A Dream About Lightning Bugs

by Ben Folds

  Their little home was perched on a peak in the foothills at the end of a winding dirt road. They greeted me at the door—he in coat and tie, she in an old-fashioned dress. There were party favors and the wife offered me a bubbly drink before I began. Being offered alcohol was still quite a compliment. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even look old enough to drive.

  As it was time to start my first set, I realized that no guests had been invited. This was obviously a private show. Just them, and me. Okay. Slightly odd, I thought, but, hey, it’s a paying gig! I cycled through my four-tune repertoire for a couple hours as they kicked around the living room, with intermittent breaks where we sat and talked. It suddenly didn’t seem so weird. They were just enjoying life. They told me amazing stories of being stationed around the world, and I sipped wine like an adult. This was way better than the grocery store.

  * * *

  —

  As odd as playing private living room affairs for old couples with wooden legs might sound, there was one other couple who takes the cake (German chocolate, of course). I’d seen this odd duo plenty of times at Veronika’s, though we’d never spoken. They had a habit of sitting side by side, facing away from the music. They never got up to dance. One night as I finished off my Power Polka Tetrad, which ended with a feeble theme and variations on “Beer Barrel Polka,” and clopped my way back to the kitchen for my schnitzel dinner and a Coke, the pair beckoned me to sit.

  The husband, who looked like Flanders from The Simpsons, motioned to an empty chair across the table. He had a loose tan corduroy jacket and wide collar. His wife was sitting next to him in a hippie dress, her hair stuffed underneath some kind of Amish-looking headwear. They were in their mid-forties, I would say. It all felt very serious and formal. They wasted no time on small talk. The man launched into a bunch of questions:

  Did I think it was possible to read minds?

  Did I know that rooms had memories?

  Did I know what parapsychology was?

  I was, they announced, looking at two parapsychologists. They then answered all the questions themselves. They also mentioned they taught at Wake Forest, but it seemed far-fetched to me that Wake had a department for this kind of gobbledygook. Maybe their day job was teaching something traditional like English and this was their hobby? At any rate, they seemed dead serious.

  I’m going to put this weird shit into a song, I thought. (I never did.)

  They felt obligated, they said, to warn me that I was doing everyone in the room a great disservice as I performed. They told me they sensed I was bored. They told me it was obvious that I thought I was better than everyone else in the room. And no matter how polite my outward demeanor, my inner smug boredom was harshing the mellows of everyone near. This mellow-harshing would radiate from me, into their lives, and to others, and so on. They even insisted that the knock-on effect of this sort of insincerity was at the heart of the world’s problems. War, world famine, prejudice. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take credit for all that!

  They were there, they said, to teach me to appreciate the power I was wielding, because I had an unusually strong aura and charisma—well, shucks! Charisma carries with it responsibility. They suggested that when I performed I should always be present, kind, and engaged. They implored me to always remember that the intention with which you play each note has an effect on the people listening. An audience’s time, presence, and attention are great gifts to a performer. I too had a gift to share, but it wasn’t worth anything if I wasn’t mindful. I should never sleepwalk my way through playing music, skipping across each note as if each one was a step closer to getting the fuck out of there. It was far braver to actually care, they concluded—to savor each phrase, to give something of myself, no matter what kind of music it was.

  They had essentially declared me to be an existential chicken, not rising to the challenge of performing earnestly with intent. I knew better, they said, and they were certain I was capable of more.

  To be honest, I thought they were pretty fucking creepy, and I wasn’t happy I missed out on my schnitzel break. But I had to admit that some of what they said struck a profound chord. I probably was bored and smug inwardly, though I didn’t think it was obvious to anyone else. I figured I was giving it the ol’ showbiz treatment.

  Wasn’t I energetic enough?

  Nah, that wasn’t the point, they said. I just wasn’t being genuine. I had to admit they were right. I was phoning it in.

