CHAPTER 9

© 2010 GREG DUNAJ

9.

              With an ear cocked near to his guitar, Harry tried to tune the instrument by tightening and loosening the strings despite the swirl and noise of other students in the hallway of the high school. With a look of concentration on his face, Harry strummed the instrument and fiddled with the strings as he struggled to listen to the guitar amid the noise. Two of his classmates, running and laughing, bumped into him. One simply ran off down the hallway dodging around other students similarly gathered in the hall, but the other stopped and apologized. He was a junior and a teammate of Harry’s on the baseball team. Harry gave him a quick look, but graced him with an easy smile before the boy melted into the mob of students adjusting costumes or clearing throats or looking at music or tuning their own instruments. Harry went back to his tuning.  

              Behind him in the small auditorium there were sounds of two girls singing, voices clear and strong, and a piano accompanying them. The audience applauded politely when they finished. A boy’s voice, amplified by speakers, then introduced the next act: A dancing, kazoo playing gorilla named Hortense. Hearing this, Harry leaped up from the chair he was sitting on and ran to the auditorium to watch someone in a pink gorilla outfit emerge from behind the curtain. Hortense curtsied and bowed and curtsied again to the wild applause that greeted her.

              After producing a kazoo, Hortense struggled to shove the instrument in the too-small mouth opening of the costume. It was nothing more than a small round hole that Hortense had to finger and stretch and, eventually, slightly tear to make bigger. After a lot of trouble Hortense finally succeeded and coaxed from the kazoo some unintelligible tune while she did a little dance step, all the while to maniacal laughter and applause from the audience. Harry slung his guitar over his shoulder and clapped and whistled and laughed as Hortense bleated on the kazoo and boogied.

              “Hor-tense, Hor-tense,” chanted the audience of parents, students and teachers, stomping their feet and clapping in time when Hortense finished and left the stage. They chanted and stomped until the pink gorilla came out for two curtain calls. The second time Hortense came out she tossed bite-sized candy bars out into the audience. Clapping her pink, furry hands over her head, Hortense then backed off the stage, behind the drawn curtain. The audience cheered wildly, quieting only when the emcee walked back onstage.

              The emcee, a handsome boy who played the lead in every theatrical production at the high school, wore tuxedo tails over a white t-shirt. He came out to introduce the next act, apparently thinking Hortense was finally gone and he was safe. He nodded briefly at a bevy of girls corralled in the front rows, but otherwise ignored their lascivious comments. He paused, smiled and was about to introduce the next act when a blur of pink fur leaped after him from behind the curtain. Knocked to the stage by Hortense, they grappled and rolled. With the microphone between them, the audience was treated to their repartee of wild grunts and the emcee speaking in comic book argot: "Must - Introduce - Next - Act - Please - Enjoy - Mary - Rosanto - Ouch! Stan that hurts - Playing - 'Beautiful - Dreamer' - STAN! - By - Stephen - Foster..."

              Mary Rosanto stepped out from behind the curtain, violin in tow. The emcee and the pink gorilla still tussled on the stage to her right. Grunts and little cries of pain from the two mixed with the crowd's applause. Miss Rosanto bowed stiffly and gave a nervous glance at the two still struggling near her feet. She set her jaw, steadied her gaze on some distant part of the auditorium and placed her instrument beneath her chin and began to play the lullaby. The effect on Hortense was immediate. The pink gorilla rolled off the emcee and leaned her head on her hands to listen to Miss Rosanto and her playing. One leg bent at the knee and idly twirled in the air. The emcee crawled off stage, breaking character with a wave to a friend in the audience.

              Miss Rosanto was not very good and her notes squealed and cried out with the same vicious timbre as fingernails against a blackboard, but Hortense did not mind. She waved a hand and rocked her head in time with the music as Miss Rosanto now leaned down to hover over Hortense. The music had such a soothing effect on Hortense that soon the head of the pink gorilla got heavy and she nodded into sleep. The creature laid her head down on the stage and started snoring. Miss Rosanto stopped her playing and stood, halting any applause from the audience with a finger to her lips. Then, after snapping her fingers, two boys dressed in white laboratory coats came out and grabbed Hortense by the ankles and dragged the pink gorilla off stage.

              Miss Rosanto curtsied and followed after the gorilla and the attendants off stage. The emcee rushed back on stage frantically waving his hands, quelling any applause. "Must be quiet," he said in a hoarse whisper, albeit amplified by the microphone, "until Hortense is back in her cage!"

              The giggles and laughter that had begun to roll through the gathered audience stilled as the emcee cupped his hand around an ear. It was not until the sound of a cage door, a clanking of steel, amplified from backstage did he move again.

