Dinner with snaps

Kristopher Kennedy

A few years ago, Jimmy Riggins could recite nearly every line of King Lear from memory to his English class at Howard High. But now, with no warning from the fickle fates, he could barely make it through a single soliloquy without stumbling over a phrase or forgetting the rest of the line or misconstruing the syntactical arrangement so completely that he felt himself hacking the Bard’s words to bits. Through every mistake, Jimmy forged boldly forward, hoping that no one had noticed but him. 

Earlier this morning, he’d been reciting Lear’s epic storm-speech, always a favorite of his to perform: 

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow, 

You cataracts and hurricanes, spout 

Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! 

A few students always snickered at this line, but Jimmy never stopped them. It was nice to get any kind of reaction from the kids at all. He continued: 

You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires, 

Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, 

Singe my white head; and – 

“And,” he stammered, trying to find whatever came next, but only able to focus on the fact that he’d lost it, “And…And…” 

“And thou all-shaking thunder…” one of his students, a kid named Elena, offered up. Jimmy couldn’t continue with the rest of the speech. He pretended to move on like nothing happened, but he couldn’t focus. He rolled up the sleeves of his sweater. He wiped his sweaty palms, became keenly aware of how much they shook. His mind felt sharp and fuzzy, like a smoke-filled kitchen bustling for the holidays. He wondered if he was having a stroke. There were still six minutes left in class, and Jimmy never let his students out early, but he excused himself, muttered that class was dismissed, and bolted for the door, rushing towards the teacher’s lounge. He slumped into a chair and tried to blink the black spots out of his vision. 

He’d always brought his A-game to Lear, but here he was stumbling, slipping just like the old king. 

Jimmy couldn’t slow his mind down or catch his breath, and he thought he might die. He tried to align his final thoughts with something pleasant, like the memory of his daughter L.C. screaming with joy on the terraced back of the kindly turtle at the Coolidge Park water-fountain, or kissing his old flame Clover for the first time in South Chickamauga Creek, when they were teens and skinny dipping while “Yesterday” played on the transistor radio and she told him he tasted like sloppy joes so he stopped kissing her lips and covered up the black egg-shaped birthmark on her neck instead. 

But Jimmy couldn’t delude himself. He kept returning to that moment when Lear says, “This tempest in my mind doth from my senses take all feeling else.” Jimmy knew Shakespeare was trying to teach him something. Like Lear, Jimmy was still trying to retain control over his kingdom, the classroom, by pretending that things were alright, that he would stave off decline for as long as he wanted. But Lear taught you to quit while you could. To know when to relinquish control and surrender. To move on, for everyone’s sake. 

Jimmy saw with aching clarity that perhaps it was time for him to retire. He felt old and tired, overwhelmed by the raw accumulation of his years. The holidays were coming up, and he knew he’d have to discuss this with his wife, Erin. He was already dreading the conversation, and his heart jackhammered just picturing it. She would say that it was time for him to retire already – for God’s sake, he was seventy-one – and he would know she was right, resent it, and return to teach for another year just to spite her, just to prove that he still could. Jimmy and Erin had been together forty-seven years now, and time’s tests proved tougher than they’d imagined in their youth. Erin was afflicted by arthritis and a severe depression brought on by the distance between her and L.C., whom she and Jimmy only saw now for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Jimmy couldn’t seem to relieve Erin’s pain. He felt increasingly alone in their marriage, through no fault of anyone’s but time and fickle fate.

Jimmy buried his head in his hands, and silent tears poured out slowly, plummeting in a tailspin of Erin and L.C. and Lear. 

Just then, Snaps Millican, another senior faculty member, walked in. Jimmy tried to collect himself, smoothing his palms on his thighs, clearing his throat, and wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. Jimmy saw the slightly molten quality to Snaps’s face and remembered that Snaps had suffered a stroke no more than a month ago. He held a cane and fumbled with the door a bit. 

