Death and Transfiguration

by Gerald Elias

  Predictably, Herza announced, “Fouk. One hour overtime.” What was a surprise, however, was that Tyson Parsley returned to the stage even faster than he had earlier. Herza said to him, “What do you want?” to which the personnel manager replied in his soft Southern drawl, “Sorry, Maestro, but overtime is not permitted today.”

  Herza was incredulous. “And why not?”

  “Our collective-bargaining agreement prohibits overtime on tours.”

  “This is no tour! This is Tanglewood.”

  “Also, our contract between the Boston Symphony and Harmonium makes it explicit that there can’t be overtime today because they have to clear the grounds to prepare for a James Taylor concert tonight. The musicians must be excused now.”

  “I have spent my entire career fighting against this kind of nonsense,” said Herza, as the stage quickly emptied. “Strauss would not have permitted this.”

  “Strauss is not party to our contract, Maestro. At least the last time I checked.”

  “The parties to your contract may rot in hell. Tomorrow’s concert is canceled.”

  SEVEN

  Lilburn bounced up from his seat, quickly said his good-byes to Jacobus, and headed off with a severe case of ambivalence for his interview with Herza. This might not be the best time for it, Jacobus thought, but if Lilburn still has the balls to go after his story, I should have enough backbone to ask Tyson Parsley a few questions about Sherry O’Brien. His interest had been piqued by the inordinately harsh treatment Herza had doled out to her. Perhaps there was something more going on under the surface. Besides, when would he have another chance to see his old cronies, Beanie and Cappy?

  Jacobus made his way to the backstage area of the Shed. For the few years he was a member of the Boston Symphony violin section, before the onset of the blindness that ended his performance career, that area was more like a summer camp cabin, with the smell of wood, sweat, and humidity permeating the rickety structure seemingly tacked on as an afterthought behind the dominating presence of the Shed auditorium. Since then, it had been torn down and had undergone a complete reconstruction, tripling its size. In addition to more spacious air-conditioned dressing rooms, there were designated rooms for the harps, percussion instruments, pianos; for practicing, guest artists, management, and even the orchestra’s own credit union. Jacobus ended up wandering in circles, randomly knocking on doors.

  “All you who enter, give up hope,” said a buoyantly accommodating voice, the voice he had heard onstage holding its own again Herza. Big brother Tyson. This was the place. Finally.

  As Jacobus opened the door to the overly air-conditioned room, someone brushed by him, hurriedly, mumbling a curt, “Pardon, sir,” on the way out. Someone else jumped from a seat and rushed toward him. Alarmed, Jacobus put out his arm for protection and retreated a step. Then he felt a hand even bigger than Nathaniel’s on his shoulder.

  “Please let me help you to a seat,” Tyson Parsley said.

  Jacobus needed seven steps to get to where he was being led; his new acquaintance, only three.

  “Didn’t know there were any Irish in the orchestra,” Jacobus commented, “except for Sherry O’Brien, and she doesn’t have a baritone brogue like the guy who just passed by me.”

  “Ay, laddie, that would have been our esteemed symphony chauffeur, Mr. Paddy Donaghue. He just needed to finish his therapeutic rant before the quotidian polishing of the Batmobile for his nibs.”

  “So what was eating him?”

  “Oh, this and that. And what can I do for you on this fine day, sir?” said Parsley.

  “Your brother told me I could find you here.”

  “You met Junior.”

  “Yeah, Junior. What’s his real name?”

  “That’s it: Junior. We’re twins. He was born ninety-two seconds after me. So we’re Tiny and Junior even though we’re each three hundred pounds of sheer joy.”

  “Identical, I gather.”

  “They couldn’t have cloned the Pillsbury Doughboy any better. Mama even had to put a bracelet on Junior to tell us apart.”

  “Junior told me I could find Beanie and Cappy here. They’re old friends of mine.”

