by Mark Tiro
I pulled out two glasses and filled them with some ice without waiting for her answer.
“Sure,” she said, not missing a beat. “How is it that you’re tired? I thought the night was your time, no? Didn’t you say that it’s in the silence of the night—like now—that the music comes to you?”
“I did say that, didn’t I? Funny how when you live your life in the public eye, after a while your bright future turns into a past you can never quite live up to.”
“Well, you sure seem to have done well. Other singers, writers, artists—they come and go. But you’ve had hit after hit, album after album, year after year… for decades.”
“Yeah, and I’m tired now. It’s a burden, you know. It’s a burden, success. And I want to put it down already. Everything, my life, the music. Not the music, but everything around the music. The touring, the recording, being in the public eye, the performing—being me. All of it. I just want to go back, to the music. To pure music.”
“Being you?”
“It’s hard being me. You should try it sometime.” I paused a second, then added, “Or maybe not.”
She laughed.
“You want to know why I’ve had so many hits when all the other acts who were big when I started are all long gone and forgotten now?”
“Tell me, yes,” she said.
“Most people, it’s because they’re afraid if they stop frantically, continually—mindlessly—doing more and more, that everything will come crashing down.”
“You mean like a shark? They can never stop swimming or they’ll die? Like that you mean?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. For other people.”
“But not for you?”
“Not for me. For other people—yes. But not for me. You wanted to know the real reason I keep going? Let me tell you.”
“You told me—it’s what happened when you were sixteen.”
“I only told you the half of it.”
“There’s more?”
“There’s always more,” I said with a wry smile. “You see, something else happened there in that hospital room, too. I don’t know what, though. I went into that hospital so depressed, I tried to kill myself.”
“Healing maybe?” she said, shooting me back the same wry smile I’d shot her earlier. “It’s the kind of thing that happens in hospital rooms…”
“Funny. But there’s more to it.”
“What’s that?”
“When I walked out a day or so after that night I told you about already—something had… changed. It was different. I didn’t notice it right away. Looking back, it should’ve been obvious. And at first, I even liked it.”
“Liked what? What was obvious?”
“When I got out, I didn’t go back to school for a while. You know, the whole ‘having tried to kill myself thing.’ Anyway, my parents thought it would be best for me to rest at home a while, to recover. And late at night, just like now, I’d find myself up. And the music, the art—this energy—it would just course through me.”
“That’s good, no? You’re an artist, a musician, after all. What’s wrong with that?”
“It was so strong, I couldn’t control it. But I was young, and I didn’t really give it a second thought. There, alone, late at night in my parents’ house sitting in front of that piano, I would just play and play and play. Whatever came out—all of it new, all of it original. There was nothing I could do about it. Hell—there was nothing I wanted to do about it. The music just came out of me without a filter—and I liked it. It was like pure power, flowing through me. Pure music… pure art. I couldn’t control it—and I didn’t care.”
“That’s what you wanted, no? Your music?”
“I didn’t have the music. The music had me. And I’d go to sleep, and wake up the next day—and it was still happening. I couldn’t stop it. And of course, I was so young then, I don’t think I even had my first drink until I started playing in that piano bar a few months later. So when it started, I had no idea how to stop it.”
“Why would you want to stop it? You wanted the music, right? You asked for it, didn’t you?”
“Well… see, back in that hospital room, remember I told you, she showed me the key to it all. A chord, actually.”
“A secret chord?”
“That’s what she called it, yes. And as soon as she showed it to me, I realize—I’d been hearing that chord, in my mind the whole time. As long as I could remember, it had been floating in and out of my head in plain sight. It had been in my mind my entire life, since long before she’d ever shown up. It’s like I had just never opened my eyes before, and that was the only reason I’d never seen it. It was that obvious. And it was that beautiful. So beautiful.”
“So the hospital was the beginning for you, not the end?”
“Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yes. After the hospital, even today—even now—I can close my eyes and it’s still there. That chord. I can still hear it. Hell—I can see it.”
“Well, that’s great, no?”
“No. I can’t not hear it, either. That’s the real problem. I can’t make it stop.”
“What do you mean?”
“It started to permeate everything in my life. If I went to make music, I heard it. If I went to the grocery store, it was there with me. When I went to sleep at night, I heard it, and in the morning when I woke up—it was still there. And it was wondrous—like hearing the stars in the sky, only a million times more.”
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with these deep eyes. Familiar, deep eyes that for some reason I couldn’t quite place and couldn’t quite remember.
“Yes,” I went on. “So, you’re right. I did ask for this. And now—I’m tired. I don’t want it anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t stop! It never stops! The music—I always hear it, like it’s all just standing in line, in some other world, waiting to be born in this world… waiting for me to bring it into this world.”
“But you’re an artist.”