Snaps was the very last person on earth Jimmy wanted to see right now, and Jimmy cursed the immutable fickleness of the fates beneath his breath. In their three decades working at Howard together, Jimmy and Snaps had never moved beyond courtesy greetings and awkward slices of small talk. Jimmy found these sparse interactions unpalatable, and Snaps plum unapproachable, so he always sought to avoid him, the misanthropic music teacher. Jimmy’s grandpa taught him that there was a division in the world between those who wanted to watch birds fly and those who wanted to shoot them down. There was no doubt that Snaps was a bird-murderer. 

Snaps limped over to the refrigerator, favoring his left side, and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. He struggled to get into a chair. Jimmy thought he should help, but he didn’t. He tried to ignore the fact that he’d help out a colleague he liked more. As Snaps struggled to unwrap his sandwich, Jimmy tried not to watch, but he couldn’t look away. Jimmy had never been good at sitting in silence, and maybe the vulnerability of Snaps softened him for a split second, for he found himself blurting out, “Would you like to come to dinner at my house this evening?” 

Snaps barely looked up. When he realized there was no one else in the room, he said, “What?” 

“We don’t really know each other, you know?” 

Snaps glared at Jimmy.

“Come to dinner,” Jimmy said in a strange voice he borrowed occasionally from the ghost of his brother. “Say, seven o’clock? Corner of West 18th Street and Broad. I won’t take no for an answer!” 

“Okay, fine, I guess,” Snaps said, sounding peeved and turning back to his sandwich, directing all his energy as far from Jimmy as possible. 

“Great,” Jimmy said with an automated grin that quickly crumbled to a frown as he thought, I’ve made a terrible mistake. 

*** 

In only ten minutes, Snaps would walk into Jimmy’s Southside home for dinner, and Jimmy decided, in a burst of quite unbecoming spontaneity (that he made sure Erin didn’t see), to take a double shot of the Dewar’s scotch that had been sitting in the liquor cabinet for seven years. 

“What are you doing?” Erin said. 

Jimmy flushed and turned to face his wife in the doorway. “Look, Erin, I did something stupid.” 

“What?” 

Jimmy sighed and shook his head. “I invited Snaps Millican over for dinner. Please, don’t give me that look.” 

“Jesus, Jimmy, when’s he coming?” 

Jimmy checked his watch. “Seven minutes?” 

“And when were you planning on telling me this?” 

“Look, he’s not gonna come.” 

“Did you invite his wife, too?” 

Jimmy didn’t know if Snaps and his wife were still together. Every year, Jimmy went to the orchestra concerts to support his students, and Snaps was their conductor, but Jimmy hadn’t seen Mrs. Millican there since the spring of 2003, before the Millicans lost their daughter Nicole, a student of Jimmy’s, to a car crash the night of her graduation. At the funeral, Snaps seemed unmoved, and Jimmy was disturbed. Thirty years working with this man, and he could never crack his code, or figure out what made him tick, even when L.C., a pianist, had Snaps in class for four years. She called him her favorite teacher. 

“I didn’t even ask!” Jimmy said. “I don’t even know if they’re married anymore. What if she comes, then what are we supposed to do?” 

“I have enough pasta for four,” Erin said. “Honestly, Jimmy, I’m glad you’re doing this. We never got to know Mr. Millican, and L.C. loved him.” 

“I wish I hadn’t done it!” Jimmy shouted. “I wish I’d remembered Lear! If I hadn’t fucked up, I wouldn’t have been in that room, and none of this would’ve ever happened.” 

“For Pete’s sake, Jimmy, keep your voice down. He could be here any second.” 

“He’s not coming.” 

The doorbell rang. 

Jimmy walked to the door and peered through the peephole and there was Snaps, cane in hand, shivering in the cold. Jimmy had successfully avoided this dull granite block of a man for three decades, and now here he was on his front stoop. Jimmy wished he could take another double shot. But instead he opened the door and was greeted by a frown. 

“Snaps, hi,” Jimmy said. “Come on in.” 

