Nine Volt Heart

by Annie Pearson

  “Ian won the lottery.”

  “I didn’t know. In fact, I didn’t know real people won.”

  “Me either. It let us we move my brother out of low-rent care and move our grandparents into assisted living. How about you? Did you win the lottery after Juilliard so you can slum at Prescott?”

  “I live on my salary. I don’t play the lottery, and my brother pays for my father’s care. Cynthia, why hate me? You don’t even know me.”

  “It’s nothing personal. I just don’t like the effect you have on Jason.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, though maybe she should consider cutting back on caffeine. “Ian says you fish. We’re hiking in the Olympics over Memorial weekend. Want to come along and look for fish to kill? Be warned, we don’t do that equality shit in the wild. I don’t chop wood, and I don’t eat burned pancakes.”

  “I know how to cook over a campfire.”

  “Then you should come. If you’re still hanging around. What happened to your face?”

  “A burn accident.”

  “If Ian hadn’t warned me, I wouldn’t have noticed. He didn’t see it the first couple of days. You cover it well. That must have been some tough shit to handle.”

  “There’s worse in the world. I like Ian. How long have you two been together?”

  “Eight years. Just after I finished school.”

  “Do you travel with them on the road?”

  “Lots. It gets boring though.”

  “You don’t have kids, is that right?”

  “Can’t. I turned up broken in that department.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s worse in the world. Listen, Ian asked me to put in a good word for Jason. Woman to woman.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “You must have noticed by now that Jason is no more of an asshole than any other guy. You should give him a chance.”

  Toby came in for coffee just then, and I felt rescued for a moment.

  “Toby says you’re a cock tease,” Cynthia said.

  I looked at Toby, who blushed deep red.

  “That wasn’t nice of Toby to say.”

  “I never did. Honest, Susi. I would never even think it.” Toby fled, coffee in hand.

  Cynthia said, “I figured it out for myself. If you wanted a desperate, crawl-on-his-knees lover, what would you do different?”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  Cynthia stared at me through her spiky bangs. “You seem nice, but I can tell you have secrets. The kinds of secrets that hurt people. I’m psychic that way.”

  “I’m sorry? What are you saying to me?”

  “Jason has enough hurt to write songs for the next decade. Don’t make it worse.”

  ~

  At midnight, when we took another break, Angelia followed me to the upstairs bathroom, the only private place in Cynthia’s house.

  “Did the foundation find you today, Susi? I spent an hour on the phone at noon.”

  “Yes. I spent two hours. They seem interested.”

  “Don’t you think I should marry Toby? He’s cute. He’s smart. He’s good in bed.”

  “Oh god, Angelia. You’ve only known him for a week.”

  “Didn’t Jason decide to marry you after two days?”

  “He isn’t serious.”

  “Fooled me. How did he ask you? On his knees?”

  “Just lying in bed. He said, ‘Let’s stay together.’”

  “That isn’t asking you to marry him, Susi.”

  “He keeps talking about having children together—by Christmas.”

  “Oh god, guys never joke about babies. How does that make you feel?”

  “Honestly, Angelia? My first reaction is that I want to take off all my clothes and do whatever he wants. It requires every ounce of self-restraint to keep from behaving foolishly.”

  “What’s foolish? He’s whacked for you, Susi, and he’s a nice guy. Much nicer than my crumb-bum cousin.”

  “Me with a guitarist from a bar band? It’s too comical to consider. Pheromones cannot lead me into another unsuitable entanglement. I don’t need it, and I won’t let it happen.”

  “This will be fun to watch.”

  51 ~ “Playing in the Band”

  SUSI

  TUESDAY, I COULDN’T FIND parking near Ian’s and had to leave my car a couple of blocks away. I took the shortcut up the alley to Ian’s, where a man stood astride one of those huge, too-loud motorcycles, the kind my brother favored just after college, before he made real money and switched to something German. The bike was silent at the moment, and the man smoked a cigarette, watching me come up the alley. After he flung down and stamped out the end of his smoke, he switched to stroking his beatnik-like goatee while he watched.

