ReFactoringLucidity

Jared woke from a nightmare of being lost and alone. The dream was not a new one. His heart was pounding inside his chest and a quick sweat broke along his hairline.

I know this room ... wait ... just a dream.

He focused on the cracked and peeling patch of stained ivory paint on the ceiling above him. There was a message there, he knew. At some time in the past he'd decoded that exploded symbol, that series of cracks. He couldn't remember what it meant, now, but it was reassuring to believe that once he'd understood it. He blinked harder, made the film of mucus stay down, sticky on his lashes. Blink. He recognized the smell, too. And he remembered.

Jesus, how could I forget him?

Jared rolled to his right and reached across the crumpled sheets to touch the silky curve of skin that peeked from folds of shadowed pillows and a blanket. David always buried himself in a tightly wrapped cocoon to sleep.

I know him. I love him? I'm not alone. Am I safe.

David shook off the touch, groaned and raised his head. "Huh?" He dropped back into his cotton cave.

Jared didn't have any ready words. He just wanted touch. He stroked the line of bare neck and dug his fingers beneath the blanket to explore damp curls of faded yellow ocher.

"Cut it out." David grumbled. "What time is it?"

Fuck if I know.

"Hey, I asked you ... What time is it, man?" David shoved the hand off his neck.

"You know I ain't got no watch, dude. Does it matter?" He rubbed across a covered shoulder.

"Not to you. Asshole! But I got to work." David pulled his shoulder away and rolled off the mattress. He stood up and let the sheets and blanket slide down his lean, pale, naked body.

Jared watched, tripping on the image of a butterfly emerging from ...

"You going back to sleep?" David scratched. He rubbed his face.

"I guess ... Yeah." Jared rolled away, closed his eyes tight and wondered if he could.

"Fuck you! Where were you all night, huh?" David yawned with a noisy "aaaahhhhwwww shit." He didn't really care.

Jared didn't answer, he slept. Easier than he thought. Just like falling. Let go, you fall. That's all.

Until he woke. The room was empty. He could hear the emptiness. Before he opened his eyes he heard it, the silence.

He's gone. More air, now. More room. Jared flopped over onto his back and looked up, searched that patch of secret messages.

Did I ever figure it out or do I just tell myself that? Who wrote it? Who left the message and did he know what the fuck he was talking about or what? Jared didn't think so. Not right now, anyway. He thought it was just age and decay. That's a message, he decided, and no secret. Not when you think about it. He didn't like thinking about it.

He got up. Had to. His bladder was full to bursting. David didn't flush. He never did. It was like marking his territory. Jared felt the intimacy crawl up his legs as he pissed into David's piss. It made the little hairs along his legs stand up and tickle.

I guess I love him. Right?

The face in the medicine cabinet mirror stared back at him with the blankness of a mask hung on a wall. Empty.

"That's very good!" He congratulated that face. "Keep it up, man." A joke. Not funny.

He washed off what was left of the mascara and the white pancake makeup. The mask in the mirror had a few black streaks left but that just gave it some interest. A little mystery. Most of it came off on the towel, anyway. Some of his black hair dye stained the towel, too.

Fuck it. What's so permanent about that, huh?

Nothing is permanent. He knew that. He ran fingers through his hair, made it spike up and out. Pin head. He made a false smile. The only kind he could ever make. The mask smiled.

Plagiarist!

He found his guitar in the case. Odd place for it, when you think about it. Like in a coffin. Guitars are dead inside a case. Then he sat naked, cross-legged on the mattress on the floor right where the sunlight came in and warmed him, slightly. He pulled his notebook closer, clicked his clear plastic pen into the active position and laid it down ... he strummed chords, just chords ... minor and low. He stopped occasionally to write in the notebook until he didn't need the guitar anymore. He lay on his belly and wrote page after page ... fast, tight, tiny words ... a poetry of fear and trembling and truth hidden in secret messages.

