“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that’s called an f-hole?”
“Well, yeah. I can’t believe you haven’t heard that, after all this time. For obvious reasons,” I said holding up the violin by the neck and pointing to one of the two f-shaped holes, “it’s called an f-hole.” And then I heard what he heard. “How old are you, thirteen?”
“I’m just sayin’. Hey, nice f-hole, buddy.”
“Grow up.” I was working my way through the line of violins slowly.
“That guy at Sam Ash was such an f-hole.”
“Stop.”
Fletch let it rest. For about twenty seconds.
“Okay if I put my finger in your—”
“Hey-hey-hey!”
“Okay, okay. I’ll behave. So how’d you choose your violin?”
“Well, I suppose the Harry Potter thing isn’t that far off, now that I think about it. We’d decided I needed a better violin than what I’d been playing, and the shopping began. I looked at a lot of instruments over a period of about a year, I guess. The awful thing is the violin I have was one of the first Mr. Rosen showed me. It was really good, so much better than anything I’d ever played, but—don’t laugh—I was only fifteen—I wanted something French or Italian. Something sexy, you know? And my heart was set on finding a violin with a dark red finish. In my head I knew I’d be brilliant with this beautiful dark red violin. You know, like in the movie?”
Fletch had clearly never seen the movie.
“Anyway,” I went on, “I figured, we were going to spend all this money on the thing, so I should be able to get whatever I wanted, right? But Mr. Rosen had shown me this violin. On the one hand, it was fantastic. On the other hand, it wasn’t red; it wasn’t from Italy. It was from some town called Mittenwald? Not quite so sexy as Cremona. And it was too brown. Not dark brown, not golden brown, not honey, not amber. Brown. Shit brown. Diarrhea brown, when I wanted to be really vile about it. But when I played it—okay, sparks didn’t shoot out or anything—it would have been helpful if they had—but it seemed somehow easy to play. It was easy to get the sound from it that I wanted. It projected beautifully, without being harsh sounding or cutting, although I could get an edgy sound from it when I wanted. That make any sense?”
I was working my way through the violins on the counter, although I had yet to pick up the bow Mr. Rosen had set out for me.
“And then?”
“Well. It was the wrong color. So I kept looking. Because I wanted that deep red lacquer, damn it. Of course I didn’t say that to anybody because even I knew it was pretty stupid. And for the next few months, I looked at lots of different dealers all over, we visited shops in Boston, we took a trip to Philadelphia. We’d even talked about flying out to Los Angeles. I played a lot of really nice violins. I’d also come back here a couple more times, tried a couple more instruments, and each visit I spent a little more time with that humble brown violin from Mittenwald, mostly just to convince myself that I didn’t want it, in spite of how nicely it played. To remind myself how very brown it was. But whenever I came in, Mr. Rosen was sure to set the Mittenwald out along with whatever else he was going to show me.”
I picked up the bow from the counter.
“You were fifteen? You weren’t alone on these shopping trips,” Fletch said.
“No. My dad. My infinitely patient dad was taking me wherever I insisted we go next. My infinitely patient, high-powered nine-hundred-plus-an-hour litigator dad took the time out of his life to drive me and stand quietly in the background with his Blackberry.”
“That’s—really something.”
“Yeah, it was. And I’m sure Mr. Rosen was probably sitting back there the whole time, wondering when I’d finally catch on and figure out there was a reason why I kept coming back to play the Mittenwald. He had heard what I had heard, how responsive it was. But I was an idiot, and I took a violin out on loan from a shop in Boston. I tried it out in my lessons and in the school orchestra. And I took it back. Then I borrowed another one and so on. And then I was back here, dicking around, deliberately avoiding playing the Mittenwald, and Mr. Rosen suggested I try it on loan for a month. What could it hurt? So I did, and then I asked him for another month, and finally one day in my room doing études, I realized—that plain, brown, German violin was it.”
“The violin you have now?”
“Yep. This one is nice,” I said about the third instrument I had been messing with.
Mr. Rosen came back with two more cases and slipped out again.
“Do you hate your little plain violin then?”
“Oh God, no! I love that fiddle! The thing was, after two months, it was time to give it back to Mr. Rosen, and—I didn’t want to. That’s how I knew. And—I have to add—when I told my father what I wanted to do, that after all this brouhaha, I had chosen a violin I’d tried in the first week of this yearlong search—do you know what my high-powered lawyer-dad said about all of his very expensive time I’d wasted? Not a word.”
“Wow. Awesome guy, I guess.”
“He is. I forget that sometimes. And back to your question, I definitely picked the right instrument for me.”
“The violin chooses the wizard, Harry,” Fletch said in a crackly voice. “It’s not always clear why.”
“Apparently. Because now—God’s honest truth?—I wouldn’t trade that little Mittenwald for a Strad.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. I even love the very brownness of it.”
“Mittenwald is in Germany? We should go there on a trip sometime.”
“Yeah, we should! That’s a great idea. It’s in the Alps in Bavaria. I’m sure it’s really pretty.” But Fletch had forgotten himself, and so had I. I wasn’t going anywhere with Fletch. “I mean, yeah, I should.”
