19 Miles to Utopia – Trans-sub-consternation. Compilation (Nishini)

# CHAPTER 1: "Waiting on Lino..."

Night ran into day with some sort of luxurious method that drained like a hangover unable to loose itself from reality.

Ameliano hated the morning, the day, the afternoon -- but none of that mattered as he lingered around the house in his bathrobe.

He didn't feel like dealing with people today.

Lino walked the last few steps into the kitchen, watched Bowry, with some type of determination, way too exhuberant, for the middle of the morning, go about chores, making breakfast.

Taking up position on a stool, Lino lit up a fag, leaned into the counter and chain smoked his way through a larger part of the morning, nonchalant...

“Can I get you anything, Master Lino?” Bowry asked, not looking up from his work.

“Orange juice, no… screwdriver.”

Bowry, gave him a look and said no more; fixing it for him.

“Drinking so early in the morning?” Came Anis’ voice as he walked into the kitchen.

“Master Anis?” Bowry whispered, not having heard him come in, neglecting his duties, as the kitchen was in the back of the house.

“Leave off.” Lino scoffed, slumping down on the stool, ignoring his cousin.

“Make me one too, got it…”

“Yes, Master Anis,” and with that Bowry rushed off, as ordered.

“Hey Anis,” came Sebastian’s scraping voice half dressed, in pajama bottoms, running through the kitchen with one shoe on.

“Brat!” Anis grabbed him up, as he passed and messed up his hair.

Juliana’s voice came from upstairs, “Bowry, make sure Sebastian is in his uniform.”

“Yes mum.” Bowry deposited the drinks on the counter and herded Sebastian back upstairs to finish dressing, leaving the two alone.

Lino reached for the drink and signed heavily, putting out the cigarette so he could concentrate fully on the alcohol.

“In a mood, much?”                                                          

“Leave me alone!” Lino bitched, dismissing Anis, and picking up his drink, walked off, moved to the servants door, towards the back stairs.

“You cant get away from me that easily.” Anis followed

“Whatever!” Lino sped up and left Anis, bounding up the stairs and locking the door to his room.

“Sheesh!” Anis barked and parked himself in front of Lino’s door.

Lino pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and threw himself down in front of his Underwood typewriter driven to drink.

Sighing, he looked at the manuscript box, with only a few pages written and stared at the white page glaring at him from the machine. With disdain and little inspiration, he started plugging away.

“There we go…” Anis smirked and walked away to the kitchen, to watch Bowry go about the haplessly boring tasks of the day.

The car had taken Sebastian off to school, and Juliana had gone shopping. The day followed its normal routine, unnoticed to the outside world, normal – for all intents and purposes.

A bell rang in the kitchen a few moments later and Bowry disappeared for a time, leaving Anis to his own devices, and the liquor cabinet.

“Seems Master Lino is writing again.” Bowry exclaimed on his return.

“Bottle of gin, huh?” Anis smirked and lit up a cigarette. Bowry did not respond to the comment, and just let it linger.

Two hours later, Anis wandered upstairs and knocked on the door.

“Its open.” The voice answered.

“So it must be going well..” Lino looked up from the typewriter, half covered by a haze of cigarette fog, ignoring Anis, picking at the typewriter, last sentences trickling out of his writer’s brain.

“You know I’d get more done if I didn’t have to deal with your bullshit.”

“Probably.” Anis remarked, taking up the bottle of gin and swigging it, then taking it over to the window bench that overlooked the garden and the servants sleeping area.

“Hey,” Lino got up from the desk.

“Gin woke you up, huh…?” Anis joked and held the bottle up to the light to see how much was left.

Lino gave up and threw himself down on the bed, exasperated, the words having left him without energy, pouring out like life force and leaving him drained.

Anis stood and shuffled over to the bed, placing the gin bottle on the floor, then walking over to the desk picked up a page, reading.

After a few minutes, he looked up, satisfied with himself as if he had accomplished something.

“Not bad, a little flowerly at the end, but passable.”

“Sod off.” Lino rolled over on his stomach and leaned into his arms, tired.

Anis put the page down and walked over to the bed, and slowly leaned in, laying down next to Lino.

“It shouldn’t be this difficult you know…”

“Don’t start” Lino waived him off but didn’t try hard enough.

“I was beginning to think you were off me…”

LIno didn’t react, as Anis leaned in and hugged him, turning him over on his back and laying down on top of him now.

Lino didn’t push him off, just turned his head and ignored the movement.

“Someone would think you are ignoring me.” Anis leaned in and took LIno’s chin in his hand.

“Almost as if you don’t like me anymore.”

“Shut up” Lino tried to push him off but Anis didn’t move. Anis moved his hand down to Lino’s chest and then under his shirt and leaned in. He could feel Lino’s body react, if ever so slightly and knew that LIno was trying to control his reaction.

“Its amazing how strong willed you are sometimes, except when it comes to your writing…”

Lino tried to push him off but Anis got more aggressive and grabbed him on the arse.

“No wonder you couldn’t keep a boyfriend..”

Anis dodged LIno’s hand as he tried to hit his cousin across the mouth and grabbed up LIno’s wrists hard.

“Get off.”

“Is that really what you want.. are you sure.”

“Anis.” LIno bitched pushing at him, but this only made Anis more determined. He grabbed LIno’s crotch then pushed him down on the bed, hands over his head so that Lino could not squirm out of his grasp, Anis’ knees holding LIno in place.

“Maybe if you wrote like you mean it, we wouldn’t have to play this game.”

“Fuck you” LIno struggled harder but unable to push his cousin, who was taller and more muscular off him.

“You always were a git, you know that right. All Id have to do now, is hold you down and I’d bet you’d love every minute of it.

“Get off!” Lino barked but Anis wouldn’t let him go. He leaned in and kissed LIno hard on the mouth, Lino’s body moving with it, reacting, like a lover not someone repulsed. LIno stopped fighting and let Anis continue.

Anis’ hand creeped down and unzipped lino’s pants, pulling his jeans down slightly, and then lightly caressed the inside of his thighs. Then as quickly as he started Anis stopped, stood up and walked to the window.

“You know, you’re just like a girl..”

“Get out!” Lino yelled. Anis obeyed laughing as he walked towards the door, then smirked as the door locked behind him. He heard the clicking of typewriter keys again.

Walking down the hall, he smiled and whispered to himself, “..that always works, every single time..”

# CHAPTER 2:  “Fugue” – Reformat This Chapter

CAMERA MOVES across paint jars, brushes thrown about…
We hear the voice of AMELIANO, dejected, twenties…

INT. AMELIANO's ART STUDIO – NIGHT

AMELIANO's studio is dark. Red background lighting. The studio is upstairs on the 7th floor. Ameliano's apartment is on the third floor.

AMELIANO (v.o.)

In my world angels and demons come loosely packaged in cellophane plastic tied with bows. On a typical day, they linger in corners like shadowy faeries, twitching with possibility. Sometimes they speak to me quiet, subdued, communicate pictures wrapped up with twine. Off times they clamourous writhing as banshees come onto my canvas as they rip out my soul.

(beat)
I can not fight them,

(beat)

they always win.

CAMERA settles on an paintbrush. Mixing blue paint.

THE CAMERA FINDS.

Ameliano propped half sitting on a stool, wiping paint off the back of his hands with a dirty rag. Cigarette dangling from lips, starting intently off-screen.

AMELIANO (v.o)

There are two, at least, with indominable personalities unfathomable, yet not totally deranged. Like nightmares,
they guide me…

THE CAMERA moves in on the paintbrush putting paint to canvas.

AMELIANO (v.o.)

Yet torture is not above their game, indignant disease, pulsing louder, they smile…

THE CAMERA moves in to find Ameliano, eyes wide.

AMELIANO
(scared)

…and I fear them.

CAMERA zooms out to full view of disturbing scribbled mess of a painting of a face screaming out from hell.

(Loud crashing sound)

CAMERA tracks bucket of turpentine thrown at the canvas, image melting, dripping onto the floor. Painting destroyed.

THE CAMERA finds Ameliano, dropped to the floor, shaking, sobbing.

INT. BRETT's FLAT – NIGHT

Ameliano seated on couch with cigarette, feet on table with beer in hand. BRETT, a grafitti artist in all black, slightly lame-glam gothic fixing a drink at a makeshift minibar.

BRETT
(giving advise)

I really believe you need to rethink your approach. After all, my gothic self, like your tragic-schizophreika-drama-queen-tortured bisexual-ness-most fabulous-NEO-MODERN-artiste-I-have-ever-seen, we don't work well under direct order.

