell you when, but it wouldn’t matter. I was always playing the wrong drum. I was young, my brother was young, my parents were young, but the music we played was old, old, old.

“Mine sounds better,” my brother would say as he patiently pounded away, letting the explosions stifle themselves in perfect time.

Slapping my drum, I’d let my hands fall wherever they damn well pleased — one in the center, two on the edge, five on the outskirts, eight in the driveway, two in the garden. Momma would raise her voice from the other room: “Can y’all keep it down? I’m trying to watch my stories!”

I’d lay the drum down as low as I could get it and I’d keep pounding away, waiting for the possibility that I’d become that story — with all its sentimentality and attention and horror.

I could tell you where, but it wouldn’t matter. I was always playing the wrong drum in the wrong places.

My brother’s room, where we’d waste time. The hallway, where the narrow sea stretched which we’d navigate without the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck above our harbors. The kitchen, where we were all trying to regain our lost energy — where the bowl of string beans would snap themselves on the front porch. My beating drum would forever be the antithesis of my family’s need.

It didn’t quite work like that, though.

I was happy. It’s just that wherever I was supposed to be, I wasn’t. Or rather, I never could quite find the place I was supposed to be.

I could tell you why, but it wouldn’t matter. I was always playing the wrong drum in the wrong places for the right reasons. I thought my world would grow with the sounds that I created. I thought I could beat the living hell out of that drum and the Devil himself would start to give way, bending and breaking, slinking farther away from Bethlehem and the sounds that shaped it like an Elven song. I thought I could beat the drum hard enough that whatever I longed for over the horizon, whatever She was, would hear my war-cry and would march all night long until it arrived, in front of me, knees high, hand swinging to forehead in salutation.

At ease.

Just today, just now, I finally had the option to choose a different drum. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m too sentimental. I’m still rattling away like daddy’s old jalopy, like the wind in the leaves. I’m still running, still screaming, still fooling God. My brother sits still.

I couldn’t tell you how, but somehow this drum sounds sweeter every day.