  When I had first taken the gig, I’d written off all Veronika’s goofball clientele, those regulars who were so easily entertained by a shitty little fake accordion over an even shittier drum machine. But as I got to know them, I learned they had incredible stories to tell. The parapsychologists’ words and advice, no matter how fruitcake they seemed at the time, planted a seed, or at least they reinforced something I was beginning to learn anyway.

  * * *

  —

  A good thirty years later, from Veronika’s German Restaurant to shithole punk-rock clubs, from Royal Albert Hall to Radio City Music Hall, I understand what these two were trying to tell me. They weren’t even musicians, but it’s a great lesson in music.

  I promise you that performances, presentations, and public speeches will improve when you can acknowledge that your audience has made a choice to be there and to give you their attention. They’ve changed their plans, traveled, and paid hard-earned money, and you should never take that for granted. They have come, as a certain Billy Joel (goddamn he’s good) once said, “to forget about life for a while.” *Fade in a cheap digital accordion version of “Piano Man.”*

  Being present and mindful is easier said than done. Sometimes it seems nobody is listening, and it’s tempting to disconnect accordingly. Sometimes there’s one heckler that overshadows the rest of the crowd. It’s easy to be distracted by less-than-perfect situations, especially when you’ve turned your passion into an occupation. It’s hard not to set your soul to “autorepeat” or “autopilot.” I’ve been guilty of focusing on something wrong with my monitors, or some fellow I wish wasn’t beatboxing on the front row in a solo piano show, when I should have been inside the music, appreciating that there were other human beings in the audience giving me their time.

  It’s always the easy way out, being an existential chicken. Not really being there. It’s harder, it’s riskier, to be present. But we should try like hell to be. And not just in music, but in every action and exchange in our short lives. I can tell you that when I inwardly acknowledge the effect that music and my presence can have on others, even the old songs seem new again.

  And you don’t have to kiss the audience’s ass. You don’t have to bust a move, tell jokes, or juggle. You don’t even have to speak or smile. It’s an internal thing—an intention that radiates out of you. It’s humility and gratitude. It’s about living inside the notes, and between them, and understanding that each of those notes may mean a completely different thing to each person in an audience. Once it leaves your fingertips or your lips, it’s no longer yours. Maybe it never was.

  At Veronika’s with guest trombonist (not pictured)

  OF MACE AND MEN

  PAPA HAD BEEN CLEAR AS I headed to Veronika’s with his car that night.

  “Don’t bring my car back home tonight on fumes again Benjamin fill the damn thing up before work not after and do it at the 7-Eleven close to home because I wouldn’t stop in any of those places downtown especially late at night that’s just asking to be mugged also keep the car doors locked for the stoplights too. Okay?”

  Sure, sure…Eighteen-year-old me didn’t need Papa’s advice. I just needed his Chevy Suburban to cart some extra musical equipment. This truck was the workhorse vehicle Papa drove for his gig inspecting houses for the city of Winston-Salem, in the very neighborhood he advised me to avoid. He knew from whence he spoke. Shadowy figures lurked even in broad daylight in this strip of downt
own off the highway near Veronika’s, which is why he had an assortment of weapons tucked in the driver’s door pocket.

  I generally didn’t bother changing back into my street clothes after work. Too much trouble. I finished the gig this particular evening, loaded out my equipment in full Bavarian getup, and pulled out of the parking lot of Veronika’s to head home as always.

  Fuel light! Oops…Forgot! Fumes! Must find filling station!

  I pulled into a forbidden gas station on the dodgy side of town—a skinny teenager in lederhosen hopping down from a macho cowboy truck, well after midnight. But the gas station was well lit, and I made it snappy, taking note of a shadowy figure lurking around the dumpster. He was what I imagined a hobo from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men might look like, in his ill-fitting soiled clothing with filthy clumped hair he’d probably cut in a bus-stop bathroom mirror using a metal lid from an old can of tuna. He was just limp-walking in a corner of the lot with his hands deep in his pockets, as one does at midnight. I figured he was at a safe distance and I made sure to look like a man on a mission.

