The Musician

by Douglas Gardham

  His words caught Ethan off guard. Al’s worn face seemed to tighten. His eyes seemed to get smaller.

  “Business isn’t booming,” Al added. He held out a white envelope and nodded for Ethan to take it.

  Ethan didn’t move.

  “Here’s last week’s pay,” Al said, continuing to hold the envelope in front of Ethan.

  The moment grew. Ethan didn’t respond; he only stared at the man.

  Al kept talking. “I’ll send this week’s in the mail.”

  “No, you won’t,” Ethan said, rage lighting up behind his eyes.

  “What?” Al replied, his face darkening.

  “No, you won’t send it to me in the mail.” Ethan’s bottom lip quivered as he did his best to contain his sudden anger. “I need this job, Al,” he said, his evening forgotten for the moment. This was his second job that month. It was as if his return had coincided with a collapse in the job market. He needed money. It had taken weeks to get this job. His parents’ handouts were a kind gesture, but he was beginning to feel awkward taking their money. “You haven’t said anything about not needing me.”

  “Things change. Customers cancel. People change their minds. All kinds of shit. This is the only job we have this month.”

  Ethan shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. “What about Nigel?”

  Al turned and looked toward his nephew in the truck. He put his hand in the front pocket of his dirty jeans. “There’s still stuff to do,” he said. He placed the envelope on the hood of the Bronco. He put his other hand in his pocket. “Nigel will work with me.”

  “Fuck!” Ethan said, anger getting the better part of his tongue. “You know I’m three times the worker he is. What gives?”

  Ethan knew the answer, whether Al was willing to admit it or not. Nigel was his wife’s sister’s son. Family was family, no matter how Ethan might argue his side. There might have been all kinds of issues behind Nigel’s behavior, but none of it helped Ethan’s case. Whether he liked it or not, his game was over, no matter how unfair he thought it was.

  “I want what’s mine before you leave.”

  “I haven’t got it,” Al replied.

  “Then we have nothing left to talk about.”

  He grabbed the envelope off the Bronco’s hood and stepped in front of the truck. He pulled out the pen he now kept handy in his pocket and wrote Al’s license plate number on the back.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Al asked, his voice rising.

  “Calling the cops,” Ethan replied matter-of-factly. “You may not care about paying me, but I’m sure they’ll be interested in your suspended license.”

  Al’s cheek twitched. He looked as if he’d just been caught touching himself.

  “How the fuck?” Al growled. A meanness surfaced Ethan had only seen once before, when Nigel had dumped a wheelbarrow of fresh cement onto a patch Al had just finished smoothing. Ethan didn’t care; his own anger was rising. Somebody was going to pay. Ethan turned and looked at Nigel sitting in the truck as content as a stoned angel.

  “Guess,” Ethan said, looking back at Al.

  Al’s jaw stiffened under his two-day stubble. Ethan folded the envelope and stuffed it in his pocket. Not done, he turned and walked to the right door of his parents’ two-car garage. He yanked it open. Behind the center pillar separating the two doors were his father’s golf clubs. He set his thermos down on the cement floor and pulled out an iron.

  He walked back, past Al, to the rear of the Bronco with the club in his hand.

  “And to make your truck easy to fucking identify …”

  “You little shit!” Al shouted.

  Ethan paused, gripping the club with both hands, ready to take a full swing at the red lens.

  “Hold up a fucking second!”

  The meanness Ethan had seen in Al’s face faded as the consequence of what was happening became apparent. Ethan doubted Al would fight him.

  Ethan lowered the club as Al hustled back to the driver’s side of the truck. It took him seconds to grab something inside and come round to where Ethan was standing beside the back of the truck.

  “Okay,” Al said, handing over a number of twenties, “here’s what I owe you.”

  Ethan took the money and set the club against his hip.

  “Happy now?” Al added snidely.

  “Almost,” Ethan said. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and counted the money. “Last week had five days in it. You’re short.”

