The End of Music Read online

  “It was never the industry standard, Uncle Will.”

  “The guy told me they used it in Hollywood, and the CBC.” Will grips his head and lets out a low moan. “We’re going to lose it all.”

  “Hey, Uncle Will,” says Jordan. He turns and lays an arm on his shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s going to be alright, man.”

  Will nods, his head still gripped by his hands.

  “You want to go see Miriam for a while? Let’s go see Miriam.”

  “No, I’m okay,” says Will. He raises his head and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “You know, maybe I will take a minute to sit with Miriam.”

  Jordan takes Will’s elbow. “I’m sorry, Uncle Will. I gotta look out for your triggers. My bad. Sorry.”

  “It’s cool.” Will lifts his head in a show of regal dignity. He stands and shuffles out of the room. Jordan bends down to restart a computer tower under the table.

  “So, this software is a real mess,” says Carter.

  Jordan shakes his head. “Any computer less than ten years old won’t even run it. The plug-ins, the drives, none of it is compatible. Uncle Will tried his best, but it’s impossible for him to keep up. He needs to focus on his own health.”

  A twinge of guilt digs at Carter. He neglected the music and let it slip away. “It’s a bad situation,” he says.

  Jordan shrugs. “It’s been worse. The anxiety is the real issue these days. The medication helped, but then he had trouble with the side effects.” He turns the wheelchair to face Carter and holds his hands far apart. “Big memory gaps. Like, he’d miss whole days, most of a week. So he had to get off the medication.”

  “And Miriam, his mother, she can handle it? She must be getting up there now.”

  “His mother? She died long ago.”

  “Oh…”

  “Miriam’s my mom,” says Jordan. “Uncle Will’s her brother. I don’t think they were that close growing up? But Gran left the house to her, and Uncle Will came with it.”

  The computer is coming back to life with a rush of insect sounds, buzzing and whirring.

  “We could lose everything,” says Carter.

  “Well, if we start soon I should be able to convert it to MP3, back it up on Pro Tools.” He threads a hand between two of the units stacked on the table. “Or it could blow up. This unit throws a ton of heat.”

  Carter can smell the transistors cooking, the scorched dust and warm plastic.

  “Nothing’s future-safe anymore.” Jordan clicks through several options as the computer returns to life. The ticking machines groan and flicker. “MP3, Pro Tools. Everything’s going to be obsolete in no time. You guys got good buzz in the community. So let’s get on it, get it out there. Get it released, get it in ads, industrials, sync rights.”

  “Sync rights?”

  “Placing tunes in movies and TV shows, video games.” Jordan produces a business card from his chest pocket.

  Siege Fifteen Productions

  Full Service Creative Solutions and Music Rights Management

  Jordan Toytman, Founding Partner

  “How did you get that flange effect?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re the guitar player, yeah?” Jordan gestures to the screen. “On that tune just now, before it all crashed? What’s that nice thing you had going? Not quite a flange. Never heard anything like it before.”

  “Just a chorus pedal on the board,” Carter says, surprising himself with the automatic recall.

  “How?”

  “Speed on zero and depth on nine or ten.” He can feel the ridged dials in his fingers.

  A few minutes later the music begins again. Leah’s alto catches and quivers, like she’s pulling it from deep inside. Didn’t mean for her to suffer, she sings. Didn’t mean her no harm. The band provides a high, chiming bed of sound.

  “This song is very together,” says Jordan, and checks the cue sheet. “Stendhal Syndrome. Ring a bell?”

  It doesn’t. “We probably didn’t finish it. Just a fragment.” To Carter’s ears the music feels pushy, demanding all the energy in the room.

  Jordan laughs and slaps his tiny leg. “I gotta hear that last piece again,” he says, working the mouse to scroll back and replay the instrumental break. “You bring it to A-major, a moment of suspense.” His chin is lifted, a hand in the air. “Then you just whip it out from under us. You bastards. Now a G-minor section in the middle! Fuck, yeah! That’s a total Mozart move! Someone in the band listens to Mozart.”