(beat)
Especially, from Madame Poseur Dyed-Your-Hair-Badly-Last-Night-See-Your-Roots Gallery snob agent…

(beat)

Brett turns to Ameliano

BRETT (continued)

and you know of whom… I is talkin' about!

AMELIANO
(shocked)
Whom? You have got to be kidding.

BRETT

Oh, do… Fog off. I don't see whom getting you anywhere closer to ready-for-show-like-in-three-weeks-ness.

AMELIANO
(flirting, sarcastic)

No. Just not inspired-ika.

BRETT
(scolding)

No that's not it. You're sober.

AMELIANO
(coyly)

Thank you for pointing that out. And while you're at it, Miss Nightingale – a drink, s'il vous plait.

BRETT
(indignant)
Yes Mary.

(beat)
Seriously, you've been at it like a month, isn't Miss Agent coming tomorrow, en studio-ika?

AMELIANO
(exasperated)

Yes, as if I could finishing anything by then, even with incentive…

BRETT
(flippant)

Just go, maybe you can get something out of it, a little productivity would do you good –much more sexy when
product-T-I-V, n'est pas?

Brett turns, posture changed, looking serious.

BRETT

(continued)
You know she's looking to drop one of us. I know I'm on he short list, which means you don't give her a show – you are short fodder too.

AMELIANO
(worried)

Whatever, I'm going –and don't Mary-me on the way out the door.

Ameliano grabs his coat and pack of cigarettes and moves to the door. Rummaging through his pockets pulling the door knob, out to the hall.

BRETT
(smiling mischevious, high pitched girl-voice)

Bye Mary!

Door slams. Brett's hysterical laughter filtering out following Ameliano bounding down the 2 flights and out into the mid-town street.

INT. HALLWAY AMELIANO's WALKUP – NIGHT

CAMERA finds Ameliano as he's inside the front hall an his older walk-up building, dingy white walls, black cheap tile floor walking up the stairs. Rounding corner, sickly yellow light fades in –apartment noises. Screaming couple as he steps onto the second floor staircase

CAMERA settles on Ameliano's foot hitting the first stair of the second floor from behind onto Amelianos face, sad.

CAMERA tracks back to small child with dreadlocks on the staircase above him, staring up at the child dragging doll behind her as she steps down. Ameliano stops, smiles. Child gives bright smile –she has a black eye and front tooth missing. Child raises tattered doll – doll has a black eye and blacked out tooth in front. Child passes.

CAMERA jumps back to Ameliano shaking his head, he turns to look back as the child steps out of view around the stairs.

AMELIANO (v.o.)
(incredulous)

Now THAT was definitely, very very Mary!

INT. – JUNE's FLAT NEXT DOOR TO AMELIANO's STUDIO – NIGHT

CAMERA finds Ameliano and June coming in through old black painted fire escape past tired red concrete, in window onto classic teen-age, Eurotrash eclectic old-school single room small as a closet New York City studio apartment.

Ameliano wearing splattered painting smock, paint splattered shoes, he has paint on his cheek and down his arms.

AMELIANO

I mean it's not like writer's block or anything; I'm just not inspired.

JUNE is wearing a powder blue Hello Kitty T-shirt, with spiked white-blond hair. Huge Andy Warhol Absolute Vodka poster on one wall, pink flamingo on a wall shelf next to a Classic Barbie doll dressed in a homemade terror-goth evening gown.

CAMERA finds June painting her toenails a fluorescent orange color and sipping Gin & Tonic with lime through a straw and an orange paper umbrella sticking out of the pink Hello Kitty cup.

JUNE

You are never inspired. The last time you bitched out any type of work was like a year ago and you were holed up in that pathetic Godzilla-meets-the-Rennaissance excuse for a studio next door, strung out on (emphasis) whatever, the whole time

(beat)

June blows on her toe nails finished with her right foot, shifting to her left.

JUNE
(continued)

–not a nice Ameliano, at all.

Ameliano drinking coffee drops something into the cup and stirs the coffee with the back of a paint brush he has in his smock pocket.

AMELIANO
(defensive)

Well, I can't control it, it just takes over.

June looks up suddenly, understanding

JUNE
(inquisitive)

You mean like possession?

AMELIANO

More like porcelain hurl. You know, first the waves, then a slight ripple of promise…

Ameliano takes sip of coffee blowing on it.

AMELIANO
(continued)

Then like full on Godzilla-screw-your-arse-Tsunami-Rapture.

JUNE
(understanding, smirking)

Oh.

(beat)

Like withdrawl.

June snickers and glances up at him painting her big toe.

AMELIANO

Well, you would know, wouldn't you.

June finishes her toenails and closes the polish. Her pure white cat saunters in the room.

JUNE
(absent-minded)

Have you seen Berlin lately? He's playing hide and seek ever since he got back.

AMELIANO

Can I paint kitty again.

CAMERA finds kitty licking its front paws? Then back to Ameliano drinking his coffee.

JUNE
(annoyed)

No!

AMELIANO

Miss goth child missing her playmate, much – luv?

JUNE

No, I miss everyone. Even you've been semi-hermit-like even

(beat)

At least I don't have to deal with your brother Anis any more.

Ameliano lights a cigarette

AMELIANO
(Irritated)

Relief. Getting on my nerves with his “bow-down-to-thee-oh-Lord,” you are so beneath me Scarsdale routine, miss Muffy.

JUNE

But he is working, more than I can say for you, he's got a show tomorrow, down in SOHO – some dive-poseur-music-bar trying to be a nouveau art gallery trash VEN-u…

AMELIANO

Sounds more like bad Saturday morning teen soap opera dumpster diving dilemma to moi.

JUNE

Have you seen his stuff lately, pretty good – reminds me of your blue paintings

AMELIANO

Yeah, I think he fucked Berlin a couple of times, spreads his angst-poseur existentialist (emphasis) shite wherever he can plant it, brings out the blue hues..

JUNE

You wanna go tomorrow?

June walks the five steps to the other side of the flat and starts to change clothes with her back to him, she goes in to the walk-in closet but the door is a jar so he can see everything, as she pulls on stockings.

Ameliano steps from the couch, moves over to the door leaning on a dresser with a framed B&W poster propped up against the wall, it reads “Disappear Here.” Dropping his cigarette ashes in a black plastic ashtray near by

AMELIANO

Well, No!

(beat)

That would be my Ninth level of hell, squared to the sixth power, divided by zero.

JUNE

Could be worse, like the black plague, maybe a good ritual witch burning, prohibition, lack of MDMA, going to class, Starbucks, I don't know…

(beat)

maybe like Gonnareah

June pulls on cut-off mens army fatigue cropped pants and a T-shirt that reads “Eat Your Uranium Alloy”

AMELIANO

I hear syphillus is pretty serious, and you get that dying part in there, all insane like at the end.

(beat)

Tired subject, new topic. My alphabet candy is well stocked for the week, how 'bout yours?

Ameliano puts out the cigarette in the astray and fishes in his jeans pockets.

JUNE

A – B – C – D -GHB

AMELIANO

You forgot E darling, wanna buy a vowel?

Ameliano holds out a pill of Ecstacy in his thumb and index fingers. June with a sly smile leans into him, one leg up behind her in a semi-crazy piroutte and sticks her tongue out to accept. She swallows it and coyly leans up against him head on his shoulder.

JUNE

Only if I get Follow-up consultations..

Ameliano spanks June on the behind. Laughter in the background and blurred images of Ameliano and June wrestling on her futon on the floor.

THE CAMERA finds the abandoned coffee cup on the table that Ameliano was drinking, partially dissolved Ecstacy pill with a large “E” on it lazily bobs in the cup blown by the ceiling fan.
The paintbrush rests on the table in front of the cup.

INT. AMELIANO's MOTHER's HOUSE – LATE NIGHT

JULIAN is the only person home, getting ready to go out. He is dressed in club gear with plaid pants and spiky black hair, he is applying make-up in the mirror in the upstairs Master Bedroom – his tongue is sticking out with tongue ring as he tries to outline his eyes. Music is playing quietly in the background. He walks into the Master Bath looks at himself in the mirror and then coyly pops-open the Medicine Cabinet.

JULIAN
(childish)

The Eensy Weensy spider..

Julian's finger tips dance from right to left on bottle tops of prescription bottles inside the cabinet.

JULIAN
(continued)

Went up the water spout..

Julian's finger tip stops on a bottle of DEMEROL.

JULIAN

Down came the rain and..

With his other hand finger tips start from left to right in the same dancing on bottle tops motion, both hands now on pill bottles.

