Chapter 3

Noble returned to the apartment and found Shylock on the couch with a beer bottle in his hand.

“Why, it’s Noble, Noble McCloud,” sung Shylock. “Where have you been all my life?”

“Hullo, Shy.”

“So where have you been, man, I’ve been waiting for you,” as he gulped at his beer, his speech on the verge of slurring.

“I’ve been out.”

“Well, whatever; tonight we’re going to East Waspachick.”

“No thanks, Shy. I’m kind of tired tonight.”

“Tired?” he teased, “Noble McCloud is tired?”

“Not tonight,” said Noble.

“I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”

“You just need someone to drive.”

“That’s not it at all. You might even have some fun.”

“I can’t tonight. All right?”

“Noble McCloud can’t go out tonight? How ridiculous is that?”

“You should know by now. I’m trying to stay sober.”

“Noble, I’ve thought about it. You’re not an alcoholic. You’re just not. If anything, I’m an alcoholic. They probably have you hypnotized already. You’re so naïve.”

“Listen, man, I’m tired. It’s been a hard day. If you want to go to East Waspachick, that’s fine, but I’m sleeping tonight. I’m a little cranky. Can you get off the couch, please?”

Noble could almost taste the cold beer fizzle on his tongue, numbing his tightly-wound mood.

“Oh, well, massuh, after all, this is your house, ain’t it? Sure, go ahead. Kick me off the couch. Maybe I should get another apartment.”

“Shylock,” sighed Noble, “I’m not in the mood, okay?”

“Noble McCloud not in the mood?” taunted Shylock. “Oh sure, he sleeps here every night, steals from me, plays the guitar which I bought him, drinking all of my booze...”

“Shy, I really don’t want to get into this right now. You’re drunk.”

“Relax, okay? A beer or two won’t hurt. It’s better than being cranky. I don’t know what they tell you, but I heard from a customer today that it’s all mind control. They’re controlling your mind.”

“What do you mean by ‘mind control?’” asked Noble seriously, in light of the earlier coincidences.

“That’s what they do, man. They feed you with all this horseshit until you become hypnotized. This customer told me, and she was in AA for like two years. They take away you’re mind. They brainwash you. Already I’m seeing the change. I haven’t seen you for days. You don’t even stop by the coffee shop anymore.”

“You’re the asshole who got me into this, remember? You thought it would be good for me.”

“No, Noble, you got yourself into it.”

“It’s been a very long day, sober no less. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Right. Nothing wrong. Why don’t you get a job,” before swallowing more of the golden elixir.

The best way to deal with him was to smile and nod along, and hopefully, he would leave for the bar, and perhaps Noble could get a few, solid hours of sleep before calling Harry in the morning.

“You do nothing all day, and you come here in a shitty mood, and I have to suffer,” said Shylock.

“You’re starting to piss me off, Shy,” as he sat on the floor.

“Whatever. The rent’s due pretty soon, and of course you have no money. As usual, someone has to pay for your sorry ass. And where would you go? You have no place to go. You can’t go back to your father’s. For once I’m seeing what he sees: a freeloader.”

Let it go. Let him hurl these insults, and they did hurt. In wine there is truth, but negative truths unearthed from the places we store them. He was a freeloader. By common definition, he was going nowhere as quickly as a bullet-train, but Noble wasn’t about to argue with him. It would only encourage greater insult. Shylock stumbled out the door without saying anything else and headed for the East Waspachick bar. Gloom remained in the stuffy air, this single idea which meant that life was meaningless without accomplishment, without a reward at the end of the day, and his one day sober should have a reward, like a shiny star under his name in a kindergarten class. But for this amateur on his first day sober, the future was not necessarily bleak but predictable, a vast space of nothingness, loads of neutral time without progress, without reward, only some fuzzy belief that he was getting better, his fingers more limber, his sound more palatable. But no one else would ever confirm this belief, simply due to his reluctance to let anyone hear him, as though another ear would kill him slowly with its judgment, criticism, and complaint.

He figured existence was merely a flurry of rejections, not necessarily for his music, but for his character as well. Perhaps he was born to fail, unable to fill this vacuous space with anything worthy, his hard work as desolate as a bum harvest. But again it wasn’t this bleak outlook which frustrated him. He didn’t really expect a swaying audience below the stage, or attractive women hanging on each arm, or the lucrative record deal. Not anymore. The frustration came with the knowledge that hard work, no matter the walk of life, rarely has a reward. The hardest working people rarely get their day in the sun. Rarely do they reap what they sow. A paycheck becomes another slip of paper used to pay off other slips of paper. Less work is championed over more work. The guitarist who plays something with ease is preferred to the amateur who winces and sweats trying to capture the same note.

