Amy Cross - The Music Man

I try to cry out, but he’s pushing harder now and there’s a pain in my neck. It’s almost as if he means to kill me, and the pain gets stronger and stronger until finally I scream.

Immediately, he pulls his boot away, but a moment later he kicks me hard in the ribs. I let out an agonized gasp and roll onto my side, only for Glass to kick me in the side of the face.

“Look at him!” Glass yells. “He still thinks he’s resisting!”

“I will never do what you want!” I stammer. “I’m not—”

Suddenly he moves his foot closer to my face. I cry out and hold my hands up to protect myself, but Glass doesn’t kick me this time. Instead, he simply starts laughing.

“You will play that guitar, old man,” Glass sneers. “We both know it, so why not just get on with it now? Let my son hear music for the first time.”

“Never!” I gasp, as I taste blood in the back of my throat.

“Now!”

“Never!”

“Now!”

“Ne—”

He kicks me again, this time in the throat. I roll onto my other side and reach up, clutching the sides of my neck. For a few seconds I can’t breathe at all, as if the impact has crushed my wind-pipe, but finally I’m just about able to get some gasps of air into my lungs.

“See how he continues to resist?” Glass calls out to his son. “This can be a useful lesson to you, son. Choose your battles. He’s going to surrender eventually, he’s just making it difficult for himself.”

I hear him starting to walk away.

Rolling back over, I watch for a moment as he heads to his laptop. He checks something on the screen, as if to remind me of the explosive devices that are all around us, and then he turns and grins at me. It’s the same kind of sickly grin that I remember seeing on Roger’s face all those years ago. I stood up to Roger, and I will now stand up to -

Suddenly I think back to the sight of Sarah’s corpse.

I stood up to Roger, and consequently that poor girl died.

Glancing over at young Joshua Jr. as he continues to stare at the floor, I’m suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of sorrow. That poor child has lost his mother, and I certainly know how that feels. Now he’s a virtual prisoner of an insane father, of a father who has brought him into this deadly trap. The child has never heard music, he can’t even imagine how it sounds, and his entire life looks set to be miserable. If there is one thing I can do to help him, to maybe offer him hope, then should I not at least try?

And that’s when I realize that while I desperately want to stand up to tyrants such as Joshua Glass Sr., I am inadvertently bowing down to an even great tyrant. To a tyrant who has been with me my whole life. There is a tyrant in my heart, constantly telling me that I must be difficult and contrary at each and every turn. That tyrant has led me to this point, and I think he is the true tyrant who I must overthrow, even at this late point in my life.

Slowly, despite the immense pain in my frame, I start getting to my feet. I reach out and grab the guitar, and then I take a step forward.

Glass is staring at me, as if he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing.

Ignoring him, I limp over toward the young boy and take a seat next to him, and then I take a moment to adjust the guitar. And then, finally, after all this time, I play my final piece of music.

“There,” I say finally, as my fingers brush against the strings and no more music emerges, “it’s over. I’m done.”

I lower the guitar against my lap.

I managed about five minutes of playing, which is more than I expected. At first, the sound was strong and beautiful, and I must admit that for a moment I began to think that I might be immune to everything that has happened. Then I felt myself starting to falter and I realized that I was, as they used to say, ‘running out’ of music. I kept that music safe for more than five years, ever since that evening with Giancarlo when the music first went away, but now it’s spent.

I’m empty.

Suddenly Glass starts clapping.

Turning to him, I see that there are tears in his eyes. I hate the fact that he’s so happy, so I look instead at the young boy, and I see that he’s staring at me with a slightly bemused expression. I don’t know how I expected him to react, but he’s certainly not jumping for joy. If anything, he seems rather confused.

“Bravo!” Glass says as he comes over to us, still clapping. “Maestro, that was magnificent! It was almost worth the wait! Well, not exactly, not given the circumstances, but I’m sure you can appreciate the sentiment. You absolutely out-did yourself.”

“Did you like it?” I ask the boy. “Did you feel anything?”

He stares at me for a moment, before looking down at the guitar.

“It probably sounded quite strange,” I continue. “It was an old piece from Spain. I don’t know why I chose that, really. I think I just wanted to show off.”

He peers at the guitar for a few seconds, and then he reaches out and tries to play the strings. Of course, no music emerges.

“I’m not sure what’s worse,” I tell him. “Never having heard music, or having heard it and lost it. I’m afraid that’s something that you shall have to decide.”

He plucks the strings again, as if he’s convinced that eventually he’ll be able to tease out some music. I don’t blame him, but it’s rather sad to see his continued efforts.

“Doesn’t that feel better?” Glass asks, kneeling next to his son. There are tears in the man’s eyes, as if he’s immensely proud of his son. “Was it like you imagined? No, that’s impossible. No-one could imagine music if they hadn’t heard it before. Isn’t your heart buoyed now, to know that there’s such beauty in the world? And I know you can’t hear it in your head, the way we all used to hear music, but you can at least remember what it was like to feel so happy.” He hesitates, as if he’s waiting for his son to speak. “Say something,” he adds finally. “Surely you can finally speak again?”

“Does he not talk at all?” I ask.

“Not since his mother died,” he replies through gritted teeth, and now he seems a little disappointed. “I thought this might break him out of his rut, but…”

He watches as the boy continues to pluck the guitar strings.

“I should have known that it would take more than this,” he continues finally. “The boy is smart, he takes after me, but he needs toughening up. If I keep him wrapped in cotton wool like this, he’s never going to learn. That’s something I realized a while ago. Sometimes I have conversations with myself about what to do, and finally I came up with a solution.”

“You’re completely insane, aren’t you?” I reply as he gets to his feet and heads back toward the laptop. “Tell me, was it the loss of music that ruined your mind, or were you like this before?”

He mutters something, but I can’t quite make out the words.

“I think you were like this before,” I continue, passing the guitar to the boy and getting to my feet. “You’re a fool, Mr. Glass. You know nothing about music. I bet you didn’t even give a damn about it before it was gone, you just saw it as something you could buy.”

Spotting the Italian guitar in the corner, I head over and pick it up. Five years ago, I would have been stunned to hold such a beautiful instrument; my hands would have trembled and I would have been nervous at the thought of trying to play the thing. Now, however, this pristine guitar suddenly feels like an emblem of everything that’s wrong with men such as Joshua Glass. Indeed, my hands begin to tremble, but not because of nerves. They’re trembling because I’m angry.

“You don’t understand,” Glass says calmly. “There’s no—”