The Percussionist

            Suddenly the man rose from his chair, red-faced, striking the gong with the large stick, sending waves of a deep moan out into the large auditorium. He then sat back down, hidden again. Even sitting so close, in the sixth row of the orchestra section, Paul could not see him, and glanced over quickly at Margie, who calmly stared ahead in a kind of trance. Paul’s eye started twitching, his heart racing. The xylophone player doubled on tympani, the only percussion player in the large orchestra to remain standing throughout the whole symphony, and the cymbal player got three chances to make himself known. But the man with the gong only got one. Like me, Paul thought, and like my father, whose hand kept him from his dream too. He placed his hand on top of Margie’s, which felt smooth and warm. The symphony, by Shostakovitch, neared its end—the intense use of percussion signaled it, as did the gradual addition of more violins and cellos, until whole sections fortified the composer’s building of emotion. Paul remembered one of his teachers at Berklee School of Music describing how the composer used this technique to great success, but Paul could rationalize it, could not find words to describe the instrumentation. He had to remind himself to breathe. It had been so long. He had not ventured outside their home to hear music, and didn’t need to. Margie’s teaching and practicing were enough since Paul had given up music nearly thirty years ago due to chronic fatigue.

Paul’s chance had come in Boston, when he and his buddies, Gene and Phil, had gone out to hear a well-known local jazz combo one Friday night at Michael’s. Boston was an all-night town, unlike Richmond or San Francisco, which shut down early. Mr. Mance, the teacher of several of the bands at school, came over to their table, asked to join them, and during the set break introduced them to the players, associates of his in the tight-knit music scene.

“Kip, how ya doin’, what’s happenin’?” Mance shook hands with the bass player, then embraced him in a bear hug.

“Ozzie, you sound great on that thing—is that the new horn?” Mance spoke to the sax player, a big smile on his face, unlike Paul had experienced in the band room, where Mance drilled the school group hard, repeating phrases until the horn players’ faces turned pink, a high-water mark.

“Mance, my friend.” Another man grabbed Mance’s head in a lock, his face red with laughter.

“Boys—” Mance turned to Paul and his friends. “These are the fellas I went to school with—Kip, Ozzie, and those two guys over there are Blue and Sandie,” he said, pointing to the drummer and piano player. “These kids have got what it takes. Do you mind if they spell you for a set?” Manced asked his friends.

Paul looked at Gene and Phil, who grinned from ear to ear. Paul felt jumpy and hoped the dim lights would mask his giddiness. The bass and sax player gave way to Gene and Phil, but piano player stayed put. The drummer didn’t budge at first, but then gave his sticks over to Mance, asking him if he would sit in. Paul could see that the guy’s eyes looked red and watery, as he said his goodnights to everyone. He was either sick or had smoked too much. Paul looked forward to hearing what his teacher could do on stage.

            “Are you ready, Paul?” Mance said.

            “Uh—you want me to play?”

            “Yeh, you take this set and I’ll take the next one.”

He knew he was on the moment his sticks went down. He used brushes normally, but the group had fire, so he stuck with the sticks, and made use of the high hat. He looked out to the audience once, sitting with knees together at little tables, and the dark walls of the room beyond, but that was the last time he looked, because the fire took over him, the fire he had heard while he was sitting out there. All he could see, if it was seeing, was the reflection of light and air. The smoke from the club dissipated and something inside his chest bounced so that he never wanted to stop. Other instruments joined the group and Paul rode a heavy cymbal behind the trumpet, the high hat behind the trombone. He used accents on the snare drum and rim shots, and when he used the bass drum he kicked it with surprise, the beats falling easily into place. Colors, it’s all about colors and textures, he thought. Crackling, roaring, half-time, the easy motion of his arms. Bebop lived in his bones.

He didn’t see Mance at the break, so he started in again with the band. He had no way of knowing how much time passed with each set, because time meant nothing anymore. He returned to that place from where he did not want to leave, the place of fire and color, and when he finally put his sticks down, after an unknown time, his shirt and pants were soaked. He looked up to see people clapping, standing up. Disoriented, he rejoined the room, patting his shirt, but it only picked up more moisture from his skin. He knew he had graduated from school, a different school.