  Ethan held out the open envelope and put his hand back on the grip of the golf club. Al pulled a thick black wallet out of his back pocket.

  “You’ll never fuckin’ work for me again, ya little shit,” he said, sliding two twenties out of his stuffed billfold.

  “I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Ethan replied, having no desire to say anything else to the jerk standing in front of him, let alone work for him again.

  Al didn’t say a word. He turned and got back in his truck. Ethan, with the club in hand, was tempted to take a swing at the rear taillight anyway but held himself in check. He had what he wanted. He’d save his energy for the show. He stepped onto the lawn as the Bronco’s engine revved. The truck shot backward into the street, skidded to a stop, and then roared forward. Not looking at him, the coward then gave him the finger.

  Ethan didn’t respond. He walked back to the garage, satisfied he’d stood up to the bluffing coward and had money in his hand to boot. It was a small victory but a victory nonetheless.

  CHAPTER 11

  Thursday, July 12, 1984

  Preshow excitement had Ethan on edge, and he hadn’t left the house yet.

  His altercation with Al had used up much of the little time he’d had to get ready. Once in the house, he’d grabbed a Budweiser from the fridge and gulped down half the bottle on the way to his bedroom. The alcohol hardly touched the anxiety stirring his stomach. He was angry at what he’d had to do to get what was his and angry that a lazy, dope-smoking nephew had beat him out of a job. But he had $140 more in his pocket for his efforts; it wasn’t all bad. Proud of standing up for himself, he was now unnerved by how far he might have gone had Al called him on his threat. The upheaval was now jostling for space in his head with the songs that would make up their first set of the night.

  After a quick shower, he grabbed clean jeans and a denim shirt from his closet. He hustled down the hallway to the front of the house, swallowing what was left of his beer. As he passed the kitchen, the phone rang. He wasn’t going to stop, as he thought Sydney might be in the driveway, but he realized it might be Gus or Greg calling to find out where they were.

  “Is that Ethan the Actor?” replied a familiar voice after he said hello.

  Ethan hadn’t heard himself referred to as the Actor since leaving Ottawa. He could hear the smile in Randolph’s voice.

  “The one and only,” Ethan answered, “who is running late.”

  “I won’t hold you up,” Randolph said. “Just wanted to see what you’re up to.”

  “Time flies, doesn’t it?” Ethan said, holding the receiver between his ear and shoulder while buttoning the shirt his mother had cleaned and pressed. “Seems like only yesterday that I left.”

  “Get used to it,” Randolph said, “’cause it’s not about to slow down.”

  Sydney pushed open the front door. He waved and pointed to the phone.

  “Yeah, there’s a lot going on, but I really do have to go,” Ethan said as Sydney passed him and walked into the family room. “I will call you back.”

  “Yeah,” Randolph said, “check’s in the mail too.”

  Ethan could hear Randolph laughing at his own joke. He made a mental note to call Randolph back.

  “Talk to you soon,” Ethan said.

  After hanging up, he heard Sydney start in on his Yamaha acoustic.

 
“We should get going,” he said, entering the room. “Gus’ll be freaking.”

  Sydney was sitting cross-legged on his parents’ brown-suede ottoman. He loved listening to her make his old acoustic come alive.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “What’s what?”

  “The thing you just played,” Ethan said, excited. “That run. Da, di, da, di, do. Sounds like being scolded with love.”

  Sydney shook her head while her fingers moved along the neck of the guitar. “You confound me with your descriptions. Scolded with love? What is that?”

  Ethan didn’t reply, intent on listening as Sydney went back over what she’d played. The scenario had become habit between them. She was always playing. He was always listening, picking up bits here and there like scraps of fabric to stitch into a quilt.

  “Wait!” he said, all but shouting. “That’s it! Right there. Play that again.”

  Anyone watching might have looked for a cord connecting them; his motions were in sync with the notes that flowed from her fingertips.

