THE SOUND

 

Among the visitors to my studio this April 2013 was a man from Colorado requesting that I tell his female companion "the vision you wrote about more than 10 years ago." It took me long minutes remembering to what he was referring. When I did, I refused to try recalling or speaking those written words; and silenced his insistent urging by firmly stating that I've always preferred to write rather than speak about exceptionally personal experiences. He asked if I had copies of the newspaper in which the essay had appeared and if so could I possibly send him a duplicate. I wasn't sure I'd find a copy among decades of voluminous files, but the next day did a search.

 

Originally published as First Place Non-Fiction under the title The Sound in The Santa Fe Reporter's Writing Contest Edition, 5 December 2000, the feature had wide distribution and gained enthusiastic response. But, like most works of the past, I'd put it behind me, moved on. The Colorado man's request prompted finding copies, one of which I'll forward to him. And share with new readers of the Social Network.

 

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As a child of the Great Depression, I often sought escape from that impoverished world by resisting surrender of sleep and dreams -- fantasies -- in the early mornings. Better in the pre-dawn to lie abed, listen to the chirping of birds or to my mother softly singing to herself in the kitchen as she prepared modest breakfasts and bag-lunches, to the chugs of nearby trains or the distant moans of foghorns from the Chesapeake. Why rise to another day of streets crowded with unemployed gruff elders, schoolmates in tatters, dire radio newscasts and newspaper headlines one couldn't fully understand, the relentless need to earn pennies which drove children to after-school and Saturday odd jobs?

 

I shared a room with a bachelor uncle, his large bed at right angles to my cot wedged into a wall niche. The uncle was one of the fortunate ones: employed, working in a waterfront market as a butcher, essential to our family for the meats and fresh produce he frequently brought home from the job, paying modest rent to my parents. A chain-smoker, the acrid scent of cigarettes reliably betrayed his approach to our room in the wee hours following his nightly rounds about town. Fortunately, as I was often at a forbidden vice, reading instead of sleeping, off in realms of adventure, fantasy, far-away-places-with-strange-sounding-names, heroes and heroines, the initial intoxicating discoveries of great books and sustaining literature. The smell of an approaching cigarette gave me time to douse the shaded bed-lamp, secure that my nocturnal misconduct would not be reported to my mother. When Dumas, Defoe or Dickens so engrossed me that I failed to detect the oncoming cigarette, I could anticipate Mother's greeting in the morning -- "Your uncle says you're ruining your eyes reading all night again."

 

Despite late hours, my uncle was a hard worker and early riser, his first cigarette of the day and ritual hustlings more often than not shattering the dream -- or daydream -- I'd been enjoying. With closed eyes, I followed his movements by the sounds of his actions, the coughs, the traipsing back and forth to bathroom, the snapping of buttons and buckles, the innumerable tonal accompaniments to his fastidious wardrobe -- finally, his tread down the stairs, the slam of the back door, the engine of his car in which he took such pride and which was the envy of the neighborhood. And only then I had the room to myself, luxuriated in the privacy and in those beguiling strains of birdsong, train whistles, foghorns, the city slowly stirring to life.

 

But one morning, even before my uncle rose, I was aware of a new and different sound, unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It wasn't Mother in the kitchen downstairs singing along with the canary, my most cherished wake-up call until then. It wasn't music, nor words, wasn't the wind or rain or any other natural beat of tempo I well knew. Wasn't of this world. And was incredibly, infinitely beautiful, flooding me with total peace, purity, happiness. Acutely aware of that, I embraced the Sound, hugging it to me, wanting to keep it forever. When I opened my eyes, His face close to mine, there was the Christ. For just an instant. Then gone, and with Him the Sound, never in a very long life to be heard again.

 

How does a boy of the Depression Era deal with such an epiphany? You keep it to yourself, tell no one. For already you've been advised that "you've more imagination that is good for you," that a nascent interest in literature and the arts is impractical, that one's youthful obligation is education for a wage-earning trade, that manliness is hanging out with the good 'ole boys, not nurturing solitude lost in thought. And as the 20th Century matures, clobbers you with intolerance, persecution, wars, as societal values crumble, though you ache to once again hear that Sound, know its deliverance, you often suspect that you never heard it in the first place, that visions don't exist, that those Children of the World are right in condemning the Children of Light as irresponsible fantasizers, day-dreamers.

 

But I'm spared total disbelief in that childhood experience because of my mother's greeting when I came to breakfast that morning. The quizzical look she gave me was one I knew well, that addressing the mystery of this unconventional son she was struggling to understand. Abandoning her brutally demanding chores of care for a large family, she sat at the table and spoke to me as I ate. My uncle had talked to her before he left for work. "That kid is spooky, he said," she reported. "Said you seemed to be sleeping this morning with your eyes wide open. He thought you were awake and spoke to you, but you didn't answer. You eyes stayed open, but you didn't look at him."

I ate in silence.

"And he said that even in the dark, no daylight yet in the room, your face glowed like an electric light-bulb. Said 'That kid reads too much.'"

 

I like to remember her remarks when troubles, doubts, torments mount. Nearing fourscore years, acceptance of the fact that I'll not hear again the Sound in this world, my mother's words help me believe it wasn't all imagination, not a dream, that something profound actually did happen when I was a little boy. And hasn't left me since.

 

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Not edited, updated, otherwise altered from its original publication

in the Santa Fe Reporter, 5 December 2000