The tight March air clung to Paul, saturating him, as he walked home with his friends, tall slender street lamps lighting the way. They passed by a cafeteria, 24 hours, a man eating a large slice of berry pie with ice cream melting over it. He didn’t feel hungry. He could barely feel the pavement beneath his feet. He couldn’t relate the evening to any other gigs, any other time he played music, even his gigs outside of high school, which seemed like a great distance, although it was only a year ago. The sticks never left his hands, were part of his body. No one had ever told him—but what would they have said? When he tried to rationalize the evening, his time on stage playing jazz with other players, it went beyond what the audience must have sensed. But it went beyond what he had known before too.

He and his friends spoke of future gigs, playing together in the local hot spots.

            “I can’t wait until next time,” Gene said, skipping around the puddles.

            “You go ahead, I can wait—talk about scary, playing with those hot shots!” said Phil.

            “Oh, you guys, c’mon,” Paul said, because he could say no more.

            When he strode into big band practice the next day, Mance didn’t acknowledge him, but Paul assumed he had a lot on his mind. The baton never once came his way during rehearsal, which was strange because his teacher usually looked over at some point during the hour. After practice, Paul worked his way past the trombones, trumpets, saxophones and clarinets, all packing their instruments away, to the front of the room. Mance’s appearance, always more formal than other teachers with a button-down shirt, brightly-colored tie, and suit jacket, looked even crisper, with a white handkerchief folded in his jacket pocket.

            “Yes,” Mr. Mance said, but his eyes focused down on his notes.

Paul jumped right in.

            “So, I was wondering?”

He waited for Mance’s response but nothing came. So he continued.

“What did you think of my playing last night? We didn’t see you—did you leave early?”

            “No, I was there, the whole time.”

“Oh. I didn’t see you at the break.”

“Mmm.”

            “But what did you—think?” Paul stumbled over his own words.

Mance seemed to be thinking for what must have been a minute but felt like forever. Paul gazed up at the florescent lights, hung in banks. They penetrated him mercilessly. He steadied his balance. He had been feeling tired lately.

            “You know, I usually sit in with those guys.”

            “Uh-huh—” Paul waited.

            “It’s customary to ask other players to spell you, you know.”

He had looked for Mance at the club, but he could have looked harder. What was the big deal anyhow. He had no problem in high school. If he understood Mance correctly, Paul had broken some kind of unwritten code. His feet felt heavy, as if they were glued to the floor.

            “I just wanted to play,” he explained. As if that made any sense in the light of day. But  Mance looked at him, then looked away with his bottom lip curling under, before gathering his notebook and taking long strides to leave the room. Paul didn’t try to stop him.

            “Ok then,” Paul said to himself, caught in the echo of the empty room. Everyone else had left.

            When he found Gene in the cafeteria, they spoke quietly, even though they could barely hear each other in the din. When he told Gene about their teacher’s reaction, Gene said “Don’t worry, it’ll all blow over,” seeming confident. He spoke quietly. “Let’s test it out in a week or so.”

            But Phil rushed over. “Hey you guys, check this out! The music review of the day: Coneeley flies at the Hotspot!”

            “Wow,” Paul said, pulling the paper over, continuing reading. “’Paul Coneeley’s rhythm section can’t be beat.’ Hey, that’s funny. ‘The natural progression of textures, the timing and motion sensational. His adaptability was endless as he followed every performer. This reviewer shed a tear.’”

“How did he get my name?” Paul asked his friends.

“I saw Phil talking to him,” said Gene.

“Yeh, I saw this guy scribbling, so I figured—”

“Well, thanks.” Paul patted Phil on the back.

