What I still worry about is how I managed to turn a blind eye to what was wrong. Yes, I was hardly ever home, so I wasn’t aware of how his personal habits had changed. Besides, the last couple of months when I lived in Seattle, rehearsals took every waking moment.
Then after the accident, there was no opportunity to ask questions and learn what had happened. He was gone—first to rehab, and then to a job in another state. So I’m still arguing with myself over this. It is not my fault he was a junkie, but it was my fault that I didn’t notice.
I’m now awakening from that nightmare. I’m not hiding away so much, though I still worry that I don’t understand people well enough to be close. I’m not sure how it works with getting to know men, because I never dated before: Logan and I married our sophomore year—yes, I married the first person I had any kind of relationship with. I don’t know what it takes to be intimate. It is enough right now to be enjoying life with my old friends and making new friends.
Perhaps I should have left Seattle, left my entire story behind, found a place to work and live where I could be anonymous, where no one would ever come up and ask, “Aren’t you Susanna Childs? I’m so sorry for you.”
Because it is excruciatingly painful that a new friend should view me with the same pity as my old friends.
~
At the luncheon table, Freeman served food for me while Gwyneth tempted Jason with morsels of catered designer food, and then her lap dogs came in, pestering at my feet. I neither enjoy dining on animals nor dining with them. Freeman kindly remembered what he knew of me in former years and only put things on my plate that I could eat. Jason’s own attendant put a piece of dead chicken on his plate. He smiled when she did, and I could see in that look the practiced predator Angelia described.
“What have you been out to hear of late?” Freeman asked.
“We took in Mozart’s Requiem just last night,” I said.
“Ah. We went on Thursday. People applauded the Chorale as the true stars.”
“Indeed.”
Gwyneth fluted concern over a missing condiment and left the table for the kitchen. As Freeman bent his head toward mine for a private exchange, Jason’s chicken slipped from his plate to the dogs at his feet. At the same moment a clatter of noise arose from below stairs—which would be Zak, her son, practicing his music.
“Oh, that boy!” Gwyneth exclaimed as she returned with more hollandaise. “The worst thing his father ever did was give Zak those drums.”
By this time, I knew Jason well enough that I recognized a defining moment. He ceased playing with Gwyneth. In fact, she scarcely got another polite word out of him. After a few moments, he stood.
“Will you excuse me, please?”
A door opened and the sounds from downstairs echoed more loudly in the hallway for a second.
Gwyneth said, “I tell you what, Susi. If you let Zak into your program, and if you can keep him in school until he graduates, I will pitch two hundred thousand into your little plan. His father has been after him about college, but neither of us can get through to that boy.”
“I too have been trying,” Freeman said. “I made it clear to him what the value of his education will be.”
“Zak can’t see anything except music,” Gwyneth said. “He’s so delayed in looking at girls that his father is worried.”
“I’ll take your offer, Gwyneth. Zak is one of my best students.” When he shows up for class. I didn’t mention that.
“I’ll triple it for next year if you can persuade him to go to college. If anyone can do it, you can, my girl.” Freeman squeezed my knee.
23 ~ “Rip It Up”
JASON
I STOOD WATCHING THIS lanky, long-haired kid in the doorway for ten minutes before he ever looked up to notice anything around him. He worked with his eyes closed, listening with his whole body. I like watching drummers who make it look like their loosely knit bones are part of the overall instrumentation. What I like even more is the amazing moment with kids where you can see the future. You see the man that is about to emerge from the funky shell of a boy. You see a future of hopes and failures, adventures and love affairs, and in some kids, you see a dynamic life about to unfold. This particular kid, doing what he was born for, was so energized and heated that I swear he glowed, the primordial percussionist.
When he saw me, he sat back, folding his arms, drumsticks clenched in his fists.
He recognized me.
“So you’re who she’s having for lunch? Are you spending the night?”
Brutal.
I shook my head. “I’m vegetarian. And under age.”
He laughed, rueful still. “I wanted to break up the party. I need a ride to the show we’re doing this afternoon.”
“Why not come up and ask?”
“I can’t get her attention unless I drive the annoyance level up to a certain point. I was supposed to ride over with our rhythm guitarist, but his grandmother is dying, so he has to hang around the hospital where everyone is crying.”
“You don’t drive?”
“I was at the wheel one night when the cops stopped us. One of the guys was holding, and my parents’ lawyer worked a plea bargain. For doing nothing, I lost my driver’s license.”
“I can identify with the random karma of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He laughed again, ready now to look me in the eye. “I guess so. What do you do about it?”
“Swallow it. Learn not to care about what people think.” As he nodded, I said, “Actually, I’m lying. I don’t have a clue how to deal with it. What if we give you a ride? I could sit in on rhythm if there’s an instrument for me.”
“The other guys will shit themselves.”
“You’re OK with it? It’s your show. I don’t want to distract.”
“As a fellow innocent, falsely accused, I could go with it.”
I think for Zak that passed as unbounded enthusiasm.
