Songs From the Creaky Chair

[brian_campo]

In a back corner of the UNLV student union, a baby grand sat unused and ever so slightly out of tune. In a display of misguided generosity, a housekeeper had set a basket of artificial ferns on it, lending an imitation of life. The fronds of that were dust-laden, too. Brian sat on the bench, which swayed under his weight, and lifted the cover to reveal the keys: white tinged yellow, black gone dull. He liked to tinker with it on Fridays when everyone left for the weekend. Nobody cared; in his jeans and ratty Mondale-Ferraro ‘84 t-shirt, he looked as much like a student as the next guy.

This instrument provided his only access to a full-sized piano. He enjoyed the chance to stretch his fingers and reach for notes at the far ends of the register. When he was alone at the piano, he thought a lot about being a kid, about learning to play. He remembered the monotony of practicing basic chords and scales, the certainty that he would never be taught anything more exciting than Little Brown Jug, and how his Supreme Ultimate Goal was the Peanuts theme song. Later, the pride of his first “grown-up song”, Beethoven’s Bagatelle in A Minor, Op. 59, and the thrill of figuring out that he didn’t have to wait for sheet music – he could make up songs. And so “Brian’s Brains in D Minor” was born.

Over the years, he had written many more, some for the Fraying Nerves, some for himself. The most recent was called, predictably, “Hands Gone Ape-Shit.” He hunched his shoulders and picked out the melody.

[Thread: Open to Julianna]

Comments

[st_clare]

With her lesson plan for next week put together, Julianna supposed there was no reason for her to still be on campus, but she simply couldn't face going back to that hotel room. The search for more permanent lodgings was progressing, but not as fast as she would have liked. She might end up having to sublet if she couldn't find something soon, because she'd go mad if she stayed where she was for much longer.

She stopped off at the student union because she wanted to read that day's paper, and with most of the students gone for the day she'd have peace and quiet rather than a lot of chatter. She'd brought a deli sandwich and a bottle of water in a paper bag, and she found a table in the corner and made herself comfortable.

The Watcher was so preoccupied that she didn't even realize she wasn't alone until she heard the plinking of badly tuned piano keys, and she glanced up from an article about the recent city council meeting to study the musician's bowed head for a moment. The tune wasn't familiar, but she hadn't listened to popular music in over twenty years. Julianna took a contemplative bite of her sandwich, absently wiped a bit of mustard off of her chin with a napkin.

"Is that an original piece?"

[brian_campo]

Brian peeked over his shoulder, a hank of hair getting caught in his eyelashes. He blinked it free and nodded. "Yeah. It's got a way to go." Just like the inspiration for it, he thought. He picked out a few more bars, his shoulderblades pronounced under the cotton fabric of his shirt as he leaned into the keys. "You have an ear for music?" He doubled back to an earlier phrase and tried adding a grace note. Later, when the melody had been fleshed out, he would pick up the pace.

[st_clare]

"I enjoy music, and I often listen for pleasure," Julianna answered, her paper rustling as she closed it to mark her place with her thumb. She had occasionally sung with her church choir when she'd been younger, but it was Father who'd been the true musical sort. He'd been as economics professor by trade, but he'd played both the violin and the piano in his free time. He'd at least managed to pass on the love of music to his daughter.

The unruly hair reminded her of Devin, and she shook the thought away before she could dwell on it. But she could tell she was making an attempt not to judge the young man by his appearance, because she actually sounded interested when she said, "Are you a professional composer or is this an assignment for music class?"

[brian_campo]

“Neither.” He pressed a pedal that gave too much resistance and looked underneath the piano. A wadded up piece of notebook paper was wedged between the pedal and the tile floor. He ducked and grabbed it, answering in a constricted voice, “I’m not sure I have what you’d call a profession.” When Brian sat back up, he spread the paper flat and read the scrawled note about a homework assignment: ‘Five page paper, Chekhov, typed, Thursday!!!’

He set the paper next to the fern. “Mind giving me your opinion about something?” He pivoted on the bench and looked at the older woman, who he guessed was a professor by her accent and attire. Sunday church clothes, his mother would say in a good mood. In a bad one, money clothes, the adjective spoiling her facial expression, as if it tasted vinegary.

[st_clare]

"Of course."

She folded the newspaper into a more manageable shape and set it aside next to her sandwich. She could read about the city council later. And she wasn't going to call this one 'dear', which was a term she usually reserved for her students. She didn't have to be condescending if she didn't want to be.

"What do you need an opinion on?"

[brian_campo]

He scratched the nape of his neck. “Ah, it’s just this bit right here.” Brian turned back to the instrument and placed his hands on the keys, which were cool from the air conditioning vent blasting overhead. As he played, he raised his voice. “When I’m going into the bridge, I can’t make up my mind if I want to stay in this octave or—“ he moved his hands and replayed the last few bars, “Go up one. I dunno.”

