Clarence James packed up
his Casio 4400. He shook his head at his apparatus, wondering why, after three
years of ownership, the keyboards speaker was suddenly plaguing him with
buzzing sounds. He had never bothered to turn down his volume and, prior, had
never suffered for that decision.
On his way back to the
space he rented in a rooming house, CJ poked around some municipal garbage
cans. It would take two full bags of recyclables to buy the AA batteries he
needed for his Casio. On balance, he still had a few packages of ramen noodles
and a dented can of beans left in his cabinet; he could afford the
splurge.
Ever since the media had
begun showcasing women wearing pink pussy cat hats, tourists had gravitated
toward female protestors and away from male street entertainers. That change
was a pity as CJ had recently perfected his rendition of Vincent.
Every few months, he perfected his version of some popular tune.
Sometime in the foggy past,
CJ had been a piano player. On weekends, he accompanied opera singers at
important locations such as Beacon Theatre, Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln
Center, and Radio City Music Hall. On weeknights, he played weddings and Bar
Mitzvahs. At the time, he owned a pied-à-terre in Yorkville and was
heartsick over Pamela Lyn Striter.
The pair had met on a
cruise ship on which they both had worked. Pamela Lyn, who had majored in early
childhood education at Adelphi University, was the ships daycare
director. CJ was part of the salaried showbiz. Every night, he played two sets
in the piano lounge. Three times per week, he furthermore performed
contemporary hits in the ships small, vaudeville-styled theatre.
Pamela and CJs
romance blossomed during their limited, overlapping off hours. Neither of them
had to test their companys policy against fraternizing with guests
because of each other. There was enough real estate to explore in Pamelas
blue eyes and in CJs brown ones to keep Pamela from coveting fit
stockbrokers from Chicago, and CJ from hankering after chubby matrons from
Toronto.
Three weeks into their love
affair, however, Pamela revealed that she was pregnant with her exs
child. Although she looked fairly slim, she was actually already in her second
trimester. Pamela had signed on as cruise staff as a last ditch effort to see a
few ports before she became anchored by maternity.
At Papeete, Tahiti, CJ
broke up with that idealized virtuous and beautiful woman. For the rest of his
time on the ship, he remained chaste.
Pamela Lyn, likewise,
formed no new significant associations for the rest of the cruise. She did,
nonetheless, enjoy the attentions of a bartender named Lou and of a
chambermaid named Phara. She meant to explore more than ship
harbors.
Clarence James continued to
work as an instrumentalist when he returned to the city. His degree from Mannes
notwithstanding, he had been touted by family, by friends, by teachers, and by
the judges of the music contests that he was regularly winning, as The
Next Best Thing. Whereas the producers of Broadway shows and of other
pricy amusements didnt care about those erstwhile critics devotion
to CJs talent, they did hire him as yet another source of cheap, worthy
labor when his recital contracts dried up.
So, CJ continued to earn a
respectable wage until his lone brother, Timothy John, was diagnosed with
advanced, aggressive non-Hodgkins lymphoma. TJs treatment required
dose-intense, dose-dense, sequential chemotherapy. He was fitted with a chest
port.
Thereafter, following each
dosing, TJ fell sick. He was sicker than his wife had been during her
pregnancies, sicker than CJs latest girlfriend had been before she died
of an overdose, and sicker than TJ and CJs father had been when he
coughed his lungs out to cancer at age forty-two.
TJ stopped showing up to
work. A substitute was hired to fill his role as a high school music teacher.
On top of that, TJ stopped eating his wifes delicious pastries and
refused his and CJs mothers well-seasoned soups. He complained that
during the few hours of each week that nausea did not devastate him, his tongue
seemed coated with a metallic-tasting fluid. No food agreeably mixed with that
tang. Consequently, TJ swallowed his needed calories via Orgain creamy
chocolate shakes or Myoplex strawberry-flavored drinks. Although he gagged as
he sipped, he valiantly chucked back those compulsory liquids.