  Carter smiles. Someone in the band might well have been listening to Mozart, for all he knows.

  They take in the next verse, and Jordan says, “Ah, too bad. Now you’ve lost it. You’re fighting it, sweating it.”

  “But for thirty-two bars we were great.”

  “That’s more than a lot of bands get, believe me.”

  The fighting and sweating feels more apt to Carter’s recollection.

  Will returns, carrying a tray. He hands Carter a mug of tea and says the bungalow suits him fine, as his knees and hip flexors are in a bad way. But no, he says, raising an index finger to correct himself. The bungalow isn’t fine. It’s perfect. He can scarcely believe the good fortune, the serendipity that delivered him back to the house he grew up in, exactly when he needed it most.

  “Check this out, Uncle Will,” says Jordan, and reverses the file to play the Mozart bit again.

  “You and her together,” Will leans into Carter. “You made sure nobody’s ideas got through.”

  “What?”

  “You and her controlled the music,” says Will. “Nobody else’s ideas got through.”

  “We all contributed.”

  “It took me a long time to forgive you for that. I see now that I had to. But it was a long time.” Will’s voice is casual, as though making small talk.

  “This is so good,” says Jordan, as the music snippet plays again.

  “Five thousand dollars, right?” says Will, speaking up. “Five thousand at least?”

  “That’s right.” Jordan hits the space bar to pause the music and takes out his phone. “I just gotta find something here, guys.”

  “Five Gs, if anybody gives a damn. Maybe you don’t give a damn.”

  “But let’s just back this up a bit.” Carter shifts from Will’s unblinking gaze and turns to Jordan. “What do you mean about a buzz in the community?”

  “We do a lot of work with indie bands,” says Jordan, pecking at his phone. “Work the clubs, produce demos and sessions, the gamut. People in that scene are shit hot on Infinite Yes. It’s like whatever happened to that band? Wasn’t there supposed to be another album? Great fucking band.”

  “No way. We were never that big.”

  “It’s not about big. It’s about reach.” Jordan looks up. “You know that expression about the Velvet Underground?”

  “No.”

  “Only 10,000 people bought the first Velvet Underground album. But every one of them formed a band.” Lilting symphonic music rises from Jordan’s hand. “Yes! This is what I was looking for. This is Mozart. Third Violin Concerto.” The strings race, ease for eight bars, and race again. “Hear the soloist there? How he plays to the oboes? Don’t even need a conductor, they’re so locked in. Hang on.” He tap-taps the phone, and the music jumps ahead. “Here we go. This is shit hot.”

  The music swirls. Will takes a big gulp of tea and says, “Remember that video you made in Colin’s room? With the girl in Kingston? I got that video.”

  “I think I remember her,” says Carter. A strapping, moon-faced brunette with a hoarse laugh. Dressed in a kilt and military jacket. “There was something wrong with that girl.”

  “Definitely something wrong with her. Where do those kids end up, eh?”

  “But I didn’t shoot any video of her.” Will’s memory must be rav
aged.

  “He’s nineteen when he writes this,” says Jordan. “The little punk. Just a little fucker. Hear those flutes?”

  “Yes,” says Will, moving to the edge of his chair. His tea sloshes over the side.

  “A little pizzicato, just in here. Now this section,” says Jordan. “It makes you think there’s great drama coming, right? Wait for it. Here it is! But no! It doesn’t happen! The joke’s on you.” He leans back and slaps his knee. “I used to hate that. Fuck you, Mozart! Asshole! It was my dad who helped me figure it out. ‘You’re so serious, Jordan. Let yourself go. Have a laugh at it all.’ And then it was like the music opened up for me.”

  Jordan raises the phone overhead. His other hand dances in the air, conducting the orchestra as it creeps, swells and surges. “Now the third movement, so amazing. It’s not in the notes. It’s the band. They’re rolling with it. Swinging it.”