Similarly, the beautiful woman is preferred to the woman who tries to look beautiful. Apples and oranges, but this is how Noble’s mind worked. He chuckled. Was it really that bad? Did the elite few reap the reward, while the rest labored for no reason whatsoever? The only reward left for him was a slow glass of whiskey, any liquor at all; yes, he needed a drink. Shylock was right. He had lost the ability to have fun, to find pleasure. He was a freeloader, a grub. Even though insanity would result from drunkenness, perhaps insanity served a greater purpose, making existence less boring and predictable in favor of crisis than its alternative: honest hard work. Aside from this, the ‘mind control’ issue bothered him. Was Harry’s communication real? Did Shylock’s customer know about this? Did she escape AA before it controlled her? Was the paramilitary wing of AA still chasing her?

He crawled onto the sofa and pulled the white sheet over him. He was too exhausted to practice. His mind, however, wandered and wandered, so much that he couldn’t sleep. He asked himself where it was all going, if the destination had a point. He wanted to accomplish great things, not necessarily for himself but for others as well. He wished to affect his listeners the same way the great guitarists affected him. Without a gig, without a demo tape or studio time, there was not much he could do but sit at home and practice. The next step was definitely a gig.

He could ask Shylock about a coffee house performance. Surely Shylock could pull a few strings (no pun intended). This was a possibility, although he hated imposing. Despite his pride, he would ask him in the morning. He had practiced long enough, and it was time to put a few instrumentals together, perhaps record them and send them off to record companies. But this was far off. The main goal was to keep working, keep practicing until he moved from amateur to professional. Only the few make it. He thought he had a chance, because the fantasy was so certain, the idea so majestic and pure, the image of his success so vivid, and yet he knew in his gut that these same visions would cheat him in the end, that nothing would transpire from these long practice sessions or these fantasies which pushed him from one session to the next.

He loathed practicing. He preferred his freestyle sessions but even these had limitations, as they were short-lived. Keep dreaming. It was all some psychotic dream, for at the heart of the American dream lingered exactly what it had originally promised: a dream. The same musicians are awarded the lucrative record deals, the same politicians with the same myopic visions get elected, people with the same level of so-called intelligence get the same level jobs, until nothing at all changes. Reality simply operates on the illusion of change, as each generation strives to accomplish what their ancestors had already accomplished. We fight the same battles, listen to the same riffs, salivate over the same women, and ejaculate the same genes into infinity. But this can’t be true, he mused. Technology changes. There are new inventions, new cures, and a host of new laws. Fashion changes. Many things change, but all under the rubric of what’s acceptable, or what is feasible. For the human being to change beyond the ghosts of the past would take some higher ability or perception, not induced by drugs or alcohol, but given to the human being by the process of evolution. Could telepathy be that higher ability? Nah, of course not. How silly of him to think this way. It was all the same game, but he couldn’t deny what had happened in the meeting. If only it could be true. If only these coincidences meant something...

“Noble, Noble McCloud,” he heard. “Hey, Noble, you woos, wake up man...”

“What time is it?”

“About two-thirty.”

“AM or PM?”

“AM.”

“Jeez, Shy. I’m trying to sleep,” the sheet still over his head.

“Listen, man, I need you to take a walk for a little while.”

“Where? It’s late, man, go to sleep.”

Shylock ripped the sheet from his body.

“C’mon, man, I’ve got a girl coming over.”

“Can’t you go to her place?”

“Not tonight. Now get your sorry-ass up and out of here. You can come back tomorrow morning.”

In the cold moonlight he roamed the Waspachick strip. Every so often he was stopped and questioned by the police officer on the night shift. He explained his unfortunate situation after exploring the shop windows and pondering the ballast of silence which haunted the town. Not a soul seemed awake at this hour. It was quiet and cold. The nearest all-night convenience store was in the combat zone further south. He wasn’t about to put his life in danger, and besides, he didn’t have a dime on him. He couldn’t afford a stick of gum on his budget, which came from Shylock.

