Chapter 14
Encore For The Forsaken
Joan
For many, the halls of Crawford Long Hospital lead only to pain and suffering, but these last few months have brought such a happiness to Joan Warren's life, because the love she feels for Arnold Gray has changed her outlook towards nearly everything. Her job was once the only meaningful thing remaining in her life, but now, she even views it so differently. Before, she had always observed the patients on the 4th floor strictly from an academic standpoint, only remembering what medications to give them and how to prepare them for various procedures. Sometimes she wouldn't even remember their names and only referred to them as room numbers, but now, all that has changed.
Arnold is constantly on her mind, and there is a warmness and affection in her heart that has long since dispelled her memories of those years of an unhappy marriage. She had been so apprehensive of developing any sort of relationship with another man, because she was afraid of the hurt that had brought her before. Many times, it wasn't a hurt but a compelling regret she had married at all, considering where it led her. She's thinking of Arnold now, as she walks back towards the chart room. He is so completely different from her former husband. His quiet mannerism and athletic appearance entranced her from the first moment she saw him, lying there semi-conscious in the Emergency Room.
She has always been uncertain as to just why he seems to lack confidence in his masculinity but is gratified he doesn't think what brand of beer he drinks or something as repellant as long hair and a beard command any degree of sexual excitement from a woman. In fact, his reluctance to make any sort of bold sexual advances has given him a mystic, which has created a natural curiosity, adding to her own sex drive to the point she would be receptive to any liberty, in good taste, he would take with her.
She looks down at her watch and whispers to herself, "I'll be with him in just 4 hours," walks into room 4407 and looks down at the elderly, terminal lady, lying there in the dimly lit room. Her head is turned to one side, her mouth is slightly open and she is breathing heavily in an uneasy sleep. Her short, white hair is thinning from the chemotherapy that has made her a sicker person than she was when the treatments started. For years, Joan had ceased to notice the things she did when she was speaking with her earlier in the day - the fear in her eyes, the pale tone to her skin and the hurtful disappointment in her face when her doctor made his morning rounds, barely coming to a complete stop at her bedside, but all that changed when her husband entered the room. A glow came to her wrinkled face and spoke of a love everyone wants but so few seem to have.
But now, there's love in Joan's heart for Arnold Gray and a concern for other people that has given her a consoling happiness and an awareness of the needs and feelings of others that she has not know before. Happiness can produce such different consequences in people's lives. Some become more sure of themselves, eventually taking it for granted and losing sight of the needs of the very person to whom they owe their happiness. Others can never forget the pains of what they once were or escape the fears that someday, they may again find themselves wanting, and the hopeless prey of an unreturned love.
She stands there looking down on that poor soul whose life has forever lost most of the dimensions of happiness and wishes so much she could do something for her - not simply administer some medicine or treatment offering only a temporary escape from the pain and suffering that now rules her, but also extend a few kind and sincere words that would show her that she truly cares. The love she now feels for Arnold Gray has unlocked all those hidden emotions that had long been forgotten.
The patient's eyes open with that same vacancy Joan has seen so often in the eyes of those who know they are about to die. She steps forward and gently touches her hand, but the old lady can only respond with a few incoherent, mumbled words before slipping back into her unnatural sleep, induced by the massive dosages of pain-killing drugs. The corners of Joan's eyes are moist as she walks back out into the hallway. After the years she has spent on floors such as this one, she no longer feels guilty when she wishes someone would die.
Its almost time for the shift change. A few janitors are mopping the hallway floor, and she glances at the patient in each room as she walks back towards the chart room. Sickness, like happiness, affects people in such different ways. Some are clearly not a peace with themselves and are horrified at the realization they have lost all hope of happiness - either for themselves are the opportunity to bring it to someone else. Others seem strangely consoled by the lives they have led and at least are not tormented in knowing they have not denied someone else's happiness by their own selfishness.
The light over room 4412 is flashing, and her emotions so quickly change from those of tearful concern to a restrained contempt. The patient in that room is none other than Body Short, the conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, who spends a few days on the floor occasionally for treatment for elevated blood sugar. His doctors hesitate to call his condition diabetes for fear such a term would detract from his presumptive status of a inspired community leader, because he is constantly visible in the local news media and viewed as one of the city's leading citizens in his heralded campaign to "bring the arts to the people." He's often at the forefront of some of the city's charitable activities, but the real Boyd Short is so different from his public image. The simple truth is he, like so many doctors on this floor, is an egotistical bastard whose only concerns are the promotion of his own career and raising funds for such things as the private schools his children attend. Judging from the amount of time his wife usually spends in his room, there doesn't seem much left in the marriage. Sometimes, success does that.
Joan enters the room, somehow manages a smile and thinks the face she must put on is every bit as false as the utterly untrue impression of himself he has managed to preserve, except among the very few who know him for the son of a bitch he really is. As usual, he doesn't show any courtesy, even though she has responded rather quickly to his light. He's propped up on his bed, having a rather impatient telephone conversation with someone and in an abhorring tone, is sneering, "What do you mean he doesn't play modern classics!? That's the most idiotic thing I ever heard!"
She waits with a certain gratifying amusement, watching his face change tones as he receives whatever unsatisfactory explanation the other person is attempting to render, but he doesn't listen very long before snapping, "How can I tell a sold-out concert hall 3 weeks before the performance that one of the world's most renowned pianists considers the last work on the program below his dignity!?" He pauses a moment. Apparently, the other party to the conversation is attempting to speak, but after only a few seconds, he snarls, "Find someone else....Yes, find someone else. Set up auditions next week." He slams down the receiver and begins staring at Joan, almost as though he expects her to kneel before him.
She tries to conceal the entertained expression from her face as she cautiously steps forward and says, "This isn't doing your blood pressure any good."
"I want you to do something about this damn IV. It's killing me," he responds, starting to fumble through some pages of sheet music.
"Let's find another vein," she says as she carefully removes the needle, begins to grasp what she has just heard and immediately thinks of Arnold. Her whole temperament changes to a nervous uncertainty. She is relieved when she make a near perfect insertion of the new needle to a less sensitive section of the vein and politely asks with a genuine curiosity, "What's on the program you were talking about?"
"Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, perhaps the most performed composition in the world, and today I find out that one of the other works on the program isn't even in the repertoire of Dominic Custonelli - the gall of that bastard, waiting until now to tell me such a thing."
The need to conscribe a false face in front of someone she truly detests abates as she completes the insertion and steps back from his bed. Her thoughts remain on Arnold, and she asks, "What's the other piece on the program?"
He seems somewhat bored but finally answers, The Warsaw Concerto.
A chill quickly surges through her body, and she nervously says, "I know someone who can play it."
There's a brief sneer, and he doesn't look at her, clearly ready for her to leave the room.
She tries to keep the begging connotation from her voice and tries to remember something Arnold has told her. Suddenly, it comes to her, and there is a slight quiver to her voice, as she says, "The person I'm thinking of told me all about The Warsaw Concerto and how it was the only thing Richard Addinsell ever wrote that amounted to much. My friend is quite a virtuoso. He thinks Addinsell might have been in the same frame of mind as Rachmaninoff when he composed his second piano concerto. Emotion can bring out the best and worst in people." She tries to conceal what must be a pleading look in her eyes.
Now, it is an amused expression that comes to his face. Obviously not expecting anyone in her assumed lower social class to know anything about the arts, he slowly faces her. Neither of them says anything for a moment. Her hands begins to tremble until finally, she says, "It wouldn't do any harm to audition him, would it?"
He begins to shake his head, points to his briefcase and in a contemptible voice, says, "Hand me that. I never thought I'd see the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra evaluating auditions 2 weeks before a concert. What's this person's name?"
"Arnold....Arnold Gray," she answers with a cold uneasiness streaming down her spine.
Almost as if he were lecturing her, he hands her a 3 x 5 card and says, "This is the audition schedule we use for our free Saturday morning concerts. I'll be back next Wednesday. See that he's there at 10:00 AM." He scrabbles through his briefcase and pulls out a rather messy-looking folder containing numerous pieces of loose pages of music and adds, "This is the score. He'd best be ready when he gets there. We simply don't have time to orient beginners on orchestral procedures."
For the first time since he's been on the floor during all his treatments, she speaks heartfelt words and says with a smile that isn't forced, "Thank you. I know you won't be disappointed."
She's walking briskly down the hallway and sees nothing - none of the visitors, none of the creaking racks containing the evening meals and none of the other nurses seated around the medication records in the chart room. She almost forgets Arnold's work telephone number, and her hands are again shaking as she hears his voice, "Piano department."
Just then, she decides she had much rather wail until she sees him tonight and says in a quivering voice, "Hi....It's me. I....I just wanted to tell you I've got a surprise for you tonight" The other nurses look at one another and begin to snicker, thinking her pretense somewhat childish. She listens for a moment, and a broad smile comes to her face, but she insists, "No. I'm not going to tell you, except I know it's something you've always wanted. I'm looking forward so much to seeing you. Bye."
The other nurses exchange mocking glances. One of them says, "I'll bet she's got him thinking he's gonna get in her pants tonight."
Another one speaks up in a contrived southern accent. "Girl, shut yo mouth. Didn't you see that clean-cut young thing that picked her up the other day? She don't want to steal that boy's virginity."
Another looks at Joan, obviously trying to intimidate her and adds, "Virgin or not, you'd better start putting out soon. Every woman's cock on this floor got wet the other day when he was here."
Before Joan met Arnold, all of them had made something of a sport in laughing at her. Once, one of them said she should start wearing more make-up and walking the street instead of the hospital halls, and maybe she could meet someone and make some money as well. Now, it's she that is laughing at them without saying a single word. She gets her coat, and as she leaves the chart room, everyone of them is staring at her. She looks at the other nurse and says, "Why don't you tell them it's you that's the virgin. If that boyfriend of yours was enough of an acrobat to screw you under that 40 inch waistline, he'd be in the circus."
As she leaves the building, it's almost as though she were 16 again and about to go out on her first date. There is an energy in her step as the warm October sun shines down on her face, which is beaming with happiness; and at the same time, with a vindictive gratification in knowing what all the other nurses were really thinking. It wasn't about her - it was about Arnold. She looks at the musical score in her arms and draws it close to her body. A warm and loving anticipation comes into her heart, because she knows it will make the man she loves so very happy.
