MELODY IS WHAT COUNTED
It was probably around noon when we reached Fish’s cellar. I unlocked and swung open the doors, and the cool damp air was a relief that grew with each step down into the darkness. When my foot reached the musty collection of rugs and welcome mats that made up the wall-to-wall carpeting, I took a deep familiar breath and then tossed my ratty bag onto the rattier old couch.
You were right behind me and on one knee in an instant. Your eager, slender hands couldn’t move fast enough, it seemed, to get that gig bag open and your Jazzmaster out and plugged in. I watched you work, laughing to myself quietly but so you’d notice.
You got to your feet and slipped the guitar strap over your neck and shoulders in one smooth move. “What?”
“It’s like you’ve moved in,” I said. “Yesterday you were like a frightened hamster coming down those steps. I had to hold your hand.”
You waved me off. “All right, all right. Just get back there.” You nodded toward the drum kit, so I obliged and grabbed a couple of sticks off the floor.
The kick was a little too far up, so I pulled it back and tried to get those pointy legs on either side to catch a little. I reminded myself again to find a cinderblock at the warehouse and drag it up here. For a minute I imagined my fingers, pulling them off the char-stained brick, covered in soot. Deep breath.
“What are we playing?” I asked, and you shrugged. Your back was to me as you adjusted your volume and slowly strummed through a few chords. “What’s that you’re playing?”
“Nothing really,” you replied between strums.
“Well, let’s make it something, then,” I said, and I joined you. It was slow, then a little faster, and eventually we found a good tempo for the changes. When you slipped in a new change, I switched to the ride and let it be the chorus—the “refrain,” Felix would have called it. A few measures later you went back to the original changes, so I dropped down a little and closed up the hi-hat. Then you started to sing.
There were no words—at least, I don’t think there were—except now and then when you’d drop in something with sense. But it didn’t matter. Your melody is what counted, and it counted a lot. It floated over the changes, above them. It wove through my rhythm and the chords you played, like a pixie through a crowd—better than them, more than them. In every way, the melody elevated the song until it almost felt complete, like it always would be complete: you just had to open your mouth and let it come out.
I opened the hi-hat just a little, to let it sizzle a bit, and leaned forward on the throne, closer to you and your voice. That voice—rich and sweet, crystal clear. Even over my drums and your guitar, I could hear every note, every trembling vibrato, every quiver, and it was glorious. Anyone would know you’d never smoked, and probably never would, because the moment you put a cigarette to your lips and a flame to its tip, a host of heavenly angels would snatch it away and throw it into hell.
The chorus came around again, so I moved to the ride, but you fumbled a chord change and your voice fell away. The angels retreated to their clouds and I shook my head as I snatched the cymbal to quiet it.
No more—no more love, no more songwriters, no more long and gorgeous fingers in my hair. Purity of voice and purity of heart doesn’t mean purity of soul, and certainly not purity of body. You’d be gone in weeks, I knew, and I wasn’t going to let you into my heart before then.
THE END OF IT
It was fun—playing music with you, playing house with you, there in Fish’s cellar. It was always us or nothing: Almost no sound came in from the street, that end of Franklin as quiet as it is, without Fish’s place to fill it up with sound, of revelry and of jukebox music. Sometimes a car boomed by, blasting Euro pop or Dominican dance. When one did, the little scene we had would break, but just for a minute, never long enough to make me, or to let me, think about it.
It was our third day in the cellar. I’d been out for a bit, picking up sandwiches with your cash, and when I got back, you were sitting on an amp, leaning on the brick column in the middle of the cellar and facing the ajar back door, strumming your guitar. I dropped onto the couch and pulled open the bag of food. “Is that another new song?”
You jumped a little at my voice; I guess I broke your little reverie. But you gave me a quick smile.
“Honestly, you’re like a machine,” I said, sitting down. I pulled out your cheese hero and leaned it over to you.
“Thanks,” you said. You used the side of your palm to turn the volume of your guitar all the way down, then laid it on the rug beside you and slid down to the floor beside it to eat.
