Harmony Loves A Violin

When he saw Harmony, Ethan beamed, raising his hands in surrender. After a forgettable movie, he and I had arrived late. As usual, Harmony had started early. A pile of small bills and her silver pack of menthol lights lay on the bar in front of her. In her leather jacket and jeans, she looked more withered than usual.
She flashed her ingenuous smile, with nothing soft in it to reveal the gated suburbs of her childhood. It reminded me that she was still a lost little girl with fangs. She sounded hoarse as she leaned on my arm. “Oh, Arnie. Maybe mist is better. The fog of it all.”
"I prefer myth," said Ethan. He was trying too hard.
Harmony’s smile faded. Her blue eyes sharpened. She looked around. It was a Tuesday night, and the bar was nearly empty. "You would." she said.
I took Ethan by the arm. “I have to protect him, you know."
She pinched Ethan's cheek, proving she was sloshed. "You little knish, you –”
"Hands off," I shouted. “He’s mine.”
My shout sent her into a smoker's cough. She hacked and gagged, aging twenty years. Once she could breathe, she was languid. “Arnie, you’re terrible. He’s not a toy.” She pawed my chest. "He knows there's only one Harmony Pfeiffer, doesn’t he?"
She was thirty-five. Ethan was eighteen. She'd slept with him the night they'd been introduced, not even half way into Ethan’s first blurry week as my guest.
"I'm going home, and he's coming with me."
Clutching his denim jacket, she pulled him toward the bar. "No he's not."
I grabbed Ethan and led him outside. Harmony gathered her money and cigarettes, knocked back her double, and followed us.
The night air smelled like wet wool, and Harmony smelled like intentions gone badly. I gave her the cold shoulder. I'd grown up with Ethan’s mother, Simone. She’d raised Ethan into one solid young man. Not an easy thing to do these days. He’d been a violinist since the age of nine. Nigel Kennedy was one hero, though aspiring to the concision of Heifetz was, he'd confessed, his pet fantasy. At sixteen, he’d been voted best in his high school district. He was the child of a farming region upstate. My native turf, as well, home to the Eastman School, and Renée Fleming, but better known for its bowling alleys. After recitals and awards, he'd had the Stradivarius imprint tattooed to his right arm.
Simone and I had been lovers before I'd come out. During an infrequent visit, she’d asked to use me as a big-city connection. Apparently, Ethan was a whiz. He’d passed his Julliard audition, and he'd earned a partial scholarship.
As a musician and an instructor, it was painless for me to accept Simone’s terms. I would have returned the compensation she sent me if I hadn't been helping Harmony pay credit card bills. I assured Simone it was my pleasure to help. My only stipulation was that she visit more often, and take in a show.
I played clarinet, and I'd been teaching privately to high school kids for two decades. I took Ethan to dinner on a Monday night where we watched Woody Allen play. Sitting there, I fell in love with the city all over again, seeing it through Ethan's eyes. I knew the homophobic terrain he’d left behind. It gladdened me to think I was doing the right thing. Tall, finely drawn, winsome-eyed Ethan was courteous, intelligent, and showed an instinct for growth. If he had anything in spades it was potential.
My crush on Ethan was the self-indulgent fantasy of a man who refuses to remember his age. Simone had entrusted me with her only child. It wouldn't be long before he was alone in a city that was ruthless. If I helped him, it was by toning him down, refining his provincial tendencies, and not accepting his shortsighted opinions about music even as he succumbed to the charms of one Harmony Pfeiffer.
She had an unfortunate name, yet as a woodwind player how could I not like it? Like many others, Harmony had come to the city young, without guile, and full of energy. She had a smile reminiscent of Ann Miller, the legs of Donna Murphy, and she could dance, but she lacked height, pedigree, and a knack for bouncing back from rejection. Every bitch in show biz has claws. Harmony never learned how to dodge them.
It was too late now, as it is so often for those over thirty who turn their killer instinct in on themselves. She waited tables and tended bar. She earned her rent, and she went to shows I paid for. I looked out for her because I knew no one else would.
Time had left her skin grainy, but she still had a dancer’s build, and that smile. Next to her, Ethan looked buttery and radiant, and seemed to glide as he walked. In private, he had confessed his sexual adventure. I didn’t know why until he explained that he’d been a virgin, and was grateful to me. "But I’m still a minor leaguer," he’d quipped, as if we were playing 5-card-stud at a 4-H social.
Well, bully for him. Was I jealous of Harmony? You bet I was.
On the street, Harmony kept biting his neck, and tonguing his earlobe. Ethan came alive, kissing her, clamping one hand against her little bottom. It was too obvious for my tastes, what with the parking meters, pedestrians and passing cars.
