My Vanishing Twin Page 18

  “Can I ask you a question?” Wallace queried on top of Walter’s last word, prompting Walter to wonder whether his words had really been the thing that motivated Wallace to turn back at all.

  “Sure,” said Walter, figuring it was the least he could do after all of the hard work Wallace had done on his behalf, even if Walter wasn’t sure how much, if any, of the hard work he had actually wanted done on his behalf.

  “Well…” Wallace struggled to find the right way to express his thought—or, far more likely, he simply struggled for the courage to express his thought—before semi-muttering sheepishly as his eyes fell to the ground but inches in front of his toes, “…she won’t go with me.”

  “She…? “ Walter sputtered before fleshing out his pronoun of a response with the only slightly more robust utterance of, “Veronica…?”

  Wallace nodded into the ground.

  “She…” Walter began again, attempting to piece together some of the other ancillary and implicit elements of Wallace’s statement, “…broke up with you?”

  “No,” Wallace stated into the pavement. “She wants to stay here. She wants me to stay here. She says this is her home. My home, too.”

  Walter sighed, disappointed in and a bit surprised by Veronica, even though it wasn’t really his place anymore to have an opinion at all about what Veronica might choose to do with her life. It probably wasn’t really his place to do so before, either, but Walter chose to simply consider that an entirely other topic of speculation irrelevant to the current conversation.

  “I told her that this was my destiny,” Wallace went on.

  Walter sighed again.

  If he was honest, he could not remember Veronica ever being anything other than supportive of him, to a fault even. He found it hard to believe that she wouldn’t be even more supportive of someone so clearly more capable than he ever was or will be.

  “All I want to know,” Wallace still could not look up, “is would you do what I am doing? I figure that you needed to do this…music…thing. So you did it. And I need to do what I’m going to do. So I should do it. That’s what you would do. Right?”

  Walter could not help but note that this was the first time, to his memory, that Wallace had ever actually looked to him for wisdom or guidance of any sort whatsoever. This was also one of the alarmingly rare instances wherein words had proven anything other than graceful beacons dancing from Wallace’s line-thin lips. For both of these reasons, Walter knew that this circumstance was serious. So he considered his response for a good, long moment before deciding just to speak from the heart…

  “She’s not a bad person,” Walter explained. “I just didn’t really love her, I think.”

  Wallace finally looked up at Walter, but he seemed confused.

  “I guess what I’m saying is,” Walter went on… “Look, I don’t care anymore about you seeing her or anything even though it’s really fucking weird and you should have fucking told me, you dick. But all that aside, or as aside as it can be right now or ever… You probably think that you love her. And maybe you do love her. But what do you know from love? I don’t know from love and I’ve dealt with it thirty-five more years than you have. Which isn’t to say that you probably don’t have it more figured out than I do, because you have everything else more figured out than I do and in, like, a fraction of the time, but…”

  Wallace’s confusion only intensified. So Walter really tried to focus his thoughts…

  “All that aside, Wallace, you are single-handedly the most capable human being I’ve ever met in my entire life. You can handle Harvard on your own. I’m not so sure that Harvard can handle you, but you will be at the top of your class with no one within even an arm’s reach of you. So that just shouldn’t even be a thing. The only question is whether love should take precedence over that… And I’m not saying that I know whether it should or it shouldn’t. But I guess what I’m saying is that it shouldn’t. Because if she really loved you, she would want you to do this. Even if it meant letting you go. But she wouldn’t be willing to let you go. So she would go with you. Because she would know that you not going is just completely wrong. And awful. Or, at least, that’s what it seems like people in love should do. Not that I’ve ever really felt that way about anyone. Except right now for you, I guess, but that’s different. We’re brothers. And at least I hate myself because I’ve never felt that way. If you know what I mean? Right? That she should, too. Should be too ashamed to be that person who would even attempt to make you make that choice. Not that she should necessarily go with you. That’s up to her. No judgment. But she should say that you’ll figure something out. Is she saying that? Because if she isn’t saying that, then I think that maybe deep down she just wants you to go. She doesn’t really want you to stay. But the fact that she doesn’t want to go has made her realize that maybe her love for you is not exactly what she thought it was. So she’s maybe trying to take this way out because she doesn’t want to hurt you. Even though it’s going to hurt you, but this way it’s not about you not being something you feel like you should be. She’s not a bad person, Wallace. She was just never any good at the not nice stuff. You know?”

  Walter could tell that Wallace did not understand. But the little guy’s cloudy eyes nevertheless millimetered their way back into focus as he struggled to digest the soft and fluid logic and reasoning associated with this topic of feelings and love or not love, eventually grasping just barely enough of his brother’s overall sentiment to affirm and resharpen his resolve. Wallace took a few steps forward and wrapped his uneven, knobby, oddly-angled arms around Walter’s upper thighs and inadvertently buried his face smack dab into his brother’s crotch. As sweet as this gesture struck Walter, he could not help but glance about his immediate surroundings to make sure no one suspected anything untoward was taking place. Fortunately, hardly anyone was around. As he looked back down to Wallace, he noticed that the little guy was crying, his tears staining Walter’s pants.

