The Blues in A minor

The dense mist soaking through her thin sweater, Mona shivered as she shuffled down the street in the dead of night, illuminated faintly by a slight crescent moon trying in vain to shine through the gathering clouds shrouding the city in mystery and gloom. Wandering unfamiliar streets alone, this late, and without a jacket, all told Mona one thing—it was happening again. This was one of her “spells.”

            She really needed to move from San Marin and its memories, but her grieving had led to a total mental and emotional shutdown for almost a year now. If not for the funds secured in her working life before this new bleak period of existence, she would be homeless by now due to her lack of motivation.

            As her condition worsened, she often found herself far from home when she “woke up” from one of her spells, and this moment was no different. She was once again in the middle of nowhere, not even sure if she was still in San Marin at all, or if she had driven far away during this latest spell. If so, this would not be the first time. In fact, insanely enough, more often than not, she found herself behind the wheel of a car during these annoying blackout periods.

            The street where she “awoke,” drenched in this thick soupy mist, resembled something out of a film noir or old German Expressionist horror film. Abandoned and silent, frozen in time, as though in a perpetual state of dreadful anticipation, it evoked considerable fear within her. Conversely, she felt an equally strong and eerie sense of familiarity here, and sensed that some lower layer of her consciousness was compelling her to remember something about this place.

            “Probably just another delusion,” she whispered aloud to nobody, just needing to hear her voice, for she never spoke in her dreams. She rubbed her arms as she shivered again. “It must be three or four a.m.”

            If so, she had lost her usual four to six hours, for the last place she remembered being was The Eight Ball, a dive she frequented because its regulars were mostly there for two reasons, to get drunk or laid. Since he had already turned down all the other regulars regarding the latter reason, she was now just another of the barflies gathered to drink and forget.

            The ability to hang out at The Eight Ball and not be bothered was quite welcome to her current state of being. Mona was happy to be invisible there. However, lately this overall feeling of detachment from the world seemed to grow more profound each day. Now, it seemed as though nobody ever noticed her at all. Even if she accidentally bumped into a stranger, the impact of the encounter had the same effect as if she had passed right through them like a specter.

            She examined her surroundings, trying to remember if there was indeed a reason she had traveled here, or if it was just another random spot at the end of a spell. Growing more aware of the gathering mist, Mona breathed in the moist air and tried to clear her head.

            Then, in that moment, Mona looked up.

            The building before her was certainly unremarkable, and a stark reminder that she was way out of her element tonight. Rising into the sky, twelve stories disappearing into the blankness of the night, the tenement was unlike anything standing in San Marin, a nondescript bit of urban sprawl, its paint peeling away and exposed metal rusting, long overdue for some kind of care by its obviously neglectful owner. Apparently she had driven during this spell after all, for this place was so unfamiliar she might as well have landed on an alien planet.

             “How far did I wander this time?” she thought. “In my car and on foot?” She did not like the obvious answer since her car was nowhere in sight. “Here I am, freezing in the middle of Who Knows Where.”   

            However, it was not the hideous building before her that made this moment significant, but rather the music she began hearing a few instants after the building seemed to appear from out of the mist.

            From somewhere within this stark edifice came an extraordinary sound. An unknown artist was playing the most absorbing blues guitar Mona had heard in a very long time, perhaps ever. Certainly the most incredible music she had heard since the accident and its fallout.

            It was a soaring, fluid solo of blues delight in a minor key, drenched in mournful passion that echoed in the depths of her tortured soul. The kind of music she once dreamed of discovering, in her past life as a music agent, raw and astonishingly genuine, as if the artist’s soul permeated every note and every nuance was guided by the synapses of the fingers gliding along the strings. This phantom guitar wailed, moaned, bent notes and fractured time, and there was no particular melody discerned, but rather an extended solo flight of all the tricks the guitarist knew being collated together into one magnum opus of sonic energy.

