Crescendo

by Allen Cheney

  Throughout those years Fred kept his family’s poverty a closely guarded secret from his schoolmates. While some of his teachers likely knew the truth about his impoverished homelife, he had learned to dress and behave above his means. Even the chorus friends he spent so much time with seemed never to suspect a thing—until one Sunday, when Fred, now a freshman in high school, was forced to face his greatest fear.

  Fred had become a well-respected member of the choral group, and the eight singers had stuck together through the years, with Rick Lewis now one of his closest companions. That day the four male singers had been scheduled to rehearse at the First Methodist Church in LaGrange, but Fred couldn’t find a ride into town. The church organist, Lucy Nixon, arrived to meet the boys, only to realize Fred was absent—along with the sheet music he had taken home with him. While she wasn’t sure exactly where the Allen family lived, everyone knew that Fred sometimes struggled to find a ride into town and that he lived on the outskirts of Troup County. With the start time drawing near, Mrs. Nixon eyed the three teen singers and said, “Hop in the car, boys. Let’s go get Fred.”

  Mrs. Nixon was from one of the wealthiest clans in town—the Lanier family who owned Westpoint Manufacturing—but she was known to be a good-natured soul who never focused on the materialistic priorities that many in her social circle seemed to care about most. Without any sign of frustration, she piled the teens into her car and rushed out to the Hillcrest community, stopping along the way to ask for directions to the Allen home.

  Meanwhile, irritated by his failed efforts to convince one of his many relatives to drive him to the church, Fred had retreated to his bedroom in defeat. He lay on his bed, rehearsing songs in his head, when a knock sounded at the front door. He didn’t bother leaving his room. The only visitors they ever received were either debt collectors, sheriff’s deputies, or people there for reasons he would rather not know. But when the knock came again, followed by a loud shout for “Fred!” he could ignore it no longer.

  Sick of living in a house of “no-counts,” as some in town had called them, Fred made his way to the wide-open door, where, much to his horror, the ever-posh Mrs. Nixon stood waiting. She smiled as if the absurd situation was nothing out of the ordinary. This is how upper-crust socialites always behaved, he thought. They kept their cool and never showed emotions, at least not that Fred had ever seen, but he’d not yet learned to master such self-control. While Mrs. Nixon may have remained calm and collected, Fred’s pulse raced with fear, a feeling that only intensified when a pack of scrawny dogs drew his attention to the dirt lane. The mutts had surrounded Mrs. Nixon’s Cadillac and barked at Fred’s three best friends who waved from the back seat.

  Fred quickly looked away, fighting a rush of nausea as his heart throbbed with a speed that made his head spin. This can’t be happening! he thought to himself. They shouldn’t be here! Fred had spent years trying to be one of the guys, determined to be respected like Rick Lewis, the upper-class leader of their clique. He had been careful to never let anyone know the secret of his deprivation, but now his truth had been revealed.

  To make matters worse, Mrs. Nixon stood mere inches from Fred’s drunken uncle Ed, her high heels balanced near his muddy boots as he lay passed out in a heap across the rickety porch planks. In addition to the barking dogs, the weed-filled yard held countless chickens, all scrapping about for any bit of protein they could find between the scattering of bottles. Inside, the scene was even worse, with a house full of folks who had been broken by life. Some had spent time in jail. Others were shackled by addiction and poverty. Some were hard workers, but all had known their fair share of suffering and all had found the Allen home to be a place where they could numb their pain any way they chose, guilt-free. If there was any common link among them, it was defeat. Lack of education and opportunity seemed to have left them feeling powerless, inadequate, worthless, and now, as some gathered around the table smoking cheap cigarettes and playing a dirty hand of poker, they shared the kind of crude laughter found in the deepest pits of hopelessness and despair. Fred’s dysfunctional life lay in clear view for Mrs. Nixon, and there was nothing he could do to hide it anymore.

  Showing consistent class, Mrs. Nixon smiled politely and kept her voice steady when she said, “I’ve come for the music.”

