The Music of Eric Zed

1

Howard had recently relocated to the southern city of Sienna to organize a training program for the local call center. It had been a big promotion, and an even bigger move, but he was managing to keep his head above water, despite the corporate stress. What had truly been drowning Howard was the loneliness of a new city.

Maggie, a peer of Howard’s at work, had been incredibly congenial. She had the slouched, laid back demeanor of bohemian chic. Probably a stoner. Fascinating and engaging, one of those people that everyone loved to be around. She was also, like every other Sienna-native, utterly voracious for anything music-related. Seemingly the entire city had an auditory addiction, a hip quirk of the local culture.

_____

Utterly amazed by what she was holding, Maggie said “My god Howard, you have no idea how cool this is. You literally have no idea.”

“I literally have no idea. But I’m glad you do. I can’t even read music, but I remembered you mentioning that you play the electric violin, right?” Howard couldn’t have felt better. The paper he had handed her was a piece of handwritten sheet music.

While cleaning the old, greasy drawer liners in his new apartments kitchen, he had noticed the paper wheat-pasted to the underside of one of the cabinets. After carefully scraping it off in, relatively, one piece, Howard could discern it was some kind of composition, but not much else.. There were no lyrics or anything, just some faded scribbles at the top of the page that read “Scratch My Back, Ol’ Scratch - by Eric Zed.”

_____

Maggie proceeded to talk fast and excitedly about Eric Zed, most of which went straight over Howard’s head. The gist of it was that Zed had been a popular local folk musician, a legend, near mythical. He had been prominent and performed during the early Vaudeville days at an old theater downtown called the Pink Monroe.

Dozens of old articles and reviews had been written about how amazing Zed’s fiddle-playing had been. Oddly, though, no recordings of his music had ever been found. No one had ever really known what had happened to him or where he had went, either. Or where he had come from, for that matter. The mystery (and years of speculation) of it all had made the name Eric Zed a long-time point of peculiar pride in certain circles around Sienna.

_____

“This is going to be huge, Howard, this is like Holy-Grail huge.” She tried humming the first few lines of notes on the page.

Howard’s eye twitched and he suddenly felt a low, dull headache he hadn’t noticed before. Probably dehydrated. He swallowed it away and grinned widely.

Together, they made a photocopy of “Scratch My Back, Ol’ Scratch” so that Maggie could work it out on her e-violin. She promised that he could be the first to hear it. They hugged before she hurried home that day. Howard also went home and slept well for the first time since he had moved to Sienna. He finally felt less lonely.

2

After picking up her favorite beer from the bottle shop, Maggie dimmed the lights in her apartment and lit some candles. When the mood was perfect, she finally sat down on her living room floor and picked up her trendy instrument. Her roommate was at their partner’s place for the night, but Maggie still plugged her headphones into the instrument. She wanted the music to be as close to her brain as possible. This was special.

Maggie would be the first person to hear such a legendary composition in who knows how many years. And the privilege to perform it, if only for an audience of herself. It was an inexplicable thrill.

She began to play.

_____

The music was not good, but it was not necessarily bad, either. It was strange. Not offensive, but something about it did not sound quite right.

Maggie played the song again and again. She tried playing it at different tempos; faster, slower, trying every combination she could think of to make it sound right. No matter what she tried, though, something about the song was just plain wrong.

Maggie had been toying with the tune for so long, she could not actually remember how long she had been playing. Darkness had crept out of the night and into the apartment. The candles had all burned down into puddles with dim wicks. More shadows.

Maggie’s heart was racing and her ears hurt, her head hurt. She closed her eyes, but she did not need to see the paper anymore. She did not need to see anything anymore. As she continued to play, she began to cry.

The darkness began to dissolve her room into the void, and Maggie dissolved, too.

3

Howard had become numb at the call center. He had succumbed to merely getting his job done and keeping his head down. He socialized with no one. He just wanted to get by and get home.

After two weeks of not showing up to work, he had finally decided to submit the no show/no call paperwork to have Maggie officially terminated. Howard felt vulnerable and hurt.

When some of the trainees invited him out for beers after work, Howard had said no, and he went straight home.

Having friends is overrated.