Preface

Calbraith Hunter, Acid Art, 1976, ex. 7
Alleged to be a portrait of Lucy Tennant.

[The future harbors its many mysteries. It takes some imagination to see into it. I am the omniscient narrator of this novel, and I know all about it. How much I can share with you is open to debate. There is a limit to how much you, humble reader, will allow yourself to believe. I’ll tell of more as we go along. For the moment, we look in on a small gathering of scholars not yet born from where you sit.

It’s a Symposium of Hunter Scholars, Mid-Winter, 2527. In attendance: Eve and Number Three of Brattleboro, Number One of DC, Number Two of Albany and His Mistresses, Elspeth and Andrea. A cozy gathering in the dancing candle light, ages and ages hence. They’ve gathered this way before. Beside the fire, they speak informally about the purpose and progress of their work. The men use numbers rather than their proper names. This is one of the trappings of the academic tradition they practice. The women, on an equal footing in this society, use the names they’re given or have taken on in reflection of their interests or personalities. Much about this future will seem strange to you. Some of it will fit right in with what you believe about humanity. Let them speak:]

   “Hunter scholarship is a blueberry patch just now,” said Number Three.
   “Mostly attributable to the materials you’ve unearthed.”
   “Thanks, One. If not for you, we’d have nothing.”
   “Eve?”
   “Oh, I agree. We sing and shout.”
   “Crank up that Edison and put that record on again!”
   “I don’t know, Two. It’s getting fainter and fainter. It’ll be spring before I can get back down to make another cut.”
   “We could sing the madrigals.”
   “Sure, Eve, we could. But I’m inclined to sit and talk.”
   “It’s all the talking that creates the bog. Number Two, we get so bogged down in speculation. All we really know is that somebody made this music many years ago. The legends and stories, the so-called ‘Boston Tales,’ it’s impossible to tell the truth from any of it.”
   “You know it’s true, we really have no idea who Calbraith Hunter was, or what he really did.”
   “Elspeth, you had that story about his red-headed muse, the one that used to paint the color on right out of the bottle.”
   “Oh yes! I love that one, though it’s not a Boston story. Much further out in the “Book of Babes.” She accused him of making things up all the time. She said he was a pathological liar. A bit of a braggart. The red-head, that’s my juice.”
   “So true, lady El, so true. You wear your fiery tresses well!”
   “Andrea? What say you?”
   “The narratives are, one feels, partly things that happened, straight up, and partly things that happened highly embellished, and partly a pack of lies.”
   “Fiction.”
   “Right. But Hunter calls the whole thing fiction. A novel. He gives himself carte-blanche…”
   “Ha! The white card! Love that lingo!”
   “…To invent.”
   “The music is the claim to fame.”
   “Not for every taste. Eve here likes it, it makes her ‘sing and shout,’ but some can only yawn. And barely stifled.”
   “I’m a yawner when it comes to the music,” says Elspeth. “I am a fan of the narratives, and am glad, Number Three that you’ve worked so hard to put them in order and bring them to light.”
   “I bow to you, my darling El. But I can enjoy the music.”
   “You can actually play the music.”
   “You make me blush.”
   “He makes me sweat.” Eve’s indeed blushed and sweating by the small fire.
   “I think the public likes the stories. I hear them told in surprising places.”
   “They have their place. They enchant the past and make it seem so close.”
   “Not bad for a pack of lies.”

[So they sit and talk, batting back and forth a favorite topic, the shuttlecock of Calbraith Hunter’s work. Yet I can tell you that he’s only in their minds because of luck and twists of fate. So much was lost. I can tell you that the public they speak of is a very small one. There are just not many humans left. The joy they take in ancient music, in music history, is uplifting. Let us turn now to an edition of that labor, The Third Person’s little volume, a parchment bound with twine, the first person narrative of Calbraith Hunter, with interjections by the editors. I’ll be interjecting too…]

The Audition Part 1

Calbraith Hunter, Acid Art, ex. 6, circa 1976

In the Fall of 1972, Dad and I flew to Boston for the audition. I'd applied to several other music schools. I wanted to go to the one that was in a place that was imbued with history, far enough away from home that it would be an adventure, and somewhere I'd already been a few times. I passed up the scholarships from Peabody and Oberlin and decided to try out at a school I'd have to pay for.

From Logan, we took the subway to South Station. Just being in a subway station was an adventure. The squealing metal wheels, the clattering coaches, the grafiti, the smell of junk food and piss...already my eyes were wide. I approached the grey-haired man at the info kiosk. I stared at the map. I saw an octopus in four or five colors. The way did not leap out. I'd better ask.
    "I'm trying to get to Symphony."
    "Pok Street. Green Line."
    "Right."
Another hard look at the octopus. I see no Pok Street.
    "Pok Street?"
He's counting tokens or something, not looking up. He nods.
    "I don't see any 'Pok Street .'"
He's looking at me now, exasperated, shaking his head on the bull-like neck.
He's opening the gate to the rusty booth.
He's coming around, pushing me aside, pointing at the map.
I catch Dad out of the corner of my eye, standing back, letting his foolish son have his big city adventure. Dad already knows where this is going. He's also shaking his head with a half grin on his face.
The pudgy grimy fingers are stabbing the plastic lamination over the word...
    "Park Street."
Welcome to New England.

The Audition Part 2

The Back Bay Boston YMCA

We emerge from the tunnel into the dim light of early evening. I'm holding my map, but walking in no particular direction, looking in all directions.
    "Huntington Avenue," says Dad.
    "Where's the Conservatory?"
    "What does the map say?"
    "I don't know. Let me see."
I look, but I can't think just now. It's Boston. Wow. There's Symphony Hall across the street. Koussevitzky, Slonimsky, and Tilly Thomas. I daydream of being inside that hall, listening to one of the great orchestras live. And who knows...I have the deep abiding fantasy that I will have many triumphs here. There's the Mother Church. That's the I.M.Pei reflecting pool, where everybody appears to be walking on water. Nice trick. Later, on LSD, I'll think of the globes surrounding the street lights as the eyes of God, and I'll take to calling this Mary Baker's concrete tit. But that's the future, and just now I'm lost in the unfolding now. I take a single step in that direction, but Dad's grabs my shirt and pulls me the other way.
    "I think we want to go this way..."
    "Uh, OK."
Aren't we we're walking in the wrong direction? By the time we get to Gainsboro Street, passing the New England Conservatory, which, by the way, I had applied without success, I'm dubious about my father's understanding of the city and have got my nose back in the map. Another paternal tug on the fabric of my jacket stops my automatic forward motion.
    "Here."
He's pointing at the big red sign that says YMCA.
    "We'll check in, leave the baggage, then go looking around."
Dad's a man of few words, whereas I'm a man of many words. It's always been that way.

