Fritz
MAN LOOKS AT him and Gould thinks, Oh, no, is he going to do it again? and the man looks at his face even harder with the look I-know-you-from-someplace, and Gould says, “Hi,” and the man says, “Fritz?” and he says, “You know, you did the same thing last summer when we first saw each other, and I was almost going to head you off this time when you looked at me as if you knew me from a long time ago.” “I did it before? I thought you were Fritz?” and he says, “Yeah, at the market in town … really, maybe the first week after I got up here, just like now. And I asked you who you meant and you told me and I said what a coincidence because he was my music teacher at City College in New York. Not so much my music teacher but the head of the chorus, and I had tried out for it when I heard they were doing the
German Requiem. And though — this is what I told you then — I had wanted to be a tenor in the chorus, he—” and the man says, “Have people done this to you before? Not just me but do others mistake you for him?” and he says, “No. I mean, why would they? Excuse me, it could be you haven’t seen him for years, but he’s got to be thirty years younger than me — I mean, of course, older.” “Not thirty, I don’t think. And I saw him recently, or maybe not recently, but certainly in the last five to ten years, and closer to five, and he can’t be thirty years older than you,” and he says, “You’re the violist for the quartet at the Hall,” and the man says, “One of two of them — we alternate on the programs — and for trios, quartets, duos, anything we do, and I’m part of the faculty in the summer program there too. So, nice to see you, sir,” and he says, “Not at all,” and the man — who’s been holding a tray with two fried clam rolls on it and a can of soda and what’s probably an iced coffee, since the drink is dark and there are two half-and-halfs and some sugar packets and a stirrer next to the cup — goes to an outside picnic table where a woman’s sitting. Gould recognizes the woman from some of the Sunday afternoon concerts he went to last summer with his wife and a couple of times with his kids.