The Musician

by Douglas Gardham

  “No,” Ethan replied. “I need—”

  “You need to drive,” his father said emphatically.

  Ethan clenched the steering wheel in his fists. Pink lines showed on his knuckles. He didn’t want to keep going; his earlier confidence was now gone.

  His dad was right, though Ethan didn’t want to admit it. He couldn’t quit now. He pulled back onto the highway, doing his best to push the near miss out of his mind.

  They drove in silence for a while as he settled back into the rhythm of the road. His father spoke first.

  “That was pretty close.”

  Ethan didn’t think his father had looked away from the road in front of them or at his paper since the incident.

  “Yeah,” Ethan replied. His father’s words were a reminder of what he was trying to forget. He stared at the car in front of them.

  “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan repeated, not wanting to say more. He didn’t turn his head, as he might have done earlier. But it wasn’t the driving that made him uneasy now. He felt unsettled at the thoughts the song and note had triggered.

  “You want to keep driving?”

  “I think so.”

  The inside of the car again went quiet, except for the hum of the car’s engine and the outside wind noise. The Dylan tune was stuck in his head; it seemed to be making his future a little less foggy. But where did the note come from?

  At Raymondville, his father directed them south down Highway 37. That would take them to the 401; the 401 would take them the rest of the way. To Ethan, it was the halfway point. The second half of the trip was always the better half. He put the destination ahead of the journey, in spite of the saying.

  His father broke their silence for the second time.

  “So what was so important to read while driving my new car over the speed limit?”

  Ethan knew better than to think the incident would go unnoticed, but he didn’t like the reminder either. Why couldn’t his father just leave it alone? Ethan was curious about the note but not about to share it with his father.

  “I don’t know,” Ethan replied. He knew his answer wouldn’t be enough but would give him time to think of something more. There were laws that governed the exchanges between sons and fathers. He kept looking at the road ahead.

  “That’s it?” his father said, his voice rising. “You nearly run us head-on into another car, and you don’t know? Come on, Ethan. Don’t insult my intelligence.”

  There was another drawn-out silence that Ethan refused to break.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to make a mistake. I only hoped it wouldn’t cost us our lives.”

  Ethan listened, his resolve not to say anything slipping with each word from his father. God, I made a fucking mistake. It happens to humans, you know.

  He could feel his father turn to look at him. In spite of what he might have been thinking, he’d uttered his last thought out loud.

  Why had he said anything? It was as if the paper was still in his hand. Then one image seemed to fade into another as if part of a movie. The two-lane highway ahead of him replaced the scrap of paper he thought he was holding. They passed a sign indicating the next service center was just ahead.

  “What do you say we take a break and get something to eat?” his father asked, sounding congenial, his reproachful tone gone.

  “Sure,” Ethan replied, his stomach still tight after his father’s earlier comment.

  “Pull into the next stop.”

  As they approached the exit, Ethan edged the car into the ramp lane and then drove into the parking lot of the service center.

  “How are you feeling?” his father asked. Before Ethan could answer, he added, “You did well, having not driven for so long.”

  Ethan turned off the car, surprised by what he was hearing. The feeling of waking from a dream flowed over him. He couldn’t help but notice how his father’s condemnation had turned to concern. He then realized he couldn’t remember anything they’d passed on the 401 or even getting to the 401 from Highway 37.

  “Are you coming?” his father asked as he climbed out of the car. “I need to stretch my legs. They get stiff now when I sit too long.”

  “Yeah, in a minute,” Ethan replied, not sure he wanted to move.

  He stared at the steering wheel in shock, realizing he didn’t remember anything from the last hour or so.

  And the note?

