Silent Song

by Ron C. Nieto

  “I hadn’t seen him!”

  “He’s a twelve pound cat, how could you miss him?”

  “He’s black! He blends in!”

  He shook his head, smiling, and plopped down on the bed, cradling the guitar in his lap. I stayed upright.

  “What now?” he asked, watching my more than reluctant expression.

  “If I sit down, he will attack me.”

  “You are scared of a cat?”

  Okay, it sounded ridiculous.

  In my defense, it was a big cat. Gathering my courage and moving slowly, I pulled the chair away from the table and sat down in slow motion. Keith didn’t look at me, busy tuning the strings, but the damned smile never left his lips. Damned blush never left my face, either.

  I tried to relax by looking at his room, as if that could tell me more about him. It wasn’t big—the whole house was quite small. It wasn’t very masculine either, at least not in the way I had come to expect from Ray, Dave, or the other guys I knew. No comics, no magazines, no sports pictures, no porn posters. No personal TV, no videogames. Just the bed and the wardrobe on one side, the study table and a small bookcase on the other. The table was neat, no strewn papers around, just a closed laptop and a cat. The books on the shelf were mostly school stuff, but I also spied several titles on musical theory and a couple of classic books anyone in their right mind would use as a sleeping formula rather than as bedside reads. The only personal detail, really, was the guitar, with its cables and its amp—and what I guessed was the “rack,” the small red thing he’d taken to school on the first day.

  The room felt almost… Spartan.

  I turned to him, ready to face his knowing smile once more and to ask him why his room didn’t feel his at all, but the words caught in my throat. He was waiting, looking at me in silence from under too-long bangs. When he saw that my attention was back with him, he started playing.

  I’d thought he’d go for the Lady Windermere's fan theme. After all, it was the one thing we had in common and what had brought me into his house, as far from my element as a fish out of the bowl. Instead, the melody that he started picking was slower, darker. It wasn’t made of the shadows where evil lurks, though. It was the dark of closed eyes, unlit rooms. Intimate kind of dark.

  I hugged myself, almost uncomfortable.

  This song isn’t meant for me. How could it be? It’s so… loving.

  But the other melodies, the ones I had listened to while crouched outside, hadn’t been for me, either, and that hadn’t stopped me from listening. I held onto that thrilling feeling of wrongness surrounded by perfection and just… listened.

  I hadn’t realized it sooner—no one with a fashion sense would realize it—but Keith was beautiful, in an unearthly, unconventional kind of way. It was all in the music, of course, in the slow, long notes that stretched like a lament of hope and then built up and up, until the urge of breaking the progression would burn me.

  Still, while he played for me, dusk quickly enveloped the outside world and I forgot that his magnetism was a mirage. The last rays of light fell on his bent head, the silver streaks in his hair glowing like the halo of a forgotten angel, and his fingers moved in a dance all their own.

  It was so open, so genuine, that for just a moment, the little things stopped mattering. Little things like him being on the short side or being so pale and skinny he looked sickly. Like the knowledge that the first time some guy with black-lacquered nails put a foot inside my house, my dad would have a heart attack.

  I relaxed, and even though Keith wasn’t looking at me, I saw his lips curl in a small, happy smile, as he kept playing for me in this little bubble, away from the world at large. Music was his life, he’d said. His soul. And right there and right then he showed me every recess of his innermost self and I marveled at his gift.

  After a moment, just when it felt like it was impossible to hold on to the melody any longer, in that perfect instant where everything stood balanced on the edge, he broke the tension and let his notes fall into despair, spiraling down and picking up their pace the longer they fell.

  Night also fell on us, following his tempo to the point where I couldn’t tell who was leading whom. Some notes vibrated in spite of the speed at which he played, but he cut most of them short, drowning them before they had a chance to be born, and I saw him furrowing his brow, concentrating… composing as he played, I realized with a start.

  The guy was a real genius. And the piece he was producing was so complex and rich it could have replaced the Lady Windermere theme.

  I frowned as soon as the thought entered my mind.

  No, it’s too different.

  The style might have been similar, as if it could fit equally well in any Season party, but the message couldn’t be further from the one the play sought to convey. This time, it was a tale of innocence, of passion for life, of wonder… and then the feeling swelled and turned into love and a different kind of passion that was too pure, too innocent. It was unsustainable, bound to burn like the moth who becomes fascinated with the flame, any moment—

  A horrible screeching sound made me jump and interrupted the song. Keith looked up, confusion written all over his face, and he had to blink twice before his gaze focused on the stupid cat that had cut him short.

  Sparrow had stood on the table, back arched, all hackles raised, green eyes intent on Keith. When the music stopped, the cat relaxed ever so slightly, enough that I could tell myself that feline doom didn’t await me, but not enough to allow us to brush the animal off.

  “What’s wrong?” Keith asked him.

  Sparrow didn’t answer, thanks to all that’s holy, but he did huff again when Keith made as if to resume his playing.

  “He doesn’t like your music,” I tried to joke, and he rolled his eyes in annoyance.

  “There’s a reason he practically lives in this room.”

  “Warm and comfortable.”

