Middle C

by Gass, William H

  Mr. E. J. Biazini was put out because he had driven to the college all the way from Urichstown per instructions received by phone from his old friend Miss Moss and was unable to find the piano; Miss Moss was peeved that matters had been mishandled after all her efforts, calling both hither and yon on the phone and sending her old friend Mr. Biazini to tune a ghostly grand piano; while the phones themselves miffed the Major, ringing, as she said, off the hook but not on library business. Miriam was now convinced that—traveling over wires for so many lots and even blocks let alone from town to town—Woodbine to Lowell, Lowell to Uhrichsville—a perilous passage—she was convinced that what one said at one end was squeezed into something quite other and quite else by the tortured time of its arrival. Think of what happens to toothpaste, she argued, with what relevance Joey did not pursue. President Palfrey didn’t want to spend any money on the gosh-awful piano, he told intimates, not right now with the budget busted and the underpinnings of the West Porch in need of repair, so he wrote Joseph a nice note thanking him for his helpful efforts, as did Miss Gwynne Withers, though she sent her thanks by phone from as far away as Columbus, where she had fled to be consoled and advised by the master accompanist, Herbert Kleger. Joseph thought it was awfully nice of them to thank him, he was not lately used to thanks, more and more like scowls were the looks that the Major sent his way, and his mother was in an awful mood, unhappy at having to live near wires, even stretches of mesh that honeysuckle might one day embrace, perfume, and wither on.

  He still had in his possession the very strange book he had picked up from the piano rack. It was old and badly shaken, the cover as loose as a coat, and contained the pieces Miss Withers was to sing marked by long slim inserts of paper; or so he had been given to understand, because the inserts did not jibe with the description of the program she had related to him over the phone, nor did the book itself, though it was called Songs That Never Grow Old and had at the front several pages of glamorous publicity photos of famous opera singers. Despite such initial promise, it was mostly a volume of “Polly-Wolly-Doodle”s and “When the Corn Is Waving”s. When an operatic aria did turn up, Joseph noted with a superior smile, it attributed “La Donna È Mobile” to Il Trovatore. Over the phone, just so, his mother said, You were misled, nothing goes honestly over those thin black droopy strings. I’ve seen them lining the roads like scratches on the sky. Joseph would have to return Songs That Never Grow Old to Miss Withers at the address of Mr. Kleger in Columbus, but he did want to learn a few tunes like “The Man Who Has Plenty of Good Peanuts” and “Bohunkus” before he did so. He had spent an evening on Wagner’s “To an Evening Star,” which was apparently a selection for the recital. “The Lost Chord” was also flagged, but Joseph didn’t know what opera it came from.

  Here I am, speaking to you, you are trying not to listen, but you are listening all the same, and you hear my voice no differently than you see my face, my dress, the lace you always loved, and how would you like it if my lace were taken from me, torn from my neck and sleeves? and suppose that is all you saw then, scraps of me, pieces and remnants that became me—your mother now is a rag of lace—well, that is what the phone is doing, cutting off your voice like the nose from your face, so there is no smile where your teeth show, no gestures; this rude tube is setting you adrift in darkness, only your voice is allowed to remain, a ghost like that cat in the story who is all whiskers. It is an evil business that black phone is doing.

  Joseph did for a time believe it.

  But the songbook was a good fairy. Or so it seemed. After three weeks Joseph still had not returned it, caught up as he was in its traditions, its ardent sentimentalities, its violent bravadoes, and its innocence. Most of all, though, he was charmed by its idiocies. He had singsonged the words of “The Low-Backed Car” for Marjorie between bursts of healing laughter. They debated what a low-backed car was and decided it had to be a kind of pickup truck or farm wagon because the lyrics began:

  When first I saw sweet Peggy,

  ’Twas on a market day.

  A low-backed car she drove and sat

  Up on a truss of hay …

  Then they considered the copyright dates, which were 1909 and 1913, in order to calculate the age of the automobile. Since some of the songs were Civil War or earlier, the book’s two birthdays weren’t much help. The picture of Peggy perched upon a bale of hay was almost perfect, but as the song went on, its absurdities improved.