Arnold
Arnold Gray stands there in the middle of the Rich's piano department. Those beleaguering images of Angela Jennings no longer keep him awake for most of the night, but he still can't get her out of his mind. The humiliating memories of that night in her bedroom still torment him. He can still feel her soft skin under his fingertips, her warm breath and smooth lips on his neck. The portrait of such a beautiful woman in that teasing negligee is forever ingrained in his mind, just as is the moment he realized she was simply too much of a woman for him. During those several months he knew her, his life had gone from a forlorn mediocrity to the point he began to believe all those years of loneliness, all that emptiness in wanting a woman's companionship had entitled him through some emblematic form of poetic justice to what he knew was a once in a life time opportunity for the happiness he had wanted for so very long. But all that had ended as quickly as it had begun - that horrible feeling of loss, that overwhelming sense of doubt and self-pity that had left him wishing he had never met her.
Joan is nothing like Angela Jennings. She certainly isn't an unattractive woman but does not hold that commanding dimension that permits a woman to so completely possess a man. Joan's unhappy marriage had made her a timid woman and almost a school girl compared to Angela. He knows the feeling of being hurt so deeply - possibly it was that. Maybe it was because her husband was such a son of a bitch and putting up with him as long as she did had made her wary of all men.
The first time he saw her there in the Emergency Room and again on the 4th floor a few days later, he had the feeling there was something about him that attracted her. At first, he thought she just had the hots for every man - especially those she saw with most of their clothes off. But after their first few dates, he began to realize her interest in him seemed to be prompted by the fact he was so different from her former husband, who had somehow got the idea he was a ladies' man. Under Arnold's present frame of mind, Joan is perfect, because his demise with Angela Jennings had left him completely without sexual power and diminished his confidence in himself to the lowest point in his life. But Joan is a woman who had experienced her own trauma, and although hers had been different and considerably longer than his own, they seemed good for one another - at least temporarily. With her, he always feels more relaxed, and there seems no need to put up some pretense to remake himself into something she wants to see in a man. He never has doubted her sincerity and feels an attachment of sorts to her, but there is nothing about her that can possibly enthrall his every thought and intent as did Angela.
When he was dating Angela, everything they did was always oriented towards her tastes and her way of life. It's exactly the opposite with Joan. Soon after they met, it was she who began calling him, often speaking of childish, sometimes silly little things, just as the call he just received. What in the world could she have meant when she said she had a surprise for him?
These last few weeks, her visible interest in him has gradually began to restore his confidence in his masculinity. Her round, curvaceous hips, trim waist and somewhat athletic-looking legs, combined with her modest and undemanding temperament has restored his virility. Her appeal is not nearly as instantaneous and overpowering as was Angela's, but with Joan, there seems no pressure, no demand to prove himself as a man worthy to be the special friend of such a beautiful and successful woman as Angela Jennings. In fact, she appears much the outcome of mediocrity, just as himself and with that, there is no requirement to come up to some foreign criterion - only a latent feeling of companionship, but something he truly needed.
____________________
Waverly Way is one of those quaint streets in Inman Park. There's an old 16 unit apartment building at its intersection with Euclid Avenue and never a parking place anywhere close to the building. There is a chill in the late October evening as Arnold walks up the small sidewalk and glances at the dry maple leaves, glistening a brilliant orange around the streetlights beside them. He has all but forgotten the surprise Joan mentioned, and in fact, isn't even thinking directly of her, but is relating how he feels now to his tense and uncertain moods just before his dates with Angela Jennings. His uneasiness would usually increase the moment he saw her. Her striking beauty would all but take his breath away. Everything about her femininity was so perfect, every hair was always in place, and her tailored clothes accentuated her flawless figure.
He knocks at Joan's 2nd story apartment and is still thinking of Angela until he hears the high heels hurriedly walking across the old hardwood floors. A broad smile immediately comes to her face the moment she sees him. She closes the door, reaches down and grasps both of his hands, gently lays her head on his chest and softly says, "I'm glad to see you."
He lifts her chin up with his fingertips, looks into her eyes, which for the first time he can recall, have a small amount of makeup, and says, "You look so pretty." Suddenly, it strikes him that what he has said without thinking is truly accurate. She is wearing brown, high heel shoes with a very narrow spike, dark brown pants that fit snugly around her small waist and reveal the enticing outline of her hips and lower stomach, but the light beige blouse doe little for her breasts, which still appear disproportionately small compared to the rest of her body. Her short, brown hair is neatly parted in the middle and bangs are hanging about 2 inches down on her forehead.
Gently, she kisses his cheek and whispers in his ear, "I want to show you something." She leads him over to the sofa, pulls him down close beside her and with that same innocent, almost adolescent smile, says, "Remember I told you I....I had a surprise for you?"
Arnold isn't focusing on what she is trying to tell him. All his attention is drawn to her clinging pants that outline her inner thighs, as she crosses her legs. She seems so excited and can barely contain herself as she reaches out for his hand and asks, "Do you know what Body Short is?"
"The conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra," he responds, looking down at her hand and seeing fingernail polish for the first time. He looks at the large folder beside her, which is inscribed in large black letters "Conductor's Score - Warsaw Concerto." A slight interest begins to displace his fixation on the curvature of her body, and he asks, "Where did you get that?"
Still in child-like excitement, she draws the score close to her body and says, "Mr. Short is on the floor a few days every once in a while for diabetes treatment. I....I was talking to him today and found out this is on the program November 17th to19th, but for some reason, the guest pianist doesn't want to play it."
He still can't grasp where she is leading him and casually offers, "Some people who are at the top of their profession have the luxury of telling everyone else what they will and will not do. Who's the guest?"
"Dominic Cust....Custonel."
"Dominic Custonelli?" he asks, trying to conceal his amusement with her childish nature.
She nods. The smile comes back to her face as she begins thumbing through the score and says, "When I was in Mr. Short's room today, he was having a telephone conversation with someone who told him they were going to have to remove this from the program." Suddenly, the smile disappears, and her face becomes very serious. "I began thinking about you the instant he told me what had happened and....and...."
He leans over and kisses her on the cheek, but can't keep an insensitive chuckle from his voice as he says, "That's sweet. I thought of you a lot today too," knowing full well Angela is still in his mind and not her. He tries to hide his amused temper and asks, "What are they going to do?"
Her eyes take on that same infatuated spell Angela had cast on him, her lips begin to quiver and tears appear in the corners of her eyes. "I told him I knew someone who could play it. I remembered everything you told me about Rachmaninoff and that Richard Addinsell never wrote anything else as popular as the Warsaw Concerto. It seemed to get his attention." She suddenly remembers her eye makeup and hurriedly brushes the tears away. Slowly, she raises her head, looks him directly in the eye, extends her hand holding the score and with that same unstable voice, says, "He....he wants you to audition next week."
Stupefied, he reaches out and takes the score. All other thoughts and concerns vanish from his mind. There is no agonizing images of Angela Jennings, and he momentarily loses awareness of the kind and gentle woman beside him. He remembers the very first time he held this composition in his hand. He must have been only 8 or 9 years old but immediately, it became his favorite. It was far too difficult for him then, but by the time he was 16, he could play it perfectly. As a young boy, he never developed the nature that found him at ease with other people, and as a consequence, became obscure as a lonely world closed in around him until finally, all he had was his music. He practiced hour upon hour simply because he had nothing else to do. As the years passed by, he became more and more interned by an existence of loneliness, and then, there was only the compensation of his skill over the very difficult compositions of the masters. Often, he would dream of a chance to audition with an orchestra, but he neither had the opportunity nor the confidence. Incredibly, after all those years, Joan has just handed him the chance he has wanted all his life with the very composition he had practiced far more than any other. "Are you serious?" he faintly asks as his eyes shift from the score to her face, which is now streaked with tears running down her makeup.
She nods. Her lips are tight, and she is trying to hold back breaking down into full sobs. "He said you'd better be familiar with the score when you auditioned. I know you've never played with an orchestra before. Do you think....you can....I mean...."
Still somewhat stunned, he looks through the score and says, "Actually, there's more to playing the piano solo. The only thing that concerns me is adjusting to the timing of an orchestra accompaniment. I've never done that, but it shouldn't be a problem with something I know so well." As he looks through the pages, a previously unrealized benefit from his failure with Angela comes into his mind. A few times, she had taken him to one of those fancy north side parties. It had fed her ego so much when she paraded him in front of all her friends when he played the grand piano all the palatial houses had but no one ever played. He was surprised then he hadn't experienced the stage fright he expected. All those false faces staring at him even gave him a suggestion of ego. Confidence begins to seep through him. "There's a few arpeggio sections played in unison with the orchestra that aren't in the piano solo, but they're all B major and c minor chords. They'll need to be played louder than I'm accustomed." His hands fall limp in his lap, and he stares at the wall for a moment, not knowing exactly what to say. He turns and draws her close to him.
She breaks down in unrestrained sobs, puts her arms around his neck and says, "I know how much you've always wanted a chance like this." She lifts her head from his shoulder and places her hand on the side of his face as her tears of happiness subside and she tenderly says, "I'll be thinking of you every minute next Wednesday."
Arnold's dates with Joan have been so dissimilar from those with Angela. On this evening, he and Joan eat at the Majestic Diner on Ponce de Leon Avenue - something he and Angela never did, because he had always thought it necessary to take her to one of those fancy, sit-down restaurants - those places that even had a dress code for their customers and overly polite waiters with high-pitched voices and the mannerism of homosexuals.
Joan never speaks much about her job - presumable because much she sees is so unpleasant. Again, Angela was quite the opposite and was constantly speaking of her work as a real estate agent. As she would put it, "up-scale subdivisions" are being build around the city, and many successful people are moving to Atlanta. Her whole life and career had been woven around accomplishments. From the very first moment he met her, he recognized they were so completely different, but that had only increased his overpowering fixation with her.
He and Joan walk hand-in-hand through the Lenox Square Mall, occasionally stopping to look in store windows, but his mind is on the musical score laying back there in her apartment. All her conversation is about him, but much of it doesn't register with him as she rattles on. "How does a concert pianist ever memorize such long compositions? Is playing simply a mechanical process or must he try to grasp the composer's frame of mind and what he was trying to express?" she asks as she tightly squeezes his hand."
He gives some answer that immediately passes from his mind. His part of the conversation is much less philosophical, because he is more concerned with being able to pull off the rather remarkable task of stepping from the unheralded role of an uncelebrated piano salesman to the chance of appearing on the same stage with one of the world's most eminent concert artists. But strangely, he doesn't feel that same lack of confidence that has plagued him for most of his life. He knows he doesn't have the formal music education of probably everyone in the orchestra, but there has hardly been a day in the last 25 years when he hasn't practiced. He feels peculiarly confident.
A brisk and whirling wind stirs the dry leaves across the sidewalk as Joan and Arnold walk down Euclid Avenue towards her apartment. He puts his arm around her shoulder. She steps closer to him and puts her arm around his waist. Knowing she cares for him and now, this chance he has stumbled over, at least for the moment, have set aside his resigned attitude that some of Angela's friends had described as his "sterile personality."