Snaps walked through the doorway and took off a pair of mittens and a scarf. Jimmy led Snaps through the low-ceilinged foyer and under the archway through the quaint, dim-lit living room with its threadbare furniture and bedecked bookshelves. On the mantelpiece, Jimmy noticed the framed photograph from his daughter’s graduation: L.C. standing with a group of friends, their arms wrapped around each other. Nicole is there, smiling impossibly through time like a ghost, oblivious to the fact that she’ll be dead before the night is over. Jimmy was always so grateful that, if someone had to be taken, the fates saw fit to take Nicole.

Jimmy tried to hush these selfish and unkind thoughts in his head – the voice of his inner Daemon, as he liked to call it, named for the Monster from Frankenstein – but tonight they seemed emboldened by the liquor and the presence of Snaps. They arrived at the glowing yellow beams coming from the kitchen, where Erin was preparing the pasta, and they walked in. “Have a seat,” Jimmy said. “You’ve met my wife, Erin.” 

“Hi,” Snaps dully intoned.“I don’t think we’ve met.” 

“I’ve always loved the orchestra concerts,” Erin said. 

“Okay,” Snaps said. 

“Let me go fix you a drink,” Erin laughed. “What’ll you take?” 

Snaps said he didn’t care, so Erin said it’d be red wine all around, which Jimmy felt the need to decline because of the whiskey crowding his senses, but the Daemon took the reins and Jimmy found himself saying yes, please, wine would be great. 

A moment passed by in awkward silence, the clinkpouring sounds of a puttering Erin filling up the room. Snaps sat stolid and unwavering like a fossil. Jimmy looked around desperately for an access point of small talk. He was normally so loquacious, but the Daemon filled all his thinking with things he couldn’t possibly say, his mind aswirl with the slack-faced mirror of mortality at his table. 

“So, uh, Snaps, when’s the holiday concert?” Jimmy asked, knowing full well it was tomorrow. 

“Tomorrow,” Snaps grumbled. Jimmy thought that this was worse than trying to talk to a toked-out double-dealing cotton-mouthed toad. Snaps added, “The students suck more every year.” He sighed sharply and deeply. “They’re always on their phones. They can’t hold a conversation. When they do pay attention, they never appreciate the music. Its beauty – its power – it’s completely lost on them. Except for the rare few. And they aren’t enough to redeem the shitshow.”

Jimmy did sometimes wonder if kids these days were becoming illiterate in their addiction to screens. But Jimmy tried not to let such thoughts make him jaded. The Daemon spoke up, “You know, Snaps, I don’t care for that attitude. The kids today are fine. They’re no different from the kids of forty-five years ago. If anything, they’re better equipped to deal with the challenges of the world – which are far greater for them than they were for us, no thanks to us. Look, I still love teaching, and each year it gets better and better. Each year, I find myself learning more and more from them.” 

“Congratulations,” Snaps said drily. 

“You know,” Jimmy started, but he stopped himself, and took a deep breath. Now was not the time to lecture an old man about perspective. Now was the time to salvage this dinner. “Nevermind,” he said. 

“He’s never going to retire,” Erin said, stirring the pasta. 

Jimmy threw his hands up in agitated surrender. “Yes, it’s true, I admit it, I still like my job. I love to teach. I wish I could do it forever. Maybe I can. And maybe people who don’t love to teach, maybe they should retire?” 

Erin made an angry face at Jimmy and Snaps made a snortchortling sound, the closest thing to a laugh Jimmy had ever heard from the man. 

“Besides,” Jimmy continued, knowing he was about to provoke an unnecessary fight with his wife, “I don’t wanna leave Chattanooga.” 

