Notes From the Midnight Driver

by Jordan Sonnenblick

  Okay, I’m making it sound dreamier than it was. For one thing, I was sweating the whole time, sweating like a pig at the International Bacon Festival. For another, I dropped my pick a couple of times, and my music fell off the stand once—which was the one time I was totally sure Sol was watching, because I could hear him clearing his throat like he was covering up one of his little barking laughs as I was frantically reaching down for the pages I’d dropped. And, of course, since it was the home, I kept being conscious of a nearly constant stream of coughing emanating from the audience whenever we got to a quiet part.

  But I was feeling pretty good when we walked offstage for intermission after my witty announcement of “We’re going to…uh…take a break now and then…um…play some more if you’re still here.” Laurie told me how great she thought it was, the manager gave me a thumbs-up, and my parents smiled and started to walk over to me. But Sol grabbed my arm first. “Alex, I need you to do something for me.”

  “I’m kind of busy right now, Sol. And I have to play again in a few minutes. Are you having a good time?”

  “Sure, sure. You’re magnificent, Alex. But can you run up to my room and get my other eyeglasses?”

  “What’s wrong with the ones you’re wearing?”

  “They chafe me and I can’t see right. If the night nurse hadn’t been such a schmegegge and moved everything around in my room last night, this wouldn’t have happened. Look, would you just go?”

  By now, I felt like everyone in America was staring at me, the mean kid who wouldn’t get an old man a pair of glasses.

  “Fine. Where should I look for them?”

  “If I knew where to find them, I would have worn them in the first place. I don’t know, they’re the only pair of glasses in my room. How hard can it be for a talented young guy like yourself?”

  I looked around for Steven and Annette to tell them where I was going, and that I’d be right back, but they must have run out to the bathroom or something. Laurie saw, and said, “Don’t worry, Alex. I’ll tell the Cha-KINGS where you went.”

  I turned to go, just as my clueless father asked Laurie, “What’s a Cha-KING?”

  Sol’s floor was eerily deserted, because everybody was downstairs. It kind of felt like I was in one of those dreams where you show up at your school, and there’s nobody in the halls. So it gets darker and darker, and you try to run out, screaming. But it’s too late, because a hand reaches out and…

  Well, anyway, I started to get a little creeped out. In the room, I didn’t see anything in the open that looked remotely similar to eyewear. I quickly opened each drawer of Sol’s dresser, but no dice there either. By this point, I kept waiting for the inevitable masked killer to grab me, which added to the intensity of my search. I got down to the bottom drawer, which contained nothing but billowing mounds of Sol’s underwear—boxers, by the way. I knew the glasses might be beneath the piles in there, but actually moving the boxers was a horrific thought on its own. So I found an unused, wrapped tongue depressor on top of the dresser, popped it open, and sort of stirred the undies around. I hit something solid, and forced myself to reach in. A case! I pulled it out and pushed the little latch device that opened the lid.

  But there were no glasses inside, just a big old key. Hmm. Where were the glasses? Were there any glasses? Was this a…a…a trick? Oh, my God! I thought. Sol’s up to something. How could I be so gullible? I launched myself out the door and down the fire stairs, still holding the case. When I came out of the stairwell, my fears became a reality. Okay, not the slaughter ones, but the trickery ones. I could hear Steven’s drums start up on a fast Latin tune. When Annette jumped in, I recognized it as a Tito Puente chart called “Para Los Rumberos” that I knew Steven loved. What on earth were they doing?

  Then I heard my beloved Tele jumping into action. But I had never played it like this. The notes were rippling forth in a torrent, faster than I would have been on my best day, and with the kind of timing I would have killed for. I came screeching around a corner into the rec room, and saw a tableau I’ll never forget. The nurses were up on their feet, swaying. The orderlies were getting down. Even many of the residents were standing and shimmying like people with actual, biological hip joints. And in front of this frenzied hotbed of party power, a man was wailing on MY guitar.

  A man whose glasses were chafing him.

  Sol looked all the way to the back of the room at me, and mouthed the word that I absolutely knew was coming: “Gotcha!”