When the sunlight began to look like noon or later, Jared pulled on jeans and his work boots and a black tee shirt that didn't smell too bad. He should have taken a shower but, fuck it, the shower stall was dirtier than he was. At least his feet weren't green, yet.

He hid his guitar for safe keeping, in the back corner of the sink cabinet. It was about the only thing he owned. He pushed the garbage can in front of it. His notebook went down the back of his jeans. He needed that with him, always.

Clock in the window of the jewelry store said one o'clock. Practice began at two. It was a long walk so he took off. He had to stop and Randy six people before he got a smoke. Fucking deal, huh?

The iron gate was unlocked. Meant the John dude was already inside. Jared pushed open the massive carved walnut or whatever door and felt sucked into the dim and muffled interior.

"Jared?"

"Dude!" He slouched over to where the John dude was shuffling paper music across a long table. The ceiling was so fucking high he couldn't even see it.

"Ah, here it is ... I hope we can begin with this ... it's a cantata ... Did you have lunch yet?" John was pointing to another table set with a cheap looking deli buffet but he was turning to look at Jared and his eyes were not pleased. It showed. "Uh ... Do you need to run over the music or ..."

"I can play it, man. Whatever." Jared went to the buffet, crammed two white bread sandwiches in his mouth. Enough to chew on for a while. He picked up a paper cup of something red and iced ... fruit punch? Was it poisoned? He went to the polished black grand piano down in the little sunk-in place by the stage. "Oh, hand it down, okay?" His mouth was still half full but John understood, passed down the sheet music.

Jared opened the music on the fretwork stand, lifted the keyboard cover and spread his fingers along the familiar tracks of mosaic notes imbedded in black and ivory keys. He glanced up at the opening lines and got a kind of flash of where this thing was going. He touched a note ... felt the vibe. A great piano! Another note, whispered. Then it began.

As the rising complexity of chords built to a flourish of introduction, then fell into a prologue of little bits to be brought back later, the John dude stood fixed, amazed. He took off his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief. He tried to avoid looking right at Jared, just listened to the tidal waves of sound that rose and peaked and crashed into various melodies and combined signatures, divided into voices.

When the music abruptly stopped, John shivered, jerked from his ride.

"That sound about right?" Jared was looking up, placid. He might be asking if the nail was in the right place. A workman. He had no artistic presence at all.

"It was amazing, Jared! I mean, I was only hoping for a melodic line, the chords ... just enough so the choir can work over the background ... I didn't expect ..." His voice shut off, mute.

"Figured I'd fuck it up, huh?" Jared didn't smile or indicate a jocular flippancy.

"Watch your language, please! This is the house of God." John went for stern, fell short of shock. "I had no idea you would be so talented, Jared. You just told me you could play, could read music and ..."

"Any special way you want it timed? Slower, moody? What?" Jared ignored the flattery. He'd heard all that before.

"It sounded fine, perfect! For the first few rehearsals we'll need to skip around. I want to run them through the more complex sections ... page 15 ... page 22, and the finale beginning with page 35. Would you like me to mark the parts?"

"Got it." Jared turned back to flip through the sheet music. He didn't turn down corners or mark the pages, he seemed to be just reading it through as fast as he could turn the sheets.

The members of the choir began to come in. John went to greet them. Human chatter swelled around the stage. Jared liked being down in the recessed pit. He felt hidden, out of sight of the choir. Only the director was in sight when they began. Jared watched him the first few times ... watched for his point of the baton. After he got the timing, he didn't need to look up. John dude would tap his lectern three times and the point would come in a count of two. Jared just watched his own fingers or glanced up at the carefully arranged symbols dancing on the page. So many squiggles, just dots and lines and spaces of white. Most people couldn't make sense of it but Jared could read the secret messages, interpret the deeper nuances of the poetry, predict the path of a sequence and feel the questioning upward lilt or be calmed by the satisfying drifts downward and the conclusion of a passage. It all made perfect sense if you could read the secret language. Life was like that, too, Jared was sure. Just that, well, he had never really learned to read life that well. Most of it was still impenetrable and mysterious. Like love. Like giving and feeling. Like touching.