  “They’ll show up. A day without a complaint from Beanie and Cappy is a day without sunshine. You’d think two gentlemen from the Midwest who wore white socks and plaid pants would occasionally be able to find common ground. And just how do you know Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”

  “We went to Juilliard together. I played the violin and one semester we did the Mozart G-Minor Quintet and—”

  “Hey, are you Daniel Jacobus? The legendary blind dude?”

  “That would be Ray Charles. I am not nor have I ever been either legendary or a dude.”

  “Well, I am honored, sir. You are indeed a shining star in the orchestra galaxy.” Jacobus felt his hand engulfed by Parsley’s and shaken so briskly that his shoulder felt as if it would be dislodged any moment.

  “Tiny Parsley, sir. At your service. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Can I get you something to drink? Water? Coffee? Bourbon?”

  “Anything but lemonade. Coffee would be fine, thanks.”

  Jacobus heard Parsley pick up the phone and tell one of the gofer management interns to bring a fresh pot.

  “I’d go myself but I have to sit tight for a while,” he added to Jacobus after he hung up.

  “And why’s that?” asked Jacobus. “Maybe this isn’t the best time for me to be here after what went on onstage.”

  “No, no, no. Part of the job. Maestro was just a mite peeved about not being able to have overtime. He’s having one of his snit fits and is threatening to cancel the concert. Our beloved CEO, Adrianne Vickers, is trying to mollify him and talk him out of it, so I have to stand by. If we’re on, no problem. If it’s off, I have to contact all the musicians, make arrangements for getting them out of their hotels, figure out reimbursements for their per diem, arrange transportation for some of them back to New York, cancel the contracts of some of the subs. That kind of thing.”

  “Your brother mentioned the joys of personnel managing.”

  “Yes, one tends to get it from both ends in this position. Nary a day passes that I don’t get a ridiculous complaint or request from a musician that is not offset by something even more absurd from upstairs. It’s boheca all the way.”

  “Boheca?”

  “‘Bend over, here ’e comes again.’ It’s ugly, but someone has to do it.”

  “Why you? You enjoy bending over?”

  Parsley laughed. “I’ve had my share. You see, you and I, we’re more alike than you think.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You can’t see with either eye. I can’t see with my right eye. Lost it. My mama, she even prophesied it.”

  “How so?”

  “One day, when I was still a little tyke, she says to her Tuesday-night bridge group, ‘You know, from the moment I became pregnant, I knew Tyson would be the one-eyed bear.’”

  “Did your mother really say that?”

  “No, but she did play bridge.”

  “So how’d it happen, Tyson?”

  “Call me Tiny. Everyone does. I used to play trombone in the orchestra, like Junior, but then I popped one champagne cork too many.”

  “You were hit in the eye with a champagne cork?”

  “Not quite. We’d just finished a run of Elektra and there was a pretty raucous cast party afterward. The bubbly had been flowing freely, and well, after all, you know trombone players. So after a while I started making untoward advances to some of the female members of the cast. One thing led to another and at one point, I guess—I don’t even remember this, they just told me afterward—I guess I groped the Clytemnestra.”

  “That probably wasn’t appreciated.”

  “You can say that again. Her partner snatched the champagne bottle right out of my hand and clobbered me on the head with it.”

  “Not the kind of snatch you were looking for. You have to watch out for the
jealous guys, huh?”

  “It was a gal.”

  “Hmm. So couldn’t you play trombone anymore, with one eye?”

  “Hell, yeah, I could play with no eyes. With some of these conductors, it would be an advantage! Thing was, I also got smacked in the lip and rent it asunder, as the good book would say. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I knew my playing days were over.”

  “So you went into personnel management.”

  “They say I have people skills.”

  “I can tell.”

  Two young ladies, chatting in Chinese, walked into Parsley’s chilled office.

  “It’s too hot onstage,” said one of them. “Yang and I are too hot.”

  “That’s because it’s summer, Li Jian,” said Parsley, “and we’re playing outdoors. It gets hot outdoors in the summer.”

  “But it’s no good for instruments. It’s way too hot.”

  “You’re telling me this now. The rehearsal is already over.”

  “But what about the concert?”

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  “So you’re not going to do anything?” asked Yang.

