Tom Finder (16 page)

He went back to the Greyhound station, showered, and put on his new clothes. The shirt smelled a little of cigarette smoke covered up by pine room freshener. Tom wondered how he knew what pine room freshener smelled like, and decided his mom used it in the house. He liked his new look. His father would probably hate the bald head, but he'd have to admit it had a kind of artsy appeal. Everywhere he went he looked for a ticket, but it was a long shot even for a Finder. Still, he was a Finder. He'd found Daniel. He refused to listen to
what if, what if . . .

Finally, he took the LRT to the Jubilee station. Patrons who wanted to avoid traffic took the LRT. They arrived at the station looking out of place in black and diamonds, looking like they had been cut out of magazines and glued onto a child's crayon drawing.

He was scared. He took out his notebook and read, Everything is going to be okay. He felt better.

Tom thought maybe the patrons had money. They looked bright, clean . . . moral. Half an hour before the performance was to begin, a couple arrived that looked especially moral: moral in their clothes without creases, in their hair that didn't look like it blew or grew, moral skin, moral teeth. Maybe there was something about attending operas that made you rich. Maybe people like that would share.

He approached the couple. “Could you spare some money so I could go to the opera?”

“The opera?” the woman asked as she slowed. She lifted her purse. “Dear?”

“He doesn't want to go to the opera. Give him money and you'll just keep him on the streets a day longer. Grow up and mug you someday.” He put his hand on the woman's back and hurried her along.

Tom was invisible to the others that came. If he spoke to them, they ignored him. He found half a bag of taco chips in a trash can and ate them. When he'd licked the bag clean, and all his fingers, he got out his notebook. He'd write a story that began with a boy sneaking into the Jubilee Auditorium. He wrote the boy invisible, walking just below the line of vision, slipping into an empty seat, listening to invisible music, filling his ears with the secrets of money and family. He wrote that he was a fine actor, with a voice that could cast a spell. He wrote until he felt better.

He just wanted to get in. He knew he would find something in there, something to remind him of home.

He walked casually behind a group of patrons as if he belonged, as if he had a right to walk through the doors of the Jubilee Auditorium.

He was in.

No one even looked at him.

He was just as invisible here as he was on the street.

He climbed the stairs. It was more likely that there'd be empty seats in the second balcony. How had he known about second balconies? His parents must have brought him here before! He knew for sure that he would find here what he was looking for. All he had to do was get by the usher.

Once on the top floor, he pretended to gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. The usher took tickets as people came to the door. He hoped an older person would come along who would need help to be seated. No one came along who needed help. Maybe the usher would go away once the show began, and he'd slip in.

She was looking at him, now. He could see her reflected in the window in her navy and gold uniform. She was suspicious. He had to try something quick.

He bent his head and pretended to cry, softly at first, and then audibly. She ignored him at first, and then she called, “Are you all right?”

Tom pressed his fingers into his eyes. “My girlfriend didn't come,” he said. His voice was shaking from fear, but it could have sounded sad, too.

“Your girlfriend was supposed to meet you here?” she asked.

Tom nodded. “We've been having troubles.” He walked toward her a bit, put his hands in his pockets.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“Yeah,” Tom said. “The worst of it is, I paid for the tickets, but she's got them. I've come all this way for nothing.”

“Oh, that's too bad. We could check our records—”

“I wouldn't be surprised if she cancelled them without telling me,” he said hastily. Tom lowered his head.

“You know what?” she said. “Why don't you just go in. There's some empty seats, and the show's about to start. Who's going to know?” She opened the door.

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Tom said. He didn't have to act that part. He was genuinely grateful.

He slipped through the doors.

Tom was hardly able to believe that it had worked, that he was in. He walked to the railing and leaned over. The musicians were testing their instruments, warming them up. Each had a light over his or her music. The musician was alone in that light, in a little world of his own, round and golden. The flute trilled, and Tom felt it play his spine, give him goosebumps from his thighs to his scalp. He would find out now about home. He'd found Daniel. That counted, didn't it? He wouldn't think about Samuel waiting by the river.

“One minute to curtain, ladies and gentlemen,” said a well-modulated voice.
Modulated.
What kind of awesome parents did you have to have to know a word like that?

Tom turned around. There was one empty seat near the front, someone sick that night, someone who couldn't come and who couldn't find anyone to whom he could give his ticket. Tom sat in the seat as if it were his.

To his right was a large man whose bulk spilled over into Tom's space, and to his left was a woman with a fur coat that spilled over into his space. Tom didn't mind. It was like being in a cockpit, waiting to be launched into space. Any minute now, he would be in zero gravity. Tom took out his notebook and pen. He was going to write down what happened in the opera so he could remember it later.

The music began. Prelude. Tom turned his good ear to the orchestra.

The music was even louder in his bad ear.

It blew over him like a wind. He couldn't breathe in it for a moment. His broken eardrum offered no resistance. He heard in stereo, the hearing and the deaf.

Where the music went, a great bolus of gravity went, pumped into him, forced, taking up space in his veins so that he could feel it moving through him like a huge clot, coming closer to his heart. He would remember everything soon. As soon as the music in his blood reached his brain, he'd remember. Already he knew he'd heard the whole opera before. At school. At school, where he was terrible at English, Mrs. Leonard Mrs. Leonard Mrs. Leonard had given him an extra project on Mozart.

Tom was beginning to remember.

