Whale Music

by Paul Quarrington

  “But hey, you’re my bro’!” said Danny. “We are issue of the same flesh, the same loins.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Make her happy, Desmo. Go get your nuts cracked.”

  So after the show Danny and I got into the back seat of a huge red Edsel and we screamed off (Fay behind the wheel, tires squealing, red lights treated as a Joe Gutts Brake Test). I was silent, sullen, having smoked too much peatmoss, ingested perhaps a beer or two in excess. Danny was quite talkative, he beat out rhythms on the shiny vinyl seats, he concentrated on Fay Ginzburg and left me to speak to she of the Lips, except that it was like we came from different planets, her and me, orbital paths that in a million or two years might come within a hundred yards of each other.

  Suddenly a mansion appeared, a huge, oddly built thing sitting on top of a hill. “That your house?” demanded Danny.

  “My parents’ house,” nodded Fay.

  “It’s kind of,” said Dan, “Transylvanian.”

  The Edsel doggedly climbed the hill. (By the way, I was always fond of Edsels. I even wrote a song about them, it’s on the Highway album, which is not one of our better albums, I’ll grant you.) And then we went through the front door and were introduced to Fay’s parents, Professor and Mrs. Ginzburg.

  Mrs. Ginzburg had something wrong with her back, she was always bent over as though searching for lost change on the sidewalk, but she was a cheery sort, full of jokes, usually of a practical nature. One of her favourites was, whenever she should catch her husband off-guard, to shove him into some piece of furniture. These would usually be soft pieces of furniture, sofas and so forth, but I saw the professor shoved into the credenza a time or two. If it should seem odd that a humpbacked woman should be able to do this shoving at will, I should tell you that Professor Ginzburg was the slightest man that ever walked the face of this planet. If he topped seventy-five pounds it was only soaking wet, the day after Thanksgiving. The professor and his good lady were both survivors of a Nazi death camp, they both had a furious need to enjoy life, and I guess that accounts for much of what Fay was.

  Mrs. Ginzburg’s main concern in life was food. She liked me from the instant she saw me, for although I was then relatively slim, she detected star potential. “Eat!” shouted Mrs. Ginzburg.

  Professor Ginzburg was anti-food. “Talk!” he protested. “You don’t bring guests into the house and drag them into the kitchen. You sit down and talk like civilized people.”

  “Who can talk with an empty stomach? You want to listen to growling stomachs all night?”

  “So who’s growling?”

  “One bowl of soup couldn’t hurt!” screamed Mrs. Ginzburg. This was her credo.

  “One bowl of soup,” conceded Professor Ginzburg. “Then I want to discuss music with the boys. Beethoven, Mozart, all them bubbies.”

  Fay scowled. “Daddy, they don’t know about that stuff. They play rock ‘n’ roll.”

  “Rock ‘n’ roll? What, you’re so busy you don’t have time to say and?”

  Danny said, “Desmond knows about those guys.”

  Fay looked at me, very surprised by this news.

  “Desmond!” shouted Professor Ginzburg. “Who’s your favourite?”

  “Debussy,” I supposed.

  “He’s good,” agreed the Professor. “No slouch.”

  “Soup!” battled back Mrs. Ginzburg. “Feed the stomach, then the soul.”

  “So go eat soup,” sighed Professor G. wearily.

  “Then I thought we might go down to the basement and listen to records,” said Fay.

  “Right,” said the professor. “Just don’t get pregnant.”

  “Daddy,” said Fay, “you’re disgusting.”

  “What’s disgusting? Sex is all of a sudden disgusting?”

  “First feed the stomach, then the soul, then the …” This train of thought was getting Mrs. G. into a bit of trouble. “Soup!” she announced grandly, herding us into the kitchen.

  We were given borscht, which I hadn’t had before and took a powerful liking to. Professor Ginzburg hovered in the doorway—it was as if he didn’t even want to set foot in the kitchen—and he and I discussed serious composers. His highest praise was that the artist in question was no slouch. Except for Mr. Mozart, who’s name Professor G. could not speak except as a kind of herald, hardening the z until it cut like a saw.

  “I can play the fiddle,” Professor Ginzburg told us. “I should say the violin, but if you heard me, you’d know. The fiddle. I had a string quartet once. The Commandant—who, as monsters go, was all right—he liked music. So he gave us these instruments, allowed us half an hour a day for practice. Once a week we would play for him. While he ate meat and tickled the tootsies of this milkmaid.”

