William Gass - Middle C

The First Baptist Church had an upright in its basement that Joseph might be allowed to use if he would play for a few social occasions. This opportunity had come about through Marjorie’s intervention, but how his benefactress had managed it he did not know, because the congregation was mostly black as was the minister. The basement walls were cinder block painted a kind of cream, and the floor was covered with shiny haphazardly dented linoleum. One wall gave way to a windowlike opening through which the rudiments of a kitchen could be seen. There were paper-covered trestle tables and folding chairs sitting about in creative confusion. None was friendly to his sounds. Joseph tried to avoid busy times, but occasionally he’d be practicing when the sound of a rehearsal or a service would sink down the stairs. Then he would cease his own feeble plunks to listen to dozens of deep voices singing something he couldn’t make out except that it was wildly rhythmic and sounded ecstatic. He’d hear clapping, too, and, good heavens, “amens” made as though they meant something. Ultimately a contralto would break through the sunshine like wanted rain. Her voice, and the interfering floor and ceiling pipes, reminded him of Mr. Hirk’s pitiful Victrola and its statically clouded recordings.

Finally, during one such interruption, Joseph sidled quietly up the basement stairs until, from its landing, he heard a single voice singing in dark supple hues:

One more valiant soul right here,

One more valiant soul,

One more valiant soul right here,

To help me bear this cross.

Then ten or twelve voices joined for the chorus:

O hail, Mary, hail!

Hail, Mary, hail!

Hail, Mary, hail!

To help me bear this cross.

Joseph strained to catch complexities. He’d never heard what he presumed was gospel before. The music could make a sewing circle out of a howling mob. He could hear it knitting the singers together the way a hallelujah did. Soon the chanting and the clapping and the singing stopped. Joseph interpreted footsteps and murmured talk as an approach, so he retreated to his piano and pretended his fingers were busy.

Indeed, in a moment, a large red figure rocked her bulk down the steps and emerged from the darkness of the hall. To Joseph’s astonishment it was Miss Spiky who threw up her arms to see him at the piano, actually striking keys with his fingers as he had hurried to do. You, boy? Glory. What you doin here, Mr. Rambler? You realize we kin hear you down here? I can hear you, too, Joseph said before he realized that he was the guest. I’m sorry. I try to keep out of the way. You weren’t in no way. We could hear you, but we dint mind cause we sing loud. You do, Joseph said, and nicely, too. And nicely, too, yes, Miss Spiky agreed. You play better than you drive? A bit. Anyway down here you dont endanger folks. Joseph ruefully touched a key. What you were singing sounded Catholic, he said. What did? Hail … you know … the Hail Marys. Thas Catholic? Miss Spiky’s great red storefront shook its signs. Well, we aint particlar. A hymn to him — Adam man — is a hymn to him, and thas what we’re about. Adam man? Joseph wondered, who’s that? Sumbuddy dont know the score, Miss Spiky said with a laugh. There is religion, Joseph thought, and then there is religion.

Who was the contralto? She has a wonderful voice.

I sure am sprized to see you.

Ditto. Ah … me too. I work at the library. I catalog books. And oversee purchases. So … Marjorie Bruss — she’s the head of the library — persuaded your church to let me practice on this piano since I … since my piano is home in Woodbine where my mother is.

Howd she do that? I couldn’t beat on the back of our munny-pinchin pastor enuf he buy his truck from me.

I don’t know how she did it. I didn’t know she knew any …

For free?

For … well, if I play a little for … some ceremonies.

Chile stuff. You’ll look suity. The little giggles’ll be in white, too. For confirmation an ring-aroun-the-rosy.

You live here, too?

I church here. My husband leff me these three-town lots. He was used up, and in pieces, too, by the end. My voice was always mine.

So that was you? you singing? I mean, the solo part?

Miss Spiky opened a very wide mouth. I know moon-rise, I know star-rise,

Lay dis body down.

Oh, that’s—

I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight

To lay dis body down.

I’ll walk in de graveyard, I’ll walk through the graveyard,

To lay dis body down.

Gee — There was no stopping her. She sang with a full throat and without embarrassment. Gee — he’d said gee.

I’ll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms;

Lay dis body down.

I go to de judgment in de evening of de day,

When I lay dis body down;

And my soul and your soul will meet in de day

When I lay dis body down.

Joseph dared to applaud. Miss Spiky’s voice rocketed about the basement so rapidly and with such a roar it ran over its own echoes.

You can clap, but you can’t applaud. Only the Lord is worthy of that, an he dont need it. He knows he’s good. I beleeve, in the beginin, he sang; he didnt say those first letters, he sang; he sang, Glory glory let there be light.

All that Joseph could manage was: I like the car.

I tole you it’d run all right. So youre a music man not just a Rambler man?

I’m pretty much self-taught … except for a spell when I studied with Professor Hirk. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

About such, I dont hear much, Miss Spiky said, rolling her shoulders.

And how is Billy Bear? Back in Lowell? Still?

Worn out. Worn out from workin charms. Takes his stuffin, pinch by pinch. To do the burn. He is thinnin to match his grinnin.

There’s religion and then there’s religion, Joseph said, where only he could hear. He realized, just as it was now with his mother, that he should not try to extend this conversation by asking, for instance, how business went on. Their talk, even such as it was, would take turns he couldn’t steer through. I don’t remember a smile amid that fur, Joseph said.

He wasnt smilin. I dont think. That day. Sleepy maybe like a baby. You were goin home from Whichstown?

To Woodbine … yes.

But it’s Whichstown now?

Yes … for now. I’m—

In a voice, like herself the size of three divas, she burst into a chorus of “Go Down Moses” as her back began to face him. She stopped abruptly. Spect I’ll see you again then.

Expect so.

Mind the traffic.

Love your voice.

Its what it needs to be. Its loud.

Joseph very much wanted to tell Marjorie about his encounter. He very much wanted to tell Miriam, too. But he didn’t think it wise to try to imitate Miss Spiky’s voice; there were characters in the tale, like Billy Bear, he couldn’t explain; background would need filling in; and he’d sound condescending, however he went about it. And when Miss Spiky disappeared up the stairs she was singing the way people do when they’re happy. That Jordan was a wet river.

Joseph had spent more time than he had ever thought he would in church basements. The library’s basement, in contrast, was lonely dark crowded silent, with floors of cement, racks of steel, and windows of brick, but he was adding up hours in it, too. He was saying to Miss Moss how strange it was that there were people whom you encountered at the edges of your life that you just sort of oozed around, as though they were crumbs on a kitchen counter and you were a little spill. Miss Moss was looking intently at him as if he had given her a crumb’s role when they both jumped at a scream that came from above like a burst pipe. Marjorie, Joseph exclaimed, already trying to bound up the narrow stairs and stumbling so badly he whacked a knee. He hardly felt it happening, though he knew he would suffer later when the joint was swollen and purple as an onion. Despite his awkward fall Joseph reached Marjorie’s desk rather quickly and from there saw her in the reading room being threatened it seemed by Portho who was yelling now loud as a train conductor while gesturing wildly, yet looking somewhat dazed to Joseph as he ran toward them, and his outcries increasingly mechanical. It was he, he would learn, who had screamed. Marjorie was holding her breath and her chest with both hands. Her hair was aloft as if it were momentarily on a cat’s back. She was shrinking against a table with otherwise no good place to go. Portho was yowling more than anything when Joseph came up huffing and said, What’s this?