It was several nights before Christmas, and all along the freeway, cars
were lined up like a vast herd of red-nosed reindeer being led off to
slaughter. I glanced away from the sight and reached out to snap off
the radio. I'd had far too much of the Messiah since Thanksgiving.
You'd think a respectable classical station could think of something
more original to saturate the airwaves with. But I knew that even if I
changed the station, I'd get White Christmas, or Blue Christmas, or
Dixie Christmas, or some other form of musical blasphemy. Traffic
moved along sluggishly, inching up a long, curving hill. It was
raining heavily--one of those sudden tropical storms, only it was
happening in a refrigerator. I had the windshield wipers on full, but
still I could hardly see the vehicle in front of me.
Along with every other irate father, uncle, brother, and son who was
late for some engagement or another, I was in the fast lane. I had
gotten caught in a last-minute sales meeting, and I was going to be
late for my daughter's concert if the idiot in front of me didn't hurry
up. The offending car was a Jeep, jacked up on all fours with tires
big enough to dwarf a road-grader, and had struts and shock absorbers
and what-not sticking out all over the undercarriage--a real useful
piece of machinery for navigating the treacherous Silicon Valley
freeways: when you see a car you don't like, you just roll right over
it. The Jeep had one of those typical California vanity plates, held
in place by a brass frame which, had I been able to read it in the
dark, would have said "My other truck is a Mack." The driver was
pumping on his brakes continually, no doubt keeping time to some
Country Christmas Hit Classic. Lounging on top of this pinnacle of
western automotive engineering was a Christmas tree, lashed with a
couple pieces of thin twine--probably on its way to a living room hung
with paintings of nudes on black velvet, and soon to be littered with
tacky country decorations and strings of popcorn. The tree listed to
one side, bobbing over the edge of the Jeep's roof in time with the
blinking brake lights. The driver's girlfriend was smooching up to him
in the front seat--I could see her outline through the back window,
practically sitting in his lap... maybe she _was_ in his lap. I
started thinking they probably deserved to lose the whole tree. They'd
have a real nice surprise when they got home without it.
I reached over to turn on the radio again, thinking the hourly excerpt
from the Messiah might be over by then. I should have brought a tape
from home, but I'd barely had time to change my suit. Just when my
eyes were averted for an instant, the Christmas-tree bedecked vehicle
in front of me decided to drop its load. I felt my car go bump, bump,
and slammed on my brakes before I even looked up. The car behind me
skidded and swerved to one side, then leaned on his horn as if he'd run
into an iceberg. I just hit the emergency lights and leaned on my own
horn. The guy in front, perhaps hearing the tooting chorus behind him,
stopped just down the road, and like an idiot, put his Jeep into
reverse and came hurtling back toward me. He skidded to a stop and put
on his emergency lights.
What kind of jerk ties down a Christmas tree so loosely that it flops
off in the middle of a freeway? We were only doing twenty miles an
hour--in the rain, no less. I thought I would have to get out and
check the extent of the damage, and I wasn't happy about slogging in
the rain with my dress shoes on. Hallelujah, the jerk stopped, anyway,
so I could at least get the name of his insurance company--I'd already
memorized his personal license number (which doesn't bear
repeating--I'd always thought the DMV had standards of decency).
I hopped out, trying to pull up the collar of my overcoat even though
it wouldn't quite cover my head, and started walking forward to have a
few choice words with Mister Country Jamboree in the over-endowed
automobile. Of course, CJ (as I then dubbed the driver) bounded out of
the Jeep and headed my way, tucking in his shirt as he walked. One
look at him, and I almost turned around and left--CJ could have been
Paul Bunyan's twin brother. He had the shirt to prove it, too: red
and black lumberjack style checks, with the top three buttons undone,
and chest hair that was thicker than my beard. He also wore cowboy
boots and wide red suspenders.
"Holy moley, mister!" he yelled with a tone of real concern. "You
alright?"
I was about to lay into him when his gum-chewing girlfriend appeared
from behind, tucking herself into his armpit. "Oh!" she squealed,
"Ah'm so sorry! Looks like our tree smashed up your brand new car!"
My car wasn't exactly brand new, but I looked around to where she
pointed. Sure enough, the front grill was bent in and one headlight
had gone out, the glass completely smashed. The tree itself was
nestled cozily under the car, nuzzling up against the oil pan.