            The blues from within drew her toward the tenement, looking for an entrance, so she could seek out this music’s origin.

            The mist engulfed her as she neared the building and noticed, much to her surprise, that the front door was wide open. She walked through the doorway, once more sensing she was asleep somewhere or in the middle of one of her spells. Why would the door be wide open in the middle of the night? There was no logic at work here, but she kept moving forward, guided on by the mysterious blues.

            Once inside, Mona noticed the music was much louder, saturating the building, giving her the odd impression that its composer was the sole inhabitant of this long forsaken place. She was only slightly aware of the building’s neglect, the graffiti covering the walls, the faint lighting, the stench of urine, trash, even death perhaps in every corner. These other possible impressions were suppressed, for she had already surrendered to the music.

            It seemed like only seconds had passed when she found herself on the fifth floor, presumably in front of the door to the apartment where the blues was being performed. Mona raised her hand to knock, only to find this apartment door suddenly open as well. Another moment of dream logic, the rational side of her discerned, but she ignored that thought and stepped inside without apprehension.

            When she first saw the boy, she refused to believe he was the guitarist in question. There was no way on earth someone so young could be producing this music. There had been plenty of young phenoms and savants across the years of musical history, children much younger than this boy, who played instruments way beyond the abilities of most others their age. But this was different. This was the blues. A boy, even one on the threshold of becoming a young man, simply could not have the life experience necessary, in Mona’s opinion, to play the blues this way.

            As Mona stared in awe, the boy seemed unaware of her presence. He just kept his eyes tightly closed and continued playing. He was about five foot ten, a few inches taller than she, very thin as though he rarely got enough to eat. His skin was the color of lightly creamed coffee and his hair was tightly curled but had been dyed light blond. Suddenly aware of her presence, he opened his eyes and stopped playing. She looked into his mysterious grey eyes, noting a milky film covering them.

            “Is someone there?” the boy asked. She realized he was at least partially blind.

            “Yes . . . ummm, I just heard the music and . . . uhh”

            “Relax,” he said, smiling. “I ain’t mad. The door was unlocked, wasn’t it?”

            “Well, yes. Yes, it was.”

            “I’m Zack,” he said, holding out his hand into the air, nowhere near her, confirming her impression of his blindness.

            “Mona,” she answered. She walked forward and shook his hand. “That has to be among the best blues I have ever heard.”

            “Not the best?” Zack smiled playfully.

            Mona laughed. “Certainly the best from a young man your age. How old are you?”

            “Fourteen.”

            “A year younger than I guessed, even.”

            “You’re pretty good, then. I’ll be fifteen in . . . let’s see, twelve days. That is, if it’s past midnight.”

            Mona saw a clock on the wall. It read three forty six. “It is.”

            They were silent for a few moments and Mona took in the mystery of the surrounding apartment. It was a studio apartment, its only door leading to a bathroom. The only furniture was an old brown upholstered couch, very worn and sagging, a heavily scratched cheap table with an old lamp on top, providing very dim lighting. In the kitchen were a small refrigerator and a hot plate. That was it, other than the amplifier for Zack’s guitar, obviously the most important item in the room.

            “I better turn this down, then. So far, nobody’s complained.”
            “I didn’t see anyone around when I came up. Do you live alone in here?”

            Zack just smiled and shrugged, closed his eyes again and started playing. The room was filled with the uncanny beauty of his blues again. The minor key—A minor, she guessed, only added to the melancholy and mystery of Zack’s highly original sound. She had to make a move, ask him if he played professionally, if he needed an agent, but she did not want to break the spell of the sonic wonder filling not just this apartment but the whole building again. Why hadn’t anyone complained? Certainly not everyone in the tenement would want to hear music at three or four in the morning, no matter how wonderful it was.

            Mona just stood before him, her jaw slack in amazement, wondering how incredible it would be to add a great rhythm section to Zack’s sound, and how for once in her life she was the lucky one who had discovered someone so fresh and unique. But he must already have some representation, she thought.