“What do you play?”
“Lame folk songs we learned in class. Here’s the set list.”
“Tame.” I studied it.
“We, uh, changed up the rhythms. We do ‘Tom Dooley’ as punk rage and ‘Barbara Allen’ as reggae.”
“So we play like we’re Sly and Robbie on a British folk song?”
“We had to do something. It’s such a girl’s song. I mean, dying for love? Come on.”
“What do you do to ‘Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies’?”
“We skipped the autoharp and treat it sort of like ‘Gloria.’”
“It’s all acoustic?”
“We’ll be miked. You’ll have steel strings. What else do you need?”
24 ~ “American Music”
SUSI
WHEN WE PREPARED TO leave Gwyneth’s house, she didn’t have an opportunity to put her hands on Jason, or down his pants, since he made himself busy helping Zak load his drum kit into my much-too-small car. I said goodbye to Freeman, whom I believe cares for my well-being. He promised that he’d appear at the benefit later if his driver returned on time. Gwyneth didn’t even offer an excuse for not coming to the benefit.
I fumed in silence all the way to Town Hall, where everyone was preparing for the afternoon performance. Jason lingered behind when Zak hauled in the first load of his drum kit. I peeled off that prima-donna jacket and put on a sweater, still so furious that I buttoned it up wrong.
“Here, let me fix it.” Jason put his hands on me again. Actually, on my sweater buttons. “Are you mad at me, Susi?”
“I’m furious with Gwyneth. You see these kids trying to grow up, and the adults who are supposed to help don’t do what they should.”
“Zak seems fine to me. You’re sure this isn’t about Gwyneth rubbing her leg on mine all afternoon?”
I ignored the comment. “Zak wants to drop out of school. His mother can’t be bothered to come hear him do what he loves most in the world.”
“Susi, the rhythm guitarist isn’t here. I’m goi
ng to sit in with them. You don’t mind?”
“Not if Zak doesn’t. Do you know how good they are?”
“Didn’t you hear him in the basement?”
Then Jason disappeared.
After I had greeted parents and siblings, I sat in the back to write notes about what each of the kids did best in their performance. After the first few acts, I was dragged to the parking lot by one of my student’s parents, who wanted a serious discussion about whether their little girl should accept an offer to a school like Julliard. The question befuddled me, but I applied my most zealous efforts to convince them, with the result that we were still talking and the parents were still shaking their heads when the program ended. As I came back, just in time to hear the chords of a last unidentifiable song, the kids in the audience all yelled and whistled and clapped, which wasn’t how I thought audiences received folk music.
“Let’s get out of this noise,” Randolph said, grabbing my hand and tugging me up the aisle and back outside.
The sound system buzzed and shrieked, and the young people in the audience shrieked back.
“You seem to allow your guest every privilege,” Randolph said.
“Not particularly. Zak needed a stand-in. How is your grandfather? I regret missing dinner with you last night.”
“Really?” Randolph said, like a drowning man grabbing thin straws.
No, but it’s the sort of thing that one is supposed to say. “I enjoy his company a great deal.”
“Come out to dinner with us tomorrow night. As a rain check.”
“All right. But please don’t make dinner mean more than it should, Randolph.”
“Is that what you tell your houseguest?”
“Don’t be petty. It’s unbecoming to you.”
“Susi, what would it take? Other women find me attractive. I’m educated. We enjoy the same music, books, and films. It’s just going to take more time, isn’t it, Susi? I have to be patient.”
“No, I think the time already passed. I don’t want the intimacy and demands of marriage.”
Parents and children streamed out of Town Hall, everyone animated from the performance. So I fetched my car and brought it to the loading dock, then waited quite a while before Zak and Jason appeared to once again fit the disassembled drum kit into my little car, with Zak cramming gear in the trunk and Jason fitting the tom-tom to ride in the back seat.
~
Back at Zak’s, the house was deserted and dark. He and Jason talked about music, none of which I recognized, each speaking as fast as the other, while Zak made peanut butter sandwiches and poured milk. It was a more enjoyable supper than the luncheon we had suffered through.
While they chewed their sandwiches, Zak and Jason started a series of one-word exchanges with each other. Most of the words seemed to be in English or were people’s names. I kept looking at the clock, trying to judge the time and whether I should leave Jason here. However, then I would be leaving him at Gwyneth’s house, which didn’t seem acceptable.
“Too derivative,” Zak said, licking peanut butter off his fingers.
“I don’t know how you can say that,” Jason said.
“Watch my lips. Too. De-ri-va-tive.”
“Yikes, I would hate to find out what you think of Stoneway.”
Zak didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Shoot, man. That bad.” Jason laughed.
“What period? Before the Yoko Ono effect or after? Though I have to say, I dig on what the real Yoko is doing these days.”
Jason said, “It’s the same thing she was doing in earlier days, if you had a memory that went back that far.”
“Don’t pull the shit on me, man. Like, ‘you will understand when you get older.’ I can listen to any MP3 on the Internet, and the music is happening right this moment. It doesn’t matter when it was first made.”
