Beside the Music

by BJ Knapp

  “It actually feels quite nice.” He tips his head toward the sky, and I watch the rain stream down his cheeks and neck. His wet shirt clings to his body, and I can see his well-defined chest and abs. I smell his sweat being washed away. I know I shouldn’t stare, but I can’t help it. Keith was never conventionally attractive when the band was in its heyday, but he’s definitely pretty hot now, with the rain streaming down his face.

  I turn my attention back to the laundry and try not to look up at him again. Then I cheat and sneak another peek. His hair, soaked with rain, clings to his forehead. He runs his hands through it and groans as he rubs the palms of his hands on his cheeks. I finish taking down what’s left of the laundry, and he carries the basket back to the house for me. Of course, my one pair of granny panties is on top of the pile; as if the bra fiasco hadn’t been enough.

  “I’ll take it from here,” I say when we get to the back door, holding out my arms. He places the basket in my hands. “Thank you.” I shove the panties under the other clothes, and he smirks.

  I scramble through the back door, soaked, with the basket of waterlogged clothes weighing me down, but Keith doesn’t come in with me. I look back and see him still there on the porch. What the hell is he doing? The smirk on his face is gone; I see his eyes lose their luster as he gazes at something far away, his mouth falling into an expressionless horizontal line. I crane my neck back out the door and am immediately pelted by the windblown rain. I see that he’s staring at the wind chimes hanging by the back door. They are ringing rhythmically in a perfectly steady time. Keith fixes his attention on them, his eyes glazing even more as he taps his hand against his thigh.

  “Keith? Are you okay?” I ask from inside the door. Is he having a seizure? My mind goes back to all the exacting preparations that Toni made before he flew to Rhode Island to meet me. At the time, I’d thought it was a bit much, but now I’m struggling to remember if there was any mention of epilepsy. He’s standing outside in the pouring rain, transfixed, but he holds up his hand to silence me and closes his eyes. I set the basket down and watch him. I am not sure what is going on, but it is absolutely fascinating.

  “Brenda,” he whispers urgently, “where’s your guitar? Quick. Please.”

  Chapter 9

  MY MOUTH IS HANGING OPEN. How exactly has this happened: Keith Kutter ending up strumming my guitar in the pouring rain?

  Thankfully, it hadn’t been a seizure: he just got an idea for a song. I listen to the guitar against the wind chimes. I never would have come up with that in a million years. I stare in awe at the complex rhythm that Keith is coaxing out of my guitar. I didn’t know those rusty strings could even make that kind of sound. Reluctantly, I leave the back door. I put the clothes in the dryer and go back into the kitchen, where Greg is loading plates into the dishwasher. The counter has been scrubbed clean.

  “Oh, Greg, you didn’t have to do that,” I chide, scrambling into the kitchen to take over. But there is nothing left to do. Maybe, I think, I should have stayed out of the kitchen longer—he could have tackled the inside of the fridge.

  “It was no problem. The least I could do. We’re the ones who turned up here unannounced.” Greg smiles then takes Vito up on a ruthless game of tug, until Vito triumphantly carries his toy with him to his bed. Greg looks around. “Where’s Keith?”

  “Destroying my guitar in the rain.” I gesture out the window, and Greg nods. “Does he always do this sort of thing?”

  “Yup.” He smiles over his shoulder as he heads for the living room, and then grabs a book off the shelf. “I’ll make sure he gets you a new one.”

  Wow. They’re just going to buy me a new guitar? Of course they are: it’s Keith Kutter. I’ll probably end up with some crazy expensive limited edition amazing piece of art guitar that the manufacturer is dying for Hydra to play on stage, so long as Greg is making sure of it.

  I walk into the living room and pick up a magazine. I thumb through a few pages, but it doesn’t hold my interest. Keith Kutter is playing my guitar right outside. I can’t help but listen, but I don’t want to bother him; he’s obviously on a roll. I cock my ear as he blends the guitar perfectly with the wind chimes. He grunts with exasperation, apparently trying, again and again, to get the rhythm just right. I would love it if he asked me to go out there and listen. What if he gets stuck and needs me to give him some ideas? I could be on the ground floor of a brand new Hydra song, or even a Keith Kutter solo project!