JULIAN
(continued)

Washed the spider out!

Julian's left hand lands on bottle of CODEINE.

JULIAN

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain..

Julian's right hand lands on a bottle of ASPRIN.

JULIAN

And the Eeny Weansy drug fiend..

Julian pauses, finger tip lands on a bottle marked Julianna Degarre, Lino and Julian's mother's name. He slowly turns the bottle around still on the shelf.

JULIAN
(continued)

Picks VICODIN again!

Julian grins malevolently snatching up the bottle and closes the cabinet mirron. He holds the pill bottle upright in between his eyes and then leans up and kisses the bottle.

JULIAN
(speaking in a fake newscaster voice)

V – I – C – O – D – I - N

Julian holds the bottle up the mirror as if he were filming a 1950's commercial.

JULIAN
(continued)

Vicodin, solves world hunger, intractable pain, major depression and severe angst. For only 6 easy payments of $49.99 plus shipping and handling, you to can visit nowhere! Call now…

Julian opens the bottle, takes out two pills and sits the bottle on counter. He leans into the mirror pulling the skin down below his eyes, more bloodshot than normal. He pulls a Dixie cup out of the metal wall dispenser, turns on the faucet, fills the cup. Holds up cup in left hand and white oval pills in right hand.

Julian holds up the pills in his right hand to the mirror

JULIAN
(continued)

This is my body…

Julian holds up the cup of water in his left hand to the mirror

JULIAN

This is my blood…

(beat)

Do this in remembrance of me.

Julian takes the pills and quickly follows them with the water. Gagging slightly he crumples up the cup and throws it in in the trash. Stares into the mirror.

JULIAN
(under his breath)

Years of uniform bastard parochial BMW debutante boarding school, bloody nuns..

(beat)

Don't you just (emphasis) love Catholicism?!

Julian's cell phone rings. He pulls it out of a pocket of his tartan zipper-suspender pants and attaches it to his ear.

JULIAN
(Irritated)

Fuck! What?

THE CAMERA settle in through a car window on the street to GUI, a girl on her cell phone

GUI
(bitchy)

Like I am outside waiting for your arse, bloody git!

JULIAN
(coyly)

Fuck you, Father!

GUI
That'll be three Hail Marys, definitely some Alphabits, and One Lord's Prayer.

Julian bounds down the stairs still on his cell phone ready to leave the house.

JULIAN

Thank you Mother Superior, you wearing your uniform?

CAMERA finds GUI smiling applying lipstick in one hand gazing into the dashboard mirror and phone in the other hand.

JULIAN

Pax Mobiscum, Go in Peace!

(beat)

Wait for it...

Julian hangs up the phone and locks the front door. He bounds down the front walk to GUI's Bright Pink VW Beetle, parked out front, motor running.

GUI
(pissed)

Like I never,.. with the hang up..

JULIAN

Oh darling, you look oh-so-fabulous.

Julian leans in to kiss her on the cheek from the driver side window.

GUI straightens her garter belt on her stockings under her tartan plaid mini skirt.

GUI

Get in.

She pulls a laced handkerchief from around her dashboard mirror and impersonates a Mother Superior like voice.

We're going children. But first we must tithe

JULIAN gets into the passenger seat, slams the car door, and leans over to Gui. He sticks out his tongue a happy yellow valium on the tip. She opens her mouth, they kiss –she takes it.

Julian leans back into the passenger seat, and then points emphatically at the yellow lines in the center of the road in front of them.

JULIAN

Driver! Follow the Yellow Brick Road!

Car screeches off.

INT. AMELIANO's ART STUDIO – LATE NIGHT

Ameliano all in black, frustrated staring at a large blank canvas. Crouches down in front of it on the easle, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. Walks up to the white-harshness. Paces back and forth, getting more frustrated with each minute.

AMELIANO

Fuck This! I'm going out!

Throws paint brush at the canvas leaving a large red splatter in the center of the white.

#

CHAPTER 3: Subtle Transgressions in Blue and Green

Banalities. Dusk transitioned into night, sneaking up on the near dark like a clandestine lover.  Brett sat in the airport terminal, lingering, not yet ready to move on in life, waiting for something to happen as if life were his minion alone.  His pitch black hair draped over his right eye as if it were trying to hide his presence, relentless, sad.  He watched from the bar, half empty gin and tonic resting on the counter, his index finger tracing the ball glass to make sure it still existed, like it would disappear.  He sighed and flicked his head back, his hair removing itself from his eyes.

He glanced across the terminal at the other denizens roaming freely, intoxicated, milling about like caged creatures moving lazily from one destination or another.  His finger momentarily disengaged from the glass and blindly navigated to the cigarette case resting in front of him on the counter.  The server had looked at him strangely when he asked for a light when he first sat down at one of the tables in the back and ordered a drink.

“You can’t smoke in here. Only at the bar,” the server said, almost rudely, not caring but performing his task as instructed.

“Right…” Brett droned, annoyed and picked up his rucksack and moved his existence to the shoddy excuse for a bar with its tacky neon signs, beer spigets and pilsner girl poster.  He hauled himself onto a stool in the corner and sat down as if he had walked for hours.  His mind hurt and he wanted a drink, or a nap or some valium.

The people in front of her were creating an annoying noise, as if they were put there to piss her off, cause grief.  Nin wasn’t really paying attention to them but could feel their presence, directly in front of her at the foreign currency exchange.  She wanted a cigarette, but there was no smoking in the cue in American airport terminals.  Ewan stood to her left, slightly removed from her circle of existence and stared into the white tile roadmap herding people in one direction or another.  He never had liked American airports, American things for that matter but he was beginning to get used to the tacky, almost obtuse charm of the colonies.

“Right,” he said pulling himself out of his near stupor, no longer willing to remain perfectly still and observe the world.  He walked up to Nin and put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing her frail frame relieving the tension he could read from her aura.  She writhed slowly into his touch, leaning back, letting him touch her skin, her shoulders, moving in to him slightly but not really leaning against him.  Her head fell back and to the side softly taking in the sensation, letting it flow through to her soul, relaxed.  Then putting her head down slowly feeling his touch, taking it in, she forgot the people in line in front of her for a moment, slightly calmer.  Ewan disengaged and stood beside her an annoyed cockiness in this stance.

“Sh*te, I could have been drinking by now,” he extolled, the banality of the situation more than he could take.

“Go find Brett, will yah. I can handle this. I can sense that your alcohol level has been much depleted. I’ll join you shortly, after our American Touristers here get served. This may actually take a while since I’ve got pounds and marks to exchange.”

“You sure?” he asked receiving a nod of agreement to his question.

“Right, then.” He picked up his gear and a backpack and disengaged from the cue and into the tile walkways full of their mediocre traffic, businessmen and families on holiday.

Nin watched him go with a sort of envious smirk on her face and turned her attention back to the idiots in front of her. Her patience began to once again wear thin but she was willing to suck it up and stand hostage as she awaited her turn.

Brett fancied another drink by the time Ewan found him in the corner of the closest bar.  Ewan had spotted Brett seated at his bar perch while he had been with Nin and disengaging from Nin, moved on a direct trajectory towards alcohol.  He leaned on the bar next to Brett elbows rudely propping up the side of his head as he dropped him baggage, mental and physical onto the stool next to his friend.  Brett looked up at him from under his hair and smiled a sort of sick little smirk, half cockeyed, half pathetic and motioned with a slightly effeminate wave to the server behind the bar, subtly giving a direct order in sign language with just a little too much “queer” in his arm movement.

Ewan stepped up onto the bar platform beneath the counter and propped his body up on the stool to Brett’s right, leaning in heavily.

“Fag?” Ewan requested and Brett with one finger of his left hand pushed the cigarette case in Ewan’s direction, followed by the lighter and then the ashtray, needing to be emptied but somehow being overlooked.  Ewan looked down into its belly and almost instinctively counted the fag ends, like a forensic psychologist, determining that at least 3 different people had used its presence before Brett. Had they too been tired and lost in the terminal, on the other side of a world they had left behind.

The server arrived with a look of disgust, mixed with apathy, maladjusted and confused.  Brett absorbed him, taking in his lack of complexity, an underling performing parlor tricks, serving drinks and butchering the mother tongue.

“Guinness,” Ewan requested, a wan look in his eyes, a sensuous alcohol depletion ruling his thoughts, his mind.  The server eyed him like a school girl, not understanding the algebra problem in front of her on the page and walked off, remaining confused to provide for his customer.

“Bloody Yanks!” Ewan spewed derisively under his breath and opened the cigarette case to extricate his second vice.  There were many others, for now nicotine was enough.