He remembered now that he knew the story of the opera. He took out his book and wrote it down. The man and the woman on either side of him seemed to lean in toward him. He heard the woman whisper, “Critic.”

Tom pressed his pen into the paper so hard that it ripped it. He wrote: The prince is lost, he is attacked by a dragon, witches come . . . He couldn't stop himself from writing; he couldn't stop himself from remembering. The Queen of the Night begs him to find her daughter . . . Tom wrote: The prince agrees to rescue the Queen's daughter . . . He is given a golden flute that helps him through ordeals . . . The maiden loves the prince and weeps and sighs for him . . . The prince must prove himself worthy, passing tests of fire and water, tests of courage and love . . . At last the sorcerer gives the maiden to the prince to be his love . . .

Opening act.

The singers began to sing.

Tom put his notebook away slowly, squeezed his backpack between his thighs, and placed his hands on his knees.

The singers had such small mouths, no bigger than his own, and yet huge sounds came from them. Their voices were wise, knew how to go right into Tom's ear, and into his brain and blood. Their voices were beautiful, so beautiful it hurt, so sweet that it pressed tears from his eyes. All his memories were there, in the music part of his brain. The notes, the perfect pointed notes, were moving his memories, jostling them, so out they came, each in a tear, all his life trying to squeeze out of a pore-sized tear duct, one drip at a time.

Tom was very still.

All during the opera he was very still except for the memories dripping from his eyes. As he listened he invented his own libretto.

Mrs. Leonard plays
The Magic Flute
one day during free reading. “They say Mozart makes you smarter,” she says. Everyone groans, but then they listen. Tom listens hardest of all. He can feel the music reaching inside his brain, where he knows he's smart, even though Bruce says he's retarded . . . Bruce .

“Can I do my homework
in class after school, Mrs. Leonard? While I listen to
The Magic Flute
?”

Mrs. Leonard isn't pretty, but she is nice. She has eyes that really look at you.

“Certainly, Tom, but don't take what I said too literally . . .”

“I need to be good in English. I'm going to write a book someday.”

She smiles. Nice smile. She is nice. “I'll do all I can to help you, Tom. Maybe we can work on some remedial spelling . . .”

For three weeks Tom goes to English class to do his homework. His mark goes from 53 to 67. For that Mrs. Leonard gives him a
Magic Flute
pen she received as a promotional item for being a season-ticket holder to the opera. One day she gives him the tape.

“You've worn me out on this,” she says, laughing. “I don't think I want to hear it again for a long time. Here, take it home. If you'll do a report on Mozart, I'll give you extra marks.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Leonard.”

“And Tom, I've got this ticket to the opera in September. I can't use it. I'll give it to you for ten dollars if you want it.”

“I do, Mrs. Leonard. I'll bring the money tomorrow.”

Tom takes the tape home.

He knows where Bruce keeps his change. Maybe he could take a few toonies without Bruce noticing. He stashes them in his pocket. He'd never done it before, but Bruce was always accusing him of stealing anyway. He goes into the living room to play the tape . . .

Mom's boyfriend, Bruce. He's home, slamming doors, swearing, and drunk. Where's Mom?

“Turn that screeching thing off!” Bruce rages.

Drooling drunk. Danger.

“What the hell is that noise anyway?”

“Opera,” Tom says, getting up to turn it off. “I have to listen to it for school.”

That isn't a no, but Bruce takes it as a no. He lands a kick into Tom's back, and Tom goes sprawling into the sound of Papageno singing.

“I'm the one who decides what goes on in this house,” Bruce rages. Tom crawls to the tape recorder to remove the tape, but Bruce's booted foot comes down on his buttocks, flattening him. “Right? Am I right?”

Tom screams in his own rage, turns, and tries to pull Bruce down. But the boot ends up in his face, and Tom feels his brain fogging up to the sound of flute music.

“You tell the police, and I'll kill you. Hell, and your mother, too. Got that?”

Tom hears the money slip out of his pocket.

“Is that my money? Is that my . . .” Bruce goes crazy. He hits and hits and hits, and then gravity is making Tom choke, pressing him to sleep to the sound of the music of the flute.

Tom waking up, nothing familiar, including the tape that is all pulled out and lying in a tangled ribbon on the floor and Tom hurting all the way up to the pit of his stomach . . .

The curtain was closing.

Applause. Applause!

“Bravo!” Tom cried, clapping so hard that he thought he might fly. He was sobbing. “Bravo!”

He stood, still cheering and crying.

The man and the woman on either side of him stood, too. At first they only clapped, but then they, too, were calling, “Bravo!” One after another, all the patrons stood and clapped. The whole auditorium was cheering. The curtains opened again for the singers to bow. The man beside Tom smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. The woman looked down at him with loving, weeping eyes.

Then Tom turned and ran from the auditorium. He leaped down the stairs, three, four at a time.

He ran out onto the street.

He cried, still running. He hurt all the way up to the pit of his stomach . . .

Then he laughed, still crying and running.

Ha! What a zoid he'd been. Thinking his parents were like the McCulloughs on TV and he was like Trevor, smart and nice. He remembered now where he'd got that Y
OU'RE
N
ICE
candy. Carmen Jones had given to him. She'd given one to everyone in their science class with a smile that said,
This is more about who I am than who you are.
She'd given them out on Valentine's Day and he'd saved it for months. She didn't even know his name. What a zoid.

He stopped running, opened his backpack, got out the pen. He threw it hard. It skittered down the street and stopped against the curb.