“Zak, music happens on a space-time continuum, in a social context.” Jason caught a drop of jam as it fell from his sandwich and paused to lick it from his finger. “So what if you discover Shostakovich’s Fifth this year, and it affects your thinking? It’s the song that plays everywhere when you fall in love that anchors you in a special emotional world, the same way certain smells always make you think about Christmas. It creates a shared meaning of that time in history. You and I can understand musically what Lennon and McCartney were doing by playing a CD alone in your room. But we can’t understand what it meant for kids suffering through high school who heard that music for the first time.”
“I don’t think music has meaning,” Zak said. “It’s just feeling.”
“Lord, that is the saddest thing I ever heard. You are saying that just to jerk me around.”
“So what does ‘White City Blues’ mean from your work last year?”
“I can’t explain it without a guitar, pedal steel, and penny whistle.”
“Then tell me what the rules are, if you don’t do secret meanings.”
“Stoneway has always had the same rules: no samples, no house music. Know your instrument. Get tight and stay there.”
“I can’t deny you the goodness of that. It’s similar to my personal taste.”
“Gee, Zak. Thanks for condescending so far.”
He shoved Zak’s shoulder with his open hand, and Zak responded by bumping back with his shoulder, causing Jason to spill milk on both their shoes. They laughed and kept shoving each other.
Then Jason caught my eye, like he just woke up.
“Susi, I’m sorry. We’re ignoring you.”
They mopped up the kitchen and whisked away the remains of our sandwich frenzy. While they were horsing around, experimenting with the acoustics of kitchen implements on granite versus butcher block, I took a deep breath and decided that I would bring Jason with me. It felt like I could trust him to keep personal secrets.
25 ~ “Everyone’s in Love with You”
JASON
WHERE SHE TOOK ME next was to church. I am not joking.
We walked up a street on Capitol Hill and into a Presbyterian church. The narthex rang with a bluegrass twang the moment she opened the door. The sanctuary was deserted except for six musicians standing or seated in a circle below the altar, instruments and cases scattered around them. The tallest of them saw us come in and hailed Susi.
“Baby, you always show up after the whole congregation has left and the preacher has taken off his collar.”
“I just don’t get organized in time, Dan. I apologize. You aren’t headed home already, are you?”
“We’re still playing a little longer, baby. Hope you came to join us and not just to break our hearts.”
“I brought a friend. Jason, this is Dan, Roy, Pete, Aaron, Bobby, Gene.” She ticked off their names around the circle. “It’s Pete’s congregation that lets these boys play here.”
“Gentlemen.” I nodded to all. Pete made a point of shaking my hand. My fingers itched to join in, but I managed to mind my company manners and only sang along on the first song they played.
Most of them were hippies who never gave it up—grey beards, hair tied in a ponytail, comfortable belly above low-slung jeans, silver and turquoise on their wrists. A couple of the guys looked straight from Sunday school, matching the surroundings where they played. What they all shared was excellence: precise, well-practiced, and personal guitar and mandolin licks; voices cracked from experience and controlled with practice.
Bluegrass is difficult. The musicians are technically precise; singing close harmony is extremely demanding. It’s where certain kinds of elite musicians like Toby go for the satisfaction of hard, precise work. I don’t mean “elite” as a pejorative. Good bluegrass musicians deserve great respect, and there were six truly good men in that sanctuary.
However humbled I felt in this roomful of virtuosos, I begged for an instrument after one song. It didn’t feel right to sing with empty hands.
Susi hadn’t joined in the singing, but Dan urged her. “Come on, baby. ‘I’ll Fly Away.’ I
know your daddy taught it to you.”
“All right,” she said. “In G?”
Then I heard what I had longed for.
She had a voice that pierces the veil, so we can see God face to face.
This wasn’t my personal prejudice, because I was already in love with her. You could see it on the face of every man in the room. That little swimmer’s body produced huge sounds, but the emotion she projected into the music made you want to stop breathing and just pray that she’d go on. She had perfect pitch, which made playing difficult music nearly impossible, for it was tempting to just stop in awe. After Dan had coaxed a second song from her, she balked at a third.
“It’s me standing here singing by myself,” she said. “I can do that in the shower. What are the rest of you doing? Dan? Jason?”
Dammit, if that wasn’t the bravest thing I’ve done in years, though I'd never been afraid to sing before in my life.
Dan said, “What do you know, Jason? What shall we play?”
“‘Shake My Mother’s Hand’?”
They nodded. I started the lead, and it went fine, though pin-pricks of adrenalin shot through my fingers when she came in on the high harmony counter-point in the chorus.
We were singing together.
Lord, I still don’t know how we made it through such an emotional song while learning to work together, in front of all those strangers, to find the right pitch and rhythm. Yet as in the sweetest of dreams, we matched. We fit together like when you listen to those old family bands, when they have sung together around the dinner table for so many years that they knew each other’s voices and choices as well as their own.
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