Quicker Than the Eye Read online

  Looking back, I remember that in that last year in school, sap that I was, I made up a list of my one hundred and sixty-five best friends. Can you imagine that? One hundred and sixty-five, count 'em, best friends! It's a good thing I never showed that list to anyone. I would have been hooted out of school.

  Anyway, the war came and went and took with it a couple dozen of those listed friends and the rest just disappeared into holes in the ground or went east or wound up in Malibu or Fort Lauderdale. Bug was on that list, but I didn't figure out I didn't really know him until half a lifetime later. By that time I was down to half a dozen pals or women I might turn to if I needed, and it was then, walking down Hollywood Boulevard one Saturday afternoon, I heard someone call:

  «How about a hot dog and a Coke?»

  Bug, I thought without turning. And that's who it was, standing on the Walk of Stars with his feet planted on Mary Pickford and Ricardo Cortez just behind and Jimmy Stewart just ahead. Bug had taken off some hair and put on some weight, but it was Bug and I was overjoyed, perhaps too much, and showed it, for he seemed embarrassed at my enthusiasm. I saw then that his suit was not half new enough and his shirt frayed, but his tie was neatly tied and he shook my hand off and we popped into a place where we stood and had that hot dog and that Coke.

  «Still going to be the world's greatest writer?» said Bug.

  «Working at it,» I said.

  «You'll get there,» said Bug and smiled, meaning it. «You were always good.»

  «So were you,» I said.

  That seemed to pain him slightly, for he stopped chewing for a moment and took a swig of Coke. «Yes, sir,» he said. «I surely was.»

  «God,» I said, «I can still remember the day I saw all those trophies for the first time. What a family! Whatever-?»

  Before I could finish asking, he gave the answer.

  «Put 'em in storage, some. Some wound up with my first wife. Goodwill got the rest.»

  «I'm sorry,» I said, and truly was.

  Bug looked at me steadily. «How come you're sorry?»

  «Hell, I dunno,» I said. «It's just, they seemed such a part of you. I haven't thought of you often the last few years or so, to be honest, but when I do, there you are knee-deep in all those cups and mugs in your front room, out in the kitchen, hell, in your garage!»

  «I'll be damned,» said Bug. «What a memory you got.»

  We finished our Cokes and it was almost time to go. I couldn't help myself, even seeing that Bug had fleshed himself out over the years.

  «When-« I started to say, and stopped.

  «When what?» said Bug.

  «When,» I said with difficulty, «when was the last time you danced?»

  «Years,» said Bug.

  «But how long ago?»

  «Ten years. Fifteen. Maybe twenty. Yeah, twenty. I don't dance anymore.»

  «I don't believe that. Bug not dance? Nuts.»

  «Truth. Gave my fancy night-out shoes to the Goodwill, too. Can't dance in your socks.»

  «Can, and barefoot, too!»

  Bug had to laugh at that. «You're really something. Well, it's been nice.» He started edging toward the door. «Take care, genius-«

  «Not so fast.» I walked him out into the light and he was looking both ways as if there were heavy traffic. «You know one thing I never saw and wanted to see? You bragged about it, said you took three hundred ordinary girls out on the dance floor and turned them into Ginger Rogers inside three minutes. But I only saw you once at that aud-call in '38, so I don't believe you.»

  «What?» said Bug. «You saw the trophies!»

  «You could have had those made up,» I pursued, looking at his wrinkled suit and frayed shirt cuffs. «Anyone can go in a trophy shop and buy a cup and have his name put on it!»

  «You think I did that?» cried Bug.

  «I think that, yes!»

  Bug glanced out in the street and back at me and back in the street and back to me, trying to decide which way to run or push or shout.

  «What's got into you?» said Bug. «Why're you talking like that?»

  «God, I don't know,» I admitted. «It's just, we might not meet again and I'll never have the chance, or you to prove it. I'd like, after all this time, to see what you talked about. I'd love to see you dance again, Bug.»

  «Naw,» said Bug. «I've forgotten how.»

  «Don't hand me that. You may have forgotten, but the rest of you knows how. Bet you could go down to the Ambassador Hotel this afternoon, they still have tea dances there, and clear the floor, just like you said. After you're out there nobody else dances, they all stop and look at you and her just like thirty years ago.»