  “Yeah!” shouts Will.

  “This next part. So fucking wild.” Jordan leans forward and for a moment looks like he might rise and walk. “Like he’s sneaking up behind the orchestra and giving them a wedgie.”

  “Yeah!” screams Will, a line of drool rolling over his bottom lip. He turns to catch Carter’s eye, a fierce smile on his face. “Yeah! Mozart, the little fucker! Go, you little fucker, go!”

  //////

  The following morning, waiting for the appointed call from his mother, Carter digs deeper into the Google results. There’s not much beyond what Isabelle turned up. No evidence to back up Jordan’s belief that Infinite Yes inspired thousands of bands. There are a handful of images, including several from Carter’s brief Mohawk period. Leah remains astonishing, with her lean face and all that unruly red hair.

  Will’s garage was euphoric by the time Carter left last night. Jordan whooping and clapping at the half-finished songs and barely-articulated ideas. Will pacing the floor and muttering excitedly, shaking his fists when he heard a nice bass flourish. Carter didn’t share the excitement. Listening only reminded him that the spirit in which the music was made is gone. He is middle-aged and calcified. He can’t hear it. But Jordan is young, and still subject to the fervour of an unexpected key change, the mounting excitement of a chorus, the meditative cycle and goosebumped release of an unbroken riff.

  The band got plenty of enthusiastic media in its day, usually in college papers. But Carter finds just one review online, a grainy scan from the Fergus Elora News Express. The writer cleverly dismisses Infinite Yes as “the musical equivalent of fascist architecture: Very striking from a distance, but look a little closer and you’ll see there’s no grass or trees, nowhere to sit, no shelter from the elements, and you have to climb a thousand steps just to get to the front door.”

  He’s debating whether to keep reading when the phone rings.

  “Mr. Carter?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name’s Shanna. I’m calling from Howley Park. I have Mrs. Carter with me, if you’ll just wait a moment?”

  But there’s no wait. “Herbert?” The voice is hoarse but firm, an exaggerated version of the rasp he grew up with.

  “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

  “Mrs. Daly says she’ll marry that awful man. Can you imagine?”

  “It’s okay, Mom. Just use your normal voice. I can hear you fine.”

  “—two bigger fools in all my days.”

  “Is that why you called the other day? Because your friend is getting married?”

  “She’s no friend of mine. She’s dumb as a post.”

  “But is that why you called?”

  There is a muffling of the phone, as she leans in and whispers. “Someone’s been coming and talking about the old days.”

  “Who is it? Who’s been coming to see you?”

  “Some girl. It’s, I don’t know what it is.” A thickness creeps into her voice, like she might burst into tears.

  “It’s alright, Mom. We’ll look after it. I’ll find out who it is and she won’t bother you anymore.”

  She’s calling out to someone. The phone drops with a crack and Carter fears she might cause a scene. After a moment the phone is lifted again.

  “Sorry, Mr. Carter. She seemed ready to talk, but now she doesn’t want to.”

  “What’s she doing? Is she alright?”

  “She’s fine, sir. One of the girls is giving her a hand there now. She’ll settle down, get a cup of tea.”

  “Is she eating okay?”

  “We get the odd one likes a good feed. But to be honest with you, sir, most of them lost interest long ago. They eats when we tells them. That’s about it.”

  “You’re Shanna, is it?”

  “I didn’t mean for her to get upset, sir.”

  “No, I’m glad you called. But there’s been some girl coming around and talking to her. Do you know anything about that?”

  “I’ll…I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “I would appreciate that, Shanna.”

  Carter stays on the phone to call Leah. Sam has a check-up in Toronto in two weeks. It’s routine, so Carter will use the trip to visit Leah. He has to get her on board with Jordan’s plan.

  “Is there anyone there to lend you a hand?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He judges this the right time to tell her about Melissa Ryan on his flight to Gander.

  “The album saved her life how?”

  “I think she meant that she was young and confused and alone. The music kept her company. Consolation, I guess.”