            That weekend the three of them went out to test the waters at an open jam session at one of the better clubs, the Eighth Note. Wednesday nights were everyone’s opportunity since the local big names sat around to check out potential new geniuses. Both Gene and Phil, on sax and bass respectively, sat in, but Paul could not worm his way onto the stage because the drummer wouldn’t relinquish his spot. The guy nodded his head at Paul, but put his head back down, lost in the drums with the next set. It was as if Paul had been blacklisted. After an hour Phil suggested they go somewhere else. But Paul was frozen out at the Hotspot as well. On their way home the air felt tense.

            “Easy night for you,” Phil joked, smiling.

Paul caught his eye but could not answer him.

            “It was just one night,” Gene chimed in, cheerfully.

But Paul did not buy it and saw from his friends’ dishonesty that they also knew what happened. The review had not made a dent in the face of Mance’s influence in the club scene.

The next morning, Paul lifted his bedroom window open with some difficulty. Running his finger along the ledge where drops of water came down from the roof, runoff from snowmelt, his finger chilled. Winter melted that year into an early spring, and still Paul found himself unable to break into the local scene. His place in the school groups had not changed of course, but he felt restless. He needed to play.

Looking forward to his college’s Spring break, he had decided to remain in Boston instead of flying home to visit his folks in California, and it was too late now to change his mind without spending money he didn’t have on buying a ticket. As the crocuses popped out in Copley Square, he remembered too that he had decided to remain to spend some time with Marjorie Moore, an oboe player who he had met in the band room. Paul had played percussion in the orchestra the previous semester, his first, and while he set up his drum set for the jazz band that met at the next time period, he introduced himself. She had lingered to talk to the orchestra teacher, and he watched her head from the back as she spoke excitedly to Dr. Mulvihill. The teacher left and she began to put her instrument back into its case. Paul spoke up then.

“I have to agree with you. Beethoven sounds too happy in the second movement.”

“That’s not exactly what I said,” the girl with the long brown hair replied, pushing her hair back.

“I was agreeing with you,” Paul countered.

“Well, I’m not used to people eavesdropping.” Her voice sounded upset but she smiled.

He extended his hand. “I’m Paul.”

She looked straight at him, not avoiding his gaze. “Margie.”

            From then on, Paul envisioned his break as afternoons with Margie, slurping ice cream at Steve’s or over slices of fifty-cent pizza, the students’ favorite. But he still felt tired in his bones, and when he rose one morning, the first day of break, he fell back down again into bed.

He told the doctor at his appointment the next morning that he was more tired than he had ever been in his whole life. That pretty much summed it up. He spent the rest of the day in bed, and the day after that the test results came back.

The following day, Paul waited in the doctor’s outer office for what seemed like hours, Paul tried reading magazines but instead focused on the shiny yellow-green couch. Finally, after waiting in an examining room for another period of time, the white-haired man came in, one hand in his pocket, one hand on his stethoscope. He sat down next to Paul, and put his hand on Paul’s shoulder.

“Young man, you’re going to have to slow down.”

“But I’m in school. I’ve gotta keep going.” He spoke, not to the doctor, but to himself really.

“Look here, if you don’t stop, your body is going to stop for you. You have mononucleosis—have you ever heard of it?”

“Yeh. But what should I do?”

“You’ve gotta take some time off, boy. Go home to your folks for a semester—you need a mother to take care of you.”

            “What am I going to do, how can I play?” he asked the doctor.

But he already knew the answer. He had known kids in high school who were put back a year or got home tutors, and that time meant everything to his music.

Marjorie sat in his room the next day.

“It’s not what you planned, I know, but you’ll come back,” she said, patting his hand. He lay prostrate on his bed, head sunk deep into the pillow. She seemed so sure.

When he had first returned from Boston, Paul would take afternoon drives in spite of his exhaustion, trying to imagine the Richmond of his father’s stories, about the 1940s, and how he had to fill the inside seams of the ship with hot lead until it was smooth and shiny. Paul would drive and drive, the radio blaring Bird or Monk, passing by Atchison Village, worker housing built for the shipyards during the war. His mother would always ask where he had been and he would tell her, even though they both knew he should rest. His father was often out playing cards with friends who had worked with him in the old days.