I shrugged as I unwrapped my Italian hero and took a bite. “Don’t thank me,” I said, letting a little food escape as I spoke. “You bought.”
You smiled at me and shook your head, then patted a little mayo from under your bottom lip.
“So?” I said, avoiding your eyes with mine. “What was that you were playing?”
“Just a new song,” you said, adding quickly before I could ask, “Not ready to share yet.”
“Come on,” I said. “We’re a band, aren’t we?”
“Or a duo,” you said, and your wrist jangled as you lifted your butt from the rugs and leaned forward to fish your soda from the bag at my feet.
“That’s a kind of band, not a non-band,” I said. “So you have to share it with me.”
“It isn’t finished yet,” you said.
“Then I’ll help you finish it,” I said, putting the second half of my hero down on its waxed paper on the floor and stepping behind the kit. “Come on. Just give me the changes and the rhythm. We’ll bang it out.”
“All right,” you said in your grumpiest tone. But you got to your feet and pulled on your guitar and rolled up the volume. Your tone was extra sweet that day; tube amps are funny that way. “It’s called ‘Like Me.’”
I warmed up with a little snare fill, then a chunky thing with no backbeat. You were patient and I finally stopped, then looked at you and, with a smile, nodded.
Your eyes were on your hands and strings at first, as you pushed slowly through the pattern of changes and strums and open chords. The mic was off, so I couldn’t make out your words—just snippets of melody and the movement of your lips in time with the music. Your voice wasn’t carrying that day; you almost seemed shy. Sometimes your eyes came up and met mine, when your lips didn’t move. But whenever you sang, it was all hands and strings, hands and strings, and I started thinking about marionettes—hands and strings.
I left the kick out of it for a while. Just some gentle ticks on the hi-hat and my brush on the snare, so my drumming sounded like rain and a watch at my ear, and I thought about the time we’d had and how much more we might get. I watched the stick in my right hand move up and down on the gold of the high hat. You stopped playing and I looked up at you.
“What?”
“You don’t like it,” you said.
“Of course I like it,” I said. “I love everything you play. Everything you write.”
You sat on the edge of the couch and turned the volume down to a squeak, then strummed through the changes again, quickly. “You didn’t seem into it.”
“I was,” I said. “I just didn’t think it needed much support from me, at least not at first. It could always build up, you know—toward the end.”
You found my soda in front of the couch and stole a swig from it.
“Hey,” I said with a smirk, kidding. But when you looked up I said, “Is the title a description, or, like, an order?”
You put down my soda and got back to your feet. “It doesn’t matter which,” you said. “Can we do it again?”
I nodded and clicked you in.
…
That was the end of it. The end of three days of pizza and deli sandwiches, and of my wondering how much money you had, and when it might run out. Three days of pulling the cellar doors closed behind us and creeping out to the garden, to lie on our backs and stare at the empty sky. Three
days of music and sleeping deeply, with your hands on me sometimes. On the third night—late, probably, maybe after midnight—I woke suddenly. Your face was near mine in the dark, and I couldn’t imagine how you slept so easy, so deep, in this weird place, away from everything you knew.
The ceiling creaked. Someone was up in Fish’s—probably Fish, in her big black boots, stomping around after days away. That must have woken me, I realized, and I glanced at your face in the dark. You were still asleep, so I got up and found my jeans and, as quietly as I could, swung open the cellar doors to the sidewalk. In a crouch, I got to the window of the bar and peered in: there was Fish, pushing stools around, sweeping up, even collecting some empties that she’d left out in the hurry of the other night. She looked tired. I opened the front door and went in.
Fish was on her knees, reaching under the pinball machine for a couple of cocktail napkins, balled up, and a red swizzle stick. She looked up when the door closed.
“Out.” She went back to cleaning. I watched her until she stood up and walked to the tall trash can at the end of the bar.
“Fish, I’m sorry.”
