The One-in-a-Million Boy

by Monica Wood

  “And what is the best blues solo ever produced by a nonblack guy, ever?” Quinn was getting heated up now and tried to hide it.

  “‘Sleepy Time Time,’ by Eric Chapman.”

  Eric Chapman was Belle’s across-the-street neighbor who washed his car every day and dried it with a leaf blower. Eric Chapman had once informed Quinn, from the wide-bottom seat of his lawn mower, that a man without a man’s job had no business procreating.

  “Clapton,” Quinn said to his son, for the fiftieth time. “Eric Clapton. Clapton, Clapton, Clapton.” He removed the guitar from the boy’s narrow lap and laid it on the floor. “How about if we just listen?”

  “I can listen,” the boy said, apparently relieved to be divested of the guitar’s metaphorical weight. Quinn was aware of the father-son dance he was conducting but helpless to improve his footwork.

  It’s time you pulled your own weight around here, mister. You want me to break that thing in half?

  “Just relax your ears,” Quinn said, cueing the music. He turned the balance all the way to the right; Clapton’s notes rang through one speaker with the rhythm pulled into the background. The boy’s huge, moonlike eyes took in either everything, or nothing. Who could tell? As the song engaged its reliable momentum, Quinn anticipated the arrival of Clapton’s virtuosity, for the first time in his life, with dread. His head throbbed.

  “You hear the solo coming in now?” he said, trying mightily to feel some way other than the way he felt. “Listen to that call and response.” He shook his head in wonderment, as he always did, but it felt, again for the first time, like a learned gesture, and he was beginning to blame the boy for ruining one of his most trustworthy sources of bliss. “It’s a conversation he’s having with himself. You hear that? It’s like something rising out of the goddamn sea. Just listen.”

  You sound just like the record, honey, his mother had marveled, standing at his bedroom door. One lasting memory: her gaunt fingers tapping on the doorjamb, keeping time. Her fingernails yellowing with illness. His mother, who loved music. Any music. But especially his.

  The boy turned his head, at long last, toward the speakers, as the room filled with melodious joy. He appeared to be in physical pain, panting through parted teeth. Quinn stared into the ancient country of his son’s unmoving eyes. Wrong song, wrong band, he realized. There was too much to hear, too many twining treasures, especially for a boy who didn’t tap his feet or bob his head or otherwise betray the remotest affinity for musical rapture.

  “Try to receive it,” Quinn said now, referring to the sublime phrasing of Eric Clapton-Clapton-Clapton. “You hear the notes he’s not playing? You hear that building pressure, building-building-building, and then whammo, he’s off to some other spectacular place, but you hear the notes he left unplayed?” He hit STOP. “Those are ghost notes,” he said. “You hear them, but they aren’t there. It should take your breath away.”

  “Okay,” the boy said.

  “I don’t expect you to play this way. You understand that, right?”

  “Okay.”

  “This is about appreciating. It begins with appreciating.”

  “Okay.” Rooted to the chair, the boy assumed the motionless carriage of a felon awaiting sentencing.

  “Relax, my friend. It’s only rock-and-roll.”

  “You said blues.” The boy’s lip quivered.

  “I did,” Quinn admitted. “I did say that.”

  The boy recovered himself—maybe he was tougher than he looked. Quinn picked up his own guitar and reproduced the solo in slow motion, note for note.

  “What does ‘their father’s hell’ mean?” the boy asked. “‘Their father’s hell did slowly go by’?” This was from “Teach Your Children,” the song they’d given up on three weeks ago.

  Turn down that noise! Don’t make me come in there!

  “I don’t know,” Quinn said. “You have to be a poet to know.”

  “I’m not a poet,” the boy said. “Are you?”

  “Maybe we should wrap this up.”

  The boy rose ceremonially to his feet. “I believe,” he said dolefully, “that would be for the best.” He picked up the cookie plate and glasses and headed for the breezeway door, where he turned around briefly. “One, the marching band from the country of Netherlands was called Marum, the same name as the town they marched to. Two, the world’s largest playable electric guitar is forty-three feet and seven-point-five inches tall. Three, you play ten times more excellent than Eric Chapman.”

