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2022 After Iceman's funeral and before the mission
It's nine o'clock on a Saturday, the regular crowd shuffles in. There's an old man sittin' next to me, makin' love to his tonic and gin.
He´s dressed in smart clothes, looks like he’s seen too many ghosts, yet he comes near and he says, "Son, can you play me a memory? I'm not really sure how it goes, but it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete, when I wore a younger man's clothes". With a small smile he hums a little tune under his breath, one that seems to haunt his memories. And that’s how it went, he sings just the one sentence “Oh goodness gracious, great balls of fire”
And that’s the song I play, yet the bar responds with a familiar chant, one I’ve heard time and again. “Sing us a song, you're the piano man, sing us a song tonight. Well, we're all in the mood for a melody, and you've got us feelin' alright”
And the old man, Mav he said was his name. Well, he sits in the corner nursing his drink with a sad smile, he looks nostalgic for a time long gone. Looking like an angel who just got his wings clipped. He looks down at his drink, with the cubes melted, and mouths a single word, “ice” I think it was and his eyes are no longer dry, what a strange reason to cry. Just because he no longer has ice.
2009 After Iceman became an Admiral
Now Pete at the bar is a friend of mine, he gets me my drinks for free. And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke, but there's some place that he'd rather be, shows it more when he’s drunk, it loosens his tongue. And I know right where that is, who doesn’t, after all he and his wingman are a famous bunch, always flying hard.
He says, "Kid, I believe this is killing me", as the smile ran away from his face "Well, I'm sure that I could be grounded, if I could get him instead". It’s something he’s said more than once, but I’ll keep his secret for as long as I’m the piano man. I don’t know why he trusts me when he’s lost almost everyone, but wait, it’s everyone now isn’t it, when now even his other half will never fly with him again.
I think he’s reminded of someone when he looks at me, I’m sure it’s why he tells me things I shouldn’t know, I remind him of someone long gone as I sing. And he always requests the same song humming the tune under his breath, oh he knows it complete, and it goes “Oh goodness gracious, great balls of fire”
Sometime in 1990
Now Tom is an instructor, who never had time for a wife. And he's talkin' with Mav, who's still in the Navy, and probably will be for life. They come quite often those two, a famous pair. And they look in each other’s eyes, smiles as wide as can be, and call each other wingman when partner it can’t be.
And every day they come, with every smile and “casual” touch you can see how the life returns to Mav’s eyes. His grin coming easier and brighter each time, well he’s learning to live again. This time with another type of love, yes he lost a brother, a best man for a wedding that could never be, the man that would walk with him down the aisle, but he finally found the person he would face at the end of it.
1986 After the trial for Goose’s death
And the widow is practicing politics, as the pilot slowly get stoned. Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinkin' alone. And the woman says, “You’re too quiet without him Mav,” but she knows neither of them can bear to talk over the silence. They’d lost too much, and it was so weird for there to be silence. After all, they were both so chaotic, the silence felt so loud between the two people who’d normally be the firsts to stop it.
But neither of them could bear to talk. They didn’t know what to say, without their peace there, the man who kept them in check their chaos ran wild through their minds leaving them as empty husks of themselves for tonight.
When the man couldn’t handle it anymore, not the silence, not the guilt of not being strong for his brother’s wife, he stood up. He walked to the piano man and asked for a tune he knew by heart, one his Goose used to play.
And the bar rose to say “Sing us a song, you're the piano man, sing us a song tonight. Well, we're all in the mood for a melody, and you've got us feelin' alright” they chanted that at him as they used to do for another pilot not that long ago when he played that same song. And tucked in a corner a man hugged his sister-in-law as they both cried for the same man who’d left them both. Crying for him, for the son he left, and for the guilt the pilot felt for his death, even when both the widow, the court, and the man he killed had already forgiven him.
1985 While at Top Gun
It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday, and the manager gave him a smile, 'cause he knows that it's him they've been comin' to see, to forget about life for a while. They’re all pilots and Rios who want to let loose, and know this is the bar to come to, where the top gun scholars come to celebrate. Especially when Goose comes to play, Mav always there with him.
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival, as the rio sings great balls of fire. Oh, it’s a song they’ll all remember for the rest of their lives. And the microphone smells like a beer, from the breaths of all the pilots who’ve passed it around before it gets back to him, the singer’s brother who passes it back to him.
And they sit at the bar and put bread in his jar, and say, "Man, what are you doin' here?". As he sings right on, “Oh goodness gracious, great balls of fire” a little melody this bar will never forget, and they’ll never know why he’s there day and again. Just another pilot there who was the first to hear that chant for him, as the bar joins around him and say “Sing us a song, you're the piano man, sing us a song tonight. Well, we're all in the mood for a melody, and you've got us feelin' alright” a chant I would never forget and aspired to have screamed at me.