by J. C. Geiger
Griff looked at the sky, afraid to ask: What if they postponed the show? Would the Band play tomorrow? Or would they hide out another month? Should they have a plan?
“Hey, Rumblefish,” Griff asked. “What time is the show?”
“Noodles!” Rumblefish screamed.
The plan was noodles.
Nobody was talking about the show. All off-ramping to the Naughty Noodle, which smelled great. Fresh, steaming odors of crushed basil and pine nuts, juicy green olives popping in the pan oil, cackling at the names: The Devil’s Got Angel Hair, F-U-Silly Pesto, Curry Some Flavor—and when Griff picked up his plate of bright green corkscrew pasta, Charity had vanished in the crowd.
Griff found a small wooden stump and sat to eat. Noodles, slippery with butter and fresh pesto. Small nuggets of hard cheese, garlic, my god. Griff ate and watched a guy in a fedora sweeping the back kitchen of the Naughty Noodle. A lady with a tight, short mohawk approached and watched him. She unslung her guitar and played a magic lick along to the beat of the broomcorn.
Griff knew the song. A perfect song. It played to the memory of his parents pulling the car over to dance, him and Leo rolling their eyes from the backseat. They’d really done that!
“‘Harvest Moon’!” Rumblefish screamed. He came rushing in with his dobro. More musicians arrived on the scene like EMTs trained to make sure the moment kept its pulse.
And there was Charity. Across a sea of arms, legs, heads, elbows in a red dress, and would she dance?
The whole crowd loved her. The whole world.
He should ask her to dance. They’d come to the desert together. Cuddlenapped. And when he pictured the person walking confidently through the crowd and taking her hand, he still could not see himself. He saw Leo.
Griff forced himself to move. Like when he tried to go to her window. Moving forward, retreating—maybe she wanted a moment alone—maybe she wanted to dance with someone else—and finally when the song was two verses deep he was close enough.
“What took you so long?” she said.
She stood and her body came against his. Electric awareness. Breasts against his chest. She moved his hand to the place where waist became hip. It felt obscene, remarkable. They were here with hundreds, kicking up the same dirt, and they were alone.
“I never once expect you to say yes,” he said.
“I don’t know how else to show you,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I—”
“What else?” she said. “Whatever poem you’ve got rattling in your head—say it.”
“Oh,” he said.
“No one else can hear you,” she sang softly, imitating his warm-up song. “Charity loves your voice.”
He bit his lip. Breathing.
“Sing it, boy,” she whispered in his ear.
“I don’t love anything like I love you,” he said.
She hummed. “Mmm. What else?”
“I feel like we’ve been singing together since before we were born.”
She hummed more, along with his words.
“I miss the music,” she said. “I miss your ear.”
She took his earlobe between her teeth, tugged gently. He jerked upright, laughed.
“There’s a piano in the desert,” he said.
“Mmm,” she said. “Let’s get it.”
The song was almost over.
“One more time!” Rumblefish told the band. Ah! Sweet miracle! And Rumblefish deserved every good thing and any sum of money, the best possible life forever for playing “Harvest Moon” one more time.
She pressed her body against him. His hand pulled the small of her back, harder. A soft grind. He wanted her so badly he laughed—didn’t know what to do. The laughter just shook out.
“Good, huh?” she whispered. She kissed his neck. Then the song was over, maybe had been over. She was laughing too.
“Okay,” she said. “The Band.”
“Right,” Griff said. “The Band.”
Thomas, Stitch, and Alea plowed into their group like a rudderless boat, well sloshed. Stitch was drinking from what looked like a giant tin can.
“Where’s the party?” Stitch asked.
“Shouldn’t we get to the stage?” Griff asked.
“Don’t worry,” Malachi said. “There will be an announcement.”
“They chirp, right?” Thomas said. “Like—Che-che-chirrup!”
Thomas made a strange, squirrelly sound in his throat and people looked in their direction.
Others took up the call:
Che-che-chirrup!
Che-che-chirrup!
“Nope!” Malachi said, waving his arms. “K.T.! No false alarms!”
“Sorry,” Thomas said.