“Chattanooga?” Erin said incredulously. “This city’s going to shit.” Erin grew up in Quincy, a small town in Washington state, and she wanted to go back there. She kept showing Jimmy the perfect places on Zillow. They would only be thirty minutes away from L.C. Erin continued talking: “The Baptists don’t even try to hide their politics anymore. Hosanna Heights literally had Charlie Kirk come and give a Conservative Super-PAC Trump dick-riding lollapalooza during a literal worship service! It’s sickening. Those twisted tongue-speaking fucks who live on Lookout wouldn’t touch Alton Park or East Lake with a stick. The segregation here is not subtle. And besides, you can’t afford anything in this town anymore. And the whole Southside smells like chicken shit. So yeah, forgive me if I dream of leaving this city behind and moving to greener pastures. And by that, I mean cheaper pastures where people aren’t gonna want to re-elect Trump. Pastures where we can be closer to our daughter, Jim.” 

Jimmy gave a low long whistle, hoping it might elicit some reaction of solidarity from Snaps. But Snaps just stared down at his drink, drained it, and nodded his head. Jimmy lamented to himself that he was always on an island, his thoughts thinking all alone. “Is the pasta ready?” Jimmy asked. “Or did you just beat it to a pulp?” 

“All I’m saying,” Erin said, “is that Finney was smart to get out of here. He saw what was happening to this city, and he tried to warn us, and we didn’t listen.” 

Jimmy just about exploded then. He would have lost it if a guest weren’t here. He struggled to silence the Daemon. Finney was the untouchable subject, the unspoken thing between them these last twenty-six years, the memory that was a maelstrom of unbroachable pain. The tormented baby brother who disappeared from the face of the earth in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. 

“The pasta’s ready,” Erin said. 

Pour on, I will endure; O Lear, Lear, Lear! echoed in Jimmy’s mind. 

*** 

It took a few minutes of silent chewing and sipping, Snaps now on his fourth glass of red wine, before Jimmy asked, “Say, Snaps, are you from Chattanooga?” 

“No,” Snaps said. “San Francisco. I ended up here because of my wife. I have no interest in this place.” 

Jimmy laughed. “Not even after living here thirty-three years?” 

“No,” Snaps confirmed. 

“Oh, well,” Jimmy said, “this town is actually quite interesting. It’s amazing how it’s changed. Fascinating, really. Back when I was a child – ” 

“Look,” Snaps interrupted, “I know nothing of this place or how it came to be, and I intend to keep it that way.” 

“Jimmy thinks he’s a local historian,” Erin quipped. 

Jimmy took a deep breath to subdue the Daemon as best he could. 

“Well, Erin,” Jimmy said, “my family history here is incredibly rich. My great-great grandfather –” 

“Fought in the Civil War, yeah, I know,” Erin interrupted. “And his wife was a Cherokee blacksmith and blahblahblah.” She looked at Snaps. “It’s the real reason Jimmy wants to stay here. I tell him, ‘You can find cheaper places that aren’t stained by your sentimentality.’ But here we are.” 

“Here we are,” Jimmy agreed, glaring at Erin, “thank the fates. I can feel my ancestors move through this space. I walk on the ground they walked on. I follow their path. You know, Snaps, I’m actually working on a book.” 

Jimmy waited for Snaps to respond, but instead he filled up his wine glass. Jimmy had mastered talking about Chattanooga over the years, as he’d mastered countless monologues throughout his decades of teaching Shakespeare, but Snaps didn’t budge, and Jimmy wondered if this was a repeat of the Lear catastrophe, another example of him slipping. The Daemon rumbled in Jimmy now like a raging Jupiterian thundercrack. 

“Yes, a book,” Jimmy continued, his face flushing, “a local history of sorts, but shrouded in the mask of fiction, as all good stories are. Wouldn’t you like to hear about it, Snaps? Or perhaps my loving wife?” 

Erin looked at her plate and chewed her pasta, and Jimmy wondered if he was invisible until Snaps responded, “No. I don’t care, if that’s what you’re asking. Talk about it all you like.” He drained his glass of wine and poured another. Jimmy pushed his plate aside in frustration, doing everything he could to keep the Daemon from dominating him.