  He finally bursts through the back door, and I look up, expecting him to ask my opinion. I would gladly stand out in the rain all day for that. His clothes are drenched, and water is dripping off the strings into the sound hole of my guitar. “Brenda? Brenda! Do you have a tape recorder?”

  “No, why?” Tape recorder? Do people still have those things? I don’t think I’d even know where to buy cassette tapes. What decade is he in?

  “I have got to get this down before I forget it,” he says. “I don’t care if it’s a microcassette recorder. I can’t lose this!”

  “I have something better,” I tell him, smiling as I pick up the phone and dial a number. Del picks up. “Hey, it’s Brenda. What are you doing this afternoon?”

  Del Riccio came into Tim’s shop one day a few years ago with a ‘70s Ford Torino that he’d bought for $200 off of Craigslist. It was a rust bucket that didn’t run; the interior was ripped to shreds. He had it towed to Tim’s shop to get advice on how to get it running. Tim is a sucker for classic cars, so he spent nearly every weekend keeping the shop open so that Del could work on it, and the two of them became friends. It took nearly six months, but they managed to get the car into near pristine condition. Del is in his fifties and works as a freelance sound engineer. As a result of our friendship, the PR firm that I work for has hired him to put together a number of radio public service announcements; he also has a studio in his basement and records local bands.

  While I am on the phone, Keith paces impatiently and hums to himself. He strums his empty hands against his thigh and focuses intently on some unseen object on the floor while he strides back and forth. It’s like the song inside of him is a time bomb that will blow him to bits if he doesn’t get it out of him on time. I don’t tell Del who I am bringing to his house. He presses me a bit, and I say, “No, really, it’s better this way. Trust me.” I can tell Del’s intrigued, and he tells me to bring my mystery guest to the studio. I hang up the phone and nod at Keith. Relief crosses his face for a moment, but he doesn’t allow it to stay long, focusing once again on the floor.

  “I have to get Greg,” Keith says and heads for the garage door. “Hey, how attached are you to those wind chimes?”

  “Take them,” I tell him, sighing. Then I add, my voice heavy with sarcasm, “I certainly don’t want to get in the way of genius.”

  “I’ll buy you new ones, I promise,” he says, grinning. He hops out into the rain and pulls them off of the hook. I wonder if my new wind chimes will also be some crazy-expensive work-of-art chimes. Maybe they’ll be the latest in Swedish design, ergonomically balanced or some shit.

  “Greg, we’ve got to go,” Keith commands. Without questioning, Greg sets the book back on the shelf and follows Keith into the garage. I wonder how many times a scene like that has played out between them. There is probably a certain degree of strangeness that comes with being a rock star’s bodyguard. There are probably a lot of things Greg doesn’t question anymore.

  Ten minutes later, I am watching Keith and Greg organize a spaghetti-mess of wires in Del’s basement.

  “Okay, explain it to me again,” Del whispers. “Why is Keith Kutter in my studio?” When we showed up at his door, Del’s mouth had hung open until Greg asked if we could get out of the rain. Del looked at me, puzzled; I shrugged my shoulders as we walked into his house. I admit it had been fun to surprise Del like that. He looked so awkward, standing in his front doorway, looking at Keith Kutter standing on his doorstep. I think it took Del a few minutes to fully grasp what he
was seeing.

  “Del, you ready?” Keith calls out to him. He’s hung the wind chimes from a microphone stand, and Greg has positioned another microphone to record them. Obviously, Greg has been in enough recording studios to know exactly how to help. I pick a seat far out of the fray and watch the scene unfold in front of me. To me, this is more interesting than a sporting event or even a Broadway show. I am getting a rare opportunity to watch a world-famous musician record a new song. This is something that I will remember for the rest of my life. It’s right up there with getting to watch Picasso paint or Michelangelo sculpt another masterpiece.

  I look over at Del, and I can tell he’s trying to mask a look of sheer awe. I smile at him, and he smiles back and shakes his head, as if to say, “I cannot believe you brought Keith Kutter to me.” I flash an “I’m cooler than you” smile at him.