“We’ve got an hour,” Malachi said. “Maybe two.”
“We drink!” Stitch said.
“What about the piano?” Griff said.
“Well,” Stitch said.
“Yes,” Charity said.
“Piano!” Rumblefish screamed. “Exactly, fucking exactly perfect what we need to do right now. Find the Bagman. It’s written in the sky—”
Hooting, Rumblefish led them to the ladder.
Bagman?
“Maybe he won’t be there,” Stitch said.
They kept talking—he’s always there—as Griff climbed the rungs to the top of the plateau. Thomas followed. As the first to the top, they were the first to see it. Beyond the blinking blue light of Simon’s tower. A dark boil of clouds, churning over mountains. The rest of the group collected around them.
“You know what they call that in Australia?” Thomas said. “The black layer of sky that rolls out like a fuck-you pirate flag at the front of a storm?”
“Don’t ask him,” Griff said.
“What?” Rumblefish asked.
“The Razor’s Edge,” Thomas said, looking them over. Raising an eyebrow.
“Oh god,” Griff said.
“Not coincidentally, the name of AC/DC’s twelfth studio album. The opening track has played at every single live show since its release.”
As they walked, thunder clapped. A flash of light scribbled through clouds.
“Turn back?” Charity asked.
“No,” Griff said. “Walk faster.”
SIXTY-SEVEN
THE NIGHT HAD A NEW, WILD FLAVOR.
As if the flash of light had cut a slit in the sky’s dark curtain. A thrown-open door to somewhere new. Fresh gusts carried the gratifying tang of ozone, the muddy breath of a river.
“That storm smell!” Charity said.
“Water,” Griff said.
A long crackle of thunder like a log broken over a giant’s knee. They howled back at it.
“OwwwowwwOOOWWWW!”
The ancient song tore out through their chests and the group went spinning out across the dunes, whirling like autumn leaves. At the next thunderclap, Griff counted the seconds. One, two, three… Wet his finger in his mouth and checked the direction of the wind. Thirteen, fourteen—
Lightning. A hot pop of broken tungsten.
The flash glazed the mountains in silver and clutched the clouds with sudden light. Dark and scalloped, overfull bellies scraping mountaintops about 3 miles away. Gusts blowing hard in a favorable direction. Maybe they’d be okay. Thomas predicted otherwise:
“It was their last night on Earth!” he declared, throwing his arms up in a V.
KABOOM!
“Stop,” Stitch said. “You’re scaring your rat.”
In the swinging carrier, Neapolitan was pacing, sniffing at the window. Hairless paws clutching the door.
“This way!” Rumblefish shouted, windmilling his arms.
“Hear that?” Charity asked.
The wind heaved itself across the sand and carried the soft chime of scattered notes.
“Piano,” Griff said.
A modern-sounding composition. He couldn’t quite pick it out. Their scattered group coalesced into a steady line. Like a march. A forever climb up the dune a
nd so Griff started jogging, lifting his knees. It felt suddenly urgent. The wind might catch the piano’s lid like a sail, carry it over the horizon.
“You’re fast when you’re nervous,” Charity said.
“Just want to get there,” Griff said.
The piano was louder now, discernible notes. It had the warmth of a grand. Perfect string tension. Very close. Just over this dune.
Griff and Charity were in the lead.
“They’re good,” Griff said.
Maybe one player. Maybe two. The playing was that fast.
The last slippery footsteps—Griff considered how awful it would be, to finally reach the instrument and find two players at the bench. How it would, in a sense, be the worst thing he could imagine.
Cresting the top of the dune, he saw it.
“Impossible,” he whispered.
A nine-foot Steinway concert grand. The most beautiful instrument conjured by the patient hand of mankind. And a big crowd. The small basin between dunes had been arranged like a plush living room. Lanterns hung from hunks of driftwood, dangled from uprooted trees. Red knots of fabric tied like raspberry drupelets, throwing red splotches on the sand. The player sounded skilled. But too fast. He played like he was running out of time.
Griff looked more closely and froze.