Brett stared into the crowd watching the people move through their pathetic lives, some more pathetic than others and he took it in as if he were passing judgement on the human race, as if it were his task in life.  He spied a business man with a briefcase and newspaper walking fast through the crowd, cell phone attached to one ear, his voice dopplering as he passed the bar.  Brett found him amusing, a trench coat draped over his arm, not yet disheveled but on his way to a self-induced angina or bleeding ulcer.  He wondered if there was pepto bismal in the businessman’s briefcase, probably some tums and the number of a prostitute suggested by a collegue, on a post-it note, stuck to a picture of his wife and twin sons.  Brett liked the business man.  He didn’t know why.

Nin joined them after her ordeal at the currency exchange, a wad of putrid green colony money in her hand, headphones around her neck like ornamentation and a shock of short pink hair.  She came up behind Brett and hugged him from behind, and then sat, sandwiching Brett in, between her and Ewan, like she had willed it to be so.  Ewan sighed as the server brought his drink, in an inappropriate glass and put the tab out in front of him.  Ewan looked up and him, ready to engage and then decided against it.  There was no use complaining to someone who could not possibly understand that you did not put Guinness in a short glass.  He gave up and took a long swig and passed the glass to Nin to share.

“Where to maestro?” Nin asked, almost a philosophical question since they all knew what was next and how to get there.  She passed the glass back reflexively.

“I am not yet adequately blotto, let’s just dwell, shall we until we really have to move on.”

“Cheers” exclaimed Ewan a little too loud making a point to glare at the server cleaning a glass in the corner with a dirty rag.  Brett found this all quite amusing and decided that this could be interesting at least for a short while.

June stood in front of the canvas leaning against the easle.  Its stark white surface screamed at her like it was taunting her into action, assaulting her with its nothingness, pissing her off.  She stood with brush in hand ready to parry any idea as it came, assaulting the white surface with a force of sheer creativity.  But it wouldn’t come.  It wouldn’t move past insults or even provide a subtle hint of a beginning.  She was surrounded by paintings, charcol, drawings and bits and pieces of an artistic spirit that at most times exploded like a hurricane out of her mind.  This canvas was different, this one did not come. Sword at the ready relaxed as her arm fell to her side, the paintbrush, in slow motion falling to the floor, released from her grasp and suddenly, she was vulnerable.  She took one last look at its blankness and then she too collapsed, with the brush, as if the canvas, like the hand of God had unbeknownst, ripped through her soul and pulled out her backbone, depleted and worn, she put her head in her hands, her hair falling into her eyes, mourning.  She had been conquered.

Piter stood in the doorway of their 2 story loft watching her, a sadness passing over him.  He had been carrying a cup of tea but as he watched her move, he’d let it go on the hallway table, leaving it behind.  He could feel her sadness spewing from her huddled frame in the center of the floor in front of the canvas aqnd reflexively, drawn to her. He took her in his arms, encasing her trying to block out the pain.        

Her body quivered in his arms, and she began to weep, for more than just a blank page, an empty canvas, much more…

Complexities. Ennyi stared down into the table, longingly as if the glass reflection before her might right up from its inanimate state and soothe her soul. She wanted so much to have that one thing to feel that love again, not just carnal pleasure, but to feel really cared about. Right now she’d have to take a back seat to something else going on and she found it tiring.

Yet again, something stepped in the way of her happiness. She wanted so much to just be happy, but every time, someone came in and tried to take it. In one way or another she let it happen, by not being foreceful enough. By being too innocent and not fighting for what she wanted. It was beginning to drive her insane, slowly, methodologically into a ferver that would no longer calmly sit back and wait for satiation...

# CHAPTER 4: "Dilletante Ashes drizzled in Rum & Coke with a Splash of Vermouth"

Lino stared out into the night sky lost in a world that no longer existed on this side of reality. His world had imploded into some type of inconsequential bollocks that felt like a hangover or some of rude awakening with backwash and the smell of stale cigarettes.

He found himself driving cross town in the back of a black BMW with his cousin Anis, sidelined by his need to cavort with family in some sort of filial excuse of conditioning that he would have to deal with for the next couple of days.

Anis’s mother had inconveniently decided to die right in the middle of the theatre season and this would of course cramp his debauch for at least a week or two.

Stuipid car crash.

Inconvenient and not very pretty to look at.

Hours later, Anis had appeared on Lino’s family’s door step in a mild version of blotto trying to stand up straight; having a hard time keeping his equilibrium in check with the gravitational swell.

The rest of the family, it seemed had been abandoned for the more classy set, which Anis’ always wished had been his direct relations.

Anis was not the type to deal with family well and the thought of having to see his father, let alone deal with the angst of a family thing was well beyond the scope of both of them, Lino, included.

“So the debauch will have to wait until another time, huh..” said Anis lazing around in his slippers trying to persuade Lino to drive up with him but as of yet, was not having much luck.

Soon after, lack of headway, Anis produced a bottle of Jack Daniels that seemed to bring the whole encounter to a different level; more tolerable. Lino dressed in blacks and found his shoes under the foyer counter trying to look all the more dramatic with a glass in hand, cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth, bottle of port under his arm like some sort of sick prop.

Anis was not yet entirely dressed but seemed to have his drunk up to par; ready to head into the fray with the other denizens of the DeJarre clan. Time to go about the task of being highly social, if not prevaricatingly obsucre.

The drive over was inconsequential. The limo was a good place for Lino and Anis to snort whatever might have been in their collective stash. Lino had decided to keep to alcohol this time, leaving Anis the goody bag and the prize at the bottom of the Tequila bottle.

The afternoon sun drifted into a dusk like delusion that no longer resembled the morning sky, tired sifting through the wary travelers, like bubonic plague.

Badget hung around Sebastian, acting like his normal pain in the arse, while Alessandra floated about, her hands in the cookies and the dead people snacks that seemed to keep her attention down to other than random annoyance.

Bowry was in the servants area, trapped like a dog unable to remove himself from the litter, yet Anis and Lino decided that the servants were probably more social, let alone socially acceptable, than the family that Lino and he, vehemently hated with a passion, besides the fact that their sobriety no longer suited Anis’s debauch or Lino’s near drunken state.

The 9 o’clock news had broadcast some silly story about a head on collision with a 10 Ton truck and left the rest up to imagination.

Hovering of a helicopter, a stretcher scene and the rest was history.

Anis’ mother was gone.

Her one minute of fame lost in a string of commercials for household products and laundry detergent, 30-second spots costing 500 thousand each more important, than the daily news.

Anis had never really gotten along with his mother, Juliana’s sister actually; that had left the whole family just a little out of sorts up in their mansion on the hill. This was the DeJarre clan, self destructive nature and the curse of whatever else had been done to their ancestors in the past in some castle along valleys of the Moors.

Anis didn’t give a damn about all that, he was just interested in chatting up the servant girls; seeing where it would go from there, hopefully to the laundry or the linen closet whichever happened to be closer to the bar.

As the downwardly mobile side of the family, the servants came with Juliana’s side of the family, from her money. Anis was not part of that set, not yet at least, but he had intentions of marrying up, into money and if not that, at least sleep with Lino one or more times, save him from Juliana and then get her to will him some antiques that Lino unfortunately wouldn’t want as the child of a spoiled mother and other brats that could not seem to keep their crap inside the cellar doors.

“Fancy a shot?” Juliana asked nonchalantly coming up behind Anis, her dress askew revealing a little too much cleavage for grieving, trying to get to Lino hiding and trying to sneak behind the bar out of sight of his father and his little sister who had been eyeing him for the past 20 minutes and was about to strike with her normal level of idiocy and unbecoming cuteness.

Lino dodged the questions, the servants, the parents, his siblings and got lost in his bartending skill, behind the solemn garden where Juliana’s sister would have her ashes entombed in some tacky marble box in a stupid excuse for a vase.

Anis seemed to be taking it well, he had even cried on command once or twice since girls liked that; and he got a good response. With a wicked smile and a swig of gin, chameleon looked good on him, it always had.

By an hour into the whole charade Sebastian had gotten himself into the Port and was making a ruckus, running around after one of the family greyhounds, all up in the flower bed. Bowry had given up running after him shortly after the game started and left it up to Badget to sus the whole thing out.

Anis’ father had also taken up his usual family seat next to the bar and was talking to Lino in some sort of drunken philosophical battle about noting of any relevance at all. No one seemed to care.

The DeJarre drunk was about to begin.

