Man Down! Man Down!
February 19, 2008
Man down! Man down! Dad down! The old guy fell down and fractured the hell out of his left arm on Saturday morning. Spent seven hours at the Royal Alex emergency…waiting and waiting, and waiting…while a doctor or two weighed the facts….The severity of the fracture, the location, his age(he’s 86)…and decided they were only going to sling the arm up and re-x-ray in two weeks…see if it’s healing.
Started reading Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn to my daughter and wife last night. It’s been years since I read this beauty. It still stands as the best book to ever come out of America. Nothing comes close. It’s simply, utterly brilliant. Experts can make lists until the cows come home…but this one is untouchable. This is not to say there aren’t some great American writers today. There are no Mark Twains, that I know of.
I'm not supposed to be working the new book -- it's hopefully going up for sale in the next little while. But there are days when I have to write. Have to. Today was such a day. So, apologies to Hilary in Toronto -- I'll keep these changes to the side of the saved manuscript...incorporate them later.
A small section from the Montreal revision
Where do I begin, he thinks. Where do I start to make sense of this? Intellectually, he can understand the journey of a thousand miles and the single step of beginning, but where is that step? What does it look like? Is it this renovation? Should he sell the house? Buy a condo?
“I won’t say it’s as simple as telling your story, but that would be a start,” she says. “Communicating your grief in some way.”
“I’ve told enough stories for two lifetimes.”
“What about writing? Or painting? Or drawing little sketches. Anything to move the grief inside-out.”
A week later, he is walking past a small jazz club on the Main. It’s mid-morning. Julian can hear the sound of someone tuning a piano coming from inside the club. He walks past the front door and is halfway down the block before he stops – acknowledges the pull of the piano.
Inside the doorway of the Petit Opportun it takes a while for his eyes to adjust.
The man at the piano has a full grey beard and a no-nonsense face. His focus is on tuning the piano. He looks up at Julian quickly, then back to his job. Julian stands in the entranceway, awkward but also drawn to the pure sound of the notes. The single notes ringing out in the club. Five minutes later, the grey bearded man is packing up his gear. He looks toward the entranceway.
“Still there?”
“I…”
“Come and play then. It’s want you need. I will take coffee with a little Courvoisier. It is my custom. And I will listen.”
Julian doesn’t move. Fear makes him hesitate. It’s been so long since he played. It seems his feet are nailed to the wooden floor.
“It’s what you need,” the man says. “I’ll make us coffee in the back.” He does not move like an old person. There is a lithe vitality in his walk.
Julian sits at the piano. It’s a Steinway, a good choice for a jazz piano. Kieth Jarrett plays a Steinway. Julian plays a single note; a middle D and lets it ring out in the dark room. Then he begins to unravel all he was taught as a child. He purposely forgets how chords work. He unremembers. Plays notes and combinations of notes that make no sense and yet, there is an ephemeral order. Julian draws on feelings and colours. If he stumbles upon a musical cliché, he will repeat it, warp it, ruin it to the point where it becomes original and new. He remembers scents. Rain. Patchouli. Sandalwood. Cedar. Leather. He plays weather. He plays the stars and Moroccan beaches. The colour of ocean. The way dried grasses touch the wind. He plays a woman’s long legs and toes. He remembers lips that say his name. A half-hour later, he is improvising inside a 16-bar blues riff he didn’t know he knew. The grey bearded man is sitting at a table in the middle of the club sipping his cognac and reading the newspaper. Julian notices there is a cup of coffee sitting on the bench beside him. He stops playing, turns around on the bench and looks out into the club. “Thank you,” he whispers.
The man pulls the newspaper down, away from his face. “It’s nothing to make two coffees when I am already making one,” he says.
“No, not the coffee…”
“…I know what you meant.”
Julian reaches for the coffee and sips. It’s lukewarm. How long have I been playing? he thinks.
“I’m here every morning. Come when you like and play. Or not. Just come for coffee and Courvoisier if your prefer.”
“I don’t know what I…”
“…Yes, you do. What I have heard this morning was beautiful, from the heart. What more can we do?”
Julian finishes his coffee and begins to put his hand into his pocket; he wants to pay for the coffee, at least.
“I own this club,” the man says, his voice flattened out and matter-of-fact. “I can buy coffee for whomever I please. Besides, you gave me your music, this music of the damaged heart, this morning.”
4 Comments
2. Mike had this to say: Feb 20, 2008 ~ 14:55 ~ #
And jesus, I hope the ol’ man is OK. Hope he heals quick.
3. Thomas had this to say: Feb 21, 2008 ~ 12:12 ~ #
Thanks. Today’s title is: “where light in darkness lies” because it flows and is entirely appropriate.
Dad’s doing fine.
He’s irascible and grumpy but on the mend.
4. Tania had this to say: Mar 14, 2008 ~ 13:14 ~ #
Thomas thanks so much for coming. Really neat to read the piece on our club.
One of my favorite groups of words: Beauty is our salvation….Dostoevsky!
It strikes me that Beauty is a huge part of literature. Your book is that, it is “Beauty”.
It shares despair, the stark and the clear mountain air with equal and penetrating Beauty