Contrary Motion Page 5

  After he tore through his glissandos near the end of Zarathustra, I had to resist the urge to run down the aisle and leap onto the stage with arms spread. I was dead set on being a harpist, one as kick-ass as Eddie, thereby winning Claire as my wedded wife.

  Only later did it dawn on me that Eddie and Arnold Reynolds—Ms. Beckwith’s teacher at Indiana—were old-timers, guys who started out when orchestras were almost entirely male and straight men ruled the harp world. They broke into the biz before the seventies, when judges started using screens during auditions to hide the identity of players. The screens led to a boom of women winning seats without the discrimination transparent auditions enabled—though, sadly, too late for Katherine Beckwith.

  But at the time, I didn’t know these things about the world. I knew only that something had happened to me. In the span of those few hours in Orchestra Hall, my musical ambitions and my sexual awakening fused in a transformative rush. To this day I can’t hear the opening fanfare from Zarathustra—which Kubrick famously used to begin 2001: A Space Odyssey—without feeling some tingling remnants of horniness, aesthetic inspiration, and joy.

  —

  With only one more step-up in tempo to go in my practice session, I have the passage more or less evened out. I lean the harp forward to rest on its base, and Cynthia awakens from her laptop-induced trance. “All done?” she asks.

  “Are you?”

  She stands and stretches her arms over her head, grunting with released tension. “For now,” she finally says.

  This has always been a problem for me: making the transition from instrument to people.

  Still sitting at the harp, I say, “Sorry I played like crap.”

  “It was fine, you were fine.”

  “Was I making a strange face while I played?”

  “I wasn’t checking,” she says, getting annoyed.

  I twist on my stool from side to side.

  She starts packing up her stuff with increasing speed, as if she has finally realized that in fact she is in a burning building, I’m beyond help, and she must save herself. Should I accept her cues or push against them, toward something that I wish were true but isn’t?

  “Do you want to stay over?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, and sighs. “No, I can’t.” She zips her laptop bag closed, and I get the feeling she’s restraining herself from saying something worse. “I just need to go, actually.” She looks up and studies some part of my face away from my eyes. “I’m really tired, Matt.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I say. “Here, let me send you off with a hug.”

  She has her laptop strap on her shoulder. She doesn’t drop it, but sidesteps toward me, like a teenager suffering a good-bye kiss from her mother. I’ve got to be careful not to make the strap slip off of her, so it turns out to be one of the more awkward of all the hugs humans have ever shared.

  “Good luck out there,” I say. “If you’re having a bad day at work, just call me, okay? Say the word and I’ll end his life.”

  “Thanks,” she says quietly, without smiling, and she kisses me on the lips, quickly but softly, and then she leaves.

  6

  AFTER CYNTHIA’S MINI Cooper pulls out onto the street at a rate halfway between normal and burning rubber, I turn off the lights and throw myself onto the futon couch, the better to dwell on the history of my sexual failures. I note an unsurprising pattern: the more I admire a woman, the more I want to impress her, the worse I’ll be in the sack.

  Milena was a special case. She came to Northwestern from Chico, California, on a soccer scholarship. A torn ACL her first year ended up costing her a spot on the team, and she settled into campus life as a party-first econ major with vague career goals. I met her at a dorm party after my sexual ineptitude had torpedoed a flotilla of short-lived relationships. Strangely, she pursued me, and I found the ease and openness of her pursuit wildly appealing. She was unneurotic and non-catty and laughed easily. There was simply nothing in the way, no gap to bridge. Her eyes are somewhat misaligned—her right eye is a bit lazy—and maybe to obscure this, she has always let her bangs grow long so they sheepdog her eyes. I’d heard people say she looked somewhat dopey, but to me it looked like she was suggesting that vision is overrated, a stance I found to be an enormous relief. Sex struck first, early, and often, with a naturalness that bordered on the impersonal. Our bodies began to feel like communal property, like a kitchen table or a shared bank account. And then they weren’t. “I’m sick of you always trying to fuck me!” she said near the end of our marriage. It was a bad sign.

