The Maestro

by T. Davis Bunn

  The next day, after a brief practice crammed into the only afternoon that week when we would not be traveling, Jake handed me another sheet with that same frozen-faced embarrassment. “See what you can do with it,” he said, and started to walk off.

  I grasped an arm that felt solid as a tree trunk and asked, “How many songs do you have completed?”

  “Don’t never finish a song,” Jake replied, refusing to meet my eyes. “Just get to the point where I can give one up.”

  “Well,” I persisted, “how many half-finished songs do you have?”

  “Never counted,” he said. “Been writing lyrics ever since I came to know the Lord. Thing is, I want to make sure what I give you is good enough for the band.”

  I looked at the sheet in my hand. “I’m sure it is, Jake,” I said, and let him go.

  * * *

  The weeks moved by in a constant whirl of activity. I allowed myself to be swept along, content for the moment to live from day to day. I spent what free time was left between practices and travel and concerts working on new songs and studying the Bible. I was not yet comfortable with this new life of faith; I still felt that it was a flickering candle whose flame constantly threatened to go out. I stayed close to the group, feeding off their strength, reassured by their belief. It was not necessary to talk with them about my doubts and my weaknesses. Being among them was enough.

  The third song that Jake gave me was entitled “If Only You Could Know.” The lyrics were simple, the wording meant for a lighthearted pop. It was an appeal to those who wandered alone, telling them that the salvation offered by Jesus Christ was the world’s one hope.

  Before practice the next day Amy came up, hovered a moment in uncertainty, and said, “Jake told me you’ve finished the song.”

  “Just about.” It had been the easiest one thus far, almost as though the chords had been set down above the words, playing back in my head as I had read the sheet. All that was left was the solo, and I had decided to let Lothar and Hans handle that themselves.

  “What do you think?” She sounded very anxious.

  “I like it.” It had a good cadence, and the message really struck home with me.

  She was clearly pleased. “I’d like to do a couple of extra verses after the solo. Will there be a solo?”

  “Probably.”

  She took a breath. “I want to do it in Japanese.”

  I stared at her.

  “And French. And maybe German, too, if Jake doesn’t mind me cutting his lyrics down to just one verse in English.” She hurried on, as though afraid I would turn her down. “Then, see, I could show the universality of Christ’s message in a different way, by singing it in different languages. You know I speak them, Gianni. I want to try it. Will you help me?”

  “Sure.” I could not help grinning. She sounded like a little girl.

  “Can we do it this afternoon?”

  “Do you have the words ready?”

  “Right here.” She fanned the air with a couple of sheets of paper. “I hardly slept a wink, kept turning on the light and writing it all down. I finally got up and went into the bathroom. I sat there so long my legs fell asleep, and I walked back to bed with pincushions under both feet. Can we try it, please?”

  “Sure we can, Amy.”

  She gave me a fierce hug. “Wait ’til you hear it, Gianni. You’ll love it.”

  She was right. Amy’s voice fluttered and soared over the strange sounding words. The cadence and voice movement dictated a substantial change in how the notes flowed, and this bolstered the song tremendously. After each verse she returned to English and sang the bridge alone, then had the message of universality bolstered by all of us powering in on backup vocals for the refrains. After each refrain she began again, alone and fragile, calling in four different languages for all the world to come and hear.

  When we finally worked it all the way through the only one who was not smiling was Jake. He stood and pulled at his lower lip and examined the floor at his feet.

  Amy asked anxiously, “Didn’t you like it?”

  “It’s different from how I thought it would be,” Jake said. “Most times Gianni gives me back something like what I was hearin’ in my head, but not this time. This is real different.”

  “He’s changed it a lot to fit the extra verses,” Amy agreed.

  Jake turned to me. “What do you think of it?”

  It was the first time he had asked me outright about a song. I did not need to think it over. “I like the change. It strengthens the song a lot.”

  He nodded. “Maybe so.”

  Amy watched him. “Are you mad at me for changing your song?”

  “Ain’t my song anymore,” he said. “It’s everyone’s. If I’m doing this for Him and not for myself, I oughtta be big enough to accept whatever you think might help it grow.”

  The week that followed was a big push—three concerts and another two songs completed, practices on every free day as well as during the sound checks. In two weeks we were scheduled to play a series of concerts with two well-known American bands over for a tour of Holland and Germany. Jake wanted to use it as a chance to introduce an entire set of our own music.

  I spent my meager free moments reading the Gospel of John. Amy had made it a special request, saying it was time I moved into a more careful study of the Word. She urged me not to read to finish the section, but rather to seek out a special meaning in each passage. Start with prayer and end with prayer, she advised me. This is a special message sent from Him to you. Let God be the one to show you what you need to find there.

  The concerts with the American gospel groups went extremely well—so well, in fact, that they invited Jake to bring our music to Nashville and meet with executives at the Christian record labels. It took several invitations before Jake allowed himself to believe that the offer was real and not just words on the wind.

  I had never seen Jake so excited as on the night he told us he had decided to go to Nashville. “Gonna rock the town,” he said. “Gonna see my day dawn.”

