Christopher Hacker - The Morels

And however tactful, however much people in the house deferred to a couple’s privacy, sex must have been some of Baby Arthur’s first, vivid facts of consciousness, lying curled against his mother’s breasts to the sounds of two people grunting through their shared pleasures. And as Baby Arthur began to wobble and race, something he did at all hours, as Cynthia shunned the notion of a “schedule” for her son, guided by his own internal clock when to sleep and when to wake up, he would often happen upon two members of the house having sex, for Baby Arthur gave no such deference to his housemates’ privacy. He would be greeted happily by the out-of-breath couple and then free to watch as they continued with their business or to bobble off to some other corner of the house.

With the convenience of a fixed location, the performers begin using the carriage house as a creative venue. Ticulous throws open the great arched doorway through which horse-drawn carriages many years ago used to enter and leave and, setting up a cluster of chairs along the sidewalk and acting the part of an old-fashioned barker, calls out to passersby to stop, take a load off, and behold: Brigit on point or Koko painting herself gold and wrapping herself in white bed linen or Ticulous himself hopping down off his barker stool and tumbling into a handstand.

The street-side theater, as it were, evolves. Those main doors frame a natural proscenium arch. It is perfect. Day by day, with each performance, they develop a repertoire, invite local performers to use the space, to collaborate. Ticulous directs a series of movement pieces: mime productions of The Canterbury Tales . Annan conducts a series of chamber ballets set to his own music. The Brooklyn Trio builds a stand of bleachers, which the police eventually make them move inside, to be set up permanently against the three walls on the ground floor. For a while, it is the Carriage House Theater, doors kept open so people can walk in off the street and take a seat and watch the show, already in progress.

This is young Arthur’s living room. He eats his meals in the stands, watching his aunts and uncles rehearse. Most objects he touches in the house are used onstage as props; even the plates and utensils he eats with while watching a play might be taken from him and washed and used in the next scene. When a child is required, he is offered up — dressed and set before an audience with a few words to deliver on cue.

He is tested out, like a new instrument, by each member of the Carriage House Theater, for quality, for truing — to see where his talents and inclinations might lie. Koko thinks he has a certain raw potential with the plastic arts; Brigit declares that he will never be a dancer. Just look at his feet, they will always be in his way. Ticulous agrees but thinks his rhythm is quite good. Annan pronounces his natural aptitude in music to be extraordinary. A quarter-sized violin, among a crate of props, is strung and tuned and given to the boy. He is taught to read music, and Annan comes up with a series of fingering exercises for the boy to practice.

You’re not going to force my son to learn a bunch of pointless lessons, Cynthia says, but Annan pushes back.

Come off it, Cynthia. This isn’t about freedom. Arthur is happy to spend the entire day sawing away on that violin, and you know it. You just can’t stand the noise.

It’s true that Arthur isn’t very good yet; the particular high-pitched squeaking sets Cynthia’s teeth on edge and carries through the house, following her wherever she goes.

He’s not to spend a minute on that thing he doesn’t want to, she says.

Annan devises more difficult exercises and starts training the boy’s ear. They work together at the old saloon upright under the bleachers. Cynthia asks the boy if he is enjoying these lessons, and Arthur says, Sure.

Doc jokes that his son skipped the age of two. “He never learned to say no. It was always ‘sure’ or ‘okay,’ whatever it was. He’d eat anything you put in front of him. Benji and Sarah, when they were little? If it wasn’t spaghetti, they weren’t interested. But Arthur, you could put anything in front of him — steamed broccoli, raw tofu, pickled beef tongue — and you ask him if he wanted to try it he’d say, ‘Sure.’ If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t have seconds. Benji, he didn’t like something, it was the biggest production, the faces he’d make, the yelling, the fits. You’d think we were trying to poison him. But with Arthur it was always ‘sure.’ ”

Arthur becomes a regular attraction at the Carriage House Theater. Annan composes pieces for Arthur to perform as incidental music between set changes. By the time he is eight, Arthur has been playing for three years, and Cynthia no longer complains about her son being enslaved by pointless rote memorization. She is enjoying, along with the rest of the audience, the weekly recital programs he comes to perform. Arthur’s virtuosic feats are paired with Ticulous’s magic; these, Ticulous feels, are acts well suited for each other, as the child prodigy is a kind of magic, not unlike the talking horse or the dancing bear. One is moved to a similar awe and pity for the creature.

Ticulous in tails and top hat, Arthur in a black suit and clip-on bow tie, they are a nested set. Ticulous would creak around on the black-painted boards of the stage, barefoot, pulling live pigeons out of his hat, making various audience-supplied items disappear and levitate while Arthur, walking the perimeter would play glissandi and arpeggios — an incidental sound track meant to mirror the illusions. During longer setups, Arthur would give the cue to Annan at the upright offstage, and they’d strike up a duet, Arthur up front now, bow hopping lightly to a Mozart sonatina.

These concerts are held on Sundays for neighborhood parents and children who in the late seventies are few and far between — and as such that much more enthusiastic to find an oasis of free child-friendly entertainment within walking distance.

Annan invites his mentor, Cornelius Diamond, to hear Arthur play. Diamond brokered Annan’s journey to this country from his native Afghanistan ten years earlier — arranged for schooling, scholarships, visa — and Arthur is a kind of offering, a willing and capable apprentice, new blood for the old man.

Diamond usually handles older students, but for Arthur he makes an exception. Annan’s assessment of the boy is confirmed: Arthur is good. They start small, lessons once a week — a list of pieces to learn.

Doc is shocked at the cost. I don’t care how great this guy is, there’s just no way. But Annan pitches it as an investment in their son’s future. Doc won’t budge, but Cynthia is swayed by the idea.

I thought you were against this whole thing, Doc says to her.

This is my Artie. I don’t ever want him to say we held him back from doing anything he wanted or becoming anything he needed to become.

For such a free-spirited household, Arthur leads a very sheltered life. Although Cynthia consents to the lessons, she won’t hear of Arthur having lessons at “some old perv’s apartment.” So for the first year of his apprenticeship, Diamond comes to Arthur. Diamond is temperamental and explosive. When he hears something he doesn’t like, he claps his hands, a sound like a gunshot in that big open space, and shouts. For God’s sake, stop! Stop! He storms over to Arthur and grabs the little violin and bow out of the boy’s hand and, hip checking him out of the way of the music stand, says, softly, Just listen. And then Diamond plays the passage, his large hands seeming all the more enormous on Arthur’s half-sized violin. Arthur is good, but when Diamond plays, it’s music. No question who is the student, who the master. Arthur stands at attention, waiting for Diamond to hand back his instrument.