How to Hear Over Music Read online

How to hear over Music

  Michael Bonady

  Copyright © 2012 Author Name

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

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  DEDICATION

  For mpb

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way

  1 Headphones

  He listened to music in his headphones.

  “Turn that shit down,” his mom yelled from her seat on the right side of the couch.

  Two seats over from him. But he couldn’t hear. She was watching one of her programs, as she called them. “I’m trying to watch my Program,” she yelled but he couldn’t hear. She grabbed a magazine, rolled it up and hit his leg. Not hard but she wanted to get his attention. He ignored her as expected. Didn’t even look over to her side of the couch. Turned his music down enough though. She smiled. He could hear the TV now despite the pulsating beat and crashing guitars fuzzy like kiwis. So could she. “You should watch this one,” she said, “It’s about a murderer who fakes his own death and then joins the police force as someone else, oooh he is creepy, don’t worry though, they’ll catch him, they’ll catch him alright.” His dad was sitting on the deck out back smoking his pipe. It was best if he didn’t try and interfere with their arguments. For his blood pressure and sanity. Later that evening he would pack a single suitcase and leave for a period of three weeks under the guise of a business trip. It was in fact a trial run, to see how he would do if he left for good, to see if he could make it without them, even though he feared that to be impossible because of his stupid heart and stupid memories and stupid desire for a commonplace life, a desire that almost all the time overran his other feelings. Then it would just be the boy, who was really not a boy at all, and his mom, left without considerable means or skills, to make their way, together.

  The next morning the air was thick and the apartment smelled of stale pipe smoke. The man had cracked the door open and listened as the boy, who was not really a boy at all, and his mother, who had no considerable means or skills, argued over the volume of his music and the juxtaposition of pulsating beats and guitars fuzzy like pears settling down over a murder mystery like storm clouds filled to the seams and ready to burst with rain. He was ready to burst too, he thought, that’s why he was leaving for three weeks. It was a trial run.

  The mother made her way into the kitchen and opened the windows to breathe the fresh air over the stale smell of pipe smoke and regret, a smell she had become intimately familiar with over the last nineteen years with him, his pipes, and his regret. In the beginning it had been different. Always is, she laughed to herself, but hey, that’s life, my breasts were higher and my mind was clear, my belly was not my belly at all, but my stomach, I was sexy and smart and had the world and him both by the balls; well, maybe not the world, but him, definitely by the balls.

  The boy, who was not really a boy anymore at all, came into the kitchen with Beethoven playing loud in his ears, but changed it to something heavy with an angry beat and guitars crunchy like fresh cereal so she wouldn’t notice how happy he was becoming, or how he hummed along with the 5th Symphony when she was not home. Especially in the shower, when his heart and mind felt naked and unencumbered by his staunch and sad exterior. “Take those off,” she yelled, “It’s Time for Breakfast!” She shook her head at the loud angry music and said “It’s too early for That,” while handing him a plate of fresh and hot eggs, sunny side up, as he preferred them. He smiled a little, as she was expecting, and doused them with salt and pepper with the abandon of youth, even though he was not that young. He ate them and said thanks while she smiled and then he was out the door for the day. She pulled out an album and put it in the player and turned it up loud and closed her eyes and swayed, there, in the kitchen alone, to the pulsating beat and the guitars rough and sloppy like squares of sandpaper ripped in a hurry. She closed her eyes tight and everything made sense.

  He was walking to where he was going with Beethoven’s 5th turned up loud in his ears and every footstep felt important and real, and everything made sense.

  The father was in his car, driving away at 74 miles per hour with Zeppelin’s Ramble On playing loud with the windows rolled down, and nothing made sense.

  ***

  The sun was hot and the sweat on his brow was regret, in liquid form. He pulled off the road to press rewind on the old tape deck in the old car, leftover parts of his better days, his better self, still remembered despite evidence suggesting the past was only the past, he had never been who he was then, he was always in waiting to be who he had become, we are all in waiting. He loved the way the music stopped so abruptly every time his finger pressed hard on the rewind button followed by the calm and gentle hum of the past repeating itself. Again. Again. “If only I could repeat,” he said out loud and shook his head in slow dramatic fashion that seemed appropriate for the moment. He said it again, “If only I could repeat,” this time slower, this time his voice with more boots stepping heavy on rocks and gravel, grinding. Felt good to say it again. He hit rewind, hard, with the tip of his index finger. Said it again. If only I could repeat. He loved the beginning of the song and tapped the steering wheel with his index fingers, barely breathing, urgent for the whole band to come in with guitars desperate like him and drums patient for their moment not very much like him at all. I wonder if this is my moment, he thought. Sweat dripped in the morning sun bursting and fighting and pressing through scattered clouds. He hit rewind and did not speak, just listened to the whir and hum of cars passing by like his days, fast and difficult to recall, echoes of their presence only found in displaced wind and tiny infinite depressions on pavement hot and without grace or comfort. He tapped his index fingers on the warming rubber of the steering wheel to the beat while waiting for the whole band to come in and singing along loud and sad, “Now it’s time for me to go, now it’s time for me to go.” You always had a sense for the dramatic, his mother had said, earlier in the week when he told her during a visit, after three glasses of whisky filled to the top and spilling, by the second glass, onto the concrete patio where he had skinned his knee as a child, time and again, always forgetting the slight lip between the room inside and out, once breaking his left wrist from the fall, I’m planning on leaving them. You’ve always had a sense for the dramatic, she said again, and went inside, stepping over the small lip between the outside and in with slow precision and tired grace. She’d given the house to him years ago, mostly to hold it over his head and partly out of love. He sang along loud and sad and tapped the steering wheel with his index fingers until they hurt. He would go and he would put the car in drive and hit the gas and throw tiny rocks behind him with the music turned loud, guitars desperate like him and drums impatient to have their turn, he was impatient to have his turn. It was time.

  At home the day passed as usual, a cup filled with sadness laughter frustration joy and momentary brilliance. (And what brilliance is not momentary?) A perfect shot in a game of horse. A tomato sandwich layered with green ones and yellow ones and red ones, mayonnaise warmed by toasted bread and salt ground in fat innocent flakes that would shine in the sun, if they caught the sun peeking into her kitchen, though it refused. A perfect score on an English test, a mocking laugh from behind at the announcement, way to go teacher’s pet. Her index finger cut slightly in the afternoon on thick paper red with the blood and wet from her tears.

  The father drove fast at times, rushing to his destiny, and slow at times, knowing that destiny did not exist, listening to the radio after considering that only the insane would listen to the same song for ten hours, only pausing
to refill the tank and piss occasionally. He kept it turned up loud and sang along when he knew the words, sometimes when he did not. Stopped in a roadside motel as expected, called home with detachment and said he was tired, long day of work, too tired to talk, and hung up.

  She took the call from the couch, on the right side. Her son was in the kitchen with his headphones on making grilled cheese for them both while she watched her programs. “Come in here,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t hear over the music, “Please come in here,” she said, quieter, and placed the phone on the cushion next to her. He made sure not to turn her way when she spoke through the silence in his ears, everything on pause. Flipped the grilled cheeses before the bread became too crisp and burnt. Hit play and drowned out what he could, which was nothing.

  It was late and they were hungry so they ate with misplaced anxieties tearing at the warm bread and dripping cheese with no regard to burning tongues and lips and it was good. “Let’s make more,” the boy said out loud, though by now even less a boy and more a man, trying to be the