No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

“I don’t know about that,” Billy would reply, feeling suddenly cold and frightened and then surprisingly angry and then slamming the lid on the keyboard. Butterworth didn’t even ask him what was the matter but just walked him out. He waited until the elevator came and once downstairs and out in the street walked with him until they were back in the neighborhood when Billy would start snapping out of his fearinduced haze. He would then smile with embarrassment and ask Pop if he wanted to come up and have supper and Butterworth would hesitate, but Billy would insist and Pop would go up, the children always happy to see him, as if they somehow knew without being told that he was very close to their daddy. One evening it snowed heavily and they made a bed for him in the living room so he could spend the night. That winter morning in 1988 Butterworth woke up to find five-year-old Caitlin, dressed in her slipper pajamas, sitting on the floor, watching him as he slept.

  “Good morning there,” he said to Caitlin as he opened his eyes.

  “Mr. Butterworth, you make noises when you sleep,” she said by way of returning the greeting. “It’s like growling. Why?”

  “To keep the bears away,” he said, noticing the stuffed toy in her arms.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, holding up her teddy bear. “He won’t hurt you. He’s a toy bear.”

  “That makes me feel a whole lot better,” Butterworth said, his voice still hoarse with sleep.

  “You want some granola?” Caitlin said. “Mama doesn’t want us eating sugar.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Butterworth replied, smiling and shaking his head.

  “You’ll have to get up, though. Mama doesn’t want people eating on the couch.”

  “You start getting everything ready and I’ll be right there,” Butterworth said, grateful that Billy had managed to live through the war to father such bright children.

  Now, almost a year after Billy began practicing at NYU, while he was playing “Straight No Chaser,” he noticed that when he played Monk’s tunes they had a totally different dimension. Rather than the absence of notes, he’d discovered a different lyrical quality in the music so that he found himself slowing down the tempo of a tune like “Friday the Thirteenth” and filling in, for example, a riff after the first seven notes, making the twelve-bar blues ballad-like. The melodies he was now improvising were filled with a tremulous melancholy which he played soulfully, bravely, and each day with more conviction and gratitude for being able to play the piano again.

  And yet as soon as he finished he could feel the anger in him raging as if it were an animal too long caged, a soul too long enslaved. Images of destruction filled his mind, creating a band of crimson wrath across his eyes, and through it, as if filtered, he saw the damage that he could do. More significant, he found himself becoming short with Lurleen and the children, even Vidamía, whom to a great extent he still treated as a guest, a respected acquaintance and not quite family, except that he truly loved her, just as much as he loved the other children and Lurleen and his mother, grandfather, and grandmother, may she rest in peace, all of them meaning a great deal to him.

  Most of the time he held back his rage. In the street, however, whenever anyone crossed him he would talk back to them, and yell at drivers who ventured too close to him when he was crossing the street. His attitude worried him and he thought that perhaps Lurleen was right and he ought to contact the veterans group she had mentioned. When she first gave him the telephone number he put it away without any intention of calling, but then, two weeks before Christmas, he almost slapped Cliff when he told Billy that he needed a new pair of sneakers.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” he snapped. “You need new sneakers? I ain’t got no money. Who told you to quit your job, stupid! Tell me that! You think I got money for new shoes? I ain’t got shit. I ain’t got a pot to piss in. You know that, goddammit. Why in the fuck are you asking me? The two of you are in that damn video store, day and night. You were all excited when you quit your job and now the store isn’t making as much money as you thought and you want a new pair of sneakers. Tough tittie, pal.”

  “Lighten up, man,” Cliff said, talking to his father as he always did, not worried, trusting him, joking around and treating him like a friend. “I’m not asking you for money. I got money. I get paid for working at the store. Not as much as I did in the restaurant, but enough so that I don’t have to ask you for money. I give Mama half of it for expenses. At least we don’t have to be down in the subway playing for nickels and dimes and people staring at us like we’re homeless and whatnot.”