As they walk into her apartment, the hardwood floor squeaks under their feet. She laughs aloud and says, "They always do that when it gets cold," still with that naive smile she has held for most of the evening.
He sits there on the sofa, looking through the score and listening to her fumbling around on her dressing table, combing her hair and no doubt, renewing the eye makeup she might be wearing for the first time in a very long time. A very novel coalition of emotions are kindling within him. The hurt that has ruled him for so many weeks after his failure with Angela is slowly transposing into a constrained resent. The thought of his audition next week has breathed a determination into him and now, he at least has the hope that maybe at last, his life can escape from the depressing walls of that old boarding house, those old, depressing people and the mundane existence of walking the floors of the Rich's piano department. Maybe it isn't resent at all. It could be hope or the appreciation of the friendship Joan has extended to him. He lays the musical score down on the sofa and begins walking down the hall into the bedroom.
He comes behind her and places his arms around her waist. Her hands gently clutch at his as he holds his cheek against her neck and whispers, "I can't tell you how much that audition means to me. I mean....even if I fail, I'll at least have had a chance, which is more than I ever expected." He brings both hands to the bottom of her neck and begins caressing her trapezius muscle.
She closes her eyes for a moment before turning to him, sliding her hands across his chest and around his neck. He gently kisses her, slips his hands down to her hips and slowly pulls her stomach closer to his, which brings a brief approving gasp when she feels his firm erection moving across her body. Looking straight into her eyes, he reaches behind his neck, grasps her hands and kisses them as he holds them just below his chin. She softly rotates her cheeks across his hands before he puts his arm around her shoulder, turns off the light and turns her in the direction of the bed.
She rubs her feet against one another, removing her shoes and limply collapsing into his arms, saying, "I....I'm not on the pill."
Reaching into his pocket, he removes 2 condoms and slips them into her hand as he pulls her blouse out of her pants and begins to run his fingertips across the bare skin of her stomach. Her body is tight, and she seems nervous - just as he was that night with Angela. He hesitates, removes his hand from inside her blouse, but she immediately slips her hand under his belt and pulls him down beside her on the bed. He removes his shoes and lies there beside her for a moment. The outside street lights are shining through her sheer curtains, reflecting in her sparkling eyes as she draws closer to him and begins unbuttoning his shirt. Visibly nervous, she whispers, "I've never done this with anyone except my husband."
Arnold's confidence immediately builds based on all those things she has told him about her former husband who permitted himself to become something of a slob in a number of ways after a few years of marriage. He props up on his knees and removes his shirt. His body is silhouetted against the street light shining in through the curtains, and her eyes are set on the outline of his round deltoid muscles, full neck and symmetrical biceps.
He pulls her in front of him and removes her blouse. She lays her head against his firm pectoral muscles, almost as though she were afraid he will be disappointed in seeing her brassiere, revealing only a trace of cleavage. There is an unsure look on her face. The muscles in her neck and arms are tense and tight. His confidence continues to build, because he knows she is feeling the same as he did that night with Angela.
Softly, he brushes her bangs to the side of her forehead, kisses her on the cheek and gently lays her back on the bed. He unbuttons her pants, and she quickly raises her hips so he can slip them off. Her black panties fit tightly around her vulva, and she exhales deeply when he caresses the inside of her thighs before slipping them off. She is lying there, completely unclothed, except for her brassiere. Her waist is trim and legs very well-shaped, although somewhat larger than Angela's and without that smooth and soft texture that was so enticing.
He moves close to her, lays his head on her shoulder, slides his hand inside her brassiere and begins gently fondling her breasts. There is an immediate approving sigh but without the assertive responsiveness that came so natural to Angela. She seems unsure what she should do - no doubt the result of her former husband's heavy-handed fumbling with no thought of how a woman is correctly aroused. Moving one of her hands in front of his lips, he kisses it and says, "I don't think you realize how attractive a woman you are."
Some of her tension relents. She turns on her side towards him, and still with an unsteady voice, says, "I'm so afraid I'll disappoint you. I just want to make you happy." For the first time since they lay down together, her eyes look directly into his, and she places her hand on his neck. He reaches behind her and unfastens her brassiere, moves closer to her so is erect organ is pressing against her stomach and says, "Does that feel like I'm disappointed?"
A becalmed expression slowly seeps over her face. She begins to caress his deltoid muscles, and her fingertips slowly glide down on his pectorals. After only a few moments, her breathing becomes more labored and he pushes her over on her back, gently maneuvering his tongue up and down the side of her neck. She gasps with each delicate kiss to her neck. He begins kissing her lips, and she passionately responds with rotating motions of her head. He rakes his fingers along the full length of her body, across her nipples, which are now firm with excitement, across her stomach, onto her vulva and over her fully erect clitoris. She is panting and her fingers are clawing at his back. Pulling away from her, he braces himself on his knees and slides the condom over his organ.
She lies back flat on the bed with her eyes fixed on him before spreading her legs and holding her arms out to embrace him. Surmising her uncouth husband had literally no technique whatever, he gently and very carefully inserts his organ into her vagina, supporting his upper body above with his extended arms. The walls of her vagina are somewhat dry, but he makes a few coaxing movements, slowly inching his organ across her clitoris and moving his hips from side to side. She starts to sigh and move her lower body in rhythm with his, and quickly, her vagina begins to lubricate, permitting him to make full, deep penetrations with little pressure against his strong erection and allowing him to control his own excitement.
He begins to rub his cheeks against hers, very easily lowers himself on top of her, sliding his arms under hers and pulling her breasts firmly against his chest. Her fingers are moving across his latisimus dorsi muscles. She spreads her legs wider, couples her ankles under his and begins long approving sighs with each movement he makes. She wraps her legs around his hips, one arm slips tightly around his waist and the other around his neck. He makes teasing, short and long penetrations, gently rotating his hips from side to side. Her panting is warm against his face, as she clutches his back and neck. Her sighs become longer, "Oooh, ooooh, ooooooh," as her arms and legs fall flat on the bed and her neck tosses to one side. He suspends himself over her with only his outer thighs touching her body with gential, coaxing movements. Her amorousness rapidly builds. She reaches out and pulls him back on top of her, fully fully wraps her legs around him with vigourous thrusts of her lower body which draws him into an immediate ejaculation. Her body goes completely limp with short, exhaling breaths, "ungh.....unntt, unttt, ooohhhh." Feeling his body wrench on top of her and his fevered breath on the side of his neck, exhorts her into a full vaginal orgasm. She is gasping, her legs are tightly wrapped around him, and her arms are firmly clutching at his shoulders.
Before his erection begins to wane, he makes several more full penetrations. She momentarily relaxes but then a second organism seizes her. There is a prolonged sigh before her body relaxes, and her breathing begins to moderate. She begins to slid one foot up and down his lower leg, kisses him on the cheek and whispers, "That was wonderful."
Neither of them has ever experienced a moment such as this. He lies back down beside her and softly draws her closer to him. Only having known the ungracious and uncreative technique of her husband, which entailed little effort to recognize the needs of a woman, she has never experienced such excitement or satisfaction. He is gratified at his performance, which he knows awakened and satisfied quiescent passions held within her for years. But after only a few moments, he feels something of a letdown and wishes he had not permitted himself to be swept away in Angela Jennings' bedroom by his blinding obsession with her. This night has only been an ego-building experience for him and nothing else.
During the next few days, everyone on the floor recognizes the marked change in Joan Warren. Without doubt, the time she has known Arnold Gray has been the happiest time of her life. She is constantly looking forward to the next time she will see him - even the next time she will speak with him on the telephone, and he is constantly on her mind. She is captivated by his rather withdrawn and unpretentious mannerism, which now only accentuates her intense sexual attraction to him. All the bitter memories of her marriage have vanished; and for the first time, she knows the wonderful feeling of being in love.
Sitting there in the chart room, preparing the medication cart for the afternoon dosages, she can hardly keep her mind on her work. For one thing, today is Arnold's audition, but mainly, she is bewitched by those vivid images of him from that night in her bedroom and the allurement of a masculinity not remotely suggested by her former husband. Now, it seems almost impossible the divorce hurt her so much. Maybe it wasn't the divorce at all and more likely, it was the marriage itself.
The telephone rings. She glances down at her watch, and a chill runs over her body, because somehow, she knows it is him. She is so afraid his audition did not go well. Her hand is trembling as she picks up the receiver and with an unsure voice, says, "Fourth floor chart room."
There is energy and excitement in his voice. "It's me!"
She is lost for words and can only listen.
"I got it! There were only a few Emory students that survived the pre-screening, some older men and a few church pianists that were not at all suited for this style music. We start rehearsals next Monday morning."
Tears stream down her face, and she feels a consoling gratification in every cell of her body, because she knows she has been a part in giving him what he wanted more than anything in the world. Between her sobs, she says, "Oh Arnold, I'm so happy."
Randall
Randall Coleman sits there in a small examining room at the hospital at Fort McPherson, Georgia. His mind searches back over his tour in Vietnam and the months back in the states. For the past several weeks, he been on TDY in Atlanta, not 10 miles from Euclid Avenue. He has spoken with Blanche several times on the telephone and is looking forward to seeing her and the other roomers on Saturday. He's surprised the roomers haven't changed except for the one that replaced him who will soon be moving due to an "unexpected career change" as she put it.
He looks down at his dress green uniform on the chair beside him, staring at the single row of ribbons and the Combat Infantryman Badge on top, causing him to remember that old sergeant major there in the mess hall at Fort Jackson on his 2nd or 3rd day in the Army. That was the first time he had seen the Combat Infantryman Badge. He didn't know all the proud tradition behind the award and was sure that pitiful old man wearing it had wasted his life. He recalls the contempt he had initially felt towards Sergeant Bryant, a vile, misguided man who was resentful towards nearly everything outside the diminished world in which he had chosen to remain. Sergeant Dorsey blamed what he perceived as an imposed inequity among the races for nearly every problem the Negroes have, or think they have. Lieutenant Hardin was a man who had somehow managed to get himself in a position he neither had the education nor determination to handle. George Haines was someone still in his childhood, believing all he was told until he finally came into the real world, which he could not accept. Captain Garnett Sain, a man unwilling to release the past and in the opinion of some, so conspicuously out of place in "the modern Army." Lieutenant Daniels was quite a different case from Hardin or Sain - contemptibly aloof and viewing combat duty as a necessary part of training for his future, which if there be any justice, should rightfully carry him far beyond such an assignment.