  After pumping the gas, I stuffed a few bills through the little hole in the foggy Plexiglas booth. The attendant’s lifeless hand lazily dragged the money toward the register, barely looking up from his magazine. No stranger to the Plexiglas cube myself, I knew he probably saw all kinds of shit go down nightly, as he peered over his Hustler and sipped his tepid hazelnut-flavored coffee. I didn’t even wait for my change or the “have a nice evening” that was mumbled through the distorted talk-back speaker.

  The shadowy figure seemed to have moved on and I walked quickly back to the Suburban. Now, personally, I’ve never felt inclined to mug anyone, and I’m sure you haven’t either. But, you know, if I saw someone dressed like I was at 1 A.M.? One hundred thirty pounds of Bavarian steel, all alone and carrying cash? I’m just saying. It would certainly be a good place to start a mugging career. From there, you could move up to more-difficult jobs, like snatching purses from old ladies.

  I climbed into the Suburban, hit the auto door lock, and was nearly out of the parking lot when a chill came over me. A god-awful smell, like a goat soaked in dumpster juice, filled the car. I looked to my right with a start and snapped my head back to the road ahead, as if not looking at him would make him disappear. It was…the Shadowy Figure! He was sitting in the passenger’s seat right next to me! Fuck fuck fuck! This was precisely what Papa had warned me about.

  “They make you drive them to Mt. Airy”—Papa’s words echoed through my head—“where they take your car and cut your nuts off.”

  I nearly shat my fine German leather.

  I slammed on the brakes, halfway into the road, looking straight ahead, as he told me in a shaky tense monotone that I was to drive him to Mt. Airy (!), where he’d drop me off (without killing me, he added) and take the car off my hands. He said then I could “call my fucking mommy” to pick me up.

  It’s astounding that I didn’t just get out and run to the booth for help. Certainly, even the jaded little man at the register would have let a kid in and called the cops? But that’s not the way a teenage boy thinks. I glanced down past the nineteenth-century buttonless fly of my silly leather pants, which, by design, lay perpetually half open, and I surveyed Papa’s driver’s door war chest.

  I had three choices of weapons, it seemed, and I weighed each option.

  Okay. I knew I wasn’t going to shoot anyone. So the derringer was out.

  The Mace! That’s the ticket! I thought.

  Then I realized that if I sprayed inside the car, I’d get an eyeful too and wouldn’t be able to drive.

  Hmm…which one of these…But I had paused too long, and that made the Shadowy Figure nervous.

  “Fuckin’ hit it, kid, let’s go!” he erupted, his words hitting me just before his nasty breath arrived.

  I had to act quickly, and I opted for the knife, which I pulled out calmly in a show of confidence, as adrenaline shot through my wiry frame. Then I heard myself speak.

  “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to get out of my car.”

  I remained completely deadpan. I established full eye contact as I gripped the knife handle, the way a toddler might a fork. We were both still, and quiet. The motor was running. The turn signal was tocking away. It seemed like a long time, though I’m sure it wasn’t. Just long enough to forget how I was dressed.

  The stinky man looked me up and down, laughed, and tried to open the car door, but of course I had locked the doors when I got in. A pause. I fumbled around the panel of the driver’s door with my left hand, my eyes fixed on the Shadowy Figure and my right hand still clutching the knife. The amount of time I was taking was making him even more nervous. Maybe as the Shadowy Figure had left home that night, his dad had warned him of nerd weirdo Bavarian serial killers.

  They lock you in their Chevy Suburbans and cut your nuts off!

  Who knows what he thought, but as soon as my left hand managed to clumsily locate the UNLOCK button, he slid out of the car in a hurry. He said I was lucky he didn’t take that knife right out of my skinny hand and stick it up my ass, as he slammed the door with all the energy he would have beaten me to a pulp with. He returned to the shadows, Shadowy Figure that he was, perhaps having second thoughts about this midnight mugging career. I put my wooden shoe to the metal pedal and sped down Peters Creek Parkway with a giant knife pressed to the steering wheel, my skinny, hairy legs quaking beneath it.

