Music - Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Ch. 1 (Elevator, Silence, Overweight)

“The elevator was made, apparently, of a miracle alloy that absorbed all noise. I tried whistling Danny Boy, but it came out like a dog wheezing with asthma.

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Ch. 5 (Tabulations, Evolution, Sex Drive)

"Sound-free?" I blurted out.

"Yessir. Completely sound-free. That's because sound is of no use to human evolution. In fact, it gets in the Way. So we're going't'wipe sound out, morning to night."

"Hmph. You're saying there'll be no birds singing or brooks babbling. No music?"

"'Course not."

"It's going to be a pretty bleak world, if you ask me."

"Don't blame me. That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution," said the old man.

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Ch. 7 (Skull, Lauren Bacall, Library)

“I took some ice out of the freezer, poured myself a large quantity of whiskey, and added a splash of soda. Then I got undressed and, crawling under the covers, sat up in bed and sipped my drink. I felt like I was going to fade out any second, but I had to allow myself this luxury. A ritual interlude I like so much between the time I get into bed and the time I fall asleep. Having a drink in bed while listening to music and reading a book. As precious to me as a beautiful sunset or good clean air.”

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Last, it was the record shop, where I picked out a few disks. By now, the whole back seat of my tiny coupe was taken up with shopping bags. I must be a born shopper. Every time I go to town, I come back, like a squirrel in November, with mounds of little things.

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Ch. 8 (The Colonel)

“Strolling the Hill, one can imagine its former splendor: children playing gaily in the streets, piano music in the air, warm supper scents. Memories feign through scarcely perceived doors of my being.”

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Ch. 9 (Appetite, Disappointment, Leningrad)

"I have an urge for a vodka tonic. Could I?" "Why not?" "Can I fix you one?" "You bet." She got out of bed and walked naked to the kitchen to mix two vodka tonics. While she did that, I put on my favorite Johnny Mathis album. The one with Teach Me Tonight. Then I hummed my way back to bed. Me and my limp penis and Johnny Mathis.

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Ch. 13 (Frankfurt, Door, Independent Operants)

“I replayed my usual fantasy of the joys of retirement from Calcutecdom. I'd have plenty of savings, more than enough for an easy life of cello and Greek. Stow the cello in the back of the car and head up to the mountains to practice. Maybe I'd have a mountain retreat, a pretty little cabin where I could read my books, listen to music, watch old movies on video, do some cooking… And it wouldn't be half bad if my longhaired librarian were there with me. I'd cook and she'd eat.

As the menus were unfolding, sleep descended. All at once, as if the sky had fallen. Cello and cabin and cooking now dust to the wind, abandoning me, alone again, asleep like a tuna.”

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Ch. 21 (Bracelets, Ben Johnson, Devil)

To the right of us was a white Skyline. In it sat a young man and woman, on their way to or back from a night on the town, looking vaguely bored. Duran Duran blared from the car stereo. The woman, two silver bracelets on the hand she dangled out the window, cast a glance in my direction. I could have been a Denny's restaurant sign or a traffic signal, it would have been no different. She was your regular sort of beautiful young woman, I guess. In a TV drama, she'd be the female lead's best friend, the face that appears once in a cafe scene to say, "What's the matter? You haven't been yourself lately."

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"Oh come on, you've got to believe," said my pink cheerleader. "Think of nice things, people you loved, your childhood, your dreams, music, stuff like that. Don't worry, be happy."

"Is Ben Johnson happy enough?" I asked.

"Ben Johnson?"

"He played in those great old John Ford movies, riding the most beautiful horses."

"You really are one of a kind," she laughed. "I really like you."

"Thanks," I said, "but I can't play any musical instruments."

.........................