  What was I going to do? I walked up to the front, and stood between my mom and Laurie, in Sol’s seat. Laurie had a huge grin going, and whispered to me, “This is amazing. He’s incredible!”

  I didn’t say a word. I could feel the redness of my face, but Laurie didn’t notice. My mom put her arm around my shoulder and said, “Oh, Alex. What a wonderful surprise! I don’t know how you did it, but it’s like you’ve brought Mr. Lewis back to life!”

  Yeah, excellent. And easy for her to say. She wasn’t going to have to get up there and play the guitar when Sol was through demonically possessing it. The song ended to wild applause. I glanced around, and saw that Mrs. Goldfarb was in a state of transformation—she looked like she might write her phone number on an article of clothing and fling it Sol’s way if he played much longer. This just kept getting more and more surreal. I decided right then and there that if an MTV film crew rolled up, I was going to hurl myself out the window.

  Sol played a few more tunes with Steven and Annette. After his version of the “Fiddler” medley got everyone all misty-eyed, he bowed. Then he walked over to the microphone. Oh, man. Laurie reached over and squeezed my hand. I was sure my miserable scowl and sweaty palm must have been a real turn-on for her, but somehow she resisted sweeping into my arms and kissing me deeply. Short of me getting struck by lightning, I didn’t know how the day could have gotten worse.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your kind applause. Now I would like to invite back onstage the young man who made this all possible, the real star of today’s show—Mr. Alex ‘The Um’ Gregory!!!”

  Everyone clapped, although my puzzled dad had to whisper to my mother, “What’s an Um?” Then Sol continued, “Remember to tip your waiters, your waitresses, and bartenders before you leave. That was a joke, Mrs. Goldfarb. Would it kill you to maybe laugh a little? Oh, by the way, folks: Whatever you do, don’t let Alex drive you home.”

  Some people laughed, others looked puzzled. As I took the longest ten-step walk of my life back onto the stage, Sol gave me a weird smile—triumphant and angry at the same time. Then he handed me the guitar. I had a panicked little huddle with Steven and Annette. (Well, I was panicked. They were still all juiced up from the thrill of playing with Sol.) Then I stepped to the mike. “For our last number, we would like to play a little number called ‘All Blues.’ This is a Miles Davis tune about how it feels to…uh…play guitar right after Solomon Lewis.”

  It was the simplest jazz piece I knew, which would help me get out of this nightmare without too much additional damage. Annette came in on the piano, then Steven started playing a really cool little pattern with his brushes instead of drumsticks, and finally I came in with the parallel sliding melody and harmony lines that move in sixths through a haunting minor scale. Somehow the beauty of the song gradually crept into my bones and I forgot all about the audience, Sol’s performance, everything but my fingers slipping up and down the fretboard. Annette played the first solo, which was so good I nearly forgot to keep playing. Then Annette nodded at me, and I burst into my last solo of the night. I did look up at Sol then, and the sadness on his face found its way into the notes I was playing. So did the flash of Laurie’s eyes, while the link between my parents’ intertwined hands became the elastic lockstep of the harmony. Plus, my anger found its way in there when I played some dissonant clusters of jarring flatted fifths for a few bars. And when I resolved all that tension back into the melody, I wasn’t mad anymore. Sure, Sol had showed me up in front of a c
rowd that included the most important people in my life. But they were surely clapping for me now. If Sol didn’t say anything to rub the soreness in, I’d be okay.

  And if it got breezy and rainy in the Sahara Desert, they’d change its name to the Sahara Palms Resort.

  We finished. People clapped. We packed up. Annette and I helped Steven get his drums out to his mom’s car while all of the residents except Sol went back to their floors for the night. After my last trip to carry out my guitar and amp, I walked over to where the Cha-KINGS were chatting with my parents, Laurie, and Sol. Annette said, “Wow, Mr. Lewis, Alex never told me you played.”

  “I don’t play. I haven’t played in twenty-seven years and three months. Before that, I played.” Sol’s words kind of tapered off, and I realized he was very short of breath.