  “Wait here.” Fred quickly closed the door behind him, sickened by the heartbreaking realization that his friends now knew the truth he had kept hidden for so long. He rushed through the house, stepping over a few men too drunk to stand despite the daylight hour. As he grabbed the sheet music, Uncle Dirk plucked the papers from Fred’s hands. “Well, lookie here,” he taunted, his voice cruel and cold.

  Fred was still a young teen, but he was learning to stand his ground. “Give it to me.”

  With his bloodshot stare, Dirk gave the musical notations a long glare, then eyed Fred’s clean appearance and church-ready trousers, his nice brown leather shoes. “You think you’re better than us, don’t you, boy?” The crowd stirred, laughing as Dirk passed the papers around the room for each to see. “The world don’t work like that, kid. Ev’ry man got his place. You best stick to it.”

  As the clock ticked, Fred’s sister, also broken by the heavy gravitational pull of dysfunction, watched this cruel interaction. Fred never expected she would intervene, but he hadn’t noticed the tension in her neck, the draw of her tightened lips. Like his mother, she had learned early in life to keep her head down, stay silent, and never do anything to anger the men.

  But much to Fred’s surprise, Novis moved toward the unruly crew and grabbed the music, handing it back to Fred. “Don’t pay them no mind,” she whispered, straightening her brother’s collar and offering him a kind smile.

  It was a stark moment of defiance for his meek sister, one that led to an equally rare moment of family affection as Fred hugged her close and tight. He knew Novis stood little chance of ever finding her own way to freedom, especially now that she was working in the mill as a high school dropout and following the same sad steps of their broken mother. With a quiet thank-you, Fred accepted her gift and rushed back to the organist, music in hand, more determined than ever to break free of the shiftless souls who filled his abusive home.

  But when he saw Mrs. Nixon’s pleasant smile, the heavy noose of shame closed on any pulse of courage that had begun to rise. “Aren’t you riding with us to rehearsal?” she asked, accepting the sheet music as if she had not noticed the chaos swirling around her.

  Fred was too humiliated to look her in the eye, too horrified to wave to his friends—much less get into the car with them. How could he possibly endure that long stretch of highway between this disgraceful world he inhabited and the more respectable one he longed to call his own?

  “We can’t sing without you, Fred. You’re first tenor,” Mrs. Nixon said, yet to acknowledge the drunken uncle splayed near her feet.

  Her young singer stared at the collapsed heap of a man and kept quiet.

  “All right then. Truth be told, you probably already know the music better than any of us anyway.” Mrs. Nixon smiled again. “But promise you’ll still show up Sunday to sing.”

  Fred kept his head low and his voice even lower. “I’ll try.” Then he closed the door without any additional explanation. He watched from the hazy kitchen window until the Cadillac pulled out of sight and the chickens stopped their clucking.

  Moments later, Grady and Velma arrived home from the mill, parking their battered Ford under the same tree where Mrs. Nixon’s expensive car had just claimed space. The dust had already settled back down on the long dirt lane when Novis realized her brother hadn’t joined the others. “Don’t you have practice?”

  Fred nodded, unable to conceal his disappointment. Behind him, the raucous crew of poker players laughed and coughed, trading nickels for cards as if they weren’t a bunch of losers.

  “You gotta sing,” Novis said matter-of-factly, grabbing the keys to the family’s car.

  “I doubt they wa
nt me there after seeing this.” Fred’s voice was heavy with despair.

  His sister stepped closer. He wished he hadn’t said it because he knew he wasn’t the only one who carried the weight of this shame.

  “Let’s go,” she said, nudging her brother out to the faded Ford. When he hesitated at the passenger door, she gave him a long look and added, “Fred, you’re the only one of us who’s got any hope of breaking outta here. And I love you too much to let you quit now.”