Then, a while later, it was "Why don't we sing something?" "Sing what?" I wanted to know. "Anything, anything at all." "I don't sing in dark places." "Aw, c'mon." Okay, then, what the hell. So I sang the Russian folksong I learned in elementary school: Snow is falling all night long— Hey-ey! Pechka, ho! Fire is burning very strong— Hey-ey! Pechka, ho! Old dreams bursting into song— Hey-ey! Pechka, ho! I didn't know any more of the lyrics, so I made some up: Everyone's gathered around the fire—the pechka—when a knock comes at the door and Father goes to inquire, and there's a reindeer standing on wounded feet, saying, "I'm hungry, give me something to eat"; so they feed it canned peaches. In the end everyone's sitting around the stove, singing along. "Wonderful. You sing just fine," she said. "Sorry I can't applaud, but I've got my hands full."

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“And so off we went, tied together. I tried hard not to hear her footsteps. I maintained flashlight contact with the back of her GI jacket. I bought that jacket in 1971, I was pretty sure. The Vietnam War was still going on, Nixon and his ugly mug were still in the White House. Everybody and his brother had long hair, wore dirty sandals and army-surplus jackets with peace signs on the back, tripped out to psychedelic music, thought they were Peter Fonda, screaming down the road on a Chopped Hog to a full-blast charge of Born to Be Wild, blurring into I Heard It through the Grapevine. Similar intros—different movie?”

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Ch. 22 (Gray Smoke)

"When she was alone in her room, I would hear her talking, although I do not know if it pleased her."

"What sort of things did she say?"

"I do not remember. It was not talking as one usually does. I do not know how to explain, but it seemed to have importance to Mother."

"Importance?"

"Yes, the talking had a… an accent to it. Mother would draw words out or she would make them short. Her voice would sound high and low, like the wind."

"That is singing," I suddenly realize.

"Can you talk like that?"

"Singing is not talking. It is song."

"Can you do it too?" she says.

I take a deep breath but find no music in my memory.

"I'm sorry. I cannot remember a single song," I say.

"Is it impossible to bring the songs back?"

"A musical instrument might help. If I could play a few notes, perhaps a song would cqme to me."

"What does a musical instrument look like?"

"There are hundreds of musical instruments, all different shapes and sizes. Some are so large, four persons are needed to lift them; others will fit in the palm of the hand. The sounds are different as well."

Having said this, I begin to feel a string of memory slowly unravelling inside me.

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"Do you know what this is?"

"No," she says, standing over me. "Is it a musical instrument?"

"No, this does not make music. It makes words. I think they called it a typewriter."

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Ch. 24 (Shadow Grounds)

"Forget about the owners Even if the owners are around, they have forgotten about those things. But say, I heard you were looking for a musical instrument?"

He knows everything.

"Officially, the Town has no musical instruments," he says. "But that does not rule out the possibility. You do serious work, so what could be wrong if you had yourself an instrument. Go to the Power Station and ask the Caretaker. He might find you something."

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Ch. 25 (Meal, Elephant Factory, Trap)

"Next thing I did was t'read your black box into the computer pre-programmed with those patterns, and out came an amazin' graphic renderin' of what went on in your core consciousness. Naturally, the images were jumbled and fragmentary and didn't mean much in themselves. They needed editin'. Cuttin' and pastin', tossin' out some parts, resequencin', exactly like film editin'. Rearrangin' everything into a story."

"A story?"

"That shouldn't be so strange," said the Professor. "The best musicians transpose consciousness into sound; painters do the same for color and shape. Mental phenomena are the stuff writers make into novels. It's the same basic logic. Of course, as encephalodigital conversion, it doesn't represent an accurate mappin', but viewin' an accurate, random succession of images didn't much help us either. Anyway, this 'visual edition' proved quite convenient for graspin' the whole picture. True, the System didn't have it on its agenda. This visualization was all me, dabblin'."

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Ch. 26 (Power Station)

"I do not understand the Gatekeeper. Perhaps the Power Station is not far, still the Woods are dangerous."

"I don't care. I will go. I must find a musical instrument."

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Ch. 28 (Musical Instruments)

"We have come looking for musical instruments," I say. "I was told you would know where to find them."

He regards the knife and fork crossed on his plate.

"Yes, I have musical instruments here. They are old, I cannot say whether they will play… That is, you are welcome to them. I myself cannot play. My pleasure is to look at their shapes. Will you see them?"

"Please," I say.