  He wore the complete distressed denim look of the season, though the stains and tears appeared to come from true distress. The metal and leather appeared to have been buckled and bolted onto him too many years ago—he seemed close to fifty—to be the adoption of a fashion trend. He smiled, first showing several gaps where teeth had gone missing, then closing his lips as a joyous expression sparked his face.

  “My, my.”

  “Good evening,”

  “It’s getting better.”

  As I tugged open the gate to Ian’s house, the man still watched.

  Toby and Ian greeted me as I came into the house. Angelia was playing music alone in the other room. Cynthia and Jason stood in the kitchen arguing with a long-haired, ill-dressed man over whether the soup on the stove was truly vegetarian.

  “Susi’s here!” Ian called.

  “Did she bring food?” Jason asked. “Cynthia and Arlo are trying to poison me. I’m effing starving.”

  Ian said, “Have some pizza. Quit being such a prima donna and just pick the sausage off.”

  “There’s an odd person in the alley smoking a cigarette and watching the house,” I said.

  Ian bolted out the back door, and Jason abandoned his argument to harangue me as I unpacked the cornbread and the butternut squash soup I’d brought, with the idea that we would all snack on it later.

  “Why did you walk up the alley?” Jason scolded me while he served himself dinner.

  “Because it was the closest passage from where I parked my car.”

  “You shouldn’t be walking in alleys.”

  “Excuse me, this is Wallingford. I have been walking in Seattle alleys since I was five. It’s not even dark yet.”

  Ian came back with the man.

  “It’s just Sonny,” Ian said.

  Sonny proved to be quite tall, more than half a head taller than Jason, and he weighed at least seventy-five pounds more. Even ignoring the outlaw attire, his presence was felt in the room, and he seemed uncomfortable, moving awkwardly.

  Jason said, “This is our new bass player. Sonny Richards, this is Susi Neville. That’s my cousin Angelia Ferran in the other room playing fiddle. You know Cynthia? And Arlo is just leaving now. Right, Arlo?”

  Sonny shook my hand. “I’m just a session man.”

  “No, we don’t work that way here at night,” Jason said. “You have to be in the band.”

  “Far freaking out. How cool is that?” Sonny sounded like a kid, even with his bass voice. “What’s your band name?”

  Ian said, “I vote for Half Way to China.”

  “Humble Willy,” Cynthia said. That night, her nails were fluorescent purple with silver crackles.

  “Good lord, Cynthia, how does your mind work?” Ian said. “The other choice is Jason and the Insurgents.”

  “Too derivative,” Zak said as he came in the front door.

  “Dare I say it?” Toby asked. “The obvious?”

  “What’s that?” Jason seemed almost to be sulking.

  “The Jason Taylor Band.”

  “That’s what we’ve always been,” Ian said. “Dominique can’t take your own name away from you.”

  Toby whistled. “What if she could? She is so scary.”

&n
bsp; “Who is Dominique?” I asked.

  “Someone we used to know,” Ian said, “but don’t anymore.”

  “Shall we start?” Jason said. “We’ve screwed around enough for tonight. Arlo, no visitors while we’re working. Please go now.”

  ~

  When we began playing at Ian’s house, Sonny introduced yet another dimension for how the musicians interacted with Jason. Ian and Toby had always exchanged code words with Jason, apparently based on their past work together. Angelia and I had to be coached, so everyone had to stop if either of us needed instruction or correction.

  Although he was positioned half-way across the room, practically on the porch, in order to get the sound from each instrument separated properly, Sonny watched Jason constantly. As we began, Jason played a few chords and then Sonny responded, as if asking a question with the notes he played. Almost always Jason nodded, and then the rest of us were invited in. After a couple of nights working together, their guitars asked each other very few questions.

