Electric Velocipede Issue 25

by Megan Kurishage

  “Are the dogs—”

  “Being peed on. Already angry and starving, tragically provoked. I find it a bit maudlin.”

  “Farinelli fell from a horse.”

  “A luxury for the rich. We poor must be bitten by dogs.”

  “Return with me,” Giovanni said. “You will find fame and sweep the hinterlands to become the most famous and successful opera singer in the world. You will revive the form and be able to perform new and outstanding works by the best composers. You will become a historical figure, like Nicolini, Farinelli, Senesino.”

  “Senesino.” Enri’s laugh came low and bitter.

  Giovanni stood in an instant, blushing angrily. “Listen to me! I saw Senesino in Florence two years ago. He is everything ever rumored. He sings so sweetly, so clearly, we wept. You are better, Enri. He sings allegros with power, but you shake the world. He may be the best contralto, and I don’t care.”

  “Good, good. You shouldn’t.”

  “I heard Farinelli in Madrid perform for King Louis. He brings the softness of a whisper to the clap of thunder with such grace. He is like a soprano with the depth of the ocean.

  “I saw Senesino and Farinelli together, when Farinelli the captive sang his aria with such feeling that Senesino the tyrant broke from role to embrace him. You—”

  “You were there?”

  “Yes!” Giovanni said.

  “How? That was . . . five, six years ago? London is closer to Bavaria but just as hard to travel to. And then a few years later you see him again in Madrid? And Senesino has been in Florence recently. When did you find time to instruct in Bavaria?”

  Giovanni sat.

  “At first I thought you were a spy, and Bartolo agreed, but why here, in the countryside, a poor provincial capital with a useless fort? Perhaps you had complicated and patient plans to win me, take the company to Venice, where would infiltrate the court. But you’ve done everything but wound me to keep me from going. And then why do you know music the world hasn’t heard?”

  “That’s not—”

  “It is. I could believe that I had not heard of two operas you’d written for Bavaria, but that? That would be performed here before it could even be written and delivered. And why do you know to hate our opera?”

  “It’s terrible,” Giovanni said. “Everyone of taste should know it.”

  “I grew up in a conservatory,” Enri said. “And graduated into performance. All I know are the embellishments, the moving stage, the opera you despise. Why?”

  “Country living has given me an appreciation for the power of simplicity.”

  “Even your face admits you have not been in Bavaria at all. You think us as ignorant of it as we imagine its people.”

  “I have no excuse,” Giovanni said. “Only justification.”

  “Who are you?”

  “We only get one chance,” Giovanni said. “Enri, the first lottery went to Alexandria, as Christ walked the Earth. Then Minoa. And somehow, against all chance, my project—I won. Each time we do this, we risk destroying the instrument of our passage. There can’t be a Monteverdi ambassador or Verdi! I wish I could stay for Verdi.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I know. You’re a spoiled, petulant child, like all singers, from the musici to the female sopranos who will replace you. Even Bartolo only softens because he counts the notes he hits each night, marking the days before he becomes like me, unsuitable for performance.”

  “We’re all used and discarded,” Enri said.

  “Then be treasured first,” Giovanni said.

  “I run from liason to liason, a music tutor in name and sometimes in practice, the safe bedmate of jilted wives and daughters who need experience without fruition, of dukes and princes who appreciate the arts and the company of sophisticated men. I am used, paid, and excused.

  “My parents had me, scarred me, and sold me to the school, and the school took hundreds of us and tossed aside those whose voices still broke, or who themselves proved too brittle for the training, and they produced me, to their great local fame, which in turn allowed them to harvest again. What does it matter where I go?”

  Giovanni found Bartolo on stage concentrating intensely on beating a floorboard into place with a mallet. He pounded in 4/4 time, and sang softly, fitting nonsense words to the melody of Wotan’s farewell. Empty, the hall smelled of burning oil and spilled food and drink.

  “Lah lah lo-leeeeeeeeee la lala leeeeeeeee . . . ” Bartolo frowned at the board. “That’s not right.”

