follow. And you play the notes.
Many of Mr. Hirk’s records, which sat in a dusty stack near the Victrola, had, to Joey’s surprise, only one side. Yes, one side was smooth as pine. And they were heavy as plates. Empty plates. But if you got a record turning, a voice, like a faraway bird, high and light and leaping,somersaulting even, certainly atwitter, would come into the room. Amelita Galli-Curci, Mr. Hirk would say hoarsely yet in some awe, as she began. Joey had never heard the pureness of purity before. It was the soul, for sure, or the sound of angels, because weren’t they birds? and didn’t they dwell in a hidden sky? It was called “The Bell Song,” the song she sang, though there was another aria a girl named Gilda was supposed to sing about someone whose very name had smitten her as by a stick—so suddenly—with the stunning blow of love. It was a song that would be overheard just as Joey was hearing it, yet that hearing would be followed, according to Mr. Hirk, by a consternation on the stage quite unlike the contentment that Joey felt during its blissful moments of performance.
The pedals, the pedals were a mystery. They were so far away from the keys, from the strings, from the place the music rose from; they were so hidden and other, that Joey fought them, tromped upon them, kicked them in their sides. Joey thought Mr. Hirk was cursing him at first, but he was saying, “Damp … damp,” to no avail. Finally, he shouted, “Forget the pedals.” “They wet the notes,” he managed to explain. “Play to clear skies. Clear skies.”
The tacky church Miriam took her children to had not a single spear of light, no rebounding shadows, no mystery, no majesty, no music of note. The congregation sang almost as badly as the choir, and cliché determined the selection of hymns. The services were in an inept Latin and the acolytes always a step late, as if they had fallen asleep. Catholics had not prospered here. The county and its seat was filled with Amish, odd Protestants, slow roads, bad organs, and poorer organists.
Mr. Hirk honeyed up to him during Joey’s senior year. Joey would simply show up and play, mostly something he’d heard on the radio or a few things he’d begun by improvising, and then they would both sit in the cool gloom and listen to the Victrola that Joey had begun winding up because Mr. Hirk’s fingers were presently incapable: Emma Calvé, Galli-Curci, the stentorious Caruso, and “Home Sweet Home” by Nellie Melba. Mr. Hirk no longer marked time by banging even a thin book. Now, when Joey left, with a gratitude that exceeded any he had ever felt, he would squeeze Mr. Hirk’s upper arm (because he didn’t dare put pressure on him anywhere else); Mr. Hirk would sigh hoarsely and watch Joey bike, it must have seemed nimbly, away, leaving Mr. Hirk alonein his room with his body’s disability and his machine’s recalcitrance until another Saturday came along. Joey always cranked the Victrola one more time before he left, so a few sides could be managed if Mr. Hirk could spindle a record—hard to do with his crabbed hands growing crabbier by the week. Joey rode off to an era of LPs, vinyl, and other speeds, but only Mr. Hirk had Olive Fremstad and her sound—Calvé’s, Caruso’s sound—sounds—hollow, odd, remote—that created a past from which ghosts could not only speak to admonish and astound, they could sing again almost as they once sang, sang as singing would never be heard sung again, songs and a singing from somewhere outside the earth where not an outstretched arm, not a single finger, could reach or beckon, request or threaten or connive.
If Joseph Skizzen later could imagine his mother, with whom he had lived so much of his life one would think he’d not want to add another sight or an additional thought of her to his consciousness; if he could clearly picture her in her culottes and gloves grubbing in her garden, literally extracting coiled white webworms
Many of Mr. Hirk’s records, which sat in a dusty stack near the Victrola, had, to Joey’s surprise, only one side. Yes, one side was smooth as pine. And they were heavy as plates. Empty plates. But if you got a record turning, a voice, like a faraway bird, high and light and leaping,somersaulting even, certainly atwitter, would come into the room. Amelita Galli-Curci, Mr. Hirk would say hoarsely yet in some awe, as she began. Joey had never heard the pureness of purity before. It was the soul, for sure, or the sound of angels, because weren’t they birds? and didn’t they dwell in a hidden sky? It was called “The Bell Song,” the song she sang, though there was another aria a girl named Gilda was supposed to sing about someone whose very name had smitten her as by a stick—so suddenly—with the stunning blow of love. It was a song that would be overheard just as Joey was hearing it, yet that hearing would be followed, according to Mr. Hirk, by a consternation on the stage quite unlike the contentment that Joey felt during its blissful moments of performance.
The pedals, the pedals were a mystery. They were so far away from the keys, from the strings, from the place the music rose from; they were so hidden and other, that Joey fought them, tromped upon them, kicked them in their sides. Joey thought Mr. Hirk was cursing him at first, but he was saying, “Damp … damp,” to no avail. Finally, he shouted, “Forget the pedals.” “They wet the notes,” he managed to explain. “Play to clear skies. Clear skies.”
The tacky church Miriam took her children to had not a single spear of light, no rebounding shadows, no mystery, no majesty, no music of note. The congregation sang almost as badly as the choir, and cliché determined the selection of hymns. The services were in an inept Latin and the acolytes always a step late, as if they had fallen asleep. Catholics had not prospered here. The county and its seat was filled with Amish, odd Protestants, slow roads, bad organs, and poorer organists.
Mr. Hirk honeyed up to him during Joey’s senior year. Joey would simply show up and play, mostly something he’d heard on the radio or a few things he’d begun by improvising, and then they would both sit in the cool gloom and listen to the Victrola that Joey had begun winding up because Mr. Hirk’s fingers were presently incapable: Emma Calvé, Galli-Curci, the stentorious Caruso, and “Home Sweet Home” by Nellie Melba. Mr. Hirk no longer marked time by banging even a thin book. Now, when Joey left, with a gratitude that exceeded any he had ever felt, he would squeeze Mr. Hirk’s upper arm (because he didn’t dare put pressure on him anywhere else); Mr. Hirk would sigh hoarsely and watch Joey bike, it must have seemed nimbly, away, leaving Mr. Hirk alonein his room with his body’s disability and his machine’s recalcitrance until another Saturday came along. Joey always cranked the Victrola one more time before he left, so a few sides could be managed if Mr. Hirk could spindle a record—hard to do with his crabbed hands growing crabbier by the week. Joey rode off to an era of LPs, vinyl, and other speeds, but only Mr. Hirk had Olive Fremstad and her sound—Calvé’s, Caruso’s sound—sounds—hollow, odd, remote—that created a past from which ghosts could not only speak to admonish and astound, they could sing again almost as they once sang, sang as singing would never be heard sung again, songs and a singing from somewhere outside the earth where not an outstretched arm, not a single finger, could reach or beckon, request or threaten or connive.
If Joseph Skizzen later could imagine his mother, with whom he had lived so much of his life one would think he’d not want to add another sight or an additional thought of her to his consciousness; if he could clearly picture her in her culottes and gloves grubbing in her garden, literally extracting coiled white webworms
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