  “Hey,” Billy said, standing up from the rocking chair. “Who in the fuck are you talking to? Your mother put that band together and you should be fucking grateful, man. She put that band together to help us out and all you can do is put it down.”

  “Wow, man, what’s wrong? Take it easy.”

  “You think you’re too good to work in a restaurant? That was a good job. Not for you. Right? Now you got this faggoty job punching a computer and looking up films and finding them on the shelves, and that’s called working. Give me a fucking break, will you?”

  “No, man, I just like the store better. It’s closer, I can do my homework there and I see my friends. That’s all.”

  “That’s not good enough. You’re supposed to be studying music. I never hear you practice anymore.”

  “We practice in school.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, Cookie and me.”

  “Oh, yeah? Forget your sister. What the hell is she doing? Acting? Who in the hell is she kidding? She should be studying the flute, so she can get a job with an orchestra or something.”

  “Dad, you should talk to her about that.”

  “Shut up. How are you gonna do anything in music if you don’t practice?”

  “I told you, I practice in school.”

  “And I told you to shut up,” he screamed, coming forward so that Cliff took a step back, confused. His father was totally out of control. Cliff had never seen him like that—he looked like the guys on crack.

  “Yo, just lighten up, Dad,” he said, putting up his hands in front of him.

  “Don’t ‘yo’ me, you little punk. Just shut the fuck up, you little mick bastard. Are you fucking deaf? Is that your fucking problem, Marine? Is it, shithead?”

  Billy heard himself say it, but couldn’t believe it and all he saw was the red film of rage across his eyes and through the crimson haziness he saw his drill instructor at Parris Island, Sergeant Parker, his bronze skin like leather and his steely-gray eyes filled with intense, killing hatred, his mouth no more than a few inches from Billy’s face so that he could feel the spray of spittle as he called him scum, a mick fairy, and a worthless, New York Irish cocksucker, no more a Marine than some long-haired Bob Dylan pansy, making Billy wonder if the drill instructor had found out he played music and he wouldn’t be allowed to be an infantryman. He had stuck it out, clenching his teeth and responding: “No, sir. Twenty push-ups? Yes, sir. Ten laps? Yes, sir! Clean the head? Yes, sir.”

  “Marine?” Cliff said, confused.

  And that’s when Billy raised his left hand and Cliff backed off another step, wanting to run but his dignity not allowing him as he watched his father grimace and the upper part of his body shift from right to left. Billy’s hand was coming forward from the left side of his body as if he were going to throw a pitch sidearm, he thought later, like that kid on the Mets, David Cone, and his Laredo pitch, except that Cone was a righthander. At the last moment Billy held up as if the umpire had called time. Days later he reflected and tried to make a joke about it, explaining the whole baseball comparison to Cliff as he attempted to apologize. It was too late. The trust that had been in the boy’s eyes for such a long time had turned to a mixture of anger, suspicion, and pity.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” the boy had said as he covered up to ward off the blow. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I didn’t mind working in the restaurant, but now that the store’s open and it’s doing good, I
like going there better. I’m just glad we don’t have to worry about money so much. I liked going to play with the family when I was little, but after a while, I didn’t like it as much. I’m sorry. All I was saying is that I was glad we were doing better and we don’t even have to go and play in the subway. That’s all, Dad. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Forget it,” he said, but hated himself for frightening Cliff and making him back down, knowing there was nothing else the boy could do. Cliff was nearly as tall as his father, but still, at fifteen, innocent and trusting of him, and he’d gone and scared the boy. Billy wanted to reach out and hold him in his arms as he had when he was little and he’d fallen and hurt himself and come to him for comfort. He looked into Cliff’s eyes and saw uncertainty and the same frightened look Joey had as he held him in his arms, the awful truth dawning on him that his life was nearly over.