During that year in Vietnam, his view of all of them had changed, because all of them, except Sain, had changed so much. At this moment, he feels the same intolerance he did on that hellatious final mission when he saw George and Hardin being taken prisoner. He still feels that nagging sorrow and regret each time he thinks of Sergeant Dorsey, hanging there on that horrible swinging man trap at the very moment he and Bryant had finally realized they should befriend him. He can vividly recall his final day at the base and seeing Captain Sain, wearing his 3rd Award Combat Infantryman Badge, standing there in front of the helicopter on his last day as a soldier. When Daniels shook his hand and saluted him, Randall knew that Daniels, and indeed himself, would never again be the men they were on that first day in the orderly room. Garnett Sain had changed all that. Sain was a simple man, but he was a good man - not the type one would find in a church pew every week, by any means, but someone who had tried to do his best wherever he found himself.
All those career goals that had once so ruled Randall's every intention now seem only vague, self-endearing recollections. He so wishes that when he met Evette, he had possessed the insight on life and human nature that knowing those other men has given him. He wonders where she is now and if he had meant anything to her at all.
A solacing smile comes to his face, as he is still staring at the Combat Infantryman Badge that has given him a pride of the sort he has never known - the old rifle against the blue background, encircled with a silver wreath. Over the years, how many men had won the right to receive that cherished award but never lived to receive it?
He has a rasping cough and sharp pain in his chest and begins looking at the medical charts in the tiny examining room, wondering what is taking the doctor so long and why he even insisted on taking a chest x-ray that for something that could be nothing more than lingering congestion from the cold he had during the past several weeks.
His nose is running and there is a burning in his throat. He stands, opens the door and sees the doctor striding down the hall. He has an unkept appearance, is overweight, almost completely bald and his cheeks have a flushed, rosy tint. His coat is unbuttoned, too large for him and trails behind him like an airplane with its flaps down as it prepares to land. He walks straight to the x-ray viewer, flips it on and clips on 2 films. He begins moving his pen along a series of narrow, darkened areas on both sides of his lungs. Still looking the the films and not at Randall, he says, "I'm not sure what this is. We've seen similar images in those exposed to Agent Orange, but you don't have any of the other symptoms. I'm recommending you be admitted to the VA Hospital in Decatur for further tests."
Randall is shaken and only nods.
The doctor finally looks at him, starts to say something, but seems to think better of it. As he leaves the room, after having been there only about 45 seconds, he says, "I'll start the paperwork."
Randall slowly puts on his poplin shirt, tightens his tie and buttons his jacket. He walks down the arrow hallway, glancing at the pictures on the wall depicting various moments in military history and at the freshly buffed floors. He thinks of all the men he saw killed in Vietnam and how he came to see them as such innocent victims of some evasive campaign to countervail sound military judgment and planning with an enticement of public opinion, but now, so suddenly and unexpectedly, he is consumed by such a clutching and damning fear it is he who will become yet another unheralded victim.
Blanche
Blanche is in her living room, looking at the brilliant yellow, orange and red leaves on the old trees on either side of Euclid Avenue. She looks at the small "ROOM FOR RENT" sign pushed in the ground close to her steps and tries to remember how many years she has used it. Over all those years, how many roomers have lived in the room Arnold will soon vacate? He and that other man, Randy, or Randall, Coleman were so different from any of her roomers over all those years.
That first time Randy called her after he arrived at Fort McPherson, he referred to himself as "Randall." His voice seemed more mature, and there was something different about him she could even sense from speaking with him on the telephone.
Arnold has changed quite a lot in the months he's been in the rooming house. He seems to have gotten over his terrible letdown from breaking up with that fancy woman from the north side, but he rarely mentions the nurse he has dated for the past several months. She's been in the boarding house a few times, and Blanche could tell the moment she first saw her that she's hopelessly in love with Arnold. Arnold didn't feel it necessary to explain why he's moving back into the very same apartment building where he was before he came to Euclid Avenue. He has a lot of new clothes, a different hair style and has no resemblance to the timid, un-groomed man who stood at her door the first time she saw him.
The doorbell rings and that same rasping sound she has known all her life echoes through the old house. There is a sharp ache in her ankles, as he limps towards the door, which has swollen due to the recent rain. She can barely open it and is surprised to see a man in a dress Army uniform standing on her front porch, holding one small suitcase in his right hand. He's a very ordinary-looking man, except his face seems rather stern. The graying hair under his cap is neatly cut around his ears, and his chin is somewhat small compared to the rest of his face. Sergeant Major chevrons are on his sleeves and there are 10 re-enlistment bars on his left cuff. Immediately, her eyes fall on the 5 rows of ribbons and at the award she recognizes as the Combat Infantryman Badge. She hasn't seen it since the Korean War and doesn't know the meaning of the 2 stars in the center of the wreath.
He stands there silently for a moment before saying in a rather coarse voice, "I'd like to inquire about the room. I just retired from the Army."
Joan
Joan Warren walks down Peachtree Street towards Symphony Hall, nervously thinking of Arnold and hoping her dark blue dress is appropriate for such an event. Her husband had no taste for such things, and the places they frequented during their marriage hardly had a dress code or any other standard for that matter. In fact, all he ever wanted to do was sit around some barroom, guzzling down beer after beer and listening to stories of the less than congenial sexual exploits of that crude circle of friends of his. That only added another unpleasant dimension to her failing marriage, but that's all behind her now. She is no longer ruled by that punishing feeling of denial or the hurt and uncertainty that drew her away from the outside world and found her totally absorbed by her profession for all those years.
She walks through the lobby of Symphony Hall and feels lost among all the people gathered in small groups. Most are very stylishly dressed, and if appearance be any guide, are what society would categorize as successful. Here and there are a few such as herself, modestly dressed and glancing about the hall at all the jewelry sparkling in the overhead lights and at the various tones of makeup, overdone in some cases, making the person's face look like an image on a television screen with too much contrast. Her eyes fall on a glass case near a few tables, where several men are handing out some type beverage in small cups, that shows a large picture of Dominic Custonelli and the titles on tonight's program. When she sees the much smaller photo of Arnold under the heading "Making his stage debut as soloist in the Warsaw Concerto," a warm and loving surge seeps over her body, and she whispers, "Oh." Her eyes become moist in the corners, as she stares at his picture.
She walks into the auditorium, glances down at the row and seat number on her ticket and feels a sharp apprehension when she sees the hundreds and hundreds of people already in their seats, the neatly positioned instruments on stage and the 9-foot, ebony Steinway concert grand piano. She knows Arnold must be nervous, because his life has been much like her own since the divorce. He seems to have been very lonely, and although he never mentioned it in so many words, seems disappointed he has accomplished no more than the trivial status of a piano salesman. At least her career had offered some measure of fulfillment, but life seems to have been without gratification for Arnold - perhaps even empty. As a 34 year old bachelor with few or no friends, he has remittently accepted that fact that life was passing him by - quite the opposite from her husband's persuasion that a tasteless mannerism and the scent of beer on his breath was an assertion of masculinity and thus should invoke and immediate reaction of some sort from women.
She sits down and looks about the hall, wondering how Arnold will react to it all. In the span of but a few days, he has leaped from a confining mediocrity to the point that tonight, he is appearing on the same program with a world class concert pianist at the summit of success. She hardly pays any attention to the orchestral works that proceed the main work and during the intermission, walks nervously about the lobby, thinking how music has been the love of Arnold's life, but it has been a love he has shared with no one and eventually became a shroud behind which he hid himself from the world that seemed to concede no place for him.
The lights are flashing and the audience quickly moves back into the concert hall. A hush falls over the darkened auditorium as the ceiling lights are directed center stage, and there is a resounding applause when Dominic Custonelli makes his appearance, followed by Boyd Short. A brief hostility comes over her face as she sees that same gracious and totally false expression on Boyd Short's face.
Dominic Custonelli is a tall, handsome man with snow-white hair, and something about him suggests he is not the complete egotist that Mr. Short had described to her and anyone else who was required to listen. He acknowledges the applause with a stately bow before turning to the piano. A very serious expression comes over him, almost as thought his years of experience on stages all over the world has given him the expertise to cancel everything form his mind and concentrate only on the music and what emotions must have ruled the composer when it was written.
Joan watches him as he begins the stern, crescendo chords of the 1st movement, but Arnold is in her every thought. She remembers that night when they were walking hand-in-hand through that little park in Garden Hills, when Arnold had told her all about the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto. She knows the opening measures are actually Rachmaninoff's avowal of the awakening of a great soul, and this composition was something of a desperate effort to free himself from the terrible depression that followed the failure of his First Symphony. She feels a faint parallel in that the love she feels for Arnold has breathed a new dimension into her life and has kindled all sorts of emotions that were dormant and almost forgotten.
Her thoughts are far away from the concert stage until suddenly, she realizes the orchestra has stopped playing. She glances up at the conductor just as the Adagio begins. For a few moments, she looks at the string section as the melancholy that possessed Rachmaninoff when he created this masterpiece is vividly portrayed in the lamenting melody that weeps through the stilled concert hall but gradually, her thoughts turn back, back over all those years to her first months at Crawford Long Hospital.
____________________
Walking across the parking lot to her small, efficiency apartment, her legs ached and there was a nagging pain in her back. The day had been especially trying, and some of the patients had been particularly demanding. She was thinking of the emphysema patient in room 4433 and the distant stare in his eyes as he struggled for breath through the oxygen tubes strapped to his face. But then, her thoughts turned from that dismal image to something that in a different manner was all the more depressing. She looked around the parking lot and saw her husband's car was not there and knew this Friday night would be the same as all the others when he preferred the atmosphere of one of those neighborhood bars, gulping down draft beer with his so-called friends and hooting less than gentlemanly comments at the go-go dancers.
Marriage, at least her marriage, had proven nothing like what she had anticipated when she was convinced she was in love. She had realized all to late that she was in love with the idea of being in love and had carelessly submitted her unprotected emotions to the first man who seemed to show any interest in her. For awhile, she had hoped her husband would eventually take their marriage seriously and seize onto something substantive in life, but that never happened and time had simply worn away leaving her faced with cold regret in an atmosphere of emptiness.
Stopping at the mailbox, she removed the telephone and light bills, opened the envelopes and tried to remember the scant amount in their checking account. With the car repair bill last week, there was barely enough to pay them. The apartment was cluttered. Newspaper was scattered all over the floor, pieces of her husband's clothing were hanging on the backs of chairs, and as tired as she was, she wished she were leaving for work rather than coming home.