  “I see,” says Leah, and the silence that follows makes a fool of Carter. Play a song, save a life. If only it were that easy.

  He’s downloaded Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto, trying to hear what Jordan hears. Jordan was bursting with ideas as they listened to the old tracks. Remix and reissue the CD. A tentative online release of the second album—the “lost” Infinite Yes album—plus limited edition vinyl. Call in a couple of session players to flesh out the unfinished songs. Maybe even a girl singer, subject to Leah’s approval of course. And financing. Jordan says the market is small, but ripe. The college kids who used to come to the shows are closing in on fifty and hitting peak income. Youth has a powerful pull as the last of it slips away. He’s in for fifteen per cent. Carter warns him to lowball projected sales. He’s a kid. His first real kick in the teeth is coming soon, and Carter doesn’t want this to be it.

  But they need Leah. Jordan’s partner confirmed it. The band agreement specifies that three out of four have to approve before anything can be released. Colin disappeared and fell out of touch years ago, without a word. So it’s up to Carter to talk Leah into it. The Mozart will build his resolve.

  “Do you remember Suzy Q?” she asks. “From Grossman’s?”

  “Of course. I sat in her stool when we met.”

  “She died not long ago, and the bar had a little vigil for her.”

  “Oh.”

  “Suzy came to me after one of our gigs one night,” says Leah. “I mean, this is twenty years ago, and she looked ancient then. We were feeling good that night. It was still those early days when we were loving it. And she comes up and grabs my arm and says, ‘You fucking people, you’re killing me.’”

  “Ha,” says Carter.

  “So that makes it one saved and one killed. I guess we broke even.”

  //////

  As a boy, Carter imagined the working world as a manicured campsite where cheerful men arrived every morning, keen for adventure. So he likes how the university campus slips away from the street, orderly and spacious, with wide walking paths, clusters of groomed trees, a curved footbridge over the narrow creek, and evenly spaced dumpsters in regimental formation behind a maintenance shed. Like the airport at home.

  The foreign students, who presumably hav
e nowhere else to go between semesters, have the campus to themselves in the first days of January. The slender Asians all wear glasses, and the bushy-faced Slavs look sullen. For a few seconds he falls into step behind a short black girl with swaggering hips. He takes a wide turn around three silent men in turbans.

  Dr. Tang tugs at the strap of a lavender-coloured bicycle helmet as he knocks on her open door. “Hello, hello!” she says, clopping out from behind her desk in tiny black and yellow shoes. Her glasses are flecked with dirt, and she wears a metal clip around each cuff. “I hope you didn’t bike here too.”

  “No.”

  “It’s like they designed the place to slaughter us. Now,” she says, shuffling back behind the desk and shaking the computer mouse. Still standing, she leans into the screen. “You’re…Mr. Carter. Herbert?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Herbert, welcome to the graduate program.” She said the same thing the first time they met, in the spring. “Oh, but you’re Mr. Carter from Newfoundland. Of course.” She claps her hands. “Did I mention that my first job was in Newfoundland? At Memorial.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I wanted you to meet Terry, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  She dashes out the door and down the hall, bike shoes echoing. “Terry? Terry!” she cries.

  A few seconds later she’s back, breathless, pulling a man in a tweed jacket.

  “I wanted you to meet Mr. Carter from Newfoundland,” she says.

  Terry perches on the edge of the desk and folds his arms. He is traditionally professorial, with his paunch and open collar and frizzy grey-white hair waving gently over a ruddy face. “Townie or bayman?” he asks, pleased with his command of the idiom.

  “I grew up in Gander.”

  “Terry’s field work is there,” says Dr. Tang. She’s shedding layers. A spattered safety vest, blue nylon shell and black turtleneck. “He’s visiting from Memorial this semester.”

  Terry hitches thumbs in the belt loops of his corduroy trousers. “Any interest in aviation history?”

  “My dad was into it.”

  “He’d get a great kick out of some of the stuff we’re doing.”