With a sinister gloat, her vanilla-dyed hair in a butch cut, Harmony let a slow burn play in her smile, but she couldn’t hide the wrinkles etched across her forehead. She wrapped an arm around his waist. The top of her head reached just under his armpit. She bolstered him as he moved awkwardly, gripping his belt and tugging. Perhaps his underwear was sticking in places.
I pretended not to hear as she said, "Oh, Sweetie, you can wash at my place."
"Is that where we're going?" he asked.
I'd had enough. I was the boy's appointed guardian. "No!"
Harmony was coy. "I'm ordering Chinese. Want to come?"
I could see as we passed under a street lamp just how drunk she was, reeking of smoke and booze. For a moment, I hated her.
Ethan looked at me. I hated him, too. I wanted him to feel shame. His eyes were so sweet, so dazzled by infatuation. Sometimes, innocence is disgusting.
"I have to play for her," he explained. “I promised.”
“Play what, Sweetie?” she asked.
"A mini recital. Maybe some Bartok. I’ve been working on his Sonata for Solo Violin. The third movement gets me every time."
“So you’re going to her place?”
She kicked me gently in the ankle. “Arnie, don’t sound so surprised.”
“Bad idea,” I said.
"I need to get my instrument first."
This sent Harmony into a hacking cough. She struck her sternum with one fist. The cough subsided. "You already got that."
"No, my violin."
She did a double take. I looked at her, having lost all patience. That smile again creamed across her face. "What's wrong with you, Arnie? Where's your sense of humor tonight? Don't be such an old faggot whore." On her toes, she wrapped a hug around me. "I still love you, you know. We all love each other, don't we?"
"Don't bother me with this." I pulled away and continued walking. They followed, smooching and gasping until I was saved by our arrival at my place.
"We still in the Village?" Ethan asked. "Or Soho? I didn't know. Hey, that rhymes."
"I’ve got nothing to say to you." I pressed the security code and unlocked the door when the buzzer sounded.
Ethan ignored me, gushing "I can't wait to play” as he kissed Harmony’s cheek.
If Ethan wanted his violin so he could strut like a peacock, I wanted my clarinet in order to lift myself from a bleak lust for escape that I’d become mired in. Ethan needed his instrument, and I needed mine. The clarinet was my savior, sultry essence of me. I had once loved a man in a less unconditional way, and it hurt too much to think of him and what might have been. Into the clarinet I had always breathed passion, but as I’d aged I’d found the instrument to be more than a refuge. It was my consolation. Playing it well was a way to weep over the desolation I’d known. I’d slaved for years, hoping for mastery. When I listened to Richard Stoltzman, or Artie Shaw, and played pieces I loved – passages, say, from Nielsen's Concerto – that licorice stick held me in a spell. It knew how I breathed, and how it could soothe, alter and tutor me. Seldom was I the master.
More than anything else, I needed to impart this wisdom to Ethan. God, he knew nothing. His playing would perhaps become precise, but would he become humble? The great artists allow the fatiguing constancy of practice to reduce their egos. I regretted for a moment that I wouldn't be able to hear Ethan play. I imagined him naked, with Harmony posing like Manet's Olympia. Ethan would claim and interpret her, offering his gift. There was no telling if Harmony would accept or reject it. As I thought further, it occurred to me it was better I be absent. In time, Harmony would break Ethan's heart.
He’d stay with me until his dorm room became available. I stopped him as he went for his violin. Harmony was using the toilet.
"Maybe this isn't a good idea. You know, she's had a few."
"I'll play for her." It was his answer for everything.
A musician, of course he knew harmony. The pun would be lost on him. "You don't know her like I do."
Ethan laughed. "You saying she won't appreciate it?"
"I’m suggesting that perhaps your talent should guard itself."
Ethan’s long fingers met at callused tips. "Don't worry, Arnold. It's cool."
I’d never met his father. He’d died when Ethan was a baby, and when I, pre-AIDS, was a saucy blade in Gotham. "All I’m saying, Ethan, is that play with fire and –”
I stopped there. Harmony tilted into the room. Ethan rose and stood by her side, as if ready to marry her. He’d chosen his allegiance. His violin, in its black case, snug under his arm.
"What's that?" she asked.
"My violin."
Her laugh sounded like a chuck of rasping air. "You serious?"
Ethan’s face went limp. "I'm going to play something romantic. By Tchaikovsky."
Harmony slurred in my direction. "You put him up to this?”
I raised my hands in surrender. She lit a cigarette, muttering, "I don't know, Arnie." She observed Ethan intently as she twirled her cigarette in the air, her face a swollen moon of collapsed hopes. "I need a drink, where's the scotch?"
She knew where I, worst of enablers, kept it. Ethan watched her. He sat, placing the violin on his lap. In the kitchen, ice cracked in her glass as she filled it.