  He didn’t want to look down, because he knew with certainty that he wouldn’t find it. He’d gone away again while driving. The feeling was unmistakable. Yet again, he’d come out of it. But I was driving! He opened the door and climbed out. With the courage it took to look for something a person didn’t really want to find, he squatted down and slid in between the steering wheel and the seat. On the beige carpet between the driver’s seat and the center console was a clear BIC pen and nothing else. Relief flowed over him. There was no note. There’d never been a note. Maybe the Dylan song had been what set him off.

  A number of things flashed back—the guitar magazine he’d tossed into the back seat, the passing car, the Asian girl at the cash register, the jumpy start in the parking lot.

  He took the pen. There was something about holding a new pen that felt good. After closing the door, he saw the magazine in the back seat. He opened the back door and grabbed it. He’d take another look at the black Rickenbacker; he wanted that guitar.

  After closing the door, he locked the car, slipped the keys in the front pocket of his Levi’s, and started toward the service center entrance. The chorus to “Like a Rolling Stone” was in his head.

  He passed the magazine from one hand to the other. A piece of paper floated to the ground from between the pages.

  He knew what was on it before he reached down to pick it up.

  It wasn’t possible.

  PART 2

  PORTAMENTO

  Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

  —Frank Herbert, Dune

  How you gonna know for sure, everything was so well organized.

  Hey, now everything is so secure,

  And everybody else is satisfied.

  —Billy Joel, “James”

  CHAPTER 9

  Thursday, July 12, 1984

  God, it was a long day. The humid afternoon heat didn’t help. It was past three thirty in the afternoon. Their break was over. They had eight postholes to dig before calling it quits. Ethan didn’t want to drill one. The guy he was saddled with—Nigel, the boss’s nephew—didn’t want to work, let alone drill postholes, so he didn’t. When his uncle wasn’t around, he sat with his long hair hanging over his eyes, indulging in what appeared to be an unending supply of weed. That left Ethan to drill most of the holes—each four feet deep—by himself with a two-man gas-powered auger in the hot sun. It was all he could do to hold the heavy machine steady as it cranked a spiraling metal auger into the hard ground. Ethan’s arms were repeatedly yanked as the engine’s torque spun him around whenever the auger caught the edge of a buried rock or tree root. The holes were intended to hold four-by-four posts that would support a fence around the periphery of a soon-to-be in-ground swimming pool. The pool installation would start next week. Nephew Nigel sat in the shade of a big oak tree at the back of the large property. He inhaled as Ethan gulped the last of the water from his yellow Coleman thermos, which he’d already refilled once that day. Sweat ran down Ethan’s forehead and off the tip of his nose.

  Ethan resented the kid. He was getting paid minimum wage—same as the kid—and doing all the work. His boss had made it clear he could put up or get out; jobs were not plentiful. He was lucky to have this one, he supposed.

  Nigel wasn’t mean or malicious and was always offering Ethan a hit. Ethan usual
ly declined, not because he didn’t want it—it might cool his frustration—but because he feared anything that might trigger him away from the present. Nigel was a stoner. His parents had had enough of their degenerate son and sent him to work with his uncle Al, as if it were some kind of Outward Bound program: “Send us a boy; we’ll send you back a man.” Just thinking about it made Ethan smile as he pulled the cord to start the auger again. Uncle Al was straightening Nigel out all right. He was stoned all day and God only knew what at night. Ethan could see Nigel was pretty messed up. Was there any help for kids who couldn’t find their way?

  “Nigel!” Ethan shouted across the lawn, adjusting the choke on the small engine. “Give me a hand here.”

  Nigel trudged across the yard in his undone Kodiaks, kicking clumps of clay that were in his way on the lawn. Nigel didn’t say a word and never argued. He was just slow and disinterested. Unless asked, he didn’t do anything. Nigel grabbed the auger’s handle opposite Ethan. Ethan squeezed the throttle. The engine responded loudly. He engaged the auger and started twisting dirt out of the ground.

  With Nigel’s help, he finished the remaining holes in less than an hour. At five, Uncle Al’s rusty Ford Bronco showed up. He backed up the paved driveway and stopped beside the garage of the two-story house, just in front of the backyard. The truck was filled with lumber—and more work.

