Famous Builder (15 page)

***

Choir is on hiatus from June through August, and our family is at our summerhouse. The days are long, unhurried, and relaxed, and in between going to the beach or taking the boat up through the Great Egg Harbor River, I fill pages and pages of music notebooks. It’s not immediately apparent to me that I’ve left behind the intricate movements and structures of my earlier songs in favor of the basic, the broad, and the direct, but I tell myself it’s good to try something different, to search for the one right chord that lifts the whole sequence above the quotidian. When we attend Mass at the local church, I’m stupefied by the flat-footedness of the ritual. Ancient pole fans oscillate throughout the sanctuary, working to cool us with their feeble whir. The grim monsignor trudges through the Mass. We’re all thinking about the beach, hating our sweat-drenched clothes, dreaming of a chilly wave breaking against our chests. I stare up at the unlit chandeliers. It seems to me that the vernacular liturgy is fairly dull without music, that the
other
can only be embodied through the agency of art, and when several young women faint, one after the next, in the back of the church, I know it’s not from dizziness or dehydration. They’re simply in dire need of some music.

Kate drives down for a visit. She wants to see me off before my trip to Wisconsin, which is six days away. I’m off to participate in a one-week music workshop sponsored by UIA Library, Antoinette’s publisher, and while I’m excited about getting to meet her, I’m considerably nervous. I find it harder and harder to finish all my meals. Still, Kate’s presence helps to placate my troubles, and we spend the days waterskiing or talking on board our docked boat, where we clutch beaded glasses of sun tea.

That night Kate drives the five of us to Atlantic City to give my mother a rest. I’m not sure why we’re not going to the more benign Ocean City, which is five minutes across the Bay, but we must be tired of its overly polite family atmosphere, its restrained rides. We crave the exotic, the wild, the new. Although casino gambling is already in the works, the place has never been in sorrier shape. Big brick hotels—the Traymore, the Claridge, the Marlborough-Blenheim—slump beside the boardwalk. Little blue jitneys sputter and fill the streets with exhaust.

We find the city parking garage on New York Avenue and begin our walk toward the ocean. Pink and blue lights pulse and twinkle. Ahead there’s a crowd and we’re not sure what to make of all these people standing amid the ruin. Their voices are hushed, furtive. A man in a leather vest walks by. And then another in a black Harley-Davidson cap. This one smirks, then slinks down an alley toward a basement door: CLUB BATHS.

We’re walking through what must be the gay neighborhood.

I steel my arms, face, and feet. I step harder, more solidly inside my shoes. We pass a bar called the Lark, outside of which dozens of men pose in their chaps and their harnesses, all menacing, arrogant, consumed by their lust. Don’t they have other lives? I’m far too young to understand that this is all play, that these men are most likely salesmen or accountants by day, that they’re all enacting whom they’d want to attract. But now it just seems ghastly; I want no part of it and try ferociously to look away, annoyed by the fact that they all seem to want me.

(None of us know that a goodly percentage of these men will begin dying, one after the next, in less than five years’ time.)

“Hold my hand,” I say, anxiously, reaching out for Kate’s wrist.

“What?” she says.

“Hold my hand.
Please.
”

She doesn’t comply. I’m not even sure what I’m asking of her. Am I so pulled by what I really want that I need to be tethered to something? Or is that I’m trying to demonstrate that I’m purely off limits, a straight boy who’s with his girlfriend or sister? I don’t want them to read me, that much is certain. Kate shakes her head, then screws up her face. Unlike me, she’s largely bemused by the display of all that fragrant male flesh, and soon she passes me up the ramp to the boardwalk, where she stops to tie Sean’s sneaker.

The incident is forgotten. We do what visitors do. We ride the rides, we stroll the aquarium, we buy the popcorn and toss burnt kernels to the plump, shiny pigeons.

We sit on the benches of a pavilion. Holly and Sean are sagging; my brothers are off to Fralinger’s, where they buy a box of salt water taffy for our mother. The ocean murmurs at our backs. Distant screams from the roller coaster. I think about persuading Kate to take a different route back to the car when a toothless man appears before us in a pair of soiled white jockey shorts. He cups his hands, pleading for us to give him some money, a hamburger, but we look away, shaking our heads. We’re alarmed; we’re frightened by his smell. He isn’t the only profoundly desperate person we’ve encountered during our stay. The whole place seems to be a magnet for the nameless, the defeated, and we feel distinctly out of place (and more than a little guilty) in our scrubbed, suburban attire.