  “Don’t,” cautioned his wife. “They’re eating.”

  Professor Ginzburg, however, had disappeared.

  After soup we went downstairs. Karen and Danny immediately fell onto a sofa and commenced kissing. I stood there with a hole in my heart until tackled by Fay Ginzburg. She mowed me down, propelled me into an easy chair and jumped on my lap. “Kiss me, Desmond,” she demanded. I did so, first with reluctance, eventually with eagerness. Her body, so frightening and energetic, was delightful to contain, warm bits of flesh surfacing at the oddest times. The kissing was fun, too. Fay’s tongue was an eager adventurer, it examined my mouth like a faculty of dentistry. We necked for quite a while—I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Karen and Danny did little more than neck as well—until Professor Ginzburg came racing downstairs, screaming, “Meteor shower! Meteor shower!”

  “Daddy!” screamed Fay.

  “Radiant points colliding in the empyrean!” The professor disappeared back up the stairs. My brother was quick to follow. “Come on,” said Fay wearily. She grabbed my hand and pulled me after her father.

  We stood in the backyard, all of us bathed in starlight. Above us, the sky was streaking with silver.

  Danny couldn’t help himself. He tilted his head back and howled.

  “That’s it, Dan-Dan!” shouted the professor. “And put in a good word for me.”

  I stood there flat-footed and slack-jawed, my head canted awkwardly. Professor Ginzburg elbowed me in the side. “Know what slays me?” he asked. “Some people see something like this, a celestial phenomenon, they say, it makes me feel so small. Putzes. It makes me feel so big. Like God did this just for me. So I watch, I give it a little, hmmmm.…” Professor G. reached out his hand and waggled it judgementally. “Not too shabby.”

  The stars are stagnant tonight. The Great and Little Bears are hibernating. Orion has taken off his belt, laid down his sword, he’s eating a TV dinner and watching “I Love Lucy.” I’ve popped outside for a breath of fresh air because I do not feel well. I am having some kind of a reaction. Hot flashes, chills, convulsions, nausea.

  I need drugs.

  Let’s check the music room. You look over there, I’ll poke around the control room. I must calm down if I mean to do any serious Whale Work. I’m going to work on the Song of Congregation. I have a plan; it requires intoxicants and plenty of ’em. The control room, however, is clean as a bone, it looks like Farley O’Keefe might have preceded me.

  The mention of that name is not likely to help me in my particular state. Indeed, it adds a certain urgency to this stimulant-finding mission. Check behind the speakers, check inside the speaker cones. Farley O’Keefe, former college football hero. Hero, that is, until he bit off an opposing player’s ear. That’s not even the first time that’s happened, but Farley walked back to the line of scrimmage chewing. A scurrilous knave, Farley O’Keefe. A real fucking prick. (Do you see the trumpet and horn cases? Check inside the velvet pockets, check inside the flaps meant for concealing mouthpieces.) A huge man, increasing amplitudes of muscle ultimately adorned by a tiny head. Farley sported a handlebar moustache, he wore spectacles when he wasn’t beating someone (usually me) to a pulp. Somewhere along the way (the drums, the drums, pick up each separate unit and rattle it, p
lease) Farley O’Keefe acquired the knack of sounding both intelligent and hip (he was neither), he was forever brandishing some book in your face, Hermann Hesse or Ayn Rand, and saying, “Simplistic, but all right in its way.” When he dies I mean to drive a wooden stake through his heart.

  Did you just burp? What was that chilling sound, extremely unhealthy effluvium? I don’t think it was me, it seemed to come from over there.

  Over by the Yamaha 666.

  I think they may have gotten in over their heads when they invented this particular beast. There’s a rumour that Stevie Wonder is having trouble with his machine, which probably means the Yamaha 666 is chasing him around the house. We are the only two people, as far as I know, who own a Yamaha 666 (they cost many hundreds of thousands), except for a studio in Glendale, which purchased one and burned down that same night.