At half past, the servants had come out with tea, but the entire family was way past non-alcoholic beverages. Sebastian’s Port escapade, which Anis had so graciously choreographed, thanks to Lino, happened on cue and sent the family into debutante conversation about brand loyalty, bank accounts, houses on hills, weekend get aways, luxury cars, designer jeans, the regular upper class sillyness.

Juliana had been hanging on Lino for the past hour, having cornered him at the bar helping him serve up the drinks. The servants had gone off and made their own little outing behind the mausoleum stairs, without the contrivance. A solid lower-class drunk, free spirited, without pretense, day-old moonshine, wreckless conversation and true to form, just plain “blasted.”

Anis joined them.

Lino had tried to nudge Juliana off politely but she was way past cordial, it could have been considered down right rude, except her ex-husband had managed to get himself into a fray of his own with some of the more distant relatives over a bottle of Rum that was either 50 or 60 years old, depending on to whom you were speaking.

“Ameliano” Juliana slurred pulling Lino aside. She only called him that when she wanted attention or sex. He didn’t care, everyone already knew his mother fucked him on occasion, so much for etiquette. She whispered something to him. He got down on his hands and knees, righted the strap on her left shoe, but it looked like something else from where Anis was sitting. Anis couldn’t stand anymore, opted for a chair in the back, the servants chatting each other up, taking in the whole spinning world, the utter chaos that was supposed to be a funeral.

How substantially boring!

# CHAPTER 5: "Deadlines, Staple Guns & Process Meetings"

Ameliano sat in the office looking out into the depths of hell that people called reality under the guise of something trying to be sane. The minions that surrounded him were like trivial mice caught in the trap of a world that he no longer found appetizing and wished to release himself from.

People that he would not meet in his daily life on a normal basis surrounded him like some type of vermin that he could not loose upon the world fast enough to even begin to tolerate. He wished he could just sit and will them away into a place that they would not swallow up his air but still they remained.

Sometimes he thought about just offing himself and forgetting about the misery maybe even mixing one of his cocktails with some sort of drain cleaner and seeing if that would make him feel any better in the morning.

But in the end he stayed and lived among these trivial beings, staying to only torture himself a little more each day and remind him that he too lived in the land of mediocrity.

This day was the same as any other, he’d have to deal with people he hated and try not to throw himself off the closet building at his earliest convenience. Sometimes it was quiet here, sometimes it was exhilarating but with each passing moment he was not writing what he wanted to write.

Existing in some sort of trivial fabrication of someone else’s sanity he droned on in an existence that wasn’t his own and lingered in it like a cesspool.

He smiled at the people taking them in as if they were real but in his mind he felt as if they were apparitions of some type of bullshit reality that he had charmed up in a writer’s intoxicated dream, but it still went on and he wanted to get off, but it never seemed to end.

The canvas sat in the corner staring at him like a blank page, as his fingers danced across the typewriter the familiar click of the keys brining him some sort of recognizable solace he could not begin to understand but he still tried.

The paint called back at him trying to unleash its harsh tones into a dull world that he could no longer stand and he mused over that, his fingers no longer typing anything coherent, just flying across the keys as if they had a purpose, delving into some region of his mind that he could no longer see, because he had killed his own reality and left it well behind him in some sort of glass globe that he could shake up and still see the snow.

He wanted it to be real, he wanted it to be free, but it came with a price that he could no longer abide by or tolerate.

His mind, dwindled off into a black void that no longer supported his will. 

Chapter 6: Flashback: Inconsistent Rhapsody in Altimeter and Blue

The night moved in and out, undulating as if the world would at one moment fly off into oblivion and spin backwards on its axis. Lino felt lost, as if his mind were wandering to places that he had longed to forget, places that he had hidden away and tried to make disappear, places from his childhood. He had been dreaming, dreaming of things long since forgotten – nightmares really. He hadn’t slept very well in the past few days, not so much that he was tired or that he couldn’t sleep but because his mind wandered around in circles, going down stairwells and descending into conscious places that his childhood self had locked away.

He’d tired to drink himself into forgetting, poisoning his liver like he used to when he was younger, inhaling as much alcohol as possible in a short amount of time. But in the end, the thoughts always came back and he had to confront those things, those emotions that he had so longer to forget. He could feel it creeping closer, he could feel the dark cloud hovering over him. Soon, he knew – it would overwhelm him and he would no longer be able to fight it. He wasn’t ready, he didn’t  want to go there, not yet – just a little more time, a few more days, then… maybe then, he would have the strength to go there, deal with it and maybe even fell out how and why his world seemed to be coming together.

The nightmare always started the same. With a wind that seemed to come up from no where and the outside of the music school. The sun set over the horizon behind the building, black and white, solid and cold, the barren trees like harbingers of evil radiating subtle shadows unable to tell their story. A black 1920’s ford, black with hard metal exterior and tinted windows drove by on the street, a traffic light where none was, flashed on red, then green and then yellow in a nauseating repetition that seemed to have meaning, or was just there as a kind of mental message, or wanton distraction. He could hear voices inside, and then the snow.

The black door was harsh against the grey darkened sky, dusk like molasses streaming in through the cold tufts of weather. The door was heavy, the doornob cold and large in his small hand, it took a minute to turn the nob, as if he were forcing his way inside a place he did not necessarily want to go. He knew it in the back of his mind somewhere, but the image intrigued him. Opening on to something a light flooded out from the inside, inviting, yet restricting, smothering in its musty light, tinged with something yellowy-pasty white, like a cum stain that had never been cleaned, and was left to fester on the long forgotten walls.

The lobby was old, 40s maybe, stark and unfeeling, and a little like a museum. It had a musty smell of corruption and decadence, classical training and architectural disfigurement.

A four-legged table, worse for wear stood in the center. A worn out Egyptian rug with red, faded yellow, and grey slept under it, tired. The fireplace, burn marks across the side, languished in the corner overlooking the room, forgotten, inconsolable, depressing. The doors to the practice rooms, dark and dingy with  wear marks from hands that had not wanted to participate in repetitious activity but did so nonetheless, under order, under duress, or just out of sheer boredom. The concert hall with it’s great double doors faced the practice halls, reticent, uninviting – the doors heavy and metal lined did not invite in their guests until they were actually opened, held open by ushers in black dress uniforms, leading the enthralled public in for a night of entertainment, or pure trash.

In the back the stairwell to the upper floors, clandestinely snuggles in an alcove, guarded by the patio doors with the old panes of glass and the wood chipping away, leading to the deck. The afternoon concert crowd would wade there, during intermission, feeding on finger sandwiches, reading over their programs, and if lucky catching a glimpse of the music students having played in the first half of the nights entertainment.

Lino had felt at home here as a young child, as an older teenager, it was the time in between, the ages of eight to eleven, when this place became something other than that trapped in his memory.

            When Lino was six he had started taking piano lessons, prompted by his mother who had been a concert pianist herself. He had wanted to play the oboe or the violin but the only metallic instruments that he could master had been the flute and that well, was even too sissy for him. He had played flute for a long time but never wanted to venture outside of the music school with it for fear that others would make fun of him, so he left that here, in the recesses of the music school, no one in the outside world knew, he had actually gotten into Julliard on scholarship to play. He hadn’t cared, but he didn’t go.

            The piano was something he loathed. The harpsichord more suited his nature but you were not allowed to take harpsichord lessons until you had reached a certain level with the piano. He had tried to convince his teacher, Mr. Tartloff, that his demeanor was more classical than contemporary, but still he never got his way and had to remain at the black lacquer and the white keys instead of the supple, thinly weighted, reedy sounds of the harpsichord keys.

            He took to the piano well, it suited him. The keys he could pound, or touch lightly with his gentle long fingers. The piano rooms were on the third floor, there were no elevators in the building, so he always wondered how the cello and bass students actually meandered the tight corners with their instruments that for some of the younger children actually stood higher than their frames.

            The piano rooms were on the left side of the building. Mr. Tartloff’s at the very end to left. The master class for piano was taught on the second floor in the studio below Mr. Tartloff’s by the head mistress of the school, the aging wife of the founder who had been a concert pianist in Germany before one of the world war’s. He had like listening to her with her thick German accent which was actually less scary than the Russian violin teacher whom you could hear screaming at her students from the violin rooms on the third floor in the center of the hall. Lino was glad he had never been able to master the violin, for the sheer fact that all the violin students had to face the tiny Russian woman, Mrs Keleck, with her abrasive speech, and more abrasive sense of style. Her wear’s the war palette and her mouth were enough to send anyone over the edge.