“I will never get any rest until it kills me. Even now, what am I, on my third gin and tonic or something now, and it still whispers to me, unceasingly, that it wants me to play it—to create it. To bring it into the world… that I am its only hope. This music—no, this pure art—I think it’s trying to kill me. Or drive me insane.”
She didn’t say anything. She just sat there listening. What else could someone do when a madman was raving in front of them? And I am sure I was a madman, or at least, on the edge of it.
“What?” I went on. “Do you think this ‘gift’ is some idyllic, musical nirvana? Where I can write a nice little song, and then go to my kid’s soccer game? It doesn’t work like that. Maybe for other people, sure. But not for me.”
“Not a soccer dad then, eh?”
“God help me,” I said wryly.
“You really are dad of the year, huh?”
“I told you so.” I deadpanned back.
“But the music?”
“The energy. I hear it as music, but I’ve been living with this long enough to at least have figured out, it’s something more than just music. It’s this energy, it flows through me. I get it out as music, and that’s the only way I get a little rest from it. But as soon as I’m done, it always comes right back. ‘Write another song’ it says. Even though I just finished writing the last one, now—boom! Here’s another one. And it won’t let me rest until I write it down. It just never stops.”
“More than just music, then? Like what? You mean spiritual, like it’s coming from God, maybe?”
At that, I threw my head back and started to laugh.
“That’s funny? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re serious?” I asked, taking another drink from my gin and tonic. “God? More like the Devil.”
6
Six
“You remind me of her,” I said casually, without giving it much thought, as I sat down at the piano
again.
“The Devil?” she asked, grinning. “If you’re going to say that, I think I deserve to have another drink then,” she said, putting the gin and tonic I’d just brought over up to her mouth for a long, slow pull.
“The nurse, from the hospital room. You remind me of her. I don’t exactly remember what she looked like, but there’s just something. I can’t quite put my finger on it though.”
“Me? What was that? Like forty years ago or something?” She grinned again. And took another drink. “Is that your way of telling me that I look old?”
I laughed. And took another slug of my gin and tonic. “That’s funny. Oh, God no. It was so long ago—she’d probably be like a hundred and eleventy now.”
“That old, huh?”
We both laughed when she said that.
But something in me was uneasy, and deep down, I felt something come unmoored.
“Didn’t you say you’d just signed up for a four-year residency show here on the Strip? If you’re so tired, and this gift you have is such a burden, then why’d you sign the contract?”
“Playing shows like that, night in, night out—it’s a lot like drinking for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It pushes the constant creative hum—the secret, creative chord—down, just a little. Just enough to give me a rest from this creative force that refuses to give me any rest.”
“I do see. Drinking and playing rock concerts. Who would’ve thought those two things had any connection at all?”
“Touché, yes. I get that. But it’s release, yes—if only, temporary. It gets it out, if only just for a little while. You name it, I’ve done it, to try to make it stop. All just to try to get a little rest from this… force inside that never stops trying to be born of me to continually make art.”
“The music.”
“Love, or music, or the Devil. I’ve long ago given up on caring what it is. But I have figured out some… coping mechanisms.”
“Like drinking?”
“Like that, yes. It helps tamp it down. But it never lasts, and then it’s just pushing to get out, more than ever. So, I play the shows, and I come here at nights and play my sonatas. I figure it’s better than… the alternative.”
“Look at all the music you’ve created, though—at all the people you’ve made happy.”
“I didn’t create anything. I used to tell myself that, when I was young. But I’m older now, and I’m tired of lying to myself. The truth is—I’ve never created anything. If there is a God, or a Devil or whatever it is that flows through me and comes out as ‘my’ music—that’s the creator. I’m more just the scribe, writing it down.”
“Have you ever thought of maybe unionizing—going on strike or something?”
“Unionizing? Against the thing inside my head? I think I’d end up with two broken kneecaps if I tried that,” I said.
She laughed.
“No, I’ve given up. I’ll write its music; I’ll let it come through me. But I’ll drink too. At least that way, I don’t have to feel the full wrath of love, all the time, every second of every day—in all its power. If this is a small sampling of the power of God, then I’m not worthy. I’m just a man. So yes—I’ll have another drink, please.”
“Have you tried therapy?”
“Uh, let me see. ‘Doc, I need help. See, I don’t want to be so creative. I don’t want the music anymore. I don’t want to keep writing hit after hit. I don’t want to be successful anymore. Make it stop, please Doc.’”
“Didn’t help, then?”
“Because who understands the torment of never-ending love, and art, the flow of music from a spigot that you can never turn off? I’ve tried therapy, too, yes. The only question is how long the therapist will wait before they ask me for my autograph.”
“I see.”
“Everything else I’ve tried, too. Drugs. I’ve tried lots of drugs. And women.”
“And?”