  Pipo, Mario, Amy and I were watching him pack, enjoying the excitement and the joy that radiated from his normally immovable features. Pipo asked Jake if he’d learned to play as a kid.

  “I played back then, sure. Most everybody I knew played or sang. We had this little band, played a hot soul beat, lotta down-home blues, little R&B, little early funk. We were pretty good. Didn’t really get started with music ’til the military, though.”

  “You never tried to get any songs recorded back then?” Pipo asked.

  Jake laughed at Pipo, a booming sound. “Man, you think some big-time agent’s gonna come down, check out the talent in Oakes, North Carolina? Hike down some dusty tobacco road, walk into a converted barn sellin’ moonshine and needle beer, listen to the bloods play? Naw, naw.”

  He moved back to his packing, went on, “I’ll tell you what it was like. One time I was workin’ out in the fields with my daddy, we’d stopped for a water break. Used to have this old mule, Jehoshaphat my daddy’d named him. That mule could drink more water than ten men. Got my first muscles carryin’ water out to the fields for my daddy and that mule. My daddy told me that day, son, don’t you ever let me see you bein’ what people expect you to be. Gotta be just a little bit tougher, little bit stronger, little bit meaner. Don’t ever let ’em get you down. They do, son, they’ll never let you get up again. Not ever.

  “My daddy was a good man, too good to take what the world loaded on his heart. Lost himself in drink and sayings. Had a saying for everything. Still wake up at night sometimes, hear his voice heavy with moonshine moanin’ through the walls. Can’t never trust the white man, yeah, my daddy said that one a lot. Don’t matter how hard I work, I can’t never get ahead without gettin’ out. Sunk my whole life croppin’ the white man’s tobacco, ain’t got nothin’ to show for it but blisters and a bad back. He’d sit in there for hours tellin’ my momma stuff like that, never knowin’ there was this little fella lyin
’ there awake on the other side of that flimsy wall, just takin’ it all in. Took me a long time to get rid of that anger my daddy left me, learn there might be a better way. Long time.”

  Jake paused, straightened from his case, said, “Been carryin’ this dream with me ever since I was able to set that anger down. Never thought of it ’til now that maybe the Lord had to get rid of the anger to make room in my heart for a new dream.”

  Amy smiled for the joy that lit his face. “Dreams really do come true, don’t they?”

  “Don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Jake replied. “I wanted this so bad I didn’t dare hope.”

  “And now it’s here,” Amy said, loving him with her gaze.

  “Gotta go now,” he said. “Gotta strike while the iron’s hot and the people still remember my name.”

  “Good thing we’ve got this five-day break,” Amy agreed.

  “I’m gone,” Jake said. “I’m there. This is one done deal.”

  Chapter 12

  Jake returned through the Dusseldorf airport gate a drained and beaten man. Amy ran to him; he accepted her embrace as a man might endure a sudden rain, hunched over against what he could not avoid. He flinched at something she said, shook his head slowly like a very old man.

  A noisy crowd had seen Jake off to Nashville. Speculation had been rife during the days after his departure, the excitement infecting us all. Then he had called to say he was coming home a day early, and for Amy to pick him up. That was all. No reason was given, no explanation made.

  I walked over, stopped when I was close enough to see the pain in his eyes. “Welcome back.”

  “I couldn’t make it happen,” he told me, his voice devoid of strength. “Tried everything I knew how but sell myself on the street, and just couldn’t get anybody to hear what I was tryin’ to say.”

  “It’s all right, baby,” Amy crooned, her arms still wrapped around him. “C’mon, let’s get your bags and go home.”

  “Never knew a man could feel so right about something and not get anywhere at all,” Jake said, looking around as though he was not sure where he was or how he got there. “Never knew a body could hurt this bad.”

  He allowed me to take his luggage without comment, let Amy point him around to the passenger seat. He slid into the car, closed his door, leaned back on the headrest with a long sigh.

  “Didn’t make any difference how high up the ladder I started,” Jake told the roof of the car. “To all those dudes I was just another unknown. All those questions, man oh man. I never knew there were so many questions about my own music that I didn’t know the answers to.”

  Amy closed her door and put the key in the ignition, but did not start the car. “Like what?”

  “Like how are they supposed to build on popularity we got six thousand miles away,” Jake said, his voice dull with defeat. “Like how are they supposed to know if our music’ll go over with Americans.”

  “So who on earth do they think we’ve been playing to on all these military bases?”

  “Hybrids.” Jake rolled his head over to view her through half-closed eyes. “Didn’t you know that? All these people here in the military, they’re nothing but hybrids. They stick around ’cause we’re the only American band in town.”

  “But what about our music, Jake?” Amy pleaded. “Didn’t they have anything to say about our music?”

  Jake scrubbed his face hard with two hands. “Depends on who you talk to. One man says we’re too black, so we go to a gospel label, and they say we’re too white. One dude says the sound’s too hard, the next says we got too many songs that aren’t hard enough. And then the next one doesn’t say a thing. He just opens this drawer to his desk, shows me cassettes from a couple hundred other bands beggin’ to be heard.”