            As she pondered her next move, how to approach the subject at hand without appearing crass, she noticed a mysterious change in the apartment. Suddenly, the mist that had been so oppressive outside was filling the room as well, and the temperature seemed to have dropped fifteen or twenty degrees in mere seconds. Zack’s blues continued, but became quieter with each moment that passed until it was soon muffled, as though it were coming from a block away.

            Mona shook her head violently in defiance, because she knew what was happening, for she had experienced this so many times before. This was how the spells began and ended. Her senses became numb and pale and then she would lose consciousness and find herself . . .

            . . . somewhere and some-when far away . . .

“MONA!” she heard Donnie yelling at her from behind the counter. “Are you awake over there, or what?”

            “Shush, you fool,” said Charlene, Mona’s sister and Donnie’s wife. “The customers don’t want to hear you yellin’ like that.”

            Their voices lifted Mona from her latest fog, followed by the now familiar period of reentry to “Planet Earth,” followed by the need to discern the current date and time, and how long this particular spell has lasted, without causing too much concern from Charlene. The latter was already impossible, however. Charlene was at her side almost immediately, rubbing her shoulders, soothing her and, as usual, on the borderline of being condescending.

            “Don’t mind him,” Charlene said softly. “Just being an ass, as usual. Another spell, honey?”

            “I’m fine,” Mona said firmly and stepped forward, breaking contact with Charlene. I’m not a child, she thought, and I am only six years younger than her. Why does she have to treat me this way? But she knew the answer. Charlene knew how dangerous her blackouts could be. “I really am. Maybe just a short break.”

            “You just had a break an hour ago!” Donnie cried out.

            “Shut up!” shouted Charlene. “You know she’s having a rough time, jackass.”

            “Does she work here or not?”
            “You ain’t payin’ much anyway. Back off.”

            Donnie grumbled under his breath and went back to making sandwiches.

            Donnie and Charlene had purchased this market and deli about four years ago and were its only employees until the place started getting a lot busier about two years ago when two other delis on the same street went out of business. They now required a third employee from the late morning to mid-afternoon to help with the orders and cashiering. Donnie could become bit of a tyrant under stress, however, so the front door was always being swung open and then soon slammed shut by the constant flow of short lived employees.

            After Mona was released from the hospital, following the accident that ended her career as a music agent, she accepted the offer to work here for room and board and a small amount of spending money until she got back on her feet. The persistence of her spells had lengthened that intended short period of time to almost a year now. Donnie lost his patience often with her, but Charlene always ran interference and secured Mona’s employment, reminding her husband there was nobody left in the neighborhood who would work for him anyway.

            “It’s okay, Mona,” whispered Charlene. “Go outside and get some air.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Stop apologizing, girl. Just take care of yourself. It’s not your fault.”

            “Thanks.”

Mona walked out onto the busy streets of San Marin at lunch hour. Annoyed with herself for abandoning her sister and the customers again, thus fueling Donnie’s anger, she took some deep breaths, trying to relax and gather her thoughts. Was this Thursday? If so, it had been less than twelve hours since meeting Zack and experiencing his blues that spoke to the depths of her soul. It seemed more likely that this current spell had blocked out days, not hours, for that bewitching encounter seemed so distant now, like a dream or recollection from the past. But that was the trouble with these still unexplained spells of intermittent amnesia; they blurred all sense of the logical intervals of time.

            As she closed her eyes and reflected back on the meeting with Zack and his Blues in A minor, hearing the opus in her head again, her mind drifted back to his eerie tenement and her strange nocturnal journey. Seconds later, the logical side of her brain reminded her of the biggest challenge she faced with finding her way back to Zack—she had no idea where that tenement was! The appearance of that mist enshrouded building existed in the center between two spells of lost time and space.

            A garbage truck appeared directly in front of her, and the noise and stench it produced roused her from this latest bout of daydreaming.