  Before the week was out, Cliff realized that he had done nothing wrong and that a human being who had been very important in his life had erred and was no longer that infallible being he’d wanted to believe in; that the man who was his father and ruled absolutely from that position, at times benevolently, at times with little concern, was himself frightened by something, and whatever was going on, it had nothing to do with anything he’d said or done. When Billy saw that Cliff had changed and was now aloof from him, almost avoiding him, he finally called the veterans group and started attending the meetings, listening to the other soldiers’ sad stories and identifying with their suffering.

  Outside the loft, the snow fell silently in large, wet flakes that hit the ground and quickly melted away. As Billy played he watched the flakes descend, and, as effortlessly, he played the music, realizing that each note had the same quality of impermanence as the flakes, yet the overall effect of the tune remained with a person, just as the quality of the falling snow created a sort of peace over the landscape. As the echo of the last note faded into the emptiness of the day, and sunlight began to break through the scattered snowflakes to bathe the loft in a soft, early-afternoon winter light, Billy sat on the piano bench and examined his mind, wondering where the music could have come from after being away so long. Safe in his own home after the surprise of the piano, he wondered at how much he had been able to regain in his ability to play.

  His capacity for learning tunes quickly and being able to play them with fluidity and up-tempo when it was required was what had attracted Miles Davis to his playing and the reason he’d been asked to join the quintet, Pop Butterworth had told him back then. He’d gone and played with Miles that second time, looking at the charts a couple of times, running through them effortlessly, looking up a couple of times and having Miles tell him that Tony, the drummer, would be speeding up there and he’d better be ready to up the tempo, and he’d nod, and when they went to playing he’d hear the rapid fire of the sticks on the drums and then on the first beat of the cymbal he’d come in exactly on cue, playing all out.

  The whole thing was for Filles de Kilimanjaro and he was going to replace Herbie Hancock, who was leaving the quintet to get married, Butterworth had said. They had a rehearsal and he played the tunes and it was totally different from anything he’d done before. Miles had talked with the other musicians about using an electric piano and playing outside the chord structure and about things he’d never heard of so that by the end of the afternoon he felt an enormous challenge. That evening when he got home his mother handed him an envelope. He opened the letter absentmindedly, read it, and told his mother he’d been drafted.

  Now as he sat at the piano he couldn’t recall if his decision had been instantaneous or if he’d thought it over, but by the end of the week he’d enlisted in the Marines, thinking that his father would be proud of him up in heaven. He couldn’t imagine how drastically different his life would have been had he not been drafted. They didn’t have a draft now. Going into the Marines had seemed the right thing to do at the time. Even if he’d wanted to stay and play with Miles, he couldn’t have because of the draft notice. Though maybe he could’ve stayed out of the war altogether. All of it was speculation now, Monday-morning quarterbacking, hindsight. He reflected on his life and then for a fraction of a second he saw that everything might really turn out okay, and a ray of hope appeared like a single beam of light from his heart and he delighted in the pleasure of sitting at his beautiful piano in his own home with the possibility of playing with other jazz musicians again.

  41. The Piano

  It had now been nearly a year since he had gone up to Yonkers to help his grandfather Buck get the storm windows back on his house. August had seemed a bit early to be doing so, but his grandfather had insisted and he’d gone up early in the morning on the subway and worked all day, with his grandfather, as always, telling him stories about growing up in Tennessee. Lurleen told him that she had promised Fawn and Caitlin a trip to the zoo, Cliff was working at his job bussing dishes at a restaurant in Tribeca, and Cookie and Vidamía had gone to the beach with their friends. When he was finished hanging the storm windows, his grandfather had insisted he eat again so he sat down and had some potato salad, a sandwich, and a beer before leaving to get back on the subway.

  Back home after helping his grandfather, Billy came out of the elevator, walked into the loft, and, his head down, went into the bathroom to urinate. He took the strapless watch out of his pocket and noted that it was twenty minutes past six, but apparently no one was home yet. As he walked out of the bathroom and was heading for his rocker by the windows, he saw the large, dark shape and froze for an instant—its size and form didn’t fit the reality of any known mammalian being—before he realized it was a piano.