His mother painted the same picture for Paul as she had over the years. One afternoon, they sat in yet another new set of furniture, gold paisley against a light blue background. She had replaced one set every couple of years with another, a legacy of her impoverished childhood. She had a tall glass of iced tea in one hand. The brown-gold of the tea, with its mint leaf sinking to the bottom of the glass, matched her hair, which she wore in a bouffant 1950s style. She spoke as thought she had never told him the story before and he hadn’t the heart to stop her.

“It’s true,” she said, as if continuing from some former thought mid-sentence, as if the story of his parents spun in a circle, ever present, past and present the same. “The village was built on former hayfields. But then we bought a little house right on the Point, one of the oldest houses now, on the other side of the hill.”

“But, Mom—” He knew what she was going to say next and wanted to ask more about his Dad’s injury instead.

But she didn’t hear him, and continued on her usual theme. “After working together as fruit packers, your Dad found a job at a fish cannery in Point San Pablo and I worked in the Richmond Shipyards. Mel then got a job in the shipyards too, because of his mis-shapen hand.”

His father never said much about his hand, and Paul couldn’t bring himself to ask the man himself. He claimed that it gave him no problems, except to make him exempt from fighting overseas.

For Paul, the Richmond of the present carried all the post-World War Two activity which still existed when he was a kid in the 1950s. Driving by seedy clubs and trash-filled alleyways, Paul saw the old downtown with all the major department stores like Macy’s, new city parks with bright squares of grass, and his mother leading him by the hand. He had gone to school across the street from their house until he went to high school across town. Since his parents had moved, a few years ago, he would drive past their old house, now painted a crusty yellow with red trim instead of the white clapboard of its former life. He felt his parent’s presence even more in their absence. When he returned home from Boston, it was not only the new town, his own family house and the kids who had grown and left for college, that filled his thoughts. The haunted past of his father colored them too—all that he knew about the man, and what he didn’t know.

What he thought of most, driving around after his return home, were the outings his father took him on, always to Point Molate. The road was lonely and winding as they meandered in the beat up Chevy wagon around the refinery’s Easter egg-colored oil tanks, a range of pastels. The land belonged to the refinery yet at one time the military had owned it, so all the buildings were painted white. Still, other buildings on the Bay side told of the industrial history, of the powder produced for dynamite. Dinosaur-sized metal funnels and round rusted structures resembling grain houses littered the property, the fences protecting it hole-ridden as if large animals had bitten their way through. The Molate harbor itself provided a quiet place for the locals’ sailboats. He and his Dad would enter the coffee shop, the screen door screeching shut, wood against wood, the screen shaking, as they made their way to the counter.

When Paul was really little, his father picked him up, and Paul turned around and around on the stool.

“Coffee, black. One doughnut. And for you, son?” But his father wouldn’t wait for Paul’s reply, and would say, “Milk and a chocolate old-fashioned.” Paul’s favorite.

They sat at the counter for a while, as Paul’s father talked about nothing with the owner. Paul told himself that his father’s hand was unnoticeable except to Paul. When the hand dug into a pocket for the wallet, it came out looking no different than when Paul last saw it, yet he hoped every time that it would heal in the space of time in which it was hidden. The last time they sat at the coffee shop counter together, Paul must have been about twelve years old. He had gotten up the courage to ask, something which his mother had discouraged.

“Dad?” He paused. “Dad, I was wondering if it was okay—I mean, I was wondering—”

“What, son?” His father continued to look straight ahead, somewhere about the head of the owner, who busied himself cleaning the coffee machine.

Paul looked past his father out the large picture window, out to the gray scene, not knowing where the Bay stopped and the sky began. The Point Bonita Lighthouse hid under a low blanket of fog, the light itself the only indication of the round structure.

He took a deep breath. “What happened to your hand?” He half expected to get slapped, though his father had never hit him.

But the man continued to face straight ahead. A few minutes passed, as Paul wondered if he need to repeat himself, or forget he ever spoke. But then, his Dad slowly turned to face Paul. He spoke quietly, with measure.