  “But you have so much skill. How could you have just given it up?”

  “Sweetheart, there’s more to life than skill. You’re very young. Maybe one day you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  “But I mean it. You’re really brilliant!”

  “Thank you.” Sol was pale and maybe a little shaky, plus I could tell he didn’t want to talk about whatever his secret was. He saw me and changed the subject. “Mr. Um! Did you find my glasses?”

  “No, I didn’t find your glasses—you don’t have another pair of glasses, Sol.”

  He thought, and breathed, for a moment. “Oh, well, I guess I only have one face anyway. Who needs extra glasses?”

  “I found something else, though.” I held the key up to the light. “Any idea what it’s for?”

  “I think maybe one day I’ll show you. For now, just keep it very safe.” His last few words turned into a titanic cough, and he suddenly sat down on the nearest chair, hard. He was gripping his chest and turning a deep red. A nurse I didn’t know appeared out of the blue and called for oxygen. A transport guy shuffled over with a wheelchair that had an air tank attached, and they got Sol into the chair and attached the nose-clip thing to him. Within a couple of moments, while everybody stood around not knowing what to do or say, Sol’s color returned and he leaned back in the chair. He turned to me and the orderly and said, “Would you take me upstairs, please? An artist needs his beauty rest. You think I was born looking this lovely?”

  I said good-bye to my parents and Laurie. Steven gave me a high five and said, “Some show, huh?” Yup, it had been some show. One way or the other, it had been some show. Annette shook my hand in both of hers, and spoke so only I could hear. “You played well, and that Miles Davis tune was great. Will…will your friend be all right?”

  I mumbled something that sounded vaguely affirmative, but as I followed Sol’s wheelchair to the elevator, I couldn’t help thinking that Annette had been zero for two: Sol wasn’t exactly my friend, and he wasn’t ever going to be all right.

  DARKNESS

  I stayed with Sol until he was in his checkered flannel old-man pj’s and back in bed. With the oxygen flowing, he seemed fine, but you had to wonder what the exertion of playing had done to him. He turned to me, but didn’t quite make eye contact. “Boychik, that wasn’t a bad concert. Your friends are very talented. And you really worked hard.”

  How could this man get me so mad so fast? “So they’re talented, and I worked hard? Thanks, Sol. You worked hard, too. I especially liked the way you tricked me into leaving my own concert, took over, and made me look like a schlemazzel!”

  “Hey, take it easy, Alex. At least you’re learning some Yiddish from me, right? And I didn’t make you look like a schlemazzel. I just played better than you did.”

  “Yeah, you played better than me. That’s all. Except you also never told me you played. So I made an idiot of myself for months playing in front of you. And you acted like you liked it while you were laughing in my face! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You never asked, Alex. You’ve been coming here since the autumn already, and you’ve never asked me a thing about myself. You think I was born with a hose clipped to my face?” He flicked at his nasal cannula, sighed, and continued lacing into me. “You young people never think anybody over the age of sixty ever did anything. Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Um, Mr. Drunk Car-Crashing Hotshot: I DID PLENTY!”

  He took another breath break, and I bit my lip so hard I could feel the salty blood oozing in between my front teeth. “You know Mrs. Goldfarb down the hall? She was the principal of YOUR high school for thirty-two years. Mr. Moran, in three-twenty? He ran a bank with his brother, Albert. For forty years, they built that business. Then they sold it for millions of dollars, and their kids shoved them in here three months later. Albert was dead before winter, but Mr. Moran vowed he’d outlive his no-good sons. He might just do it, too.”

  Sol emitted a sound that was like what you’d get if a laugh and a wheeze struck each other head-on in a freeway accident, took a sip of water from the cup on his nightstand, and started in yet again. “And you sit there counting out the hours until you can put me behind you forever. But I’ll still be here, boychik. When I leave this place it’s going to be feet first. So don’t tell me I didn’t tell you, I didn’t tell you. Why should I have to tell you when you already know everything?”