  “What is it you would like me to do?”

  “I don’t know. That’s not my job. That’s your job.”

  “Okay. Well, why don’t we wait until tomorrow and see? Maybe I can think of something by then. Maybe the climate will change.”

  When the women had left, Jacobus said, “I see what you mean.”

  “You should see the outfits they’re wearing. They look like they were sprayed on. No wonder they’re hot. Hate to say it, but some of the musicians call those two ‘Shanghai street corner.’”

  “Pretty nasty.”

  “Yeah, but most of it is just talk. Anything more serious I keep on file.

  “Sometimes I do wonder why I got into this profession—personnel managing, that is. You’re always in the middle and someone’s always getting pissed off. There’s one young lady—I can’t mention names—who’s sick a lot. We have generous sick leave and some people think she takes advantage of it. Part of the provision requires a doctor’s note stating the reason for the absence. The musicians balked at that and are trying to get it written out of the next contract, but since there are pretty frequent injuries as a result of overplaying, I figure they’d rather have the leave and give up some of their privacy.”

  “And the young lady in question?”

  “Even some of her own colleagues were bitching about how much she had been out. And one day she comes into the office and asks for a week’s leave—unpaid, of course—to take her family to Disneyland. I told her I’d have to turn that down, given how much she had been absent. She started hollering that one thing didn’t have anything to do with the other, and she was going to file a grievance with the union, and so on and so on.”

  “What happened in the end?”

  “She got sick that week.”

  “For real?”

  “Well, she handed in a doctor’s note.”

  “A doctor in Anaheim?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I should have checked.”

  “How does she play?”

  “Terrific.”

  “Then I’d drop it.”

  “My thought exactly.”

  “But you get it from management too, you say?”

  “Sometimes worse. Take a look at the Fouk we’re doing. Harmonium’s a big orchestra, but I still had to hire four saxophonists and a slide whistle player for that piece. Can you believe there’s also a part for a bouncing basketball? There’s no getting around it. I have to hire enough guys to fit the music.

  “But week in, week out I get a memo from upstairs—we’re big on memos here—telling me I’ve got to reduce my budget for extra players, that we’re running a serious deficit as it is, and would I please try to control the costs. Yip yip yip yip yip. My response is—and this is just between you and me—what the fuck? I didn’t decide we should commission a new work! I didn’t ask Mr. Fouk to compose a piece that requires the services of the Harlem Globetrotters. I didn’t—”

  “You seem to handle it well, Tiny,” said Jacobus, confident that if he had had that job, he would have killed many people.

  “Thank you. I try to be organized and patient. There is no doubt being part of a symphony organization is a high-stress job for everyone, and I remind myself of that every time I’m inclined to strangle someone. I think of orchestra musicians as horses.”

  “Yes,” said Jacobus. “It’s hard to strangle a horse.”

  “Good observation, sir. My point, though, is that when musicians are young, still developing, they’re trained to be thoroughbreds. Of course, they’re taught all the mechanical skills, but the musicians who really thrive are those who acquire the greatest level of artistic expression, of creativity, of personality. Of individuality. Even on trombone, if you can believe that. And don’t forget that most of that is achieved in isolation. All by oneself in a practice room, hour upon hour, day upon day, year upon year. Getting ready for that musical Kentucky Derby that will win fame and fortune.

  “But what’s the reality, Mr. Jacobus? The reality is, as soon as that budding young artist wins the big audition for his dream job in an orchestra, passing through that invisible starting gate from wannabe to elite, he’s no longer a thoroughbred. He is a packhorse. A beast of burden. He is anonymous. If he’s a string player, he cannot be heard. In fact, he can hardly hear himself. All that creativity he spent half a lifetime striving for is not only wasted, it’s discouraged. He’s got a load on his back and is being led down the trail right behind the ass in front of him, doing the maestro’s bidding. When you do a hundred concerts a year and even more than that of rehearsals, and you add up the years, you’ll find a lot of frustration, a lot of depression, and a lot of very unhappy, jaded people.