  “I’m leaving,” Giovanni said.

  “Ah!” Bartolo said, setting the mallet down and sitting, legs braced ahead of him. He wore a white shirt turned transparent with his sweat. “I can’t quite get it. Can you do it again?”

  “No. Stage repairs?” Giovanni said. “I insist you stop immediately. You’ll ruin the reputation of the baritones forever.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bartolo said. “But no one is here and it tries to trip me every night. If Enri mis-steps . . . ”

  “Ah,” Giovanni said. He stopped just below the stage lip, reached out to adjust a lamp mounting.

  “It’s out of oil,” Bartolo said. “Nothing more. Wait a few weeks until we know where we’ll move. Travel with us and go from there.”

  “I must be back in Bavaria and quickly,” He shook his head. “It will be an unpleasant journey. I’m hoping to hire a ship to Genoa, but if not . . . ”

  Bartolo stood. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Anything I can.”

  “Sing me another of your favorites. It doesn’t have to be yours.”

  “I’m tainting you,” Giovanni said. “I’m alarmed to find you signing Wagner here. If it spreads, surely they’ll have me killed.”

  “To be killed for such a composition,” Bartolo said. “Is the rest as good?”

  “It’s not even his best.”

  “Let me hear his best before you go.”

  He reached a hand down, and helped Giovanni up onto the stage.

  Enri booed him with lust and vigor from the back. “Terrible staging!”

  “Can’t I keep some dignity as I leave defeated?” Giovanni said.

  “This dialogue is trite!”

  “Did you follow me here, you hyena?”

  “Predictable! Awful delivery!” Enri yelled.

  “Fuck yourself.”

  “If only I could,” Enri said, with stage sorrow. “It would save me from involvement with your kind. What’s the best in your larder, you merchant of lies? Give me an exit aria, you counterfeit Bavarian.”

  “Based on a play you will not live to attend, by the greatest composer you will not live to see. Live the rest of your life in this shadow, knowing you will never sing its like.”

  “Sing!”

  “This is Don Giovani, by Mozart.”

  “This is a bored audience, authored by you.”

  Giovanni’s degraded voice began rough and angry, chopping the notes, but found the piece and joined it quickly. Giovanni stood, as he sang tapping his foot to an absent orchestral accompaniment, and the house rang as if struck.

  Enri chilled utterly. His hairs stood on end, he trembled in his seat.

  Bartolo put his head in his hands.

  “It’s better with music,” Giovanni said. “The music is amazing.”

  Enri shook his head. “This opera, is there a part for—”

  “No.”

  Enri wiped across his face with his left hand, leaning sideways, then straightened, exhaling. “Do you have anything else by the same composer?”

  “Yes,” Giovanni said.

  “Do you still want me to return to,” Enri rolled his eyes, “Bavaria?”

  “No, you arrogant—”

  “I am humbled!” Enri shouted. “I am won! I’ll get on the boat to Genoa. After lunch. I’ll be the king of castrati in a country without subjects. I have lost my mind.”

  “I am ruined,” Bartolo said. “No company worth moving, and me, soon with no
voice and no compositions worth performing.” He glared at Giovanni.

  “Take mine,” Giovanni said. “This is the piece that has haunted me for twenty years, simplified for local production.” He took a leather-tied sheaf of papers and held them out. “If Hera is any indication you can rework much of the speech. And you’ll want to do the staging . . . ”

  “How many times in my life must I be purchased?” Enri said.

  “Stay with him,” Bartolo said. “See he doesn’t change his mind.”

  “I will try,” Giovanni said. He embraced and held Bartolo. “I’m thinking of blinding him to keep him from distraction.”

  They released, and Bartolo stepped back, his face perfectly composed sadness with a little loss and suppressed anger.

  “I have considered it myself. If the northern wilderness rejects you, I will have need of a librettist. I have it on good authority I am the worst in Italy and perhaps in all of Europe.” He looked at Enri. “You will succeed no matter where you find yourself, I’m sure.”