We watch him cup his hands before somebody else.

“If you ever tell me you’re homosexual—” says Kate.

I just look at her. For some odd reason, there’s a hint of a smile on her face.

“I mean I don’t know how I’d talk to you anymore.”

A nerve makes my eyelid jump. Does she know something?

“Think about what they do. I mean, I just can’t begin to think about what they do in bed.”

“Don’t worry,” I say at once, patting her on the knee. I stretch, pretending with all my might to be casual. We stand. I don’t belong here—not with the homeless. Not with the lusting, the hopeless, the crushed.

And this time I walk back down New York Avenue past the bars and dark alleys with my straight-ahead gaze.

***

I’m on the plane to Wisconsin. It’s the first time I’ve ever flown anywhere by myself, and I can’t even eat the beef tips dinner the flight attendant places before me. Suddenly, a dip and a shimmy, and in unison, all the passengers scream. We’re flying through violent thunderstorms, tornadoes, says the pilot, and we need to reroute over Omaha. Consequently, I miss both my connections, and I arrive in the sleepy hail-ravaged burg of La Crosse at 4:00 A.M.

Although I’m supposed to stay in the men’s dorm of the small Catholic college, I can’t find anyone to help me. Inside, the halls have that sacred, parochial-school scent: candle wax, chrism, Palm Sunday leaves. Everyone’s been asleep for hours. There’s a letter on a table inside that directs me to my room, but I must first pass through an outer door. I jiggle the knob. Locked. I knock and I knock; I hope someone will answer, but no such luck. I press my forehead into the smooth blond wood. I consider butting it down with my head, but I’m too afraid to break something. Lightning flashes out a tall thin window. I pull out a T-shirt from my suitcase, ball it up into a makeshift pillow, and lie down on the carpet.

I stare down the darkness toward the exit sign, basking in its soothing red glow. My heart’s sluggish, warm inside my chest. Rain on the roof.
It’s okay. Everything’s going to be just fine.

I wake to find a young man with long hair and a downy moustache standing over me. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I say. I shove myself up with my elbows. Could it already be morning? My mouth is stale; my forehead tightens above the bridge of my nose. “I’m locked out.”

His entire demeanor is a figurative demonstration of the expression
duh.

“Sorry, man.” His gaze empties. Then all at once he proffers a dazzling, thousand-watt smile. “I’m a heavy sleeper. Sorry you had to spend the night on the floor.”

I nod shyly. Somehow his stupidity doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore.

Wisconsin is green, like no green I’ve ever seen. Ocher bluffs mellow and glow in the late afternoon sun. The Midwestern-ness of it all is a little overwhelming. Such blondness! Is there a toxic dump nearby? How far to the nearest refinery? In addition, the participants at the conference seem oddly regional, friendlier than I’m used to, and with the exception of the troop from Bowling Green, Ohio (many of whom include nuns with habits), they all talk in flat, wide-voweled accents that mimic the openness of the surrounding prairie. Oddly enough, they all think
I
have the accent, and they look at me as if they can’t stop asking themselves: What the
hell
is this fifteen-year-old doing at a conference full of nuns? I’m continually treated to horror stories of nasty people back East while I attempt to cut my cube steak in the cafeteria.

I’m in the college chapel on the second afternoon of the conference when I first see Antoinette with her huge 12-string guitar behind the podium. It’s hard not to feel disconcerted. She’s much more attractive in person than I’d imagined, her hair cut in a stylish wedge à la Dorothy Hamill, though she’s
tiny
, an overgrown tot, a grown woman trapped in a Lilliputian’s body. How skinny her arms! The guitar is as big as she is! But I get past my bewilderment soon enough. Before Mass, she leads us through the antiphon of her newest song, and it’s fresh and quirky, her alto soaring through the rafters. She joins Neil Witt, another liturgical folk composer, and they’re a great team. They trade off guitar riffs, sing reedy, gender-bending harmonies in which Neil’s voice is actually a third above Antoinette’s. Light cascades through the stained-glass windows of the saints, pooling blue, red, and yellow on the floor. I hold up the portable microphone of my tape recorder until my hand aches. My face burns. I’m on fire. Without a doubt, it’s the most engaging, innovative Mass I’ve ever been to in my life.

After Mass, I step forward to the altar, where Antoinette eases her huge 12-string in its case. She chats with Neil Witt. I stand paralyzed for a moment and take in a deep breath. “Hello, Antoinette. I’m Paul,” I say in a quick and jerky tumble.

