Shout Down the Moon (12 page)

I
wish I could call him first, but I don’t know his number over at the Balconies. I don’t even know which apartment he’s in, but that turns out not to be a problem. As soon as I walk in the carpeted front entrance hall, I hear his piano. It’s a tune I’ve never heard, but it’s unmistakably Jonathan, and I follow the sound to the back of the building, apartment 1C.

I knock three times before the music stops. Even then he doesn’t come to the door, he just yells, “It’s open,” and goes back to playing.

When I walk in, I have to be careful where I step. The living room is sparsely furnished and hotel generic, but the floor is cluttered with his equipment, sheet music, fake books and paperbacks, CDs. He’s unpacked the essentials, which don’t seem to include his clothes. He’s still wearing the blue-and-green-striped T-shirt he had on yesterday.

The Fender Rhodes is set up facing the window. I’m about four feet behind him; he still hasn’t turned around, when he says, “Check this out.”

I’m sure he thinks I’m one of the guys, but I don’t correct him. I walk to the couch, sit down, cross my legs. The song he’s playing is unusual, even for him. The chords are loud, rich, almost too bright, but the melody is sparse and more melancholy than any piece of his I’ve ever heard. The combined effect is weirdly haunting, like the background of a dream.

When the last chord fades, it takes me a minute to remember where I am. He rubs his hands together and says, “Did you catch that key change?” before he spins around on his black stool and says, “Oh.” His voice is surprised but not unfriendly. “Patty. What are you doing here?”

I tell him I need to talk about something; then I take a breath. “That piece you just did. It’s new, isn’t it?”

He nods. “I’ve been working on it for the last few weeks.” He leans his elbows on the edge of the piano. “Did you like it?”

“Yes. It’s really different.”

“Um, I suppose I should offer you something. I don’t have any food, but I have Pepsi and beer.”

“Pepsi sounds good.”

“Coming right up.”

When he disappears through a doorway on the right side of the room, I stand up and walk to the window. It’s a nice view: the back of the apartment faces Brush Creek. I hear him cursing the ice cube tray, then the slamming of the refrigerator door. When he walks back in, he’s holding a half-full glass of soda, like he was in such a rush he couldn’t wait for the foam to go down.

It flickers across my mind that he’s in a hurry to get me out of here, but after he hands me the soda, he asks if I want to listen to the rest of the piece. “There are three movements,” he explains. “What you heard was the middle section. It sounds better in context.”

I say, “Okay,” and he sits down at the Rhodes, adjusts a few knobs.

“There may be some rough spots.” He glances at the wall behind me. “I’ve never played this for anyone before.”

I’m very surprised and more than a little pleased. He’s never asked me to listen to one of his songs.

I wish I was back on the couch, but he’s already playing; I don’t want to move and distract him. The opening is nothing like I expected: it’s confident, almost happy. When he asks if I notice the mood is different, I say, “Of course.”

“It’s this chord progression. It’s all dominant sevenths.” He plays another few bars. “But when the right hand comes in with the melody, the left hand starts to change. It’s not minor, but it’s augmented sevenths. It sounds much less certain.”

He plays for a long time without speaking. After a while, I’m leaning against the wall, engrossed in the music. When I realize he’s back to the part I’ve heard before, I’m surprised. The sparse melody is so different from the upbeat first part, but it fits perfectly. I don’t know how he did it, but it feels like this melancholy was there all along, a part of the happiness, even though you couldn’t hear it before.

We’re up to the third movement, when he shouts, “All right. Can you hear the chords becoming responsive?”

I have to shout too. This part is very loud. “I’m not sure.”

“What I mean is, do they seem to be supporting the right hand?”

“I think so. I mean, they seem sadder now too.”

“Exactly. They’re not fighting the melody anymore; they’re cooperating, giving it more of a voice. It’s not simply a harmonic resolution though. I think of it as a deeper resolution, a movement toward compassion.”

