21. Songs of Our Fathers
This is an ongoing story, meant to be read in order. If you’re just arriving here for the first time, please start at the beginning by following the index.
I pull the Saturn up to Mountain’s nondescript prairie-style house on the west side of Evanston—as far away from Northwestern University and its sky-high property taxes as possible. The citizenry unaffiliated with NU nevertheless help bankroll its operation, making up for all the tax breaks Evanston gives it with higher personal property taxes. Out here, near the border of Morton Grove, the effects, at least, are minimal.
The futile attempt at an early-winter sleety rain has given up, settling for an early-winter frozen mist. The car, sensing what’s coming, coughs once, then stops by an overturned recycling bin, its wheels jutting out into the street, in front of Mountain’s house.
He hasn’t spoken for the past 20 minutes. Hasn’t moved for the past ten, and, staring straight ahead, doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to start now.
“We’re here,” I offer.
“Oh… yeah.” He looks around, in a slow-motion startle. “I was thinking about my dad.”
“The physicist.” I unlock the doors.
“Astrophysicist,” he huffs. He attempts to unfold his lanky frame, then sighs, gives up, and leans back, closing his eyes. This might take a while. “There is a difference.”
“Is that why you weave all those cosmological themes into your music?”
“We’re all trying to resolve and finish the work of our parents. It’s unavoidable.” He grabs the dashboard to pull himself up, but again falls back.
“Really? So you’re attempting somehow to resolve your father’s physics with your mother’s literary genius? And I’m, what, trying to resolve cardiology with politics?”
“Maybe science with idealism, or reason with passion. Obviously, it’s not that direct. It’s the duality of impulses you inherit from both parents. They’re always at war with each other to some extent. Your parents are at war within you. You have to resolve their conflicts, or at least try, to get anything meaningful done.”
“Unless you decide to fight a completely different battle.” I restart the car for the heat, sensing we’re beginning another battle of our own.
“Even if you’re technically fighting another battle, you’re unavoidably fighting it on their terms, with their emotional DNA. One side will usually dominate, but both sides are going to have their say. Can’t help it. You are literally who you are—half mom, half dad.”
He opens the door and begins the process of getting out, this time grabbing the top of the door frame, which begins to swing back in, almost closing on his right hand.
“Shit.” He pulls his hand back in, avoiding injury, then falls back into his seat yet again. Bucket seats are no place for tall old men.
Mountain sighs deeply and turns to me. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to come and help me out here.”
“Right.” I turn off the car, jump out, and run around to his side.
After I pull him out, he stands up straight, stretching his arms up high. I wait.
“Thanks,” I say.
“What? Oh, yeah, thanks.”
“Any time. So what about your dad?”
“What about him?”
“You said you were thinking about him.”
“I am.”
“About what?”
He opens the back door to get his guitars. “Is this really your business?”
“You brought it up.” I pop the trunk and start pulling out his amp.
“I just said I was thinking about him. Which wasn’t necessarily an invitation for a follow-up question.”
“Wasn’t necessarily… and yet—”
“I was thinking about the fact that at some point he gave up.”
“Gave up what—”
“Well, we all do. Nobody resolves it, nobody completes the work.”
“Of their parents.”
“Of anything.”
His next-door neighbor’s living room light goes on, and an eye peeks through a venetian blind. Seeing that I notice, the blind and the eye quickly close.
“What? My neighbors? The Kings?” He’s looking the other way but notices the light. “Talk about people who didn’t complete the work—those motherfuckers never even started. They assumed their parents’ flaws like they were a gift, then built on them like they’d founded a new religion.”
“Racists?”
“Well, that ain’t new exactly.”
“No…”
“Antisemites, too.”
“Even older.”
“Come to think of it, religions are founded on dudes trying to work out their parents’ issues.”
I grunt as I lift his amp out of the trunk. “Yeah. Probably. Maybe. Abraham breaking his father’s idols.”
He’s still staring at his neighbor’s window, waiting, perhaps, to see if the guy (I think it was a guy’s eye) will peek out again. “What are you doing right now?”
“What do you mean, ‘What am I doing’?” I laugh. “I’m unloading your shit.”
He ignores this. “Do you have five minutes? I want to play you something.”
I’m tired and want to go home. Tired of listening to music, after playing it all day, then sitting through two sets of Mountain. But he’s the Mountain—my failed mentor, but still my mentor—so I shrug my shoulders. “Sure.”
We carry his rig into the house and set it down in the living room as he turns on lights.
“Check this out…” He’s looking through his LP collection.
“You still play LPs?”
“It’s here… somewhere… Ah. This right here? This is the shit.”
I try to peek at the album cover, but he quickly covers it. “Uh-uh, son. You need to listen without knowing.”
“How very Zen of you.”
“Yeah, that’s about the right idea.” He places the record on the turntable, turns his system on, gently sets the arm about a third of the way in, then backs away as if to unveil an unknown masterpiece.
Swimming in BCE
The mountain came to meet me
Recounting how he'd beat me
Then in a twist of fate
He said he missed the date
The fountain flooded heat streams
Drowning summer street scenes
On the appointed date
He said I'd twisted fade
Sunning by the Red sea
Swimming in BCE
Lost in the mist of hate
She sleeps inside the gate