The look of childish helplessness on both their faces--and frankly what
I considered might be a moderate dose of dull wittedness--somehow got
to me just then, and I couldn't quite bring myself to swear at them.
Besides, the fastest thing to do would be to shrug it off with a happy
face, extract their battered shrubbery from beneath my car, and be on
my way. I decided that silliness would carry the day. "Merry
Christmas!" I called, throwing out my arms. "Sorry about your tree!"
Both of them lit up in grins.
"Look--he ain't even mad," the guy said to his girlfriend.
She batted her lashes in astonishment. "We're awfully sorry about
this," she chimed, wagging her head.
It only took a minute to get the tree out from under the car. All the
while, I was thinking of how to explain it to the patrolman who would
undoubtedly appear in a moment: it's just another roadkill, officer,
nothing to be alarmed about; I'm sure it happens all the time, what
with all these trees swooping down on unsuspecting holiday merrymakers.
The tree was pretty battered up around the lower branches, but it
really could have sufficed to cheer someone's holiday--if one cut off a
couple feet from the bottom and turned the bad side toward the wall so
it couldn't be seen. You only decorate half the tree anyway, right? I
started trying to explain this to my countrified acquaintances, but
they would have none of it.
"Look, mister," CJ drawled, propping up the tree with one hand. "We
busted out yer headlight. Hell, the least I can do is give ya the
tree."
The woman tilted her head and shot out a hand to touch my arm. She had
a horrified look in her wide eyes that I could see even through her
dripping mascara. "You ain't already got one do ya, mister?"
I glanced at my watch and tried to weasel out of it. I'd already nixed
the idea of a Christmas tree--told my family (meaning my daughter,
Jenny) we weren't having one that year, and that was final. They just
shed all over the carpets and had to be tossed out at precisely the
right moment in January or the city garbage folks wouldn't pick them
up. We'd had a tree one year that sat around well into February
because we missed the magic pick-up date. I finally chopped it into
little bits and threw it out a piece at a time over the next six weeks.
I had no use whatever for a Christmas tree.
In the end, I didn't want to argue with them--it was cold, exceedingly
wet, and I was already going to be late for the concert. So CJ helped
me load the mortally wounded conifer into my trunk. We groped around
for the twine, but couldn't find it, so he battened down the lid with
his girlfriend's belt. She had high-tailed it back into the Jeep to
wait for him out of the rain. He whispered into my ear while he
cinched up the belt. "She don't really need her belt," he said. "I'd
have it off her in another couple o' miles anyways." He gave me a wink
and wished me a Merry Christmas.
By the time I arrived at the hall, the concert had long since begun and
it was almost intermission. I detest arriving late for these things,
and I had to wait around the lobby until the first part was over. I
was thankful I'd not been any later. Jenny would have been sorely
disappointed if I'd missed her big debut: about twenty minutes from
the time I arrived in the lobby, she was scheduled to begin her first
public performance as a featured soloist--playing "Harold in Italy".
If you don't know it, it's a fine piece of music, but it's not in the
frequently-performed repertoire, because it's sort of a half-fledged
concerto for viola. Not the violin or the cello--the viola: underdog
of all orchestral instruments.
My daughter Jenny wasn't always a violist. We started her out right on
the violin--something I considered a respectable instrument for a young
lady. My ex-wife and I had faint hopes that someday she'd be a concert
violinist--Jenny was that good from the time she picked up her first
quarter-sized fiddle. We spent a fortune on expensive teachers, and as
soon as she was ready, we started her on the long track: youth
symphony. But just after her fourteenth birthday, something happened
to her brain. I don't mean a pre-mature stroke or some kind of lesion.
She came home one day with this hideous dreamy look in her eyes, and
she puttered around the kitchen nervously helping me cook. She wasn't
talking very much.
I didn't want to probe, figuring she'd tell me what was on her mind
when she was ready. "I have to go to Milan next month," I said, trying
to be cheerful.
She was tearing lettuce leaves into microscopic fragments, and she
looked up. "Will you see Grandma?"