With a heavy heart he sat at the edge of the town park and looked to the sky. It couldn’t get any worse. It could only get better, and when it does get better, it wouldn’t be enough. Iron dividers trisected the park bench. He couldn’t lie down. He sat stiffly in one of the sections. The park held memories of his mother, how they picnicked at the foot of the statue, how time with her went by effortlessly. He pushed his hands deeper into this jacket pockets. He began to shiver. He pulled his arms from his sleeves and hugged himself. If there were a point to this, he needed it now. If there were a reason for his prolonged permanence, he needed it more than any of the fantasies which buoyed him. One would think a divine hand would intercede, but Noble merely gazed at these stars unmoving, motionless, dead but sparkling with wondrous color, as though they danced with the moon as their choreographer. The silence, the cold, the creaking planks of the park bench, the occasional patrol car, and the abundance of time all denoted an intense longing for meaning and purpose within the vagrant lifestyle he had chosen for himself. Choosing this lifestyle was the final blow, but just as the universe would not bend, so he would never yield to time’s marching feet.

He dozed off for a couple of hours. The police didn’t bother him. He sat in the shadow of an elm tree and slept restlessly. He awoke early in the morning. It was still dark. He walked to the church. The doors were locked. He bunched up in the corner of the entrance and dozed for a few more hours. Once or twice he awoke only to shift positions. His legs had fallen asleep. A knot developed in his back. He stretched out and lay prone on the hard stone slab and avoided the sphere of light emanating from a nearby lamppost. He cursed Shylock dozens of times but knew he could not return until later in the morning. He heard his name being called over and over. He was dreaming, until the voice grew stern and demanding. He woke up to Harry’s wrinkled face. It was morning suddenly, and he wiped the frost from his jacket.

“C’mon,” said Harry, “I’ll buy you some breakfast.”

They drove in Harry’s late-model Buick to the East Waspachick diner. They sat in a booth overlooking the thoroughfare which led into the center of town.

“What in God’s name were you doing out there?” asked Harry while chewing French Toast.

Noble ordered scrambled eggs and sausage.

“I always wind up in these terrible situations. I have ‘bad luck’ written all over me.”

“Elaborate.”

Noble told him about last night.

“So you really are going to any length, eh? Don’t worry. It gets worse before it gets better,” his ruby-red polyester suit blaring.

“I mean, I was close to picking up a drink. Really close. That apartment is a bachelor pad. There’s booze all around. And I would find an apartment of my own, but, as you can tell, I’m broke.”

“Why can’t you get a job? I mean everyone has to work. Even the richest man in America works.”

“I’ve had bad work experiences, and my work is with my guitar now. I see what jobs do to people.”

“Noble, get a job. That way you can afford your own apartment. What’s wrong with working for a living?”

“I can’t. Okay?” as he munched on a sausage link.

Harry ordered coffee for both of them.

“My life is with my guitar,” he whispered. “One can’t do it half-way or part-time. I was put on this earth to do one thing, and that’s play guitar. ‘Do one thing, and do it well,’ is my motto. If I can’t play for a living, then there’s no sense in living.”

“Hell, Woody Guthrie had to work,” said Harry. “Musicians do have day-jobs, ya know.”

“Well, I’m the new breed of musician then. You go as long as you can. It’s better to burn out than fade away.”

“Lemme tell you something. I know that alcoholics drink because sobriety lost its priority. Sobriety has to be the priority, okay, priority number one, because we lose what we place before our own sobriety. Play your guitar, don’t get a job, that’s fine. But your sobriety has to be the first priority, otherwise we lose what we put ahead of it.”

“Oh, I plan to stay sober. There’s no question.”

“Well, you have to find another place to live if you want to stay clean. I know that if I roomed with an active drinker, I would definitely pick up. You have any family in the area? Maybe you can stay with them.”

“That’s also out of the question.”

“For Chrissakes Noble, how are you going to stay sober and live with an active drinker at the same time? As I see it, you have two options: look for a job, or move back in with your family. You can’t stay in that apartment.”

“I don’t know, Harry, I just don’t know. I’m as close to being a bum as I’ve ever been. I mean, you saw me out there? Sleeping on the church steps? How desperate was that?”

“Get a job, or move back in with your family. Besides, who wants to put up with getting kicked out and sleeping on the steps of church for Chrissakes. That’s no way to live.”

They went to the early-bird meeting thereafter, and Noble shared of his present situation. The consensus favored Harry’s idea, that he leave Shylock’s place as soon as possible. Many in the meeting urged him to get a job, but Noble’s obduracy was ironclad. Under no circumstances would he work, as it would diminish his artistic performance.

