The new apartment on the South side of the fens became known as "Cal's Crib." (To proceed with lying.) The spring and summer of 1975 had waxed poetical and full of entertainment. As I prepared to move in with and then to ditch my babe of the year, the nation was entering its bicentennial celebration. The events of the American Revolution coincided with my ascent as a parking lot attendant. It paralleled my struggles with music and musicianship. It set off fireworks in the background as Elmer Fudd confessed undying love as he sat beside me, having lured me to a park bench on the Charles with effusive praise. There were barges on the river with Handelian Haut Bois and trompettes, the drums echoing off skyscraper walls. There was baseball in Fenway Park as we fucked our way out of paper bags; we heard the roar of the crowd as far East as Copley as we danced and danced and danced. Arthur Fiedler was everywhere and nowhere, his white hair symbolizing everything corrupt about American music. (More on that of course.) The official kickoff was April 1st, and President Ford was in town at the Old North Church to light the lanterns warning the British and colonists alike on April 18th. Events happened all summer long, into the fall, and into 1976. The nation wasn't fully hatched until someone made a musical and manned a gift shop.
Somewhere in there, a procession got started at the Old North Church that made its way to "the rude bridge that arched the flood" in Concord. Van Dyke and I had been to the higher ground and babbled maniacally as we stared down at the lights of the city. We'd been so stoned at the back of the hall at Boston College where we dropped in on a performance of Beethoven's Fifth (I'm sure I'd drunk about that much too) that I pounded on the carpeted floor yelling 'yes, Beethoven, yes!' This was me making fun of Dean Moriarty, of course. Beethoven's hot jazz licks just got me off, then as now. I'd put away so much Wild Turkey out in Framingham, drinking from a coffee cup as Justin played Bach Suites, that I'd puked all over the bathroom, the bus, the subway train and the street in front of the Cal Crib. It took at least 24 hours to get that poison out of my system. For Sue and Greg, who had to more thoroughly clean up their bathroom after me, the poison never washed out. Ten years later, when seeking a job in DC from an agency that Greg recruited talent for, he refused to hire me, the reason being, "I can't be sure you won't puke in the piano." So Justin and I had put in some babble time. I was on the cusp of introducing him to Tennant. This would be like pulling back the pin on a pinball game, the thing that set the ball in motion. When it came to altered states of consciousness, we were just getting started. Tennant was finishing school. At the piece of time I need to examine, however, we were in that procession up to Concord. It was Justin's idea. He thought a good noisy walk would do us some good, and he brought along an old car horn of the folded tube and bulb variety to provide the racket. It is a good thing that this Concord is not the one in New Hampshire, as so many of our wayward public servants think. That would have been a much longer walk. As it was, it took a while to get up to Concord. When we got up there, there was a major party going on. The center of the bash was an outdoor stage where Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and who knows who else performed. We sang everything from "If I Had a Hammer" to "Love is Just a Four Letter Word." In between, there was a rousing reading of "We Shall Overcome." Then, at a certain point, we had to walk back.
All of this walking and babbling began to alter my perception of Justin Van Dyke. I could now no longer remember exactly how he had seemed at first. I mean, I could, and I think I have, but now the portrait included so much new information. That's not to say that I didn't occasionally get slapped around. There were certain areas you couldn't go, certain topics you couldn't get to. He was not very big on talking about sex. He had a circumspect, almost puritanical reserve. He was, therefore, not subjected to my bitching and moaning on this topic. He never heard much about Mara or Harmony. He preferred to talk counterpoint. If I transgressed and tried to broach these boring topics, he'd fix me with a look and shoot me down with some pithy remark. This, actually, had been an admirable feature of his in my esteem, for 'limitations set us free.' Every now and then he made me have to sit down and think it over, so peculiar where his responses. I have said that I tracked people and places along with the catalogue of works I made. This included works I tried to play. In my sophomore year, I'd tired of playing in the practice rooms. I developed the habit of hanging out at school after hours on nights that I wasn't parking cars, leaving a matchbook in the lock for entry and exit. In the building on my own, I was free to poke around. On one such poking expedition, I came across an old piano by a back door to Hemenway Street. It was a beat up old upright, but most of it still worked. I skipped the middleman, Streator, and went right to President Gianini. I poked my head into the office and spoke to his secretary:
"Is the President in?"
"I believe he is, but he's in a meeting."