Starting to sort through the mess, she looked down at the coffee table at the vase and artificial flower arrangement her mother had given her when she graduated from nursing school. A hint of pacification flickered as she remembered the happiest moment of her life, but that was quickly annulled when she heard the unsettling sound of her husband's car, without the muffler, coming into the parking lot. She looked out the window, and at that very moment, lost what little hope remained for her marriage. Mildly intoxicated, her husband looked more unkept than usual and was wearing a white t-shirt with large, blue horizontal stripes that fit snugly around him, accentuating his beer gut that overlapped the waist of his faded jeans, worn without a belt. His wavy hair hung below is ears, and his thick, black mustache curved around his mouth and down onto his chin.
She watched him as he stumbled to the door and momentarily had trouble fitting his key into the lock. He walked into the small living room, immediately read the disheartened look on her face, and in his typical deriding fashion, said, "Don't look so glad to see me," and in something of a musical tone, added, "What's the matter? Did little Joanie have a hard time with the bed pans today?" He moved towards her and placed both hands around her, firmly drawing her close to him and digging his fingers into her hips. His mustache felt like sandpaper on the side of her face; and with the repulsive odor of alcohol and tobacco on his breath, he mumbled in her ear, "Tonight, I'm going to get you in bed and show you what a hard time really is - get it.... hard?"
For weeks, over and over again, she had struggled trying to resolve in her mind what she should do to get away from the hell she was living in. She pushed him away, looked down at the floor and said in an unreserved voice, "Mike, I want a divorce!"
His initial shock gave way to a moment of amusement. He cocked his head to one side and with a taunting sneer, said, "What's the matter? Isn't Florence Nightingale happy in marital bliss?"
He never knew it, but since her first year in nursing school, when the class had learned how Florence Nightingale had introduced military hospital service in the Crimean War, she had always viewed her legacy as nothing less than sacred in her profession - a profession, which for months upon months had been the only meaningful thing in her life. She brought her arms between them, again firmly shoved him away and began to cry - not especially because she was hurt, but because the only emotions remaining within her were disgust and intolerance. She brushed the tears away, looked straight at him and said, "It would be best for both of us. There's nothing left."
Gradually, his entertained manner relented to one of anger. The effects of the alcohol seemed to disappear as he raised his voice and asked, "What's the matter? Don't you think I'm good enough for you?"
"You know it's not that," she responded with a trace of anger in her own voice. "I don't think you're happy with me. If you were, you'd spend more time with me instead of ...."
He drew is arm back, whipped the back of his hand across her face and hatefully clamored, "You bitch!"
She screamed and went sprawling onto the floor, crashing into the coffee table and lay there dazed for a moment. As her senses began to return, she could hear him off in the bedroom, talking to someone on the telephone. He was speaking to some other woman and telling her he was leaving his wife and they could move in together, just as they had discussed. Unclean feelings flowed over her as she thought of her husband's moving in with another woman. She uttered to herself, "That's sloppy," looked at the floor and saw the flower arrangement her mother had given her broken and scattered over the floor. She broke down into deep, sobbing tears - not because the marriage had failed but simply because she was glad to finally be free from it.
____________________
The orchestra is in the 3rd movement, and as she listens to the romantic melody, thoughts of Arnold once again possess her. All reflections on those unhappy years of marriage depart, because now, she knows what it is to be truly in love. At 37, the age when most women have children, life has given both her and Arnold a second chance. Perhaps it isn't too late to have someone's love and understanding, and hopefully, the career about which Arnold has so wistfully dreamed for most of his life may at last be coming within his reach.
The orchestra and pianist skillfully conclude the captivating final measures of the 3rd movement, and there is a long and resounding applause as the conductor and soloist politely acknowledge the bravos with a few pompous bows. They congratulate one another, and Dominic Custonelli turns to the 1st violinist, vigorously shaking his hand. Gradually, the applause subsides, and the 2 men walk off stage. The audience begins to stir about, several sections in the orchestra rearrange themselves, and someone in a tuxedo moves out onto the stage and wipes the piano keys with a handkerchief.
Joan's heart is pounding, and there is an unsettled clenching in her throat when the hall lights once again dim and all are focused on center stage. She can hardly swallow when she first sees Arnold walking towards the piano, closely followed by Boyd Short. The audience politely applauds, suggesting only a casual interest in a pianist none of them has ever heard of until seeing his name in tonight's program.
Joan remembers her first day on the hospital floor after she had graduated from nursing school; and although she had done well in her studies, she was unsure of herself. She knows Arnold must feel much the same as she had on the first day - perhaps even worse, because he is self-taught, never having any learned evaluation until the day of his audition. Her eyes are fixed on him. His appearance is so nice in his tuxedo, which highlights his athletic appearance and fits quite well around his trim waistline and full shoulders. He looks strikingly different from anyone else on the stage and apparently, not at all what the audience was expecting. But he doesn't look at the audience, which renews Joan's fear he will not do well, because it's all so new to him. Instead, he steps beside the piano, reaches down, touches it and makes a few petting motions with his hand before turning to the audience and bowing with his hand still resting on the piano. He looks strangely confident and once again, Joan is captivated by him - just as she has been since the first moment she saw him.
A hush falls over the hall, and the performance lights focus on the piano. Arnold sits down on the leather bench, clasps his hands in front of his body, briefly looking down at the keyboard, before looking up at the conductor and nodding. The conductor raises his baton, drops his hands and Arnold quite authoritatively begins the repetitious, powerful chords in the entrancing ornamental passage in the opening measures. The movement of his head and motion of his arms offers no hint, no suggestion of the withdrawn and timid man that she knows but conveys the striking impression he is exactly where he belongs and knows it.
He drops his hands into his lap and looks into the violin section as the orchestra begins the allegro, pleading tones that perfectly portray the spirit of 1941 Europe when Richard Addinsell created this memorable composition, originally written as theme and background music for a motion picture about a British fighter pilot and composer who lost his memory due to wartime injuries, only to regain it when he heard the touching music that now sounds through the stilled concert hall.
Arnold punctuates the crescendo chords of the orchestra with vigorous ascending and descending arpeggios before moving into the solo, rubato and lamenting passage that proceeds the first introduction of the melody, which is a gentle and expressive section, no doubt leading many thoughts in many directions, but for Joan, she can only reflect on the love she feels for Arnold.
She watches his every motion as he flawlessly plays the rolling arpeggios preceding the interlude, which begins with what she interprets as a reflective passage, gradually building in strength and somehow suggesting a feeling of determination. Tears come to her eyes as Arnold inserts the brilliante' broken chords marking the end of the interlude, and the orchestra repeats the pleading, allegro segment from the opening measures. As she wipes the tears from her cheeks, a consoling smile comes to her face. Arnold is playing alone - his hands glide over the keyboard, masterfully performing the rubato measures that gracefully yield to a brief diminuendo segment by the orchestra before Arnold solos the molto dolce reappearance of the melody. All the emotions of 1941 war-torn Europe that the composer must have felt in his heart ring through the hall, and Joan wonders how this one work could stand so far above all of Addinsell's other compositions. What was it that inspired such brilliance? Inspiration is such a curious thing, often not springing from the individual alone but many times, rising from some disappointment or failure, creating a driving determination in some but only resent and mistrust in others.
Although it was nearly unobservable, Arnold had always projected a suggestion of disappointment that didn't seem attended by determination - only submission to something he never told her. She was always uncertain as to how, or if, her past life compared to his. She simply feared being hurt again, and the novel sequence of events that began with a street mugging months ago had quite by accident given them both what they most wanted.
Tears are again streaming down her face as the orchestra repeats the main theme melody leading to the accented piano chords. The brilliante' sounds of piano and orchestra so romantically lead into the lento final measures, where the piano again enters the sad, pounding passage of the opening measures. Her heart is throbbing as Arnold's hands fly over the 64th notes before the conclusion with one final, resounding chord from the orchestra.
The applause is immediate. Hundreds of people are standing. Slowly, Arnold stands as cries of "bravo, bravo" erupt from all over the hall. He turns and says something to the conductor and then, shakes the hand of the 1st violinist before turning to the piano and again giving it that same patting motion. He faces the audience and bows, much the same as Dominic Custonelli.
Joan's hands are trembling and tears still in her eyes as she stands, wildly clapping and with her eyes fixed on the man she loves. She is happier at this moment than she can ever remember - even more so than the day she graduated from nursing school. Quite unexpectedly, however, the strangest feeling of apprehension, almost as a forewarning, begins to trickle through her. Until now, in many ways, Arnold's life had been much the same as her own. The smile gradually wanes from her face, and troubling thoughts enter her mind. Will he remain the same sensitive and timid man she loves or will the very prospect of finally achieving what he has always wanted make him into someone entirely different. Where will it lead him - and her.
Blanche
Blanche Wilson is there at the breakfast table in the boarding house, looking at the strange man who has been there for the past 2 weeks. His graying hair looks as though it were once red and is still neatly combed to one side in the short, military style. He's already got a job as a night security guard at one of those industrial buildings on the expressway, but she doesn't even know is last name, as both weeks, he's paid his rent in cash.
He's been silently sitting there for a few minutes, staring at the old Williamson house. His eyes search along the faded and lifeless walls, and he looks at the yard, covered with several layers of fallen leaves. He scans across the 2nd story windows, all covered with shades and finally asks, "What's the story on that house down there?"
"That's the old Williamson house," Blanche responds, glad he has finally spoken, because she was beginning to feel somewhat awkward with his sitting there in such an unnatural silence. "There's only 1 person who lives there now. She's been on the street almost as long as I have."
Without explanation, his voice becomes noticeably unsteady. "I saw her the other day," he says, staring down into his cup. "Why does she wear that hat pulled down over her eyes that way?"
Blanche's memory reaches out over the years. She can see the old house as it was decades before and the little Williamson boy coming home from school with his clothes torn and crying after having been beaten up by the classroom bullies. There is a wistful mood in her voice, as she says, "A long time ago, their whole family lived there, just like my grandparents, mother, father and brother once lived her with me. That was back before the first war. Her name is Bertha. She got married shortly after my brother, Charles. They had a little son who wasn't exactly right - I mean he stuttered and had a great deal of trouble with his schoolwork. The other boys in his room were always picking on him, and he was forever coming home crying. Bertha would always go out to meet him on the steps there."
He looks at the dingy, gray concrete steps, all covered with moss along both sides. His looks directly at Blanche, and with the most captivated sort of expression, asks, "What happened to the boy?"
"He joined the Army just before World War II and was on Bataan when the Japanese took it." She looks at the peeling paint all along the side of the house and adds, "He spent the rest of the war in a prisoner camp. He received quite a few decorations before his whole unit was captured, but he never talked very much about that when he came home - only his 2 friends that were killed. For the first few days after he came home, he worn his uniform everywhere he went."