“Excuse me,” Jimmy said, and he stormed out of the dining room and into the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. Then he crept silently back into the kitchen to eavesdrop on Erin and Snaps, but all he heard was the clattering of forks, the sipping of drinks, the chewing of pasta. 

And then Erin asked, “Where did you get the name ‘Snaps?’” 

Jimmy heard the lousy old music teacher unleash a Kraken of sighs. One, and then another, and then another. Jimmy hoped that Erin regretted asking the question, that her face was flushed with shame. But he couldn’t see her. 

And then Snaps started talking. 

“My mother, she used to listen to records all the time. And I’d sit with her and listen, too. I was an only child. We loved the old crooners like Sinatra and Ben E. King, but we also adored pop guys like Neil Sedeka. We loved doo-woppy stuff like The Drifters and Dion. ‘Under the Boardwalk’ was our definitive song – we just both loved it so much, and sometimes we’d dance to it together, even though she had a bum foot. But we only listened to music in the evenings, when my father was out of the house. Holed up with his drinking buddies. Cheating on my mom. The usual stuff she tried to drown out through the stereo speakers. Stuff I didn’t get ‘til later.” Snaps sighed again and spoke slowly, “I remember swearing that when I got the chance to start my own family, I’d be nothing like him, and I’d be there with my wife and my kid all the time, listening to music with them.” A long silence followed. Snaps had slurred his words a bit, and Jimmy wasn’t sure if it was from the stroke or the wine. 

Jimmy walked back into the room to find Snaps draining his glass again, setting it down unsteadily on the table. Jimmy grabbed his seat. Snaps eyed him suspiciously and sighed from that deep place again. 

“Well, anyways,” Snaps said, “mother always snapped her fingers to the rhythm of the beat, and I guess I started doing that too without realizing it, because when I was in college, after mother died, I’d snap along to music all the time. People pointed it out to me, but I didn’t stop, because I realized where it came from, and I thought it was a way to hold onto my mother. And so I kept snapping. And people started calling me Snaps. And it stuck, and I let it stick, because it was a name my mom gave me, and it had nothing to do with my dad.” 

Jimmy found himself choked up. An echo reached him from the day in class seventeen years ago when Nicole Millican pointed out that, at the end of the play, when Lear holds Cordelia’s dead body and says, “And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, no life? / Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, / And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never,” not only is never repeated five times in perfect iambic pentameter (which Jimmy already knew), but the three lines before it are all made up of monosyllabic words. In his thirty-plus years of teaching Lear, Jimmy had never noticed this, and he always stressed to his students the importance of monosyllabic lines, that they were rare moments Shakespeare used to heighten the emotional intensity when characters have something crucial to say, something difficult to utter or understand. And here was Nicole, blowing his mind, teaching him more than he could ever hope to teach her and weakening the Daemon within him. 

“That’s beautiful,” Jimmy said to Snaps, surprised by how much he meant it. Snaps vaguely shrugged and drained the rest of his glass. 

*** 

After dinner, Jimmy convinced a begrudging Snaps to sit at the grand piano, the one L.C. learned how to play on. Snaps only had half a functioning body, and Jimmy bit his lip, anxious that he’d requested so much of such a broken man. But the Daemon wanted to see Snaps fail, wanted proof that forgetting Lear wasn’t the end of the world, that as time goes on, we slip and we fall and we aren’t quite what we used to be. 

Snaps stretched his hands out over the piano and rested them over the keys, the slightest space of tension holding the whole soundscape of Jimmy’s house in suspense. Then, his fingers moved, slowly, pressing down upon the keys gently, picking up speed and gliding, dancing, filling the room with wonder. It was as if the music came straight from Snaps’s hands, magical instruments in which all sounds slept dormant, even those yet unheard. It took Jimmy’s breath away. 

Snaps closed his eyes and his head and shoulders pulsed gently with the melody, a harmony at play between the piano and his body. It transfixed Jimmy, transporting him to that dimensional awe where Shakespeare took him, his attention hanging upon each note that arose in every changing moment, flowing fully, the music alive and soaring. 

