Every Note Played(54)
“Yeah. He had three sons, not two. That ain’t right, and we want to do the right thing.”
“Yeah, man,” says Tommy. “I hate that I never stood up for you when we were kids. Dad was really hard on you.”
“He could be a bullheaded bastard,” says Mikey.
Tommy nods. “We’re standing up for you now.”
It never occurred to Richard that his big, brave, tough jock brothers were scared of their father, too. To show any allegiance with their youngest brother would’ve risked being forsaken, ostracized, disowned. Like Richard. His brothers weren’t as macho as he thought they were. And he doesn’t blame them.
“He was also a great father,” says Mikey, his voice out of air, jaw clamped, wiping the outside corner of his eyes with his fingers. “Sorry you never got that side of him, Ricky.”
“You know, you were better at piano than either of us clowns have ever been at anything,” says Tommy. “He should’ve been proud of you. Jessie Googled you, and we all watched your performance at Lincoln Center.”
“Holy shit, man,” says Mikey.
“Yeah, you’re amazing,” says Emily.
“I wish Mom could’ve seen you play there,” says Tommy.
“Tha-means-so much to-me.” Tears spill down Richard’s face.
He never saw that coming. With the death of the autocratic dictator, their Berlin Wall crumbled, and his brothers were right there, waiting for him on the other side. Karina pulls a tissue from her purse, walks over to Richard, and mops up his wet face.
“Three ways,” says Mikey. “That’s the fair thing. It wasn’t right how Dad treated you. Our son, Alex, is a junior now, hasn’t willingly picked up a ball since he was six. He’s into musicals. Loves to sing and dance.”
“He’s really good,” says Emily.
“Yeah. And he’s a great kid. Can’t imagine doing to him what Dad did to you.” Mikey sighs. “And I wouldn’t be the man I am without him.”
Tommy nods. Mikey knocks back his Budweiser. Richard absorbs the acceptance and apology given to him by his brothers, and a space begins clearing inside him, a field stretched to the horizon, a morning sky, a universe of stars. Still overwhelmed and unable to speak, he silently thanks his brothers, one generation healing the wounds inflicted by another.
“I’m sorry to break this up, but we really have to get going,” says Karina.
“Can’t you stay another night?” asks Emily.
“No, we have to get Grace to the airport. She needs to get back to school.”
“Let’s do a toast to Dad before you go,” says Mikey, cracking open another can. “Can you pour beer into that thing?” He points his finger to the center of Richard.
Karina looks to Richard, and he nods. Every now and then, when he asks her to, she delivers a syringe full of wine through the PEG tube and wets his lips with the smallest taste, one of the few pleasures he still indulges in. It’s not the same as drinking wine from a glass. It’ll never be the same. But he can still taste a Chateau Haut-Brion on his tongue. He can still feel its warm infusion in his belly.
Karina attaches the tubing and flushes it with water. She fills a fifty-milliliter syringe with Budweiser and slowly presses on the plunger while everyone watches. Richard belches. Brendan laughs. It tastes like a teenage memory, horrible and wonderful.
“Okay, save some for the toast,” says Mikey. “Karina, you have your wine?”
She picks up her wineglass in her right hand, holding the syringe of Bud attached to Richard’s stomach in her left. “Ready.”
Tommy and Mikey raise their beer cans. Emily and Karina lift their wineglasses. Brendan raises his Coke.
“To Walt Evans,” says Mikey. “May he rest in peace.”
Rest in peace, Dad.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It’s 8:28, four minutes later than last he looked. For the past three days, time has been a fat slug napping on a shady stone. Karina is in New Orleans, joining Elise and her students on their annual pilgrimage to the holy motherland of jazz. Sitting in front of his computer, Richard aims his nose like a conductor’s baton, directing the cursor arrow across the letters of the keyboard, typing the names of various jazz artists in iTunes. He plays a few seconds of Herbie Hancock. Then Oscar Peterson. A few seconds of John Coltrane. He can tolerate Miles Davis for just over a minute. The notes wander without any apparent destination, a lost dog in a field, sniffing and tail wagging, scampering here and there, no one calling it home. The compositions are scribbles, run-on sentences without proper grammar and no punctuation, indulgent explorations in incongruous sound.
He clicks on Thelonious Monk, and his mouth cringes as if tasting something noxious, something too sour or bitter or rotten, and he wishes he could spit the sound out. The saxophone and the trumpet sound like an escalating argument, both sides shrill and unreasonable. He hurries the aim of his nose to the PAUSE button. He can’t take one more second of this assault, this madness, this noise.
For Richard, music is like language. While he doesn’t speak Italian or Chinese, he finds the experience of listening to Italians chatting over cups of espresso to be a melodious pleasure. Chinese, on the other hand, feels like cacophonous machine-gun fire, every word a needle inserted into his spine next to the sound of someone rubbing the surface of a rubber balloon. For Richard, jazz is Chinese.