  “La-la-lu-lala-li-la,” he scatted. “Shamala de da-da.”

  Sydney stopped playing; her dark eyes widened. It was an expression Ethan had come to understand as her way of asking “What the fuck was that?”

  “No! No!” Ethan pleaded. “Don’t stop. Please!”

  He was on his knees in front of her. His hands were in motion as if trying to draw the music from her fingers through some kind of wizardry.

  He often used the word magic to describe how a song came together. How else could he describe creating something from nothing? Thinking too much almost seemed to deny it. He was learning to listen to his imagination, that and his intuition. It would always take him somewhere unexpected if he let it, unless he tried to control it or figure it out. There was no model or process to follow. It came and went like the wind, and if he were lucky, he’d catch a spark to hold on to. Ethan was beginning to see the world as made up of two mind-sets: those who believed there was a universal model that would eventually be figured out and those who believed there wasn’t—at least not one mere mortals understood.

  Sydney’s playing was just such a moment.

  “Play it again,” he repeated, feeling more was outside them than between them. It wasn’t about him or her. It was beyond them—a glimmer of something, a gift that, if willing, he could have and grow into something. It was raw, primitive, and his for the taking—truth, pure and innocent, melding the heart, mind, and soul in an unadulterated place where rules and procedures didn’t exist. Creativity was like that. It revealed the soul in glimpses on occasion. Having everything in order didn’t matter. It was a choice to take the gift, but it wouldn’t show itself again.

  Sydney played the bit again but added something else.

  Ethan shook his head. “No, no, no. Take it higher, like ta-ti-ti-ta.”

  Sydney’s fingers seemed to float over the strings, one note flowing into the next, as Ethan’s hands followed along in unison like a hawk taking unseen air currents to a new height. Unlike the hawk, Ethan closed his eyes.

  “It’s there. I can touch it,” Ethan sang, the words flowing with the notes under Sydney’s fingers. “But it won’t let me in.”

  He stopped and jumped to his feet maniacally in search of a pen and paper.

  “The fear stops me moving,” he sang as the words came to him, blind as to what would come next, terrified they would stop. It was like trying to catch something he couldn’t quite see.

  He grabbed an envelope and pencil from a drawer in the kitchen.

  “No. The last is the second,” he said to himself. His fingers worked the pencil across the blank white envelope, writing, “But she’s not mine.” He scratched it out and wrote what he’d sung:

  It’s there. I can touch it.

  But it won’t let me in.

  The fear stops me moving.

  He finished by saying, “I don’t know where to begin.” He scribbled down the words to complete the four-line stanza.

  “Play it again,” he said, scared he would miss what was screaming by. These special moments—or clouds, as Ethan thought of them—came and went like dreams. If he didn’t write them down, they were gone.

  Sydney played the notes exactly as she had before.

  “Play it again,” Ethan repeated, counterpointing the notes she played by humming a forming melody. When she finished, he wanted her to play it again. This time, he sang the words he’d jotted down.

  “Yes!” he shouted, driving his fist into the air. “That’s it!”

  Fist pumping, he danced beside her. “I love it!” he cried, unable to contain himself. “Play it again!”

  Sydney added a little front end and played it again. Ethan sang along.

  “Wow!” he yelled.

  “Wow is right,” Sydney said, setting down his guitar. “We gotta go.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Thursday, July 12, 1984

  They quickly got into Sydney’s yellow Corolla and headed to the gig.

  Things had changed considerably since their accidental meeting en route from Ottawa. The gifted twenty-two-year-old graduate of Ottawa’s School of Art seemed able to play almost any tune Ethan could think of with little effort. From an early age, she’d trained to play the cello, but while touring as a fourteen-year-old cellist prodigy with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, she’d discovered the guitar and rock. Her obsession with both shook the foundation of several generations of music tradition in her family. Her defiance—which Ethan soon learned was unwieldy and fierce—led to an exile from music and serving behind the counter of the family restaurant as penance for her insolence. The distress that followed took her away from music despite her graduating with top honors from the college. If she couldn’t have it her way, she wouldn’t have it at all. Modern music and the electric guitar were in her blood. Smitten, there was no going back. It all was working out as far as Ethan could see.

