Past
the crumbling tenements, against the back corner of the city, the music could
be heard drifting through the near deserted streets, echoing across the cracked
concrete. During the day, it cannot be
heard, but the residents know it’s there, and every night when the shouting of
neighbors dies and the soft cries of infants begin to echo through the
buildings, the music can be heard outside.
The dross gathered on the front steps of the tenements pay it no
attention for the most part, but occasionally, one looks up into the dark night
towards the sky, stars hidden by the lights of a city in despair, and sighs,
hearing the violinist’s melancholy song.
It came from the crumbling redbrick
between the dissatisfying government housing, a single three-story dwarfed by
the unfeeling concrete monoliths next to it.
It was rotting and in disrepair: once, it may have been enviable, when
the neighborhood was still enviable and white.
Following every winter, more shingles fell from the roof, and more vines
pulled apart the mortar between the bricks; every spring, more water seeped in
through the broken foundation. The house
of Arthur Wade.
The tall, gaunt man stood at almost
military attention, finger flipping across yellowed pages on a music stand,
mumbling to himself. His skin was pale
and sickly, and although not an incredibly old man, he looked much older than
his actual years. A lifetime spent
indoors, shut away from the horrible world around him. He mumbled as he paged through the yellow
paper, his thinning, raggedly cut hair falling in front of his ancient reading
glasses. Arthur gave a yelp in pain,
bringing his thumb to his mouth as a few drops of crimson stained the
paper. He pulled his thumb out, and
stared intently at his hand, watching the blood congeal and run down towards
his wrist. “Bow hand. Bow hand, Bow hand,” he muttered, over and over again as
he pulled a stained handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped his hand up in
it. The violent red began seeping
through the light cotton, but Arthur was already staring back down at the
papers in front of him, humming now, tracing lines with his left hand, as he
precariously held the right close to his face, the white handkerchief now
spotted with blood. He turned the page,
and continued humming.
The blood stopped, and the
handkerchief barely had time to fall to the floor before Arthur arched his arm
and dragged the bow across the violin’s strings as a howling screech before a
single note echoed through the room, reverberating against the yellowed wallpaper
and falling back into Arthur’s ears. His
eyes closed, yet eyelid’s fluttering to the music, he began to play the sweet,
mournful song. The music swelled through
the house and out the boarded up windows, before falling on the ears of the old
black woman walking up from the street.
Past her, no one heard.
She stood on the ancient front
porch, listening to the music, a canvas bag tightly grasped between her
hands. After a few minutes, the notes
died, and she reached for the brass knocker, bringing down on the door as
strongly as her hands could manage. She
waited a few minutes before knocking again, and almost immediately, a
compartment slid open across the door and she was greeted by the cold, blue
gaze of Arthur Wade’s eyes: “Mrs. Washington.”
“Good evening, Mr. Wade. I have your things from the store for you.”
Ms. Washington smiled at him through the door, and was greeted by the rattle of
locks and chains. It slid open enough
for a pale hand to stretch out, grasping the canvas bag and pulling it quickly out
of the old woman’s grasp. It retreated
into the darkness beyond the door before returning with a crumpled twenty
dollar bill. Mrs. Washington took it
gingerly, and then paused to shake the hand, as Arthur attempted to return it
to the darkness of the house. “Mr. Wade,
it’s a lovely night out. Why don’t you
come outside?” The door slammed closed
after the hand returned inside, and the click of locks and the rattle of chains
could be heard. Mrs. Washington shook
her head and walked down the sidewalk.
Arthur examined the contents of the
canvas bag while sitting in a dusty wooden chair in the ruined kitchen; the
cupboards were mostly empty, until he began placing an amount of tin cans into
them. He reached into a poorly varnished
drawer, brushing aside a wayward cockroach as he pulled out a can opener. After opening the can, he reached back into
the drawer and procured a single match, striking it against the rough wood
under the peeling plastic of the table.
It sparked, as he rushed toward the stove, lighting it before placing
the can upon it. Almost stumbling
backwards, Arthur turned and walked down the hall back into the bedroom: a
dirty mattress and old blankets sitting in a corner, surrounded by stacks of
yellowed and dusty books, all on music.
He carefully selects one titled Schumann
and sits on the overstuffed chair in the corner opposite his bed. Outside, the wind began to pick up, and the
house creaked around him, but Arthur paid it no mind.
After several minutes, he returned
to the kitchen and removed the can from the stovetop with an old
potholder. Sitting at the table, book in
hand, Arthur began to eat, as he always did.
The soup dribbled down his thin lips, before he wiped the back of his
sleeve against them, adding another stain to the faded red fabric. Above him, as he intently continued to read,
a faded photograph looked down at him.
The boy in the picture stood smiling in front of a middle-aged woman,
carrying the hawkish nose and the short chin of Arthur. A violin was clutched in the boy’s hand; a
boy with the same hawkish nose and short chin.
Arthur finished his meal, dumping the can into a slot through the wall,
as the clank fell into the alley next to the house and directly into an open
garbage can. It fell loudly, amplified
by a yowl as a tabby jumped from inside the can and took off further into the
alley. With a gushing of brown water,
Arthur clumsily washed the spoon, placing it back into drawer. The cockroach was nowhere to be seen.
The house was in complete
disrepair. The stairs leading to the top
floors sagged and gradually coalesced into a mass of splintered wood below the
top floor. The light caught a glimmer of
a cat’s eye: the feral occupant of the second floor, content to prowl at night
for mice and rats through the inhabited mess of the first floor. The carpeting was worn through in a single
track down the hallway, the same path Arthur trudged towards his bedroom. He sat back down in the over-stuffed chair,
and continued reading, mumbling to himself.
He fell asleep quickly, knuckles turning white against the book, the
sunlight barely disappearing behind the buildings crowding the horizon.
I like that story. Pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to ask, do you do drafts and improve them, or just write stuff up and then don't care?
This is something I'm interested in too actually. I did love the story though. It sounds like the man's mental and physical wellbeing took a hit after his wife and child presumably died or just left him, and even after all that time he's still not moved on.
DeleteI do a lot of rewriting as I go. Every time I resume writing on a piece, I read what I have so far and usually make some adjustments to it. Everything I post on here is essentially just a rough draft however, and I either have already revised some or are planning on another look to determine if anything can be improved. I'm a big fan of revision; nothing is perfect the first go around.
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