Frozen Music
by Michael J. Vaughn
“A stone is frozen music.”
--Pythagoras
For Dr. Charlene Archibeque
One
Sunday
Prelude, presto agitato
Sadness underpins everything, nudging at you, circling your
eyes like a summer gnat. Swatting at it does no good, because it is small and
light and vents off along the wind created by your hand. Am I a lunch-bag
lunatic, or is this what happens when you grow up? That is, after all, what I’m
counting on – that this is a process, that these are just the hard steps on the
way to adulthood.
My life back then had a great tragic focus. That one
overpowering situation wiped out my minor sadnesses like a black hole sucking
in asteroids. I might have even preferred it that way. The main thing? I wanted. I wanted intensely, I wanted her, and I lived. Today, I am a cow in a
pasture. I do not smell or hear or taste the world; I just lower my head and
graze.
I begin with a bit of prehistory. Before I made my entrance,
an event I can only imagine made what was to be a large dent in my life. By now
I have cut it apart, thrown in details that may have never existed, and
inserted myself into all three roles just to understand why this pathetic bit
of melodrama would have such an effect on me.
A California businesswoman attends a week-long series of
meetings at corporate HQ in New Jersey. By Friday noon, the meetings are over,
so she switches her tickets to an earlier flight and takes a cab to LaGuardia.
She lands at San Francisco International at five in the morning. By the time
the shuttle delivers her to Santa Cruz, the sun is lifting over the coastal
hills. She unlocks the door to her condo and stumbles in, throws her bag on the
couch and heads upstairs.
Her live-in boyfriend is a dark, burly Italian guy who is
always the hit at parties, beer in hand, arm around a buddy, East Coast born
and bred like our heroine, pleasantly rough around the edges. She looks forward
to lunchtime, when she will tell him stories about the old home territory, but
for now she is dead on her feet and wants only to hop in bed next to his big
warm body and sleep.
Our heroine enters the bedroom quietly so as not to wake her
beau, but as she removes her second black pump she counts one, then two mounds
under the sheet. The picture hits her right in the diaphragm, and before she
can stop herself she lets out a high-pitched gasp. The larger of the two mounds
rolls over and peers at her.
At this point, the average Hollywood hack would have the big
galunk chasing her down the stairs in his briefs, saying something like,
“Honey, it isn’t what it looks like,” and the comedy would be under way. But
not here, not in the real world. Our heroine stares at him in shock; he stares
back, his big dark eyes as empty as a dog’s. For three seconds the frame
freezes. She leaves her shoes where they are and escapes out the door.
The burly Italian guy stares at his face in the dresser
mirror until he realizes that what has just happened has just happened. He nudges his bedmate awake and tells her he’s
sorry but she needs to leave right away.
As for our heroine, as for Stacy, she is downstairs at the
kitchen table, drinking a strong cup of coffee because she knows this day will
not end soon. They have been together for seven years. They bought this condo,
and a sailboat, and her car and his truck and the timeshare in Tahoe. They are
not married, but these next few months will be as thorough and harrowing as a
divorce. She will lose her sense of security, she will lose sleep, she will
lose weight. She will lose money and time during long afternoons in a
therapist’s office. And she will meet a
gullible, insecure young man and change his life in dramatic fashion.
Tonight, done with my weekend rituals, I girdle myself in
this hunk of old oak and varnish, sweating over the desktop, grinding out
flashbacks to clear my mind. The sun soaked into the ground all day and now the
heat is back up, tearing at my pores. But it’s not just the heat. Outside, two
tomcats are staging a fierce tete-a-tete in the echo chamber of the parking
garage. The sound is something like a lyric soprano being slowly tortured to
death.
A half-hour ago I gave up and stormed outside, frustration
prickling at my sides. A sonic lightning bolt rolled in from space number
sixty-five. I stopped at the small rock garden outside my studio to gather projectiles.
And then I discovered them atop a mint-condition red Porsche. Damn. With Plan A
no longer an option, I ran in their direction and yelled, “Hah! Get outta here!
Whattya think yer doin’?!” Lame, but effective.
Between the adrenaline of the hunt and my third cup of
coffee, I wasn’t ready to so much as think
about sleeping, so I just sat at my desk wiping sweat from my brow, trying to
fight off this big side-of-beef lonely. Then I heard footsteps.
It was Brownie, my next-door neighbor. Brownie is an
alluring young woman with a sweep of chestnut hair that bobs when she walks. I
watch her every morning when she leaves for work. She has great legs, and likes
to wear miniskirts. I’ve lived next door to her for three years but have never
had the nerve to introduce myself.
Brownie clicked across the porch and opened her door; the
stripping made a distinct sucking sound. I lay sideways on my bed and held my ear
to the wall. The lock clicked as she shut the door. Dishes in the sink, then
the scraping of furniture against tile – a stool. Then voices. One voice was
Brownie’s, the other belonged to a man, not a low voice but definitely
masculine. I figured it was that guy that I see her with sometimes. I think
they’re engaged, they sort of act that way. By now I was having a hard time
keeping my ear to the wall; my neck was stiffening up.
Mr. Brownie was engaged in some real smooth-talk. His
sentences dipped around and down, then fluttered at the ends, a poetic roller
coaster. I wheeled my arm around then reattached myself to the sheetrock,
pressing harder to see if I could make out actual words.
The next thing I knew, Mr. Brownie turned on some music, an
old jazz tune played from a tinny-sounding record. I couldn’t be sure, but it
sounded like they were dancing in the kitchen. Sliding, shuffling, a tap. Lord
knows how they were doing it in such a small space. And it seemed like they had
real good rhythm, each step firmly in the flow, even a unison clap at the end
of a phrase. At this point, I assumed they were working up a routine for their
wedding day.
The music dropped off mid-song, and I heard Brownie giggle,
followed by more talking from Mr. Brownie, lower, softer. By this time, my ear
was going numb, so I turned all the way around and tried the other ear. The
sound was clearer, sharper. I could make out the consonants, and I realized
that I had heard Mr. Brownie’s voice before.
Mr. Brownie was Fred Astaire. Brownie was Ginger Rogers. And
Brownie’s TV was right up against my wall.
Photo by MJV
No comments:
Post a Comment