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Arranged along the wall are various musical instruments. All are old. Most of them are string instruments, the strings hopelessly rusted, broken or missing. Some I am sure I once knew, but do not remember the names; others are totally unknown to me. A wooden instrument resembling a washboard that sprouts a row of metallic prongs. I try to play it, but can make no song. Another, a set of small drums, even has its own sticks, yet this clearly will not yield a melody. There is a large tubular instrument, one obviously meant to be blown from the end, but how do I give breath to it?

The Caretaker sits on the edge of his cot, its coverlet neatly tucked, and watches me examine the instruments. "Are any of these of use to you?" he speaks up. "I don't know," I hesitate. "They're all so old." He walks over to shut the door, then returns. There is no window, so with the door closed, the wind-cry is less intrusive.

"Do you want to know why I collected these things?" the Caretaker asks. "No one in the Town takes any interest in them. No one in the Town has the least interest. Everyone has the things they need for living. Pots and pans, shirts and coats, yes… It is enough that their needs are met. No one wants for anything more. Not me, however. I am very interested in these things. I do not know why. I feel drawn to them. Their forms, their beauty.

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"Where did you find these instruments?" I ask. "From all over," he says. "The man who delivers my provisions brings them to me. In the Town, old musical instruments sometimes lie buried in closets and sheds. Often they were burned for firewood. It is a pity… That is, musical instruments are wonderful things. I do not know how to use them, I may not want to use them, I enjoy their beauty. It is enough for me. Is that strange?"

"Musical instruments are very beautiful," I answer. "There is nothing strange about that."

My eyes light upon a box hinged with leather folds lying among the instruments. The bellows is stiff and cracked in a few places, but it holds air. The box has buttons for the fingers.

"May I try it?" I ask.

"Please, go ahead," the young Caretaker says. I slip my hands into the straps on either end and compress. It is difficult to pump, but I can learn. I finger the buttons in ascending order, forcing the bellows in and out. Some buttons yield only faint tones, but there is a progression. I work the buttons again, this time descending.

"What sounds!" smiles the fascinated Caretaker. "As if they change colors!"

"It seems each button makes a note," I explain. "Each one is different. Some sounds belong together and some do not."

"What do you mean?"

I press several buttons at once. The intervals are awry, but the combined effect is not unpleasing. Yet I can recall no songs, only chords.

"Those sounds belong together?"

"Yes."

"I do not understand," he says. "It seems I am hearing something for the first time. It is different from the sound of the wind and different from the voices of the birds."

He rests his hands on his lap, as he looks back and forth between my face and the bellows box.

"I will give you the instrument. Please have any others you want. They belong with someone who can use them," he says.

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"Is that a musical instrument?" she asks.

"One kind of musical instrument," I say.

"May I touch it?"

"Of course," I say, handing her the bellows box. She receives it with both hands, as if cradling a baby animal. I look on in anticipation.

"What a funny thing!" she exclaims with an uneasy smile. "Do you feel better that you have it?"

"It was worth coming here."

"The Caretaker, they did not rid him of his shadow well. He still has a part of a shadow left," she whispers to me. "That is why he is here, in the Woods. I feel sorry for him."

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Ch. 29 (Lake, Masatomi Kondo, Parity Hose)

One thing led to another, and soon my thoughts were wandering down memory lane. Back to the days of Jimi Hendrix and Cream and the Beatles and Otis Redding. I started whistling the beginning riff to Peter and Gordon's Go to Pieces. Nice song, a hell of lot better than Duran Duran. Which probably meant I was getting old. I mean, the song was popular twenty years ago. And who twenty years ago could have predicted the advent of panty hose? "Why are you whistling?" she shouted. "I don't know. I felt like it," I answered. "What's the song?" "Something you probably never heard of." "You're right." "It was a hit before you were born." "What's the song about?" "It's about coming apart at the seams," I said simply. "Why'd you want to whistle a song like that?" I couldn't come up with any cogent reason. It'd just popped into my head. "Beats me," I said. Before I could think up another tune, we arrived at the sewer.