“I hurt it working in the cannery. But it hasn’t stopped me none. I was glad to not have to fight. You see, kiddo, I decided that family was more important then—” He turned to face the front again, so Paul could not see his father’s eyes.

Paul decided then that he would never ask about the hand again.

That day the drive home was filled only with the silent oil tanks and the Bay, absent of waves. He remembered the scent of his mother’s new nail polish when they returned home. She had seemed refreshed, her hair still wet from the shower, the acrid smell from her nails permeating the living room.

Another two years had passed before Margie graduated, but they corresponded faithfully every week and ran up a large phone bill, which Paul’s mother surprisingly never complained about. There had been no doubt to either Margie or Paul, during those two years, that they would reunite, and when Margie finally came out to Richmond, they transformed the basement unit of his parents’ house into their living space until they could afford a place of their own. The basement had seemed like a step down because even though he had never had his own place, Paul had lived away as a student, and had been working temp jobs for about a year since his return home. He took what work he could, his energy limiting his output. But he had picked up a reasonable living, as a month-long position at the refinery had turned into a permanent accounting position. Margie got a job at a local music center whose practice rooms were in a church school. His father, energetic as always, had worked on the basement in preparation for Margie’s arrival, and when she came, she stayed in Paul’s old bedroom upstairs until their wedding a week later. It was hard to imagine that any of that had happened now. The fatigue left select memories.

After a year, he and Margie were able to afford a place of their own, and had remodeled a dilapidated house in Point Richmond with his carpentry skills and her artistic force, installing floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows in the new music room. In the cathedral setting, she taught her students oboe and recorder and played with her own recorder ensemble. While she had spent months cutting glass for the windows, he had offered himself as her assistant when he could, on weekends and evenings, handing her tools and materials like a doctor’s assistant. In the music room she had put together a virginal from a kit, similar to the harpsichord, and designed their new kitchen, also on the upper level. Their concerts and social gatherings had always been the toast of the community, Margie a centering influence, but when they completed the new additions, the community marveled.

Soon they would host their yearly fete, a concert incorporating Margie’s students with local talent. Paul still remembered last year’s event, the best yet, as he and Margie had just finished a new carved wood front door. The gathering had an amazing influence on everyone who attended. Even Bernard had perked up, stopping by on his way for his usual gig at the old Hotel Mac, where he played jazz piano. He already sounded like he had thrown back one too many scotches.

“Margie, girl, you’ve outdone yourself.” Bernard walked in through the new door, his beret tipped at an angle on his head, a young woman on each arm.

“I did help her, you know,” Paul joked, because he knew it was Margie alone who had resurrected the whole place—the door, the house, the community. She had not only fueled their house, but also founded the Historical Association, her drawings gracing every issue. He could joke all he wanted among the throng of Margie’s admirers, but even with her gentle encouragement he couldn’t bring himself to get involved in music. Her music was as close as he could get, for now. And as Paul was a firefly around Margie’s light, so were all the people who came to the concert that night—students, other teachers, professional players, and music appreciaters.

Fred, who played the tenor recorder in Margie’s ensemble, carried a serene expression earlier in the day when Paul had run into him at the corner store. But upon entering their home, Fred’s face lit up, color streaming into it from reserves hidden somewhere within.

In spite of Paul’s ancillary position amid Margie’s musical life, their connection to the Point brought them together, Margie’s involvement in the local scene not dampening Paul’s affections for it. Moreover, he learned new aspects about his home town from reading Margie’s pieces in the Historical Society’s booklet. The other day he had read her latest piece back to her as they sat in their cathedral living room, the early morning sun refracting a mosaic of colors against the opposite wall. He enjoyed reciting the piece, with its removed language because in truth, the words betrayed a warmth that Margie felt about her adopted town.

“Once an island on San Francisco Bay, ‘The Point,’ as the locals called it, became a neighborhood of Richmond.” Paul let the words fall off his tongue.

“But don’t forget, historically the Point was the birthplace of Richmond, its old town,” Margie added enthusiastically, her eyes shining in the colored light, seeming many-colored themselves.