"Can I wait?"
"I can't tell how long he'll be. Is it urgent?"
"No. Well, it's a personally important matter."
"You want me to buzz him?"
"Would that be impertinent?"
"I don't think so. Just between you and me, he's in there with an old golf buddy. Who should I say is calling?"
"Cal Hunter, sophomore. Composition."
There. Name, rank and serial number.
"Hello, Tony?"
The crackly voice on the other end says,
"Yes?"
"Cal Hunter's here to see you. No appointment, just important personal stuff."
I interrupt:
"Not all that personal. More like business."
She waves me off.
"Sure, sure. Al and I are just shooting the breeze in here. Send him in, send him in."
He's as cheerful as ever. In I go. Yet another paneled office with high back chairs and conference table.
"Cal! Great to see you. I see you're on the Dean's list again. With honors. Sit sit. This is my old friend Albert Weisskopf. You'll likely never see him again in your life, so your secret's safe with Al. Of course, if you want privacy, I'll have him wait outside."
"No, sir. I have a question."
"Fire away."
"You know that old piano in the stairwell?"
"Piano in stairwell..."
"Yes, it's over in the other building, piled up with other junk, and it looks like..."
"Oh yes, that's all old junk. I keep forgetting to call somebody about hauling away."
"Mind if I take the piano?"
"It's yours. You haul."
It took some doing to roll the piano on its little casters to the elevator in my crib, some block and a half. We (Van Dyke, Rod, Yoshi and I) must've been a sight wheeling that thing down the sidewalk, pushing and pulling over every crack. In due time, we succeeded. Getting it in the door was dicey, almost as bad as up the steps.
Now I could compose and practice without the inconvenience of having to go over to school. I had my stuff on the rack. I was trying to master a Novellette by Schumann, part of the opus 21 group. I'd played number one, the one that Goode and I had broken ice over so far back now. Smith asked me if I wanted try number two. It was a lightning speed bitch. I was playing it at a death crawl, just trying to get the notes right. Van Dyke was over and saw the Novellette open on the piano. He sat down and rattled it off perfectly, no mistakes, up to tempo. Missing notes on the old piano didn't stop him. I never got used to his reading skill, it always took me by surprise. When he finished, I said:
"Man, I've been trying like hell to play that thing. You just nailed it like you've played it all your life."
"I've never seen it before in my life, but I think it's a piece of crap, just a bunch of notes."
I might have payed better attention to the testiness of this reaction and skipped continuing on, but I was blown away.
"Man, you read so well! It just blows me away!"
Now came the peculiar part: he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me in towards him. He's about a head taller than me, remember.
"If you didn't say shit like that, do you think I wouldn't do it?"
I was stunned. I was let go of instantly, and whatever task (smoke a bowl, get a slice, play some frisbee, drive up to Walden, go meet Tennant, take a babbling stroll down to the Gardiner, whatever...) proceeded normally. It was like there were two people lurking in that form, and you could never tell which was going to speak. I wonder to this day about that particular outburst. Was he sensitive about effusive praise? If that was it, I get it, because Elmer Fudd had made me purple with embarrassment. On the other hand, the structure of the remark as I recall it suggested that there might be some quid pro quo involved in music making. Performers and composers are at each other's throats when in fact, they should be in collusion. If nobody has the gumption to write, where is the literature to play? Wait until we get around to Van Dyke playing my piece!
I didn't mean to rattle on about Van Dyke. It's a breach of discipline and a good example how the telling of lies can get you caught up in your own bullshit. I meant to set up the pinball time machine of my fiction. I'd been hanging out with Tennant and his wife, another source of good dope. He'd been talking about 'scoring some acid' and that was a little scary. I'd heard about Tim Leary and all of that stuff, but it had come with stories about chromosome damage. Tennant would just say, "how do you know you've got chromosomes, kid?" The correct response that always got a hoot out of him was, "I don't. I've just thought I did in my wherever I think that." It was around this time that the topic of LSD came up in my babbles with Van Dyke.
"Man, I haven't done that shit in years!"
"But you've done it."
"Yes."
"What does it do to you?"
"You have to do it to find out."
"You think I should?"
"Absolutely. I've got to meet this guy Tennant."
Thus, the pieces were all in place for the next big leap forward, right off the map and out into the infinity of inner space. All I have to do is come up with a chapter title.