  Sweet Peggy, round her car, sir,

  Has strings of ducks and geese,

  But the scores of hearts she slaughters,

  By far outnumber these;

  While she among her poultry sits,

  Just like a turtledove,

  Well worth the cage, I do engage,

  Of the blooming god of love!

  While she sits in her low-backed car,

  The lovers come near and far

  And envy the chicken

  That Peggy is pickin’,

  As she sits in the low-backed car.

  For several days Marjorie imagined herself pickin’ chicken at her no-backed desk. Joseph blew her kisses as he passed. She responded by pulling imaginary feathers from her rolladeck. These fooleries were observed, but only once and at a distance, by Miss Moss, who was not amused and scurried off to her dungeon cell. Joseph had to arrive soon after with a request for glue and, by the way, letting her in on the joke lest she read into the kiss blowing more than was appropriate. The jealousies that lay between the two women were beginning to be more than an inconvenience that required delicacy and tact; their animosities were moving into Joseph’s mind like raccoons into an attic.

  Still, the days were endurable and came and went like breath with only a few deep heaves to harm the pace. Joseph scraped by though he often felt like a scoured plate, just a bit cleaner than he thought cleanliness required. Along Quick Creek the winds picked up. They bowled through overhanging trees, rolled leaves down streets and sidewalks, rattled loose shutters, and hurried the streams. Sometimes, toward evening when the day cooled, flakes fell like little announcements. Miriam’s mums were rusty now as iron, and raindrops stung. They had been hail when they left their cloud. The Bumbler ran between towns with the sleepy regularity of the bus, while Joseph enjoyed Ohio’s dippy hills—the sumacs red as a poison label as if warning the others of the colors’ coming. Joseph became a regular at the church and frequently played on an old upright at its child-care center. He sometimes sang an old lyric or two in his thin, rather sharp voice. The kids loved “Polly-Wolly-Doodle” but, because of the congregation’s racial mix, Joseph had to be careful, he explained to Marjorie, not to let them hear the third verse, which went “Oh I came to a river, an’ I couldn’t get across, / Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day. / An’ I jump’d upon a nigger, an’ I tho’t he was a hoss, / Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.”

  It didn’t sound so bad when sung. Marjorie laughed, mostly in surprise, at the awkward rhyme. Is that what music did to affairs of the heart, to military anthems, to futile calls upon God, to sadness and loss? Even the most ordinary tunes could enliven exhausted sentiments and make acceptable some of the cruelest and coarsest of human attitudes. Things too silly to say can always be safely sung, he said, quoting some forgotten source. Joseph would play while softly singing “Tell me the tales that to me were so dear, / Long, long ago, long long ago; / Sing me the songs I delighted to hear, / Long long ago, long ago,” and every time he did he felt a twinge, as if he had lost a lover once, as if he owned a black man he could mount, supposing him a horse, or even as if he had lived “long long ago,” in a place called “yesterday,” enjoying the golden haze of wheat-filled hills or corn-green fields, strolling amid sunlit houses, standing at the edges of placid ice-cold lakes. Polly-wolly-doodle—it’s okay—do-dah-day—come out and play—hip-hip-hooray. Miss Withers would have sung her songs to chairs as armless as wounded soldiers. President Palfry would broadcast his beaming countenance without a fee. And the alumni would
go away relieved of their savings for a rainy day.

  Having had the experience twice already in his life, Joseph knew that on the next Fourth of July the national anthem was going to be bellowed by buxom ladies until it was as worn as the banner, and parades would feature survivors of foreign wars, limping along on roads lined by a national pride that waved paper flags stapled to brittle little sticks. Joseph’s world suddenly fell into the blahs as though into a bucket. Or down a drain that gurgled as if it had a stomach. He had them, the twelve blahs of Christmas. Perhaps the unromantic truth was that painters made poverty picturesque and Christ’s suffering grandly dramatic. He remembered how blood traced a graceful path down the Savior’s speared side; how architects built great halls to hold the egos of tyrants; and sculptors made Lenin’s ignoble nose look as if it deserved its own coin.