The player was clothed and masked with burlap. Ripped holes for eyes. Where a mouth should be, crude stitching. Pinkish hands fluttered from ragged cuffs.
“What’s that?” Griff breathed.
“Bagman,” Rumblefish said, catching his breath.
A hand clutched Griff’s shoulder and he jumped. Turned to see Thomas, his lips outlined in purple.
“Griff,” Thomas said softly. “Do you see that? A man in burlap playing piano like Maserati?”
“You mean Mozart?” Griff asked. “Or Liberace?”
“I mean a fucking burlap suit with eyeholes,” Thomas said.
“Yes.”
“We’ll never get him off the bench,” Stitch said.
“We need to hear Griff play,” Rumblefish said, holding Griff’s shoulder.
“This guy doesn’t take turns,” Stitch said.
Bagman finished the piece with a one-handed flourish. The crowd applauded.
“This is a concert,” Griff said. “I can’t interrupt.”
“No,” Rumblefish said. “There’s only one piano in the desert. It belongs to all of us.”
The Bagman started a new piece. He stood. Put a knee on the piano bench. Lengthening his arm, he reached into the guts of the piano. Mashed the wires.
“Is that legal?” Stitch said.
“It’s ‘Black Earth,’” Griff exhaled. “That’s how you play the piece.”
Together, the group moved down the dune. The piece sounded like a hollow, ticktock jangle interrupted by brief, percussive bursts. The crowd noticed them. Turning heads and chatter. When they reached the low, flat center of the performance space, Bagman was hunched over the piano, hands on exposed wires, elbow jerking.
“We’ll come with you,” Charity said.
A small contingent of them inched forward—Thomas, Stitch, Charity, Rumblefish, and Griff. The rest of the group hung back. Griff took a few more steps, standing separate from the audience now. Hanging in the liminal space between spectator and performer. As if slowly approaching a nonexistent tip jar.
“One step at a time,” Rumblefish said.
“I’ll just ask him for one song,” Griff said. “That’s it.”
Bagman played harder. The closer they got, the more he pounded. Hammers crashing, rent edges of fabric fluttering at his wrists, Griff wondered how that felt, and touched his own wrists. When the Bagman stopped, the great instrument’s soundboard shuddered. Applause.
“Do you want me to come?” Charity asked.
“I got it,” Griff said.
Bagman suddenly looked up.
Ragged eyeholes. Griff half expected buttons for pupils. Dark mirrors. But the Bagman’s eyes were very much alive in their cloth caves. The crowd held the silence.
Griff stepped forward. Suddenly he and the Bagman were quite close. The man’s arms hung loose at his sides. Long fingers trailing shredded cuffs. Bare feet.
Griff’s hands were itchy.
“Can I play one?” Griff asked.
The Bagman stared back at him. He breathed beneath burlap. Lungs, a heart, and all the parts of a human. Why couldn’t he respond? He tilted his shoulders a bit, moved over on the bench. Making room.
“I meant,” Griff said, “could I play my own piece?”
He was still. Griff turned back toward his friends, far away. Thomas signed to him:
Want to leave?
DA DUN!
Griff’s knees shook. He turned back to face the Bagman.
The crowd hooted and clapped. Seeming to feed on the applause, Bagman raised a hand. Again, his finger pounced on C-sharp.
DA DUN!
Sharp, clean notes rang out.
For Griff, the paracord was just instinct.
A snap calculation of the body. He could not play his best with it on, and he could afford nothing less than his best. He unclasped the piece of durable plastic that held the bracelet halves in place and turned to his friends. He chose Stitch. Standing out front, beaming confidence. She had no idea what it meant. He removed it. Removed his black security band. He threw both to Stitch and rubbed his plain, smooth wrists.
DA DUN!
“You know this one!” Thomas shouted.
Yes. First at camp. Then low through the drywall. Rattling panes in French doors. The unmistakable shave-and-a-haircut summons of the four-hands duet. Griff knew exactly what it meant.
The Bagman slid over.
Showtime.
SIXTY-EIGHT
THE CROWD LOST THEIR MIND. UNGLUED FROM THE DUNE, THEY sprang up clapping. The world narrowed to the remaining steps to the instrument. Griff paid attention to his own breath. Hushed the audience into static.