  Quinn nodded. “That’s true,” he said, thinking of psychotic, lard-assed Eric Chapman on his riding mower. “I blow Eric Chapman’s doors.”

  He watched the boy disappear into the house, then played the famous solo again, grabbing all the notes but missing everything that composed its ferocious radiance—Clapton’s tone, his phrasing, his inborn musical heartbeat—and it pained him to do this, it always had, and yet he loved this solo so much, the motion it accumulated, the comfort it offered, the place it visited, the story it made; he loved these things so much that he could not refrain from trying to enter that story, and he could not refrain from failing, again and again and again.

  As they approached the Maine border, Quinn asked Ona, “When exactly was the last time you went to a wedding?”

  “Nineteen sixty-seven,” she said. “A boy from Lester married a girl from Henneford. They were nearly thirty, which was ancient then. What about you?”

  “Hah.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” She looked at him. “You get jaded, I suppose, one wedding just like the next. I myself found the ceremony beguiling, especially when Mr. Ledbetter had to borrow the town clerk’s ring.”

  “He’ll have a diamond on her finger by nightfall.”

  “No doubt.” She looked out the window. “I’d like to see the sister’s face when your lady comes back with a husband.” She was talking over the buffeting wind, which gave her speech an air of urgency, as if they were racing to prevent something that had already happened. “Her father, too,” Ona added, shouting now. “I don’t suppose he’ll be pleased.”

  “Are you kidding? That crowd thinks Ted Ledbetter walks on water.”

  She rolled up her window. “He’s a nice man.”

  “He doesn’t walk on water, Ona.”

  “Not literally.” A few miles ticked past. “Are you terribly disappointed?”

  “That the scoutmaster doesn’t literally walk on water?”

  She pointed at him. “That the scoutmaster bested you in the game of love. That’s what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “Come to think,” Ona said, “you haven’t yet been bested. She married you twice. The score’s two to one.”

  Quinn laughed out loud—a feeling like the first drink after a dry spell, a rolling, remorse-tinged relief. Inside that space he located the flat, steady place reserved for Belle. She was too good for him: everyone but Belle had known it from the start. Despite the tepid reception from her family (Guitar playing’s not a job) and her girlfriends (That type doesn’t want babies), Belle had a useful knack for self-fulfilling prophecy: she’d kept his hair trimmed with those narrow red shears, asked him for sentimental songs at family functions—in short, made him appear better than he was, which kept him from becoming worse than he was.

  “I was faithful,” Quinn said, “in case you wondered.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Through the divorce and beyond, both times. In case she changed her mind.”

  “A lot of men start canoodling the second they leave the premises,” Ona said. “Or, in many cases, before.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I’m glad to know it,” she said. “Mr. Ledbetter strikes me as the faithful type, but that’s not a point for him if you’re the faithful type, too.” She smiled. “One for one. Even-steven.”

  In the waning hours of his good deed, Quinn tried to muster a Scoutlike feeling of charity. Ledbetter was a kid-loving, wife-snatching par
agon. And yet. Could Quinn dismiss how the town clerk’s office glowed with Belle’s grief and grit? Could he dismiss how her face had filled with the fragile light of comfort?

  “I suppose any woman in your lady’s position would prefer the domestic consolations of a man like Mr. Ledbetter,” Ona said. “He doesn’t have the happy feet like you do.”

  “It’s called work.” Quinn took the next exit, pulled the car over on a sleepy stretch of Route 1, and got out.

  “What’s all this?” Ona asked as he yanked open her door.

  “Take the wheel,” he said.

  “Here?”

  “You want to pass the test or not?”

  “These are unfamiliar roads. How am I—?”

  “You want the record or don’t you?”

  She waited a good thirty seconds. Then: “I do.”

  “Then show me what you got.”

  Ona shot him a lasered look and trundled out of the car. Quinn escorted her to the driver’s side, adjusted her seat, then sprinted around to take the passenger side.

  “Go,” he said.

  “I’ll go when it’s safe to go,” she said, starting the car, putting it into gear.