The next morning, at 8:30 AM we're making our way from the Y to the Boston Conservatory. It's my first stroll up Westland Ave., and as usual, the denizens of the street are out working it. Dad's tug gets my attention. He's pointing at two women in short red skirts. They look chilly.
    "Prostys." He means prostitutes.
    "Yup." We have these back home in D.C., too.
Now, running up to us from behind, comes the first of an endless parade of Boston panhandlers. Before I can angle out of the way, he puts a tattered piece of paper in my hand.
    "Hey, I just got back from 'Nam. I gotta get to Brighton to see mah kid. I ain't seen 'im in fo' years."
I'm slow on the uptake. Dad's rocked back on his heels to see how I'm going to deal with this. His educational style is college of hard knocks.
    "'Nam, eh?" I'm looking at the grimy fatigues.
    "Uh huh. I gotta get up to see my boy. I jus' need a few bucks fo' da bus."
    "Ah. You want money."
    "Jus' a few bucks. Fo' da bus."
    "For the bus? Are you sure you're not just looking to score?"
    "Hey! Don' dis me, man!"
    "I'm just curious..."
    "Curiossidy kilt da cat, man...I jus' wanna few bucks."
    "Well, what's your name?" I look for a second at the scrap of paper, and hand it back to the man. His aroma is starting to get to me.
    "Me?"
    "You're..."
    "Charles Huntington the Third."
Now another pair of pedestrians, elderly women with shopping bags, approach us.
    "Hey, Sammy, leave the boy alone!," one of them yells.
    "He's got better things to do today than fool with you!," yells the other.
    "I'm Huntington numbah three..."
But his pitch is defeated for the moment. He's distracted now by another pair of people on the other side of the street.
    "Nice talkin' wid ya...gotta run..."
Dad's shaking his head.
    "What?"
    "Let's get on with it..."

The Audition Part 3

The Boston Conservatory's Original Building, 8 The Fenway

The actual audition is strange. It takes place in a big auditorium, with just me on the stage at an ornate grand piano. Out in the hall, close to the stage, is a little table. There are three people at the table, one of which we've already met. We were escorted here by the President of the Boston Conservatory, a big, bald-headed guy named Gianini. He's been keeping up a steady chatter since we knocked on the door to his office about fifteen minutes ago. He's welcomed us to Boston, to the Conservatory, and asked about our trip so far. Had we seen Symphony Hall?
    "From the outside," I mutter. "We met Charles Huntington the Third."
    "Who?"
    "He's joking. It was some bum," says Dad.It's not much of an ice breaker.   "Well. You be careful out there, you hear? Let me go get Harriet and Ruth, some members of the piano faculty who are looking forward to meeting you and hearing you play. Then we'll go on up. You can wait here."
Looking around his office, at the pictures on the wall of his predecessors, at the pictures of the notable alumni, none of whom ring a bell with me, I feel strangely calm. I've heard stories from my own piano teacher about the legendary Albert Aphin, who was such a tightwad that he refused to replace an ancient vacuum cleaner. My thoughts settle like dust on the paneled walls. Dad is sitting with his hands across his lap. He's grinning. I grin back. I hear voices. Yes, Gianini's back with two dykish looking women in tow. We all shake hands and pile into the rickety elevator. In the auditorium, Gianini points me in the direction of the stage and the piano. The women sit at the table, Dad takes a seat in the back of the hall where there are folding chairs in neat rows.
    "You get the seat of honor," says Gianini, pointing.
    "The hot seat," I mutter.
I ascend the short stairs to the stage floor and take a seat on the piano bench. I've never really figured out how to adjust one of these things. I fool some with the big black knobs.
    "What do want to play for us?, calls out one of the piano teachers.
    "Um, I'll start with Schubert."
It's nothing fancy, just two little German Dances. It goes OK.
    "Lovely! Let's hear the Beethoven."
The 'Beethoven' is the Sonata, Opus 13, "Pathetique," First Movement. I've been obsessed with this piece for at least three years. I still can't really play it. I'm defeated by the tremolo in the left hand. I start out OK, but of course, I fumble the tricky virtuoso passage that bridges the Grave introduction and the Allegro. I can sort of play it moderato, but allegro, con brio, is not happening. Ever. Or certainly not now.
    "OK! That's enough!"
The piano ladies put me out of my misery. After a bit of chatter, Gianini dismisses the women and ascends the stairway to the piano. He asks me to get up, and he sits. He covers the keyboard with his big arm, covered in suit jacket. His gut is pouring out in its white shirted splendor, and his tie is just shy of the keyboard as he leans forward.
    "Now, I'm going to play a few notes. I want you to sing them back to me."
He plays a major second.
    "It's a major second," I say.
    "No. Don't tell me what they are, just sing them."
    "I'm not really a singer."
    "That's OK. Do your best."
In a faltering voice I match the pitches as well as I can.
    "Very good."
He plays another chord, lower on the keyboard. I warble, very uncertainly. There follows more chords, more uncertainty. At length, Gianini says,
    "Now, can you name these pitches? Just name the notes? He plays two notes in succession.
    "No, I don't have perfect pitch."
    "OK, the bottom note's an F sharp. What's the top note?"
    "Uh, an A natural." He plays a three note chord.
    "A is on the bottom."
    "A, C sharp, F. Or E sharp if you prefer." He gives me a dry chuckle, but immediately plays a cluster.
    "C is on the bottom."
    "C, D, E, F, G. I think. I don't really know, it's a cluster."
    "OK. That's enough. We're done."
    "Well, don't you want to hear my own piece? I'm auditioning as a composition major, after all..."
    "No. It's OK. I've showed your materials to the composition staff. They'll look it over and we'll talk about it. Go on out and enjoy Boston. Watch out for the drunks. Very nice to meet you, Calbraith."
I hate the sound of my full name. I was named for an aviator. Dad's an aircraft mechanic. He never had the courage to fly.
    "You can call me Cal."
    "OK, Cal, good to meet you."
Down we go and out. Dad's waiting at the door.
    "Well, did you get in?"
    "We'll find out, I guess."
    "I guess.