  The Yamaha 666 gives forth another reboant snarl. That it isn’t plugged in means nothing to the Yamaha 666. The keyboards, seven of them, are curved and cantilevered, they produce an enormous pool of shadow, but as I take a cautious step forward a light flashes from within the darkness. The Yamaha 666 emits another sound, gentler this time, almost a purr. The light flashes again, a reflection off glass. I stumble quickly towards it and find, perched on the middle keyboard, one entire bottle of bourbon. As I pick it up a little tube of paper rolls forward, waterfalling down the keyboards, and before it has hit the ground I’ve recognized it as a joint, a number, a bomber.

  Now we’re set. I mean to wash the humanness out of my system, then I can work on the “Song of Congregation” and get it right.

  I think the Yamaha 666 likes me, that’s what I think. It’s too bad I didn’t own it when Farley O’Keefe was around (in the employ of my wife Fay) because I could have locked Farley in the music room overnight, and I’m pretty sure that in the morning he would have been disappeared, perhaps all but his curly moustache.

  This bourbon is good stuff, it makes me feel a bit better. I can’t even recall precisely why I felt poorly to begin with. Liquor has a bad reputation around these parts (I am in large part responsible), but it can have a very beneficial effect. And it was Farley O’Keefe’s ignominious task to keep me and booze forever separated. He was also paid to maintain distance between me and pharmaceuticals. This is, you’ll agree, not fit employment for a grown man, but at least it’s better than his sideline.

  You see where humanness gets you? I have just roared, a scream originated deep within my belly and came rushing out. I am decidedly miserable now. If Farley were here he would tsk his tongue, he would fold those thick arms across his chest and sigh, “Des, what are you doing to yourself?” Easy for him to say, O’Keefe never drank. What would be the use? The liquor would travel around his endless miles of bloodstream searching uselessly for the little brain. Even if I could come up with a good answer, such as eradicating humanness, Farley O’Keefe would remain unimpressed. “You don’t want me to get physical, do you, Des? I detest violence, Des. It would hurt me more than you.” So why aren’t you walking around with contusions all over your body, Farley? “Life is beautiful, Des. Wake up and look at it.” When did this happen, this beautification of life? The most one can do is try to produce some pitiful piece of prettiness, a song, and send it out into the world, a cripple dressed in rags. Agh, agh. I should be working. The “Song of Congregation”, the remaining movement of the Whale Music. But I am immobile, I am cataleptic. An image pops into my mind, it’s time for the daily Memory Matinee.

  Up the stairs, down the hallway, into what is jokingly referred to as the master bedroom.

  You see, Farley was successful for a while. I got clean, I even took to donning a suit and going to the Galaxy building every morning at nine o’clock. I had my own office there, the door had a sign that said DESMOND HOWL, PRIVATE, and I would enter and tinker on the piano. I wrote “Sunset” under those circumstances, a mega-hit, number one for seven months. That one charted in Kotzebue. At five o’clock I would repack my briefcase, leave the office building, nodding at all the executives and secretaries. “Afternoon, Mr. Howl.” “Good day, Mr. Howl.” I would bestow a smile and a nod upon these lackies. It was not a bad life. It was boring, but excitement is highly overrated. I likely would have kept it up indefinitely. Except one day I became very tired at two in the afternoon. There was no music within me, which happens sometimes. The ringing in my ears moved front and centre, it vibrated until it worked up a headache of heroic proportions. I decided that I must go home. Which I did. I entered my house, wandered upstairs, only to find Fay and Farley O’Keefe naked in the master bedroom. Very grim. Worse, Fay was humped over and administering a bee-jay, something she was ever unwilling to do to me. Farley O’Keefe’s member was a gruesome thing, ribbed with purple veins. Bing, bing, went the heartstrings, boing went the tenuous grasp on reality. I flew down to the kitchen and located the cooking sherry.

  Since then I have known only confusion. Farley was fired, Fay was given the boot. Lawyers chewed through the woodwork. Dr. Tockette appeared with appalling regularity. Danny drove his new silver Porsche through a guardrail. The car burst into flame as it smacked the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The whales gathered to watch the pyrotechnical display. It seems like years that I have been labouring on the Whale Music, but great care has been given to get it exactly right. There have been no bright spots in my life. Except, I guess, for the strange creature from Toronto.