She cocks her head and gives me the most direct, genuine smile. “Hi, Paul,” she says, extending her hand to me. “It’s so good to finally meet you. Do you know Neil?”

I shake my head. Do I know Neil? Do I know the
Pope?
“I’m Paul Lisicky,” I say.

“Hello, Paul,” says Neil.

“He’s very, very good,” Antoinette says to Neil. She looks at me and grins. “Listen, I want to spend some time alone with you. I want to hear what you’re working on. Are you free any time this week?”

“Oh, sure.” I nod avidly. Why is my throat so dry?

“Well, we’ll play it by ear.” She turns to Neil. “
We’re
off to dinner. See you, Paul. I’m so happy that you’ve come to the conference.”

I walk back to my dorm, strolling beneath the limbs of the Wisconsin pines, as alarmed and gratified as I’ve ever been in my life. I’m so excited that I forgo dinner to sit alone on my narrow dorm bed, where I stare at the aqua cinder blocks with my fond and pleasant thoughts.

Which is what I do for the remainder of the week. Oh, I go to several scheduled events for sure, but it’s all too much for me. I attend a couple of seminars in which Antoinette introduces new songs from her forthcoming collection (how much her work has grown!), and I hold up my microphone, already looking forward to playing the cassettes when I have my wits about me. Antoinette and I exchange simple greetings as we pass each other on the grassy quadrangle, and her warm and direct “hi’s” are all I seem to need.

On the last night of the conference, I run into Antoinette in the dorm lobby. “Hey,” she says, “what are you doing tonight?”

My face must be pink. I look down at the floor. “Nothing.”

“Why don’t you meet down here at eight? Me and some others are going to share some new songs.” Share. I just adore the way she uses the word “share.”

“Okay.” I run back upstairs and pretend that I’ve forgotten something.

And in two hours I’m on the lounge’s blue tiled floor as Antoinette introduces another new number, this one a children’s song: “The Lord Is on His Way.’” It’s in a call and response format, and the group echoes Antoinette in robust fashion. My fingers tingle. My foot is prickly with sleep. After what seems like hours, Antoinette asks me to sing something of my own. What should I do? I’m not much of a solo singer, and I’d don’t play the guitar, at least not well enough for a performance. Disappointment flickers in Antoinette’s eye, but she’s not going to push me to do something I’m uncomfortable with. I’m ashamed of myself. This might have been my big moment. One of the nuns from Bowling Green (thank God, she’s taken off that habit) looks at her watch and announces it’s time for bed. But before she leaves, Antoinette says to the assembled, “You guys should check out Paul’s music. It’s really, really good.”

“Oh, thanks,” I mumble, abashed.

“Take a look at his ‘Easter Acclamation.’ But tell me, Paul,” she says, looking down at me, “is that a mistake in the third measure? I’ve played it over and over, and I just can’t get it to
sound.
”

“Yes!” I cry. “Yes!” How brilliant and sensitive! Of course Antoinette would be perceptive enough to recognize my intentions.

“I thought so!” she says exultantly. And then we both laugh longer than necessary.

I take myself to bed. The week has been wonderful, more than I ever could have hoped for. And I’m so looking forward to seeing everyone again. I’m not even scared to fly through bad weather tomorrow. Even if the plane gets spun up inside a tornado, it’ll be okay: I’ll have died a happy boy.

I’m still awake two hours later. From the next room, the rustling of the blond guy, who must be packing for his trip back to Bloomington. After a half hour, he’s still closing drawers. I pull up the covers to my neck and squeeze shut my eyes. First, it’s Woody Parker who’s standing at the foot of my bed, and then it’s Mr. Bloomington. Although Mr. Bloomington is not making fun of me or calling me dirty names. He moves to the bed, straddles me, then pins my wrists above my head. His tongue moves deeply, achingly in my mouth. It tastes of smoke, death. We smear and nip and push against each other, our hearts burning in the fires of our mutual love for Antoinette Napolitano.

***

“You’re so skinny!” cries Kate as she meets me at the airport. My parents, attending one of my cousin’s weddings in Allentown, won’t be home till tomorrow night, so Kate’s agreed to let me stay at her house. I hug her hard, so hard that it seems to take her aback. But she’s thrilled to see me. I talk her ear off as the station wagon races through the swamps, refineries, and junkyards of southwest Philadelphia’s Penrose Avenue. The air is muggy, hot, wafting with chemicals. The pine-scented forests of Wisconsin couldn’t be farther away.