  Fifteen minutes later, when Novis finally pulled the car to a stop in front of the First United Methodist Church in LaGrange, she followed Fred’s gaze toward the towering steeple. They sat together, staring up at the tall, white beacon—its peak a shingled spire above the town. Their faces were blank, their eyes hollow, as if the pinnacle represented nothing holy at all, only more proof of God’s unequal mercies. Then Novis turned toward her only sibling and said, “Go show ’em what you’re made of, Fred. And whatever you do, promise me you won’t end up like the rest of us.”

  After a final nudge from Novis, Fred ran into the sanctuary without a minute to spare. Avoiding any communication with his friends, he made it through rehearsal while his sister waited outside in the dented car, the only one in the lot with a missing fender. And when the session ended, he departed just as quickly, preventing anyone from mentioning to him what they’d seen at the Allen home.

  That night Fred tossed for hours, earning not a wink of sleep. When the sun rose the following day, he was not only exhausted; he was also terrified to return to school. Now that his friends knew the truth about his family, would they taunt him? Cut him out of their peer group? Refuse to be associated with someone so low-class?

  While slaves and sharecroppers were a thing of the past, LaGrange was only a half step removed from its Old South roots, and the small circle of elite families still held the inherited wealth and, thus, the power. Fred had been accepted by these upper-class students because he had developed street-smart survival skills. He had learned to fit in with the right crowd, not in an effort to con anyone but rather to elevate himself beyond his hard life of suffering. He’d done it to break free of the generational cycles of anger, addiction, and abuse that loomed, always ready to claim him as their rightful heir.

  But now his mask had been removed, and there was no chance of hiding anymore.

  He also knew enough to know that talk spread quickly in a town the size of LaGrange. So as he arrived at school the next day, Fred prepared himself for ridicule and rejection. He was certain he would be called either white trash or a half-breed mutt and that he’d be stuck with such labels for the rest of his schooling.

  Instead, just as Fred had learned from his Cherokee grandfather, Mrs. Duncan, and Aunt Eleanor, sometimes people can surprise you. Rather than distancing themselves from Fred as he’d feared, his friends carried on as if nothing at all had changed. They treated him exactly as they had always treated him, as if he were their equal, as if he deserved their friendship and respect, as if it did not matter one bit how much money his parents earned or how many drunk uncles lay passed out on his porch.

  Fred learned a valuable lesson from his friends that day. He learned that while there were people in this world who wanted to break him down, take what they could get, use him and abuse him, there were others who truly wanted to lift him up, care for him, and support him—even when he felt he had nothing at all to offer in return. At an age when many teens experience brutal rejection, bullying, and fear, Fred found people who would help him find his way out of the turmoil once and for all.

  That afternoon, when it was time to head home again, Rick Lewis proved this to be emphatically true as he walked beside Fred out of the music room. “You still like cobbler?” he asked.

  Fred shrugged, which of course meant, Yes, I like cobbler. Who doesn’t?

  “Mom said she’d have plenty.”

  The Lewis home was one of the largest in LaGrange, the kind of house that had been given an official name: Highpoint. The design boasted angular, slate rooflines with rows of oversize awnings and arches yielding both a welcoming and impressive atmosphere for anyone who entered. Perched in the midst of a luxuriously landscaped six-acre spread, the 1920s estate looked more like it belonged in the posh hill country of Europe than on Broad Street, where the expansive Tudor abutted the edge of the LaGrange College campus.

  Fred had already spent many a night there when he couldn’t find a ride into town for school events and performances, but this time Mrs. Lewis welcomed her son’s friend with an especially thoughtful offer.

  “I made your favorite, Fred.” She led the boys into the kitchen for a warm scoop of peach cobbler. Fred was always eager to taste anything better than the canned tomatoes and fruit pudding he had relied on for many a meal in the Allen home. But Mrs. Lewis not only fed the boys a predinner treat, she gave her son’s friend an even bigger surprise.

  “Fred, I know it’s difficult for you to make it back into town sometimes. So I figured we might as well go ahead and set you up with your own bedroom,” she said. “Let’s consider this your standing invitation.”