  Sitting with its tail pointed in the direction of their dining area, the keyboard facing the windows, and the wing of its top open as if poised for flight, the instrument appeared enormous, its surface polished to a high sheen and the black and white keys shimmering in the afternoon light. Running several times around it from top to bottom, the thick red ribbon with the bow made its presence even more incongruous so that he suddenly felt a sensation of light-headedness and a slight nausea. He wanted to go to it, to at least touch its surface to convince himself that it wasn’t an apparition, for often things seemed to appear from his past, and he had to shake the memory away before it became too powerful and got hold of his mind.

  He couldn’t imagine why the piano had a red ribbon and bow around it and finally turned away from it as if, indeed, this monstrosity were a figment of his imagination. It was then, as he turned, that he saw all of them, and heard the instruments playing “Happy Birthday,” and Caitlin, of all people, singing the song in a clear, pure voice. They were all there—Lurleen playing the fiddle, Vidamía the tub bass, Cookie her sax, Cliff the trombone, and Fawn the harmonica. All he could do was stand and shake his head, the pain so deep in his chest that he thought he’d split open. Caitlin sang two more choruses of “Happy Birthday,” each time faster and then they stopped playing the instruments and all of them sang the birthday challenge, the “Happy Birthday” tune but with the words changed, and each member of the family was duty-bound to answer on his or her birthday, no matter how old they were, and, as if she were doing magic, Caitlin came forward with a big birthday cake and not a bunch of candles but two of them with the numbers 3 and 9.

  How old are you now?

  How old are you now?

  How old are you, Daddy?

  How old are you now?

  Then they began playing again, and, with tears streaming down his face and his head shaking in disbelief, but the feeling of hurt leaving him, replaced now by the love that he felt for all of them, he nodded over and over again. Summoning up all the courage that was left in him, and feeling as if the shadow of death were stalking him, he sang mournfully:

  I am thirty-nine years old.

  I am thirty-nine years old.

  I am thirty-nine years old.

  I am thirty-nine years old.

  Everyone clapped and came over and hugged
him, and each one of them had an individual present, including Vidamía, who gave him a beautiful new wallet since he’d lost his the previous week repairing a pipe on the roof of one of the buildings where he did odd jobs. Caitlin had made him a small quilted rabbit, the pattern of which she had cut roughly and which Lurleen had helped her put together and sew. He didn’t ask about the piano, knowing that the only one who could afford something like this was Elsa, but he couldn’t imagine that she had a hand in it, so most likely the person responsible was Vidamía. Eventually, they made him go to the piano, and inside on the strings he found a card which read “To Daddy, from your family, with love.” It was signed by all of them.

  “Well, thank you very much,” he said, nodding. “That’s a pretty hip present. The biggest one I’ve ever gotten. It’s a good thing Santa didn’t have to bring it on his sled,” he added, picking up Caitlin. “What would have happened to the reindeer?” he asked.

  “They would’ve gone on strike,” Caitlin said, giggling and making everybody laugh, since her answers to questions were always so off the wall. “Right, Daddy?”

  “Definitely,” he said. “Woulda walked right out if they had to haul something like that.”

  “Yeah,” Caitlin said.

  “Come and get it,” Cookie had announced. Billy set Caitlin at her place at the long table, and after everyone was seated, he said grace, the one compromise to religion Lurleen permitted since it taught the children gratitude. Lurleen had made his favorite foods: ham steaks with lima beans, scalloped potatoes, a crawfish gumbo, corn bread with honey, and a large pan of blueberry cobbler with large crispy biscuits into which the sweet juice from the blueberries had seeped. Afterward Lurleen brought him herbal tea and with ritualistic insistence his vitamins and digestive enzymes for his nervous stomach. As if he hadn’t had enough, they insisted that he eat at least one slice of the cake. Cookie had baked it, and it was a delicious carrot cake with pieces of pineapple. They brought him a large piece with a big scoop of ice cream and slowly he had also eaten it, feeling a different kind of light-headedness and patting his stomach, which in the past year had begun acquiring a bit of a paunch.