  He gave me a “yeah, right” look.

  “So you weren’t enjoying it.”

  Okay, he had me there. There were things not even I would lie about.

  “It was beautiful.” After a moment’s silence, I added, “It was new, wasn’t it?”

  “They were new,” he corrected. “Yeah, both of them. The first’s something I’ve been working on for a while; you might have heard one of the previous versions. The second’s probably the most uncooked thing I’ve ever played for an audience.”

  “Uncooked?”

  He shrugged, a bit self-conscious. “I played on the fly. I had this idea of how I wanted it to go, but…”

  “You’re just bluffing, right?”

  “Why would I?”

  “To look cooler.”

  He laughed again. “Alice,” he said, and his voice and my name were a match made in Heaven. “Does it look like I try to be cool at all?”

  I studied him. There were some other goths or emo kids at school, but Keith didn’t fit in with them, either. His style did include some elements that could fit in their wardrobes, I guess, but the way he combined them—if he did put any thought into combining—made him stand out from them as much as from us over at the center table. An outsider to all groups, I guessed.

  “No, I suppose not. So, how do you play on the fly?”

  “It’s not difficult. The trick is to know your intervals and then to decide whether you want the melody to go up or down. You’ve to keep your notes harmonic with your first one. If you do that, it’ll sound good. For example, something like this.” He bent his head down to demonstrate, and a flash of black streaked over my shoulder, scrambled all over him, throwing irate hissing noises and bolted out the door.

  I was out the chair before I could even register what had happened.

  “Are you okay?”

  He cradled his right arm, looking after Sparrow with a frown and a bothered expression. Four red welts were rising on his forearm, droplets of blood swelling here and there.

  “Yeah, it’s nothing.”


  “Oh my God, you’re hurt!”

  “I think I’ll live.”

  I gave him my business look. “Do you have peroxide?”

  “I can take care of it. It’s nothing.”

  “Claw wounds infect easily, don’t you know that?” I crossed my arms, as if expecting him to be amazed at my cleverness.

  He looked back to his arm. “This is not a wound, just a scratch.”

  “Peroxide.”

  “Bathroom.” He sighed, giving up on me. “Out in the hallway, door in the front wall.”

  I nodded and stomped out, woman on a mission.

  The bathroom was clean and neat, and it had a small cabinet stocked with several pills, cotton balls and standard first-aid material. I grabbed some cotton and the bottle of peroxide and went back to his room without catching a glimpse of Sparrow.

  “Arm.” I held out a hand and he placed his forearm on my palm, a small smirk in place. I started dabbing at the angry welts, resisting the urge to blow softly to mitigate the sting, and he didn’t even twitch.

  Foam formed around the scratches and I washed it away, again and again.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not really.”

  I nodded, and he didn’t say anything else. I focused on my task until I could in no good conscience justify my lingering fingers.

  “Don’t put a Band-Aid on it,” I said, relinquishing his arm. “It’ll dry better this way.”

  He nodded, and it struck me how much he changed once he wasn’t hiding behind his guitar. He became silent, insecure, and shy. I wanted to reach out, to tell him that I knew him and I liked what I had seen.

  “Hello, Keith,” a voice said just then. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  I jumped, as if the bed had burned my behind, and whirled around, realizing full well what this must have looked like.

  Mr. Brannagh resembled his son a little, except his hair was short and not dyed, but starting to grey anyway from age. He also had more weight to him, even though he still was slim for a man’s standards. Currently, his eyes were glinting in that way that said “parent caught the child with the hand in the cookie jar” and the expression made his face light up and shine in sharp contrast to Keith’s.

  I wondered for a moment what such a look of mischief would look like on the son and then slapped myself—home alone, in room, sitting together in bed, hello?

  “Hi, Mr. Brannagh,” I said, smiling. “I’m Alice, do you remember me?”

  “Alice?” he frowned a bit, and then a huge grin parted his lips. Definitely, Keith had gotten his facial expressions from someone else. “Of course, Andrew’s daughter! It has been so long, how are you?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Yourself?”

  “Oh, good, good, I don’t complain. Are you staying for dinner, Alice?”

  “Dad, she just came to hear me play for a while,” Keith cut in, standing from the bed.

  “It’s been a while since you played for someone,” he said, and he sounded hopeful.

  Keith answered with a shrug. “I might be playing music for the theatre group’s play this year. She’s the main character,” Keith added, as if that explained my sudden presence.

  “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s not a sure thing.”

  “Of course it is!” I said, earning a grateful grin and an annoyed frown. “Mr. Hedford—that’s our professor and play director—loves the theme Keith’s prepared, and he’s ecstatic at the chance of having his own soundtrack!”

  “You’re even composing? You stopped sharing your own music years ago, Keith! This is awesome! Alice, why don’t you stay to celebrate?”

  Keith lifted his hands in surrender. “Fine, make a big deal if you want, Dad, but leave her out of it. She needs to be back home.”

  I realized two things. One, Keith was right and I should go back home before my own parents went berserk. Two, I actually was sorry I had to leave.

  I tried to reach a compromise.

  “Keith is right, I have to return home, but perhaps we can have lunch or something another time to celebrate.”