              "Okay," he cried, arms outstretched in exaltation, "the world is safe again!" The audience cheered and he began to introduce the next performer in the talent show.

              Harry moved to return to the hallway, to await his turn in the talent show. He was going to sing a Dedalus song. Carlo was there, at his shoulder, when he turned.

              "Hey," said Carlo.

              "Hey, you stayed."

              "Not really. I'm leaving tomorrow."

              "Yeah? Okay."

              Somebody asked them to be quiet and Harry led Carlo out into the hallway.

              "Well, good for you,” said Harry, although he didn’t sound very happy. He leaned against a bank of lockers. He pulled his guitar around to the front and idly strummed the instrument. Carlo offered nothing but a nod of his head. He had a cigarette behind an ear. He fingered it and looked down the hallway.

              "When are you up?"

              "In a few. They'll call me."

              "What are you singing?"

              "'Going.'"

              Carlo arched an eyebrow, without looking at Harry.

              "Wow, that's great," he said. "You got that middle part down, that picking part?"

              "Some. That's two guys playing. I can play the easier part. What do you think?"

              Harry began to play the part in question. Carlo finally turned his head to look at his friend pick at the guitar strings. He knew Harry all too well and it was not a hard guess why he had picked the song to play. The words spoke of a great loss and Carlo was leaving soon, determined to hit the road. He was not even hanging around for graduation. Harry was sad his boyhood friend was leaving and told Carlo this more than a few times during the previous months.

              To Carlo though, “Going”, meant more than the splitting up of these two friends.  As Carlo listened to Harry fumble and pick at the Dedalus song that was still getting airplay he was reminded of that day last summer.

              They were throwing a baseball back and forth. It was a hot, sunny day, but there was a steady wind that dried their sweat. His remembered his hand still felt damp inside the glove. Carlo could smell the leather of the mitt. With every thud of the ball against the glove, the smell of leather filled his nostrils. He rubbed the glove against his forehead, caught a throw from Harry, feeling the slight sting from the impact, and threw it back. Harry had to go then, he had a game, and Carlo watched him ride away on his bike down the street and he rounded the corner toward the town’s ballpark.

              Carlo wiped his sweaty fingers on his shirt and went inside the house he shared with his aunt.

              The house was dark. The windows were open and the curtains billowed with the wind. It was a day off for his aunt and he called for her, but she did not answer. She might have been out, perhaps having lunch with friends. She had told Carlo she might. Kicking off his sneakers, he padded over to the refrigerator and drank lemonade straight out of the pitcher. As he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he smelled the leather of the baseball glove. He tried to get into the bathroom, to wash his hands, but his aunt's body was blocking the door.

              He was told an allergic reaction to an accidental needle might have killed her. They weren't sure. Her heart had stopped. She had her own substantial insurance policy with Carlo as the sole beneficiary and the hospital settled out of court a lawsuit brought on his behalf by Harry's father. The money went into a trust fund. Carlo decided college wasn't in his future. The house was put up for sale and the closing date was last week.

              Carlo had been staying with Harry and his family since his aunt’s death. He stayed in the furnished basement at Harry's house. Next week was his high school graduation, but the road was his. Armed with blank ledgers and a cache of pens and an instamatic, Carlo was determined to travel and to capture it all. There was nothing else holding him here, other than the kindness shown him by Harry and his family but even that held little sway in the determination Carlo felt with his decision; he had been abandoned too many times. He would not let that happen again.

              Harry sought out Carlo in the auditorium when he took the stage. The lights flared in his eyes and he shielded them with a hand and then he waved at the figure in the back that he took to be Carlo. He was near the exit where they first met, a foot against the wall. Harry sighed and smiled at the audience, but his grin was grave. He began the Dedalus song. It was a sad song that had been getting some airplay. It was well known to the students and 'Going' meant different things to different people.

              Harry sang, "Found a way to see the day without a trembling hand / Sober now for what seems like an eternity but I know it's just begun..."  The audience watched his hands strum and pick at the strings. They listened to his voice; proud and strong. They searched his face as he looked past the lights and into the shadows of the auditorium. When the middle part came Harry had to look down at his hands to pick. It was a complicated section and he missed one note, but he recovered well.

              "The fog is gone, time to chase the sun / Hope I haven't jumped the gun / With all these plans and big ideas crystalline blue despite the tears ..."

              A few people applauded sharply at the song's end, but it was the rolling murmur of appreciative noise that started low like whispers that consumed the crowd with a euphoric swell of emotion. Soon the entire room was applauding. Several stood. A few kids cheered. Harry sat on the stool and nodded his head and smiled, widely this time.

              He could not find Carlo in the hallway or in the parking lot of the high school. At home, his bags were gone.