            Mr. Tartloff was of relatively average height, but as a child of eight, he seemed to tower over Lino who had been small and lanky for his age. Younger than a lot of the other students his age, Lino’s fragile ego had always led him down the more isolated routes to express his creativity, turning towards the solitary activities, writing, reading, creating stories, plays, writing music, but never wanting to act, or read these stories out loud. The piano let him hide behind his antisocial personality, and he could hide behind the keys, with the mass of ivory and wood in between him and anyone listening. He found a certain glamour in the white of the keys. The black keys especially. When Mr. Tartloff had bought in a piece one days for him to learn in minor chomatics, with only black keys, he reveled in the fact that he could abandon the white keys, the every day mundane and languish in the deep black of the ivory wood, more supple under his fingers. The black keys held a certain mystery that the white keys did not. The different tones, the almost Asian sound, like something he had not heard, like something that was foreign but that he wanted to master as if he could take it inside him and make it into his very own.

            Mr. Tartloof’s room was white, the paint on the walls chipping ever so slightly with a chandelier hanging from the center of the room and a set of two black windows leading out into the patio courtyard. The windows did not open, they were painted shut it seemed, and you could see the black paint where it washed onto the sill, the painter had been sloppy and painted part of the glass as well. The glass was dusty, and had a layer of what looked like fog on the left window in the upper corner. A spider had taken up residence in the right window in the center, her little babies in sacks not yet hatched, but lulled to wake every mid day by the practicing of scales.

            Piano lessons were typically two hours. The firsts hour was technique and group play where the teacher and the student would play doubles, two handed concerto’s or just practice scales. Lino hated scales, they were boring. Fingers running up and down the keys as if they had no direction. He noticed every now and then as the scales progressed that his fingers would move faster as he moved through the keys, moving up and down, from major to minor, sharp to flat starting on open C and then moving up from the center of the keyboard until he eventually ran out of keys. Lino liked to go “up” not down in the scales, descending always seemed to bring a sense of ominous doom. Where ascending made it as if one was going up to heaven.

The first half-hour of the warm up was scales, then he’d play with the teacher. Then they would review any notes taken in the practice book from his last session. Today he was playing Mozart. He liked Mozart, but he had to get past that, and some of the other trivial crap before he could get to Liszt. He had conquered Bach for is level. Even received the little statue to show for it, and Handel and about 10 other composers, but now he wanted Rachmaninoff.

When a student got to Rachmaninoff for the first time, it was time to visit the Master class room. One the second floor, the Master class were some of the older students of those with exceptional talent. The music school was small enough so that everyone knew who the Master violin students, the oboe students, the cellists and the piano students were. There was no master class for flute, Lino had been there done that, and now his competitive antisocial nature wanted to belong to the Master class of the piano students.

Lino saw Rachmaninoff for the first time at about 12. He didn’t play it then, but he saw the composition. The notes running up and down the page in crazy blips, like animals or ants running up and down with notes and chords he had never seen before. It intrigued him, he wanted more, but his fingers, his mind; Mr. Tarltoff said he was not yet ready for it. Lino wanted it like he had not wanted much else before. He took to practicing, to playing those scales and running technique as if his life depended on it. He memorized, he learned, he stretched his fingers and made sure to take good care of his hands. He had long fingers for a boy, hands that had touched musical instruments from the time that he was three, or four years old. He had his mother’s hands. Unlike his little sister Allesandra, Lino’s hands and he mannerisms were more feminine than his little sisters.

At age eight, Lino entered his first competition. He auditioned with children his age and older and beat out about twelve kids to perform in the yearly achievement concert. His mother had turned pages for him in the house but he had made sure to memorize the piece so that he could play without the music. During the days he practiced, making sure mother took him to music school where the pianos’ were Steinways and shined in the light of the practice rooms, the notes bounced off the wood floors, unlike the ways they did at home. On days where his mother did not take him, he had the butler take him, or took a cab since his family had an account – he thought cab rides were free until he moved to New York on his own at twenty three.

Lino had always been good at school, it came naturally, which meant that he dd not have to spend much energy getting through his homework. He could breeze through it, or just sit in class, fingering out the music under the desk on his knees while he was supposed to be taking notes, or marking up the music with red or black pencil for tricky areas where he had to make sure he had the fingering right. Not having to try in school, left more time for him to concentrate on the music.

Lino didn’t make a lot of friends in school, he was always considered quiet, weird, a little too ‘nancy’ for the other boys and not one of the girls. He didn’t want to play with the girls, but his predilection for art and for music led him into the Art Club or the Stage Crew where most of the other boys were going out for sports or hitting on girls.

He did however have friends at the music school. There was Carl and Kim, and Mei Mei and a host of others that stood out, Josh and Jason and the little Japanese boys who played the piano of the Chinese and Korean kids, their parents made them practice for hours on the violin. He like the violin and always envied them, but he could never be so regimented about practicing. Practicing had to come to him like art or it was just no fun.

The Rachmaninoff was a different story. After seeing it for the first time he became obsessed with it. He wanted to know more about the composer, about his hands, about the mind that could make up such combinations of chords that seemed nearly impossible to his twelve year old mind. He wanted to get inside the composers head, he wanted to become the music, and have it pour out of him like it did on the pages, he wanted to possess it, he wanted to control it, he wanted to make it his and own those notes as if they were nothing but fodder under the genius of long slender fingers that he could make do anything and command at his will.

But Mr. Tarltoff suppressed this. He told Lino he was not ready. He squashed that dream as quickly as it had fostered and threw Lino into other composers, Germans and Russians and Swiss and then contemporary and then he told Lino to take a semester off and study composition and music theory.

At first Lino was insulted. How dare his teacher sway him down some other path that made no sense and that he could not see would lead to Rachmaninoff, but there was a method to the madness of Mr. Tarltoff that Lino was yet to understand.

After a year of theory and absolutely no Piano instruction, at age 13 Lino entered two of his compositions, a classical piece he wrote and a contemporary original into a composition contest. His classical piece which he had liked but had seemed a little mundane had not been rated high enough to be considered. His contemporary piece on the  other hand ranked him first in competition for the technical aspects and the tone, as well as the running chords and complexity. It was a concerto and though not enough movements to actually be considered finished, it was complex enough to warrant entry into the competition. This was his little window into the Rachmaninoff world.

Once the composition was worthy of entry into the competition, the Master class would take up the works and play them for a panel of teachers. Mrs. Welton, the mistress of the school would sit in judgment over the teacher’s panel and rate each one. The Master class students would also get graded on their performance of the composition pieces. Lino had actually never heard anyone play the play the composition before. In the final judging, where they determined the order that the pieces would be played in the competition concert, each of the composers would be in audience to see those compositions under consideration. This would be the first time Lino had ever heard his piece. When he played it himself, he could always sense the flaws, the holes, the open spaces where other notes wanted to be, but it had become far too complex for a single person, of his talent to play. He wanted an orchestra, he wanted strings, and two pianos’ a wind section, percussion. The notes spun around in his head trying to get out but they were unable to, because his brain could not harness them onto the page as fast as they would play out in his head. He had dreamed up this music, it had come to him, it had come out of him unconscious, he had not thought about it.

As the composers seated for the final playing of all the pieces, Lino could feel his palms start to sweat. He listened intently to some of the other pieces, those that were played first. There was always an unspoken code about the order that the pieces were played in; with each piece the complexity grew. There were 12 pieces under consideration, by the time they had reached number 10, Lino had still not heard his piece played. This was a good sign, this was also a bad sign. There were 15 composers in the room, only 12 pieces would be selected for the official composition concert. At the end of the 10^th piece, there was a short intermission. Josh and Kim’s pieces had already been played. Carl was seated at the edge of the room, he had stood up and moved to the back behind everyone, close to the door just in case his piece was not played.

Carl had a nervous demeanor. Everyone knew who the top five students in the school were. Mayako was number one, the violin prodigy from Japan would did nothing other than school and music. Then there was Carl, number two. Kim, Carl’s sister, who was adopted from Korea as a child by Carl’s family was number five. Number three changed on and off, for now it was Josh. Lino was usually number four, except when he was lazy, or after those few first Rachmaninoff introductory weeks were torn from his waking consciousness and he just kind of stopped playing. He’d dropped from four to eight in rapid succession, each week of delinquency further degrading his status. But the composition class had bolstered his creativity. He had moved up from eight back to position four in about two weeks, after receiving some needed praise from Mr Tarltoff that would make its reason known shortly.

The intermission was rather long. The two remaining Master class students, with their own ranking scale in the school. Martin, destined for Julliard form the age of three and Atsuka, the piano genius who had already received a scholarship to a Conservatory in Japan and to the Royal School of Music in London where who would perform the last two pieces.

