I'm Sorry You Feel That Way Read online

  I asked the boy did he want to take guitar lessons.

  He said no.

  “This is just a suggestion,” Al said. “You can take it or leave it. It’s just a crazy idea I had. But I was thinking. Since you’re so interested in the guitar, maybe you should learn to play it. Maybe it’s you who should sign up for lessons. What about that?”

  The idea was absurd. I had no interest in learning how to play the guitar. I looked at Al and raised just one eyebrow. Earlier he had been teaching the boy to speak in a British accent by shouting the words I want a baked potato! Their accents were terrible. Then the two of them shouted, Tirty-tree and a turd, farty-far and a fart. It was, Al explained, a lesson in fractions recited in an Irish accent. I didn’t think this man should have any say in my son’s musical education.

  When I asked the boy why not, why didn’t he want to take guitar lessons, he said because he didn’t feel like it.

  “You don’t feel like it!” I said. “Well,” I told him. “You have a choice. You can take guitar lessons or you can fold a basket of laundry that contains my bras and panties. It’s entirely up to you. You decide which you feel like doing, then come tell me your decision.”

  The guitar teacher had two things in common with Bruce Springsteen: strumming and plucking a stringed instrument, and the same initials. The guitar teacher’s name was Bill Schatz. I found Mr. Schatz in the phone book under the listing for the Western Colorado Academy of Music, which was really just a cramped one-room storefront downtown next door to the Christian Science Reading Room. I signed the boy up to take guitar lessons from Mr. Schatz every Tuesday night from six-thirty to seven-fifteen.

  Mr. Schatz was sixty-eight years old. He had thin white hair that he combed down flat so it spread like wispy fingers over his forehead. His face was round, his glasses were round, his shoulders were round, his gut was round. He was a stocky, bulky guy. When the weather was above sixty degrees, Mr. Schatz wore a short-sleeved, loudly patterned Hawaiian shirt. When temperatures dropped below sixty, he wore an acrylic powder-blue sweater with a snowflake pattern across the chest. The sweater was tight, accentuating his pregnant ladyesque belly. He wore black jeans and cheap white tennis shoes. He was sick a lot, frequently blowing his nose into a white hanky.

  “What do you think of your guitar teacher?” I asked my son. “What do you think of Mr. Schatz?”

  The boy said Mr. Schatz was weird. He commented on how Mr. Schatz kept asking us to repeat ourselves. We couldn’t tell whether this was because Mr. Schatz was hard of hearing or because the things we said were unfathomable. “What?!” he’d say, scrunching up his face, and “Huh?!”

  I thought this made the guy almost impossible to have a normal conversation with, but Al, who is slightly hard of hearing himself, believed otherwise.

  “Mr. Schatz is a genius!” Al explained. “He communicates through music! The man’s head is just so full of music that there’s not room for anything else.” If Al could pick any talent for himself, it would be a talent for music. When Al was a boy in Detroit, he’d taken accordion lessons, but when his father got laid off, the family couldn’t afford the lessons, and that was the end of Al’s musical training. One was supposed to see this as tragic. One was not supposed to picture Al, clad in lederhosen, a crown of edelweiss on his head, playing polkas in a beer tent. One was not supposed to think maybe his old man’s getting the ax was a blessing in disguise, and if one did think this, one was not supposed to say so.

  Mr. Schatz didn’t play polkas. He was a jazz guitarist, light jazz, the kind of music you would never associate with smoky nightclubs and turtleneck-wearing, finger-snapping cool cats who inject heroin and wear berets. No, this was the sort of jazz you might pound the phone against your head in time to as you wait for the next available customer service representative to take your call. Mr. Schatz was good at playing this so-called mellow jazz, and had, in fact, played with Henry Mancini at Red Rocks Amphitheater. He’d been invited to go on the road with Mancini’s band, but because he married Mrs. Schatz, the girl of his dreams, Mr. Schatz gave up the road and became a middle school band director. Mr. Schatz and his wife, Dorothy, raised two boys, one of whom provided Mr. Schatz with a grandson named Hans, while the other provided a grandson named Luke and a granddaughter named Leia. Mr. Schatz showed us a picture of his grandchildren, little moppets with blond pageboy haircuts. All three looked exactly alike.

