Past tense. Every Saturday night for a whole semester I had class from 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. in the basement of the music building at my university. My friends always forgot and would invite me to parties, clubs, dinners, whatever and I’d have to tell them, “Sorry y’all I have to go watch people sing.” So, every Saturday night for a whole semester I’d get dressed up in my oxford shirt and pressed slacks and secondhand dress shoes at about 6:30 p.m., walk down the hill to the music school, go down the elevator to the sub-basement, take a right, say hello a couple times to some old people, and take a seat seven and a half feet from the grand piano. The pianist was a Russian-ish lady who insisted I pay her to accompany me (it was her job and she was paid by the university). I’m a tenor. Or really I was a tenor. I don’t sing anymore because it reminds me of the Earth and how it opens wide like jaws.
Sometimes into sinkholes right beneath houses in Florida. Innocent people get swallowed up into nothing and no one really knows what causes it but we have a feeling it has something to do with ghosts and building bodies out of metal. Think of the word “maw.”
Sheida sings. Her voice is so resonant, the six-foot slash nine-foot man slash behemoth of a professor (Italian but from New Jersey, misses the good ole days and his late wife, maybe four hundred pounds) is loving it and he’s smiling. He’s proud like a dad at a tennis match, quiet and reserved, but surely proud.
Dad at a tennis match. Guy at a bar. Maybe we’ll get married?
Present tense. My hands are sweating through my pockets. Professor wants me to go next, so I clutch my sheet music and hand a copy to the Russian-ish piano lady who smiles at me kind of and I take my place three feet and nine inches from the west-most side of the grand piano. Plunking keys, all white notes because the aria I’ve been assigned is in C for some reason. It sounds like a goddamn circus. Ugh. Before I open my mouth I remember
to arch the back of my head up towards heaven,
take a breath like I’m lying on my back with a cat on my stomach,
imagine myself pulled by a puppeteer straight up into the air,
and think about two perfect parallel lines beginning to oscillate like sine waves.
Tongue relaxed. Throat disengaged. This is gymnastics. This is ballet.
The tone starts dry and dampens with time about a half a second into the first quarter note. I’m singing the fifth of the scale over the tonic chord (home base) so it sounds great with my voice spinning in parallel, perfectly synchronous sinusoidals with the freshly tuned piano. So I’m singing. Professor is smiling. Dad at a tennis match. We get to the end of the aria and my eyes go black. Real black. I remember this is ballet, this is the goddamn Olympics. I focus on that darkness, run into the darkness. Before I open my mouth I remember—
Outside now. Storm cloud overhead. Run into the darkness. Kids are walking in the middle of the street. Mind is in reverb. Hummmmmmmmmmmmm. The night is still, the night is quiet, the night is blue. Big electric guitars. Bigger electric cars. Distorted clash and hummmmmmmmmm back to life. Head is in the freezer. Head is in the washing machine. Head is under the sink. It’s daytime anyways. Kids are walking in the middle of the street. Swing set is swinging all on its own. Ha. That’s funny how it goes like that.
It’s Saturday night again. Class time. Professor has a cane now. He’s somehow way older. It makes me sad to look at him. When I try to think of my dying grandpa I just think of Professor. His face has replaced Grandpa’s. That’s really sad, I think, as I fix the collar of my oxford. Professor says something about democrats because he doesn’t know we’re in Quebec (yikes). Russian-ish piano lady has a tip jar now. Respect the hustle. Professor is singing now. The whole of the Earth is in his voice. He channels it through his breaths, the Earth from the core surging power through his massive feet, his tree trunk legs, into his exploding chest and out his voice. I’m fucking crying, man. I’m really crying. Sheida got hit by a bike the other day so she’s home mourning her front teeth. It’s just the piano lady, Professor, and me. So really it's just me. The ground shakes a bit with mechanics and history. The heart of the mountain. The whole world is right here. I’m still crying. His voice hurts my chest because it vibrates at the same exact frequency as my heart, the actual organ, I mean, and it feels like it’ll explode any minute now. Won’t you sleep in my bed? I think as I think about that man at the bar and my cold sheets. It’s all too much for me. Professor is still singing. It’s rude, I know, but I stumble into the bathroom across the hall and throw up in the urinal. I keep having dreams about marrying that guy. I keep having dreams about parallel lines. Fuck.
So I stopped singing and picked up smoking. Professor is still in his tower. The world is all right there. His view’s panoramic. He can see the Olympic torch from all the way up. Montréal is tiny. Everything is tiny. The sun set a long time ago. His wife is dead. She’s not coming back. The good ole days are over. It’s all so over. All over the place. He’d say sol fiato. One breath.
I printed an email he sent me and taped it to my wall.
Dear Charlie,
Congrats on your fine work at this evening’s Master Class. It is a delight to work with your beautiful voice, musicality, and instinctive talent as I look forward to our days ahead.
Best wishes,
Professor
________
Charlie Zacks is a writer, editor, etc. from Atlanta, Georgia. He lives and studies in Montreal where he runs Stimulant, an independent literary publication. He believes in all the right things and hates all the things you hate.
Charlie Zacks is @earthopensup and @stimulant0 and @charliezacks
this moved me