  “Check the rearview,” he said. “And look over your shoulder.”

  “I’m not an imbecile,” she said, pulling out. She drove in silence for a mile or so. “I’ve been driving for eighty years.”

  “You’re twenty miles under the speed limit.”

  “Says the man with a hundred speeding tickets?”

  Quinn laughed as Ona sped up. She was doing all right. Her confidence amazed him and he told her so.

  “Your boy was an excellent teacher,” she said. “He quizzed me on the written test while I went through my road paces. It took my mind off making a mistake.”

  “Keep your eyes a little farther ahead than—” Quinn stopped. “You let an eleven-year-old give you driving lessons?”

  “He was very good. And far more patient than you, I might add. But you’re not a bad teacher, Quinn.”

  “I’m a terrible teacher. Believe me.”

  After a few more miles, she said, “May I stop now? Have I proven I’m not a lost cause?” She pulled over. “I’m exhausted, if you want to know.”

  And suddenly—alarmingly—she looked it. “Jesus, Ona, why didn’t you say something?”

  She grinned. “Because I’m not past enjoying a good joust with a heedless musician.”

  “You did great,” he said. “You are record-book bound.”

  He took the wheel, feeling oddly elated. By the time they reached Portland, Ona had nodded off, her knob-and-tube body crooked to one side, her small head bobbing against the shoulder belt. She appeared to have shrunk a size since yesterday. She woke as he made the final turn, a fresh set of flyers flapping on phone poles along her street. Through the open windows he could hear the loudspeaker at the car dealership summoning salesmen to their posts. Quinn had once worked as a Volvo salesman, but the signal system, which rang at a flat middle A, proved his undoing before he showed a single car.

  At Ona’s house, one of the flyers had blown into a cracked fence picket and stuck fast. He hopped out and opened her door, feeling courtly and pleased with himself. “Home, sweet home,” he said. He’d done his bit, and then some. He’d more than fulfilled the boy’s original charge; had, in fact, finished it with some grace.

  Except. The place thundered with lingering projects: the broken picket, a detached gutter he’d promised to fix. Everything needed paint. He escorted her up the walk he’d de-weeded, over the steps he’d shored up. Ona carried Ted’s overrunning bouquet, which showed no sign of wilt and obscured her entire body below the eyeballs.

  “You should go to that neighborhood thing,” he recommended, gesturing toward the stuck flyer. “Meet some people.”

  “Their children used to torture me something awful,” she said, “and they never did a thing to stop it.” She grunted. “I was the neighborhood witch, you know. I ate poodles for breakfast. Now I’m just invisible, which suits me fine.” She lifted her nose above the bouquet, indicating the street. “There’s a fellow in the green house down there, he’s quite nice, but he’s gone all winter. The couple next to him are passable. The woman next to them doesn’t care for my yard keeping, but the man checks on me during snowstorms.”

  Quinn imagined the place in winter, feeling the wooze of responsibility: the number of things that went wrong in a house quadrupled in winter.

  “Hello there!” came a voice from the street. A middle-aged woman capered up the walk in a pair of yellow clogs. Crisp shirt, pink chinos, sticky makeup.

  Quinn lifted both arms, like acknowledging an advancing cavalry.

  “We thought she’d gone!” The woman stuck out her hand. “Shirley Clayton,” she said. “Five doors down.” She had the decisive grip of a newly licensed real-estate agent; Quinn suddenly recognized her doll-pink face from the plague of SALE PENDING signs on front walks throughout the city. “We thought she’d gone, but I had no one to ask, not a single contact number.”

  “I’m right here,” Ona said, her eyes narrowed and mica bright. “Right in front of your face.”

  “Where are my manners?” Shirley said.

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Shirley’s gaze flinted back to Quinn, who felt like a bunny in a gun sight. Ona found her key and jammed it into the loose-fitting doorknob. A smart raccoon could jimmy the lock in eighty seconds—one more thing he’d neglected to repair.

  “What yummy flowers,” Shirley said.

