Thomas Disch - On Wings of Song

Daniel nodded.

“Beyond mere rapturous applause, Ben, I would like to make you an offer.” He raised a finger as though to forestall Daniel’s objections. “A professional offer. I gather, from the second song on the program, that your goals aren’t entirely limited to the, how shall I say, commercial side of show biz.”

“Really, I don’t have any goals.”

“Now, now, no false modesty.”

“I mean, I’m still a student. A student’s goal is just to learn.”

“Well then, my offer should interest you precisely as a student. How would you like to sing at Marble Collegiate? As one of our soloists.”

“No fooling?” Daniel said, lighting up. And then, “No, that wouldn’t be possible.”

“Ah, the Cardinal has already taken you to his bosom, has he? One just can’t be quick enough.”

“No, not at all. And I’m sure he has no intention of doing so. He’s got the whole Metastasio to take his pick from. I’m simply not up to that level.”

“You’d certainly be up to ours, Ben. And then some. We’re not especially notable for our music program. A Bach cantata is about our farthest stretch, and that only once or twice a year. On the other hand, we try for more than a sing-along. From your point of view it would represent experience, which is a commodity you won’t be lacking for long, but do you, at the moment, have any other plans? Rehearsals are on Wednesday evenings. And I think I could get a hundred a week out of the budget. What do you say?”

“What can I say? I’m flattered, but—”

“Mr. Rey would object — is that it?”

“He might. More likely, he’d haggle over the fee.”

“What else then?”

“Where would I be? In a loft at the back, or up front where people would be watching me?”

“Surely, Ben, after what I saw tonight, you’re not going to tell me that you’re the shy type! I’ve never seen such sang-froid. And in front of this audience!”

Daniel bit his lip. There was no way to explain. He’d known he’d come up against this problem as soon as he became, in any degree, successful, but despite the steady progress he’d made studying under Rey, success hadn’t seemed an immediate danger. Hope had sprung eternal, of course, in his all-too-human breast, but the rational half of him, which was in charge of major decisions, had considered such hopes to be pipe-dreams, and so he’d let himself drift with the current from week to week till he arrived at the inevitable moment of decision, here at last.

How long, once he became, even in the smallest way, a public figure, could he hope to preserve his incognito? And more to the point: was that what he wanted, forever and always?

“Shelly,” he temporized, “I’m grateful for your offer, believe me. And I’d like to say yes right now, but there’s someone I have to talk it over with first. Okay?”

“You know where you can find me. Meantime, yours sincerely, and all that.” Shelly, a little sad and rebuffed, departed, bumping into the music room’s disordered chairs. No one else came forward.

Daniel looked for Claude through all the other rooms, but he must have left at the end of the concert. A small desolation settled over Daniel’s spirit. He wanted to deposit his six lilies in a waste basket (he was certain they’d done duty at a week of funerals) and go home and crash.

But that would never do. It was important now to circulate, and so he circulated. But as far as he personally was concerned the party was over.

Claude had not forgotten him, however. The next morning a delivery truck appeared on West 65th with a peculiar and very precious cargo, consisting of (1) a Sony Flight apparatus, (2) a tombstone with a limerick on it, and (3) a tie representing raindrops. There was also a telegraphically short letter from Claude saying good-bye, explaining that Franciscans weren’t allowed to fly, and wishing him good luck as a honeybunny.

When the delivery men were gone and his room had been rearranged to accommodate the two new items of furniture, Daniel sat down before the flight apparatus and let temptation have its way with him. But he knew he wasn’t ready, and he knew that he’d know when he was, and he didn’t succumb.

That night, as though in recompense, he had his first real flying dream. He dreamed he was flying over an imaginary Iowa, an Iowa of marble mountains and blithe valleys, of golden, unreal cities and fabulous farms dazzling the eye with fields of Fabergé wheat. He woke unwilling to believe it had been only a dream. But grateful, nevertheless, to have been given so unmistakable a sign.

Earlier on the evening of that dream, in the taxi returning from Cardinal Rockefeller’s, Rey had hinted at the possibility, then announced the fact, of Daniel’s manumission. Daniel expressed an honest surprise and a not dishonest regret; prudently, he did not by so much as one hurrah express his jubilation.

It was not to be an absolute sundering. Daniel would continue to study with the great Ernesto, but on the more customary footing of offering him, in lieu of immediate payment, a third of his professional income over the next seven years. Daniel signed a contract to this effect, witnessed by Mrs. Schiff and Irwin Tauber, who, as Daniel’s agent, was to receive a further fifteen percent. If this were exploitation, Daniel was delighted to be considered prospectively exploitable. Could there be any sincerer testimony to their faith in his future than their wanting to secure a piece of it for themselves?

His delight was soon to be tempered by the reality of his first paycheck. His wage from Marble Collegiate was an even hundred dollars; after deductions for Federal, State, and City taxes and for Social Security, and after Rey’s and Tauber’s percentages, Daniel was left with $19.14. So, when fall arrived, it was back to the Metastasio. Mr. Ormund kindly allowed him to take off early on Wednesdays to attend his choir’s rehearsals. Further, he was promoted to the position (alternating with Lee Rappacini) of croupier on the casino’s roulette wheel, a post which, even after the Metastasio’s and Mr. Ormund’s rake-offs, was an undeniably juicy plum.

Not that Daniel was given to fretting about money. He was still predominantly of the grasshopper persuasion and unable to take alarm at remote contingencies. By the terms of his agreement with Rey, Boa would be looked after for another year. Congress, meanwhile, was drawing up a uniform code of laws concerning flight, a code that would certainly see to it that no one would be put in the impossible position Daniel had been in, of being able to keep Boa alive only by resorting to the black market. In a year’s time, when Daniel would have to reassume the burden of her support, it should not, therefore, be quite so crushing and unfair a burden. If he saved, he might even be able to put her back in First National Flightpaths. Such are a grasshopper’s sanguine, summertime thoughts.

Having had, on the whole, a rather easy time of it during his year of concubinage, Daniel did not find freedom going to his head. In any case, these terms are relative. In a practical sense his life wasn’t much changed, except that now he could, when the urge came over him, go out and get laid. Mostly, however, except for a three-day binge right after the belt came off, the urge didn’t come over him, not in the old overmastering and time-consuming way. This diminution of his erstwhile perpetual motion may have had something to do with sublimation, but he doubted it. Renata Semple had always maintained that sublimation was a load of Freudian bullshit, that the best lays also transmitted the largests zaps of creative energy. Maybe he was just getting old and wearing out. Maybe his present sex-life represented the optimum level for his metabolism and previously he’d been overdoing it. In any case he was happy, wasn’t he, so why worry?