  Al opened his door and put an undone new work boot on the truck’s running board.

  “What’s up, boys?” he shouted, stepping onto the driveway. The boys had been waiting for fifteen minutes. Ethan was anxious to get going.

  Al was thin, with big hands and feet. His face looked weathered. A cigarette constantly dangled from between his lips. A straggly gray beard exacerbated his worn-out thinness.

  Nigel was somehow always the first to speak.

  “Finished all the holes,” he said in the most enthusiastic voice Ethan had heard all day. Ethan was exhausted and didn’t care. His thoughts were on the gig that night. He was making his way to the passenger side of the Bronco to drop his thermos onto the seat through the open window. The words to the song his band would open with that night were on his lips.

  “Good to hear,” Al answered, heading to the backyard. Nigel followed like a dog out for a walk with its owner. Ethan stood still, hoping they might skip inspection that night but knowing it wasn’t likely.

  Al walked the periphery of what they had completed that day. He kicked some of the largest clumps of clay, as Nigel had earlier. He bent down, picked up a hunk of sod, and shook his head as he tossed it aside. The backyard looked as if a bomb had been detonated.

  “You boys should clean up a little better,” he said, turning to look at Ethan, who was now standing at the back of the house. Ethan didn’t say anything and only nodded. He was unsure what might come out of his mouth if he opened it. He didn’t need to be spoken to like a child about something as stupid as dirt. Tomorrow they’d be cementing in the posts. The place would look even worse.

  “The holes look good and deep,” Al said as he approached the last one they’d drilled, near where Ethan was standing.

  “Thanks,” Nigel said.

  Al’s remark surprised Ethan. It was odd for him to say anything nice about their work.

  None of it changed the fact that Ethan needed to go. He looked at the dirt under his fingernails. He still had to get cleaned up.

  They all walked back to the truck.

  “Can you guys unload the wood,” Al said, “while I see if anybody’s home?”

  Nobody was home. Ethan knew it and was pretty sure Al did too. They hadn’t seen anyone all day. But Ethan knew they wouldn’t be going anywhere until the lumber was unloaded.

  Al’s hard-soled boot heels clapped on the asphalt as he headed across the driveway to the front of the house.

  “Come on, Nigel,” Ethan said, his hands already on one of the four-by-four posts sticking out the back of the Bronco. “Let’s move this shit before he thinks of something else to do.”

  Ethan figured he’d be doing most of the lifting, but Nigel surprised him. They had most of the lumber out and stacked before Ethan heard Al’s boots on the driveway. There were two posts left in the truck.

  It had taken them less than five minutes to unload the wood. Asshole, Ethan thought as he grabbed the last two posts and piled them on top of the others on the ground.

  “Nobody’s home,” Al announced, rejoining them, brushing his hands together as if he’d just finished a big job.

  No shit, Einstein, Ethan thought.

  “You boys done?”

  Ethan was sick of hearing the man’s voice.

  “Looks like it,” Nigel said, answering his uncle’s obvious question.

  “Atta boy,” said Uncle Al like a Little League coach cheering on a scrawny kid who’d just hit a pitch for the first time.

  Al slammed the Bronco’s tailgate closed. They were done. Ethan was more than anxious.

  Al was the first one in; Ethan and Nigel climbed in the passenger side. Ethan sat between Al and his nephew. It was an odd arrangement, but sitting by the door was one thing Nigel did care about. He sat taller and even looked confident. Ethan guessed it might have been the only time he felt important. But to Ethan, it wasn’t Nigel’s position in the truck that gave Nigel his importance.

  Al drove forward into the vacant street.

  They were half an hour from Ethan’s parents’ home.