  Walter couldn’t be sure whether these were tears of excitement, of fear, of longing, of joy? Or maybe some of each. Maybe Wallace didn’t even know himself.

  So Walter just reached down and pulled the little guy deeper into their embrace.

  5.

  It took a few performances and it wasn’t to the same deep-sea level of that first week, but Walter definitely noticed the joy starting to return. Much to his surprise, the structure of the tour created a framework that somehow enabled him to stay laser-focused on performing. And each new sector visited was just novel enough to allow Walter to earnestly believe that a song sung here was somehow different than a song sung anywhere else. This kept things feeling fresh. And to Wallace’s credit, earnings did recover to the ten to fourteen dollar range each night.

  After Walter’s twelfth performance of the tour, his first in city sector seventeen, an awkward man likely in his late twenties approached and asked simply, “Would you like accompaniment?”

  “Where?” Walter sought clarification.

  “Oh, no,” the man provided said clarification. “I meant musical. I play. Guitar.”

  “Oh,” said Walter before casting off his gaze in thought. “What is your sound like?”

  The man took this question quite seriously in before answering, “I don’t know that I have defined my sound just yet. But I like a lot of Art Rock.”

  “Is that a thing?”

  “I don’t know. It sounded good in my head. But not just now when I said it.”

  Walter looked the man up and down.

  He was exceedingly plain. A bit tallish and a bit thin-ish, but overall decidedly nondescript. But one of the things that Walter most loved about making music, in his admittedly only recent embrace of it, was how sound so seldom looked like what one might expect it to.

  “I guess we could play together and see what happens. I’ll be in the park tomorrow, late morning,” Walter said. �
�Bring your guitar.”

  “I can’t. How about eleven a.m. Saturday?”

  Walter twisted his lips and lowered his brow, acting as though he had multiple variables in his schedule to consider moving around before saying, “Okay.”

  As the man walked away, Walter called after him, “What’s your name?”

  The man stopped and turned back. “Mark,” he replied. “Mark Clark.”

  Walter nodded at this decidedly not rock ’n’ roll name.

  “I’m Walter,” he offered back, never having really considered how not rock ’n’ roll his own name was until hearing it come out of his mouth right now.

  Walter and Mark played in the park for about an hour that Saturday.

  Mark Clark was a pretty good guitarist. Not great. Not the type of musician that blows your mind. Or even occupies it for any length of time, really. But steady. A stable force. Perhaps even academic in his playing. Walter was intrigued by this sound as a potential counterbalance to what he presumed was his own rawness, even though Walter still lacked the training to truly know whether what he took to be academic and what he took to be raw were actually those things at all. In truth, Walter had no idea whether they were any good. But it felt good to play with Mark. And it felt good to be back in a band. So good, in fact, that Walter invited Mark to join him for that evening’s performance.

  “It will be a sonic experiment,” Walter explained.

  He presumed that Wallace would strongly advise against such an infringement upon the clarity of the plan, but he reassured himself that it would be just the one night, just a brief change of pace.

  “What’s the set list?” asked Mark.

  “I don’t make set lists,” Walter explained. “I just sing the songs that it occurs to me to sing.”

  Mark nodded, hesitantly. Then he asked, “What if I don’t know a song, though?”

  “Then don’t play, I guess. I’ll just sing,” Walter shrugged. Then he thought a moment and added, “And if you want to play something that I don’t know, you can just play it, too. And I won’t sing.”

  Mark nodded, a little more assuredly.

  “It’s just about singing some songs,” Walter explained the simple truth that guided his performances but had been seeming less and less simple as time went on. “About focusing and getting lost in the sound. For me, anyway.”

  “I get it,” Mark said softly.

  And for some reason, upon which Walter could not even begin to put his finger, these three ever-so-common words suddenly sliced right through the knotted layers of feeling and thinking and worry and living that had begun to obscure the simplicity of Walter’s songs. These three words, plain as a well-worn doormat, freshened up colors Walter had not even recognized had faded from his world.

  “Yeah,” Walter reiterated, more for himself than for Mark. “Just playing some songs.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are Walter and Mark,” Walter declared as the sun crept nearer the horizon. “We are here to play some songs.”

  Walter took a moment and a breath and then sang out the first song that came to his mind. A song about love and how many times and in how many ways it can destroy you.

  Mark recognized it from the first lyric and started strumming.

  It was only when they reached the chorus for the second time, though, that Walter could really hear the sound of his voice coming together with the guitar to form a third, distinct and new, tone.

  The rehearsal hadn’t sounded like this. Walter couldn’t imagine ever writing a song that would sound like this, either. He couldn’t even imagine performing a song that sounded like this. Not that it was necessarily great. But it was theirs.

  The next song, too.

  And the one after that.