She returned. "Play right here. You don't want to carry that thing uptown with you."
“Good thinking,” I said. “Don’t want to lose it.”
She spoke louder than necessary. "I'm not big on the violin, anyway."
Ethan wilted. He was an easy read. Any masochistic streak in him was about to get a workout. "What kind of music do you like? It's important to know that about a person."
Harmony drained her glass. Such a bolt would have floored me, but she was set on minefields, not arpeggios. She leaned against the wall for balance. Ethan watched her trying to rub out her cigarette. She hadn’t come close to the ashtray. Everything about her had gone flaccid. Her skin had mellowed to a papery tone, gleaming with sweat. It pained me to meet the fissures crowding her eyes. She could hardly speak. "I'm, you know, I’m," she said. "You know, I’m very really –"
"Really what?" I barked. There’d be no answer. She’d drop dead on the floor first.
"Oh fuck you, Arnie." Her slap at me missed its mark. She staggered to the kitchen, slurring over her shoulder. "I'm getting another. You lightweights want in?"
I whispered urgently, “Ethan, put it away. Don't you see? I want her out of here."
"Is she always like this? She's kind of funny."
I had to laugh. This was one horny hick with a fiddle. "Worse, usually. She can be very destructive. I'm not kidding, you have no idea."
"It’s cool,” said Ethan. “I'll be okay,"
The smug little prick; I wanted to slap him. I shouted, "Calling a cab. Time to get little Harmony home."
Cigarette in one hand, she leaned against the doorjamb, ever the floozy with a generous refill in her hand. She couldn't lift her head to meet my gaze. "I'm not your little anything. And don't you ever forget it."
"But I want to go to bed.” It was the first time I’d whined in front of Ethan. He looked at me, shocked. I must have sounded like his mother. “I'm tired."
"You're always tired. And I always want to go to bed." She nudged toward Ethan. "We'll walk, how's about that? Coming with?"
"Why not stay here with me?" Ethan suggested. "We can sleep on the couch."
She pointed toward the television. "On that?"
"It's a pull-away. We'll have plenty of room."
"I wouldn't fuck a duck on that.” She bolted down more scotch, weaving a little. Her head dipped wildly, in sudden twitches. “Springs probably squeak, anyway."
"That’s it. I'm calling a cab."
With another bolt, she spilled scotch on her shirt. When the glass came down emptied, she gasped as if punched in the stomach. "I'll walk Arnie, I mean it."
"The air will do us good,” said Ethan. “I'll walk along with you."
Hackles raised, she glared at him. "What do you know about do me good?"
Caught off-guard, Ethan had no response. Nor did he realize screwing Harmony once,
at my place, had been simple. Agreeing to her apartment meant a Faustian bargain.
"Give me,” she crowed. “Let me see that." She banged the glass down on my table. She reached for the case on Ethan's lap. "I said let me see it!"
No surprise when she smacked her lips, unable to find words. She reached again for the violin. "You either give, or I'm going by myself. You can whack off until it falls off, for all I care."
Arms around his instrument, Ethan stood his ground. He looked at me for support. Shaking my head no, I moved behind Harmony where she couldn't see me. I mouthed the words, "Don't do it. Don't."
Well, he did it. My response? An ineffectual whimper.
Like a teacher to a student, he set the case down and opened it. "Okay, just be careful. It's a Guarnerius. Not made by the master himself, but a good imitation. Made by a master in Germany. It’s not a collector's item. It’s what they call a student violin. Meant to be played. Never been gutted, though. You know, it cost almost two-thousand dollars."
Musicians are proud of their instruments, as they should be.
"It's what I live for," Ethan boasted to me. “It’s everything to me.”
"I’m touched. I understand completely," I said.
Harmony uttered not a word. She made a feeble attempt to regain her footing. I’d seen this dance before, and knew her ship was going down.
Maybe it was the sight of so much craftsmanship. The lacquered rosewood so finely graduated? Maybe the smell of the case's lining or those voluptuous subtleties which shape any violin? I read blind shock in Harmony’s face. I heard Wagner and Mahler from her eyes. Perhaps in that instrument she saw all of what she’d once been. A cosmos lived inside those strings, and perhaps she saw them around her throat as she fell into the symphonic clashing of her misery, dissolution, angst and self-loathing.
Whatever she heard, it ripped the liquid core of her inside out. Her jaw hinged open and her eyes shined. She snorted and wheezed through her nose. Violent spasms shook her rag-doll of a body. She gagged once, and then heaved up vomit that steamed all over that prized Guarnerius.
For many days after, Ethan cried meekly to himself, alone. Not he or his beloved instrument would ever sound the same.

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