  «No,» said Bug, backing away but coming back. «No, no.»

  «Pick a stranger, any girl, any woman, out of the crowd, lead her out, hold her in your arms and just skim her around as if you were on ice and dream her to Paradise.»

  «If you write like that, you'll never sell,» said Bug.

  «Bet you, Bug.»

  «I don't bet.»

  «All right, then. Bet you you can't. Bet you, By God, that you've lost your stuff!»

  «Now, hold on,» said Bug.

  «I mean it. Lost your stuff forever, for good. Bet you. Wanna bet?»

  Bug's eyes took on a peculiar shine and his face was flushed. «How much?»

  «Fifty bucks!»

  «I don't have-«

  «Thirty bucks, then. Twenty! You can afford to lose that, can't you?»

  «Who says I'd lose, dammit?»

  «I say. Twenty. Is it a deal?»

  «You're throwing your money away.»

  «No, I'm a sure winner, because you can't dance worth shoats and shinola!»

  «Where's your money?» cried Bug, incensed now.

  «Here!»

  «Where's your car!?»

  «I don't own a car. Never learned to drive. Where's yours?»

  «Sold it! Jesus, no cars. How do we get to the tea dance!?» We got. We grabbed a cab and I paid and, before Bug could relent, dragged him through the hotel lobby and into the ballroom. It was a nice summer afternoon, so nice that the room was filled with mostly middle-aged men and their wives, a few younger ones with their girlfriends, and some kids out of college who looked out of place, embarrassed by the mostly old-folks music out of another time. We got the last table and when Bug opened his mouth for one last protest, I put a straw in it and helped him nurse a marguerita.

  «Why are you doing this?» he protested again.

  «Because you were just one of one hundred sixty-five close friends!» I said.

  «We were never friends,» said Bug.

  «Well, today, anyway. There's 'Moonlight Serenade.' Always liked that, never danced myself, clumsy fool. On your feet, Bug!»

  He was on his feet, swaying.

  «Who do you pick?» I said. «You cut in on a couple? Or there's a few wallflowers over there, a tableful of women. I dare you to pick the least likely and give her lessons, yes?»

  That did it. Casting me a glance of the purest scorn, he charged off half into the pretty teatime dresses and immaculate men, searching around until his eyes lit on a table where a woman of indeterminate age sat, hands folded, face thin and sickly pale, half hidden under a wide-brimmed hat, looking as if she were waiting for someone who never came.

  That one, I thought.

  Bug glanced from her to me. I nodded. And in a moment he was bowing at her table and a conversation ensued. It seemed she didn't dance, didn't know how to dance, didn't want to dance. Ah, yes, he seemed to be saying. Ah, no, she seemed to reply. Bug turned, holding her hand, and gave me a long stare and a wink. Then, without looking at her, he raised her by her hand and arm and out, with a seamless glide, onto the floor.

  What can I say, how can I tell? Bug, long ago, had never bragged, but only told the truth. Once he got hold of a girl, she was weightless. By the time he had whisked and whirled and glided her once around the floor, she almost took off, it seemed he had to hold her down
, she was pure gossamer, the closest thing to a hummingbird held in the hand so you cannot feel its weight but only sense its heartbeat sounding to your touch, and there she went out and around and back, with Bug guiding and moving, enticing and retreating, and not fifty anymore, no, but eighteen, his body remembering what his mind thought it had long forgotten, for his body was free of the earth now, too. He carried himself, as he carried her, with that careless insouciance of a lover who knows what will happen in the next hour and the night soon following.

  And it happened, just like he said. Within a minute, a minute and a half at most, the dance floor cleared. As Bug and his stranger lady whirled by with a glance, every couple on the floor stood still. The bandleader almost forgot to keep time with his baton, and the members of the orchestra, in a similar trance, leaned forward over their instruments to see Bug and his new love whirl and turn without touching the floor.

  When the «Serenade» ended, there was a moment of stillness and then an explosion of applause. Bug pretended it was all for the lady, and helped her curtsy and took her to her table, where she sat, eyes shut, not believing what had happened. By that time Bug was on the floor again, with one of the wives he borrowed from the nearest table. This time, no one even went out on the floor. Bug and the borrowed wife filled it around and around, and this time even Bug's eyes were shut.