“Out!” she snapped, turning to face me. I flinched. “Dammit, Kid. What are you even doing here?”
“I—”
“You’ve been sleeping downstairs again, haven’t you?”
The floor along the bar was still unswept. I grabbed the broom leaning on the window next to me and started in.
“Don’t.”
But I did. I pushed at the dust and napkins along the bar and soon had a nice little pile going. I even found a few cigarette butts. I clucked my tongue. “Are people still smoking in here? That’s illegal, you know.” I let a little smile show in my voice.
“Stop, sweetie, okay?”
I shook my head. “This was the deal, remember? I help you clean up and you let me practice and sleep downstairs, right? Since the fire.”
Fish watched me another minute. “No more sleeping,” she said. “No more hanging around the bar when the drinkers are here. You need to be at home right now, Kid.”
I shrugged as I pushed the broom around. “Maybe I do.”
“I mean it,” Fish went on. “When the serious drinking crowd is around—that includes Jonny—you and your new friend … and Konny … aren’t allowed anywhere near this place. Just keep off the block. No practicing, and definitely no drinking. Do you get me?”
I stopped sweeping and leaned on the broom. “If I need to sleep here—”
“You don’t.”
“If I need to.”
Fish sighed and went behind the bar. She pulled out two glasses and filled them with ice, then Coke. I grabbed one and took a long pull at it.
“If you need to,” she said finally. “I mean need. I know your home life isn’t ideal, sweetie. But do you know the fine I just paid?”
I shook my head and Fish grunted.
“Scout’s downstairs.”
Her fist came down on the bar. “No.”
“I know,” I said. I drank the last of that Coke and wiped the glass’s sweat on my jeans. “We’ll clear out. But we can still practice, right? When it’s not a crazy alcoholic drugfest up here, right?”
“Ha ha,” Fish said. “Just get.”
I headed for the back door and pushed it open.
“Kid.”
I turned around in the open doorway. “Yeah?”
“Did you start that fire?”
I looked at her and she pushed a chunk of hair out of her eyes and over her ear. It fell right back out.
“No.”
PICK A DIRECTION
Fish’s plan went well for quite a while. You and me were really a band, just the two of us, and even though we couldn’t play house anymore, we could practice plenty, and that’s all we both said we wanted. Of course, part of me—a lot of me—wanted more, but I kept that part quiet, drowning it out with an occasional thundering drum fill or stifling it with a lungful of smoke. After dark, we went our separate ways, and though every time we said goodbye I died a little, like Cole Porter, it also got easier and easier. Fish’s plan was helping me keep my heart at bay, and keeping my body out of foster care. I was careful never to bump into my parents, but it was always obvious I’d been there. I’d leave a dirty dish in the sink, or leave a note for my mother. My dad might not have cared, but I had a feeling Mom would let the cops know I was still at home, if it ever came to the question. She didn’t want me snatched up by the system.
But Fish’s plan was too fragile. That was obvious two weeks into it. It was a little after midnight when the red lights flashed down from the street into the cellar. At first I didn’t notice them; I’d probably drifted off, on a wave of your voice and guitar, and with Felix’s Christmas lights pulsing along, who would have noticed some flashing lights anyway? Then came the heavy footsteps and sudden silence upstairs, punched now and then by two loud male voices.
“What’s that?” I said, sitting up.
You had stopped playing—I don’t know when—and your hand was on my ankle. You were humming softly when Jonny leaped in through the garden door like Errol Flynn.
“Kid!” He looked at you for a beat—lustfully, I’d guess, like a new toy—then back at me. “You two have to get out of here. Now.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. You got to your feet and laid your guitar across its amp.
“Fish is being raided. The number of fake IDs up there is astounding,” Jonny said, shaking his head, still smiling. “But you, Kid—you gotta make yourself scarce. With everything going on, if they find you here it’ll be a trip to juvie hall for sure.”
I took your hand and started for the front steps, but Jonny held you back. “Not that way. There are two police cars that way. You’re going over the fence.”