Jimmy and Erin grabbed for each other’s hand. He could swear they reached at the exact same time. They pressed their palms together, interlocked their fingers. He made sure not to squeeze too tight. 

The music came to an end: a final lingering vibration held the room in suspense, enthralling each ear with its slight diminish as it waned like a late and dying summer sun. A chill rushed through Jimmy’s body, and he caught his breath at this miracle. 

“I’m sorry,” Snaps said lowly. “Not my best. Haven’t been the same since –” 

“Snaps,” Jimmy said firmly, “That was the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever heard.” 

Snaps laughed softly, humbly. “You need to listen to more music.” 

“What was it?” Jimmy asked. 

“‘The Man I Love’ by George Gershwin. You know, he only ever arranged two piano solos? And this is one of the most beautiful love songs ever composed in American jazz.” 

“What’s it about?” Jimmy asked. 

“Oh, it’s simple enough, but that’s the thing, right? It’s just about someone who misses the person they love, and wants to be with them again.” 

Jimmy snuck a glance to make sure Snaps wasn’t looking at him, and he gently removed his hand from Erin’s, walked over to the framed graduation day photograph with Nicole in it, and turned it over so that the picture frame pressed against the wood of the bookshelf. A lump gathered in Jimmy’s throat as he tried to push away the horrific realization that it took pretty piano music to move him to pity. 

“Whose piano is this?” Snaps asked. 

“Mine,” Jimmy lied, and he gave Erin a take-the-hint look, but she didn’t see him. “It’s not Jimmy’s,” Erin laughed. “Although I’m sure he’d like to think it is. It’s L.C.’s! Our daughter. You were one of her favorite teachers, Snaps. And now I’m sure I understand why.” 

Snaps frowned at the floor, and his mask of gloom grew solid like an iceberg, the tip of his emotions showing while the rest hid underneath. Perhaps Lear was onto something, dying after the loss of his daughter. 

“Oh, that’s nice,” Snaps said with a quiver. “Where is L.C. now? What does she do?” 

“Ecological research in Washington state,” Erin said. “Alpine glaciers. It’s all very cool, and all very over-my-head. But I know she looks at fossils.” 

Snaps merely nodded, staring at the ground. 

“You like jazz, I presume?” Jimmy asked, conjuring up a finishing touch that might rescue the evening. Snaps nodded. 

Jimmy went to the bookshelf and flitted through his record collection, pulling out three vinyls, Ask the Ages by Sonny Sharrock, First Meditations by John Coltrane, and Oh Yeah by Charles Mingus. “Here, take these,” he said. 

“Oh, I don’t know…” Snaps said. 

“You’re giving him Finney’s records?” Erin asked in disbelief but smiling a bit. 

“Yes,” Jimmy said. “It’s time.” 

“Who’s Finney?” Snaps asked. 

“My brother,” Jimmy said. “But he’s gone now.” 

“Oh,” Snaps said, taking the vinyls, “what an amazing gift. I’ve been chasing Ask the Ages down for, well, ages!” 

They stood around awkwardly for a second, not quite sure what to say, not sure how to wrap the night up.

Snaps scratched his head. “You know, this may just be the wine willing to ramble, but I always wanted to be a professional musician. I still think I could’ve done it, maybe. But when I met Carol, everything changed. We knew we wanted to have a child. As soon as Nicole was born… well, the fleeting thrill of music could never compare to the unconditional love I had for my family. And now, it’s all these years later, and Carol’s still waiting at home for me. I think I made the right choice.” 

Snaps wrapped his scarf around his neck, slipped on his mittens, thanked Jimmy and Erin for the records, and made his way to the door, slipping out into the night. Jimmy turned to Erin and told her he was ready to retire. She didn’t believe him at first, but soon enough she was hugging and thanking and kissing him, mozying upstairs to search for houses in Quincy. 