  Amy stared at him a moment longer, then turned on the ignition and said, “We’re going to get you home to bed, Jake. Everything will look a lot better after you’ve had some rest.”

  “Didn’t matter who took me in, didn’t matter who we met. Didn’t matter how big they smiled, or how loud they made their hellos. Wasn’t nothin’ in their eyes but a big stone wall.”

  “Everything’s gonna be all right,” Amy said, reaching over to stroke his leg. “You’re just tired, is all.”

  “They got too many people hittin’ on them all the time to want to listen to anybody new. What they’re really lookin’ for is a band that’s already got a following. A band they can bank on.”

  “Everything’s just fine, honey,” Amy said, giving Jake a worried glance. “You’ll see.”

  “Guess maybe they’ve been burned too many times to trust their own ears anymore,” Jake said. He turned his face toward the side window, closed his eyes once more. “Spent four days looking for a trustin’ soul and an open heart. Reminded me of my old man lookin’ for a banker with an open hand when he was down and out.”

  Jake was out of the van and stumbling toward the apartment house entrance before Amy had the motor turned off. She signaled for me to bring in the bags, rushed around to support her man with one slender arm around his waist.

  Once inside the apartment Jake hesitated, looked around in bewilderment. “What am I doin’ here? I didn’t get what I was after, how come I’m back?”

  “So you can rest up and try again,” Amy said. “Now go on in and get some sleep, Jake. You’re just tired.”

  “I’m beat is what I am,” he said. “Guess my daddy was right. You want something bad enough, the man’s gonna use it like a handle to hold you down.”

  Amy put her hands on her hips and said, “You just go get yourself in bed before somebody gives you what you been asking for ever since you got off that plane, sir!”

  He wiped his face with one tired hand. “Woman, what are you talkin’ about now?”

  “When you’re worn out you get a little short, no matter how tall you are.” Amy pointed toward the door. “Now go in there and stop playing superman. Nobody ever said you had to carry this load by yourself. But sure to goodness you’re not going to hear any answers ’til you’ve gotten yourself some rest.”

  “I can’t rest,” he complained. “Got too much to do, all this stuff to figure out. Can’t go rest now.”

  Anger gave Amy the strength to turn Jake’s bulk around and propel him into the bedroom. “Good night, Mister Templer.”

  She followed him into the bedroom. I stood in the living room and listened to their voices murmur through the closed door. Jake’s voice rumbled like distant thunder; Amy’s replies were short and rising in cadence. I dropped the bags by the front door and walked into the kitchen.

  When Amy reappeared she wore a strained expression. “That poor man is absolutely exhausted.”

  “You look like you could use a rest, too.”

  “It always wears me out to quarrel with Jake.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and hugged herself. “It costs more than it’s worth. If I have a temper fit with Jake I can’t talk to God ’til we’re back in working order again.”

  I felt the numbness that had set in upon meeting Jake at the airport begin to recede, leaving in its place a hollow ache of disappointment. “So what do we do now?”

  “About the music?” Amy gave her head a weary shake. “I don’t know. Jake was putting so much store into that trip. And into all those promises people made him. The thing he forgot was that none of them make the deals or own the companies.”

  “I guess we all forgot that,” I agreed.

  “It’s always easier to see these things once they’re over.” She looked toward the bedroom door, whispered to herself, “The biggest tree always falls the hardest, doesn’t it?”

  * * *

  Jake moved through the next few days like a silent shadow. He would sit down for meals, toy with his food, stand and leave without a word. He walked the streets around their apartment house for hours, disappeared into their darkened bedroom and closed the door on Amy’s pleas to let her in, let her help, talk with her. Jake never even acknowledg
ed that he heard her.

  One afternoon after practice, I suggested that it was time for me to move out. Amy showed real fear, pulled me over to one side, said quietly, “Leave just when I need you most? You even think about it again and I’ll toss in the towel.”

  I looked over to where Jake was seated on the sofa staring at nothing. “He acts like he’s mortally wounded.”

  “The tougher they come, the harder they fall,” Amy said, her eyes on Jake. His hands rested numbly on his guitar, as though waiting for someone to come over and order him to unstrap. “God wasn’t finished breaking him down, I guess.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not sure I do either, Gianni. I can only tell you what it appears the Lord is showing me in my prayers and studies. My man grew up fighting for dignity and purpose. That fight is still going on inside him. Sometimes Jake has trouble being able to turn that fight over, to surrender, and to win through surrendering.”

  “I hate seeing him like this,” I told her. “It makes me mad and I don’t know why. I feel like shouting at him, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him awake.”

  “We all rely on Jake’s strength so much we feel cheated when it’s not there,” Amy agreed. “He’s a strong man, and the strong have the weakness of wanting to rely on their own strength rather than the Lord’s. So God still had to do some crushing, I suppose. And He chose the time when Jake was surest of his own strength.”

  “I wish there was something I could do.”

  “There is,” Amy said, giving me a warm, sad-happy smile. “Have faith in the Lord’s goodness, Giovanezzo. And pray for us, will you please? We both need your prayers just now.”