Mount Hood

by Peter Enzinna 

—Consonance, she said, playing several notes at once.

He nodded.

—Dissonance.

Different notes.

—Some things sound good together. Some don’t.

He brought his fingers to the keys, feeling the grooves between them, pressing down. C, E, and G. Consonance. His leg jumped on the pedal and she didn’t notice.

—Fingers like spiders, she said. Remember.

He arched his palm and pressed again. E, F, and D.

—Dissonance, he said.

—Very good.

He imagined laying down across the keyboard, playing every note at once.
—Different intervals, she said, feel different ways.

She played two notes.

—A perfect fourth.

Two different notes.

—A perfect fifth. What is the difference.

He played first one, and then the other, his palm miles above his fingertips. His heel hopping up and down on the carpet.

—One step, he said. The home note stays the same.

—Very good. Her voice dipping, rising.

A fourth and a fifth, just above a third. But the third changes. Major, minor, good and bad. A fourth and a fifth are perfect. Smooth. Nothing between them and the home note. He remembered them.

—The fifth is the key, she said. The circle of fifths is how you know the key. It all comes back around.

One sharp, two sharps, on until you’re back to no sharps. He remembered.

She pressed a hand to his knee until he stopped it from jumping. Her face was small and clear.

—No wiggling, she said. Focus on the playing.

Nodding, looking down.

—It’s important, you know. It gets to be second nature, and one day, you won’t need to even…

Nodding.

—Why don’t we play the carols?

Looking up now. Leg moving a little but she won’t be mad. Coins in his pocket falling from on top, clanking on the stool.

* * *

When his dad picked him up he waited in the living room, looking at her clocks. Her house smelled like his, but always a little like cookies. A pile of mail spread across the table. Bank of America, Heifer International, names and cities. All to her and her husband. Thomas and Karen Wallace. Some were thicker. He looked out the window, moved toward the door. It always took so long.

At the top of the staircase he looked forward into the wall, not down the stairs, stepping down, trusting, remembering the feeling. Concentrating on it made it strange and new. The light curled around the landing with her voice and his father’s. He stepped, one after the other, deliberately.

Their voices were small: only voices because he knew that’s what they were. Her voice dipping down and rising up. His father’s a straight line. He stopped before the landing. The thick carpet kept his feet from slipping as he twitched. He wanted to leave.

He walked backwards up the stairs, as deliberately as before, but no more. He fell at the top, but into sitting. The voices stopped, hearing his backpack thud, the coins in his pocket jingle, all their states, the folder full of music slap the hard wood floor. His father’s voice, high and then low: well, we should probably. Hers, it was lovely to. His, you too, I hope everything’s. Their heavy steps across the basement floor. When you’re old the house creaks when you step, but small bodies don’t weigh on it. Quietly he picked himself up and hurried to the door.

—Ready to go, bud? Have a good lesson?

The doorknob cold and sticking to the center.

—Yeah, he replied.

She laughed, her hands at her sides.

—So eager to go!

His father laughed as well.

—Got to watch… something, he said.

She looked down.

—Next week, she said. Great work, Dylan.

—Thanks.

—Bye bye. Two notes, high up, the same.

—Bye now, his father replied, his hand guiding Dylan out the door. Low notes going down. See you soon.

In the car it was still warm, but for the seats.

—Good lesson, buddy?

—Mhm.

—What’s new.

He looked out the window, his nose against the glass.

—I’m getting good at the carols. She’s teaching me about the notes.

His father shifted gears, changed the music.

—That’s good, he said. That’s important. You have to understand it if you want to…

Trailing off, low and sinking. Dylan put his hands in his pockets, played with the coins, traced the shapes of the states and the places. He wondered if he’d recognize a perfect fifth in someone’s voice, just talking. He felt Mount Hood, the year, LIBERTY at the top.

At home they ate dinner. There was lots of noise—scrapes, clangs, scratches—all dissonant.

—Did you have a good lesson? his mother asked through the fog of an uncovered tureen of mashed potatoes.

—Mhm. Yeah. Getting good at the carols.

Their looks bounced from the top of his head as he ate. He imagined them looking at each other as well.

—How was work?

His father scraped.

—As ever.

—I saw—I was at the supermarket, and, d’you remember that woman who lived on Grossman, with the two boys? One was D’s age and the other—

—Yeah. The red car.

—Mhm.

Dylan looked down at his plate and pushed what was left into a corner. His father wiped his mouth and went to do work.

—Do you know consonance and dissonance? he asked his mother.

—Yes, sweetie. Did Mrs. Wallace teach you that?

—Yeah. And about the intervals.

—Which ones?

—Well, the easy ones are a perfect fourth—

He mumbled two notes, the home and then the step up.