When they leave, there’ll be no more Rigginses left in Chattanooga. Jimmy knew it was crazy, but he wanted to believe that without him, the city would cease to exist. To be real, Jimmy had to move within it, feel its land beneath his feet to confirm it was more than a spot on the map. 

Jimmy moved to the library and sat alone, a single orange and low light on. He stared out the window at the cold dark winter night, his reflection cast back at him, his hometown stretching beyond. Light rain began to fall, and Jimmy gently hummed a jaunty tune that betrayed the melancholy lyrics to which his lips kept rhythm: 

He that has and a little tiny wit, 

With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain, 

Must make content with his fortunes fit, 

Though the rain it raineth every day. 

As sung by Lear’s Fool: the inexorable march towards death and disease. Jimmy had always been blessed with good health, but he was now well on his way. A tremor had begun to develop in his hands and voice. Snaps had his stroke. Erin had her heart murmur a few years back. He heard the clock on the mantelpiece, and he knew each tick brought them all closer to oblivion. Heigh-ho, the wind and the rain, he hummed. Tick tick tick, called the clock. Lear had run out of time so suddenly, so soon. 

             Jimmy took his old and bulky iPhone 4 out. He dialed L.C.’s number. It went to voicemail, but he left her a message saying hello, I love you, and I’ll see you so soon. Jimmy nearly mentioned his wonderful dinner with Snaps, but decided not to. Why dredge up the past? 

Heigh-ho, the wind and the rain, he hummed, trying to silence the tick tick tick. The Daemon bubbled up within him and whispered loudly, It’s passing before your eyes, Jim, and you’re passing all alone. Jimmy heard Lear utter in a voice of despair, “O, I have ta’en too little care of this.” The sound of the clock hammered against his skull, and he could no longer discern the song of the Fool. 

Perhaps retirement would silence the sinister voice. Perhaps he would once more feel close to L.C. Yes. Perhaps in leaving behind Chattanooga, he would leave behind the memories of Clover his soulmate and Finney his brother and Nicole his student and all the others he’d lost in this place. Yes. Perhaps he would find a way to love Erin anew. Perhaps he would write about Chattanooga’s history like he’d always wanted to, try to imagine lives that were not his as they walked around this city he knew so well. Yes, perhaps these things were possible, in spite of all the pain. Just look at Snaps, yes, who kept clawing at the rude task of living, the sounds of his piano sustaining each step. Jimmy looked out the window at the rain beating down his reflection and resolved to be more like Snaps and less like Lear, to keep going and take care of what little life remained. 

*** 

Snaps walks out of that place with three vinyl records in his arms. He decides he’s too drunk to drive and leaves his car to walk the mile back. A biting wind howls off the Tennessee River, and he sees a flash of lightning over Lookout Mountain. Black clouds gather. Anticipation charges the air. An ominous hum. 

He limps along through the wind with his cane. Rain begins to fall, slow, at first, then in buckets, a deluge. He keeps going. He holds the vinyls under his zipped-up jacket, refusing to let them be damaged. He’ll protect something of his from harm. He recalls the kid he once was on the streets of San Fran with Kind of Blue and Time Out and Blue Train in his arms, hurtling headlong towards his mother now long-gone and unreachable in the rearview of his life. It’s like all the moments he’s endured are the keys of a piano, intricately intertwined, his birth the low C, this moment now well past the middle C, each passing year a quick arpeggio down to the end of the board, sublime and melancholy and full of failure. 

Somehow, he’s here now. Still alive. He sighs beneath the weight of it all, but keeps walking. Almost halfway home. Tonight, he’ll see his wife of thirty-six years. The mother of their daughter. Together, they’ll sleep in the same bed. Maybe he’ll do something nice for her after he washes off and changes clothes. Surprise her with some rare and wordless affection, like a kiss. Gaining momentum now, he begins to feel a bit better as he thinks about nothing but gritting his teeth through the wind and the rain.