Carl at age thirteen had taken up smoking. He and Josh and Lino were hanging out under the patio area in the back when they heard the call of end of intermission and scrambled up the back staircase which was behind the concert hall where the performers would “hide” until time to come out and play. In order to prop the door open and release the smoking hiding spot, you had to actually go up to the third floor, traverse the hall, go up the fire stairs to the fourth floor which was abandoned and held chairs and ruined pianos, and then cross the hall and go down the back fire steps to the fire door behind the concert hall. Prop the door open with the end of a metal music stand since it was a heavy black metal fire door, and have someone shit off the breaker in the basement, which was something seemed to take as one of his “jobs.”

When they came in, Martin turned and stared at Carl for a moment and then spoke. “Nice piece.”

That acknowledgement meant that Carl was definitely in. Lino’s heart sank. Atsuka they could see pacing in the back. He was eccentric and wore fingerless gloves before he played, his fingers going through memorized notes from pages, but he never spoke to anyone before a concert. Lino looked over at him, for a second, after Martin turned away from Carl, glanced hard at Lino before walking away. Carl noticed, Josh noticed, they looked at each other, grabbed up Lino’s hand, definitely distraught, and unfocused and quickly ran up the fire stairs to the first floor, then crossed and came down the other stairs to enter the concert hall from the front.

The ushers were closing the doors as they snuck in and sat at the back. They announced Carl’s piece and then Martin came out, sat down and started playing. The audience was mesmerized it seemed, and time stood still. As Carl leaned heavily against the back wall still on the stairs unable to come down, the closed concert doors behind him. Josh had gone to sit down. Lino stood by Carl unable to move. Carl’s piece was beautiful, it was rhythmic and luxurious, with all the holes filled in, unlike Lino’s piece. Carl had a flair for fullness and sweeping chords that sounded like violin music, his second instrument. Shortly after the competition, Carl would give up the piano for good and concentrate on the violin, the violin that would take him to Conservatory and then on to being a violin teacher in New York.

As Martin’s hands fell on the keys languishing in the final notes of Carl’s piece, the audience seemed to sit on the edge of his seat. Lino’s palms were sweating as the concerto ended, Martin stood up and took a bow. He raised his arm out to Carl, to also bow and the clapping went on for hours it seemed. Then came a hushed silence as Mrs. Welton stood up, turned and faced the audience. She pulled reading glasses out of her cardigan sweater with bejeweled necklace to hold them around her neck. A crisp white frill collared blouse under the blue sweater she always wore and the blue twill skirt, skin coloured stockings, and sensible healed German black shoes. Then she spoke, in her commanding voice, as the School Head Mistress, her accent only countered by her charisma and sheer power that she wielded over the students

“As you all know, there are 12 compositions in the Master Composition Final Concert. So far, we have heard 11 extraordinary pieces.”

The concert hall doors slipped open slightly making a sound, as someone entered the room. Lino was so stressed at this point he failed to notice the person coming in and standing behind him.

“This competition has shed new light on our student population today. Never before have we seen a composition of such promise and such depth, as the winner and the crowning piece of the yearly Master Composition Final. This student has been with us for some time but this work has shown a new side, a new depth, a new genius…”

Carl turned to Josh who then looked around the room, and then at Lino. All the other composition students were doing the same trying to ‘suss’ out who would be the final piece for this year, this “genius,” a word that none of them had ever heard Mrs. Welton speak ever, even of Atsuka.

“This years composition, the winner of the Master Composition Final, possesses a subtlety and strength of his own. A piece that, unlike the others, seems on the verge of insanity, touching on subtle whimsy yet staying just at the edge of going overboard and coming apart. The composition takes up to souring heights, to places I have seen but once, as if the music was channeled. It is reminiscent of Teleman, with pieces of contemporary artistry, and that subtle hint of Rachmaninoff’s insanity.”

Carl looked at Lino. Lino caught that glimpse in the corner of his eye. A hand came on Lino’s shoulder, and then the soft whisper of Mr. Tarltoff’s voice,… “I think someone impressed her…”

Lino nodded, thinking, whomever it was, was going to rule the school for a while, or at least for the remainder of the semester. Atsuka walked from behind the partition and sat down at the piano, raised the stool slightly with a turn of his wrists, as he was taller than Martin, pulling it forward and righting his position. He nodded to Mrs. Welton when he was ready, and she pulled off her glasses, let them dangle on their jeweled cord…

“Tonight, I bring you a piece without a title, by the winner of this years Master Composition Final, Mr. Ameliano P. Dejarre. Congratulations!”

Lino nearly fainted, half collapsing into Mr. Tarltoff’s  arms, who had been standing behind him, just for that very reason.  Kim burst out of her seat and hugged him, the room stood silent, the other students turning to the back of the room, looking at him intently, trying to understand what had just happened, and as quickly as Mrs. Welton sat down, Atsuka raised his hands and started to play…

It started off slowly, the notes undulating like water eels, deep in the depths of the ocean, growing and twining around themselves. The notes moved up from major into minor and then tickled keys seldom touched, black and slimy, as if a pain rang out of the piano, trying to right itself but loosing its hold on the sanity that was the music. The composition jolted from a deep soft into the molten gore of war and tragic depths trying to stave off madness as it circled upwards and out engulfing the room. Atsuka’s fingers racing swiftly from one note to another, jarring from one part of the keyboard to another without hesitation. Lino could see Atsuka’s body jolt as the minor launched into something augmented, chromatic, sickening, he was not breathing, his hair hung in front of his face, flying back and forth with the fingers. Atsuka did things to the piano that Lino could not even ever image he could write. When he had composed the piece there were parts of it he could not play as the notes moved to fast. His ADHD mind raced as he scribbled them on the page unable to control them, parts he could not cross out, had left them there. But unbeknownst to Lino, Mr. Tarltoff had taken some of the early scraps, entire sections Lino had written, and un-crossed them off. This was the whole piece, not the abridged version that Lino had wanted to submit, this was the entire thing from the first bar to the very last note of the first movement.

The music slowed for a second as Lino righted himself and pushed off Mr. Tarltoff, bearings returned. Atsuka moved on to the second movement, the one that started like lovers and ended abruptly unfinished into full on destruction and death like war. Atsuka played with no music, his soul flowed into the notes, like breath. The break between movements being the only time that Lino had actually caught Atsuka take a breath. The initial chords of the second movement rang out low, soft and slow, four and five fingered chords coming slowly up out of the water mating into something human and then walking on the land. As the mid point came and went the humans evolved, the notes changed moving faster from the slow depths of the ocean to the chaos on land. To metropolitan chromatics and diminished sevenths that sounded like subways trains crashing into each other, as the final page of the composition, Lino could see it in his head came around, Atsuka’s hands moved faster and faster, the notes rising the chords departing, low diminished fourths upon upper chromatic fifths sounding a dissidence. The humans spurted wings and fought the dragons destroying heavens, as the battle raged on and the notes swirled to a height faster and faster and louder. Carl’s mouth dropped open. Kim took a step away from Lino, the crowd seemed to stop breathing along with Atsuka, his hands pounding down on the chords harder and harder as if he would go through the piano.

The lower hand faster, the upper hand slow like arrows through the hearts, and then a huge boom from the bass

and then

SILENCE.

The audience held for a moment. Atsuka’s hands off the keys, as if thrown there by something, some force inside the piano; then he moved to an upper octave, slow, quiet and pinged out a tiny sound of subtle notes running, running, lower, faster, down, and then at center, that C, then a G, then a soft chord…. more slowly, then  suddenly two dulled blasts from the bottom of hell, and as if it had died and all life was snuffed out from the universe, a single running chord undulated from the middle of the 88 keys, reminiscent of the very first bar of the first movement, disappearing like a memory into the distance and stopped….

NOTHING.

The audience held transfixed for a little too long, as Atsuka rose from the piano, his hair drenched in sweat, he seemed like he was almost shaking. He never looked up and then walked up through the crowd, still silent and put out his hand to Lino.

Lino could not move, but Mr. Tarltoff  pushed him forward, coming down the stairs Atsuka lead him to the front. The audience still not clapping, still not knowing how to react to what they had just heard, too startled by all they had to take in. And Atsuka turned Lino to the crowd and put out his hand to him, bowing slightly as if to say “here is the one you seek” and then took a step back, leaving Lino exposed.

There was quiet for a minute, and then as if, something jarred the universe back to rotation, Lino stood perplexed to the standing ovation that was, just for him.