  For all the dithering I do in my solitary hours, there is no opportunity for that while we work. Jason owns my attention, in the same way that everyone else focuses on him for direction. The first week at my house, all our work together had been an exercise in exhilaration, just coming to that sweet, high place from hours of singing. At Ian’s, we worked hard and Jason served as our task master. Yet he also listened to what others might be doing.

  “Ian, what’s up, buddy?”

  “Sorry, Jason. I know I’m slowing it down. But I hear it another way.”

  “Then let’s stop so I can hear what you do.”

  “It’s like this. Almost a reggae rhythm.”

  “OK, I get what you have. Let’s all try it.”

  As hard as we labored, it would be impossible to complain about the working conditions. I have been in enough rehearsal halls in enough cities in the western world, under every sort of director, to say that the conditions and the cooperation under Jason was as good or better than could be expected anywhere. Ian, Toby, and Sonny seemed attuned to how this work would proceed. At first I felt unsure, but soon we all responded as if we had been placed in the hands of a more than usually competent director. Jason helped us all see the goal, and what each of us was to bring to it, and the raucous, good-natured friendship in the kitchen disappeared in the living room under a mantel of professionalism.

  Jason is polite and congratulatory to each of us while we’re working, but he doesn’t single out any one of us for special attention, which helped remove all the tension left from Saturday night. For the four or five hours we work each night, the only thing between us now is music. When Ian or Toby signals that it’s time for a break, Jason takes a second to come back to himself, but then he becomes his other self again. Every night he wants to keep working far longer than any of us can endure.

  I suppose Ian and Toby experienced this before, but I learn something every night. We were playing this mountain-music piece, and it seemed that it helped me to play guitar while singing, perhaps because that’s how I’d been practicing it at home. Jason shifted the strap so that I held the instrument higher, which changed my voice.

  “You don’t want to hold it like this all the time,” he said. “Just when we’re trying to get that high-lonesome mountain sound.”

  Then he directed me to sing at a lower register for one part that we had practiced much higher for days. The change clicked for everyone. Maybe Ian and Toby aren’t immune to how remarkable Jason’s influence can be. At one point he requested a series of key changes in a song where we had established parts several nights earlier. In the kitchen over break, Toby remarked, “I would never have thought of that.”

  Tonight, I found his notations for some pieces we are working on. How do I use English to describe writings in another language? He does just as he described Copland to Gwyneth, quoting other music, but then he drives the borrowed theme in another, different direction with key and tempo changes.

  I stole a sheet of his music.

  Oh, I’ll bring it back tomorrow night, when we rehearse again. I just wanted to look at it, so I could understand that this precise, detailed notation came from the same person who—well, who did all the things we did together many days earlier. He is no longer coming on to me all the time. In fact, he scarcely looks at me except when we’re working together, and then it is no different from how he looks at anyone he is trying to get more from in rehearsal.

  ~

  “What’s this?” Sonny asked.

  Zak was unpacking the bag he brought in. The instrument was from the collection that hung as decorations in Gwyneth’s living room.

  “It’s a Celtic bodhrán. I couldn’t quit thinking about this song all day. A muffled tom-tom isn’t going to give the effect Jason wants. Listen.”

  Zak stood, holding the drum, to demonstrate what he intended.

  Jason was grinning, which was doubly disturbing because he hadn’t shaved all week, and his teeth flashed white amid the dark stubble of beard. “You are brilliant, sir. You incarnate the musician’s equivalent of a scholar and a gentleman.”

  We worked on that one song through the night. Jason had to stop us several times, making everyone else wait while he rehearsed one individual to get what he wanted.

  “Yes, Angelia, it’s in perfect pitch with the others, but I want it off by a quarter tone. Will you allow me?”

  He took Angelia’s violin, tuned it the way he wanted, and then played several bars. He handed it back to her, saying, “You get the idea, but you’ll do it much better. The effect I want is that the violin is the other voice’s memory, so it’s at slight odds with the principal melody. I’ll tune with you when I sing that line.”