"What happened to him?" he asks, looking back at the house.
"He could never find a job after the war, but finally got on up there at the Euclid Theater in Little Five Points, taking tickets and tending the candy counter." She looks out into the Williamson yard, stares at the gullies made by the rain falling from the clogged gutters and at the pieces of fallen gingerbread siding, lying there where they have been for years at the very same place where Jamie got that terrible beating, soon after the war. "There was a little girl that lived a few streets over. No one ever knew it, but Jamie always had a place in his heart for her since they were in grammar school. It was soon after the war when he asked her for a date one night up there in the lobby of the Euclid Theater. She was a very attractive woman by then and already had a boyfriend. One afternoon, shortly after that, he came by and found Jamie and his mother out in their yard. He gave Jamie a terrible beating right there in front of his mother." Just as though it were yesterday, she can see Bertha Williamson pleading with the man to stop beating her son. "Jamie never was the same after that until one day, he just disappeared. No one's heard a word from him since." She slowly shakes her head and adds, "God, that's been over 25 years ago."
His hands start to tremble, and he sets down the cup, making a nervous, rattling sound. His voice is insecure, as he asks, "What happened to his mother?"
An unsettling feeling comes over Blanche. The man has kept largely to himself since he moved in, but now, seems rather upset. She thinks she might see tears in his eyes, as she answers, "Her husband died soon after that, and she's been living all alone in that old house for all these years. She lost everything that was dear to her and over the next few years, became a recluse and very resentful. She would cuss and damn and had a bitter feeling about nearly everything until, little by little, she just seemed to withdraw from the world. Now, sometimes I don't see her for weeks, and when I do, she's always pulling that shopping cart and has that old, black straw hat pulled down over her eyes. I've seen her in the grocery store a few times, but she won't answer when anyone speaks to her."
The coffee cup is shaking in his hand. Blanche is uncertain what she should do and becomes more uncertain - almost afraid. With the obvious need to change the subject, she says, "You haven't told me much about yourself. What made you decide to make the Army your career?"
Abruptly, he stands, still looking through the window at the old Williamson house. He runs his hands through his hair, holds up his trembling palms in front of his chest and in a sobbing voice, says, "Oh, Miss Blanche, I....I....am Jamie Williamson."
She is shocked and lost for words, because the man standing before her now is so totally different from that timid, unsure man she recalls from all those years before. Tears come into her eyes, as she sits there staring at him. The only words she can utter are, "Jamie....Jamie?"
He turns to her with tears streaming down his face; and almost as thought he were begging, asks, "What can I say to her? How can I ever make it up after what I did to her?"
She stands and moves towards him, not even sure what she is uttering. "Jamie....Jamie....why....why?"
He turns, collapses against the wall, wrenches his hands at the side of his face and says, "All I ever brought anyone was regret and unhappiness. That night there in the lobby when I saw that appalled expression on Danielle's face, I knew there was nothing left for me. And....and then, that day in the yard when her boyfriend almost killed me - that look on my mother's face. She was so hurt. I....I knew I was only going to hurt her more. Just leaving....leaving them all alone seemed the only thing I should do." He walks back to the window and glares at the bedraggled old house, abruptly stops crying, turns to her, and with pleading eyes, says, "Miss Blanche, what can I do? What can I do?"
She gently embraces him. Momentarily, her thoughts reach far back through the years when she had so wanted marriage and a son like Loren. She's thought of Bertha every time she's walked by that old house and wondered what it was like for Bertha, so terribly alone and with only the consoling memories of a distant past. She draws her handkerchief from her apron pocket, wipes the tears from her face and tries to speak in a firm voice. "The last time I went over to her door, she screamed at me and told me to leave her alone, but you've got to go to her right now, Jamie."
Like the timid child he once was, he looks at her and asks, "Will you go with me, Miss Blanche?"
She knows if she tries to speak, she'll start crying again, so she only nods.
He takes a few steps towards the foyer door but suddenly stops. Still sobbing, but with a cautious sort of smile, he turns and says, "I think I'll put on my uniform."
Blanche sits on the sofa, listening to the upstairs floor creaking as Jamie puts on his uniform, probably for the last time. She remembers the day Charles came home from the Great War and saw Loren for the first time. There were tears in his eyes then, but what would Bertha think when she sees her son after so many years? She and Mary were sitting exactly where she is now when that major came and told them Loren's plane had been lost over Germany. Life can be so unfair to some who don't seem deserving of the wretchedness it deals out to them. Charles had lived much of his life as an invalid. Loren was a happy young man who had so much to live for, but he was killed early in his life. Some of the people who've been in the rooming house over the years seemed to have only wanting and resent remaining in their lives.. No doubt, at some point, all of them had held hopes and aspirations, but the manner in which life can deny someone what he wants can be so cruel, often yielding a person whose plight is so inequitable. For most, what else could be expected but deceit and hate?
Jamie slowly walks down the steps, in so many ways, undeserving of what life has made of him. His face no longer suggests the innocent child of someone whose only enterprise might well have been simply to be understood, and that lacking, just be left alone. His features are stern and weathered, suggesting all those years in the Army were hard and trying, perhaps making him into a cold and insensitive person, but as he reaches the foyer, his beseeching eyes stare at Blanche, faintly reminding her of Jamie as a young man, so unsure of himself and so very alone.
"What can I say to her?" he asks.
She stands, walks towards him and places her hand on his cheek, whispering in his ear, "Don't worry about what to say. Just try to understand what the years have done to her and try to make the time she has left as happy as you can."
He walks to the mirror, puts on his cap and stands there, looking at himself for a moment before saying, "When I left, I honestly thought it was the best thing for her. I knew I was such a disappointment and thought the only gesture of my love was just to get out of her life. The Army was the only place I had ever been where I felt I belonged. I didn't know where else to go. For all those years, I forgot who I had been and where I came from - that is, until the Army began to change." He glares at her with the most pleading look on his face. "They retired me, Miss Blanche. They said the modern Army with all this new equipment no longer needed people like me from the old brown boot Army." A trace of resent comes over him. "I mean, without the Army, I was lost. I didn't know what to do or where to go. I felt exactly like I did after that beating in our yard. Then, I got to thinking about my mother and how I left her with nothing - just like the Army had just done to me. I don't guess I realized until then that she loved me just as I was." He pauses, looks at Blanche and adds, "I wonder what she will think of me now?"
Blanche thinks of the children she never had and again places her hand on his cheek. "Some people live their whole lives and never know what love is until it's too late. I....I....mean, if you had found her dead, you wouldn't have the chance you do now. She's still here, Jamie."
Maybe it's consolation that sweeps over his face, as he stands before the mirror for another moment before turning to the door.
There is a chill in the autumn air. Euclid Avenue is unusually quiet. The street is vacant and the sidewalk deserted. A slight wind blows the dry leaves across the sidewalk, making an ominous whisking sound, creating the eerie illusion they are stepping back in time. The morning run rises over the Williamson house, glistening over the high pitched roof and giving it a hazy, dreamlike appearance. There is a damp, misty scent in the front yard, and Jamie helps Blanche up the 4 concrete steps that are covered with fallen poplar leaves. The somber appearance of the lot and house reaches out and clutches at their uneasy spirits as they carefully step over the pentagon-shaped concrete slabs of the walkway that are cracked and protruding from the ground. All the front windows have fully-drawn window shades except the small circular window to the left of the door. Blanche remembers that little window during World War II, because all the time Jamie was gone, that was where Bertha displayed the banner signifying someone was overseas.
The gray deck paint on the front porch is faded, and some of the boards feel loose underfoot. Jamie hesitates a moment before making several irresolute raps on the heavy glass top portion of the door; and for what seems quite a long time, there is only silence, only adding to the eerie setting. Presently, there are tentative footsteps in the downstairs hallway. The turn lock clicks, and the door makes a creaking sound as it barely opens. The inside of the house is dark and only vague outlines of the antediluvian furniture can be seen in the dim, yellow tinted light scarcely making its way through the window shades.
Bertha's dress is light gray with a dark blue printed flower design and must be at least 40 years old. Her uncombed hair is solid white, parted in the middle and extends slightly below her ears. Her face is wrinkled, and with tight lips and a deceitful voice, she looks rather harshly at Blanche and asks, "What in the hell do you want!"
Blanche searches her soul, but words elude her, as the 3 of them only stare at one another in an uneasy silence. With a cold and unfeeling expression, Bertha's eyes fall on Jamie. Momentarily, she is dazed as her eyes adjust to the brighter outside light, but gradually, she opens the door wider and wider. Slowly, an unsure blankness comes over her until she takes a few steps onto the porch with her eyes fixed on the sobbing man standing before her. Her mouth twitches. It isn't exactly a smile. She extends her hands towards him and sobs, "Jamie....Jamie....Is is you?"
He can barely manage his weak response, "Mama....Mama....I came back." Tears are streaming down his face as he collapses into her arms, much the same as all those times he had come home from school crying.
Joan
Joan Warren's thoughts wistfully reach back over the months she has known Arnold Gray. For a short while, her life had changed so much, but during these past few weeks, she has hardly seen him. She stares at the telephone there on the desk beside Agnes Theon, the 4th floor head nurse, and thinks of how Arnold would always call her just before the shift change, but it's been days since he has called at all.
Agnes Theon is a rigid, career oriented woman who has been on the floors of Crawford Long for nearly 40 years. None of the younger nurses like her and have formulated all sorts of reasons why she stayed married for such a short while, who knows how many years ago; and from all outward indications, Agnes doesn't like any of them either, judging from her abrasive management techniques and demands for near perfection. Most of the other nurses are in their late 20s, seem fairly happy and well-adjusted, and sometimes such people never develop an insight enabling them to understand those whose lives have lacked some of the dimensions of happiness they take for granted.
Before she met Arnold, Joan sometimes felt, or even feared, someday she would be like Agnes Theon. As years slip away and many begin to realize the happiness everyone wants has chosen to pass them by, the graying hair and aging faces only beckon taunting memories of a lost youth and tormenting questions as to where all the years have gone. That has happened to Agnes Theon. She probably fears retirement more than death, because without the hospital, she will have nothing - not even the consoling memories of someone she loved.
For a moment, Joan's thoughts turn away from Arnold. She looks at Agnes, sitting there diligently attending some sort of paper work. She is struck with the fear she is seeing the image of what time will make of her. She knows that what chance might have existed with Arnold is now unceremoniously past. She can't fully access what nature of hurt is convulsing within her. It probably isn't the resent that so possesses Agnes. All that is yet to come. It isn't the revulsion that so often ruled her during her marriage or the eventual knowledge she was only a token of amusement for her husband who lacked the need or comprehension of a loving and shared marriage. Knowing that Arnold doesn't love her has given her a wrenching hurt far worse than that. It's so cynical that Arnold's outward values and dreams, the very things that most attracted her, have superseded what feelings he might have once held for her.