“Yeah, you should.” He had heard the distinction. I played a little of the Bach Chaconne. “Or Cancun,” he said a little louder. I played a little louder. “I’m sure the Yucatan is a lot like Bavaria,” he said.
I hammered a couple of loud sforzandos at him in response. We looked at each other for a second.
“Don’t be an f-hole,” I said and I went back to noodling.
Each instrument had a little handwritten card with the maker and date—none of these was particularly old—and the price on the back. Fletch had just flipped one of the cards over.
“Whoa!” he said. “I had no clue it was going to be so expensive. I know this was my idea and all, but—”
“Don’t worry. I’m buying the violin. It’s totally okay.”
“Are you sure you want to spend this much?”
“It’s fine. It’s not that much.”
“I guess I shouldn’t ask how much your plain brown Mittenwald cost then.”
“No.”
I picked up the bow and went back to the third one, a French violin from the 1970s. I tuned. Violin playing = endless tuning.
“Fletch, you don’t have to stick around. This must be really dull.”
“Are you kidding? The Dweeb in his element—I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
He must be crazy.
After I’d played all seven violins on the counter, it came down to three, but I kept coming back to the French one.
“You sure you don’t want the dark red one?” Fletch asked.
“I’m sure.” The French was a very light blond color.
“I thought the chocolate brown one was the prettiest.”
“No, this is the one.”
I spent a little time picking a bow, a little more playing just to be sure, and Mr. Rosen and I settled on a price for the violin and case, the bow, a cake of rosin, a collapsible music stand, some beginner books Trevor could start with, and a couple books on violin pedagogy for me.
Mrs. Rosen wrote up the sales receipt. A small, round woman with curls that I reme
mbered being red, but which were now gray, she smiled up at me as she passed me the charge slip to sign.
“For a little boy or a little girl?”
“A little boy,” I said.
“Trevor,” said Fletch.
“I’m sure he’ll make you two very proud daddies.” The woman positively beamed at us.
I sort of gasped, but Fletch—as always—was too fast for me.
“We certainly hope so,” he said, beaming right back. “Don’t we, honey?” He squeezed me with one arm and kissed me on the cheek, still grinning.
“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Rosen,” I stammered.
“Thank you!”
Fletch picked up the large shopping bag, and held the door for me.
“Buh-bye!” he called to the Rosens, and we went down the hall to the elevator.
Neither of us said anything until the elevator doors were closing. We both looked straight out.
“Sometimes I just hate you, do you know that?” I said calmly.
“No you don’t.”
“I do. I really do.”
We stepped back out onto Sixty-Seventh Street. There was a nasty, cold wind.
“C’mon, honey,” said Fletch. “I’ll buy you some hot chocolate.”
Chapter 23
A Viking Raid
Fletch
And do you think there was a pushcart around selling hot chocolate? No.
This is New York, you’re supposed to be able to find anything, right? But we didn’t, not until we were in front of that big, ugly, way-upscale shopping mall thing on Columbus Circle, where there was a truck in front that sold Belgian waffles and “dinges,” whatever they are, and some seriously amazing hot chocolate. So we stood leaning against the marble façade next to a mannequin-filled window where we were out of the wind, and we watched the world go by. Okay, Roger was watching the world. You can guess who I was watching.
What a fantastic afternoon it had been. All this time with Roger, no fighting. Just being with him felt good. Maybe Roger was starting to think so too? And this Belgian cocoa was totally rocking my world. Roger even had a little bit of whipped cream on his nose—you tell me how this day could get any better.
I had also noticed that, under his coat, he was wearing my hoody. Way too big on him, it was over-the-top cute.
“Thanks for coming with me, Fletch. You must have been really bored.”
“Not for a second.”
“Really?”
“Really.” A glimpse into Roger’s world. I was fascinated. “I had fun, honest.”
“Especially the two-daddies part.”
“Yep, that was prit-tee special.”
“Jerk.”
The cream on his nose was finally too much for me.
“Hey, I was going to let you go around all day like that, but I can’t.”
“What?”
“You’ve got something…”
“Where?”
He wiped his mouth with the paper napkin.
“Your nose, Dweeb.”
“My nose?!”
“Here, you want me—”
“No!” He pulled his head away from me, very Haggis-like.
“How’s that?” he asked, looking at me over those freckles, his cheeks flushed even more than usual from the cold.
“Perfection.”
It slipped out before I could stop myself. His eyes met mine for a second. He was surprised. I was totally surprised, too. My throat had closed up.
I looked at him, and I thought, Just say it. He was right there, so close. We were having a good time. Tell him!
I know you won’t believe me, I wanted to say, but I promise I won’t hurt you. I swear—I swear on your beautiful, plain brown violin—that I will never ever hurt you again.
We were standing a little too close, and the words were right there. Say something!
But while I hesitated, I was suddenly aware of a huge bulky shadow out of the corner of my eye. Somebody had stopped only a couple feet from us to stare. The sun was behind him, and I couldn’t really see. Some homophobe security guard here to protect the public welfare? Or just some perv watching two boys having a moment? I didn’t care.