  Agh, agh. I must summon the wherewithal to work. I wonder how this eradication-of-humanness process is doing. Half of the bourbon is gone, the scrawny ill-made cigarette has been rendered into clouds. I would judge that the process is working, except that I seem to be weeping. A very bad sign. Whales do not weep. They make outraged bellows, which is what I should be doing. Wait though. Here’s a thought. I have been working on the “Song of Congregation”, and the call has been come on over, whales. Surely the whales can only think, why bother, if they’ve had a better offer (if a school of baitfish is travelling nearby, a huge shimmering cloud of munchables) at best the whales might ask for a raincheck. If, however, I incorporate the outraged bellow, if I howl at the vagaries of fate, the whales might figure, hey, he’s playing our tune. What do you think? It’s certainly worth a try. Given the way I feel right now, the outraged bellow should be no problem.

  A final sip of the bourbon, I struggle to my feet.

  I’m going to use the Yamaha 666. This is going to be a Beast solo. No drums, rhythms are manmade, they have nothing to do with the world. No guitars, they are too mathematical, too much the division of frequencies. Only the Beast. If I survive, I shall be the world’s greatest Yamaha 666 player. I take off my bathrobe, toss it into the corner. Man against Beast. Pure and elemental. I wipe my palms free of moisture. I crack the knuckles, I do digital exercises. The Yamaha 666 is already humming, it is taunting me, daring me to plug it in, to feed it juice. The Yamaha 666 can sense fear, so I move without hesitation, tossing in the wallplug nonchalantly. The Beast lets out an ungodly ululation. I pretend not to notice. Electrical cross-currents swim in the gloom. I throw switches, I slap buttons, I slide faders. The Beast is cowed for a moment, but as I’m about to put my fingers down it roars defiantly. I kick it in its underbelly! There is silence. Then, closing my eyes, I begin to play.

  1 thought she was the only girl for me …

  (Awoo-oo-oo, cry the halt and the lame.)

  When she left I was as lonesome as could be …

  (Awoo-oo-oo, even Freaky Freddy joining in.)

  But then in my rearview I saw your lips

  I could have pulled my U-ie on a poker chip

  You gave a little wave with your fingertips

  And then I got a look at your pouting lips

  (And Dewey stomps up from his vocal basement, a-pow-pow-pow, you got to …)

  Kiss me, Karen,

  kiss, kiss, me Karen

  (Awoo-oo, pow-pow)

  Let’s face it, ladies and gentlemen, the chorus to perhaps my most famous songs does
nothing but go “Kiss me, Karen” over and over again. It is the popular song equivalent of a circle jerk in the shower room, but it does possess a certain urgency. The father hated the song, between takes he’d lean back and roar, “Kiss him, Karen, for Christ’s sake!” Even Dan disliked the song, he pulled me aside and said, “Desmo, I got to tell you, kissing this girl was like sucking a sponge.” He didn’t know we’d passed into the realm of art. All I knew is that it made a lot of sense rhythmically if five young men chanted “Kiss me, Karen” over and over again, but great care had to be taken not to get boring. So what did I do? I got positively baroque. Freaky Freddy couldn’t feed me empty tracks fast enough. There’s as many as fifty separate voices on that chorus, they weave in and out, collide like bumper cars. Freddy set up Sal Goneau’s drum kit in an adjunctive garage, he ladled on heaps of echo and phasing, the result sounded like someone taking out their trash in the Twilight Zone. Dewey’s bass was fine-tuned electronically until it achieved awesome purity. Monty still had his special screwdriver-altered amplifier (he dared not bring another, lest Fred Head pull a similar stunt), and I was by this time much enamoured of electronics myself, I’d rigged up a special pre-amp that functioned as a sort of overdrive, forcing too much juice into the speakers, so that what finally trickled out was high-octane white gold.

  Yes sir, I don’t believe the Howl Brothers ever functioned as well again as we did that day. It was magic, it was a time we’d spend years trying to rediscover. Magic is a hard thing to hold on to.

  But we had it that day. When we were finished recording “Kiss Me, Karen” b/w “My Baby Burnt Out My Clutch,” Kenneth Sexstone pranced to the middle of the room and said,“Thank you, boys. You have just made me filthy rich.” We all started to grin. Even the father grinned, despite what was happening to him in the outside world, where the piece of granite he used for a heart was getting shattered. The father grinned because he knew what was about to happen. Within two weeks of its release, the record was number one in the United States of America.