  I turn my attention back to Keith just in time to see him examine the chimes and then rip away all but two of the bells. I wince and know that Tim will be pissed. He gave those to me after I first moved into the house. I laughed when I opened the box and found the chimes, because we knew it was something that spat in the face of the old-money décor. Buying the chimes had been an open rebellion, and it gave us the courage to redecorate—subtly, though, so as not to offend his mother. Do they sell bug zappers anymore? I’d love to hang one up, just to see her face.

  Keith strikes the two bells in a syncopated rhythm with a drum mallet. It sounds a bit like the rhythm they sounded while swaying in the wind, when we stood near my back door. I am completely amazed at his ability to walk by a set of wind chimes, hear them for all of one second, and then make a song out of it. I’ve probably walked by those wind chimes thousands of times, and it’s never occurred to me even once to find a song in them. I used to write my own songs compulsively when I was single; as I sit in Del’s studio today, I am a bit bummed that I’d never thought to use those chimes in a song.

  “Del, can you record this and play it back to me on a loop?” Keith asks, his voice stiff with intensity. After a few moments, the bells ring through the speakers. Keith puts on a pair of headphones and picks up the Taylor acoustic guitar that Del keeps in the studio and begins to play. I am glad that Keith is getting to play a guitar that is way nicer than mine. Del keeps it impeccably tuned; it’s always perfect and ready to sing. Not like my crappy Yamaha, with the crack in its face that vibrates at a teeth-itching frequency anytime you strum a cord with the low E string in it. Keith drops the pick and uses the side of his thumb to pluck a complex chord pattern in time with the bells, kind of like what he was playing in the rain at my house. Only this time, it sounds more luxurious, as if the strings have been dipped in expensive dark chocolate.

  As they warmly reverberate under his fingers, I cover my mouth and try to silence my breathing, afraid to distract him for even a half second. Watching a new song unfold right in front of me is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed before. The instruments sit dormant until Keith coaxes them into adding a new layer to his song, and I sit on the edge of my seat, waiting for what he’ll pull out next. It is pure magic, but I can tell that it’s not easy at first. Keith has an idea of how it should sound in his head, and I can tell that trying to get his hands to reproduce that sound is frustrating, even for his experienced fingers.

  “Dammit!” he growls, and then alters the rhythm on the guitar slightly. “Del, you getting this?” he calls out distractedly.

  Del presses a button on the sound board and speaks into the intercom: “I’ve been recording since you walked in. Just do your thing.”

  There are no windows in Del’s basement; they’re covered up by the foam soundproofing he installed all over the walls. The first time Tim and I came down here, I watched him glance around nervously—wondering, I figured, how we’d escape if a fire broke out. It’s amazing how often he thinks of things like that, and how infrequently I do.

  I left my watch at home and have no concept of how long we’ve been down here. It doesn’t feel like it, but I am sure that hours have flown by as I’ve watched Keith work. In that time, he’s recorded a flawless acoustic guitar part and moved on to the bass line. It is unlike anything I’ve ever heard Hydra play. It starts out so simply, with just two notes on the bells, after which the guitar adds texture. And then the melody flows from the bass. I know he’s going to write words; I am trying to imagine what the song will be about. It has a bit of a bittersweet feel to it. Will it be about the accident? It’s the one thing he doesn’t want to talk about, but would he ever be willing to put it into a song? I can’t help feeling that the complicated, deep melancholy of this new song would be a perfect base for those lyrics.

  Keith sets down his earphones and strides into the booth. Greg and I follow. It occurs to me for the first time that Greg might be bored. While this is incredibly exciting for me, Greg has probably experienced this dozens of times before. Keith sits next to Del at the board, and the song comes through the surround-sound speakers. As he listens, Keith fidgets with the dials; the bells get softer and the bass, louder. He reaches over to a vintage electric piano that Del keeps near the mixing board and selects a grand piano sound. He taps out a line that coincides perfectly with the bass. I am amazed that Keith knows how to play all of these instruments. I thought he only played the bass. He nods to Del, and Del starts recording again. Instinctively, Del loops the piano part. Keith stands and paces while he listens. “More bass here,” he instructs, and Del turns a dial. “Yes! Just like that!” Keith stops pacing and listens intently. I hold my breath.