The accident that caused all this mental anguish, her many broken bones and, most significantly of all, the death of her husband Kyle and their best friend Janet, was clearly all her fault, regardless of the fact that the insurance company ruled in her favor. She was the designated driver, and Kyle and Janet were indeed too drunk to drive, but ironically it was the sober Mona who had fallen asleep at the wheel, even if only for mere seconds, and thus had not seen the car crossing into her lane in time to react properly.

            No matter what anyone said now or until the end of time, Mona knew the truth. It was all her fault.

            After her initial release from the hospital, with her body made whole, she tried to continue the music agency she and Kyle had built together, only to find that the world had moved on without her. She had no clients. They had all been stolen by the competition. So now she was merely a cashier and sandwich slinger, and a burden to society.

            She heard Charlene screaming out her name, like someone had been murdered inside or something, followed by an unexplained wave of pain throughout her body . . .

            And then . . . another flicker . . . the eerily familiar sense that another lapse was coming . . . to yet another somewhere and some-when . . .

            . . . but this time, to her joy, she reappeared in Zack’s apartment.

            He was already well into another rhapsody, possessed by whatever blessed muse drove him forward. The apartment was again filled with heavy mist, but this time she was not disturbed by its presence, for it did not seem to signify, as in her previous encounter, that this visit was ending. She sat down on the old couch, closed her eyes and let the music transport her. Breathing in the misty air, she became aware of a distinct scent she could not quite place, yet she sensed it possessed some forgotten significance.

            Vaguely aware of a voice whispering, somewhere on the other side of the blues, she opened her eyes and saw the shadows within the mist for the first time. Mona’s spine jerked when she first noticed them, a fearful reaction that momentarily distracted her from the music. Then, Zack’s guitar was there again, but became more like background music to the scene unraveling before her.

            The shadows began as indistinct shapes, a blur within the growing mist, but they eventually took the rough shape of human bodies. Ghosts? Mona thought, as the shadows became more clearly defined. There were three of them, and one of them emerged ahead of the others. Tears filled her eyes as she now definitively recognized the specific ghost before her and said his name:

            “Kyle.”

            Her dead husband was now fully materialized, except for a faint aura shimmering around him reminding her he was not real. As tears began to flow, she realized the scent she had sensed earlier was that of Kyle--his body, his hair, the soap and cologne he often used, all mixed together in her memory. Kyle smiled at her and said, “Mona, it’s been so long.”

            “I know. How is this possible?”
            “Your mind is stubborn, darling. This should have happened long ago.”

            “I don’t understand,” she whispered, realizing Zack’s solo was at that moment reaching the crescendo of a passage he was playing for the first time, one that had the connotation of--it took a few moments for her to find the right word--memory--no, even better yet--remembrance.

            Then she discerned the identity of another one of the shades behind Kyle. Janet came forward.

            “You have been torturing yourself for too long, Mona,” Janet said. “You have to remember it all correctly.”

            “I remember,” Mona answered back in sudden anger, “every detail of the accident quite well. I survived, as you know. I replay it every day in my head.”

            “That’s the problem,” Kyle responded. “You’re hung up on the accident. You need to remember the whole night. What led up to the accident. Look around, and listen to Zack, and remember.”

Mona, Kyle and Janet had made the two hour trip from San Marin to the City for their monthly trip to Moe’s House of the Blues to survey the local talent. They rotated the duty of designated driver and this time that lot fell to Mona. She didn’t mind really, since she probably enjoyed the actual drinking less than Kyle or Janet. It was just a pain in the ass sometimes to be one of the few sober patrons at Moe’s. By the time the closing act came around, the place was always quite lit up.

            That night was great fun, and the final encore actually extended well past the last call for legal alcohol. After driving a couple miles away from Moe’s, they all three realized how tired they were and that they should stay the night rather than drive home. Even though Mona was sober, she was very tired and sleepy, and she was glad she had convinced Kyle and Janet to not make the journey home, especially since the two passengers would have been passed out ten minutes down the road anyway.