            Margie, while infusing herself in the history of her adopted community, looked at Paul as a Romantic when he talked about driving by his parent’s old house, nostalgic for the past. Perhaps Margie could see it more clearly then he—he stood too close to his own life, trying to recount the most important years, years where he had suffered his own kind of deformity. Like his father’s hand, which the man kept in a pocket, or the fingers curled under, Paul’s fatigue remaining all these years from the mono was invisible. He did not regret the last thirty years yet he wished he could have continued on the path he had started out on too. The last time his feet had graced the Richmond Auditorium’s floor was at his high school graduation, in 1969. His mother still kept the picture up on her dresser, his hair greased to the side of his head, his eyes looking down. When he asked her to put up a better picture of him, she only reminded him that he hadn’t graduated from college—not directly, but because he had no more recent picture.

“Now, I’ll only take it down when I have something to replace it with.”

“But, Mom—”

“I won’t discuss it anymore, Paul.”

All along Paul had planned to return to music, for in high school his drumming skills were praised not only among teachers and class mates, but outside as well, as he took on gigs in local clubs. But his experience at college had left him at a cliff’s edge, lifeless.

A few weeks ago when he and Margie packed up his parent’s old furniture in preparation for their move to Walnut Creek, they shuffled through one furniture set after another crammed into one corner of the basement.

“Paul, come look,” Margie said. Her voice came from under the stairs.

“They don’t need any more furniture, and I know, those are only coffee tables under the stairs.”

He had taken a break from the packing and slumped in the old Lazyboy chair, his feet up. The new one resided upstairs.

But Margie insisted. “Come here, sweetie, you have to see this.”

He rose with difficulty.

            Thin felt cloth had been sewn to make a loose cover, like a tarp, but more snug, and when Margie pulled it away, the rims shone under the bare light bulb.

“What a fabulous set! But what’s it doing here?—it’s not mine—or my brothers.”

“Let’s ask Mel.”

Dumfounded, Paul stood there shakily, one hand on the side of the snare drum for balance. The set looked old, but in perfect condition, the rims smooth, free of dents. But when he bent down, he could see the bass drum had kick marks, lots of them. This set had been loved to death.

“Why? I don’t get it.” It just didn’t add up. His father had never said anything about the drum set.

Margie led Paul upstairs. She convinced him to ask about the drums. He told her she would have to ask. As they entered the living room, his parents were relaxing on their clean, full-cushioned upholstery.

Margie gave Paul a little shove, as she let go of his hand, but he remained silent.

Paul’s mother spoke first. “Yes, kids?”

Margie followed her. “Kate? We were just wondering about the drum set we found in the basement?”

            Paul’s mother looked over at his father, waiting. They all waited for a minute before the man spoke.

“I played.” His Dad flapped his hands in front of him, to emphasize the point. “But it was many years ago, before you were born.”

“And when you were very little,” his mother added.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” Paul asked.

“I had to settle down, to raise a family, like you. Remember, we didn’t have much money when we came out. If it wasn’t for those canned beans—”

“Don’t forget the lard and flour, and the bed—“ his mother said.

“Uh huh, in our pickup, camping roadside. Water cost ten cents a glass at service stations, but your mother could get water out of them all with her looks.”

His mother smiled coyly at his father.

“Wait, what about the drums?” Paul wasn’t going to let him get off the hook now.

His father looked away.

“Oh—don’t be modest, Mel,” his mother said. She stood up now and walked over to her husband’s big comfortable chair. She took his arm. “He was the fastest sticks in town, back in the jazz days here. Guys came from all over.”

“Kate, don’t exaggerate,” his Dad said, but his wide grin gave him away. “I didn’t want the boy to feel bad, after giving it up himself and all.”

“I wish I had known. But I thought you couldn’t—with your hand.” Paul couldn’t believe he was talking about that hand, but had to speak now.

“I was gonna tell you, but I didn’t think it would help.”