He swung a leg over the bench and straddled it. That way, he wasn’t breaking his neck to see her. He braced his shoes against the floor in case the thing finally gave. One of these days, Brian knew he’d wind up on his ass in a pile of kindling.

“What do you think, which one sounds more… hectic?”

[st_clare]

Julianna had been listening with her chin propped in her hand, and her voice was thoughtful when she said, "I suppose it depends on if 'hectic' is what you're after. My father was an amateur musician, and he always said it mattered more to get to the soul of the piece rather than master the technical aspects of playing."

He probably played with a local band, she'd decided. She wondered if he had no access to a piano otherwise. "Are you writing this for personal reasons?" she asked. "The creative muse usually takes us in a direction we might not expect."

[brian_campo]

“You could say that.” Brian rubbed his left eye and then braced his knuckles on the bench between his knees. A few of them cracked. “Got something I need to work out.” He debated the wisdom of mouthing off like this. Since she was a stranger, he figured it couldn’t hurt. What was she going to do, report the weirdo to the Dean’s office? He wasn’t a student.

“You ever have a secret? Something you can’t talk about, so you – you try to say it some other way?” His eyebrows lifted. He thought about the tattoos on his arms and torso, the back of his calf muscle.

“I do that a lot.”

[st_clare]

You have no idea.

Julianna's eyebrows also lifted, but her smile was merely sardonic rather than an attempt to put him down. "I should imagine that all of us hedge, at least at some level," she offered, uncapping her water bottle for a quick drink. "The unvarnished truth is either unpleasant or uncomfortable, so we compartmentalize."

And she spoke from experience, because she was doing it now with Holiday. She needed to reach out to the girl, or at least try to. "I'm certainly guilty of not telling people things, and when I do tell them things I do it in a way that's acceptable."

[brian_campo]

“What, you mean lying by omission?” Brian knew that drill. Telling the PG version when R was closer to the truth. It saved a lot of heartbreak, but he didn’t know if mercy lies were any better than pity fucks. It still put negative bullshit out in the world. It still condescended.

“See, that’s the thing,” he said. “Telling the truth with art is either one giant cop-out… a lie by omission… or the only 100% honest statement anybody ever made.”

He gazed out the window as a huddle of students made for the parking lot. Jail break. Forty-eight hours of freedom. He wondered why he had quit school just to spend all of his time hanging out there.

[st_clare]

She was looking at him in profile, and the fingers of one hand began to drum contemplatively on the table as she mulled that over. She lied by omission all the time, and she'd been doing so since the Council had introduced her to her calling. The only one she didn't, couldn't, lie to was Edmund, and that was because he was part of the secret she guarded so closely. If the young man had told her he thought of it as condescension, she'd have protested it.

"So it's the truth or nothing?" she asked him mildly, but the arch to her eyebrow suggested a thread of something less mild beneath the surface. "Even when it hurts someone or reveals something you're not comfortable with sharing yet?"

[brian_campo]

He gave a simple shrug. “I dunno. I usually try to avoid it by not doing anything I’ll have to confess.” But things changed. One thing he knew: he wasn’t much of a liar. “I know people don’t always have a choice.” He opened his left palm and looked at it, rubbing his thumb over the creases. He thought about Valerie and the calluses in her hands. The way a body admitted things a mind couldn't. “But I do think telling the truth is a sign of trust. If you can’t be honest with someone, you don’t trust them.”

[st_clare]

"Trust is difficult to come by."

And that was really the root of it, that she didn't trust easily. Sometimes she didn't even trust herself, but only since Allison died. Her personal life was the place where she felt confident, assured of herself, but she told lies and kept secrets because she wasn't assured as a Watcher.

"A guilty conscience is the worst burden there is."

[brian_campo]

He eyed her. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” But he was just hazarding a guess, because he didn’t have any serious experience with guilt. What Brian had was fear… Fear of being found out, fear of not being found out. Dread was more his speed.

Why was he thinking like that?

A strange thing had come into his life. Almost at the same time, an amazing thing had come into his life. Maybe it was all a scale. Maybe he couldn’t have one without the other.

“Brian.” His hand lifted and he smirked. “I think it’s illegal to be this serious on a Friday.”

[st_clare]

That made her chuckle, and she extended her hand in his direction for a shake. "Julianna. And I don't normally prattle on about guilt. I must have been having an odd moment."

She took a bite out of her sandwich, set it aside again. "Is it for a girl?" she asked once she'd cleared her mouth. "The song, I mean. Not that 'hectic' is necessarily what you want if you're trying to write a love song, but I imagine it depends on the kind of young lady you're trying to approach."