  The song ends, and we all sit in silence. I am afraid to be the first one to speak, because I don’t know if I am going to interrupt Keith’s train of thought. But I kind of feel like this moment requires a round of applause. It would suck if I was the one who killed a brand new Hydra song because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Can I have a minute, guys?” Keith asks. His eyes are closed, and he’s deep in thought. We clear out and go upstairs to Del’s sparse bachelor kitchen. He pulls three beers out, and we sit on the stools by the counter to drink them.

  “Del, is it always like this?” I ask, gushing. “Is there always a guy in the studio who just pulls a song out of thin air like that?”

  “No, I can’t say it’s always like this. For starters,” he points to the basement door, “this is Keith Fucking Kutter. Keith Kutter! In my studio. I still can’t believe it.” Del’s eyes sparkle with excitement. “Usually, when bands come here, the songs have already been written and polished. Nobody writes a whole new song in the studio. Who could afford that?”

  “I’m sure Keith can,” I say, taking a sip of my beer and glancing at the clock over the stove. “Is the meter running?” I joke. What would one even begin to charge someone like Keith Kutter for studio time? Then it hits me: Crap, it’s 11 p.m. What should I do? I need to go home at some point, but I am Keith’s ride back to his motorcycle. I don’t want to interrupt his work. But at the same time, Tim is probably home by now and worried sick. In the rush to get to Del’s, I didn’t even call him. I’m sure he came home to an empty house and is wondering if the rock stars have kidnapped me for their backstage entertainment.

  Greg reads my mind. “Brenda, I’m sure at some point you’ll want to go home. How about I call you from here, and we’ll figure something out later, okay?” I move toward the basement door. “Don’t,” Greg instructs. “He’s working. I’ll tell him you said goodnight.” I kiss Del on the cheek and say goodnight to Greg.

  When I get back into my car, I see that Tim has left three voicemails on my cell. I don’t bother to listen to them but call him, instead.

  “Tim, holy crap, I just had the most incredible experience! Keith just created a whole new song right in front of me. It was amazing!”

  “Where the heck are you?” he asks. “Are you guys on your way back now?”

  “I’m alone. They stayed at Del’s. Keith was on a roll. I wish you could have seen it—it was amazing.”

  “I’m sure it
was,” he says, dismissively. “But at least I got their bikes working again. It only took four hours, too. Man, those rental bikes are beat to shit.”

  “I’m sorry you had to do that, Tim.”

  “It’s just not what I had planned for today. It would have been nice to do something together. And now,” he says, morosely, “I get to listen to you talk about the good time you had with Keith.”

  “I’ll talk to you when I get home, okay?”

  Man, I hate it when he gets like this. Yes, I’ve been gone all afternoon, and I hope he didn’t just mope around the house after he got home. I mean, I get it. Spending Sunday working sucks. Not much of a day off for him. But this exchange right here is the classic Dunkirk family clusterfuck of missed connections.

  I feel as if we can’t even have a normal conversation anymore. Not that telling him about Keith Kutter’s prowess in the studio is normal. But I would imagine that, in a normal marriage, the husband would at least listen to the wife gush about something as mind-blowing as watching a famous musician produce a new song from nothing. And then the wife would apologize for being gone all day. Still... Maybe I’ll stop on the way home and grab a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for us. Okay, so we didn’t ride down to the beach like we’d planned. At least I can make it up to him this way, right?

  I hang up the phone and turn on the radio. Of course, “Battleground Zero” is on. I laugh and crank it up. I notice the rain has stopped, finally, and the road is steamy as the water evaporates. I roll down all the windows and gun the gas pedal, instantly transported back to cruising on the back roads in East Windsor on a hot summer night, just like this one. I have just watched Keith Kutter invent a new song right in front of my eyes! Nothing can kill this mood, not even Tim’s bad one. I stick my arm out the window and wiggle my fingers in the breeze. I don’t care who you are: nothing beats driving with the windows down and a great song on the radio.