  To Toby, he said, “Be the virtuoso on the high-lonesome piece. This time, all I want is this Celtic tone in snatches when the main theme comes around. You’re going to be the principal voice’s memory.”

  While Toby was playing, Jason touched my hand.

  “Susi, I want three tones right here in this range.” He pitched his voice with the mandolin. “We don’t want the listener to be able to tell at first whether it’s passion or grief. Then bend up a half tone so it’s keening grief. Here’s the rhythm.”

  He beat it out on the back of the acoustic guitar he held.

  I tried to give him those tones.

  “If you sound like a Croatian mourner, all to the good. But there’s a thin line I want you to tread. Keep the vibrato from sounding like Bedouin ululations. I don’t want that thought to occur to anyone who hears this. Then hold this high A until everyone else is done.”

  Ian said, “You’ll have to use a tape loop. No human can hold a note that long.”

  “Susi can.”

  ~

  Jason touched my shoulder as the cue, though I knew perfectly well when I was supposed to come in.

  I should stay away from him.

  That’s the key to stopping destructive behavior: avoid the situations that spark it. Yet if I avoid him to save myself, I lose the opportunity to sing and condemn myself to the purgatory I inhabited before Jason appeared in Seattle. I could sing in the shower and at Sunday night church, but now that I’d gone past that protected world, I couldn’t make myself go back. I could no longer stay home amid the silence every night.

  So I go to Ian’s to sing, sneaking under Cynthia’s radar as it scans for secrets. If I look at his hands, it’s to see whether he is marking a new rhythm or wants the voices to increase in volume or change in pitch. I’m not looking at how beautifully tended his hands are, how gracefully his long fingers direct our attention, or how comfortably he cups his hands around his instrument, teasing out the sounds that only he can control.

  I’m not looking at that.

  ~

  We played it again and again until Jason was happy. At eleven, Zak called home and left a message on the answer service to say he’d be late. At midnight Sonny called in to his other job to say he was delayed. At one-thirty we stopped an
d Jason played back the last version.

  No one could speak after, and not because we were so tired that it left one’s body vibrating slightly, even after we finished playing.

  Toby said, “That’s why Dominique wanted to own you, my friend. She effing wanted a magician.”

  Angelia said, “When you direct, it’s like you’re making love to each and every one of us at the same time.”

  Then the others had to depart. Ian and Cynthia gave Zak a ride home. For the first time in a week I was alone with Jason again.

  “Toby was crying when you played the tape back.”

  “That’s just to get Angelia to take him home with her. He’s passing himself off as a sensitive guy. He thinks she’s his soul-mate, and it was the hand of God that made me persuade him to come to Seattle.”

  “She’s been taking him home every night since the first time, Jason.”

  “Oh. How did I miss that?”

  “You seem to be wrapped up in the music.”

  “Not totally. I’m also studying on why this sensitive-guy stuff works for Toby but not for me. Can you explain it?” He kissed my hand, forcing my fingers to stroke the bristly hairs of his unshaved face. “You can stay here, if you’re too tired to drive home.”

  “No, I had better go.”

  “I don’t think ‘better’ and ‘go’ belong in the same sentence, Susi. May I take you out to dinner tomorrow? I promise to get a reservation where it isn’t noisy and the people don’t wear too much perfume.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Of course. I’m a nice guy, right?”

  52 ~ “Take Out Some Insurance”

  JASON

  “YOU’RE PLANNING TO RETURN to your safe little indie world, aren’t you? Jason? I hear you breathing and not speaking, so I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Goodbye, Ephraim.”

  “Don’t hang up, Jason. Let me talk you out of any numbskull decisions. You’ll spend the rest of your life selling t-shirts to cover the cost of touring. You’ll get up every morning to stick CDs in bubble-packs for the FedEx guy to deliver to your Internet fans.”