After much thought, Noble decided to visit McCoy McCloud. Certainly he had his reservations, but approaching him would be better than getting a job. If, however, his father turned him away, then he guessed he would have to find work in Waspachick. The thought of visiting his father didn’t agree with him, but the alternative was living with Shylock.

He wondered what made sobriety so important all of a sudden. Why after one day, a mysterious day no less, did he cling to a way of life he had thought dubious and irrelevant? Noble wasn’t sure himself, but it dealt specifically with the coincidences of last night’s meeting, the idea that he was no longer alone with his whimsical daydreams, that these alcoholics understood what he was going through as they had once been burdened with a similar grandiosity. Sobriety, then, would improve his play, because the mysterious powers in the universe would align with his goals and visions. He couldn’t escape those coincidences. They alone sanctioned his true purpose, sanctioned his determination to proceed along a tough, hard road. He didn’t want to return to that old lifestyle, the misery of walking home from East Waspachick in the snow, the DWI’s, and the jails. He had found instant friendship in the rooms and now a sponsor in Harry. He asked him shortly after the meeting, and he accepted. Of course his urges didn’t mysteriously disappear. He still wanted a drink, but he discovered that by remaining sober, a room of people suddenly cared about him, Harry in particular. The benefits of staying sober, however, were not readily apparent inasmuch his playing still suffered from abstinence. But at the morning meeting, he was told many times that his playing would improve, that he would be more productive and more focused. He was convinced by these affirmations.

He was more interested in those strange coincidences. Harry must know something about him that he did not. Perhaps Harry knew the direction of his life, as though it had been preordained that one day, some day, he would indeed play on a stage in front of thousands. Perhaps sobriety had been ordered by the Higher Power so that it may lead him to greater things.

During the early-bird meeting he looked for signs and coincidences, but he found none. Harry wore polyester again. If he wore cotton, it would signal telepathy. But at this meeting there were no coincidences, only an outpouring of attention for Noble’s predicament. He would keep coming in order to investigate Harry and this phenomenon.

Nevetheless, he was now poised for a visit to his father’s place. Ivan offered him a ride, but he walked instead. He prepared a long speech for his father. He would say he was now living sober, and he would do the chores every morning without fail, that he would mow the lawn, (now that spring had arrived). He wouldn’t mention his guitar, and if it came to it, he would beg. He would become the small mouse unnoticed except by the wiring and beams behind the walls. He would not make a sound to disturb him. McCoy McCloud would never know his son lived in the same house. He would keep the stereo low and his room neat. He would practice without an amplifier. He would stock the fridge with Cornish game hens and curb his eating so his father ate more and he less.

The lane heading south was a different world, an area west of the combat zone which he hadn’t seen for some time. A young girl rode by on her bicycle, pink streamers waving from the handlebars. The two-story houses became one-story houses as he journeyed farther south. Budding trees lined the lane, the sidewalk loose and crumbling, the red paint on the fire hydrants peeling, crows perching on telephone wires, each step becoming more gruesome. He never expected a return to his old neighborhood, a residential subsidiary of north-end landlords.

His father was an exception. Many in the south-end didn’t own their homes. They usually rented and sent their children to the high school which was supposedly one of the best in the state. Noble wanted nothing to do with his childhood. The memories of his alienation attacked him from all sides, negative images of a school-yard fight, the pretty girls who laughed at his outfits, the teachers who told him he would never amount to anything, and they were correct so far. Noble hadn’t gone anywhere. He had remained in the town all of his life, as though it were a wooden box tightly tailored to his specifications. He thought he’d be buried in Waspachick. The more he sought escape, the heavier the ball which chained him to the town.

Living with Shylock was progress, but not enough to alter his dealings with the south end. The lawns were muddy. The frames of the houses were warped and sullen, uncollected garbage was stacked high in front of the driveways. A pit-bull barked as he passed. He approached his house and found to his bewilderment and shock a realty sign posted on the front lawn. The house had been sold. His father’s Oldsmobile, however, was sitting out front. He looked through the windows. There was no furniture in McCoy McCloud’s room. Even Noble’s old room had been swept and cleaned. The house was vacant. McCoy McCloud must have skipped town, but then why did he leave the car?

Noble went directly to the real estate agency in the center of town. The agency occupied the first floor of an upscale building. Outrageously priced homes were advertised in the front window. A young, attractive receptionist answered the phones. Noble waited in a comfortable lounge chair. A wave of fatigue hit him. He hadn’t showered or shaved in days. He could have slept in that chair all day, until the receptionist approached him.