  “Hans and Luke and Leia,” I said. “Your sons must’ve really liked Star Wars.”

  “What!?” Mr. Schatz said.

  “Your grandchildren are named Hans and Luke and Leia like the characters in Star Wars?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Yes.”

  Even at age ten, my son knew Mr. Schatz was uncool.

  But Al took one look at Mr. Schatz’s guitar, a Gibson L-5 the man bought a million years ago when he was seventeen. It was an ornate piece of wood, stunningly beautiful, Al thought. The blond maple, the hand-polished frets, hand-polished neck and body, oiled fingerboard and bridge. Yes, Al thought, it’s an instrument that’s lovely to look at, but it’s also beautiful to listen to, like a thousand angels singing a thousand truths about one’s innate goodness—and Al was overcome by what is commonly known among music store owners as “guitar lust.” Before long, Al would buy one guitar, and then another, and then another. He would spend thousands of dollars on guitars and guitar accessories. Strings, a tuner, stands, picks and straps, a polishing cloth, hard cases. But to justify putting guitars and guitar accessories on his Discover card, Al decided he needed to learn how to play the guitar.

  He, too, signed up for lessons with Mr. Schatz.

  “What kind of music do you fellows like?” Mr. Schatz asked during their first lesson.

  Al gushed that he loved music, that he had an appreciation for all different kinds of music, that music made him feel good, and it made him feel happy and alive, and that he was excited about learning how to read music, how to play music, especially the guitar.

  The boy said he didn’t know.

  “Sure you do, son!” I said. I was sitting in the corner. I’d brought along my checkbook to balance so I could fake busyness but still witness the boy’s musical awakening. “He likes Bruce Springsteen!” I told Mr. Schatz.

  “What?!” the old man said.

  “Springsteen!”

  Mr. Schatz said, “Oh.”

  I didn’t know whether Mr. Schatz thought I was inaudible or idiotic, but in either case, he was moving on. He told the boy and Al to open their Mel Bay’s Modern Guitar Method, Grade 1 to page one, and their first lesson began.

  These lessons would be a terrible thing to sit through, though, as week after week, month after month, it became obvious that my son was not lying when he said he didn’t feel like learning to play the guitar. He had no interest in starring as the guitar son of my dreams. Not even when I told him I’d give him some money to move to L.A. The boy liked knowing how to pluck the notes to “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits” but otherwise showed no inclination toward learning how to play the guitar.

  In fact, he seemed to be in deep denial that he was even taking guitar lessons. As Mr. Schatz explained something—which frets to hold down with which fingers to play a C, for example, or how to keep time—the boy would tug his new Homie out of his pocket and he’d hold it out for inspection, saying, “See what I have?”

  “What?!” Mr. Schatz said.

  “See my Homie?”

  Homies were small plastic figurines depicting Mexican-American characters with names like Bobby Loco, Mariachi Pedro, Bubbles, and La Chunky. Homies could be purchased for fifty cents from vending machines located in grocery stores and Mexican restaurants. My son was building his Homies a barrio out of Legos, a structure he called “Ashbury Park.” I was never convinced Homies were good toys because they hurt terribly when you stepped on them with bare feet, but I agreed to buy the boy ten every time he practiced for half an hour. In a few weeks’ time, he accumulated a hundred, and since he
didn’t need or want any more, he quit practicing altogether.

  But the guitar lessons were the high point of Al’s Tuesdays, something he looked forward to all week. Mr. Schatz taught Al how to play Spanish ditties like “Malagueña” and “Caliente” and English-speaking classics like “Georgia” and “The Girl from Ipanema.” Al would practice and practice these songs at home, but when he played for Mr. Schatz, it was like he’d never practiced at all. “I don’t understand,” he said apologetically. “I worked on this all week.”

  “What?!” said Mr. Schatz.

  “I guess I just need to prac—”

  “You just need to practice more,” Mr. Schatz interrupted. “Both of you. Especially since your recital is coming up next month. You want to sound good at the recital, don’t you?”