  He got quiet, sipped his water, and then lay back. He was breathing harder again, so I had a chance to yell at him for a bit while he got his wind back. But I didn’t take it. “Fine, I’ll ask a question: Why don’t you play guitar anymore? Why did you stop?”

  His eyes were closed, and he was silent for so long that I thought he must have fallen asleep. Then his lips moved, and I had to lean all the way over his bed to hear him. “Alex, Alex. I played guitar for a living. Thirty years, six nights a week. New York, Miami, California. The casinos, cruise ships, the Poconos, the Catskills. You name the room, Lou Solomon played it. That’s what they called me then, Lou Solomon. I don’t know why, but my promoter thought it sounded less Jewish. Like the audience wouldn’t take one look at this enormous schnoz on my face and figure it out anyway.”

  Pause, breathing, sip.

  “What the hell was I talking about? Oh, the guitar. I had a wife back then. Her name was Ethel, and she was beautiful. I know, a name like Ethel maybe doesn’t sound so gorgeous, but my Ethel was. She was small and bright, like a little bird. Your Laurie reminds me of her.”

  I interrupted, “Laurie isn’t…”

  “I’m speaking here. Do you mind? Anyway, we had a daughter, too—Judy. Cute, with a smart mouth. Always with the smart mouth. I was gone too much playing the damn guitar, but I spent enough time at home to know Judy was going to be SOMETHING someday. It was a decent life. I traveled, I met all the great ones—Monk, Dizzy, Buddy Rich, I even sat in with Miles once at the Half Note. But after a while it got old, you know what I mean? Like lobster, maybe. You eat it once in a while, it’s a delicacy. You eat it every day, soon it’s just a giant bug with claws in butter sauce. And Judy was in high school, Ethel wanted to go back to work—she was a librarian—and me working nights was tough for them.”

  Cough, breathe, sip.

  “So what happened? You retired from playing to be with your family? I think that’s really…”

  “No, I didn’t retire to be with my family. I should have, but there was always one more big gig coming up, you know? So one day, Ethel drives up to Mountain Laurel, in the Poconos, to watch me play—which she didn’t do that often, but Judy was sleeping at a friend’s house, and maybe she was lonely. Anyway, Mountain Laurel wasn’t such a great jazz room, but it was a bread-and-butter gig. Three of those in a month, and you paid the mortgage. Whatever. In the middle of the gig, I get called to the hotel phone—Judy was at the emergency room back home with a high fever. Ethel wanted me to walk off the gig to drive to the hospital with her. But I said, and it’s true, ‘Ethel, I’ve never blown a gig. Never. And people know when they book Lou Solomon, they’re getting a sure thing. You go. I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s only a little temperature.’ We had a big argument. She said some things s
he maybe shouldn’t have said, I said some things, too. But what was I going to do? I just couldn’t walk off the gig. Ethel grabbed her purse, gave me one last look—the worst look I ever got from her—and ran out of the ballroom. The bandleader told me I should go after her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. I even sent the girl singer we had then into the ladies’ room, but Ethel wasn’t anywhere to be found. She must have headed straight for the car and just zoomed away. I had to go back onstage, so I did. I don’t know, maybe I should have run outside or something, jumped in the band truck, and tried to catch up. But who knew what was going to happen? And Lou Solomon never blew a gig. So I went back on.”

  Breathe, sip, cry. Cry? Sure enough, Sol’s shoulders were trembling, and tears were rolling down his cheeks. “Sol, you don’t have to tell me if…”

  “You asked, so I’m telling. It’s fine. You should know this, I think. Ethel never made it home, Alex. Some drunken driver in a big truck fell asleep at the wheel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and knocked my Ethel’s car right off the road. Right off a cliff. Bam! The highway patrol said she probably never even saw it coming, so at least there wasn’t any pain. No pain? Ha! I never played again, until tonight. I painted houses instead. I was good at it, and I could be home at night for Judy. So she spent another couple of years at our house, and then moved away for school as soon as she could. Now I’m alone, and she’s the big-shot lawyer who never even picks up her Hanukkah flowers.”