            “Yes, that’s it,” Mona heard Kyle’s soothing voice as she remembered it all. “You’re doing better this time.”

            It was when they parked the car and started searching for a hotel, that they heard the music for the first time. Pure and fascinating, raw and beautiful blues coming from somewhere down the street.

            “Yes, Mona. We have tried so many times before. You’re going to get there this time. It’s time to let go.”

            Oh my God, Mona thought, as she remembered the truth now. She had not discovered Zack the other night herself. The three of them had stood outside the tenement nearly a year ago, hearing Zack’s mournful blues for the first time. All three of them followed the music to its source and had been astonished to find out a boy of fourteen possessed this kind of raw talent.

            They knew Moe stayed at his bar well past four or five in the morning after a blues show, cleaning up and partying with band members. He would still be there, and he had to hear this. Zack told them his father worked the grave shift, so there could be no harm done if he agreed to go back to Moe’s with them.

            Mona got the car and drove back to the tenement, and the four of them and Zack’s guitar somehow all managed to crowd in together. It was only a couple of miles journey, but Mona was so very sleepy. She wanted to protest, to let the others know she was not going to be able to drive, but the thrill of their discovery overtook all reason and she made the fateful attempt anyway.

            The rest she always remembered in great detail. One moment, the car was filled with laughter and singing, and the next Mona fell asleep for mere seconds, but when she jerked herself awake it was too late. Headlights shone in her face and then the car hit them head-on at a high enough speed to cause her to lose all control, and then their car was rolling and rolling and there was screaming and crying out to God until everything went black.

            All these months since she had continued to remember the accident itself quite well, except for one important detail--there were four of them in the car--and she had killed three people that night, not two--and she had deprived the world of Zack’s genius.   

            Sobbing profusely now, she looked at the ghosts before her, and the third shadow now transformed clearly into the image of Zack. In that moment, she realized the blues had fallen silent. She cried out for their forgiveness and asked how much they must hate her, but the three ghosts did not seem sad or angry at all. They were smiling.

            “Please, Mona,” Zack said. “You’ve been trying to remember, but it’s always been in fragments and all out of order. But this time, you’re almost there. Right at the threshold.”

            “There’s only one more very important step,” added Janet.

            Kyle nodded toward the other two spirits and whispered to Mona: “Forgive yourself.”

And in the next moment, Mona acquiesces, letting go of all the guilt and shame, and all the fragments of Mona’s tortured mind are restructured.

            The night of the accident transpired as she now remembers it, with the aid of the three spirits.

            The garbage truck she always saw speeding by in front of her in her spells was, in reality, directly before her, heading for an unavoidable collision.

            She sees Charlene, Donnie and a doctor standing over her as she lies in the hospital bed below.

            She overhears one of them saying “how could she survive that awful accident, only to walk out in front of a truck less than a year later? It’s just not fair at all. She is just lying there, in this coma. What are we going to do?”

            Mona smiles when their heads are turned and her mind speaks the words that she wishes she could say to them aloud. “No need to worry about that anymore. It’s already been decided. I finally remembered it all right.”

Then her burden is lighter than ever as she feels herself leave that room to some final “somewhere and some-when,” one that will last forever and not be interrupted by those bothersome spells.

            She is reunited with her three ghosts in this new place, filled only with the joy of music. It is an infinite realm with many venues. There, each and every day for the rest of time, the transformed being once known as Zack Mullins steps out onto a stage created especially for him, picks up a guitar and performs magic. His setlist grows and shrinks and changes over time, according to his whims, but there is one opus on the list every time he performs. A song written long ago for one specific admirer, a song composed for the sole purpose of helping her find her way here. A song commonly known as simply “The Blues in A minor,” but when its muse is present to hear the song in person it goes by its proper name—“A Requiem for Mona.”