I had the impression I didn't make the cut. I should have worked up a piece I could have actually played. Those clusters he had me singing and naming...what was that about? It all seemed like a trick of some sort. The idea that he didn't want to hear me play my own work seemed like an indicator that he'd already made up his mind. I knew my teacher, who had been a former Dean, would give me a good recommendation. My teacher was a well-known homosexual wing nut whack job. Was that going to do the trick?

My letter of acceptance arrived in the mail about two weeks later.

History Part 1

Every webinovel worth its bandwidth deserves some savory backstory and a dose of personal philosophy, misguided and uninformed.

In High School, Cal experienced first hand the well known and much analyzed "wife-whore" literary theme. That is not to say he had a wife or paid for sex: it is rather meant to signify that he "fell in love with" a woman and "had sex with" a woman, and that it happened to be two different women. That is not to say that he had actual sexual relations in high school, in the sense that he 'went all the way.' Neither is it to say that he had any real idea what "being in love" meant. High School is one of those proving grounds that suggests the dimensions of the life that will follow. Issues that develop in the halls of learning as a late adolescent shadow the terms of later learning. The curriculum is set at this time. The whole syllabus is sketched out, and it is not a trivial thing.

Cal's love blossomed out of a chance encounter in a theatrical production. He had been rehearsing for months for a concert at which he would present one of his new pieces to a public that included his friends, his parents, the parents of his friends, his teachers, his mentors, his classmates, if any could be persuaded to attend, and such members of the general public that had interest in the doings of a huge public High School. His rehearsals involved getting keys to the orchestra pit where the grand piano was stored, assembling his little band of musicians and working on "the piece." The person 'in loco parentis' for this activity took to calling Cal "Penelope Pit Key." The County had gone big into the spending on this High School auditorium. It featured a deep stage and a full counter-wieght fly gallery so that flats could be built and flown just like on Broadway.  The lighting system was not quite state of the art, but it had sufficient room to grow. It was on the sound system that the real corners got cut. Mr. Penelope Pit Key was actually hired as a librarian. It had emerged in faculty discussions about who might be responsible for theater tech, since the County was not going to hire a specialist, that 'Will Johnson should do it.' He'd been the technical director at Arena Stage for god's sake before that venerable house fell on bad times and had its Federal funding cut.

So out of the library and into the theater Will Johnson went. It was a very good fit, except that, well, you know how theater is. It sucks out the lifeblood and becomes an all consuming obsession. Those that signed up for Johnson's Theater Tech course were not just squeaking through French II. No, they were in it for the duration, having the time of their  lives. There was a team scouring the city for used but still useable lighting equipment. (The afternoon they hauled that old carbon arc spotlight up into the booth and sat there taking inventory of it was one of those unforgettable times. Many went on to solid careers in theater. Many would later shoot the breeze, recalling Johnson's manner and the magic of the moment that they struck the arc and blazed that cold blue light across the hall. How that instrument smelled as it smoked! How hot it became and how quickly so! How they switched from calling it "Suzy Spot" to the "Cold Frigid Bitch!") There was a team working on the sound system, and this was the team that Cal was on. He was a lackey on the crew, running around on errands for wire, running up to the booth, down the stairs to the backstage wings, and back around to the front of the house for the endless hum check.

It was not all guys in Theater Tech. So it came to pass that during the rehearsal period for the "Magic of Light" show, during the run of "Skin of Our Teeth," that Cal encountered Adelle backstage at the patch panel.
    "Hey, Cal."
    "Hey, Adelle. Liking that job?"
    "It's a job. Ha!"
Awkward staring at anything but that.
    "Are you working on the show?"
    "I'm working on my show."
    "What show is that?"
    "'Magic of Light.'"
    "Oh that. Pretentious name."
    "It's worse than you think."
There's that laugh. It sounds like maple syrup. It could melt through cement.
    "How so?"
    "I think..."
    "'Therefore you are?'"
He was going to say, 'I think that I'm supposed to provide the magic,' but he thought better of it.
    "I think I need to find Johnson and see about using the piano tomorrow afternoon."
    "Tomorrow afternoon there's a lighting pickup. I have to get out of French to do it!"
    "We can rehearse in the pit with the trap doors closed and no one in the house or booth will be the wiser."
    "Except for the noise."
    "Have you heard my noise?"
    "No...hey. Sorry. I...have an...
    "Acid tongue?"
Interrupted by instructions over the headset. She turned back to the panel and started patching up the next cue. Cal wandered off, thinking nothing of it. It was not love at first sight.

