Page 69 - WTP Vol. XI #2

But I kept silent, thank God.
The dish my wife prepared was simmering in a big pot. For sociability’s sake, she’d chosen one that needed no tending. But as soon as the guy slipped his arms through the accordion’s straps, she sneaked away to the kitchen. For my part, I grabbed a poker like a whodunit murder weapon and shifted some logs around in the fire—which likewise needed no tending. I loudly oohed about the embers’ colors,
as I’m sure he supposed we’d all be doing after we heard his performance, which lay in the offing.
The awful offing.
I resented, say, that he’d interrupt a conversation I was enjoying with a dear old friend about old white- water paddle trips we’d shared. Before touching his keyboard, our accordionist looked at us and said, “I’m planning a river trip myself.”
Back turned, I rolled my eyes and quelled a laugh. That guy on quick water? He was city, through and through.
Neither kitchen nor hearth would provide true es- cape, so I tried my best to conjure some distracting daydream. The offing, the offing. I whispered the words twice over.
Maritime words.
As he started “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” I closed my own eyes. Perhaps he’d think I’d been carried away—which I had, but not, as he may have imag- ined, by his performance.
Rather, I’d summoned the soughing of surf, the scent of salt air, damp sand that squealed as I walked, and sails far out—in the offing.
I saw stranded horseshoe crabs, wrack washed up from the bay, gulls as ever squabbling over this or that bit of decay. I almost smelled death’s pungent, primal odor.
Then quick as that, the music died.
Back then I rejoiced. Today I shudder. Yes, is absurd to assume responsibility for driving that musician onto white water in June of that very same year. He went of his own accord and lost his life. Had he really played “Drown in My Own Tears” that night? No, this must be my guilt talking again.
My love brought out the pot and lifted its lid to ap- plause, which I’d bet the accordionist thought was meant for him. He should have known better. How could he imagine he’d master rapids in an open canoe? He couldn’t have told you the difference between a J-stroke and a breast-stroke. I probably should have said something.
But I guess I figured what a fool doesn’t know can’t hurt him.
Mentor
The only thing people really knew about him—apart from the fact even during that scalding hot summer, he always wore something with long sleeves—was that he’d leased the Wymans’ old trailer. Mrs. Wyman figured he had nightmares. She’d often hear him screaming after dark; but he didn’t cause any trouble otherwise, she said, and he always paid his rent right on time.
Our gang liked the library, which is where we met him. He was surprisingly pleased that we did like to visit there, even though in all honesty for us it was mostly
a hangout on weekends, when we weren’t at summer jobs. The librarian was a sweetheart; she didn’t seem to mind our chatter if we weren’t disturbing other visitors.
The stranger claimed to be doing research for a novel. Once or twice he gave us a rapid-fire summary of how the book would go. When he said that it had partly to do with heroin, we thought he must mean heroine. When he cursed the drug, we figured his female protagonist was an evil one indeed. In short, we were confused, but were too sheepish to ask for clarification. In time, we came to understand that he meant it concerned an addict, a term we barely knew. His book would chronicle his character’s constant, senseless, reckless behavior.
The man often fell asleep at a little table in a dark corner of the reading room, but awake, he was eager to talk. I recall his stained seersucker jacket, his command of big words, his yellowed moustache, but more than anything else his expression, always so tired. No wonder he slept, though what caused the fatigue was a mystery.
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