  The teen kept focused on his cobbler, not sure of what to say or where to look. Finally his eyes met Rick’s, then Mrs. Lewis’s, and he took a big bite and smiled. “This is good,” he said. Then he added, “Thank you.” It was all he could think to say.

  From that day on the Lewis family went out of its way to make Fred feel right at home, even granting him full access to their grand piano. From his second-story bedroom window, there wasn’t a single hint that a poor side of town existed at all. Now, instead of viewing scrawny hens and flea-ridden dogs, drunken uncles and broken-spirited women, Fred had a pristine view of the college campus. Just beyond his windowpanes a thick magnolia stood like a wizened warrior guarding him from his past, its oversize white flowers a timeless promise that beauty remained in the world.

  At times, when the storms swooped in, winds shook the more fragile dogwoods and cherry blossoms, but his magnolia barely stirred. Instead, its large pointed leaves stayed stiff, saluting the sky as if they knew the sun would return. And when it did, as it always did, the light would sparkle from their waxy surfaces, an ever-present symbol that he, too, could weather any storm.

  Seven

  Life in the Lewis house introduced Fred to an entirely different world. No longer worried about finding food, avoiding inebriated house guests, or hiding his musical talents from his superstitious clan, he was finally free to explore the creative arts to his heart’s content while being immersed in a model of a healthy family relationship. With true stability and support for the first time in his life, doors began to open.

  Like others in the LaGrange community, Fred’s middle school and high school music teacher, Mrs. Dudley, had taken him under her wing from the time he’d first entered her sixth-grade classroom. But now that his basic needs were being met, she began to challenge Fred to take his talents to the next level. He’d tested well above his grade level in all subjects, and his intellect had become a fascination for his teachers, if not a frustration for those less secure. But despite his many gifts in both academics and music, Mrs. Dudley began to suspect Fred might not actually know how to read music. Because he had always been able to play even complex classical pieces by ear, he’d never had to rely on sight-reading. He simply heard the song once or twice and then used the sheet music as a visual guide while trusting his natural talents to get him through each performance.

  In 1949, Fred was nearing the end of his freshman year in high school when Mrs. Dudley placed some sheet music on the piano and looked Fred in the eye. “Play this,” she said, tapping the first measure as a starting point. The title and credits had been concealed, no lyrics were included as clues, and Mrs. Dudley did not offer to perform it first as an example. This left Fred with nothing but the musical notation. He was certainly able to distinguish the treble clef from the bass. He understood how to read the signatures. And he could make a fair attempt at the melody,
simply due to his natural ability to process the world through music. But a full sight-reading proved difficult, and Mrs. Dudley had called his bluff.

  As he struggled through the classical piece, his teacher curled her lips and leaned against the piano. “You can’t read music, can you?”

  Fred kept quiet, too ashamed to admit he’d made it this far without learning the basics.

  “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Dudley reassured him. “This is quite common for people who can play by ear. You haven’t had to rely on reading notes like the rest of us. But let me ask you something.”

  His eyes shifted, expecting a reprimand. Would she remove him from the choral group? Pull him from out-of-town competitions?

  Mrs. Dudley moved toward her desk and asked firmly, “Do you want a career in music?”

  Fred was silent again. No one had ever asked what he planned to do with his life, even though many close to him had encouraged him to find his way out. In a small town like LaGrange, there weren’t many options. Those who came from money were on track to enroll in expensive private colleges. Then they would launch into adulthood with a hefty trust fund, a home, a vehicle, and usually a business or two already in their name. Those who came from mill-working families would be fortunate to make it through high school. And even then their paths usually led them to the mill or the military, neither of which appealed to Fred.

  “There are many ways to build a career in the musical arts, Fred. Every church has a choir director. Every commercial needs a jingle. Most schools have a music teacher,” Mrs. Dudley said, smiling. “Entertainers exist in every town on one level or another. Think about it. You can’t turn on the radio without hearing a song. You’ve spent many years focusing on music, and you’re so creative, Fred. I’m assuming you want some sort of career in the arts. Am I correct?”