History Part 2

At the same time, Cal was hanging out with a girl from "POTC" (Problems of the Twentieth Century, an actual course). She was the stepdaughter of a pair of diplomats, and she had a peculiar upturned nose. She held her books in front of her chest, covering her small breasts, and she walked alongside Cal between classes, chatting him up. Then, there were long walks along the creek. ("By old Sligo's slimy waters, there's a putrid air...") The Litman's lived in a creek-side villa (is it a villa, or just a Colonial on stilts?), way up in the trees, up a steep, quite a panting climb from the winding walk. Linda leads him here after a month of walks and talks. She offers him a lemonade, and they sit on the verandah (or is it more of a sunroom?) overlooking the creek. They've been talking about his favorite topics, Neitzsche and being raised a Baptist.
    "So. You were saying?"
    "Mmmm. This is good! I forgot totally what I was talking about..."
    "Baptism. Breaking the rules. 'No cards, no dancing...
    "No sex."
    "None?"
    "Well...there must've been some. Here I sit."
    "You're funny."
A pause.
    "And Neitzsche," she prompts, "which I don't quite get."
    "'If I am struck in the cheek, instead of turning the other one, join in the striking.'"
    "Um hmm."
    "What's the part you don't get."
    "I guess I don't get what that has to do with Baptists."
    "It has to do with overturning the prevailing structures. Which, in my case, has to do with being brought up in the Church with all of these strictures."
    "Structures. Strictures. How do you plan to stage the rebellion?"
He is so thick. She's stopping short of showing her chest, though she's undone the top button. He does not see that she's already completed the argument and is ready to jump to the next obvious step. Obvious only, it seems, to her.
    "Well. I don't really give a shit about playing cards. I hate games."
    "I hate games too."
    "As for dancing, just give me a good slow rock and roll groove and I'm there."
    "Yeah, me too. I don't think there's a lick of rock and roll in this house. Plus, Paul's kind of picky about the stereo."
    "Paul?"
    "My step father."
    "What's it like having a step father?"
    "What can I say? It's all I've known."
All of a sudden, he feels her passion. He feels it in his thighs and his cock is stirred.
    "Look," she almost whispers, noting his arousal, "would you like to see the rest of the house?"
    "Sure."
He thinks this will take his mind off of his predicament, but he wonders how he's going to stand up and not look ridiculous. She's totally aware of this, and deftly solves the problem by creating a diversion.
    "Wait here just a sec. I'll put these glasses back in the kitchen."
He sits and thinks of death and dismemberment, of how he's flunking French, and how his music is going to make them laugh and cry both at once. When she returns, he's vanquished his boner and is standing.

The first stop on the house tour is her bedroom.
    "Come. Sit down here."
She pats the edge of her bed. Soon, they're on their sides, facing each other. Kissing is too intimate. They find each other's fingers. The fingers find the shoulders, then the neck and down the back. He finds the top of her jeans. She unbuttons hers and rubs his hard-on through the outside of his until his wetness has stained the cloth. He works a hand down the crack of her ass and, taking the Southern route, finds her warm, wet desire. She shudders.
    "It's OK?"
    "Oh."
    "OK?"
    "Yeah."
But downstairs there's the sound of an opening door.
    "Shit."
    "What?"
    "My Paul and Julie are back. they've been gone for weeks, and they pick just now to show up."
    "Uh. Gone for weeks?"
    "I'm a latchkey kid."
The phrase is so far out of his experience he has no reply. From downstairs, a fluting voice yells up.
    "Linda!?"
She turns her head away from his and yells back. She's unfailingly considerate, her class act nearly lost on clueless Calbraith.
    "Yes! I'm here! I've got a friend over!"
    "OK, dear! Take your time! We're just checking in!
The shouting is over, and so is the breaking of rules. For the moment.

History Part 3

After the encounter at the patch panel, Adelle makes a point of hanging around after the lighting rehearsal to check out the magic (and maybe light) first hand. A bunch of guys (and gals) hanging around endlessly in the theater, most with jackets and backpacks occupying the adjacent seat, and most with feet up on the seat backs in front of them. This is against house rules, of course. Under the Johnson administration, rules are meant to be bent. Adelle thinks, 'this is not going to help Johnson's career.' She's funny that way: forward, adult thinking mixed with schoolgirl manipulativeness. Long-haired dudes are fooling with the sound system. There's a nasty hum over the speaker system. But just now, having appeared down at the edge of the pit, is Cal taking the key from Johnson. Right behind him are a gaggle of women with musical instruments. One of them, the flute player, is her friend. She's tipped her off about this Cal and his gifts in one of those girl's talk rambles down creek side. Perhaps he's befriendable. Maybe he's got something. He looks very cool. He's got a charming way of looking at a point on the ground about ten feet ahead of himself. How does he not trip over gaps in the pavement? Perhaps the answers can be arrived at. A good Catholic girl has to be cagey.

The rehearsal is tedious, however. Adelle ducks out without another chat with Calbraith. The music, from what she's heard is pompous, Beethovenian, and lacking a certain sense of direction. What does she know? She struggles with the same piece endlessly, making either minute or non-detectable progress. Her teacher, a woman she visits weekly, is bored with her and her never ending "Für Elise."  At least Cal Hunter has made it past that. He can actually play a piece all the way through! Or so it seems to her.

So in the next week, when Adelle passes Cal in that odd mechanical equipment space, once locked up tight but now a favorite shortcut to backstage, she lowers her eyelids and says, "hi, Cal."

And that's really all it takes to start a fire in Cal's mind. Now the image of Adelle and her sweater covered alabaster cleavage settles in for fantasy fuel. For about a week, these encounters gradually escalate. They seem to happen in the same place (the passageway to backstage) and at the same time (just past the last bell of the day). A subtle palimpsest of desire is woven skillfully without any direct cue. The only technique is that of restraint. The only skill demanded is that of punctuality. The only response to the timetable is that of observation and casual repetition. Once established, the pattern is adhered to. They walk past each other. She says her line, he says his.
    "Hi, Cal."
    "Hey, Adelle."
By the third straight day, it's a joke. Cal starts to pad his part with improvisation.
    "Hey, sweet Adeline." (Giggles.)
    "Adelle. You're looking swell." (More giggles.)
    "Fancy meeting you here."
After a week, with the excuse for the pattern ending (the show is closing), Cal comes up with a plan to extend the run. Since his imagination is running wild, the solution to the problem is a natural one. On his late night feverish strolls around the old blocks of his suburban neighborhood, his fingers work behind his back as he imagines Beethoven's once did. Soon he has put his pencil to manuscript paper. He hopes his gesture will not be misinterpreted, and that it will be appreciated.
    "Adelle, we've got to stop meeting like this."
    "We must. 'Skin' closes tonight."
    "Yes. In any case, knowing that you play, I wrote you a little something."
    "Really!"
He hands over the score. It's two pages torn from a spiral bound manuscript book. She takes it and looks at it. She's beaming. This might just work.
    "Wow. Nobody's ever written a piece for me before."
    "It's not much, but it's something."
    "I can't wait to try it."
Now, he knows she has the next move. He knows that it's important not to appear too eager. He knows a certain amount of time must pass before they can speak again. Does he have to mark a calendar, like in "The Great Gatsby?" (Or was it "Beautiful and Damned?")