The John dude called a break and told everybody to grab a bite to eat. He came down to the Piano cave and wanted to tell Jared how magical it was to work with a musician so sensitive ... it was as if he had e.s.p. or ...

Jared interrupted to ask if John would bring him a couple of sandwiches and some more red punch. "I kinda missed lunch, see?" he explained.

John didn't like that. His eyes did the squinty thing, again. Jared figured everybody needed to eat, right? What the fuck? People, man! Jeez.

Then he forgot about John's squinty eyes that he didn't understand, anyway, and began to riff on the major theme of the cantata. He let the notes on the page dance around a bit, loosen up, drift into a sort of jazzy blues kind of thing.

But people began coming over to stand on the steps behind him, watch him and stare. So he stopped when John brought some chicken salad on white bread and punch and paper napkins. John took the choir people away to talk to some other suit guys that had just come in.

Jared ate and just played the free form music inside his head. Better that way. Secret. It was red Kool-Aid that cult guy used, right? Jim something. The music inside his head got crazy. He had to stop it.

John went back to the lectern after a while and choir people filed up on stage and muttered quietly. "We're going to do a complete run through. It will give us all a better feel for the entire piece. Just straight through. From the beginning" ... he glanced over at the piano but Jared was not looking. John tapped on the lectern to get his attention. Just as he raised his baton the music began. Jared didn't need to see him.

Jared played the entire introduction and the choir came in perfectly, on key and in time. He felt good. The first real melody took his heart and lifted it, swirled it around. Then came the more lucid, questioning part, the solid staircase progressions, the arguments, the slight tone of bitterness. The next section was the one he liked, the quietly sad part ... the tonal mourning, the affected cheer, the darkness below ... and then the wonderful finale with its over-folding amens that required the human voices to complete it. That section of the music was hollow without the voices. Interesting concept.

Then Jared came to an abrupt halt. The vocal noise that jarred on his ears made his fingers cramp up and freeze.

A few voices continued, then went off key ... fell into nervous silence. The baton tapped on the lectern. "Jared?" John spoke with a stern bass voice. "I wanted to go straight through, I wanted to ..."

Jared played all three parts of the "amen" section ... then he played each part separately, then he put them back together. He never looked up at John. I mean, what's the point? Anybody can hear that.

"Oh, uh ... well ... yes. I see. Baritones? Did you get that? ..." John's voice was overwhelmed as Jared played their part again.

John went on. "Do you hear that shift into the minor? You were not singing it. Try it, alone, please."

Jared played along with them. They got it.

"Now, Madeline? When you reach the end of the first bar, there's no coloration there... "

Jared played her six simple notes. He spaced them out, with emphasis, then he played them in proper timing.

"Try it." John tapped, Jared led her through it. "Much better."

"Put it all together, now ... begin at ..."

Jared played the lead-in to the enfolded "amen", the choir fell in with his lead.

It went correctly that time. The voices filled the hollow then they rose over and above the music. They spoke of something outside the music, but complemented it. Together, the voices and the music were more. Jared closed the keyboard, closed the sheet music. He finished off the fruit punch in his paper cup.

Too many people up there, he didn't want to leave the pit until they thinned out. He sat very still and played the ending over inside his head. Magical. Mysterious. Secretive.

John came down two steps into the pit.

"Jared? When I say we'll go straight through ..."

Jared turned quickly and stood. "You told me twenty dollars? Remember?"

Another suit guy was just beside John. A little thin guy. His eyes were smiling, full of joy. Jared looked into them, soaked up that beam.

"Of course I'm going to pay you but ..." John tried to brush that aside.

"Then pay the man, John." The little guy grinned. He was enjoying himself.

"Oh. For Heaven's sake!" John deftly flipped out his wallet, pulled out a single bill and offered it to Jared.

"Thanks, man!" Jared grabbed it, looked up to see how many people were still hanging around. A few.