Without looking up, Agnes asks, "What happened to that young man that used to come by and pick you up?"
Rarely, if ever, does Agnes speak in such a personal manner to anyone, and Joan is surprised. "I was just thinking about him." She pauses a moment, and with a detectable dejection, adds, "I'm afraid his interest in me was only temporary."
Agnes lays down her pen, folds her hands on the desk, stares at the wall and asks, "Did you love him?"
"Yes, I loved him." There's a wringing hurt in her stomach. "I still do."
Agnes looks at her with an expression of concern, something quite uncommon for her, and says, "It hurts, doesn't it? Do you think he ever really cared for you or did he just think he did?"
"I don't know. He never said anything about how he felt, but I always felt someone had hurt him. At first, he was unsure of himself, just like I've been since my divorce. I thought we had that in common." She stares out the chart room window and down the long hallway, thinking of all those years when her work had been the only meaningful thing in her life and says, "I wanted him to love me, but when you want something so much, sometimes, you lose sight of what's within your reach."
A very analytical expression precedes Agnes' response. "Didn't that diabetes patient audition him for the orchestra?"
For a moment, the stabbing hurt relents its punishing pain and Joan answers, "Yes. That made him so happy." She remembers the night she gave him the Warsaw Concerto score, his astonished smile and the jubilation in his eyes. She can see him standing at center stage beside the piano the night of his debut when she first began to feel she wasn't nearly as important to him as she had hoped. Passively, she adds, "It made me happy to," as her thoughts remain on that unsettling moment during the concert when she began to fear what she wanted so much was beginning to slip away from her and then, it all started to happen.
Arnold began to receive invitations from other orchestras. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra wrote in a series of modern classical programs on next year's schedule with Arnold as the primary soloist. His unexpected and immediate success brought a continuous procession of patrons to the Rich's piano department, all because of his highly favorable reviews, and now, he is attending one practice each week with the Atlanta orchestra. There is even talk of a record album. He is no longer the timid, affectionate man she began to love that night in the Emergency Room. She clasps her hands in her lap and can no longer hold back the tears.
Agnes looks back at her work, picks up her pen and hesitates a moment before putting it down, looking back at Joan and guardedly saying, "I didn't know whether to tell you this or not; but the other night when the administrative council met at the Ambassador Restaurant, I saw him. He was with some very sleek-looking woman. Maybe the best thing for you to do would be to just give it up. I mean...."
Now, the knife-like hurt in Joan's stomach shoots through her entire body, because at this instant, she knows what she has feared since that night of the concert has indeed happened. She feels embarrassed that she is breaking down in front of Agnes, who is always so unfeeling. Her hands are trembling as she swallows and wipes the tears from her cheek.
To Joan's surprise, Agnes moves into the chair beside her, reaches out, touches her hand and says, "I know how you feel. A long time ago, the same thing happened to me."
"To you?" Joan asks, her surprise momentarily outweighing her heartbreak.
Agnes pets her hand before leaning back in the chair. There is a suggestion of pain in her own voice when she says, "I was in love - just like you are now. He was a young doctor. We seemed to have so much in common - at least at first. We were married soon after he graduated from medical school, and I was so happy. I even thought of giving up my own career, especially after he became so successful as a surgeon. Sometimes, he would stay at the hospital for 16 hours at the time, and I thought he needed me more at home." The hardened expression begins to creep back onto her face. "You know, the rightful place for the loving wife is in the home, and all that shit. These things happen in stages. First, he became married to his profession and not me. As he became more and more successful, he wasn't the same man I thought I loved. I suppose his perception of what he wanted from marriage began to change. There was another woman - a quite successful woman who owned her own business. Successful people have an attraction to one another that only they can understand." She turns her eyes away. "Don't try to hold on to it. That would be the worse thing you can do. He's changed. He can only hurt you more." Again, she hesitates before picking up her pen and resuming her work, almost as though she regrets having shown a side of herself that no one knew existed.
Joan looks up into the overcast sky as she walks into the hospital parking lot. Until now, she had always thought that Agnes' marriage had failed because she was so stern and bitter and never stopped to imagine that it was the marriage that made her that way. She wonders what sort of woman Agnes was when she graduated from nursing school. She might have well been similar to herself.
The traffic is heavy, and Joan looks at the people impatiently waiting in their cars along Peachtree Street. The elderly lady with no makeup and wearing that unimaginative dark blue coat - she has that same stern appearance as Agnes Theon. She wonders what her life has made of her. Those 2 younger couples on North Avenue - one of them is in an older car, very modestly dressed but sitting close to one another, absorbed in what appears a loving conversation. The other is a middle-age couple sitting well apart in dead silence. Joan speculates as to which phase each of these relationships is in. From outward appearance, the degree of success of the partners doesn't always insure happiness, as Agnes seemed to think. Maybe she should have asked what became of her husband and the other woman.
Euclid Avenue is wet with the light rain that has fallen all afternoon. The trees are all but bare, and little piles of leaves are accumulated around the street drains. She parks her car, looks down Waverly Way and sits there a moment as thoughts of herself as a younger woman rush into her mind. She is frightened at the stark realization that most of her youth is gone and that the assumed romance with Arnold these past few months has been one of a trance-like fancy instead of something real. Now, she isn't sure what sort of emotion she feels. It can't be love. The hurt is still there and may well be conceding to a refined resent.
She starts the car, turns back up Euclid Avenue and begins driving towards Arnold's apartment. Her thoughts run away from hurt, resent, or whatever it is, to those times she would meet Arnold at the boarding house. A momentary solace seeps over her as her memories turn to Blanche, that old lady that always gave her such a warm feeling. Seeing her and all the pictures in her sitting room always caused her to think of a close family, which she always wanted but now knows she will never have.
A light rain begins to fall as she turns in at Arnold's apartment. The half-empty parking lot reminds her of all those Friday nights before she met him when most of the other nurses would have dates, and she would feel so alone. Slowly, she walks to his door, not sure what she will say and only knowing she must purge the terrible uncertainty as to where she stands with him. She makes several timid knocks on the door; and when she hears his footsteps, she can feel her heart pumping in her chest and an icy tingling all over her body. It all stops when he opens the door. She feels that same possessed sensation she did the very first time she saw him, and that is only a tormenting reminder that she can not so easily re-channel her feelings. All that is rekindled, and several orders of emotion are competing within her. Now, he is a more mature and confident man and no longer needs the companionship, and yes love, she tried to extend to him as best she could. All those warm and affectionate feelings have been purged by a denied sort of yearning enacting her with an entirely different and even more captivating attraction to him, because now she knows it is she that so desperately needs him.
He is surprised to see her. A fabricated smile comes to his face, as he reaches out, grips her hand and gives her a polite kiss on the cheek.
She notices he doesn't close his fingers around her hand, which is awkwardly just lying there in his palm. He is obviously uneasy and doesn't know what to say. She manages a slight smile, shyly comes inside and says, "Hi."
There is an uneasiness that each knows the other is feeling. She doesn't face him and stares at the several musical scores scattered over his desk in the living room that he has made into a small study. She clasps her hands in front of her body and wishes she had not come. Tears come into her eyes, and her voice is trembling as she can only summon the sobbing whisper, "Since you haven't been calling, I....I needed to tell you that if it's over, I understand."
There is an immediate tone of relief in his voice, as he walks up behind her, places his hands on her shoulders and says, "I wouldn't say it's over. That's too final. Our friendship still means a lot to me."
She was so hoping he would say something else. Being his "friend" is something she could never be. The touch of his hand still brings that entrancing excitement but now, such feelings only sharpen the searing denial that shoots through her. She swallows, closes her eyes and tightens her lips to avoid completely breaking down. Her whole body is tense and rigid.
He steps back, giving the impression something of a burden has been lifted from him, and says, "I was hoping it wouldn't be so hard on you. I owe you a lot for taking such and interest in me when I was down and out." He picks up a few pages of the music. His voice becomes firm, and he seems relieved she has taken the initiative in breaking off what he only regarded as a means to forget Angela. In a much more objective tone, he says the first thing that comes into his mind. "You don't know how much good meeting some so dedicated to her work has done me."
Images of Agnes Theon flash into her mind. There was such a cold and resentful quality to her voice and eyes when she spoke of her former husband. Now, Joan knows that Arnold's recent success has prompted him to relegate her into a dormant, non-achiever sort of status, much the same as Agnes' husband had done with her, and to some extent, what she had done with her own former husband. She drops her hands, making a slapping sound as they strike her legs, pivots around and coldly says, "Yes, I'm a dedicated nurse. I'm also a woman who has loved you as best I know how." She can hardly force the words through her quivering throat. "If you can't return that, I can't be only your friend." She looks up and breaks down in uncontrolled tears as soon as her eyes meet his and stands there only for a moment before brushing past him and out the door.
She is running through the parking lot. A disagreeable wind blows the light drizzle into her face. The gay and laughing voices from the parties in the other apartments only add to her hurt, which is very quickly changing to a sharp distaste and resent for those who seem so light-hearted. Possibly, it's envy she feels for those who enjoy a phase of their youth that she never had.
There is an ill feeling deep in her stomach. Her skin is cold and lifeless as she sits in her car, tightly gripping the steering wheel and deeply sobbing. She looks back at Arnold's apartment and can only feel a consummate hollowness that so cruelly disaffirms every affectionate sentiment she has ever known, because now, she knows the person she was before she met him no longer exists, and she has forever lost the second chance that, for a fleeting moment, had given her life such a loving expectation.
Her car finds its way through the fog-like mist of the dismal evening. Moving back into midtown, the buildings along Peachtree Street become progressively older. Many are vacant and stand there in varying degrees of disrepair, still bearing the window lettering of businesses long since departed. The dreary setting and faded images of a lost past all give her the melancholy sensation she is falling into a pit from which there can be no escape from the heartbreak that now rules her. From the first day she met Arnold, she always unselfishly thought of his feelings first, hoping that reaching out to him in a manner he seemed to want and need would lead them into a love that her marriage had hopelessly lacked. It all seems so unfair that her best intentions could have carried her to the lowest point of her life.