But it would have helped. It would have made all the difference to have known his father had given up too. His Dad’s embarrassment all these years had nothing to do with the modesty Paul’s mother touted. Paul knew what it felt like.

“Dad, it would have helped. Do you know how alone I felt—” But Paul’s throat tightened.

Since his parents had moved to Walnut Creek he saw little of them. He had always wanted to find out more about his Dad’s hand, and now wanted to talk to him even more about the drum set and his hand. But he couldn’t do it. With Paul’s own music, something in him had stopped years ago. If he opened the door to his Dad’s loss he would open it to his as well. He had not made the choice to quit music consciously, but he had lived with it all these years, with Margie’s music reminding him. As Margie had encouraged him to take up music again, she tried to persuade him to call his parents. She spoke to his mother weekly, and one day, she handed Paul the phone while he was at his desk working on bills.

“Here, talk to Kate.” She pushed the receiver gently under his chin.

            His mother asked, “Should I put your father on?”

Paul started to beg off, ready with an excuse that he had too much work to do. But before he could say anything, his father came on the line.

“Well, son, how are ya’ doing?” He cleared his throat.

“Okay. I didn’t expect to get you—I mean, Margie was the one that called—uh—I’ve been wanting to—”

“It’s okay, son. Why don’t we all get together soon?”

Paul sighed with relief. “Yes, that would be great.”

The red-faced gong player left the stage, along with the orchestra. Margie and Paul and everyone else clapped vigorously enough for the conductor to come out twice, bringing the first violinist in tow, both receiving a bouquet of red and purple flowers. They filed out slowly with the herd. The auditorium looked worn, but the upper decks like balconies to observe ice skaters were still intact, and the long wood planks that made up the floor worn and scraped, were the originals. He looked around to see if he recognized anyone, but they were all strangers. He held tightly onto Margie’s hand as they worked their way through the crowd. Her orange silk skirt stood out among the dark hues as she pushed her way ahead, her long hair sweeping her shoulders.

Arm in arm, Paul and Margie stepped out of the warm auditorium into the cool January air. Clouds obscured the moon as they walked away from the streetlights.

“Paul Coneeley? Kid, is that you?” A voice came from behind them and footsteps running.

Paul recognized that voice. And when he turned around he recognized the man in the gray beard and thick glasses. He had once sported a full hair of lush black hair, like Paul.

“Mr. Mance, what a pleasure.” Paul stumbled over his words, but extended his hand to the now elderly former teacher. He was his Dad’s age, he now realized. He had never thought of it before.

“Not so quick as you used to be, eh?” Mance joked.

“Margie, you remember Mr. Mance, from Berklee?”

“Hi, how are you?” said Margie, extending her hand.

Paul could tell that Margie’s brain was percolating.

“Uh, what are you doing out here?” Paul asked.

“My sister lives out here with her husband. I stay with them sometimes. They had planned on coming out tonight but came down with a cold last night—both of them. So I said, do you mind if I go anyhow. And what about you? Do your folks live here? And Paul, are you playing around here?”

Paul guessed that Mance had lost track of Paul as much as Paul had lost track of the music scene thirty years ago. Mance had been teaching music all the time Paul had balanced books for the large corporation.

“I’m an accountant, have been all these years. Margie here, she’s the musician.” He didn’t feel sick saying it. It was plain fact.

Mance chuckled, what Paul had hoped for in a way.

“Well, I’m off to Sausalito, to a little bar my brother-in-law told me about—maybe you’d care to join me?”

Paul was surprised. Why would Mance want him there, after what happened in Boston? Had he forgotten? He looked over at Margie, her soft brown eyes just visible in the darkness.

“Paul, we can do that,” she said, squeezing his hand.

Mance said, “I haven’t heard you play, in what—thirty years. Let’s take my brother-in-law’s car and you can tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself all this time.”

Paul couldn’t have said it himself.

“Yes, Mr. Mance, we’d love to go with you,” Margie said.

He took a deep breath, the cold air piercing his throat. As they stepped into the large car, Paul said, only so Margie could hear, “I guess it’s time.”