"Go away, John. I'd like to speak to, uh, Jared? Is it?" He waved John away. John went away.

The little guy floated down the last two steps. He was even shorter, then. Not so high as Jared's chin. He looked up at the young man's face and his smile stayed alive and ticking.

"I heard that cantata once in something-something Abbey." The name didn't mean anything to Jared except he thought the Abbey part had something to do with the Beatles.

"Yeah?" Jared glanced up, still a lot of people up there. Some looked back. He turned to the little guy. Better scenery.

"It was inspiring then but today you gave me goose bumps. You made it fill the space, you see? The piano, the music ..." The little guy was just like the skinny girls that came up after a session in Barney's. They liked the music so they wanted to fuck the musician. Or get fucked by the music. Something. He wants my dick. Jared understood that part.

"Have you been playing long?" He fluttered his lashes and tilted his head.

"Father Joseph?" someone called.

The little guy waved them away. He never turned his glance from Jared's face.

"Not long. All my life, I guess ... but that's not so long." Jared absorbed the excitement, the trippy bubbling nervousness of the little guy. He watched the eyes. It came out of them, washed over him, lit him up.

"I'm afraid our regular pianist is due back tomorrow. But if you give me your phone number, perhaps we'll need a musician for something, sometime ... I'd like to keep in touch?"

"I don't have a phone." Jared glanced around. Nobody nearby. He leaned down, so close his breath would burn the guy's ear. "For another twenty you can touch me right now."

He bumped his shoulder into the guy's chest, soft, gentle, warm.

"Uh ... oh, uh, Jared!" The guy's eyes blinked and lost their sparkle. Jared watched. He felt deflated when the joy disappeared.

"I don't know, uh, you're quite ..." Little man stepped back. Afraid of the truth.

Jared shrugged it off. Sometimes you win, sometimes ... "Fuck it. Look me up when you figure it out, man!" He shouldered past the guy. He smelled like something sweet and smoky ... incense? Musk? Hash? Priests were kinda weird, anyway.

"Wait ... Jared ..." Nice smell drew him around, made him think about it.

"Mmmm?"

"Where would I look, if I wanted to look you up?" Just a little of the old glint came back. A secret joy.

"Barney's? Coffee shop and dive down on 39th and ..."

"Yes. I've seen it. Been in there, actually." Father Joseph smiled. He must have liked it there. Good memories floated across his face.

"I generally play in there like Tuesday nights or Wednesdays ... late, mostly." Jared sniffed the smell. Artificial scent, a cologne or something. He shrugged. "Or you can give me your number?"

"Mmmm" Joseph grinned. "Will you promise not to leave inappropriate messages on my answering machine?"

"I ain't got no appropriate message for you, Joe." Jared's eyes focused hard. The corner of his lip twitched. A smile was trying to get born. Hard labor. At least it was trying.

"What sort of message do you have for me, Jared?" Joe's voice was breathy. The joy came back, sudden, sparkling and vibrant. Jared wanted to touch him. To absorb him.

"Is everybody gone yet?" Jared wouldn't look away from those vivid brown eyes. Too good, too perfect.

"I think so. It's awful quiet." Joseph whispered, grinned like a kid.

"Not so awful. I like quiet." The overhead lights flickered out. "I like it dark, too."

"How did you do that?" Joseph laughed.

Jared reached out through the dark, touched the front of Joe's pants, smoothed his palm down to cup the hardness, the excitement, the heat.

Joe gasped, a quick intake of air.

"You like that, huh?" Jared pulled him closer, their bodies pressed together. Joe's arms went around him. Held him.

Jared used his lips to search for lips ...

"Don't ... don't kiss me, Jared, please ..."

Everything went dull and wrong, off key. Jared pushed the little man away and turned, found the steps and climbed up. He spotted the rear door by the little halo of light that leaked in around it. Nice image, light seeping around the heavy barricade. Like a secret message. Jared wished he knew what it meant. For real.