No one messed with Baback in the locker room either, which made me feel a little proud.
I decided to follow Baback when the period was over and I watched him meet the janitor at the auditorium. The janitor let Baback in and then left. The auditorium is in a part of the school that isn’t used for much else, so there’s usually no one around there. I looked through the window in the door and watched Baback take his violin out of the case, tune, and then begin to practice.
To say he was amazing would be an understatement.
He was world-class at fifteen—better than anyone you will ever hear play the violin.
A musical wizard.
I watched through the glass and listened to that little tiny boy make gigantic swirls of rising and falling notes that made my chest ache and ache.
It was so beautiful.
The best part was that he closed his eyes and kept nodding to the rhythm of his bow sawing, and you could tell that when he played his violin, he wasn’t a tiny misplaced Iranian boy living in a secretly racist town—no, he was a god in complete control of his world.
It was like the violin bow was a magic wand, and the vibrations that came out of the holes cut into that little wooden instrument were a force that few could reckon with.
He seemed to grow tall in front of me.
And I understood why he didn’t need friends or to be accepted at our shitty racist high school, because he had his music, and that was so much better than anything we had to offer.
“You’re a genius,” I said when he exited the auditorium.
Baback just blinked the same way he did when he’d been struck between the eyes with the orange hockey ball. “Were you spying on me?”
“How did you learn to play like that?”
“I don’t want any trouble,” he said, and then walked away.
The next day I made sure to be there when the janitor let Baback in.
Baback said, “I need to practice.”
“I just want to listen. I’ll sit in the back and won’t interrupt.”
Baback sighed, took the stage, and began to play.
I sat in the last row, closed my eyes, and was transported out of our terrible high school and into a new, better place.
When the music stopped, I opened my eyes and across the tops of so many rows of seats, I yelled, “Did you write that music?”
He blinked again and yelled back, “It’s Paganini. The violin concertos. Bits of the solos that I can’t get right—ever.”
“They were perfect! I love it. This is the greatest secret. Something miraculous happens every day at this high school, and I’m the only student who knows about it.”
“Don’t tell anyone, please!” Baback yelled back. “About my using the auditorium. I’m not supposed to let anyone know. My parents had to beg for permission. If other students ask to use the auditorium, I won’t be allowed to practice in here alone anymore. Please!”
I could tell that he was really worried about this, so I walked down the aisle and when I reached him I said, “Let me listen and I won’t tell a soul. I promise. Nor will I ever interrupt you. I’d never want to alter what happens here. Never. Think of me like a ghost.”
He nodded reluctantly.
And for the rest of the school year, I listened to him play.
It was kind of weird, because we never talked.
He didn’t seem interested in me at all.
I could tell he didn’t really want to be my friend—that he just wanted to be left alone with his music, and I respected that.
I mostly wanted to be left alone too—so we shared a large space and were alone together, if that makes any sense at all.
But on the last day of our sophomore year, I broke protocol, gave Baback a standing ovation, and yelled, “Bravo!” when he finished playing.
He smiled, but didn’t say anything.
“Until we meet again, maestro!” I yelled down over a sea of empty red seats, and then left.
When we began our junior year, Baback was changed.
He returned five inches taller and was ripped with so many bulging muscles. He’d grown out his thick black hair and began keeping it in a ponytail. And he had these fantastic cheekbones that all of the girls noticed. He no longer looked like a kid to pick on or pity.
When I went to the auditorium during lunch period, he broke the silence by saying, “I’ve been thinking about you, Leonard. Why do you come here every day to hear me play?”
“It’s the best thing that happens at this school on a daily basis. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“You should pay to listen,” he said. “I’m providing a service for you. Artists need to be compensated. If you give it away for free, people stop appreciating art. It loses its value.”
“What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look different. You talk now. You seem confident.”
He laughed and said, “I spent the summer in Iran studying music. I grew up a little, I guess. Literally and metaphorically. But you’re either paying for the privilege of listening to me play, or you’re going to leave.”
“How much do you want?”
“I don’t know,” he said in a way that suggested he was expecting me to leave. “Maybe pay what you will? But something. I’m not playing for free anymore.”
“Why don’t you leave your violin case open and I’ll put something in it every day I come listen? I’ve seen musicians do that on the streets of Philly.”
“Okay,” he said, and then began to play.
When he was finished, I walked up to the stage and dropped a five-dollar bill into his violin case. He nodded, which I assumed meant he was okay with the amount.
So I gave him my lunch money every day for the rest of the year—except for a few times when either he or I was absent, or when the drama club was in the auditorium creating sets for plays and Baback didn’t practice.
My daily donations added up to more than eight hundred dollars by the end of the year. I know because Baback told me the exact number on the last day of classes junior year, saying, “I sent every penny to True Democracy in Iran, a nonprofit fighting for, well, true democracy in Iran.”
I thought it was a good cause to support, so I nodded.
I saw Baback in the hallway during finals and when I flagged him down, before I could explain what I wanted, he said, “Do you want to hang out sometime, Leonard? Maybe see a movie or something? We don’t really know each other, do we? It’s kind of odd, don’t you think?”
I thought about it and said, “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but listening to you play your violin is by far the best part of my day. And I think part of the magic is that I don’t really know you at all, but only as a performing musician. And I worry that if I got to know you as a friend or whatever, your music might not seem as magical. Did that ever happen to you? You think someone is really important and different, but then you get to know them and it ruins everything? Do you know what I’m talking about?”
He laughed and said, “No. Not really.”
“Can I listen to you practice sometime over the summer? I’ll pay you five dollars.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s a great idea. It would probably weird out my parents if you were just sitting in my practice space staring at me. And I’m going to Iran at the end of the month to visit relatives and continue my musical training with my grandfather. So I won’t be around much,” he said, obviously backpedaling, maybe because he found my explanation weird.
“Okay, then. See you next year,” I said, and handed him an envelope I had labeled TRUE DEMOCRACY IN IRAN!