Oliver's Story

And suddenly it struck me that I wasn't even lying. The harmony I had enjoyed that evening wasn't just the music. It was everywhere. The way they talked. The way they complimented one another on the execution of a tricky passage. All I'd ever known remotely like this was when Harvard hockey jocks would psych each other up to go and trample people.

Only here they were psyched up just playing music side by side. Everywhere I sensed so goddamn much … affection.

I had never visited a world like this.

Except with Jenny.

'Get your fiddle, Jo,' said Mr Stein.

'Are you crazy?' she retorted. 'I'm so out of shape — '

'You practice medicine too much,' he said. 'You should be giving music equal time. Besides, I've saved the Bach especially for you.'

'No,' Joanna answered firmly.

'Come on. Oliver's been waiting just to hear you.' Now she blushed. I tried to signal, but to no avail.

Mr Stein then turned to me. 'Tell your friend my daughter to tune up her violin.' Before I could react, Joanna, now a maraschino, ceased protesting.

'Okay, Daddy, have it your way. But it won't sound good.'

'It will, it will,' he answered. Then as she went off, he turned to me again. 'You like the Brandenburgs?'

Inwardly I tightened. For these Bach concertos were among the few I did know. Had I not proposed to Jenny after she had played the Fifth and we were walking by the river back at Harvard?

Had that music not been something of a prelude to our marriage? The very thought of hearing it began an ache.

'Well?' asked Mr Stein. Then I realized I had not responded to his friendly query.

'Yes,' I said, 'I like the Brandenburgs. Which one are you doing?'

'All! Why should we show a favorite?'

'I'm just playing one,' his daughter called, affecting pique. She now was seated with the violins, engaged in dialogue with some old gentleman who shared her stand. The group was tuning up again. But as the intermission had been laced with booze, the volume was a good deal higher than before.

Mr Stein had now decided to conduct. 'What has Lenny Bernstein got on me? A better hairdo!'

He tapped his podium, a TV set.

'Now,' he said, Ms accent suddenly Germanic, 'I vant sharp attack. You hear me? Sharp.'

The orchestra was poised. He raised his pencil for the downbeat.

I held my breath and hoped I would survive.

Then suddenly the guns went off.

I mean a kind of fist artillery upon the door. Too loud and — if I may so judge — quite out of rhythm.

'Open up!' a semihuman voice bellowed.

'Police?' I asked of Jo, who suddenly was at my side.

'They're never in the neighborhood.' She smiled. 'It's much too dangerous. No, it's Godzilla from upstairs. His real name's Temple and he's anti-life.'

'Open up!!'

I looked around. There were some twenty of us, yet the orchestra seemed cowed. This guy Godzilla must be pretty dangerous. Anyway, Lou Stein unbolted.

'Goddamn hell, you s.o.b.s, I tell you every freakin' Sunday — cut the noise!'

This he said while looming over Mr Stein. 'Godzilla' was indeed quite apt. He was a huge and hairy creature.

'But, Mr Temple,' Mr Stein replied, 'we always end our Sunday sessions right at ten.'

'Shit!' the monster snorted.

'Yes, I noticed you had left that out,' said Mr Stein.

Temple glared at him. 'Don't push me, creep. I've reached the boilin' point with you!' Hatred smoldered in Godzilla's tones. I sensed his goal in life was to aggress; his neighbor Mr Stein. And now he was about to make a dream come true.

Stein's two sons, though clearly frightened, moved to join their father.

Temple ranted on. And now, with Mrs Stein already by her husband's side, Joanna slipped away from me and headed for the door. (To fight? To bind the wounds?) It all was happening so fast.

And coming to a head.

'Goddammit, don't you lousy bastards know that it's against the law disturbin' other people's peace.'

'Excuse me, Mr Temple, I think you're the one who's violating people's rights.'

I just spoke those words! Before I even realized I was going to pronounce them. And, what surprised me more, I had risen and begun approaching the unwanted visitor. Who now turned to me.

'What's your problem, blondie?' said the animal.

I noticed he was several inches taller and had forty pounds (at least) on me. But hopefully not all of it was muscle.

I motioned to the Steins to let me handle this. But they remained.

'Mr Temple,' I continued, 'have you ever heard of section forty of the Criminal Code? That's trespassing. Or section seventeen — that's threatening bodily harm? Or section — '

' Whatta you — a cop?' he grunted. Clearly he had known a few.

'Just a lawyer,' I replied, 'but I could send you up the river for a lengthy rest.'

'You're bluffin',' Temple said.

'No. But if you're anxious to resolve this issue sooner, there's another process.'

'Yeah, you fruit?'

He flexed his looming muscles. Behind me I could sense the orchestra's anxiety. And inside, a scintilla of my own. But still I calmly took my jacket off, and spoke sotto voce with extreme politeness.

'Mr Temple, if you don't evaporate, I'll simply have to slowly — as one intellectual to another — beat your Silly Putty brains out.'

After the intruder's quite precipitous departure, Mr Stein broke out champagne ('imported straight from California'). The orchestra then voted to perform the loudest piece they knew, a very spirited rendition of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. In which I even played an instrument: the cannon (empty ash can).

Several hours later — all too soon — the party ended.

'Come again,' said Mrs Stein.

'Of course he will,' said Mr Stein.

'What makes you so sure?' she asked.

'He loves us,' Louis Stein replied.

And that was that.

No one had to tell me that my duty was to take Joanna home. Although the hour was late, she still insisted that we take the number-five bus that goes down Riverside and ultimately snakes across to Fifth. She was sort of tired from her hours of work. And yet: her mood was up.

'God, you were fantastic, Oliver,' she said. And put her hand on mine.

I tried to ask myself just what I felt about her touch.

And couldn't get an answer.

Joanna still was bubbly.

'Temple won't dare show his mug again!' she said.

'Hey, listen, Jo — it doesn't take much brains to call a bully's bluff.'