The dreaded box, Nomad thought. For an artist, it was the worst thing. The safe, predictable thing that can lead a creative person to boredom, drugs, insanity and early death. Wasn’t that the point of the box? To kill risk, which was the life and soul of creation?
“He said everybody needs furniture,” Terry said. “But the world can go on just fine without music.”
“Oh,” Ariel said, as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
“I told him that wasn’t a world I wanted to live in. Without music? Without…my food? I mean, it’s like bread and wine to me, and you know what I’m saying. But there was nothing I could tell him, because when Clayton Spitzenham makes up his mind, it’s a done deal. And I guess I could’ve left home, just hit the road and gone, but I didn’t want it to be that way.” Terry hesitated, and now he was staring past Nomad at a distant place, his eyes lit up with lamplight behind the round lenses. “I guess I wanted him to give me his blessing, because for whatever he is, I did love him. I do love him. But like that was ever going to happen. Then…something did happen. On a Sunday morning, in a church in Kingfisher. And nobody knows about this but my folks, I’ve never told anybody because it just sounds so…” He trailed off, searching for a word.
“Holy-rolly?” Nomad prompted.
Terry gave a faint smile. “No, not that.” He found his word. “So awesome,” he said. “Maybe scary-awesome. But it did happen to me, just as I’m telling it. See, this church was building a camp for kids. They were going to be buying furniture for the cabins and the main building, and my dad wanted to get the contract. So he loaded me up, I guess to show how great of a family-man he was that he would bring his son with him to church even though he never set foot in one in Oklahoma City and neither did my mom, and we drove there and went in. He wanted to be seen, and to gladhand people, but neither one of us knew anybody there. I mean, it was forty-something miles from our house. So we’re sitting there in the pew, about midway in, and it’s a nice big church, modern, still smelled new, and the pastor gets up front and says there’s a special speaker that day.”
Terry was silent for a moment, working his fingers together. “When it came time for the speaker,” Terry said quietly, “the guy stood up at the lectern and looked out at the congregation. I don’t remember his name, but I remember that he was just real ordinary-looking. Kind of flabby and going bald, and he was wearing a tan suit. It was late June, warm outside. So he said hello to the people, and cracked a joke or something, and said he was going to talk about some mission work somewhere. And all of a sudden…just like that…he leaned over the podium and I remember…he trembled. His eyes closed, and he trembled, as if he was about to pass out. I remember that people gasped. Then the pastor jumped up to help him, and some other men at the front stood up…but then…that man lifted his face. He opened his eyes, and he’d gone pale and he was sweating, and he said, ‘I’m speaking to Terry’.”
“Oh, right!” Nomad said, with a crooked grin. “Did he like…have one of those booming voices that made the walls shake, and sawdust fell from the rafters?”
“No,” Terry answered, his own voice still quiet and controlled. “It was the same as it had been before. Just the voice of an ordinary man. I’m telling you what happened, John. It’s no joke, and it’s no lie.”
They stared at each other, until Nomad’s mocking smile faded away.
“Go on,” Ariel urged.
“The man spoke my name.” Terry turned his attention to Ariel and then back to Nomad once more. “And, sure, maybe there were other Terrys in the church. I think there were maybe eighty or a hundred people in there, so there could’ve been other Terrys. And he never looked at me, he just seemed to be staring at the back wall. But then he said, ‘Don’t be turned aside. Music will be your life’. And let me tell you guys…when you hear that from a stranger in a church you’ve never been in before…far from your home…what you feel is fear. The awesomeness came later. Right then, I just wanted to put my head down and hide, because I was afraid.”
Terry waited for that to sink in. From Nomad there was no sign of interest or emotion. “He didn’t speak to me only. He spoke to two or three other people, but I can’t tell you what he said. Told them stuff he never should’ve known, is my guess. Then he just seemed to get tired, and he lowered his face again and he kind of staggered back, and the pastor got up and told the people to stay where they were, that everything was all right. He helped the man to his seat, and the man put a hand to his face and I could tell he was crying. Then my dad said to me, ‘We’re getting out of here’, and his face was the color of spit on a sidewalk. I mean, he was gray. So he got up and I got up and we went, and that was the end of him wanting that contract. I don’t think he ever went back there. I know I didn’t.”
Terry’s specs had slid down his nose a little bit, so he pushed them back into place with a forefinger. “We never talked about it. I guess he told my mom. Maybe he didn’t. But the thing is…after that happened, he was done trying to force his will on me. Whatever I wanted to do with music—whatever I wanted to try—he stepped aside and let me go my own way. I don’t think he was ever happy about it, but he accepted it. He still does. That’s why he’s helping me start the vintage keyboard business. He likes that word, business. But it took a stranger in a church for him to respect me, and what I wanted to do with my life. We didn’t know anybody there, John. There was no way it could have been anything but…” Again, he searched for his destination.
“The voice of God?” Nomad’s voice had a cutting edge. “Is that what you’re saying you heard?”
“I heard a man speaking,” Terry answered. “I’m not going to pretend to know where the words were coming from. But he said something that was meant for me and me alone. I’m sure of that. And the deal is…all I’ve ever wanted is to build a life with music in it, John. That was always my dream. Not to play on a stage in front of thousands of people or make tons of cash, or be anybody’s superstar.” He included Ariel with another glance. “I’ve gotten what I wanted…and more, really.”
“Okay, so you’re saying everything is like…preordained, right?” Nomad challenged. “It’s all written in the fucking stars?”
“He said ‘Don’t be turned aside’,” Terry answered. “So no, I don’t think it was preordained. I think I had a choice. He was just telling me how to get where I wanted to be.”
Nomad shook his head. “That’s bullshit.”
Terry grinned at Ariel, but his eyes were sad. “Now you see why I’ve never told anybody. Not even Julia.” His flighty, ethereal ex-wife, to whom he was married for less than a year before she took off from Austin to Florida with an old boyfriend. Nobody had known what he saw in her, except she was very pretty, she played classical piano and made great crepe St. Jacques when she wasn’t popping little blue Xanax tabs.
“Bullshit,” Nomad repeated, for emphasis.
“Do you think you know every-fucking-thing?” Terry asked, and now the sadness was gone; now he had some heat in his face and his eyes were bright with the beginning of anger and he had decided that right this minute—this minute—he was through backing down from John Charles because he knew what he’d seen and heard and—“Nobody on earth is going to say I’m a liar,” he said, his voice tight. He blinked rapidly; maybe he was still a little afraid of John, but this was important enough to fight for. “You don’t know everything. Not nearly. And I’m telling you I don’t either, because I don’t understand it and I never will, and I’m not trying to holy-roll anybody, but there’s a lot more to all this than we can see and hold. I mean, there’s like a world beyond this one. A dimension or something that we can’t get our minds around.”