  My son said he didn’t want to be in any recital.

  I, however, loved the idea. It seemed to me that once the boy stood in front of an audience, once he’d heard his name spoken over loudspeakers, once he’d taken a bow, then stood graciously for a moment to receive his due applause that would more than likely erupt into a standing ovation, he might come around to this music thing. It might be something he mentioned during the little speech he’d give when he went onstage to receive his Grammy. “I thank God my mother made me play in that recital,” he’d say, and, “I thank God for my mother.”

  “We can’t wait for the recital!” I said.

  Al mumbled something about how he didn’t want to be in any recital, either, and for once Mr. Schatz not only heard what someone said, he seemed to comprehend it. “Well, I understand you feel nervous, Allen,” he said. “Stage fright is very real, and it happens to us all. But if you practice a lot, you can overcome stage fright.” Mr. Schatz’s voice had taken on a bossy, bullying tone that probably put any number of seventh- and eighth-grade trombone players back in line and kept the flutists on edge. When Al mumbled that he really, really, really didn’t want to be in the recital, Mr. Schatz said nonsense. It would require a true commitment to practice, but with hard work and a little bit of confidence, he’d do fine.

  The piece Mr. Schatz assigned Al to perform was called “Farruca.” A form of Flamenco music, farruca is said to be “the most Gypsy of all the Spanish dances.” Upon playing the last note, Mr. Schatz wanted Al to shout “Farruca!” in a bold and impassionate voice, and every time Al did, I pictured him in black breeches and boots, the flouncy white blouse, a long black vest trimmed with gold braiding, the red sash around his waist, and the gold hoop in his ear. He practiced that two-minute song, over and over, faster and faster, again and again; he played “Farruca” so much that it became the sound track of our lives, the music I heard in my head while I walked the dog, stirred the sauce, tried to read. The boy hummed it while playing with his Legos. Al whistled it, tapped it, played it on an air guitar while waiting for the pasta to boil. “Farruca” became the sound track to our dreams.

  “Farruca!” Al shouted, then caught me smirking at him. “What?” he said. The guitar was sitting on his lap like a sexy girl, and Al was hugging it from behind, his hands on its hips. “If you don’t mind,” he said, peering at me from around the guitar’s curvy waist, “I need to practice. I have a recital coming up.”

  The recital took place on a Sunday afternoon. It was held in the music hall at the local college. Parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, shifted in their seats, straining their necks to catch a glimpse of the kid that was theirs. We all clapped politely as the student musicians from the Western Colorado Academy of Music traipsed across the stage—nineteen ten-year-olds and one fifty-three-year-old man—carrying violins, guitars, flutes, trumpets, piano music. My son was the boy with one hand in his pocket and a guitar strapped to his back; Al was the nervous guy, pale and sweaty and wearing a white T-shirt and black sweater vest.

  The boy played “Ode to Joy” perfectly, though without emotion, a lackluster performance. Afterward, as the audience applauded, instead of taking a bow, the boy rolled his eyes and nodded impatiently, like an underling was telling him something he already knew.

  Al bombed his performance. From the first awkward note he played, I knew it would be bad. It got worse. His timing was off, he missed notes, what should have sounded smooth and melodic sounded chaotic and irregular and traumatized. The two minutes went by very, very slowly. My son, sitting beside me, shook his head. “Oh, Al,” the boy said in what was probably his first moment of true empathy. “Oh, Al,” I agreed. It was a terrible thing to watch. At the end of the song, there was silence. Then Al shouted “Farruca!” in a bold and impassioned voice. It was an act of bravery and courage.

  While Al took his bow, as he’d been instructed to do, the audience, made up mostly of parents, siblings, and grandparents, applauded politely.

  Then Mr. Schatz, who’d been sitting in the front row, stood up. Mr. Schatz faced the audience. Mr. Schatz projected his voice so everyone could hear him, even the people in the balcony, even the people in the very last row. “Didn’t Allen try hard!” Mr. Schatz said. “Allen gets a little nervous, but he still tried his very best! Let’s give him another round of applause!”