In the meanwhile, he's been running into Linda in even tighter spaces. The Litmans are beyond him socially. They treat Linda like an autonomous adult. They inhabit a world of impeccable manners. Where his own parents would blow a gasket about hanging out alone in a closed room with a person of opposite sex, the Litman's response to catching their daughter thus compromised is to invite the young man to dinner. Dinner is an unforgettable encounter with gourmet food and alcohol.
    "You'll love this Burgundy!"
    "I'm sure I will."
After the first sip, he thinks he's going to have to leave the table to throw up.
    "How is it?"
    "Interesting."
    "We pick this up in France. It's impossible to get here."
    "I confess, I'm not much of a drinker."
Truth. He's never had a drop of alcohol in his life. His Mother's endless refrain is, "once you start down that road, there's no turning back." At the moment, he feels safe. He also feels that his Mother is somehow wrong. The thick, bitter liquid is undrinkable.
    "That's OK. We've got...soda. I think. Do we? Well, water at least."
Linda's laughing, her head back.

Ineptitude at social events only enhances his charm in her mind, and she jumps at the chance to duck into the crawl space above the auditorium to make out with Cal. Making out is pure, exploratory pleasure. She finds his zipper. His erection leads her on, bold and eager to know this art. The crawl space features a very narrow catwalk. A cat could do it, but there's not much room for humans side by side. When her lips find his hardness, he pushes her away.
    "I'm afraid of falling off the walk. It won't do to drop in on the seats below."
    "Right. We keep having trouble with spaces."
The truth is that like Burgundy, the blow job is all too much. He knows that in another moment, he'll be ejaculating all over the two of them. He's not ready for that sort of humiliation, embarrassment and tricky clean up. He much prefers to get his fingers in her pants. They're driving each other to unrelieved sexual insanity.

It does not even occur to him that being "in love" with someone else is a contradiction. It does not take a Gatsby calendar to get a response from Adelle.
    "It's too hard for me! You've got to come over and play it for me. After school."
    "Today?"
    "Um. I have my piano lesson today, as it turns out. Let's do it tomorrow."
Driving his funky Chevy home, it was as though the wheels did not touch the road. Even after a furious walk of the familiar streets, the once sad mailbox calling out to congratulate, the steam of breath on the midnight air, the sweat running inside sweat shirt as per design, there is still no sleep to be had. He'll sit down opposite sweet Adeline on the morrow. He'll play his little bagatelle and she'll hold out her lilly white hand for him to take. Ah, how perfectly nineteenth century romantic!

And that is more or less how it went "on the morrow." Except that, as an additional amazement, there was a very long talk and more (way more) hand holding than imagined. In fact, the whole thing was interrupted only by her Father's call to dinner. He was not invited. (Imagine that! Such a Father as would call the family to supper in such a formal manner! How remote from his own nest, and yet only across a street from the High School!)

The amazement would soon be doubled. After this one blissful afternoon, Adelle cut Cal off in one of those dizzying teenage volte-face actions. He blew all her fuses: she had no where else to hide but in ditching the whole thing. Cal, of course, could not get this to make any sense whatsoever. The pain of it, while ridiculous after such a short  buildup, was adolescent real and unable to be denied or set aside. There was an embarrassing scene on the steps to the auditorium with much weeping and stamping of feet on sidewalk. This entire public display of emotion got him the response of another, insincere hug of pity from Adelle, but all of that too was communicated and registered and added to the tally.

Meanwhile, Linda expanded her range to include his own neighborhood. She was as much the wanderer as he, and she thought nothing of showing up for lemonade and grilled cheese at his basement door. She'd tap on the glass with her latchkey. Alone for an hour before his parents got home from work, they'd be side by side on his bed making out. This time, he did come all over the two of them. She loved it. She had to learn when to stop. His mother put a stop to all of this by having a meltdown at the top of the stairs.
    "Hey you two! I know what you're up to down there! I wasn't born yesterday, you know. I think it's time you sent that young woman home to her own family! Don't you think they miss her already!"

The distraction and 'sturm und drang' of the "wife/whore" explorations lent a certain useful angst to the music making at the Magic and Light concert. The whole production was entertaining for the modest crowd that turned out. As a career launcher, it led to no great opportunities. It cannot be said that it had anything to do with acceptance by the Boston Conservatory. It was simply a good thing to have done. These scenes are frozen in time now. They lasted only a few months all total, but they set the stage for many dramas and explorations to follow.

Back Bay Part 1

The day the letter of acceptance arrived, my torment over Adelle began to disappear. I half thought it might be good for creativity, so I tried for a few weeks to keep the drama in my head alive. Every time I felt the tears start anew, I'd hear a contrapuntal voice offering a future of fame and fortune. Actually applying to the school involved some work for both me and my parents. My parents, it must be said, supported my choice even as they worried about the wisdom of it. Their sacrifice was real: tuition had to be paid. They took out loans. At last a package arrived with orientation instructions. Among the questions about Freshman life in the dorms on the Fens was, "could I eat institutional food?" I supposed that I could, not really understanding the meaning of the term. I had, because of  Linda's parents' cooking, developed an antipathy towards the term gourmet.

There was another gourmand to be reckoned with. Professor Goode, my music teacher, that former Dean of the BCM, was as worldly as the Litmans. By the time I'd gone to Boston to audition, Goode's campaign to bring me along had gotten to exquisite lengths. He had started the year before with Creme de Menthe. Among the scattered remnants of my memory were two expressions that still nauseate: "my little love," and "not ready for Davis." I was split down the middle. I was not enthusiastic about being anyone's 'little love.' I was quite enthusiastic about entering the world of famous musicians whose ranks I surely belonged among. The more I heard about Don Davis and his doings on 'the Cape,' the more I thought I was more than ready. Since Goode didn't drive, (and how was it possible to be a human male in America and not drive?), a plan was concocted whereby I'd drive the two of us in my little shitbox of a car up to "P Town." There, we'd stay a few days with Davis and take in the haunts of Beantown. I had to endure some coaching first.