“’Sup?” I said with the obligatory chin move, without really looking at the guy.
“Fletch?” the guy said.
I looked over—and up. Damn, he was big enough.
A huge Nordic type, a couple inches taller than me even, and lots beefier, pink face, some blond stubble that glinted a little. Wait, did I know him? A shock of reddish-blond hair hung out from under a navy-blue knit cap that went so nicely with his peacoat and blue eyes.
The bell dinged. Oh yeah. He had a Nordic name too, like Sven, but it wasn’t Sven. Big guy with an amazing body that went on for days. Like a rolling landscape. A blast from the past—that needed to stay there.
“I thought it was you!” said the not-Sven.
“Hey-how’ve-ya-been,” I brushed him off. I turned back to Roger. “Hey, you ready?”
“Oh-jeez,” Roger said, glancing at the Swede, taking in the size of him. “Let me guess how you know him.”
“Hey I’m sorry, Fletch,” said Leif Ericson. “Are you two…”
“What? Us?” Roger said. “We’re nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Man-oh-man. That did not sound good.
“Roger—”
“Fletch, dude, I looked all over for you—”
“Good, now go look for somebody else. Roger—”
“Hey, you boys go on ahead,” Roger snarked. “Don’t let me get in the way. You never did before, did you, Fletch?” He snatched up the shopping bag and started walking, tossing his cardboard cup in a trash bin as he passed.
God damn it!
Where was he even going? The closest subway entrance was behind us, but Dweeb was headed for the other side of six lanes of traffic.
“Roger, wait.” Now I was annoyed. He kept walking across the huge intersection, for no reason other than he was apparently completely out of control. I followed, of course, but while Roger had the tail end of the traffic light with him, it changed as soon as I stepped off the curb.
“Wait, Fletch,” yelled Mr. Stockholm, bumbling along behind me. “I don’t have your number!”
“Good! Don’t call me!”
“C’mon, don’t be like that, baby.”
Fuck. Because of traffic, we were marooned on the little island in the middle, and I turned to the big blond.
“Call me baby again, I’ll put you in a corner.”
I made a crazy dash across Broadway after Roger, who was already disappearing down the steps into the subway. Taxis were whizzing around Columbus Circle, honking as I ducked between them—and the frigging Viking was lumbering across the street behind me! How good in bed could I possibly be that somebody would risk their life to chase me across Broadway against traffic?
Okay, yeah, I was chasing Roger, but that was different, totally different.
“Roger!” I yelled.
“Fletch!” yelled the Norseman.
Once safely on the sidewalk, I yelled back at the giant.
“Listen, you lummox! Take a hint! Get lost!”
Poor Bjorn looked at me like I’d slapped him in the face with a dried cod, but I didn’t have time to worry about his hurt feelings.
God damn, Roger could be quick when he was pissed, and his feet just flew down the steps, weaving through the crowd to the subway entrance, and then whoosh, his Metrocard slid through the thing and he was past the turnstile.
“Roger,” I shouted, following him. “You can’t be mad—”
Well apparently he could, because he’d already made his way around four gum-chewing high school girls clumped at the top of the stairs down to the trains, and he disappeared down thos
e steps like a white rabbit on a bad day—while I was still stuck at the damned turnstile in please-swipe-again hell.
“Roger!” one of the gum-chewers yelled down the steps. “Your boyfriend’s calling!” Huge squeals of laughter.
Fortheloveofgod, I swiped my Metrocard a fourth time, and I could finally push through. I skirted around the group of girls, giving them a dirty look as I went.
“Oooh, now I’m scared,” one of the girls said, mocking me, which brought on more laughter.
“Shut up!” another said. “He’s hot!” Now screams of laughter were following me as I trotted down to the platform.
It was getting on toward rush hour, and it took me a bit to find Roger. But there he was with the shopping bag, calmly looking down the track for the next train.
I stopped next to him and looked at him for a second. He didn’t look at me, just kept looking past me down the tracks.
“Why are you angry?” I said evenly, if a little out of breath. I wanted to bring this back to the land of the reasonable.
“I’m not angry at all,” he said perfectly calmly, still not giving me the slightest glance. “You don’t owe me anything. That guy was seriously hot. You should totally go after him.”
“Don’t be like that, Dweeb.”
“Stop calling me that. And I’m not mad. Why should I be mad? After all, he’s just another one. I’ve been thinking we could have a club, you know? Him, me, all the guys? We could have our meetings in, say, I don’t know, maybe—Madison Square Garden?”
“That guy is from like a year ago. Nobody was cheating on anybody!”
The train was pulling in. Roger watched the cars go past as the train slowed.
“Look, you don’t owe me an explanation, and you don’t have to hang around with me all day. Go, knock yourself out. No reason you shouldn’t have some fun, and he looks like, oh, lots of fun. Call him.”
“I’m not going to call him.” The train doors opened and we stepped back to let some people get off. “I don’t want to call him.”
Where Do I Start? Page 16