She looks at Crawford Long Hospital off in the distance. The outline of the building silhouettes among the Atlanta skyline, as the hurt and emptiness clutches at her stomach, sending her into a dream-like vacuum. She can't take her eyes off the old hospital building, because now she knows it represents all that remains in her life. All awareness is purged from her mind. She doesn't see the stop sign ahead. Suddenly, glaring headlights are shinning through her car, and there is the screeching sound of brakes. She jerks her head to the left just in time to see the white station wagon turning sideways in the street. Time seems to stand still. There is the horrified expression on the man driving the other car. She can see every detail of his face, his wire glasses, his thinning gray hair and the flannel shirt buttoned at the collar. She screams, releases the steering wheel and covers her face with her arms before his car violently slams into the side of hers. The street lights are distorted through her shattered windshield. There is a sharp pain along the whole left side of her body as she is hurled across the seat and a numbing feeling is in her head as it strikes against something, causing a ringing in her ears as her car spins around in the street and crashes into a telephone pole. The sounds of the blunt collision and breaking glass all hang in the air with her horrorstruck screams, "Arnold....Arnold...."
Arnold
There is an indulging feeling of accomplishment that dismisses any thought of Joan Warren from Arnold's mind as he sits at his desk and carefully studies the score for the London Fantasia - A Musical Picture Of The Battle Of Britain. He meticulously ponders over the composer's notations and decides on the accents he will play in the various sections of the score - Machinery, London Street Cries, Air Battle, All Clear. He's practiced it until midnight for the past 2 nights at the Rich's piano department and almost felt the emotion that must have been in Clive Richardson's heart when he created this moving account of one of the darkest moments in history. But it, like most all of the modern classics, have fallen to the side. Now, there is only long-haired, frail, drug-stained creatures screaming unaccountable dialogue into the ears of screaming fans who surely don't really believe the "artists," as some venture to call them, characterize any lasting or worthwhile vision - not to mention the diminished sexual appeal of a bunch of oddballs who look as if they just escaped from a POW camp and need a good meal.
These past few weeks have brought him the exciting expectation that he is at last freed himself from the dismal confines of an uneventful life. After all those years of tedious practice that lead nowhere, being there on stage with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was such a rewarding feeling. Especially gratifying was seeing that son of a bitch Boyd Short swallow his own authoritarian remarks about "improperly schooled amateurs" on the first day of the auditions.
Now, he is beginning to view everything, even Angela Jennings, completely differently. He wasn't particularly surprised when she called a few days after the concert. He still savors his feelings when she told him she was in Symphony Hall on the happiest night of his life and how "impressed" her friends were when she told them she knew him. As soon as he heard her voice that day when she called him in the Rich's piano department, the first thing that came into his mind was that he should ask her for another date. Somehow, he knew that was what she wanted, but he decided to let her think about it a few days before calling her back. Only the initial phase of his accomplishment was already beginning to give him the enterprise of using the feelings of others. While they were talking, it stuck him that now he has something offering the appeal that someone like Angela needs. Previously, he had only depended on physical appeal. When that failed him, there was nothing left to command her interest.
When he was with her the other night at the Ambassador Restaurant, it was nothing like when he was dating her before, and he no longer felt threatened by the barrier that had always separated him from everything he wanted. He is unsure if he is becoming cynical or perhaps only a more practical and objective thinker. People like Angela need an excitement that fortifies them in their worlds they feel are so far above everything else. After they started dating again, he was thinking of what he could do to give her what she needed and expected. With limited insight, he knew it wasn't some flashy party on the north side, nor was it some gala, black-tie event, attended by invitation only. She had experienced enough of that. He finally decided on intercourse on a cool night, laying on a blanket in Garden Hills Park. Her climax was so complete, her loud sighs caused some of the neighbors to turn on their flood lights. The police arrived just as they were speeding away, partially disrobed, with the lights off in her Mercedes. He was sure she had never done anything like that.
Now, he knows that before, he had committed himself far too honestly with her - just as Joan later did with him, and now he can read her like the very simple pages of a grammar school book. He knew almost from the beginning that Joan's marriage had hurt her and at least some of what attracted her to him was the fact he was so different from her husband, even though such a phenomenon had occurred quite by accident and not at all as the result of some lofty ideals as she seemed to think.
He was surprised the way he felt in that fancy restaurant with all those effeminate waiters circling around them, or more precisely, at what he didn't feel. His music had at last brought a new dimension to his life, and his emotions were no longer vulnerable to exploitation at the slightest suggestion that someone like Angela Jennings could bring him the happiness that everyone wants. Now, he isn't even sure he loves her as he thought. All along, he was probably just looking for some way to prove his masculinity to himself by bedding such an attractive woman, but all it had done was to confirm what he already knew about himself but was unwilling to accept. All that has changed now.
He sets down the music and walks to the window, remembering all those times he had stood there on the 2nd floor of the boarding house and looked down Euclid Avenue. The traffic is still heavy on Peachtree Road. He is surprised at his own sentiment, which suggests that compared to Euclid Avenue, the glaring street lights and large apartment complexes predominately occupied by the self-ordained "in-crowd" are cold and impersonal. Unfamiliar feelings are racking through his mind. It's almost as though he misses that bygone street, surrounded by all those images from the past.
There's a strange and revealing thought plummeting through his mind. He hadn't paid much attention to what Joan had said earlier, but suddenly it occurs to him she is the only woman, other than his mother, that ever told him she loved him. He isn't feeling the renewal of the enthrallment with Angela. He isn't thinking of her now - he's thinking of Joan. He remembers the perfection with which she went through her emergency procedures that night in the hospital, even though she was only filling in for someone else. He thinks of her short, brown hair with the bangs and very little makeup that always made her seem so child-like, so unthreatening and so unlikely she could ever discard him like yesterday's newspaper, as Angela had done.
He remembers the night when Angela told him she had started dating someone else - the obsessing misery that seized him at that moment and for weeks after. The most demeaning sensation comes over him, because he knows he has just done the same thing to Joan. There is a cruel irony to it all. His attraction to Angela was totally physical, although he never realized it at the time. He and she had literally nothing on which to build any sort of meaningful love. Everything is now so vividly apparent. Failing with Angela as he did was a punishing emotional experience, not because of an unreturned love, but only because it had renounced his emerging self-esteem as a man.
All at once, he is haunted by that tortured expression on Joan's face when she left his apartment, and a cold and condemning regret ebbs over him. He knows exactly what he has done to her, what she must feel and is ashamed he was so uncaring for her feelings. What he feels is a different sort of pain than what was in Joan's eyes, but all the more damning. His conscience is no longer alleviated by the supposition that what he has now become is only a natural consequence of his past life.
The telephone is ringing, but he continues his benumbed stare down Peachtree Street for a few moments before he answers. It's one of the nurses at Crawford Long. He can barely make out her weeping voice, and the only thing that registers with him is, "Joan has been in an accident! She's at Crawford Long! She's asking for you!"
He is dumbfounded. Without uttering a word, he replaces the receiver, making a disquieting rattling sound with his trembling hand. The most agonizing stitch shoots through him. He doesn't put on is jacket or close the door. Time, reality and fear all merge together in his panic as he is speeding down Peachtree Road towards the hospital. All those emotions that had so ruled him before he met Joan - the disappointment in constantly knowing, constantly feeling the harshness that for no discernable reason, life seems to grace some but sentence others to watch life pass them by. Meeting Angela had momentarily exhorted him to attempt to claim some hope of having a woman's love, but so often, hope can lead one astray from reality - especially when 2 people are so different. And now, as he first sees the hospital ahead, he is immersed in a punishing fear, stabbing at his every emotion and a condemning realization of so many things, long before obscure in his own self-pity.
The hospital parking lot is almost empty, but he parks sideways between 2 lines spaces and begins running towards the building, but gradually slows to a walk when he sees the figure of a woman walking from the Emergency Ward. She is slightly overweight, is wearing a nurse's uniform and has a cape-like, blue coat around her shoulders. As she approaches, he sees it is Agnes Theon, the bitch-like 4th Floor head nurse.
She stops well in front of him, and with a grim expression, watches him as he slowly walks towards her. Silently, they stand, staring a each other, until he finally says, "Joan....Where is she?"
A look of scornful distaste is written all over her face, and their is a despicable quality to her voice, as she says, "She's in there - in the Emergency Ward." She glares at him and almost shouts, "I hope you know....I hope you know what you did to that girl, you son of a bitch," and brings a stinging slap to the side of his face.
His head snaps to one side, and he can't bring himself to look at her.
She begins to walk away and murmurs, "She's in room 4."
His eyes are fixed on the hospital building. Several ambulances are parked under the covered Emergency Ward entrance. His slow and unsure steps gradually change to a stumbling run, which immediately dwindles back to a tentative walk. The automatic doors make a whining noise that only add to the nightmarish atmosphere that closes in around him. He can only see the open doors. It's almost as though there were some portrayal that Joan were still trying to extend her love to him, just as she had done since the moment he first saw her, not 20 feet from where he now stands.
He walks into the ward, and with a tormenting apprehension, looks through the large room that is nearly empty. Several interns are seated with patients on a row of chairs against one side of the wall. A few nurses are busily posting records in the glass-enclosed smaller room. No one notices or pays any attention to him, only enhancing the eerie, illusory feelings. He begins moving towards the nursing station, but his attention is drawn to a narrow hallway with a series of numbered hospital doors on either side. All of them are open except number 4, which has one strip of yellow tape drawn across the outside. Images, thoughts and unrestrained fear rustle through his troubled mind, perhaps the initial phase of a compelling conscience. The tape makes an unsettling rasping sound as he reluctantly pushes the door open. A searing shock stabs through him, and all dimensions of awareness elude him. The room is small with an examining table against the right wall. There is a small table containing various medical instruments and a dim night light, casting disfigured shadows of the wheel chair towards the back of the room across the floor. He can distinctly hear the PA system paging some doctor, and reason gradually trickles back into his awareness. His eyes fall on Joan's body lying on the examination table. Her hands are folded across her waist just above a sheet that is loosely covering her lower body. The nursing school pin on her left collar glows in the dim rays of light. He reaches out and touches her hand, but jerks his hand back when he feels her cold and stiffened flesh. Her hair is still nearly parted but is matted together with the hardened blood on the right side of her head. The bangs are brushed to one side across her pale forehead, accenting the blue, bruise-like color of her closed eyes. Her mouth is twisted and slightly open, verifying the pain and fear that most have consumed the final moments of her life.
He takes a step backwards, encased by a sentencing feeling of loss and remorse and utters the only words that remain within him, "Joan....Joan." All too late, he knows she gave him something so truly precious, her sincere love in a detained encore for him as well as herself to find the happiness everyone seeks. He is imprisoned in a feeling of condemning self-recognition that will persist for all the remaining days of his life, because Arnold Gray is tormented.