  My ex-husband didn’t have any record albums, he didn’t buy CDs. I don’t know if he’s ever been to any concerts. In the car, while he was driving, he’d turn on the radio, sometimes a country music station, sometimes a conservative talk show, but it was more like background noise. Music didn’t seem to be part of him. I have no idea what songs correspond with what moments of his life. That I was once married to a man who didn’t dance, who didn’t sing, who listened to music without really hearing music, seemed remarkable to me. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  As Mr. Schatz led the audience in another round of applause, as the audience clapped and Al turned red and bowed before slinking offstage, as the boy tugged on my sleeve asking can we go to Dairy Queen, I overheard what the old lady sitting in the row ahead of me said. She leaned toward her middle-aged daughter and spoke loudly. She said, “Well, isn’t that nice! How they let that mentally retarded fella out to be in the recital just like everyone else! Those mentally retarded sure have come a long way!”

  I was just about to lean forward and tap her hand, and tell her Lady, I am going to marry that retard someday, when Al appeared, guitar in hand. He was motioning for me to come on, come on. He was tilting his head frantically toward the exit. Al was whispering, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.” In the car, he said there were two things he wanted to say: Yes, we were most definitely going to Dairy Queen; and no, we were not listening to Springsteen, so don’t ask.

  The Boy, Again

  Yesterday the boy didn’t get out of bed until two-seventeen in the afternoon. I was sitting on the coffee table, watching Guiding Light and telling myself during the commercial break that if there wasn’t anything good on VH1 or E! Entertainment Television, or if both of those channels were also on commercial, I would take it as a sign that I had to eat another Oreo cookie. But before I could find out how TV would once again direct my behavior, the boy came moping down the stairs, his hair hanging in his eyes, his gray T-shirt and denim cargo shorts the same gray T-shirt and denim cargo shorts he’s worn every day since the last day of school. His posture was hunched, slouchy, drooping. His breath was putrid. He smelled unfresh, he looked unwashed. He said he’d slept so late because he’d stayed up playing Halo until four o’clock this morning, and would I please make him two grilled cheese sandwiches with extra cheese and could Louis sleep over tonight?

  I said no.

  He said why.

  It used to be he didn’t ask me why because we both already knew the answer. But I always enjoyed reminding him. I savored any opportunity that allowed me to point out I’m bigger than you, I’m stronger than you, I’m smarter than you, and I make more money, therefore, my wish is your command. There was a time when we both liked hearing me say this. I liked it because of the power that comes from oppressing a small child. It’s a rush.
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  The boy liked it because I told him he did. I told him there is no denying I am all of those things. I am also capable and confident and competent, calm and committed to raising him up right.

  “Why can’t Louis sleep over?” he said.

  “Because.”

  “Why because?”

  But now that the boy is thirteen years old, he doesn’t necessarily buy that I am capable, confident, competent, calm, or committed. He’s witnessed too much of my bungling tomfoolery, my disinterest and neurosis, my negligence in fulfilling my responsibilities to him, my son, the only child I will ever have. On occasion, when I’m feeling guilty or insecure about how I’ve been treating him, when I’m worrying about whether or not I’ve been good enough and I’m suspecting that I haven’t been, I’ll ask him how am I doing, am I doing all right, is there anything you need that I’m not doing?

  He always reassures me. He always says everything is fine. You’re doing good, he says. You’re a good mother.

  You need anything, kid, you just let me know.

  I will, he says, and in that moment, I’ll give him a cookie or a hug or I’ll say go get my purse so I can give you some money. I adore you, here’s five dollars.

  But in this moment, I was finding him very irritating. Because he was asking me yet again.

  “Why can’t Louis sleep over?”

  “Because.”

  It was nothing personal against Louis, who seems like a nice enough kid, though once when he slept over, Louis ate three double-cheese grilled cheese sandwiches, then half an hour later, turned pale and clammy, sweaty and gut-rumbling. Around our house, Louis is known as The Shrieker because he occasionally releases strange, high-pitched, excited-sounding shrieks. Eeep! Eeep! Eeep! The first time he slept over, I shot up from a dead sleep to his racket, my heart pounding, wondering what the hell was that.