  Each one sounded like its own little diamond. Or maybe that was too grandiose. But each one, it sparked, it shined, it burned. And that was something. Each one rang with a clarity that even the most ambivalent soul could feel, could hear, could think. And in those thoughts there was something true about life lived. That’s how it sounded to Walter, anyway. Even if most people were passing by without so much as a glance. Even if but a handful stopped to listen for even a few seconds. And even if but a handful of that handful offered so much as a tiny smile and some pocket change. And even if only but a handful of that handful of a handful actually applauded. It didn’t matter. Not right now, anyway. Right now, Walter felt real and relevant and even complete.

  They played songs like this for at least an hour.

  One after another. It became a blur. A space in which Walter occupied a different type of time. A fluid type of time, generous and contemplative and fair. And just when Walter was right about run dry and wasted, Mark Clark started strumming one more song. A song Walter recognized. A song they had never played together before, had never even discussed. But a song that somehow culled one last surge of excitement and energy from deep within Walter, invigorating him to take a deep breath and carry on singing. It was a song about young love, the kind that will not last but the kind that also will never again feel so complete.

  It was a song that Walter had loved for years.

  “We should talk about touring,” Walter explained the next morning and still a little wired when the two men met up for a celebratory breakfast at Smythe’s Diner. Walter hadn’t slept a wink.

  “Oh,” Mark Clark answered. “I can’t tour.”

  Walter grimaced before clarifying, “Just within the city. Different corners. Maybe throw in a venue or two once we get a little bigger. I know this guy at Pilot’s Bar, I might be able to get us a gig there.”

  “Oh,” Mark answered, in what Walter had begun to suspect was a customarily gentle tone for the man, “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Walter insisted.

  “What do you mean?” Mark Clark answered back, earnestly unsure of how his simple response could be perceived as anything but.

  “You didn’t think the show was good?”

  “I guess I didn’t really think about it,” Mark shrugged. “It was fun.”

  Walter envied how rock ’n’ fucking roll that reaction was, making him all the more certain that they really had something here.

  “Why can’t you tour?” Walter pressed on.

  Mark lowered his gaze down to the tabletop for a moment, choosing his words before looking back up at Walter. “I have a job and a whole life and all.”

  “But what does any of that have to do with any of this?”

  “Well,” Mark considered before softly stating, “everything.”

  “But you said you wanted to be my accompaniment,” Walter pressed on.

  “Right,” said Mark.

  “Right,” said Walter.

  An awkward silence set in, until Mark explained, “I guess I just figured that you just played on the street whenever you felt like it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Just like a hobby or something.”

  “That’s what I sounded like to you? A hobby?” Walter demanded, his voice raising.

  “What else is… I mean, a deeply felt hobby, I’m sure,” Mark back-pedaled just a touch.

  “A hobby!” Walter yelled out, causing the artery-clogged customers of Smythe’s to turn their heads to see what was going on before disinterestedly returning to their food.

  “I guess I just figured that it’s not a career,” Mark scrambled to explain. “We could call it something else, though. I don’t care.”

  “Yes, it is a career! We call it a career! I am on a tour!”

  Unsettled, Mark Clark began inching his way out of the booth.

  “Sit down, Mark Clark!” Walter yelled as he smashed the table with his fist.

  “Hey!” Smythe barked bitterly and sharply from behind the order window, startling Walter silent and Mark back into the booth. “Control
yourselves!”

  Walter took a moment of silence in which to regroup.

  Mark took this as another, even better, opportunity to leave, sliding from the booth and starting across the restaurant.

  “Your share,” Walter called after as he quickly divvied up the earnings from last night, which was admittedly three dollars less than what Walter had been averaging on his own thus far. “Of the revenue we generated,” Walter added, slapping emphasis on these words he associated with business.

  But Mark Clark was already gone. So Walter left his share of the money as a tip for the servers at this less-than-fine establishment.

  “Oh my god. You’re Walter Braum!” exclaimed a voice, forcing Walter’s attention up from the scribbled pages lining his lap. In front of the park bench Walter was seated upon stood a teenage boy decked out in ill-fitting, cheaper versions of the clothes one might see in the pages of a fashion magazine. The boy was flanked by two other teens, one a girl and one whose gender Walter could not readily identify.

  “What?” said Walter to all three kids.

  “Rock ’n’ roll,” said the androgynous teen.

  “Excuse me?” answered Walter.

  “We’ll be there for the show tonight. I love what you’re doing, man,” said the boy who had originally interrupted Walter before adding, “Music’s ours, too.”

  “Music’s ours, too,” repeated the girl who had yet to say anything until now, choosing to do so at a volume clearly intended to express this idea well beyond the immediate circle of those participating in this conversation.

  “Wooooo!” screamed the androgynous teen before wrapping Walter in a strong embrace.

  The gang then scurried off, casting intermittent smiling glances over their shoulders and back at Walter as they trailed away.

  Walter, dumbstruck confused, puzzled over what had just happened a good long moment before shrugging it off and turning his attention back to his lyrics.

  “Music’s ours, too, man,” declared a naked man showering beside Walter at the YMCA.