  “So, yes, I try to be patient. Things generally work out.”

  “But still you have the files.”

  “You’re a good listener, sir. No wonder you were a good musician. I’ve got a file for everyone in the orchestra.”

  “What’s in them?”

  “Mainly contracts, letters of commendation or reprimand as the case may be, keeping track of when people are absent and for what reason. Particular issues with management, difficulties with other musicians, records of the outside concerts they do, medical records when appropriate. That sort of thing.”

  “Even Beanie and Cappy?”

  “Theirs are among the thicker files.”

  “You have a file on Sherry O’Brien?”

  “Right in between Nyquist and Okeda. Scheherazade O’Brien.”

  “Scheherazade, is it?”

  “Yes. Not a name you hear in daily intercourse. Rumor has it her parents wanted her to be a violinist, not a Persian princess. Why do you ask about Sherry? You know her?”

  “She played for me a little, getting ready for the concertmaster audition. Told me a little bit about her grievance.”

  “Oo! That young lady certainly has a bee in her bonnet. Off the record I can’t say I blame her. She’s been in limbo here for two years now. So she’s neither fish nor fowl, and if she manages to come out on top with this audition, she’ll still have a year’s probation, at least.”

  “That may be mildly irritating, but it doesn’t sound like grounds for a grievance against a guy like Herza.”

  “Not in itself, but he really does get on her case, as you heard earlier. It’s almost like he’s stringing her along just so that he can torment her.”

  “But he also did that with the second violinist,” countered Jacobus. “That guy Larsen.”

  “Poor Sigurd!” said Parsley. “Herza has an uncanny knack for picking vulnerable musicians. I can’t tell you what’s in his file, but believe me, if there’s one person who needs to avoid stress, it’s Sigurd. He’s a year away from his full pension, and I just hope he’s still fit to fiddle off into the sunset to enjoy it.”

  “So what’s O’Brien’s Achilles’ heel?�
�

  “That’s the thousand-dollar question! Herza hasn’t found it yet, and I think that’s why he hounds her like he does. She’s so strong willed that she’s able to sit there and take it. Kind of like the Thousand and One Nights. She has to keep pleasing Grand Poobah Herza so he doesn’t kill her. If he were to fire her, in a strange way it would almost be like she won the battle, and I don’t think he’s willing to lose face. So on it goes.”

  “Why, though, if she plays so well?”

  Parsley took his time responding. “Mr. Jacobus, you used to play in orchestras. You know conductors. It’s as much about power as it is about music.”

  “Yeah. Stupid question.”

  “I’ll strike it from the record.”

  “How is it that everyone seems to tolerate Herza?” Jacobus pursued. “I thought these days conductors were supposed to be warm and fuzzy with the musicians.”

  “You got that right,” said Parsley. “Where I grew up, in Lexington, Kentucky, you even called the garbageman ‘sir.’ You know the saying: ‘I was bred in ol’ Kentucky, but I’m just a crumb up here.’ But it’s different these days: With a lot of conductors, you can call them by their first names and they won’t bat an eyelash—Seiji or Michael or Joey. Can you imagine if someone had called Toscanini ‘Artie’? Toscanini would’ve had him skewered. With Herza, he’s got a rule—no one’s even allowed to talk to him unless he speaks to them first. Which is why I have what I call my own personal Talent/Asshole Continuum, or TAC, as it were.”

  “The better the conductor…”

  “You’ve got the idea! The better the conductor, the bigger the asshole he can get away with being. The theoretical absolute greatest conductor would have the highest talent rating but be at the saintly bottom of the asshole index. That would make him a ten-zero. There have been very few ten-zeros throughout recorded history going back to the time of ancient Rome. The amazing thing is how many in my TAC are at the bottom of the talent index and high on the asshole index. It’s like they think, ‘Hey, maybe if I’m an asshole, that will turn me into a great conductor.’ There’s one guy, a music director in South America. I had him above middlin’ on the talent index and he seemed to be a nice guy, about a six-five, but then he went ahead and fired his entire orchestra. It caused me to rethink his status.”