  I’m having so much trouble with Cynthia because she’s too smart and can see too clearly the type of nervous schlub I am. She grew up in White Plains, New York, and went to Swarthmore, then the University of Chicago for law school, and she’s well versed in all the subjects that I blew off to fit in extra harp practice. Things in the bedroom have become consistently, depressingly disappointing, but thus far I’ve considered taking the little blue pill to be cheating, a flimsy mask on deeper psychological issues. Now I also wonder, given tonight’s performance, whether Cynthia would get suspicious if I suddenly turned stud. She could see dosing as an admission of defeat or bad faith.

  Lying on the futon couch, I feel like a fly injected with spider venom: paralyzed, my body slowly liquefying—but somehow still acutely conscious. I have a brunch to play tomorrow morning and need to go to sleep, but I can’t make myself get up and go to my bed, which is not really a bed but a mattress and a box spring on the floor. Though this futon is the site of tonight’s debacle, the sheer volume of struggles I’ve experienced in my bedroom makes the living room an oasis by comparison. Moreover, the streetlight casts a comforting glow on these walls, whereas my bedroom is a cave, with one small square window that stares at the building next door. I will try to sleep here.

  But whenever I get close to sleep, I remember how Cynthia drove away—the upsurge of frustration and sadness, barely in check in my apartment, that I’m theorizing finally found expression in a poorly calibrated flexing of her foot on the gas pedal—and I resurface into horrific, agitated thoughts.

  I muster enough energy to grab my last two beers from the fridge and return to the couch. At some point, an especially powerful wave of alcohol sweeps in, lifts me, and then takes me under.

  —

  I awake to a distant buzzing sound that had been part of a dream where I was stuck in Michigan Avenue traffic, late for a gig, and somehow without my harp. In the dream, the buzzing had seemed to be the faraway siren of an emergency vehicle navigating the gridlock. In real life, the buzzing is my bedside alarm, which at this distance sounds more like white noise than a jarring call to consciousness.

  I bolt upright. It’s Sunday morning. Audrey’s Hello Kitty clock confirms: I’m late for brunch.

  You can practice audition excerpts till the cows come home, do your chamber concerts and recitals, sub for the principal harp in the Chicago Symphony, make recordings, and lord it over neophytes at music camps throughout the Great Lakes region; you can shape all these things into a sense of yourself as a rising musician—all of which I’ve done—but if you want to pay rent and put gas in your car, you must, whenever possible, play brunch.

  I anticipate the rage of Vikram, the food and beverage manager at the Marriott’s Green Terrace Restaurant, as I shower, shave, and throw on my ash gray suit. I brush my teeth and gulp a glass of water, but have no coffee, no cereal, no food whatsoever. I’ll be chowing down on every conceivable form of breakfast entree during my first break, and again after I’m done playing. But first I have to get there.

  I have some ten hours of pop tunes in two enormous black binders, each page of sheet music preserved in plastic like a Kraft single, and I hurl these binders into my black shoulder bag, along with a book-shaped holder of replacement strings coiled in pouches, a tuning key, a tuning fork, and nail clippers for cutting strings. I throw the old mustard-colored cloth mitten over my Aphrodite grand concert harp, an a
ction that feels like shrouding an innocent man on his way to a hanging. In a corner of the dining room await the harp dolly, a collapsible music stand, and a padded stool that matches the harp. I stuff the collapsible stand into the inner pouch of my backpack, and into the customized outer pouch I snap the seat of the harp stool, letting the legs stick out behind me. I grab the dolly, nestle the harp onto it, strap the harp in place, then roll it through the kitchen and into the junk-strewn back stairwell. Then I wedge the screen door open by sliding a nut along a rod, roll the harp over the threshold, and find myself alive in the world, skirting T.R.’s dormant garden along a brick path to the alley.

  Way past late, I forgo backing my Volvo out of the cramped garage; instead, I leave the car where it is and open the tailgate against one edge of the garage door. This is precarious, so I quickly reach inside the cover and grab the harp with both hands, use my thigh to help lift, and balance the ninety-pound contraption on the edge of the flatbed. Just before I slide the harp up and in, the tailgate starts to close, and I reach out to stop it with my right hand—and drop the harp. The base hits the concrete, the top of the column swings over and up. I clutch a handful of the harp’s cover to steady the instrument itself, and the tailgate closes softly on my arm.