  I got up and put twenty dollars on the table where he might find it. After all, he had won the bet, hadn't he?

  Why had I done it? Well, I couldn't very well have left him out in the middle of the high school auditorium aisle dancing alone, could I?

  On my way out I looked back. Bug saw me and waved, his eyes as brimmed full as mine. Someone passing whispered, «Hey, come on, look it this guy!»

  God, I thought, he'll be dancing all night.

  Me, I could only walk.

  And I went out and walked until I was fifty again and the sun was going down and the low June fog was coming in early over old Los Angeles.

  That night, just before going to sleep, I wished that in the morning when Bug woke up he would find the floor around his bed covered with trophies.

  Or at the very least he would turn and find a quiet and understanding trophy with her head on his pillow, near enough to touch.

  Once More, Legato

  1995 year

  Fentriss sat up in his chair in the garden in the middle of a fine autumn and listened. The drink in his hand remained unsipped, his friend Black unspoken to, the fine house unnoticed, the very weather itself neglected, for there was a veritable fountain of sound in the air above them.

  «My God,» he mid. «Do you 'hear?»

  «What, the birds?» asked his friend Black, doing just the opposite, sipping his drink, noticing the weather, admiring the rich house, and neglecting the birds entirely until this moment.

  «Great God in heaven, listen to them!» cried Fentriss.

  Black listened. «Rather nice.»

  «clean out your ears!»

  Black made a halfhearted gesture, symbolizing the cleaning out of ears. «Well?»

  «Damn it, don't be funny. I mean really listen! They're singing a tune!»

  «Birds usually do.»

  «No, they don't; birds paste together bits and pieces maybe, five or six notes, eight at the most. Mockingbirds have repertoires that change, but not entire melodies. These birds are different. Now shut up and give over!»

  Both men sat, enchanted. Black's expression melted.

  «I'll be damned,» he said at last. «They do go on.» He leaned forward and listened intently.

  «Yes . . .» murmured Fentriss, eyes shut, nodding to the rhythms that sprang like fresh rain from the tree just above their heads. «. . . ohmigod . . . indeed.»

  Black rose as if to move under the tree and peer up. Fentriss protested with a fierce whisper:

  «Don't spoil it. Sit. Be very still. Where's my pencil? Ah…»

  Half peering around, he found a pencil and notepad, shut his eyes, and began to scribble blindly.

  The birds sang.

  «You're not actually writing down their song?» said Black.

  «What does it look like? Quiet.»

  And with eyes now open, now shut, Fentriss drew scales and jammed in the notes.

  «I didn't know you read music,» said Black, astonished.

  «I played the violin until my father broke it. Please! There. There. Yes!

  «Slower,» he whispered. «Wait for me.»

  As if hearing, the birds adjusted their lilt, moving toward piano instead of bravado.

  A breeze stirred the leaves, like an invisible conductor, and the singing died.

  Fentriss, perspiration beading his forehead, stopped scribbling and fell back.

  «I'll be damned.» Black gulped his drink. «What was that all about?»

  «Writing a song.» Fentriss stared at the scales he had dashed on paper. «Or a tone poem.»

  «Let me see that!»

  «Wait.» The tree shook itself gently, but produced no further notes. «I want to be sure they're done.»

  Silence.

  Black seized the pages and let his eyes drift over the scales. «Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,» he said, aghast. «It works.» He glanced up at the thick green of the tree, where no throat warbled, no wing stirred. «What kind of birds are those?»

  «The birds of forever, the small beasts of an Immaculate Musical Conception. Something,» said Fentriss, «has made them with child and its name is song-«

  «Hogwash!»

  «Is it?! Something in the air, in the seeds they ate at dawn, some whim of climate and weather, God! But now they're mine, it's mine. A fine tune.»

  «It is'» said Black. «But can't be!»

  «Never question the miraculous when it happens. Good grief, maybe those damned wonderful creatures have been throwing up incredible songs for months, years, but no one listened. Today, for the first time, someone did. Me! Now, what to do with the gift?»

