The wolf darted through several clusters of half-built houses and then to make up time he cut through a vast shopping complex that had been built in the northern part of Albuquerque. He swiftly passed a bank of loading docks and then an area where plants were kept in pots and then a bunch of dumpsters that smelled like nothing, that smelled of steel and cardboard. There was a shop that reeked of cut hair and then the wolf rounded a restaurant and as he passed the back of it he noticed a radio sitting on an overturned crate. There were a bunch of other overturned crates and an ashtray that was empty because of the wind. The wolf smelled the humans inside the building. He smelled singular harsh liquids. The wolf did not know this area well and should not have been loitering. He sidled up to the dormant radio and tried to make sense of it. It was plugged into the wall and was producing only static. The back door of the restaurant was propped open and the wolf could see down a long, empty hall. He began nosing the big flat buttons on the radio and he found the one that changed the numbers on the screen. He was changing the station. The radio smelled like grease, which to the wolf was a clean smell. He changed the station and changed it again, trying to be gentle because each time he nudged the front of the radio it teetered. He heard voices and deeper voices and he heard human laughter. He heard music but it was drowned in static. He heard an organ, and a woman singing softly, and blocks of wood being tonked together. The static came in waves. The wolf didn’t understand enough about the radio. He looked behind him, into the open, and saw the parking lot give way to a pebbly field of nothing and he knew that beyond what he could see from this vantage the pebbly field gave way to a low road that led to the great, raised road. The wolf was far behind schedule. The business with the bird and now this radio. If the wolf was stopping here it should’ve been because he smelled food the humans had discarded. His rounds had once been his life, a duty that defined him, the most important part of him. The night had been everything and the day only a time in between that had to be tolerated. The wolf began poking all the buttons with his snout. There had been one red light on the radio’s front and now there were three. The noise was louder but still mostly hissing. There was chatter in several languages. Only when the radio clattered backward off the crate, skittering a bottle hard into the wall, did the wolf breathe full again. He knew what to do finally, knew to run away, to push himself to a righteous sprint that might get him to where he needed to go.
SOREN’S FATHER
When Soren had played that music and fallen into his coma, his father, along with his piano teacher, had been attacked as frauds. Among the attackers were the Catholic Church and also a big atheist who had a show on cable TV. Neither party had heard the music, but instead of tempering their positions, that fact only made them more vociferous. They said the fact that the music had not been released to the public was more proof that a scam had been perpetrated. The Catholics had released a tougher-than-usual statement that referred to Soren’s case specifically and then went on to condemn all false miracles. The atheist, who always had sweat on his brow and called himself a humanist, implored Soren’s father to come clean, implored him to admit Soren didn’t write the music, to admit that Soren’s father and the piano teacher had seen an opportunity when Soren had fallen unconscious and had swiftly, ruthlessly capitalized on it. Soren’s father had never done anything ruthless in his whole life, and had rarely done anything swift. And he’d said about a dozen words total to that piano teacher. He’d seen her briefly at the hospital when Soren was brought in and hadn’t heard a peep from her since — probably scared into hiding by that first rush of media harassment. They’d been gone a long time now, the news people, and Soren’s father hoped the piano teacher was okay. He remembered her clothes, a dressy kind of T-shirt and slacks that didn’t go all the way down to her ankles. She’d seemed frustrated, angry even.
The piano teacher taped all her sessions and she’d turned the tape of Soren’s session over to Soren’s father and to the authorities. The music was sixteen seconds long and then you could hear Soren falling and the piano teacher catching him. All that fuss over sixteen seconds of music. There’d been a meeting where three experts offered up their opinions. Only one believed it was possible that Soren had written the music, but all three agreed they’d never heard it before. Soren’s father had let it be known that he would not be selling the music or allowing it to be used for any commercial purpose, that it was Soren’s music and he could decide what to do with it when he woke up, and this was viewed by Soren’s father’s detractors as a strategy, a way to build mystery and hold out for a higher price when he finally did sell the music. Soren’s father was not going to sell the music. He hadn’t even listened to it but once. There wasn’t a whole lot to it. It was certainly sad, but most slow piano music was. He had the original tape somewhere safe and he tried not to think about whether or not his son was a genius. He didn’t know him as a genius. He knew him as his son, whose favorite food was olives, who couldn’t stand having a comb run through his hair, who enjoyed folding the laundry and making perfect squares out of T-shirts.
In the weeks following the lesson, about a dozen lawyers called Soren’s father. They called wanting him to reconsider his position regarding the music, wanting him to entertain offers, wanting to represent him if he was going to do any television appearances, wanting to know if he felt he was being slandered.
Thankfully, because Soren’s father had not gone on TV, had not accused anyone of slandering him, because he had stayed in the clinic and mostly out of view and in his worn jeans and windbreaker didn’t impress anyone as a mastermind, the media hoopla had died down. In place of attention from reporters, the weekly vigil had emerged. Soren’s father was not comfortable being the object of attention, whether the attention came from churches or TV hosts or anonymous Albuquerqueans, and he’d hoped the vigil would be a one-time thing, then a two-time thing, three-time, but it had been going for a month now and the attendees had grown from half a dozen the first night to close to a hundred. These people seemed to be on Soren’s side, but still they made Soren’s father self-conscious, down there peering six stories up. They made him feel there were things he ought to be doing that he wasn’t. On one level they were simply well-wishers, but they also had wishes for themselves that probably weren’t simple at all, hopes to get something out of Soren, and Soren didn’t seem to have anything to give. Apparently Soren had turned over everything when he wrote that music, music the vigilers had of course not even heard. The vigilers were shivering campers, and Soren was their fire. These people were cold in their souls, and if being near Soren offered them comfort then Soren’s father supposed that was okay. The vigils only meant Soren’s father had to close the blinds each Wednesday evening and that for a few hours he couldn’t go out to the landing and smoke. Soren’s father felt bad for the vigilers, really. They were waiting and didn’t know what for. Soren’s father knew what he was waiting for. He was waiting to get his son back.
DANNIE
Arn’s night off, and no vigil. Dannie was sitting with him at the kitchen table, the oven light casting shadows. Dannie had a bowl of cut fruit out, picking at it.