  “Again, I am bored,” Enri said. “Bored.” He began to sing the word, trying to get resonance from his new position, frowning, moving his head just a little, birdlike. “Bored! Bored!”

  “It will be a great deal of time,” Giovanni said, “if ever.”

  “I’ll try to fool the audiences until then,” Bartolo said.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Derek Zumsteg is the only writer to ever appear in "Best American Sportswriting" (for a Bugs Bunny piece) and get a Honorable Mention in a Year's Best Science Fiction anthology (for "Ticket Inspector Gliden Becomes the First Martyr of the Glorious Human Uprising" in Asimov's). He lives and drinks in Seattle.

  Upstairs Room

  Lida Broadhurst

  When the moon casts a candle glow,

  once a year the music begins.

  upstairs in the room that is always

  locked, its key hidden

  in Aunt Tilda’s drawer.

  I never reveal how it came to me

  without searching. Each year

  I enter, and at my step

  the room awakens, a flower

  blossoming from dust.

  Music arouses the sleepers

  with a roar from the horns that

  breathes life through the strings of a harp.

  Dancing begins with a ripple,

  gradually swells to a tide,

  rushing shoreward, then breaking;

  white hands held high seem like foam.

  The gowns sway gently as petals,

  held stiffly as stems in male hands.

  A young girl in white without diamonds,

  her hair falling finely as feathers,

  dances in time to the beating of wings.

  Another draped in black satin,

  lace veining each seam, patterns

  with slower step. Age with vigorous

  needle has traced a filigree on her skin.

  Round they go, unaware of my presence

  as I am unaware of their urges, their

  unspoken yearnings.

  Seated in a corner, close to the music

  and memories, the pearls and parquet

  of the floor, the wines with depths

  of dark jewels, I long to whirl with them,

  But fearful of our hands meeting

  in a useless swirl of dust,

  I close the door, go downstairs

  to wonder when I will be welcomed.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  From the visions of cats, vampires, insane trees, and family antics, Lida Broadhurst shapes her prose and poetry. When it is too hot, too cold, or too rainy in Oakland, CA, these visions are weirder than usual.

  North

  Kristy L. Truax-Nichols

  “Do you ever think about flying?” Julie asks him. She’s got her toes tucked up under Chris’s leg, and he shifts and tries to ignore them.

  “I guess.” He runs a hand through his greasy brown hair and tucks a hank behind his ear. His voice is rough because he’s trying so hard not to think about the heat of her feet under his thigh. It’s working, mostly. “I bet everyone does sometimes.” He tosses back a slug of her father’s beer. The can is cold and sweating. He rolls it across his forehead.

  “Yeah.” She stands and walks a few feet down the dirt driveway, leaving him sitting alone on the porch steps staring at her back. “Maybe. But I want it bad.” She raises her arms as if they are wings. He thinks she will flap them, but she doesn’t, choosing instead to let the wind blow her shirt against her body.

  It’s hot, and Julie sweats half-moon patterns beneath her arms and an arrow down her spine, making the red of her tank darker. Chris can smell her, but it’s a good smell-–his deodorant that she had slicked on earlier that day. They’d been in his room together, but nothing had happened between them. She is always careful that way. She never teases. Still, Chris likes that Julie smells like him.

  “I’m going to do it, you know. One day, I’m going to just be gone, and no one will know where I went.” She turns to him, and her blue eyes meet his brown. “But you’ll know. You’ll say, ‘She went flying,’ and everyone will wonder.”

  He listens to her with his cheek resting on his curled fist, the beer dangling from two fingers. Her words poke and prod at him until he sits up and takes notice. There, on her father’s gray, slanting porch with its missing and snaggle-toothed boards, he realizes he doesn’t want Julie to fly. He wants to pin her to the sun-baked earth so she can never escape him. He wants to love her, but more than that, he wants to keep her.

  Julie stares at him. He blinks, realizing he’s lost the thread of the conversation. The now-empty beer can is crushed in his fist. “What?” he says.