    "Don is not going to want to hear about your women or your sexual exploits with them."
    "OK. Do I have to let him suck my dick?"
    "I begin to think you're almost ready for Davis."
    "Well...do I?"
    "Up to you. But you'll be known as my..."
    "Squeeze?"
    "Little love."
    "Yuck."
    "I love it when you say 'yuck.'
    "Rhymes with fuck."
    "Now that isn't Don worthy."
    "They don't fuck or suck?"
    "They don't use profanity all that much. You tend to talk like a sailor."
    "You'd think Provincetown would be full of sailors."
    "It's full of..."
    "Queers like you?"
    "No. Queers like you've never seen."

On this topic Herr Professor John Goode was an expert, as it turned out. I drove, he paid. For everything. We stopped along the way at family restaurants along the turnpike. Appearing as father and son, on an odd-ish odyssey, we sat opposite one another at some tavern, he with his Burgundy and I with my coke.

    "Are you tired of driving? Do you want to stop at a motel?"
   
Despite my joking and attempts at deflective pseudo sophistication, I wasn't that keen on becoming, in fact, Goode's little whatever. I was not afraid of being a homo. Quite the opposite. I found the idea of it enchanting. Ah, to be one of the Platonic tribe! Ah, to be a youth corrupted by  the Socratic truth. I had no conception of either the reality or the mechanics. Another slight problem, which I would only discover after a few actual attempts, was that I was actually a kinky heterosexual. Though I believed that all orgasms were the same in the dark, I was proven wrong. Homosexuality didn't work as an aphrodisiac for me. It only worked as an intellectual construct based on the impression that many great artists were gay. On the Isle of Lesbos, Sappho stroked her silver lyre.

    "Stroked her what?"

The ramshackle beach house had so many shellac records in the attic, that metal trusses had been installed to prevent a collapse. Don Davis, whispy-haired, Woolcott-esque, corpulent self, was telling me a story about the one time a female had actually been on the premises. Having been lectured about the impropriety of so much as mentioning the unfair sex, here I was hearing an anecdote on the topic from the Master himself. A woman had seen the 'boys' (so...they called themselves boys) sunbathing nude on Don's deck. She'd asked if she might join. Not to be uncivilized, she was permitted. She took off her clothes and took a spot, covering her face with a novel. Of course, the nude female form did nothing for them. Ha. And she repeated the stunt daily the whole Summer that year. 'Summer that year,' made me hear an echo of Hemmingway, that other old closet case. Eventually 'the boys' learned that she was a dyke. A lesbian. Isle of Lesbos. Sappho...

    "Her silver lyre."
    "By the temple, in the moonlight..."

I quoted Fireside Theater to be urbane.

    "John, I like this boy."
    "Yes. I knew you two would hit it off."

Evenings were spent in a delicious pursuit. A small pile of 78s were fished down from the attic. A single work of Chopin (Or Grainger. Or Grieg. Or Beethoven. Or anybody with a piano output) was selected and a half dozen recordings of the work would be played. The records were listened to in silence, except for the occasional sigh of pleasure. We heard de Pachmann,  Friedman, Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein, Cortot, Paderewski (rarely), and of course, occasionally Grainger. Percy played his own pieces and those of others. As the tone arm was raised, the talk turned to the glories of the past. The few days I was a guest, there was a steady stream of visitors. I did not know a single one of them, but I was informed by my guide that these were the leading lights of our day. No one would dare argue with Don Davis. He told his stories with relish, putting on quite a show. I was utterly enchanted. I tried to keep up the repartee with all the wit I could muster. The musical education was wide and deep. I was already being shaped by the aura of Boston.

    "It's astounding how much information you have about the great pianists!"
    "Here's what I have to say about that."
He took out a dime from his pants pocket and threw it on the floor.
    "Music as a whole is represented by the floor and beyond, out to the beach, the harbor, and the sea beyond. What I know is what's underneath that dime."
    "Don, that's dramatic. But if I had a handy grain of sand, I could throw that down next to your dime and say, 'what I know lies beneath that grain."
    "Have I said before how much I like this boy?"

I improvised for an hour on the battered upright.

    "That's quite a workout. A lot of harmony for one so young."
    "Do you still play, Don? The piano's tuned..."
    "I keep it tuned as well as I can for the greats, like yourself, that come through my doors. But I myself gave my youth to the box. It took my best days, when I could've been...doing nothing well."
    "Doing..."
    "Nothing...well."
    "Doesn't doing nothing have its limitations?"
    "It takes a lot of practice. To really do...nothing...well."

In the morning, having been out on the beach early after the sunrise and seen the lesbians sunning nude, and having had a raging boner that had to be relieved, and having been observed in the act by the lesbians who began to give me the thumbs up and squint through fashionable shades, I felt magnanimous and decided I would cook fried eggs for anybody else up at that hour. Unfortunately, I didn't know shit about cooking. I had my fire too low and the eggs stuck to the pan, turning them into nothing anyone would want to eat. Except me.

    "I see you don't like eggs."

Dish, dish, dish.

I ate my butchered eggs alone while all the 'boys' went out for breakfast.

I had learned my first hard lesson about the queer world. It was not all Sappho stroking lyres. When in a few days, I got ditched in the Combat Zone with cab fare by Professor Johnny Bee Goode who wanted to get his dick sucked in a bar bathroom by some hunk of rough trade, I had seen more than was comprehensible of the world I was flirting with. I took any chance I could to get out of Goode's grip, stopping short of ditching the whole self-serving enterprise. I had seen enough of Boston to know I had made a very good choice however that choice had come to be made.

Back Bay Part 2

    "I hate Freshmen!"

