It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 35: Chapter XII (Cont'd)

Coarse and Offensive Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

'You've never been to St. Gregory's?' Alan Carr asked of the Author.

'No.'

'So you don't know what it's become?'

'Can't say that I do.'

Alan Carr dug his heel into the carpet, annoyed. 'It's nothing like it should be. I went back. Vera wanted closure...she made me go back. It's all...I can't take a shit in a Georgian outhouse without someone in my face. But when I went home...not one person—not fucking one!—acknowledged...there wasn't even a fucking plaque to us.' He turned and drove his cigarette into the ashtray, and looked for a moment like he wanted to hurl the statuette. 'Who would have thought it, huh? Alan Carr, voice of the world, should be so lucky to grow up, been friends with—best friends!—a fucking prodigy. A virtuoso! And no one would have known, no one would have cared if it hadn't been—I did some good! That was some good I did there. I gave him a life. I gave him a future. He would have been nothing—nothing!—if I hadn't made him go...you make sure you write that down. You write that! Edward Towne would have been nothing without me.'

He lit another cigarette, and the plume of smoke that crowned his head seemed to calm the fleeting rage. 'I'll tell you this though, it was no coincidence. This didn't happen by a quirk of luck. It wasn't one of those anomalies that we stop and consider and say, 'oh, how funny!' and then go on about our lives. This was designed, this was set forth by divine providence—it had to be! God Almighty looked across the scope of the world, and He saw His Center of the Center on a steep decline, and He decided to give it one, last chance. Two boys, of no importance or consequence, no lineage or wealth, were put on this Earth to give St. Gregory's what it had long sought.

Renown!

Glory!

That place, harbinger of ill, reservoir of castaways, would now have a chance to be free of its dishonorable reputations, free to luxuriate in a new moniker:
Center of the Center of the Fucking World: Home of the Greats!
And they didn't even do us the courtesy of a motherfucking plaque! Not a mention! It's like we never existed...'

Alan Carr looked sullenly at the Wurlitzer in the corner of the room, the very same that had long ago been an anniversary present. 'Veiled Lady bullshit,' he muttered, but wouldn't elaborate as he took another drag. 'No one could have dreamed what would be born out of that living room. Not even Pa, and he was so very good at dreaming...He trained us—drilled us, more like. Every Saturday, us two products of divine inspiration sat and sweat in Apt. 23, studying and soaking up every bit of knowledge—always relating to Irish music—the old man possessed. And we were each, in our own ways, obsessives. I trained my voice, I studied the songs that Pa threw at me with diligence and attentiveness. Far more attentiveness that I ever gave my actual studies. I wanted to be better, I wanted to get back to that stage in the Sparrow, the pinnacle of stages for me. I wanted to be cheered. I wanted to drown in adulation. And always in my ear:

'You can be better, Bud. Be better!'

Each of us obsessives...yeah...but...not that Ed cared so much about attention. His focus was always technical. He was no placid saint, don't be confused. He could be savage! He could be cruel when he wanted something. Remorseless! Things came to him so easily...he wouldn't—couldn't, I suppose—appreciate that others struggled:

'Jesus, Bud,' he'd say. 'How many fuckin' times you gonna miss that note?'

'Bud! You fuckin' suck today!'

'Bud, it's too blue. Too blue! Put some fuckin' red into it!'

And Pa encouraged him to be like that. Pa liked to watch him berate me. Pa liked that drive. He liked how it controlled Ed. But that's where he was wrong, don't you see?! It didn't control him. Ed wasn't a slave to perfection, no...no, he was fascinated by it, in love with it. That's the difference. He fucking loved his talent as much as I loved my own, you write that about Edward Towne. He was just like me...not better, not worse...just the same...
And Pa...he didn't just like to fawn on Ed, mind you. He found ways to challenge him, found ways to bring out...a fucking monster...' a sly smile broke over the man's mouth. 'You should have seen my boy with his instruments. God, it was something gorgeous. No, Ed couldn't sing. He wasn't much of a presence or personality, according to Pa, but hand him an instrument he'd never touched, and the most wonderful madness would over take Edward Towne. True, feral, insanity. He wouldn't be satisfied until he could break the damn thing to his will. It never took long. A couple of days here and there, but...watching him wrestle...piano, guitar, violin, whatever Pa could get him. He had a lot of fun with the banjo, and an even better time with the tin whistle—and then there were the spoons. Those fucking spoons...'