  I feel the harp’s shock: it’s like having all my nerve ends yanked. Sweat bursts out on my forehead.

  “Shit!” I say, imitating my father, who championed that word while trying to bring our white Pontiac station wagon back from the dead for the umpteenth time.

  I extract the harp from the car’s jaw and set it up in the alley. There’s no time to check for damage, only to do what I should have done before: pull the fucking car out of the garage. After finally getting the harp onto its bed of pillows, I load the dolly, the shoulder bag, and the laden backpack. Then I slam the tailgate and lock up again.

  I’m sweating into my suit, though the temperature is in the forties. I should have started playing “What a Wonderful World” ten minutes ago.

  Taking advantage of the relatively light Sunday morning traffic, I scream through the alley and haul ass toward the Mag Mile, trying to convince myself the harp is fine. I bang down Western to Chicago, then take LaSalle to Ohio, entering the building-shaded land where tourists roam among the ritzy franchise shops and flagship stores the jet-setting bastards demand near every big city’s cluster of convention-friendly hotels. Instead of turning on Rush Street and getting unloaded and valet-parked at the Marriott’s entry, I must trek across Michigan Avenue, cut over on St. Clair, and then come back one-way on Grand, all because Vikram is a “service entrance for the help” kind of manager. I pull up to the shipping entrance and wave to a security slouch in his glass-enclosed office. He fingers something on his desk and the garage door opens, thereby earning him an annual income doubtless higher than mine. I beach my car at one end of the loading dock.

  A young man in work boots and a navy blue uniform comes through a broad doorway and onto the platform. “Yo, harp man,” he says, and he presses a button and disappears again. A huge metal lift slowly descends from the loading dock, making a rust-grinding screech.

  I work everything onto the lift, which is slimy and black with decades of unknown spills, and stand stupidly until the guy finally comes back and hits the button for the lift to rise. Then it’s a long trip from the loading dock down various corridors to an elevator to the fourth floor, wearing my backpack and shoulder bag and pushing the harp.

  As soon as I finally wheel my harp into the restaurant, Vikram is on me. “Come on,” he hisses before I can offer an explanation. “Let’s go!”

  Vikram is always busting my balls, but I don’t mind him that much. He has standards for food and beverage management, which is honorable. Though he’s clearly pissed, he brings a small round table and an enormous brandy snifter with a house five-dollar bill in it to start the flow of tips. I hate having a tip jar, but Vikram insists on it. It’s part of my “compensation,” part of why he sleeps at night paying me $275 for a four-hour gig.

  Ignoring my apologies, he sighs as I remove the worn cover from the harp, but maybe there are too many customers nearby for him to chastise me further; he finally hurries away. I run my eyes over the wood but can’t find any cracks; somewhat relieved, I set out my business cards and begin tuning. With each string I tune, I’m prepared to hear the effects of freaking dropping the thing. When I’m down in the metal bass strings, Vikram busies by, tapping two fingers on his suit cuff. All the bending and lifting has pulled out my shirttail. A bead of sweat stings my left eye. I slyly tuck in my shirt, sit, ease back the harp, and begin “What a Wonderful World.”

  The eggs Benedict eaters probably can’t hear the sarcasm. The smell of all the food is driving me bonkers, as Milena would say, but I’m stuck here for two hours. Unable to risk Vikram’s further displeasure, I’ll have to play through my first break.

  After “Wonderful World,” I flow onward with “I Will Be Here,” reminding myself I won’t hit the chow line any time soon. For reminiscing about last night with Cynthia, I plink out “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” More upbeat numbers pass forty minutes before I bring the room to my level with “Love Story,” “Send in the Clowns,” “Scarborough Fair,” “Suicide Is Painless,” “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” and my personal arrangement of Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them.”

  Finally, I pull the room out of its nosedive by firing up “The Muppet Show Theme”—which sounds fantastic on the harp, by the way—just as a couple with two young kids, a boy and a girl, walk by. I wink at the girl, who looks about Audrey’s age, and she stops to listen, which makes the whole family stop. They all smile, even the boy, who looks about eight. Well warmed up, I truly gambol through this Muppet theme. When I finish, the girl claps, looking a little too cute for her own good. The dad slips a bill into my snifter. “Good songs!” the mother says brightly. The four of them walk away happy.