  AN ACCIDENTAL MENTOR

  AS THE SUMMER OF 1985 drew to an end, so did my electronic-polka-music gig, and I enrolled for fall semester in music school at the nearby and eminently affordable University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I don’t know what got into me the day I took the placement tests for UNC–G’s music school. I could have breezed through a good year or two of my basic music subjects and entered at an appropriate level, probably at about fourth semester. But I decided to answer just enough of the test to manipulate my placement as a second-semester music major, at the 102 levels. I just left the rest of the test blank and turned it in, even though I knew the answers. Unsurprisingly, finding myself in courses that were too easy, I became bored and started skipping class. I got a D-minus in ear training because, although I could sight-sing every note, I got stubborn and refused to learn an antiquated method called “solfège.” You may know it, even if you’ve never studied music: “do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do.” Like Julie Andrews sang in The Sound of Music.

  Doe, a deer. A female deer.

  That’s actually all I know of that song.

  Solfège was, I thought, for students who couldn’t remember the pitches and intervals and needed the associative phonetics. It’s actually quite useful for classical musicians communicating scale degrees in certain situations, but to me it was like training wheels that I didn’t need. I was sight-singing the pitches anyway, and isn’t that the point?

  My most curious abdication during my UNC–G placement tests was the piano test. During that audition, I sat on my hands and pretended I’d never touched the instrument. I can’t tell you exactly what was going through my mind. Maybe I was just ashamed to demonstrate how awful my sight-reading really was. Maybe I hoped that by starting over, I’d be forced to improve my reading, catching up on any bits of technique that I missed as a child. I guess we never fully understand the little self-destructive quirks that present themselves along the way. In any event, I was placed in first-semester class piano, in a roomful of non-music students who couldn’t tell you which note was middle C.

  The group piano class was conducted in a large semicircle of Wurlitzer electric pianos, all connected to one group mix of headphones. Every student’s piano came through everyone else’s headphones simultaneously, so you couldn’t tell who was playing what. The bored instructor was tethered to his own wires and piano at the mouth of the semicircle, to demonstrate how to do things like pressing a key down and letting i
t up when you wanted it to stop. It was a one-finger-at-a-time affair, the way my father types an email. It was a fine opportunity for a keyboard-proficient class clown.

  I tormented the poor grad-student teacher, whose job it was to teach us how the fingers are numbered and where to place our hands. When he wasn’t looking my way, I’d throw in some kind of crazy jazz lick, or I’d re-harmonize the one-note melody we were learning, and I kept a pretty good poker face. When he realized he wasn’t going to catch the joker, he begged for it to please stop. It was an interesting challenge to try and lay my hands on the keys as if it were a foreign language.

  After a couple of weeks, the usual grad-student teacher took a day off, and in his place stood a disheveled old man. This is really going to be fun, I thought. I screwed around with the old fellow for the full fifty minutes, but he seemed utterly oblivious. What an idiot, I thought, throwing in a few extra ridiculous mocking riffs, with audible chuckles from the rest of the class.

  As class let out, he stopped me at the door.

  “What’s your name, might I ask?” he said, very gently. In fact, the kindness he’d maintained throughout the whole class had begun to make me feel like a dick. I figured I deserved the smackdown he was about to deliver. Instead, he only asked if I would be so kind as to make a little time at 3 P.M. that day to drop by his office. Ah, I saw how this guy was. He was going to give me the afternoon to get nervous and then break me down in his office, alone, away from my peers.

  * * *

  —

  At 3 P.M. sharp, he answered the door of his top-floor corner office, which housed a gorgeous mid-twentieth-century Steinway D concert piano, a library of beautiful scores arranged in floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves, and wonderful old photographs. Well lived in and loved, the office spoke volumes about this man’s personality and life. Plus, it had great art deco windows with a view of Tate Street that almost made me like the school. It seemed he was big stuff at UNC–G. Who’d have known?