Jenny meant my mother--fountainhead of all family quirks. As a
bright-eyed Italian girl of seventeen she married her American
sweetheart and came to the States. It turned out to be a terrible
marriage, and years later, after dutifully raising four kids, she
divorced my father, American style, and went home to the Old Country.
Jenny had only met her a few times, but when they did meet you couldn't
pry them apart.
"Uh-huh. I thought I might take you along, if you can stand it," I
teased. I pulled the salad bowl away from her and tossed in the tomato
I had been cutting. "We'll leave the day before spring-break."
She brightened a bit at that, and with a very limp wrist, laid a whole
leaf of lettuce on top of the chopped tomato. "Can we stop in Vienna?"
"Oh, I don't know, Jenny... Maybe for a day or two."
She put on a weak smile. "Can we go to the opera?" she asked softly.
Jenny's enthusiasm for opera was phenomenal. She must have inherited
that from my mother, too--I always thought half the reason she went
back to Milan was because they did too many German operas in San
Francisco.
"Only if you can drag Grandma along." I picked up the salad and two
bowls, then waltzed away toward the dining room.
Over dinner she made her momentous announcement. I had just put a big
bite of steak into my mouth and was chewing thoughtfully. I even
recall we were listening to something by Prokofiev.
"Daddy, I'm going to switch," she said quickly with an air of
non-chalance.
I paused, finished chewing, and then fell right into the pit. "That's
fine, honey..." Another pause. She wasn't looking right at me, and I
leaned over to try to catch her eye. "You're going to switch what?"
She stabbed at her steak, fork delicately held in her left hand just
like we'd taught her all her life. "To viola." She slid a small piece
of steak into her mouth and started chewing.
I gagged, and put down my fork, but she kept on chattering with her
mouth full, trying to convince me before I could even voice the
beginning of an objection. Finally she appealed to my conceit. "You
want me to be a great musician, right Daddy?"
I tried to agree that had been our hope, but I was still trying to
catch my breath.
"Well, I'm sitting third-desk right now. Do you know what that
_means_?" she whined. "I'll never get anywhere in a concert career.
You have to sit first-desk--or be the concert mistress."
I coughed a couple more times. "But you're doing fine," I insisted.
"You're the best."
She gave me her old half-frown, pulling down one side of her mouth and
screwing up her eyes, then rolling them away toward the ceiling.
"Daddy," she said, "I'm not the best. Mary is the best." She pushed
another piece of steak onto her fork. "I'm sitting third desk with
Deadpan Wang." She got that dreamy look again, and balanced her fork
on two fingers. "But if I switch to viola--they're always in greater
demand you know, because fewer people play viola, Daddy--I could be
sitting first desk."
"Look," I told her, "you've already won a couple of competitions, are
you going to throw all that effort away, and take up... the _viola_?"
I actually gulped.
"_You_ might call it winning," she shot back, "but I've never taken
better than second place."
"What about the cello?"
"Daddy," she whined again, putting down her knife and picking up her
milk. "The technique is too different--you should have started me on
cello ten years ago."
"Does your mother know about this?"
She twirled her fork among her green beans and wouldn't meet my eyes.
"No." She looked up with knotted eyebrows. "She doesn't care."
"Jenny, she does too..." I let that trail off lamely and we ate in
silence for a while.
Now, I had nothing particular against the viola, as an instrument.
Frankly speaking, I've known a couple of violists pretty
intimately--and I've always found violists to be warm and tender
people. Much less high-strung, so to speak, than violinists. Not
quite as passionate as cellists. But I would hardly have considered
the viola to be a prestigious solo instrument. How many famous
violists can you name? How many great viola concertos? "The
repertoire is too limited," I said, speaking what was on my mind. This
fact did not deter her determination.
"Mr. Rossi thinks I'd make a great violist," she replied. There was
that look again, right in her light brown eyes. Just like her mother.
I had a sudden insight: my teenage daughter had a crush on the
conductor. He needed a violist, and apparently he was astute enough to
take advantage of a young girl's infatuation to get one. Maybe I'd
have a word about cradle robbing with Mr. Rossi. Well, no that was a
bit much, I decided. Jenny would have given me the silent treatment
for a week. I'd have to stay calm. I told her to think about it for a
while, and after a couple weeks, if she still wanted to descend to
being a violist, we'd see.