  “I said, I think about it all the time. Being a bird. Flying.” She turns away from him again and lowers herself to the driveway. She’s careful about pulling her hair over her shoulder so that she doesn’t sit on it. It’s brassy red and reminds him of a hothouse flower.

  “Why do you want to fly?” He knows it’s a stupid question. “Are you looking to escape?”

  Julie leans back on her elbows and tilts her head so that she is looking at him upside-down. She is silent for a heartbeat, and then she closes her eyes. “Nah. I just want to sleep in trees.”

  The next time Chris sees her, Julie’s eye is blackened.

  He wants to flutter around her and touch the discolored skin, but when he reaches for her, she bats his hands away and laughs. “Stop it. So I got in a fight. It happens.” She walks next to him down Main Street, her dirty flip flops scuffing the pavement.

  “Do you need me to take care of anyone?” Although he’s good at it, Chris hates fighting. He hates the dark smudge of color around Julie’s eye more.

  She halts and cocks her head. He is taken by the motion, by the curious nature of it. Julie pats him on the cheek. “No. Thanks, though.”

  They continue in silence to the multiplex where he pays for both of them because she has no money, and it’s the only place to get out of the choking humidity. Chris knows buying her ticket doesn’t mean anything, and the feeling that settles in the back of his throat is almost worse than the heat outside.

  He buys her a Coke and a hotdog from the concession stand because he’s sure she hasn’t eaten today. “Where’s your dad?”

  Julie breathes through her nose as she chews, and it’s clear to Chris that she’s starving. She swallows and rolls her eyes. “Who cares? At work probably. Or drunk in a gutter somewhere.”

  “So, did he?” He gestures to the black eye, and then tucks his arm back across his narrow chest, obscuring the band logo on his over-sized tee.

  The look she gives him is enough to shut him up.

  She takes another bite and groans, “This is so good. Thanks for the hotdog.” Swallowing the last bit, she wipes her mouth on a paper napkin and throws the cardboard platter and the mustard-smeared napkin in the trash. “Come on. Movie’s about to start.”

  She is si
lent when everyone else laughs and laughs when everyone else screams. Chris tries very hard to work up the courage to hold her hand, but in the end, he doesn’t have to. She curls her fingers around his arm with a gasp when the main character startles a flock of birds from a tree, and they take wing.

  His mouth twists. Not like this, he thinks, but doesn’t remove her hands from where they’ve curled around his pale bicep.

  Julie goes missing for a while, but Chris isn’t worried because she does that sometimes. He spends those summer hours like he knows he has thousands more in front of him. First, he plays video games until he’s got a headache. Then, after he eats three bowls of chocolate cereal, he takes a shower. He stares at his naked body in the mirror. He puffs up his skinny chest and flexes his muscles.

  He pouts that he has a spot on his ass.

  Wonders when he’ll get chest hair.

  Debates whether or not his dick is a sufficient size.

  Handles said dick until satisfied.

  He drinks every day; not enough to get drunk, just enough to float on a buzz while he tries not to think about Julie and the way she felt against him in the movie theater.

  His mother disapproves of his sloth and shakes her head. Her thin, white-blonde hair is liberally streaked with gray, and she has pulled it into a bun the size of a walnut at the base of her skull. The bobby pins holding it together are dark against her ivory hair like the sharps and flats on a piano keyboard. Her voice is weak and tired and easily ignored, but when he’s finally sick enough of her nagging, he decides to go find Julie.

  He jogs to her house.

  Chris climbs up the old metal stairs that snake from the side of her porch up to her bedroom. They are the remnant of her father’s brief-lived plan to convert the second floor into an apartment for some ready cash. He never finished renovating the upstairs, but the old fire escape remains like a rusty scar on the side of the house.

  He calls for Julie, but she doesn’t answer. He looks in her window, and he doesn’t see her.

  After debating with himself, he picks his way across the rotted porch and knocks on the front door.

  Chris has never met her father, but he fears him. Although Julie has never pointed a finger, the bruises she often wears assure him the man is capable of violence.