It seems true. The last few bars are so full and rich that the silence when he finishes is painful, like waking up from a dream of color into a world of only gray.

For more than a minute, neither one of us speaks. Then he turns off the Rhodes and crosses his arms. “What did you think?”

“I’ve never heard anything like it,” I begin. I don’t want to gush, but I can’t stop myself. “It was wonderful, Jonathan. So beautiful. All those different feelings, like listening to the music of an entire life.”

“Thanks,” he says calmly, but then he smiles.

He has a nice smile; I’ve noticed that before, watching him with other people. His face is too pale, his nose is a little bit sharp, but his smile is just right. And right now, his blue eyes look serious, sensitive, and not at all sarcastic. No trace of boredom. No attempt to be cool.

I can’t believe I was dreading this visit. We’re getting along so well.

Of course I still haven’t mentioned the problem I came to discuss. When I remind him we need to talk, he says, “Right,” and motions me over to the couch. He pushes some cords out of the way with his foot and sits down on the floor, on the other side of the coffee table.

I have to plunge in and get this over with. I tell him I had a meeting with Fred this morning. I leave out the part about Fred firing them, but I say Fred wants me to record some songs with Mystery Train.

“It’s a bad idea,” Jonathan says flatly. “I know their leader, Ron Whitburn. He’s a hack and a charlatan.”

“Their tape isn’t very good. But Fred is really putting on the pressure.” I force a laugh. “He even claimed you said you’d rather lick a toilet bowl than write for me.”

He crosses his hands. His voice is still flat. “I did say that, Patty.”

“I figured as much. He said it was a month ago. But I was hoping you’d changed—”

“I refuse to write pop songs. Not for you, not for him, not for anyone.”

“But they wouldn’t have to be pop. Didn’t Fred say they could be jazz, as long as they had crossover potential?”

“Yes.” Jonathan rubs his palm against his forehead. “But Fred doesn’t understand the problem that presents.”

He pauses for a moment, taps his fingers together. “Let’s say I agreed. It’s not something I’ve done before, write with lyrics, but it’s not impossible. The word crossover is meaningless. It’s marketing crap; it has nothing to do with creating art.”

His mouth looks like he’s just swallowed something so bitter he’s resisting the urge to spit. And more important, he seems to have forgotten the topic. He’s bitching about Fred: how he always emphasizes the trivial, how he doesn’t understand that music is about having something to say, not about promotion and marketing and all that meaningless stuff. At some point, I say, “Fine, forget crossover,” to get him to continue.

“All right,” he says. “If I wrote these pieces, they would be jazz. They would have to be, because that’s what I compose.”

“That’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t. I’m supposed to be writing these for you. That’s what Fred wants, what you want.”

“But Fred likes your music, I think he’d—”

“He would probably go along, yes.”

I look at him. “Well, you know I’d go along.” I feel a little embarrassed. “I mean, I always like your songs.”

“I do appreciate that. The problem is I don’t think you’d be capable of singing them.”

“What?” I sputter. “You said I wasn’t a weak singer.”

“For pop. You don’t know anything about jazz.”

My face is hot, but I snap, “It can’t be that hard.”

He laughs. “Tell that to Betty Carter. Tell that to Abbey Lincoln or Shirley Horn. You’ve never heard of them though, have you?”

“Well no, but—”

“They’re jazz singers. And they worked for years to become good. Like Harry and I did, starting when we were kids. Like Carl and Dennis will, if they keep going.” He looks at me and shakes his head. “You aren’t serious about music, Patty. You have talent, but talent is cheap. You have no devotion, no dedication. To you, this is just a good gig.”

I slump into the couch, stare at the wall. I feel miserable, but I can’t think of a reply. Even Fred doesn’t think I’m serious about music. Apparently, nobody does.