[brian_campo]

He laughed. “Ah, no.” Brian plucked at the front of his tshirt, billowing the charcoal colored fabric. “This one’s like a diary entry. If I was gonna write one for a girl, it would sound more like—“

He twisted his torso and set his hands on the keys. He closed his eyes and pictured Valerie. In his mind, she was standing on the roadside in Searchlight, her hair as pale as the sand that drifted on the pavement. After a few seconds, his fingers tapped out a softer melody in the key of F major.

“But check this out, danger’s afoot.”

His hands darted to play a couple of menacing notes in D minor. Dun—dun—dun—dun… “It’s probably another guy,” Brian said over his shoulder. “He’s got blonde hair. He plays football for the university. But don’t worry. He’s not as genuine as me. He’s not gonna go the distance.” His fingers played another chord in F.

[st_clare]

That time Julianna didn't just chuckle, she laughed, the sound warm with amusement, and she said, "I was never much for sport players myself, although athletics are a bit different in England than they are in America. They were far too aggressive for my taste. And if you'll forgive the presumption, they lack a certain soulful quality."

Brian was the right age to be in one of her classes, but there was always the possibility that he'd prefer to concentrate on his music. The Watcher felt moderately proud of herself for not leaping to the easiest conclusion about him. "Can you actually read music, or do you begin with the melody and go from there?"

[brian_campo]

“I can read it,” he said, finishing with a flourish up the keys. He turned to face her and let his hands fall into his lap. The air conditioner shut down and the room settled into silence. He didn’t mind the jab at athletics; the only sport he liked watching was baseball, and running was the only one he liked to do.

“I can write it, too, but I don’t usually bother, since it’s in my head.” He noticed the newspaper beside her. “What do you teach?”

[st_clare]

"Linguistics, the study of human languages," the Englishwoman said. "I also do some translating of the more ancient dialects. Latin and Greek mostly."

Brian probably wouldn't grasp the significance of the description, and that was a relief. They'd been having a pleasant conversation so far, and she didn't want to spoil it by bringing up the more covert nature of her job. Sometimes small talk wasn't so bad.

"I always wished I was more creatively inclined, but I have the wrong sort of mindset for it. With the exception of some truly dreadful poetry when I was much younger, I do not have an artistic soul."

[brian_campo]

He chuckled but tried to hide it in a cough. It hadn’t escaped him that Julianna defined the word ‘linguistics’ for him. He must look like an idiot to her. He got that sometimes. People saw his clothes or hair and assumed he was a punk kid who hadn’t read a book longer than fifty pages.

"‘Fléctere si néqueo súperos Acheronta’," he said, quoting a favorite passage from the Aeneid. "I took a few years of Latin in high school,” he said. “I must have thought it made me look deep or something.” He scratched the stubble on his cheek. “Nothing deep about getting a D plus.”




*If I cannot move Heaven, I shall bend Hell.

[st_clare]

Hmm. Had she mis-stepped again, or at least misjudged?

"Sometimes it's easier to bend hell," Julianna said. "If it's easier to get there than it is to heaven, the place must be a lot more flexible." She looked down at her ringless hands, steepled her fingers beneath her chin.

"Don't fancy yourself a scholar, then?" she inquired. "The classroom isn't for everyone by any means, but even I've heard of the 'school of life'." And there her thoughts went, drifting towards Devin again. She roped them in, then tried to pin them in place.

"If you don't have a profession, do you at least perform your music in public?"

[brian_campo]

“I get impatient in classrooms,” he said. “I daydream a lot.” He locked his fingers together and shifted on the stool. “So now I just work in retail and I’m in a band,” he said. “We do a show once a week. Not a great plan, but it’s better than blowing money on tuition when I’m determined to skip half my classes.”

He heard a door open and shut as an office across the lobby closed down for the weekend. A woman in heels hurried to the door, as if afraid she might get roped into another phone call.

“I know a couple of people who take classes in the Art department.”

[st_clare]

"It's true that the world needs beauty. Art and literature endure for a reason, which is why I'm glad I can appreciate both even though I can't contribute."

The click-clack of heels faded into silence as the door leading outside swung shut, and Julianna picked up her water bottle to drain a third of the contents. She was going to light a fire under that realtor when she got back to her suite, weekend hours be damned. It was past time she had her own lodgings again.

"I wish you good luck with your composition, Brian. It seems as if you've already worked very hard on it."

[brian_campo]

“Thanks,” he said. “Good luck with your translations?” he offered, with nothing better coming to mind. It was a lame way to bid her farewell, but maybe the academic in her wouldn’t get too bent out of shape. He smiled and swung around to face the instrument. He returned his hands to the keys, a place familiar, where he was certain of what they could do.

[st_clare]

Julianna gathered up her things and made her way out of the room after shooting a warm smile at Brian's back. Oddly, she did hope there was a girl in his life. If pursuing your goals brought happiness, you deserved to have someone to share that happiness with.

The world needed beauty to make it bearable, after all.