Part 22 (1/2)

See, here it comes. He denies that our night together ever happened. I am stranded with my perception of reality.

”You said that you play every instrument.”

He remains calm, though I've blurted out his secret. He says, ”No. I said I can play any instrument. If I choose. Because I know the math.”

Franklin has had enough. He goes to the wall of guitars and grabs one. He thrusts it at Patrick and says, ”Play.”

Patrick just grins. Franklin thrusts the guitar again, as if it is a gun. And Patrick, for some reason, backs up. As if he, too, is convinced that it is a lethal weapon.

”Play, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Let's have this out, once and for all.”

Patrick laughs. ”Is this a duel?”

”Yeah, it sure as h.e.l.l is. Play.”

The chimes on the door jangle, and then Lance and his mother are standing in the room, looking at this curious configuration of people and events.

”Are we early?” Lance's mother asks.

”No,” I say. ”Right on time.”

She nods to Lance, who goes up the stairs. Franklin puts the guitar back on the wall. Patrick sighs and walks over to the cash register as though to hide behind it. Josie and Ernest scatter to different ends of the room.

”I feel like I interrupted something,” Lance's mother says.

”Nothing important,” I say.

LANCE IS CRYING when I come into the lesson room.

He looks up at me, his pale face blotchy, tears streaking his cheeks.

”What in the world?” I say.

He sniffs and holds the violin toward me. A string is broken.

”Oh, Lance,” I say, fighting the urge to laugh. ”You broke a string. It's no big deal.”

”I was trying to tune it,” he explains.

”Well, you shouldn't do that. I haven't taught you how yet. It's very tricky.”

”They're expensive,” he tells me.

”Yes, they are,” I admit. And I know he is scared because he realizes his parents can't afford it. I think of Hallie and her unholy exchange for the cost of music lessons. I won't let that happen to anyone else. And I am momentarily filled with rage that music costs money. It should be free, available to everyone.

”I've got some strings in my case,” I tell him. ”I'll give you one. But you should be more careful.”

He sucks in a breath and says, ”My parents don't know. They'd get really mad.”

”They'd get mad at you for breaking a string?”

He shakes his head.

”Then what?” I ask.

”The voices,” he says quietly.

”What voices?”

He suddenly sits up, looking strong and eager. It's my willingness to hear him that is giving him strength. He says, ”I hear the voices. They tell me what to play. They told me to tune the D string. I do what they tell me. That's how I learn.”

My throat feels dry and I sit back in my chair, trying to disguise my alarm. I want to hear this, but it suddenly feels as if everything that happens in my lesson room ends in a bizarre kind of disaster. Every student I touch goes a little bit crazy.

”What kind of voices?” I ask.

”They sound like people voices. I used to think it was just me talking to myself. But now they have started telling me to do things I don't want to do. I didn't want to tune the string. But I listened, and it went bad. I don't think they are on my side anymore. I used to think they were angels, but angels wouldn't make me break a string, would they?”

I am thoroughly unqualified for this, just as I was unqualified to handle Hallie's problems. I made the mistake of overstepping the bounds with her. I am not going to do it with Lance.

And yet, I do. I say, ”Sometimes I hear voices, too. Not voices so much, but a kind of instruction, telling me what notes to hit. I call it intuition. I think that always happens in music. You don't have to be afraid of it.”

”It makes me nervous,” he admits. ”I like to tell my parents about the stuff that happens to me, but I can't tell them this.”

”Tell me. I'll listen.”

He wipes his face with his sleeve. He is starting to calm down.

I'm still a little worried about the voices, so I say, ”They don't tell you to do anything else, do they?” I'm thinking of Son of Sam.

He shakes his head. ”They only start when I pick up the violin.”

”I just think that is inner guidance. It's not bad or evil. It's not even strange. Just learn to make friends with the voices.”

”But why would the voices tell me to do something wrong?” he asks, his own voice still laced with childish pain.

”Maybe they didn't. Maybe they told you the D string needed tuning. Maybe you took the next step and tried to do it yourself.”

He nods slowly, as if this makes a certain kind of sense.

Even as I'm talking, I realize I sound a little crazy. The thing is, I believe him, and I believe myself. I know. I have known for a long time that music has its own secret language. I know that if you don't hear the secret language of guidance, you probably aren't a musician.

What I'm not sure of is whether it is appropriate to say this to an eleven-year-old boy. But I can see the sadness lifting from his face, like fog lifting from the ground, and after a few moments we are sailing through the scales and everything is back to normal.

17.

I AM SITTING in my car on a dark street in Mar Vista, looking at the power lines weaving through the limbs of some unidentifiable tree, wondering why the tree limbs don't catch fire, wondering why I don't know the answer to that, marveling at how nature and technology have adapted to each other, relatively speaking, and trying to imagine what the world must have been like before Isaac Newton.