—And a perfect fifth—

The same first note and then a hollow wider wait between them.

—That’s pretty, baby. I never hear you do anything but talk. And that’s even—

He nodded.

—Can I be excused?

—Sure.

He didn’t look at her face as he pushed the dishwasher shelf and passed back through the room, by the table, but as he climbed the stairs and she waited, picking sharply at the plate, he could feel her thinking after him. He could feel the space between them growing and resolving, settling and fixing.

* * *

Later that night Dylan sat at the computer reading while his father watched television. He barely noticed as his mother entered and waited in the doorway.

—Lee, can I speak to you?

He turned around as his father did the same.

—Sure, honey. What’s on your mind.

—In our room, Lee, she said.

The room paused, humming.

—Sure. Be right there, honey.

She nodded, smiled at Dylan, and walked out into the hall.

He waited, still turned around, as his father looked into the television. The hum continued. Someone said:

—We’ll see if it pays off in the next round.

His father shut the set off and stood up slowly. Dylan hung motionless on the chair. At a speed that seemed to be decreasing every second, his father trod across the room and out of the room. Dylan hung on the chair.

Minutes passed with another hum feeling its way through the house. Dylan imagined the vent above his door, upstairs, whirring throughout the day. He imagined the hum as all twelve notes, all ruining each other and all coming to a big version of a small grey sound. His arm began to fall asleep from resting off of the chair.

There were steps, down the stairs, around the corner, into view. He realized part of the hum had been his parents’ small voices. His father walked in, faster now, not heavily but at least a little heavier. He sat down and turned the set back on. Someone said:

—They know how to pick ’em.

Dylan turned back around. The hum shook slightly. His mother did not come down the stairs. He heard her dresser clack and squeak.

* * *

Five minutes away from school the next week, the silence of those five minutes was broken by his father’s words:

—Buddy, this’ll probably be your last lesson.

He looked straight ahead as he said it, and shifted gears desultorily.

—It’s just—

Dylan shifted.

—You don’t seem like it’s that much of a…Like you’re that interested, for one.

—I guess.

—Hm.

They looked at each other. Dylan looked out the window.

—And your mother and I—

Dylan put his hand to his face.

—Mrs. Wallace is—

Dylan put his head straight on the back of the seat. His father shifted again, looking out his own window. The heat poured out of the dashboard in a vast, gushing, arrhythmic wash.

—Your mother doesn’t think she’s doing a good job, teaching you.

—It’s fine, Dylan said. I learned a lot. I can practice on my own.

—We can always find another teacher, his father hurried. There’s plenty of them.

—Yeah. Maybe I’d like that.

—We can figure it out.

The car hummed piercingly. Dylan imagined its noise changing. They parked and he stepped out.

—Have a good lesson, will you, bud?

—Yeah, Dad, he said, shutting the door. The window squeaked down.

—Tell Mrs. Wallace I say have a good day. Just give her my regards. You know.

Dylan nodded and walked across the lawn, the door opening before him. He shoved a hand in his pocket, where there were no coins. He realized then that he had forgotten them, for the first time since his grandfathergave them to him. Mount Hood, Oregon, from the previous year: a trip to the country, dinner, scratchy sheets, his grandmother’s old piano. Mount Hood, his grandfather said, was on the other side of the country. He said it smelled different there, that people weren’t like they were here. He reached for them quietly, even though he knew he didn’t have them.

—Dylan, she said when he walked in. Isn’t your father coming in?

—He says to have a good day.

She looked after the car as it slunk away.

* * *

As he played he could feel distinctly the space between his hands, and the smaller spaces between his fingers. They seemed to be more alive than the notes: they were the strings, resonating emptily with the chords and intervals and runs he played.

* * *

As he packed his things his father came downstairs. Mrs. Wallace stood up abruptly, teetering on her feet.

—Hey, he said, scratching at his leg. I just wanted to—

—Hi, she said, quietly.

—Yeah. I just wanted to say that—uh, he probably won’t—this is gonna be his last lesson. We’re gonna take a break.

The room creaked. Dylan put his bag on his back and his hands in his pockets. They twitched in vain.

—Lee, I’m sorry. I really…

Dylan started for the stairs, slowly trudging up. There was no noise in between floors.

—Just give it some time, he heard his father say. We can talk about it. We just need time, and we need space. Things are going to have to change.

Dylan waited at the top of the stairs, straining to hear. His father’s conversation with Mrs. Wallace was different: distinct, unharmonious and edged. His empty pockets tangled around his hands.

—I understand. I just…Space isn’t what I need right now.

Dylan remembered Mount Hood, standing tall a thousand miles away.

—We won’t be far, his father said. We just won’t—he won’t be here, every week.

Their voices were opposed, Dylan thought. A diminished fifth, a tritone. Halfway.