I looked at him; my eyes must have been a mile wide.
“Come on,” he said, and headed back out to the garden.
We followed. Jonny moved quickly, weaving through the crowd, the flashlight beams, the empty bottles of Rolling Rock and High Life. At the fence, he hissed at me and put out his hands, clasped, like a step, and I was up.
“Where are we supposed to go?” I asked, one leg over the fence, into a stranger’s backyard.
Jonny gave you a boost. “I’m Jonny,” he said quickly.
“Scout.”
“Nice to know you,” he said, his smile slimming a little under the stress. “I don’t know, Kid. But Fish is pissed. She told you not to be down here this late. She’s saying no more cellar, period.”
“But—” I said, desperate.
“I’ll talk to her. Just go!”
I hopped down and looked for where to go next. There was no route to the street; just more backyards and more fences, rows in every direction.
And then you and I were sitting in the darkness of a backyard, up against the fence. I felt your hand take mine, and the rhythm pulsed from my hand to yours, and back again, and my breathing slowed just enough.
“I guess … we pick a direction?” you said. You looked at me sideways and managed a smile, covered your mouth to suppress a laugh maybe.
I smiled back and nodded. Suddenly the floodlights in the garden behind us—Fish’s garden—flared on.
“Right now!” I said, laughing, and we got up and ran for the fence to the right—it looked a little shorter.
…
We walked around Greenpoint for a bit and ended up heading east and south into Williamsburg.
“Want to watch a movie?” you asked as we made our way down Bedford. It was filthy with hipsters, as always: trucker hats, fur collars, ridiculous tea dresses, oversize sunglasses—never sincere, and I wondered what they were so afraid of.
“I’m not so into movies,” I said. “Besides, where?”
“At the video store, down near North Fifth.”
I squinted at you. “How do you know about that store?”
You smiled at me and gave me a little shove and giggle. “I haven’t been in your little
clutches every minute, you know.”
“Just about!”
“But still not. And I like movies, so I found it. Here.”
We went in. It was dark, darker than the street after midnight. The only light seemed to come from the TV set hanging low over the glass counter at the back. A gorgeous girl was sitting on a high stool, considering the TV and nibbling a strawberry shoelace. I grabbed your hand.
“I can’t see a thing.”
You led me toward the counter and said, “Hi, Lill.”
She smiled at you, it seemed sincerely, and turned back to the screen. A dark-haired boy—sick-looking—was hacking at another boy’s hair with a dull switch blade. I knew at once it was The Outsiders. It’s a terrible movie, really, but I remember watching it in ninth-grade English and marveling at how in love the two lead actors seemed: awkwardly and happily, but neither seemed to know it completely. I watched your face as the light from the TV flicked over it, and your lips parted just a little.
…
“I better get home,” I said, standing on Bedford. My hands couldn’t get any deeper in my pockets if I tried, and I did try: some dizzying blend of keeping my hands to myself and pushing my jeans down.
“Oh, sure. Okay.” Gig bag hitch.
“It’s late, and you know,” I said. “I gotta sleep there most nights. I’d rather check in at home than with social services if the police come after me again.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“What about you? Where have you been staying?”
You laughed and, even though your hands never left your pocket and the strap of your gig bag, you waved me off—the picture of casual. “Don’t worry about it.”
But I did worry. I left you there, on the corner of Bedford and North Seventh, and didn’t look back until I passed the guerrilla garden—people taking back the nature they gave away in the first place—in a vacant lot across from a vintage clothing store. But I knew I wouldn’t spot you through the Bedford Avenue masses.
ANYONE YOU WANT TO CALL?
I’d lost track of days by then, but from the noises in the apartment in the morning, I could tell it was a workday for both my parents. The clock radio on the floor next to my bed said 6:15, so I knew I had an hour or so before both my parents would be ready and gone. I leaned across to the window and pulled up the blinds to let in the sunrise, then I dug around under my bed for my sketchbook and some vine charcoals.
Brooklyn, Burning Page 7