  Joseph’s mother loved “The Man with the Hoe.” Maybe it reminded her of the farm life she had once enjoyed. Anyhow, it made her feel good, about what he wasn’t sure. Salomé cavorting with the head of John the Baptist, flames consuming sinners, pre-Romans raping Sabine women, were all highly acceptable subjects. Congregations of good people still sang “The Son of God Goes Forth to War.” “His blood red banner streams afar.” He tried to remember that the Christian soldiers of the popular hymn only marched as to war, and, when they had to do it, dressed like the people who put out pots for pennies to help the poor. They did their ring-a-dings at corners and the doors of stores. Ho-ho-ho. Blah-la-la. Christmas—with the gifts neither he nor his mother could afford arranged around it—terrified him.

  Joseph had lost a father once, long long ago. Was that actually so bad? Blah or ha-ha or ho-ho. He didn’t know. But that little pang he felt as pleasure when he played and sang the long-ago song made him happy about what? It made him happy about loss. The dear dead days beyond recall.

  My little dog always waggles his tail

  Whenever he wants his grog;

  And if the tail were more strong than he,

  Why the tail would wag the dog.

  Blah de blah ah ha, hurrah, ho ha, blah blah.

  Pitches and beats, pitches and beats, that’s all the blahs were, pitches and beats. It made him want to skippedy do dah. Hit it boys. That odd command meant: start together now. The words were all so violent: hit it, strike up the band, pick up or capture the beat. There was also stomping at the Savoy. Reading at sight from his hymn book Joseph sang

  My name is Solomon Levi,

  at my store in Baxter street,

  That’s where you’ll find your coats and vests,

  and everything that’s neat;

  I’ve second-handed overcoats,

  and everything that’s fine,

  For all the boys they trade with me

  at one hundred and forty-nine.

  Now the chorus, boys, the chorus:

  Oh, Mister Levi, Levi, tra, la, la, la;

  … Poor Sheeny Levi, tra, la, la

  la, la, la la, la, la la, la,

  My name is Solomon Levi,

  At my store in Baxter street,

  There’s where you’ll find your coats and vests,

  and everything that’s neat;

  I’ve second-handed overcoats,

  and everything else that’s fine,

  For all the boys they trade with me,

  At one hundred and forty-nine.

  This last, Joseph presumed, was the street number of the shop, not the price of the overcoats. One tra and ten las rollicked along after poor sheeny Levi like yappy little dogs.

  His songbook had suckered him. He had a tune for his temper:

  I think I’ll go down in the dumps

  ’cause lately I’ve taken my lumps.

  I’m feeling so low

  I call myself Joe …

  He stared at the keyboard as he sometimes had to, ordering the piano to play, willing it to anticipate his fingers. This exercise was not a Czerny, nor a Cramer either. He had to relax his fingers. They needed to be fluid, loose as cooked pasta.

  Whats that you hummin?

  Joseph had been singing just above his breath. It has no name. It’s improvised.

  You a real musician then, Miss Spiky said in some surprise. Her hair had been cut and combed out of its customary wrappings. It transformed her appearance, but she remained wide. Now Joey would have to find her another name. He might just ask for the present one.

  Instead he said, No, not real. I’m just a pick-it-out, pick-it-up player.

  Thats the best kind. You humm you is down in the dumps. Well thats what blues are for. Singin em brings the spirits up.

  Yes, it does but that’s what’s got me down.

  What?

  Sometimes you deserve to be down in the dumps.

  Hey, I own a dump, I dont have to live there. She sang “I gotta right to sing the blues, / I gotta right to feel low down.”

  Joey laughed. Music is cheap medicine.

  Thats right. What else so cheap does so much good?

  You really love singing in the choir, don’t you?

  Shurely do. We all go up together. We just rise up together like steam from the road.

  May I ask what your name is? My name is Joseph Skizzen.