Tune the dial. Focus.
Griff stood beside the bench and the man in burlap.
There are certain things you know about a player before they touch the keys. Bench position, hand position, the way they turn toward the audience. Set of their shoulders. Griff had seen the Bagman play two pieces. He was aggressive. Impatient. Trying to prove something.
DA DUN!
How would they proceed? There were three major varieties of four-hands literature for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, but Bagman was only playing the two Cs, which meant the next set of notes belonged to Griff. This ruled out the Ricordi, or the simplified Bendel composition—no, this would be the Hand Smasher—the Potestani—the version he and Leo had chosen, with full-fingered pyrotechnics and unfettered dynamism—
DA DUN!
Griff exhaled his wild, fluttering panic. Inhaled—
Potestani.
Inflexible and mathematical in the portioning. The piano split straight down middle C, which meant the players must sit very close.
Bagman left Griff less than half the bench. Too far forward.
He sat. The crowd howled. Wooden legs creaked in the sand.
Bagman looked at him with damp brown eyes. Not pools. Not pits. Eyes. Pounding blood flexed fists in Griff’s temples. Did he know him? Heart valves and flaps, open and shut:
Boom boom
Thunder. Wind carried the Bagman’s scent. Sweet and sour like spoiled milk. Burlap brushed Griff’s arm. Itchy. Wanted to scratch—
DA DUN!
And this time—DUN! DUN!
Griff answered with his own two chords.
The audience erupted, and the piece began. Griff and Bagman played together. Slipped into the opening bars sloppy, Griff dropping notes. One. Another. He tried to stomp a pedal and the Bagman’s bare foot mashed his ankle—
Griff jerked to the side.
Bagman played impatiently. Snapped at the keys.
From the top of the dune he’d looked like a perfect devil, but up close—he made
mistakes. Staccato when the piece called for legato. Hammering notes like nails into wood. Never a miss, exactly, but it was not exquisite piano, merely perfect piano. More Morse code than music.
They danced their way through the first half of the piece. The gentle lassan. Building toward the next chapter—the turbulent, cavorting, finger-blasting friska, which could crush any pianist on a bad night—their hands leapt and sprawled and pressed toward the piece’s second half, rumbling like a waterfall in the near distance—
Coming—it’s coming, then—
Griff!
Friends shouting his name as he and Bagman tumble over the cliffside in a barrel together—the friska! Bagman leaps middle C, steals a note. An entire arpeggio!
The crowd screams and Griff hammers an octave on Bagman’s side of the keys they are moving 40,000 miles per hour and the cheering grows and it’s messy and wild, Bagman’s fingers knock his knuckles and the tempo snaps at their heels, metronome cleaving too close, they must KEEP PLAYING feet mashing pedals and the piano bench tips—
Backward, hits the sand and they’re standing now, side by side, this wild burlap creature, and he makes the mistake of glancing over, seeing him with eyes, no mouth—
Griff drops a chord.
Bagman is going too fast now, taking the wheel, hijacking the piece, of course Griff is behind, of course he loses, of course he’s LATE, hands are tired and Bagman knows Griff cannot win—
Then it’s coming.
He’s come this far and it’s coming like a highway on the downslope of an axle-breaking mountain road, no brakes and still coming—the off-ramp to improvisation, the exit to As You Desire, At Your Pleasure—
CADENZA—
As You Wish.
And as Bagman grips the piece to steer it safely to The End, Griff pulls the whole shaking, wild thing off the page. He will not stop. Will not quit. Must speak and his hands this time say YES and Bagman cannot stop him because the song belongs to whoever has the courage to take it and Griff leaves Liszt’s elegant notes with all the grace of tires trading asphalt for gravel—
THUD—
His own cadenza—never done, but allowed by the music, and Griff hears himself in need of a lifetime of work, but the Bagman cannot know the notes because the song now belongs to Griff and the Bagman is standing. Stepping back and my god, Griff is playing! Bare wrists light and soaring over all eighty-eight keys, playing, playing, playing and it’s over—