Hollis yells this, slamming the door to his classroom shut with the heel of his shoe. A flamboyant, balding man, he apparently yells this every year as an ice breaker. He gets a timid giggle out of some of the women by way of response. He needs an ice breaker because his subject is the Organic Chemistry of music school: Harmony One. His textbook is the work of composer Walter Piston. Its green dust jacket has but one word besides the author's name: "Harmony." Oh, sure, there are other harmony textbooks. I'll be poking my nose into most of them as the years in music roll by. Still, from this distance, I admit that Piston's is closest to boilerplate.

The syllabus follows the textbook. Each class, there is a demonstration on chalk board of the week's lesson. In each case, a new progression is studied, moving from simple to complex. In each case, the goal is a little four part chorale. The chorales begin in simple textures and gradually add more notes, more movement in the parts per beat. These chorales will never be sung. They are notated and marked up by Hollis. He takes off five points for each mistake; a simple, potentially devastating rubric. The rules seem simple enough, their reasons plain. Any movement of the voices that creates anything but a clear four voice texture is banned. Voice-leading that moves from moment to moment in parallel octaves or fifths causes the pitches to blend together so well that for the moment they don't exist. The two offending parts are effectively reduced by one. There are a few other things to be vigilant about, of course. The interval of a fourth between the bass and tenor must be treated as a dissonance. Dissonances must resolve properly. Care must be taken to avoid doubling the "third" of a triad. (Doublings are necessary with four voices and three note chords.)

    "Can you double the fifth?"
    "Under certain circumstances, yes, Mr. Jackson, you can double the fifth. But you're getting a bit ahead of us, Sir."

    "Watch out for the diminished fifth (or, when spelled as such, the augmented fourth), la diabolos in musica. The devil in music must be resolved in a particular way..."

Although all of this suggests an aesthetic, the one thing we do not worry about is how our little chorales sound. Among the many things I wonder about my nascent conservatory education, this is one of the foremost: why, if we are making music (or learning how to do it) do we not care about the result when it ultimately sounds in the atmosphere in the presence of humans with ears? In my Sophomore year, I would argue for this or that ambiguity of sound, despite the prediction of this or that rule. As a Freshman in Mr. Holling's Harmony class, I did my best to avoid breaking the rules. It didn't take long to drop a grade or two: one was only two errors a way from sinking down another letter. Too many letters down, and the Dean's List became the distant, unobtainable Grail.

Each class had it's first session. Nobody's ice breaker made as much of a mark as the bellowing of "I hate Freshmen."

The evening and morning of each day began with the institutional food in the cafeteria shared by those of us in the dorms. We were on our own for lunch, and most of us discovered the pizza joint around the corner. An Italianesque dish prepared and sold by Greeks at a place with the unlikely nickname "Charlie's" that was actually called "Mike's" on the storefront, I often ditched the institutional food in favor of a slice.

In that first week, however, we were paralyzed by the overwhelming novelty of it all. The evening of the first day, as I sat with my plastic plate of whatever it was, my freakout dimmed enough that I could begin to notice my classmates. Musicians parodying their teachers, sharing war stories about the band back home with its bus, and generally slapping backs collegiate and sophisticated; actors of various types standing tall and monologuing or huddling over plates in moody contemplation, a script nearby open to a scene to be learned by heart...these were all new people to me. There was another class of student that made the most impression on me from that first day on into my future. There were gorgeous, athletic dancers, stretching and moving in odd ways, speaking and eating a bit less than the rest of us. These are caricatures. The impression solidified after the fact. On day one, I sat at a table with a stunningly beautiful woman named Mara.

    "Mind if I join you?"
    "Certainly not!"
    "I'm Mara."
    "Cal."
    "Where from?"
    "D.C. You?"
    "Brattleboro."
    "Where's that?"
    "Vermont."
    "Uh. Let me guess. You're a Dance major."
    "Very good. Did my fat ass give me away?"
    "Very funny."

Another dancer joins Mara. Then more. I'm surrounded on cloud nine. The funny thing is, these people are funny.

    "Great! Six dancers and the composer. Perfect!"

That's Xenia, the exotic, tall, and red-headed angel from Arkansas.

    "I found him first."
    "Mara, you gotta share."
    "Look. He's turning purple."

There's Rod. Back so straight they call him 'Ram Rod.'

    "We don't mean to embarrass."
    "We can't help it. We're just bare assed."
    "OK. Let's keep it on the up and up."
    "Up!  Up! Uuuup!!
    "God, that was a biotch."
    "What? Mara, you did great!"
    "Yeah, he didn't humiliate me like he did..."
    "Oh, God...what was her name?"
    "Suzanne, I think. She won't make it."
    "Ram, she just might."
    "Tears on day one does not bode well."
    "When I saw the price of that Harmony book, I cried."
    "Ah. The suffering composer's hard life."

How far away my former life was at this moment! Adelle and her torments, Pennelope pit key, Linda Litman, all shrinking into the vanishing point past. This was a rich crowd and I had found so much to devour. The whole place was institutional food for thought. And Mara, the most delicious laugh ever, the dark voice and matching hair, straight in bangs, rocking back in her chair beyond the tipping point for mere mortals, the muscles in abdomen doing the balancing act over strong legs...this might be a very interesting year.

My dorm mates were diverse as well. There was Morris the trumpeter.

    "It's a piccolo trumpet. Like the one on "Penny Lane."

Then the priest. Nathan, not much faith in.

    "Bach's organ didn't have any stops."
    "Old! Lame! Boo!"
    "Do you actually play a lot of Bach?"
    "No, it's too dry for me. I just love Widor. The 'Toccata!' Marvelous. Just marvelous."
    "I don't know this guy. It is a guy, right?"
    "Of course! A French guy."
    "Well, that calls his masculinity into question for sure."
    "Morris!"
    "What? It's a joke. Beats 'no stops,' all stops pulled."
    "Well, when do we get to hear this Widor 'Toccata?'"
    "Who's got a turntable?"
    "Who's got the record?"
    "Just come up to Framingham some Sunday afternoon. I'll play it for you."

