Michael Kube-McDowell - The Quiet Pools

“What’s up, guy?”

“Broke a string.”

“Ah. Better here than on stage, eh?”

“Better,” Christopher agreed. “How are things outside?”

“Greg has the recorders all ready to roll. The multi is audience center, fifth row, so he can do splits on your fingering, and the tank camera is front row left. And he’s doubling sound with a digital MIDI.”

Christopher shook his head. “God. He really went overboard.”

“You ask a techie to help, you let them do it their way,” Keith said with a shrug. “Nobody’s going to think it’s strange.”

“No? Fifty thousand dollars of hardware and fifty people in the audience?”

“Says who? The room’s filling up nicely. I think it’ll be close to full.”

Christopher was taken aback. “Really. Bonnie and Ambika must have a following.”

Keith shook his head. “If they do, they’re gonna have to stand in the back. There’s a good dozen archies out there, and at least half the other faces look familiar. Looks like word got out around the center.”

“That Greg’s doing, too?”

Grinning, Keith said, “Well, not exactly. I didn’t think you’d mind a friendly audience, after all the work you’ve been banking. And with graduation Friday and winter holiday coming up this weekend, I didn’t have to twist any arms. We even got a few out from Noonerville.”

Christopher sat back, the neck of the guitar held loosely between his knees, and looked sideways up at his friend. “Thanks, Daniel,” he said. “I don’t mind. I just hope I’m up to it.”

“Just have some fun,” Keith said. “They’ll enjoy it if you do.” He nodded. “You’d better finish with that.”

“It’s tuned,” said Christopher. “You know, I’ve never done a whole set with just the Martin before. But that’s what Bill asked for.”

“High time,” Keith said. “All that synth fill and bangbox stuff is for cowards.”

“Who told you to say that?”

“Papa Bill did.”

“He would.” Christopher’s expression darkened. “Just to save me from looking—I don’t suppose Loi or Jessie—”

“Sorry. No,” Keith said. “Not unless they came in while I’ve been in here.”

Tight-lipped, Christopher shook his head. “I didn’t expect them.”

“Still at war?”

“Trenches and mortars. They won’t pick a new counselor, I won’t go back to the old one. We lob words back and forth at each other a couple times a day.”

“Bad juju. But save it for later,” Keith said, glancing at the clock behind Christopher. “Five minutes. I’m going to get out of here and let you collect yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“You all right?”

“Nervous,” confessed Christopher.

“Nervous is good, I hear.”

“I’m not used to playing for people who’re there to listen instead of to get laid.”

“If it’ll make you feel better, I can try to get laid.”

A laugh broke through the nervousness. “Oh, gee, Dan, it’s awfully nice of you to offer, but I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“Sure you could,” Keith answered with a grin. “Anything for a buddy. Break a string, huh?”

An hour alone on stage can be an instant or an eternity. For Christopher McCutcheon that night, it was an eternity, and Daniel Keith’s heart ached for him.

The worst of it was that it was no one’s fault but Christopher’s. Papa Wonders kept his introduction low-key and discreet, careful not to oversell his inexperienced opening act or splash Christopher with the taint of Allied Transcon. And the friendly crowd gave Christopher a warm reception as he came down the aisle. The portents were all good. All he had to do was rise to the moment.

But when Christopher went to mount the small stage at the narrow end of the hall, he stumbled and nearly fell, cracking his guitar sickeningly against the steps. Collecting himself, he crossed to the stool at center stage and worriedly inspected his instrument.

“Is there a luthier in the audience?” he murmured, almost to himself, as he fingered a spot on the edge of the body. Finally satisfied, he looked up and out at the audience. “Good thing I don’t have to walk and play guitar at the same time.”

The honeymoon was still in effect; the weak joke got a stronger response than it deserved. Keith could only imagine what it felt like to look out from there and see more than two hundred people looking back at you expectantly.

“Anyway, thank you for the welcome. I’m going to try to give you about six hundred years of music in about sixty minutes,” he went on, speaking quickly, “so I won’t waste too many of those minutes talking. Just sit back and let me drive the time machine. And remember, if the scenery gets dull, you can always take a nap for a hundred years or so.”

The laughs were noticeably weaker for the second jest. They had come to be entertained, and Christopher was parading his self-doubt before them like an anxious youth drafted for a recital before the relatives. His shaky confidence was understandable, but letting it show was a mistake.

So was the first number, a movement from the Bach cello suites, though Christopher forgot to announce it as such. Elegant and coldly precise, it seemed to Keith to steal the energy and enthusiasm from the room. It did not matter that Christopher played it well. The audience settled back into show-me mode, and though that was what Christopher had asked for, Keith wondered if he would be able to bring them back up to the higher pitch when he wanted.

If he wanted. Keith studied Christopher’s face carefully, trying to read his emotions. It wasn’t easy. Christopher rarely looked up, rarely made eye contact beyond the front edge of the stage. It occurred to Keith that perhaps Christopher was so uncomfortable with the audience that he preferred them at a distance, that he had to hold them down to hold himself together.

Ah, Chris, what are you doing here? Why did you let yourself in for this?

At the end of the Bach, the applause was solidly polite, but nothing more. Barely acknowledging the audience, Christopher introduced the next number as an Irish reel, and immediately launched into another instrumental. This one was up-tempo, energetic, and, to Keith’s ears, monotonously repetitive.

Even so, the audience was good-naturedly clapping, more or less in rhythm, when Christopher’s fingers seemed to forget their place. Though he recovered from the muff, he couldn’t conceal it, and when the tune was done there was as much talk as applause. All around him, Keith could hear the registers falling in place, click-click-click. Whose idea was this? Say, where do you want to go afterward? What time is it, anyway? I think I’ll go get another beer. Come on, Chris, just look out here and sing to me, goddammit , Keith urged silently. Pick a pair of pretty eyes and sing to them. You can’t pretend we’re not here .

But Christopher did just that, through two more instrumental numbers. It seemed he did not have enough confidence to win their confidence, or enough concentration to survive being conscious of where he was. And so he withdrew from them, into himself, as though he were alone in his room.

Secure in that place, he played well, tight-jawed and sure-fingered. But to get there, he sacrificed all emotional rapport with what had started out as an easy room. You’re a musician, not a performer, Chris my friend , Keith thought sadly. And you should have known .

Halfway through his set, Christopher won back a few jury points with a bizarre story-song full of flashy harmonics, called “All Along the Watchtower.” He immediately lost half the gains with an endless and mostly incomprehensible twentieth-century love song involving, as near as Keith could figure, a man, a woman, and a taxi.