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Ch. 30 (Hole)

The following morning the events in the Woods seem like a dream. Yet there on the table lies the old bellows box, curled up like a hurt animal. Everything was real: the fan turning in the underground wind, the sad face of the young Caretaker, his collection of musical instruments.

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The room is now warm. I sit at the table with the musi-cal instrument in hand, slowly working the bellows. The leather folds are stiff, but not unmanageable; the keys are discolored. When was the last time anyone touched it? By what route had the heirloom traveled, through how many hands? It is a mystery to me.

I inspect the bellows box with care. It is a jewel. There is such precision in it. So very small, it compresses to fit into a pocket, yet seems to sacrifice no mechanical details.

The shellac on the wooden boards at either end has not flaked. They bear a filligreed decoration, the intricate green arabesques well preserved. I wipe the dust with my fingers and read the letters A-C-C-O-R-D-… This is an accordion!

I work it, in and out, over and over again, learning the feel of it. The buttons vie for space on the miniature instrument. More suited to a child's or woman's hand, the accordion is exceedingly difficult for a grown man to finger. And then one is supposed to work the bellows in rhythm!

I try pressing the buttons in order with my right hand, while holding down the chord keys with my left. I go once through all the notes, then pause.

The sound of the digging continues. The wind rattles at the windowpane now and again. Do the old men even hear my accordion?

I persist with this effort for one or two hours, until I am able to render a few simple chords without error. No melody comes. Still, I press on, hoping to strike some semblance of song, but the progressions of notes lead nowhere. An accidental configuration of tones may seem almost melodic, but in the next moment all vanishes into the air.

Perhaps it is the sound of the shovelling outdoors that keeps the notes from forming into a melody. I cannot concentrate for the noise. A rasping, uneven rhythm, the shovels plunging into the soil, how clear it reaches inside here! The sound grows so sharp, the men are digging in my head. They are hollowing out my skull. The wind picks up before noon, intermingled with flur-ries of snow. White pellets strike the windowpane with a dry patter, tumbling in disarray along the sash, soon to blow away. It is a matter of time before the snowflakes swell with moisture. Soon the earth will be covered in white again.

I give up my struggle for song, leave the accordion on the table, and go over to the window.

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I return to my chair and gaze absently at the glowing coals. I have an instrument. Will I never be able to recall a tune? Is the accordion on the table to remain beautiful but useless? I shut my eyes and listen to the shovelling as the snow softly hits the windowpane.

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Ch. 31 ( Fares, Police, Detergent)

Above ground, fine needles of rain were coming down. On my last, precious day. It could rain for a whole month like in a J. G. Ballard novel, but let it wait until I was out of the picture. Today was my day to lie in the sun, listen to music, drink a cold beer.

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"Hey, where you guys been?" asked the driver.

"We had a knock-down drag-out fight in the rain," answered the girl.

"Wow, baad," said the driver. "Oughta see yourselves. You look wild. Got a great bruise there upside your neck."

"I know," I said.

"Like I dig it," said the driver.

"How come?" asked the girl.

"Me, I only pick up rockers. Clean, dirty, makes no difference. Music's my poison. You guys into the Police?"

"Sure." I told him what he wanted to hear.

"In a company, they don't letcha play this shit. They say, play kayokyoku. No way, man. I mean, really. Matchi? Seiko? I can't hack sugar pop. But the Police, they're baad. Twenty-four hours, nonstop. And reggae's happenin', too. How're you guys for reggae?"

"I can get into it," I said.

After the Police tape, the driver popped in Bob Mar ley Live. The dashboard was crammed with tapes.

I was tired and cold and sleepy. I was coming apart at the seams and in no good condition. I couldn't handle the vibes, but at least we got a ride. I sat back and watched the driver's shoulders bounce to the reggae beat.

The taxi pulled up in front of my apartment. I got out and handed the driver an extra thousand yen as a tip. "Buy yourself a tape," I told him.

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Ch. 33 (Rainy-Day Laundry, Car Rental, Bob Dylan)

It was still raining, but I was tired of looking at clothes, so I passed on the coat and instead went to a beer hall. It was almost empty. They were playing a Bruckner symphony. I couldn't tell which number, but who can? I ordered a draft and some oysters on the half shell.