He never did, because I never went. But the Organ Symphony rocks. Especially the 'Toccata.' I doubt that Nathan could really play that piece worth a damn. It involves stamina and coordination.

Back Bay Part 3

Instead of Framingham, I dropped in on Don on a Sunday early on. He had an apartment on Boylston Street, right around the corner from the Conservatory. My piano teacher was in the same building, and they were tight old codgers. The routine was to listen to the Metropolitan Opera broadcast and then listen to records and tell stories. Of course, I mean to say that I listened to Don's stories and nodded in agreement with his pronouncements.

We listened to Rachmaninoff playing his Second Piano Concerto. On 78s, this meant periodic disc flipping. But the sound was rich and clear, the playing a revelation to my young ears.

    "I knew a woman who played this piece."
    "A woman?"

Don just nods, already arching his eyebrows over the next sentence in his tale.

    "Let's see. If I remember, her name was Harriet Schuman, with one 'n.' I ran into her at the NBC commissary and she had the score open and was shaking her head.
    'What's the trouble, Harriet?'
    'Well, I don't know about this passage in the Rachmaninoff Second. The score has a c in the tenor, but it just doesn't sound right to me. I wonder if it might be a  misprint. A c flat makes much more sense. To me, anyway.'
    'Well,' I said, 'why don't you call Rachmaninoff and ask him?'
    'Oh, I couldn't...'
    'Why not? If you care so much about the details, I'm sure he'll respect you for it. Here, let me write down his number.'

    "Well, did she call?"

Again, he's nodding...

    "Next time I saw her, again at the Commissary, I asked if she'd called Sergei. She said, 'funny you should mention that! I did call him. It was the strangest thing. I dialed the number, and he must have picked up,  because I heard the click. But there was a long pause. So I said, hello? And there was silence on the other end. maybe some breathing. Again, I say, hello? And finally that deep baritone voice says, Yes? And I say, Mr. Rachmaninoff? Long Pause. Yes, this is Rachmaninoff. This is Harriet Schuman. I'm a pianist. I'm playing your Second Piano Concerto. On the radio. Long pause. Hello? Yes. Very good. I'm glad you like it. Yes, well, I have a question about a note in the score. Very, very long pause. Mr. Rachmaninoff? Long pause. Yes? On page blah of the Schirmer edition, in the left hand part, measure blah, I wonder if the c might be a c flat. Now there was a pause so long that I began to wonder if he'd hung up, you know? Hello? Mr. Rachmaninoff? Are you still there? No sound from the other end, just dead air. Well, maybe he was going to check the score against the manuscript. That might take some time. But still. It's his piece. He plays it all the time. You'd think he'd try the passage and make a decision. I didn't hear a peep. Doesn't he have a piano in his apartment? I was about to hang up. But then I heard a click. Young lady? He's back on the phone. Yes?, I ask. I'll tell you: if you want play c flat, why don't you just play c flat? I have to go, bye. Click. It was the strangest damn thing."

I didn't visit Don that often. When I did, and it was just the two of us, he tended to get a bit toasted on Sherry or Port. He'd sit there and get a bit misty and say,
    "You know, a young goodie like yourself is a gift to an old man like me."
    "I enjoy your company, too, Don..."
    "Well, you might enjoy it more often..."
    "...I'm busy with school."
    "Yes, I understand. Lots of work. I gave my youth to the damn box."
    "Yes. The box."
    "Smith says you're coming along nicely."
    "He says that? In lessons, all I hear is the frantic scritching of his pencil on my score. he's worn a hole in a couple of passages."
    "Old Biddy Smitty. He's a good man, but I know he's not... he's a bit too formal. He's never really had a sex life. No... He has a serious problem with premature ejaculation. He just can't help it. He can't, so he just doesn't participate. Me, on the other hand... I see a beautiful boy like you, and I think what a beautiful penis you must have. I always wanted to dip a beautiful penis in a glass of Port, or a great Burgundy, and suck it off."
    "Don, I don't know what to say to that..."

It was difficult to sit for my lessons with Smith after that. Then came the day that I knocked on his door and when he opened it, Smith's eyes were red. I should have asked if he was ok, but in my youthful embarrassment, I couldn't. I sat down and he said, in a choking voice, let's hear the Bach. I started in on that thing, as I always had, waiting for the sound of the scritching pencil when I fucked it up. From his big brown chair all I heard was quiet weeping. I stopped playing. I turned to look at him. His head was in his hands.
    "Mr. Smith?"
    "I'm terribly sorry. I just...I..."
    "What's happened?"
It took him forever to gain enough composure to begin speaking. I sat on the piano bench, back to the instrument, hands folded in my lap. I waited patiently in silence.
    "It's Don. Don has died."
    "I'm very sorry. I'm shocked. I just saw him a few weeks ago."
    "He complained of being congested, of feeling terrible for a few days. We were listening to the Opera on Sunday, but of course, he heard none of it. He put his hands to his head and stood up. He said, 'I have a terrible headache.' Then he just collapsed. He died before the ambulance got there. Cerebral hemorrhage."
    "I'm very sorry."
    Long awkward pause, filled with the sound of sniffling.
    "I know you didn't really care for Don."
    "That's not true."
He raised his hands to stop me.
    "I did, though. Very much. He was...
Long sobbing pause.
    "...my one great friend."
    "I know that, Mr. Smith. Listen, I should go. I don't think you're in the mood for Bach torture."
    "Perhaps not. Next week..."

The door closed. I stood out in the hallway a moment listening to the anguish of the man on the other side of the door. I felt terrible. I had loved Don in my way, as a music student, a straight man, an eager audience for his tales and wisdom. I had been unable to fulfill his sexual wish, though I thought about it. My idea about homosexuality was changing. I realized that I was not capable of it. I also realized that it came with more misery and edge than I had thought at first. I was also not fully socialized or civilized. I burned the eggs. I misspoke. I dressed down. I had no decent shoes. A man who dines on garbage. I was at a loss in the face of grief. The next week, at my piano lesson, Smith was back to furious scritching. I was glad of it.