  “Don’t touch them, please.” Ona opened the door, where the forgotten overnight bag sat reproachfully in the foyer. “Where, exactly, did you assume I’d gone?”

  “We assumed,” Shirley said, inching toward the doorway like a cat hoping for a handout, “we assumed you’d gone . . . on a trip.”

  “On the trip, you mean.” Color gushed into Ona’s cheeks. She turned to Quinn. “This lady sold Louise’s house to a pair of vampires with surly children and a malcontent dog.”

  “That wasn’t me, Mrs. Vitkus, remember?” Shirley said. “You’ve confused me with a different Realtor.” To Quinn, she said, “I didn’t even live here when her friend’s house sold. I was a homemaker in Albany back then.”

  Ona pursed her lips, leaving a pert starburst of wrinkles. “I know exactly what you’re up to.”

  “All righty, I’ll be off.” She thrust one of the flyers into Quinn’s hands. “Neighborhood Watch. Seven o’clock. You’re more than welcome.”

  Ona stepped into her house and shut the door, leaving Quinn and Shirley on the porch.

  “You her son?”

  “No.”

  “Grandson?”

  “No.”

  “People die and that’s a fact,” she said. “If you don’t plan ahead, it can be months before anybody attends to the house, and in the meantime it goes to rack and ruin.” She pointed westward, indicating the entire street, with the car dealership and the brand-new Lowe’s looming over the rooftops. “This is a desirable neighborhood. Very friendly. Prices going nowhere but up.”

  In all of Quinn’s visits here, not a soul besides himself, Ted Ledbetter, and the Meals on Wheels lady had breached the gate. He recalled the man in the green house—an older guy in a flame-orange cardigan who’d waved hello once—but Quinn had been wrestling a ladder at the time and didn’t follow up.

  Shirley eyed the peeling porch rails. “These oldsters are so naive about what they’re ‘sitting’ on.”

  “I’m not related,” Quinn said.

  “I could sell this place in a week and get her a spot in assisted living. That’s part of what I do for these people. My husband’s a developer. There’s a place opening in Westbrook, state of the art.”

  “I don’t think she’s much of a joiner.”

  “These people don’t understand what a service we’re offering,” Shirley protested. “Sell your house and buy peace of mind with the profits. Frankly, we’re conce
rned about safety. It’s a neighborhood issue. These oldsters, they leave their burners on.” She gestured toward the preserve. “That’s irreplaceable land out there.”

  Unable to follow her leaps of logic, Quinn said, “I’m a friend.”

  “One street over? Mr. D’Angelo, ninety-one? I moved his place for ten times what he paid for it, and he’s happy as can be at Eventide over in Falmouth.” She accepted the flyer back. “Do you have sibs?”

  “Listen to me,” Quinn said. “She’s going to outlive you.”

  Shirley sized him up, thought him over, then gave up at last and clogged back toward her sale-ready Cape—freshly painted, trimmed, and gleaming, as if the people who lived within could not contain their joy.

  * * *

  This is Miss Ona Vitkus. This is her life memories and shards on tape. This is Part Eight.

  Where did you get this thing, anyway?

  . . .

  A financial writer? My. Your aunt sounds smart.

  . . .

  Louise? Again?

  . . .

  Well, yes. She was. A friend.

  . . .

  A good friend, yes. But you know . . .

  . . .

  It’s just that—I’ve never had a true-blue friend.

  . . .

  Faithful. Through thick and thin. That kind. Where were we?

  . . .

  She left Lester Academy in the spring of ’57, the end of her fifth year. We’d read dozens of books by then. All those writers, now they were my friends. What a pleasure that seminar was! We were all friends, after a fashion, even if I was the boring old guppy thrown into the fish tank.

  . . .

  You know how guppies bubble their mouths open, like this . . . ?

  . . .

  Don’t laugh! That’s exactly what I was doing, all but swallowing knowledge. I was so sorry to be fifty-seven; I thought I was so old! Even two minutes with Louise made me feel smarter.

  . . .

  For example, the difference between convince and persuade. The meaning of “To be or not to be.” Louise loved Shakespeare, especially all those lippy women pretending to be men.