Half an hour later, while I did the dishes, she was on the phone to
someone, and jabbered away for a couple of hours to her friends while
she dragged the phone all over the living room. I decided again I'd
have to join the modern age and get a cordless phone. She probably was
about ready for her own private line. I thought maybe I ought to make
her pay for it, too.
Jenny worked her way up to first desk within a year of taking up her
beloved viola, and despite myself I was beginning to be slightly proud
of her. She really was in higher demand, and was constantly so
involved with chamber ensembles, youth symphony, flitting here and
there, that a lot of her schoolwork was suffering noticeably. Her
grade-point average dropped until she was barely maintaining a "B". We
had a little talk about that, and decided mutually (or at least I like
to think it was mutual) that she needed to pull it up, or I'd pull the
plug on all her extra-curricular activities.
So there I was, three years later, pacing the lobby, waiting. I heard
applause in the auditorium, so I snuck in the door. The hall was
packed solid. At least it seemed packed solid for a moment. I found a
pretty lousy seat near the back and plopped myself down while I looked
around for something closer. I spotted an aisle seat near the middle,
so I moved down and slid into it. I need not have rushed--it was
intermission, so I sat there for ten minutes contemplating. Soon, the
orchestra filed back in and the audience bustled around to reclaim
their seats. The conductor, the notorious Mr. Rossi, re-appeared on
stage, and the orchestra stood for him. I waited through the next
torturous work on the menu, hoping it would be over quickly. When it
ended, I clapped a couple of times and hoped the rest of the audience
didn't go wild.
When the applause died out, I found I was holding my breath. Then,
Jenny appeared in the wings, and strolled forward, her instrument
dangling easily from one hand. I could see her scan the crowd and
smile--she was really just looking for me. I felt like waving, but
that would have been gauche, so I kept my hands to myself. There she
was, her black skirt billowing from a waist and hips that resembled her
mother's gorgeous figure more each time I noticed it. Her starched
white blouse almost crackled. She had spent half an hour fussing over
it with the iron, then spent another half an hour getting every speck
of lint off her silk skirt. I noticed that her shoe-laces were untied,
as usual, and broke out in a smile. At that instant, she tripped over
the foot of a music stand--an intense foreboding chill shot through my
spine and flashed along every nerve in my body when I saw her sailing
headlong toward the floor. A gasp went up from the crowd, and the
applause stopped immediately.
Her reflexes, I must admit, were those of a well-bred cat, and her
instinct for self-preservation must never have been stronger: her
viola never hit the floor. The conductor, wheeling around when he
heard the clattering sound, stepped from his podium to assist her in
standing again. One of the violinists, whose improperly placed music
stand had done the damage, put down his violin to pick up the debris.
The conductor had a few words with Jenny, and then he escorted her off
the stage. She limped, and would put no weight on one leg. Rossi's
arm seemed to be practically fondling her chest and I felt a surge of
fatherly irritation. I was already on my feet when they started off,
and was trotting down the aisle toward the front of the auditorium.
"I'm her father," I shouted at the old ladies who tried to stop me from
ascending the side stairs. By then, some numbskull appeared from the
wings to make an announcement that there would be a slight delay, and
ask the audience to please wait a few moments. "Tell 'em a few jokes,"
I suggested as I dashed past. I didn't wait to hear what he said next,
but ran into the back, looking for the green room. I was certain
that's where she would have gone. I hoped they had a doctor handy.
In another minute or two, I was with Jenny and the infamous Mr. Rossi,
who had his arm around her waist and was consoling her in oily
whispers. She sat with her priceless viola set across her lap--well,
it was priceless enough to me, as I couldn't afford to buy another one
like it even if I sold both of my cars. Her bow had been snapped in
two and was draped across the viola, two pieces of splintered wood
dangling from white horsehair. She wept into the palm of one hand.
"Darling, are you OK?" I asked, rushing up to her. Mr. Rossi wisely
removed his roaming hand and stood back a few steps.
"I think I just sprained my ankle," she replied, but that was not the
uppermost thing on her mind. "Oh, Daddy--look at my bow!"
"Hey, we can get a new one," I told her, lifting it up. "I saw the way
you saved your viola," I said, trying to sound cheerful. "It was a
great maneuver!"