  My name is Hazel Hawkins. People call me Witch.

  25

  The spring semester is almost over, Professor Skizzen said as he drifted from one side of the classroom to another, a manner he had just recently adopted; only a week, a week and a half, remain, and most of you will leave the campus, leave this community, for your summer vacation and your menial job in a burger palace. Then after a few months—to play the alternatives—those of you who haven’t failed this class or some lesser subject, those of you who haven’t transferred to one of the cheaper Ivies, graduated to the job market, or run away to Europe or the circus, those … those of you who remain will return. That means most of you … most of you will be back, for who fails at Whittlebauer? we are so built upon success.

  Of course, in order to come to college you had to fly from your nest, bid bye-bye to your yard, your toaster, your elm tree with its tired swing—too many loved things for me in this crudely shaved hour to touch on … touch on or to name—and from that vantage point … hold on … correction … you may have brought your toaster with you—true—bags of clothes, toaster—yes, certainly—indispensable … anyway, from that perspective what you shall do next is fly back to your old neighborhood. Take your toaster if that pleases. Note this—you shall go home even if the elm is dying. Even if an aunt is. Even if you don’t want to. This cycle—of departure and return—evaporation and rain—yo and yo-yo—will be repeated in one form or another your entire lives.

  I beg your pardons, all … I used a misleading migratory metaphor—branch, nest, yard, garden—not wise, requires correction … why? because the migratory bird has two homes, its cool summer cottage and its warm winter cabaña. Hands if you see the difference. When you achieve physicianhood you may be able to afford it. But let me turn this inadequate image to account. Twin homesteads are not unknown to sociological research. Our earth has two poles. Such divided loyalties are regularly demonstrated by those in the dough, though one habitation is usually the castle while the other is a cabin. If you have too many homes, however, as the jet-setter presumably does, we are compelled to conclude that the jetter is really homeless … homeless as only the very rich can afford to be. They are on permanent vacation—not to and fro, but fro and fro. A woeful situation. So sad for them, you see.

  Miss Rudolph, if you have a cough that bad, you should go to the infirmary.

  So … yes … We start with your dorm room … a dorm room is your local habitation from which every morning, if you can manage it, you rise from your bed and wobble off to the Student Union where … where you’ll crunch some sugar-laden biscuit … some processed wheat or exploded corn before it sogs in the bowl. I can see you … Professor Skizzen made an I-spy gesture with his hands. I can see you sweet-rolling your way to your first class.
What a pretty sight! You dutifully follow your schedule throughout the day and return at the end of it to that same rubble of a room … to sit under a study lamp, perhaps to gossip with a friend, guzzle cola, or play guitar noise on the old Victrola before sleep … yes, before sleep takes you once again into its somber chamber of dreams and its crude simulation of death. That’s how it is at your home—here. But soon you shall have to return to your home—there. Perhaps you will drive your own tin lizzie back, or your family car will come to fetch you—Father and Aunt Louise—or you will ride a bus with a bunch of strangers from another world—

  What?

  Ah, I see … We don’t say that anymore … Too bad. “Lizzie” makes an appropriate sound and ought to be still in use. The car wasn’t made of tin either. Anyway … while you are traveling, you will leave the car to fuel, leave it for relief, leave it to snack, to stretch your legs—candy, rest-room, gasoline, coffee—leave, lock, carry out your mission, bomb the supply dump, make a safe return. The vehicle will seem in such moments to be your special place, your familiar surroundings where your guard can roll down like one of its windows, where your can of pop, wad of highway maps, or that sweet roll waits. Small cycles turn inside of wider ones, don’t they? Every sentence has a subject to which its predicate must return. First establish a base. Then see to its safety. Embark on your adventures. Return to rest up. In relief if not in jubilation. Round as a gong. Wheels within wheel, you see. Like Ezekiel’s, wheels with eyes, eh? fire filled … Ezekiel? Show of hands … Show … Ah, yes, no surprise to me … ignorance … ignorance is epidemic.