98: housekey
The memory of my busker Toby remains sweet, and is still with me when I am ten, and demanding a flute. Mother does not commit to the instrument in question, but agrees that I deserve music. The music store is bewildering, and there is no talk of music. When my father takes me to the music shop, it's a country-store porch: Men, long-haired and short-, talking about their passion and disagreeing about the strangest things. Opinions and facts are mutable and straddle some line I don't understand: One thing, one song or lyric or guitar riff is pronounced superior to some other, and then there is much affable discussion. It is the way of men.
But at this store, with my mother, it is all financing and dollar amounts and insurance and fees. She is already always defensive when money is involved, but she's clearly ill at ease in this environment, and treats the man like he's selling her a car. He acts that way. I do not like him; he smells of pipe tobacco and patchouli, two scents I once loved but have learned to distrust. My aim is clear, our purpose set; I've walked into the store as though pulled by a taut wire, leading with my chest. All she needs to do is make the deal.
But the money, the amounts, don't function. Not for flutes. Not for silver and not for gold, not for any of the gleaming garden of metals in their multicolored velvet beds, waiting to be plucked. She plays the wounded bird, as I knew she eventually would, and lets the tobacco man lead her down all sorts of ugly paths, and I quickly lose interest and return to the flutes.
There's a boy there, probably five or six years my senior. When I am five the world is divided between children and grownups, all equally interesting and delightful, but when I am ten, the groups have shifted, to frightening teenagers and merely disappointing adults. There is something about this teenager, though, that I like. He is overweight; when I am ten I am only chubby. Enough to remark upon, for the other children, but still something I can take in stride. I do not yet hate my body.
His name is Jimmy, mine is James. His clothing is strange, a mixture of genders and styles, but neither outrageous nor out of place for a teenager. He plays the flute, and noting my slavering interest in the things has given his boredom full rein. He takes one flute down from a higher shelf, and holds it to his lips, throwing off a few casual arpeggios and looking to me for my response. I am enraptured. He hands me the thing, and after seeing his fingers play so rapidly and gently across the keys I am shocked by how light it is. It is like a newborn and I am nervous, holding it: Unable to stop imagining crushing it in my hands or under my heel.
The word, I am informed, is embrasure: The proper placement of the lips across the mouthpiece that allows your breath to flow out properly, creating the tones and shadings of the music. When Jimmy says the word his mouth naturally forms the shape, lips both soft and hard at once, and I find myself copying him without meaning to. I am sure that I look ridiculous, playing my invisible flute with a real one gripped delicately in my hands, but I don't mind.
There is a kindness in this boy that outstrips his babysitter's readiness to treat me like a human being; there is a pervasive softness in his voice and manner that reminds me of my own. I know that he is one of mine, and I can tell he feels the same way: As though we've known each other for a long time. As he encourages me, and my utter failure to make a single note or sound, I fall into imagining that he is my elder brother, engaged in only one of an infinite sequence of instructional and cooperative lessons in the ways of the world. When I am ten, I have been an elder brother for three years; when I am seven, I am rapidly and unceremoniously transformed from only to extraneous.
I imagine myself becoming Jimmy, someday soon, and explaining something kindly to a younger child, becoming neither frustrated or overinvested like a man would; I will simply lean back like this, nodding when necessary, until the child figures it out on his own. For years, I will think of him, and try to emulate his easygoing tenderness and bored grin, and wonder where he came from. How he stayed soft, when all the world demands such harshness.
My mother approaches, more wary as I age, and stands uncomfortably watching while Jimmy and I discuss the proper handling of the flute. He offers her advice, about the money and about the instrument's upkeep, and she's patient with his information until it is discharged and he says goodbye. I look around for his mother, but don't see her anywhere.
In the space where Jimmy was standing during our impromptu lesson, sitting on the glass counter, is a key, dingy and brassy in color. I snatch it up without thinking and place it in my pocket while my mother completes her transaction. There is a blush in my cheeks, from having made a friend of my own accord, and my mother grins down indulgently before issuing her proclamation: No flutes will be purchased, rented or financed today. I will be playing the English horn.
I shrug, having lost a battle I never expected to win, and picture myself with the awkward, tubby thing. It looks like me, I think, and having never smelled its mouthpiece I imagine myself sophisticated one day, wearing a tuxedo onstage, blasting my horn in a great orchestra. The reality soon proves somewhat different, and I abandon the English horn exactly six weeks after it is acquired, explaining to my mother that the Band teacher is a member of the patriarchy, and thus proving the whole experience was a valuable one.