“I wrote four number one singles, and two multi-platinum albums after snorting the finest cocaine money can buy off I-can’t-remember-how-many-models’ and groupies’ chests. But it still doesn’t stop. The music… it still keeps coming—non-stop. The only respite I ever get is when I let it out. When I let it flow, when I write down the music, when I bring it into the world and play it—then I get a release. That’s when I get a break. But not for long. Never for long.”
“But you’re still here. You’re still writing hits, this many years into your career when most musicians are forgotten… or dead.”
“I know why Van Gogh went crazy. I know why he tried cut off his ear.”
“Tried?”
“That thing that flowed through him, that drove him insane? It flows through me, too. It’s beautiful. And I hate it. It’s so beautiful. Help me. Help me make it stop.”
“Well, maybe a distraction for now? How about you give me some more music? Play me something else, will you?”
“That would be good, yes. A distraction.”
“You want to hear the really big hits, then? Not that little first hit, from the piano bar in Queens?” On a lark, I pushed my fingers up to the keys to play a few bars again of that first hit song. But just like had happened when I had tried to play the sonatas for her a second time, now for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the first note. The song wasn’t on my fingers, and the music wasn’t in my head.
It was just… gone.
“That’s weird. It must be the gin,” I said.
She didn’t say anything, but just stood there expectantly, drink in hand, waiting for me to play her some of my biggest hits.
“God you look like that nurse,” I said, as I launched into playing and singing most all of my biggest hits for her.
These songs—I knew them cold. How could I forget? After all, most nights of the week for however many decades had I played these same songs? Then again, the small voice in me nagged—how many nights had I played those sonatas, or that first hit, too? And now, suddenly—I couldn’t remember where to put my fingers on the keys even to play just their first bars.
But these hit songs, I still knew them. And I played them for her now. When I was done, maybe an hour later (I had a lot of hit songs, and somehow tonight, I had energy to play them all), I walked over to the bar again, to pour us two more drinks.
But I was still uneasy. I couldn’t remember what I couldn’t remember.
“Kind of like Einstein,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You know, they said Einstein was so brilliant, he figured out the theory of relativity, black holes, the speed of light—all that stuff, and before anyone else, too. But even though he was so brilliant, he couldn’t tie his own shoes in the morning.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I get that.”
What I didn’t get was why, three times now, after I’d played something for her, after I’d given her the music, when I went to play that same song again, it didn’t come to me.
I’d completely forgotten how to play it. The music was disappearing from my mind.
7
Seven
“There’s one last thing I need you to play for me.”
“If I can remember,” I said. “It seems like I’m losing it tonight. I mean, a few times now, when I went to play for you, I couldn’t figure out the first bar. It’s like the music’s just… gone.”
“The music’s never gone.”
“It sure doesn’t seem like that tonight. Three times now, I’ve tried to play something again that I’d just played for you. And three times now—when I came back to try to play them again for you—I couldn’t for the life of me, play a note. Couldn’t play it, couldn’t hear it. Like the music is leaving me.”
“What do you think? That the music is in that piano of yours? That the music’s in those instruments of yours, or in the concert halls and arenas? That it’s pressed into vinyl records and streamed in bits and bytes over the internet? That if it weren’t for your golden
fingers playing for a world that’s hinging on everything you do—that the music wouldn’t exist?”
“Yes, kind of. Er, no… I mean—that’s not what I meant.”
“It’s not? Because it sure sounds like you’re putting yourself at the center of… the entire world. I mean—just because you can’t remember how to play this or that song, or sing the words, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“I can’t even hear the music. In my mind—it’s not there. If I could hear it in my mind like I’ve always been able to—if I could just hear it, I could play it. But God help me, I can’t even hear it.”
“God has nothing to do with it. And by the way—you haven’t always been able to hear the music. I seem to remember a time when you were so depressed, you wanted to kill yourself so you would never have to hear anything at all, ever again.”
That’s when it hit me. That’s when the cold chill ran through me.
The nurse.
“You don’t remember, I was there when you learned to hear the music. I gave you the music.”
“Who are you? What are you?” I quivered. Everything seemed to stop. The cold chill in me was frozen solid now, and a terrifying paralysis overcame me.
Then, I realized.
Then, it came to me.
“You’re death, aren’t you? That’s what this is, isn’t it? You’ve come to take me, haven’t you?”
“Death? That’s ridiculous. It couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Life?”
“Music. The spirit of pure music. And didn’t I hear you say you were tired? That you wanted to lay your burden down? To give everything up and just go back to pure music? Well, here I am.”
“But—”
“You asked for this. I’m just giving you what you want. Stop for a minute, close your eyes and listen. Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. It’s silence. You said you wanted to lay down your burden, right? That you wanted a quiet mind, without the uncontrollable energy—without the music—running through it 24/7, driving you half-insane with its constant demand for you to midwife its birth into the world. Don’t you feel lighter now?”