I squeezed lemon over the oysters and ate them in clockwise order, the Bruckner romantic in the background. The giant wall-clock read five before three, the dial supporting two lions which spun around the mainspring. Bruckner came to an end, and the music shifted into Ravel's Bolero.

I ordered a second draft, when I was hit by the long overdue urge to relieve myself. And piss I did. How could one bladder hold so much? I was in no particular hurry, so I kept going for a whole two minutes—with Bolero building to its enormous crescendo. It made me feel as if I could piss forever.

Afterwards I could have sworn I'd been reborn. I washed my hands, looked at my face in the warped mirror, then returned to my beer at the table and lit up a cigarette.

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I went to a record shop and bought a few cassettes. Johnny Matbis's Greatest Hits, Zubin Mehta conducting Schonberg's Verkldrte Nacht, Kenny Burrell's Stormy Sunday, Popular Ellington, Trevor Pinnock on the harpsichord playing the Brandenburg Concertos, and a Bob Dylan tape with Like A Rolling Stone. Mix'n'match. I wanted to cover the bases—how was I to know what kind of music would go with a Carina 1800 GT Twin-Cam Turbo?

I bagged the tapes and headed for the car rental lot. The driver's seat of the Carina 1800 GT seemed like the cabin of a space shuttle compared to my regular tin toy. I popped the Bob Dylan tape in the deck, and Watching the River Flow came on while I tested each switch on the dashboard control panel.

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"Very good," she said. Her smile reminded me of a girl I'd known in high school. Neat and clear-headed, she married a Kakumaru radical, had two children, then disappeared. Who would have guessed a sweet seventeen-year-old, J. D. Salinger- and George Harrison-fan of a girl would go through such changes.

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"Say, isn't that Bob Dylan you have on?"

"Right," I said. Positively 4th Street.

"I can tell Bob Dylan in an instant," she said.

"Because his harmonica's worse than Stevie Wonder?"

She laughed again. Nice to know I could still make someone laugh.

"No, I really like his voice," she said. "It's like a kid standing at the window watching the rain."

After all the volumes that have been written about Dylan, I had yet to come across such a perfect description.

She blushed when I told her that.

"Oh, I don't know. That's just what he sounds like to me."

"I never expected someone as young as you to know Bob Dylan."

"Hike old music. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix—you know."

"We should get together sometime," I told her.

She smiled, cocking her head slightly. Girls who are on top of things must have three hundred ways of responding to tired thirty-five-year-old divorced men. I thanked her and started the car. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again. I felt better for having met her.

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Ch. 35 (Nail Clippers, Butter Sauce, Iron Vase)

“Put on more music,” she smiled suggestively.

I chose another ceAiple of cassettes and returned to the sofa.

"Is here okay? Or shall we go upstairs?"

"Here's perfect," I said.

Pat Boone sang softly, I'll Be Home. Time seemed to flow in the wrong direction, which was fine by me. Time could go whichever way it pleased.

She drew the lace curtain on the window to the yard and turned out the lights. We stripped by moonlight. She removed her necklace, removed her bracelet-watch, took off her velvet dress. I undid my watch and threw it over the back of the sofa. Then I doffed my blazer, loosened my necktie, and bottomed-up the last of my whiskey.

She rolled down her panty hose as a bluesy Ray Charles came on with Georgia on My Mind. I closed my eyes, put both feet up on the table and swizzled the minutes around in my head like the ice in a drink. Everything, everything, seemed once-upon-a-time. The clothes on the floor, the music, the conversation. Round and round it goes, and where it stops everyone knows. Like a dead heat on the merry-go-round. No one pulls ahead, no one gets left behind. You always get to the same spot. My erections had been perfect as the pyramids at Giza. Her hair smelled fresh and wonderful. The sofa cushions were nice and firm. Not bad, from back in the days when sofas were sofas.

I sang along with Bing:

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.

The summer's gone, and all the roses falling—

t's you, it's you must go, and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,

And when the valley's hushed and white with snow.