But I think often of the boy in the music shop, and the item he left behind. When I am finally twelve I lose my third quartz crystal -- strung just like the first two on Mother's embroidery thread, royal blue and bright red every time -- I am informed that I will not be gifted with another. Enlightenment, my mother learns and relearns, is not cheap. But I don't mind losing its cool comfort against my chest; I take the key from my navy-blue change bank, digging it out of its bed of wheat pennies and buffalo nickels, and hang it on a plain leather strap, and wear it only when I need it most.
But at this store, with my mother, it is all financing and dollar amounts and insurance and fees. She is already always defensive when money is involved, but she's clearly ill at ease in this environment, and treats the man like he's selling her a car. He acts that way. I do not like him; he smells of pipe tobacco and patchouli, two scents I once loved but have learned to distrust. My aim is clear, our purpose set; I've walked into the store as though pulled by a taut wire, leading with my chest. All she needs to do is make the deal.
But the money, the amounts, don't function. Not for flutes. Not for silver and not for gold, not for any of the gleaming garden of metals in their multicolored velvet beds, waiting to be plucked. She plays the wounded bird, as I knew she eventually would, and lets the tobacco man lead her down all sorts of ugly paths, and I quickly lose interest and return to the flutes.
There's a boy there, probably five or six years my senior. When I am five the world is divided between children and grownups, all equally interesting and delightful, but when I am ten, the groups have shifted, to frightening teenagers and merely disappointing adults. There is something about this teenager, though, that I like. He is overweight; when I am ten I am only chubby. Enough to remark upon, for the other children, but still something I can take in stride. I do not yet hate my body.
His name is Jimmy, mine is James. His clothing is strange, a mixture of genders and styles, but neither outrageous nor out of place for a teenager. He plays the flute, and noting my slavering interest in the things has given his boredom full rein. He takes one flute down from a higher shelf, and holds it to his lips, throwing off a few casual arpeggios and looking to me for my response. I am enraptured. He hands me the thing, and after seeing his fingers play so rapidly and gently across the keys I am shocked by how light it is. It is like a newborn and I am nervous, holding it: Unable to stop imagining crushing it in my hands or under my heel.
The word, I am informed, is embrasure: The proper placement of the lips across the mouthpiece that allows your breath to flow out properly, creating the tones and shadings of the music. When Jimmy says the word his mouth naturally forms the shape, lips both soft and hard at once, and I find myself copying him without meaning to. I am sure that I look ridiculous, playing my invisible flute with a real one gripped delicately in my hands, but I don't mind.
There is a kindness in this boy that outstrips his babysitter's readiness to treat me like a human being; there is a pervasive softness in his voice and manner that reminds me of my own. I know that he is one of mine, and I can tell he feels the same way: As though we've known each other for a long time. As he encourages me, and my utter failure to make a single note or sound, I fall into imagining that he is my elder brother, engaged in only one of an infinite sequence of instructional and cooperative lessons in the ways of the world. When I am ten, I have been an elder brother for three years; when I am seven, I am rapidly and unceremoniously transformed from only to extraneous.
I imagine myself becoming Jimmy, someday soon, and explaining something kindly to a younger child, becoming neither frustrated or overinvested like a man would; I will simply lean back like this, nodding when necessary, until the child figures it out on his own. For years, I will think of him, and try to emulate his easygoing tenderness and bored grin, and wonder where he came from. How he stayed soft, when all the world demands such harshness.
My mother approaches, more wary as I age, and stands uncomfortably watching while Jimmy and I discuss the proper handling of the flute. He offers her advice, about the money and about the instrument's upkeep, and she's patient with his information until it is discharged and he says goodbye. I look around for his mother, but don't see her anywhere.
In the space where Jimmy was standing during our impromptu lesson, sitting on the glass counter, is a key, dingy and brassy in color. I snatch it up without thinking and place it in my pocket while my mother completes her transaction. There is a blush in my cheeks, from having made a friend of my own accord, and my mother grins down indulgently before issuing her proclamation: No flutes will be purchased, rented or financed today. I will be playing the English horn.
I shrug, having lost a battle I never expected to win, and picture myself with the awkward, tubby thing. It looks like me, I think, and having never smelled its mouthpiece I imagine myself sophisticated one day, wearing a tuxedo onstage, blasting my horn in a great orchestra. The reality soon proves somewhat different, and I abandon the English horn exactly six weeks after it is acquired, explaining to my mother that the Band teacher is a member of the patriarchy, and thus proving the whole experience was a valuable one.
But I think often of the boy in the music shop, and the item he left behind. When I am finally twelve I lose my third quartz crystal -- strung just like the first two on Mother's embroidery thread, royal blue and bright red every time -- I am informed that I will not be gifted with another. Enlightenment, my mother learns and relearns, is not cheap. But I don't mind losing its cool comfort against my chest; I take the key from my navy-blue change bank, digging it out of its bed of wheat pennies and buffalo nickels, and hang it on a plain leather strap, and wear it only when I need it most.