  “That would be lovely. I hope to see you around more often, Alice,” Mr. Brannagh said with a smile. He disappeared into his own room, presumably to discard his jacket and get comfortable.

  More often, he’d said. Indeed. It had been six years.

  “Thanks for everything,” I said, turning to Keith. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Rehearsal.”

  “Must I come?” He pouted.

  “Yes. Mr. Hedford will be relieved to see you. And you shouldn’t hide.”

  He rolled his eyes, but didn’t complain. “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

  I started back down the hallway when Mr. Brannagh’s voice carried down. “Keith, you’re not planning on letting her go alone, right?”

  “It’s quite alright, Mr. Brannagh…”

  “Dad, she prefers to go alone…”

  “Grab your coat, boy. You are supposed to have manners.” The tone was cajoling, almost joking, but it was a clear order and Keith sighed, grabbing a denim jacket and his house keys and mouthing sorry.

  Once outside into the crisp air, we walked the familiar streets back to my house in silence. I only broke it about half the way there.

  “Your dad’s great. He hasn’t changed at all from what I remember.”

  He shrugged. “He has. He had to. But he’s pretty okay, yeah.”

  I didn’t want to elaborate on whether he had changed because of the long time passed—ouch—or because of the death of his mother—double ouch—so I asked instead,

  “Why would you be sorry for walking me home, anyway?”

  Keith smiled, a gesture so different from the radiant smiles of his father, even from the grins I vaguely remembered form our childhood and the carefree ones he had been giving me that same evening. It was a sad smile, just like his music had sounded a tinge too sad no matter how beautiful the theme.

  “Because it will shame you,” he said, simply.

  His tone was so accepting, so matter of fact, like he was only stating that the sky was blue or that it was night. As if he didn’t expect any better.

  How can he accept that? Think so little of himself?

  The horrible voice of guilt told me that I had given him reason to be like that.

  “It won’t,” I said without thinking, just to fight the sudden hurt. “You are nothing to be ashamed of.”

  On impulse, I gripped his arm as if to establish a physical link between us and prove my words. He didn’t snatch it back and didn’t point out that I had been too haughty to look at him in the eye for six long years. In return, I kept holding onto him when we hit the driveway of my house and when Anna stood up from the steps to my porch.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Hi.” Keith’s gravelly voice pulled me out of the deer-in-the-headlights trance I had fallen into.

  “Hey, Anna.”

  She waved at us, halfheartedly, not really looking me in the face.

  “Right,” I said, trying to find a solution to the disaster before the losses became too great. “So… do you two want to come inside?”

  Anna remained silent and Keith shook his head.

  “If you consider yourself safely delivered, then I’m going back to my place.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you, then.”

  He nodded to me, turned his back and disappeared into the dark streets, walking fast. Anna and I said nothing for a minute.

  “So you’re together,” she said at last, her tone flat.

  “No!” My negative tripped over itself in its haste.

  “It would explain why you were holding his hand,” she went on.

  “Look, this is… it’s late. Why don’t you come inside for chocolate and we can talk?”

  She didn’t jump at the chance to share girl time, but she didn’t turn away either, so I took her silence as an affirmative and opened the door.

  “Hello!” I called out. �
�Anna and I are here! We’re going up to my room!”

  “Okay, sweetie!” Mom’s voice came from the living room. “Would you like me to bring you some hot chocolate up?”

  “That’d be great!” I cried back, already mounting the stairs two at a time.

  Once safely locked away in my room, I plopped down in the bed and tried to find the best starting point for my argument. Anna beat me to it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing him?”

  “Because I’m not.” I sighed. “It’s the first time I’ve seen him outside the school, and I hadn’t talked to him before the theatre project.”

  “It didn’t look like that from where I was sitting.”

  “Had you been waiting for long?” I asked, worried. And, let’s be honest, trying to curve the ball out of the court.

  She shook her head no and we stopped for a minute for my mom to leave us a tray with two steaming mugs of cocoa and a plate of cookies. When we were alone again, I realized it was time to make a choice between my secrets and my friend.

  I hoped against all hope that I wouldn’t be left with neither.

  “Okay, so, this is weird, I know, but you did know that Keith and I knew each other from before high school,” I started.

  “Yeah, from when you wore diapers, according to you.”

  “Actually, he lived close by until we were eleven or so, but then he left and I knew nothing of him for the next few years—until I saw him again in high school. By that time, he’d changed a lot and I never bothered to talk to him again.”

  “Because he had become Dracula in Drag.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Anyway, the thing is… I knew he played music.”

  “But you were surprised when Lena brought it up.” She frowned in confusion.

  “I was surprised because I didn’t expect her to know and because I didn’t expect her to want to include him in any group events even if she did.”

  “She wanted to get back at him for the cafeteria thing, so at least her reasons are clear now.”

  “Anna,” I sighed. “I know it was your head against that tray, but do you think it was okay to wait for weeks for revenge? To try to break the one thing he cares about?”

  She shrugged and chomped on a cookie, uncomfortable. “I guess it was a bit mean. But that’s Lena for you. We’ve never cared before.”