It’s I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow,

Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I'll miss you so!

"A favorite of yours?" she asked.

"Yeah, I like it well enough," I said. "I won a dozen pencils in a school harmonica contest playing this tune." She laughed. "Life's funny like that." "A laugh a minute." She put on Danny Boy so I could sing it again.

But if you fall as all the flowers're dying,

And you are dead, as dead you well may be,

I'll come and find the place where you are lying,

And kneel and say an ave there for thee.

But come ye back when summer's in—

The second time through made me terribly sad.

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Ch. 36 (Accordion)

"Do you have your accordion?" she asks.

"The accordion?" I question.

"Yes, it may be the key. The accordion is connected to song, song is connected to my mother, my mother is connected to my mind. Could that be right?"

"It does follow," I say, "though one important link is missing from the chain. I cannot recall a single song."

"It need not be a song."

I retrieve the accordion from the pocket of my coat and sit beside her again, instrument in hand. I slip my hands into the straps on either end of the bellows and press out several chords.

"Beautiful!" she exclaims. "Are the sounds like wind?"

"They are wind," I say. "I create wind that makes sounds, then put them together."

She closes her eyes and opens her ears to the harmonies.

I produce all the chords I have practiced. I move the fingers of my right hand along the buttons in order, making single notes. No melody comes, but it is enough to bring the wind in the sounds to her. I have only to give myself to the wind as the birds do.

No, I cannot relinquish my mind.

At times my mind grows heavy and dark; at other times it soars high and sees forever. By the sound of this tiny accordion, my mind is transported great distances.

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Presently, I sense within me the slightest touch. The harmony of one chord lingers in my mind. It fuses, divides, searches—but for what? I open my eyes, position the fingers of my right hand on the buttons, and play out a series of permutations.

After a time, I am able, as if by will, to locate the first four notes. They drift down from inward skies, softly, as early morning sunlight. They find me; these are the notes I have been seeking.

I hold down the chord key and press the individual notes over and over again. The four notes seem to desire further notes, another chord. I strain to hear the chord that follows. The first four notes lead me to the next five, then to another chord and three more notes.

It is a melody. Not a complete song, but the first phrase of one. I play the three chords and twelve notes, also, over and over again. It is a song, I realize, that I know.

Danny Boy.

The title brings back the song: chords, notes, harmonies now flow naturally from my fingertips. I play the melody again.

When have I last heard a song? My body has craved music. 1 have been so long without music, I have not even known my own hunger. The resonance permeates; the strain eases within me. Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.

The whole Town lives and breathes in the music I play. The streets shift their weight with my every move. The Wall stretches and flexes as if my own flesh and skin. I repeat the song several times, thto set the accordion down on the floor, lean back, and close-Hiy-eyes. Everything here is a part of me—the Wall and Gate and Woods and River and Pool. It is all my self.

Long after I set down the instrument, she clings to me with both hands, eyes closed. Tears run down her cheeks. I put my arm around her shoulder and touch my lips to her eyelids. The tears give her a moist, gentle heat.

A blush of light comes over her cheeks, making her tears gleam. Clear as starlight, yet a light not from the heavens. It is the room that is aglow.

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Ch. 39 (Popcorn, Lord Jim, Extinction)

The autumn sky was as clear as if it had been made that very morning. Perfect Duke Ellington weather. Though, of course, Duke Ellington would be right even for New Year's Eve at an Antarctic base. I drove along, whistling to Lawrence Brown's trombone solo on Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me, followed by Johnny Hodges on Sophisticated Lady.

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Dylan's singing made me think of the girl at the car rental. Why sure, give her some happiness too. I pictured her in her company blazer—green, the color of baseball turf—white blouse, black bow tie. There she was, listening to Dylan, thinking about the rain. I thought about rain myself. A mist so fine, it almost wasn't rain. Falling, ever fair, ever equal, it gradually covered my consciousness in a filmy, colorless curtain. Sleep had come. Now I could reclaim all I'd lost. What's lost never perishes. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to sleep. Bob Dylan was singing A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, over and over.