  I take care of business straight until twelve-thirty, then hop up from my stool to imaginary applause, sprint toward the chafing dishes, and load up on scrambled eggs, spicy breakfast potatoes, bacon, a waffle, a banana, and orange juice. I make sure Vikram is busy prowling the floor, then take my plate down a back hallway to his office. He doesn’t want me eating in front of the guests, and something tells me he’s never shown me the employees’ break room because he fears some unpredictable outcome to that fraternization. Instead he offers up his own quarters.

  After I close the door, things are whisper-quiet. I take a chair on the visitor side of his desk and use my plate to nudge aside a stack of catalogs featuring Hobart kitchen machines and forty-gallon drums of ranch salad dressing. I hunch there and eat, making sounds like a hyena over a zebra. When I finish, I stand up to swig my orange juice—no reason to sit now, when I’ve got another 105 minutes of sitting ahead of me.

  As I drink, I circle the room, taking in the westward-looking vista, which is dominated by the Hilton at State and Grand. In the West Loop and Near North neighborhoods, new thirty-story apartment towers have sprung up with tiny, open balconies on which I can see gas grills and stacked plastic chairs. The railings seem only waist high, and I wonder about the wisdom of creating so many suicide perches throughout the city. On the other hand, it’s always been my dream to live in an expensive Loop or lakefront high-rise, so I imagine those tenants are less suicidal than the average Chicago resident, who has only lived in the vast three-story brown brick neighborhoods that make up most of the city. I sometimes feel guilty bringing Audrey to my not entirely safe street (a factor in my having her only two days a week), but the snake handlers up the block also gave my ancient Volvo a jump one frigid day and much more normal life than not goes on there. In any case, this is where I’m at right now.

  Then I step to Vikram’s side of the desk.

  There’s a picture of his family: a portly unsmiling wife in a brilliant green sari; three kids, two boys and a girl. Vikram himself stands stiffly in an undertaker’s suit, eyes harried by some
thing he can’t solve just then. The oldest boy’s eyes seem hooded with gloom. The youngest is smiling too much, and the girl is studying to be her mother in expression. That Vikram chose to put this image on his desk attests to how we all might suddenly take a very wrong turn somewhere in our lives and never even realize it.

  I force my eyes away from the family portrait. Maybe Vikram’s family is perfectly normal and happy and I’m seeing things negatively on account of my bad attitude. Did Milena have to kick me out? I wonder. As if to get an immediate answer to this question, I pick up Vikram’s phone and dial her. While her phone rings, I try to account for why I’m calling her. People go wrong incrementally. They touch an elbow, take another sip of Chardonnay, mail-order a chain saw, and then, eventually, someone is dead and they’re in prison. What am I going to say?

  “Hello?” Milena says, with something vulnerable in her voice.

  “It’s me.”

  “Hey, Matt,” she says warmly. “How are you? How was Milwaukee?”

  “All right.”

  “Did you give your mother my best?”

  “I did.”

  “I sent her a card.”

  “She loves cards, she really does.” This makes me laugh.

  “So what’s up?” she says, shifting to sound more businessy.

  “Well,” I say, winging it. “About Tuesday. My student wants to come late for her lesson, so I might not be able to get Audrey until six.”

  “I can’t get her, Matt. I work late when you have her.”

  Milena is a benefits manager at Smith Barney, where she acquired the deep knowledge of health care costs, 401(k) saving goals, life insurance, and salaries that made me look inadequate as a financial partner.

  “I know. You don’t have to do anything. Just, if they call you, you’ll know that I’m on my way.”

  “Why don’t you call them?” she asks.

  I just don’t remember this irritability as any part of her character when I fell in love with her. She was so damn sweet and ready to laugh and hump. When she was pissed, she used to narrow her eyes and give me the finger, so this strikes me as something her therapist has coached her to say, which is another surprising development. What’s a totally psychologically normal and healthy gal like Milena doing in therapy?