  «You don't seriously mean-?»

  «I've been out of work for a year. I quit my computers, retired early, I'm only forty-nine, and have been threatening to knit macrame' to give friends to spoil their walls, day after day. Which shall it be, friend, macrame' or Mozart?»

  «Are you Mozart?»

  «Just his bastard son.»

  «Nonsense,» cried Black, pointing his face like a blunderbuss at the trees as if he might blast the choir. «That tree, those birds, are a Rorschach test. Your subconscious is picking and choosing notes from pure chaos. There's no discernible tune, no special rhythm. You had me fooled, but I see and hear it now: you've had a repressed desire since childhood to compose. And you've let a clutch of idiot birds grab you by the ears. Put down that pen!»

  «Nonsense right back at you.» Fentriss laughed. «You're jealous that after twelve layabout years, thunderstruck with boredom, one of us has found an occupation. I shall follow it. Listen and write, write and listen. Sit down, you're obstructing the acoustics!»

  «I'll sit,» Black exclaimed, «but-« He clapped his hands over his ears.

  «Fair enough,» said Fentriss. «Escape fantastic reality while I change a few notes and finish out this unexpected birth.»

  Glancing up at the tree, he whispered:

  «Wait for me.»

  The tree rustled its leaves and fell quiet.

  «Crazy,» muttered Black.

  One, two, three hours later, entering the library quietly and then loudly, Black cried out:

  «What are you doing?»

  Bent over his desk, his hand moving furiously, Fentriss said:

  «Finishing a symphony!»

  «The same one you began in the garden?»

  «No, the birds began, the birds!»

  «The birds, then.» Black edged closer to study the mad inscriptions. «How do you know what to do with that stuff?»

  «They did most. I've added variations!»

  «An arrogance the ornithologists will resent and attack. Have you composed before?»

&
nbsp; «Not»-Fentriss let his fingers roam, loop, and scratch-«until today!»

  «You realize, of course, you're plagiarizing those songbirds?»

  «Borrowing, Black, borrowing. If a milkmaid, singing at dawn, can have her hum borrowed by Berlioz, well! Or if Dvorak, hearing a Dixie banjo plucker pluck 'Goin' Home,' steals the banjo to eke out his New World, why can't I weave a net to catch a tune? There! Finito. Done! Give us a title, Black!»

  «I? Who sings off-key?»

  «What about 'The Emperor's Nightingale'?»

  «Stravinsky.»

  «'The Birds'?»

  «Hitchcock.»

  «Damn. How's this: 'It's Only John Cage in a Gilded Bird'?»

  «Brilliant. But no one knows who John Cage was.»

  ''Well, then, I've got it!» And he wrote:

  «'Forty-seven Magpies Baked in a Pie.'

  «Blackbirds, you mean; go back to John Cage.»

  «Bosh!» Fentriss stabbed the phone. «Hello, Willie? Could you come over? Yes, a small job. Symphonic arrangement for a friend, or friends. What's your usual Philharmonic fee? Eh? Good enough. Tonight!»

  Fentriss disconnected and turned to gaze at the tree with wonder in it.

  «What next?» he murmured.

  «Forty-seven Magpies,» with title shortened, premiered at the Glendale Chamber Symphony a month later with standing ovations, incredible reviews.

  Fentriss, outside his skin with joy, prepared to launch himself atop large, small, symphonic, operatic, whatever fell on his ears. He had listened to the strange choirs each day for weeks, but bad noted nothing, waiting to see if the «Magpie» experiment was to be repeated. When the applause rose in storms and the critics hopped when they weren't skipping, he knew he must strike again before the epilepsy ceased.

  There followed: «Wings,» «Flight,» «Night Chorus,» «The Fledgling Madrigals,» and «Dawn Patrol,» each greeted by new thunderstorms of acclamation and critics angry at excellence but forced to praise.

  «By now,» said Fentriss, «I should be unbearable to live with, but the birds caution modesty.»

  «Also,'' said Black, seated under the tree, waiting for a sprig of benison and the merest touch of symphonic manna, «shut up! If all those sly dimwit composers, who will soon be lurking in the bushes, cop your secret, you're a gone poacher.»