The winner of the Master Composition Final Concert. Ameliano P. Dejarre.

The next day. Mr Tarltoff handed Lino, Rachmaninoff.

Chapter 7: Ivory on Black and White Porcelin Keys

White, like bone stared back at him, tempting unable to move from its grasp. It held him like poison ripping his soul apart, exposing open flesh, revealing old wounds. He had not been back to this place in what seemed like ages but standing here in front of the piano, in front of the hall way, in front of the door, on the property brought a chill through his spine that ran through his core as if it were going to rend him limb from limb.

He had been driven back to this place, as if for some reason he could not move forward without finding closure to the one thing that had destroyed his life and suffered him heartbreak and pain. He had sworn he would never go back here, but he found himself trapped within the workings of his own mind.

The room smelled dank, as if the windows had not been opened for years. The furniture in the same place it had been years ago, just tattered and worn, stripped of the life it once had, plagues and bruised, sullen by the hours of torture that he and others had felt.

The piano stood in the center of the room. It felt cold, real, as if it were eminating a light that only his soul could see. He lifted the cover to reveal the keys, like teeth. The teeth glared at him against the tarnished darkness, glimmering white alabaster unable to move away from their hold.

He sat down on the piano stool, ripped leather revealing bits of stuffing that had been pulled out over the years. The Steinway logo worn off yet visibile under a thick layer of dust, the name of the demon – plastered in  marble for all to see.

He sat there unmoving, closed his eyes, and it came back – like it had been yesterday.

--

The little boy’s eyes sparkled, glistening with excitement, able to play. The shadow stood over him, and then the feeling of warning. He felt the hand on his shoulder, heavy with intention. He felt the fingers gently massaging his shoulders, it felt good.

He liked the feeling, relaxing back into the touch. The hands drifted across his chest and down, winding like a snake ever so slowly. He felt a tinge in his body of something moving, felt the bench be turned around, felt his hand resting on the keys, felt the shadow come in front of

 the light, closed eyes blocking out the sun.

The hand moved lower, into his pants, moving down and something stirred, something he had not felt before as the voice came close to his ear telling him it was okay, telling him it felt good, telling him not to speak, telling him that this was natural, telling him that it would make the music mean more, that it would help with his creativity…

And then the hand touched flesh, trying to grab onto things that had been tainted, things that were no longer part of him, and the hand pulled away at the touch – as if there was something wrong, as if he were not good enough, as if he were broken, unclean, unwhole, and then the hand pulled away – as if disgusted and the shadow looked down at him, shocked,

And the shadow said “what are you”

The thing that had felt so wonderful, had made him feel whole, had been a violation of his being, was now being rejected, was now being mocked. The shadow grabbed his collar and leaned him down on the piano bench, clawing at him pulling up shirts, pulling down pants, rifling through cloth, grabbing at his flesh, observing, looking, staring, fascinated, disgusted.

“what are you.”

It threw him back, he pulled down his shirt, the bench cold leather against his skin, pulling up his pants he sat up. The shadow had eyes he did not recognize, it felt hungry, and for the first time he felt fear.

Standing up backing against the wall, running outside, wanting to flee, he ran and ran until he could run no more, as far away from that place as he could…. It was night before he returned, the car would pick him up then.

He dared not speak, withdrawing into himself, hiding away what was his… disappearing.

He did not want to go to music school. It did not want to play piano, he did not want to go to piano lessons, where the shadow was, but he kept going, kept hearing, kept playing.

And the piano, that piano became his prison, with its arms, and hands that would hold his shoulders down, that would lean him back or press him on the floor on top of the music, a cushion for his head, the hands that would touch his face as he played, the eyes that would look in through his skin, looking past him into something, someone else.

He learned to sit on the couch behind the piano before class, he learned to come in late, he learned to not practice his scales, so that he would have to do that the whole hour lesson, because the hands backed off.

He learned to stare off into space, to not listen to have to repeat bars, measures, to not play it right.

He learned to leave early, like he had to, knowing no one was waiting, he walked down to the little town at the bottom of the hill, he wandered until he walked back up the hill for the car to come. He learned to hide out in the stairwell. He learned to clasp the music as if it would protect him, to disappear into the notes. To hide in the practice rooms.

He learned the look and could anticipate the hands, he learned how to avoid them, to move out of the way, the clothes the hands did not like.

He learned when the hands were angry, the smell of alcohol on the hands. He knew that when the smell came, that the hands would lay out the carpet of sheet music, that no matter what he did that he would have to lay into the music, be engulfed by the sheets.

He learned the sound of his body being laid back onto the paper. He learned that Telemann sounded different than Mozart and the paper of Beethovan was more crisp and yellowed.

He learned what it felt like, what it looked like how large it was how round, what it felt like when it was hard, He could smell his fingers, the hands – how they would carress his cheek and then pull up his shirt.

He learned the order of things.

How if he could get past the scales and music theory or if it was raining or there was no smell on the hands, that he could avoid the most of it.

He learned that when the hands were cold, they would rest on his shoulders harder.

He learned that he was not the only one.

There was karl, and martin, and steven and chris. There was jimmy and Thomas and hiro and yuhi and then more….

He learned that he was the one that was different. He learned from them that the hands spoke of him,

And then one day, he learned Chopin.

Chopin was yellowed, with a rip on the front cover. The pages worn and torn at the upper right side. He had practiced because his mother had made him so he could play the piece. He learned that the hands liked the piece, and he learned of the eyes.

He learned that he was helpless against the hands. And then he learned about flesh…

The day when the hands smelled like alcohol. The day when the hands pulled at him, and lifted him physically off the piano stool and forced him onto the floor, picking him up like a rag doll. The blowing of the fan against his naked chest, the crinkle of the paper under his spine.

The hands that pushed him into the floor. The smell of cigarettes on his breath, the lips touching his, what felt like it was stealing his breath, smothering him. The hand that touched his stomach and then placed the palm over there

The words the hands used, “so small, so smooth, almost like a girl – but better”

The hands that said, “the music inside you… pump you full of notes…”

The hands that turned me over. The hands that weighed heavy on my arse. The hands that tried to put something hard into that place. The hand that hurt, the pain that shot through my body – trying to destroy me,

the hands that cupped my mouth, the hands that smothered me and made me loose sight of the light. The hands that shoved my forehead into the music, the hands that forced me down and leaned on top of me, the hands that tried to erase me, the hands that tried to press me INTO THE FLOOR. THE HANDS THAT DESTROYED ME AND MADE ME FELL LIKE SHIT. THE HANDS THAT WOULD NOT LET ME GO….

The hands that made me split

and be silent

and go inside

the hands that made me feel

d-i-r-t-y.

the hands that made me forget how to cry.

And then light, the most incredible light, so hard so bright it felt like pain, like I didn’t see it.

The hands that made me feel wet, that pulsated below me. The hands that locked the door.

The sound of rain on the window, that I had not noticed before.

I felt something in my stomach, moving, as if a part of me were trying to respond but I could not move, frozen on the music, on chopin, the music pressed up against my eye, I can see the measures, I can see the eight notes and the rest on the second line. I can see the measures in my mind even now…

The hands that picked me up, and whiped the shadows lips, the hands that pulled on my shirt ever so gently, the hands that pulled up my pants and patted my shirt down and my hair.

The hands that picked up the music ever so neatly.

And told me not to tell.

The hands that put the music on the piano and pushed in the stool and told me to run scales. The clock that ticked off the time, the sound of the metronome as the arm went back and forth. And then the bell for the end of the hour, that packed me up this time, put the music in my bag and patted me on the head and said “see you next week.”

The sun had set, I got into the car and went home and never told anyone…

--

When Ameliano opened his eyes, head in his hands, he could see the piano keys, his hand had instinctively gone to a chord. A chopin chord. He closed his eyes, sat up straight, and a piece that he had not played in 14 years, flowed out of his fingers, as if he had finally mastered it an hour before, memorized, like a trigger, a bullet from a gun.

The keys felt good, smooth, he felt warm, but shivering inside, he was locked at this piano, could not move,

And then the tears came,

Mutilated body

Mutilated soul

Mutilated music

Mutilated whole

Chords choked on fingers

Slashed and intwined

Blackened and sullied

Blistered and blind

Raized and unspoken

Darkenend and pained

Plastered, eradicated

Chromatics and rain

Metronome ticks

Lifetimes away

Little boys kicks

Unable to say

Chopin is conflict

Measures of death

Crucified child

Alone and distressed

The silence it deafens

Eight notes transgress

My soul screams in agony

Only silence is left