  “Gus will be having a shit fit,” she said as they passed slower traffic.

  Ethan was paying little attention. The tune they’d started was wreaking havoc in his head.

  “Why aren’t you?” Sydney asked, her words bringing him back to the night’s show.

  “I am,” he replied, smiling. He loved the magic of writing a new song. He didn’t want to stop.

  “Sure as hell doesn’t look like it,” Sydney said. Ethan knew her preshow jitters made her talk more than usual. “Your head is someplace else.”

  “Just goin’ through the show,” he lied. In truth, he was trying hard to lock in the tune they’d come up with. Writing down the words helped, but that didn’t always capture the music or the feel. He feared losing the groove of the song. It was like chasing a shadow. He could see it and reach out for it but not quite touch it. Playing it over and over usually locked it in, but still, it could vanish, returning only when and if it wanted to.

  “Yeah, sure you are,” Sydney replied, “and I’m fucking Diana Ross. You’re like glass you’re so transparent. Don’t be playin’ fucking poker.”

  He laughed uneasily, as he could almost feel the tune fading. They really had to play it. He wished they hadn’t left so quickly, show or no show.

  “You’re still working the damn song, aren’t you?”

  “I hope you fuckin’ remember it, ’cause listening to all your talk is pushing it out of my head.”

  “You worry too much,” Sydney replied, turning the car onto the exit ramp. They were close. “It’s locked up tight right here.” Her right hand came off the wheel as she pointed to her temple.

  “Tight or not, if you don’t keep your hands on the wheel, it won’t fucking matter.”

  “You’re an asshole,” she said, and the car surged forward. “I can’t believe I joined a band of dicks.”

  “Feeling’s mutual, my dear.”

&n
bsp; “Always have to have the last word. You’re fucking pathetic.”

  A minute later, Sydney turned into the gravel parking lot of Benny’s Bar and Grill. Greg’s gray Nova was parked beside the roadhouse.

  “How does Gus find these places?” Sydney asked, frowning. “We’re gonna need fucking helmets if they don’t like us.”

  “We’ll soon find out. I hope everything’s set up.”

  “It will be,” Sydney said, sounding a little more upbeat. “What’s up your sleeve tonight?”

  “Have to wait and see,” Ethan answered, thinking of his earlier episode with Uncle Al. “I’ve got a little anger to blow off tonight.”

  He smiled, not quite sure himself what he might do.

  Sydney parked at the side of the building, beside the Nova. Ethan grabbed his Shure mike case off the Corolla’s floor and got out. He’d taken to the habit of carrying his mike so he knew where it was. Sydney pulled the case holding her prized white Gibson ES-355 off the back seat. When he’d first seen her play, the polished white guitar had looked as big as she was, but it didn’t take long to see who was in charge. Onstage, five-inch heels helped offset her physical size against that of her guitar, but when she started to play, there was nothing small about her. Ethan pulled his duffel bag out from behind his seat. He followed her to the rear entrance at the side of the building.

  Greg opened the steel door in answer to Sydney’s knock.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” he cried. “We were supposed to be on ten minutes ago.”

  “Fucking traffic,” Sydney answered, looking at Ethan, “but from the looks of the parking lot, nobody fucking cares anyway.”

  “Fuck you,” Greg said, and he turned away.

  In the entranceway behind Greg, Ethan could see Gus shaking his head. Whether at their lateness, the exchange between Sydney and Greg, or both, Ethan couldn’t tell. Gus was standing beside the door to what would serve as their dressing room for the night. Greg held the door as Sydney and Ethan stepped into the small alcove. Left of the door was the kitchen, which led into the back of the barroom.