Meanwhile, the doctors
remained iffy about TJs pathology findings. Some said hed live
another twenty years. Others urged him to firm up his will. Straddling both
kinds of views, TJ provided informed consent to continue with his harsh
treatments.
As TJs blood counts
continued to go haywire, CJs continued to lose interest in performance.
His older brother, the kid who had earned his silver cornet in adolescence, was
and would always be the better musician. It had been TJ who had won an
instrumental scholarship to Carnegie-Mellon University and it had been TJ who,
upon graduation, had received and had fulfilled invitations to play not in
orchestras, but as a soloist, at Viennas Musikverein and at Dublins
Helix.
It had been a lack of good
decisions on the part of TJs manager, combined with the wiles of a
pretty, British flautist that had pulled TJ from the concert circuit. He fired
the manager and married the performer. Afterwards, he enrolled in a teaching
certificate program. TJs three kids, happy marriage, and reliable
employment gave CJ the impression that TJ had made the right choices.
CJ dared not to claim the
same about his own life. In fact, as his brother faded, he increasingly
questioned both his daily rehearsal hours and his inability to commit to a
partner. Accordingly, CJ quit his contracts. He used most of his savings to pay
off the resulting fines.
Bussing tables brought no
better happiness to CJ. Besides, not only did one girlfriend after another
break up with him, citing his flightiness and earning incompetence as their
rationale, but his brothers health worsened. The outcome of those upsets
was that CJ spent the rest of his savings on voice lessons.
He had loved to sing, but
had followed his brother at trying to prosper as an instrumentalist. Finally
focusing on his bright tenor made him happy.
Just as CJ was making
progress on opening up his voice, his brother died from his chemotherapys
toxicity. After TJs funeral, CJ broke his lease, sold his worldly goods
on EBay, and moved onto the street. There, he discovered his talent for
busking.
Sometimes, people gave him
food or drink instead of money. Sometimes, they gave him both.
Clarence James became
popular enough in the subway and at intersections to eventually rent on a room
in a boarding house plus to afford modest comestibles.
A friend from the music
industry asked and was given permission to record some of CJs
performances. Artistically, the CD was a sensation. Financially, it flubbed; CJ
balked at asking strangers or intimates to buy copies of that music. After his
brother died, music had become an ethereal commodity, that is, a conduit to joy
and sorrow rather than a boulevard to profits. It never occurred to CJ that
creating for altruistic reasons need not interfere with a second party
marketing his yields.
CJs financial state
would have benefitted had he allowed someone to become his middle man. For the
reason that he was neither troubadour nor Gypsy, he had no community or any
other form of social protection. If he became ill, there would be no one
outside of his family, who became estranged once he took to the streets, to
attend to him. Health care would have been worth investing in.
Undeniably, CJ was friends
with Fred, the one-man band who played harmonica, drum, and tambourine,
simultaneously, in a nearby park, and who passed CJs favorite sidewalk
perch on his daily walk to work. CJ was pals, as well, with Sammy, the fellow
who sold nickel bags to any interested passersby and who engaged in other
questionable means of earning money. Sammy almost always brought a large carton
of juice or water, and sometimes also a box of cookies, to CJ when making his
daily rounds.
As well, there was
Emmanuel, the owner of a large factory whose products often sold on the same
streets where CJ performed. Emmanuel had determined that copying designer
handbags, watches, and sweaters could be profitable. He had been right; he
traveled from his large home on the island to his small factory in the Meat
Packing District in a chauffeured car. Every time he passed CJ, he invited the
entertainer into his limo and raided his refrigerator for a cold beef and
pickle sandwich and a beer to give to him. Dessert was always a
twenty or a fifty dollar bill. Emmanuel, who had no inner conflict over
profiting from counterfeits, was like the other members of the restricted clubs
to which he belonged in that he valued authentic artistic ability.