  CHAPTER 10

  Thursday, July 12, 1984

  Ethan closed his eyes and went through the set list for the evening while Al drove him to his parents’ house. The band now had three original songs to add to the cover tunes they’d been rehearsing for weeks. They had sixteen altogether. Half of those had become a little stale to Ethan. He wanted to write more.

  He also wanted to perform the songs, not just sing them. It would make their show more unique and not just four musicians playing onstage. The band was strong musically, but he didn’t think more music was the answer. They needed to perform in a new way.

  It was hard to believe the supposed teenager he’d bought Guitar Gear from was any more than an immature kid working the counter at her mom and dad’s restaurant. Sydney had come to Toronto and blown him away with her chops. Though her slender five-foot frame would make her look childlike onstage, Ethan wasn’t about to pass up the chance to work with a dream musician.

  Meeting Sydney coincided with his return to a certain level of normalcy. It helped push him back into the world before he got used to hiding from it. The drive home from Ottawa had convinced him to form a new band. Witnessing Sydney play a guitar had locked it in. It hadn’t been that long since he’d forfeited the plan to make music his life’s pursuit. He’d give it another go.

  Not unlike the serendipity of meeting Sydney was discovering that Greg, his high school buddy, was back in town. MIT was not the Shangri-la Greg had envisioned. His first semester had turned into his last. Unbeknownst to his parents, he’d stayed in Boston not for school but to experience the subculture music scene. He was back in Toronto a month before Ethan arrived. After meeting for lunch, Greg was game to meet the female guitarist from Ottawa and talk about forming a new band. Ethan was a little surprised at Greg’s eagerness to start, as he’d been the instigator in breaking up their first band.

  In love with the black Rickenbacker from the magazine, Ethan saw himself as the bass player. With Sydney coming out of nowhere and Greg’s reappearance, he saw everything coming together; he’d have the power trio he’d always imagined.

  A few days after meeting with Greg, Ethan was mowing his parents’ front lawn when he ran out of gas. While refilling the tank, he heard the pound of music coming from the house across the street. Unable to ignore it, he went over to investigate. His ear picked up a busy bass line. At the front door, there was no mistaking the live bass playing alongside the Bee Gees’ “N
ights on Broadway.” He was a little surprised, as it was not his usual fare in music, but the originality of the bass fills captivated him. They made the song better—not a dance tune but real rock. Whoever was playing knew the fret board of a bass guitar.

  Curious to see the player, he waited for the song to end and pressed the doorbell. Almost at once, he heard the electrical clunk of a guitar unplugging from an amp. Someone was coming. The front door opened to reveal a longhaired, black-bearded man a couple of years his senior. The man was new to the neighborhood since Ethan had left for university. Ethan introduced himself to Gus Petrovsky. As he shook Gus’s hand, two things became apparent: his plans of bass playing in his new band were over, and the band would not be a trio.

  Ethan opened his eyes. He liked remembering how the Release had come together.

  Al slowed the Bronco and pulled into his parents’ subdivision. The last stanza of their newest song, the verse from Mila’s headstone, was in his head:

  Here lies an angel

  with broken wings.

  Her eyes still watch;

  her voice still sings.

  He loved the words. The melody he’d written with Sydney made them more beautiful. It was the perfect song for Mila’s memory and made him proud. Mila had put the right words in his head. He felt her smile each time he sang the words in rehearsal. They would debut the song that night in their second set. He couldn’t wait.

  The truck pulled into his parents’ empty driveway. His father was out of town, and his mother was likely on her way home from the school.

  Nigel opened the door and climbed out. Ethan slid across the bench seat, dragging his thermos behind him. He heard Al open the driver’s-side door. Nigel climbed back into the truck.

  “See you tomorrow,” Ethan said.

  “You’re on,” Nigel called back, closing the door.

  Al met Ethan at the front of the Bronco.

  “Say, Ethan,” he said, putting his hand on the front fender. He picked at some rust on the edge of the hood and then raised his head. “I’m not gonna need you for the next little while.”