“I’m not saying it’s your fault,” he says slowly. “You’ve obviously had a difficult life.” He pushes his messy hair back, looks past me. “I realized after what happened in Omaha… I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”

He’s never mentioned this to me before, none of them have, but I’ve overheard Carl and Dennis talking about it. My “psycho boyfriend,” as they refer to Rick. Irene says they have to talk about what happened that night because they’re still freaked. Maybe so, but from what I heard, they didn’t sound freaked, they sounded amused.

I glance at my hands. “I think I’d better go.”

“Are you upset?” He’s blinking, confused.

“No.” I pause and hook my fingernail in the couch cushion, rip at a loose thread. “I mean, why should I be? I suck, but it’s okay. I have a good excuse.”

Before he can say anything, the door swings open. Harry steps inside, says “Hey” to me before he tells Jonathan, “The jam starts at six thirty, man. We need to take off.”

“Give me a minute,” Jonathan says.

“There’s no reason,” I say, standing up. “I’m leaving.”

By the time he and Harry come out of his apartment, I’m halfway down the hall. They turn the other way, towards the parking lot. Before they disappear, I hear him tell Harry that he can’t wait to jam tonight. For a split second, I forget how bad I feel, wonder if he plans to play his beautiful new song. I’m sure the guys will love it.

I’m almost to the front door when I run into Irene. She’s been out jogging in Loose Park; she’s out of breath, but she manages to say I can’t go home until we have a beer.

“I’m not really in the mood,” I say, but she takes my wrist and starts pulling me back down the hall. “Come on, kiddo, I haven’t seen you for what? Thirty-one hours. It’s too weird.”

Her and Harry’s place is furnished exactly like Jonathan’s, but it looks very different. Irene is such a clean freak; she’s already unpacked everything. Her beads and silver tools are neatly arranged in baskets on the coffee table. The only evidence that a musician is staying here is Harry’s electric bass, propped against the wall by the couch. He must have taken his acoustic to the jam.

Irene says she needs to change out of her sweaty running clothes. When she returns holding two bottles of Coors, I’m staring at the wall. “What are you thinking about?” she says.

“Nothing.” It’s true. I feel like all my thoughts have been crushed out by what Jonathan said.

We sit on the beige couch and drink while she tells me about an argument she and Harry had last night over who is smarter, Bart or Lisa Simpson on the TV show. “Harry bought the standard line: Lisa is smart because she reads and plays the sax. But that Bart, I said, he’s clever. He gets out of any jam ’cause he knows people, he knows the streets. Like me.”

Irene is laughing. I laugh too, even though I’ve almost never seen that show; it’s on at the same time I’m putting Willie to bed.

She points to the twenty-inch television across the room and says she and Harry did nothing last night but watch it. “We didn’t even have sex.” She grins. “Well, not till after the news.”

I smile, but when she goes to get another beer, I go back to staring at nothing. “What’s the deal, Patty?” she says, as she sits back down. “You look like you lost your last friend.” She pauses for a moment, lowers her voice. “You haven’t heard from him lately, have you?”

I know she means Rick. I tell her no, he’s back in jail. Before she can ask any questions, I say it’s a long story; I don’t want to get into it right now.

“Okay,” she says. “So it must be Jonathan. What did he do this time?”

“I’m not sure,” I say. “Nothing, I guess.”

I stand up and walk to her window. It faces a popular seafood restaurant. As I watch the couples milling around outside, waiting to hear the hostess call their name for a table, I realize I’ve never been on a real date. I wonder what it would feel like to get dressed up and go somewhere other than work.

I turn around and look at Irene. “Do you think I’m a good singer?”

“Hell yes.” She giggles and purses her lips. “You’re better than Darla, my dear.”

“For real,” I say. “It’s important.”

“How would I know?” She grins. “I’m just the groupie. But okay, I’ll tell you what Harry says. He says you’re lucky, ’cause you can succeed without even trying.”

“But I do try.”

“I’m sure you do, hon. I think what Harry means is you don’t work like they do. You know how they’re up all night, improving their chops, rehearsing, obsessing. It’s everything to them.” She smiles. “At this very moment, they’re off working and you’re here getting drunk with me.”