Anyway, CJ had never made
full use of his Casios forty-eight note polyphony and had never imagined
wanting to use his synthesizer as a backup to his main mechanism, his voice. He
had long regarded his assemblage of wires and plastic as a way to maintain his
beat, meaning, as a toy with which he could tool around on days when the
citys streets appeared devoid of pedestrians. It pained him to have to
supply it with new components.
During the same period that
CJ had to shell out for new batteries, Fred encouraged him to join Stanley, the
juggler, Mimi, the acrobat, and him, in creating a circle show. Concurrently,
Emmanuel was encouraging CJ to linger in the limousine, and to become the
family guest who would perform, exclusively, at Emmanuels various
sorties. Emmanuel had pressed a one hundred dollar bill into CJs slack
hand as he mentioned that his thirty-first anniversary was on the horizon and
that Emmanuels Valkyrie of a wife would likely be soothed by CJs
voice.
CJ refused both deals. He
had learned to set up his chair and music stand in places where there was a lot
of foot traffic. He had learned, additionally, that conforming led to
heartache. It was better for him to leave his dented coffee can on the sidewalk
and to perform on his own than to split the take from Freds doll box or
to accept large sums from Emmanuel.
The only exception CJ made
to crooning unaided was to take delivery of an invitation from an alternative
burlesque show. By the time he had finished giving voice to numerous tunes
culled from an earlier generations hootenannies, he had warmed up the
audience sufficiently for it to appreciate the tease of fabric and glitter. The
nonbinary producer of the show granted CJ two hundred dollars. That night, CJ
bought enough batteries to last a decade.
In the same way, CJ bought
some kibble to feed to the dumpster cats living near his building. His
temporary pecuniary lavishness meant he could invite felines to gobble up the
mice and roaches frequenting his room.
Time passed. Clarence James
met a gal named Dorothy, who played acoustic bongos. Although their
styles of music were incompatible, their personalities were not. The two
married.
Their ceremony was
performed by a food bank worker, who had become ordained just for their
nuptials. Whats more, their wedding feast of bologna sandwiches and
fruity punch, too, was supplied by the food bank.
After their rites, the
newlyweds took an extremely brief honeymoon on a double decker tourist bus. CJ
admired a pink building housing a museum. Dorothy fancied a skyscraper dressed
in a façade of multihued glass. Both of them were glad to have circled
the city.
The first night of their
marriage, they retired to Dorothys camp, which was located under a
bridge. CJ relocating to her home had been a condition of her accepting his
proposal. His accompanying her on accordion was another. For a few weeks, they
made strange, beautiful music together.
Ultimately, they moved to a
warmer clime. CJs Casio got left behind, intentionally, since there was
limited room in the suitcases they stowed in the belly of an interstate
bus.
For years thereafter, in
Palm Beachs county seat, two geriatric musicians amused visitors. Around
their necks were lanyards declaring them official city employees. No mention
was ever made of the ramshackle hut in which they slept.
Police officers often
cruised by Clarence James and Dorothys piece of the sidewalk and asked
for favorite songs. Persons of political importance, similarly, frequently
insisted on getting their pictures taken with the couple. Coeds from the
Lincoln College of Technology, from Keiser University, and from the local
branch of the Empire Beauty School habitually stopped by to listen and to ask
those elders the types of questions about life that they dared not to bring
home to their parents.
One evening, when he was
nearly eighty, CJ laid down on the palette that he and Dorothy had shared for
decades. He reached under a grimy blanket to retrieve the wad of cash that he
saved for his final show. Buy a Winnebago, he urged
while holding his beloveds hand. Clarence James shut his eyes for a final
time.
As he drifted off and away,
he contemplated how he had once been a prodigy, but TJ, his brother, had been
an even more remarkable one. Yet, TJ had tempered achievement with love. CJ
exhaled a final grateful breath. He was glad he had followed his older
siblings example.