Skipper's Heartbeat (PRN)

eighteen

"I think it's about time you learn something different." Prince reaches into his bag and pulls out a number of music sheets. "Check it out." He places the transcription before me.

Holding the sheets in my hands, I look through the pages with my mind struggling to translate the notes. Is it possible to be dyslexic in music? Everything was fine until he pulled out this bologna. He watches me from where he sits as I attempt to make sense of the hidden language. He knows I can't read the music. Why would he give me this?

"I don't get it..." I place the music on the stand and look at him. "Can you play it first?"

Prince chuckles, pushing me over on the bench. I always end up being amazed that he doesn't even need to look at the music. He makes me feel a like a resident of Idiot City when it comes to piano lessons. I don't know too many people as good at anything as Prince is good at the piano. He says his father plays too. I guess there is some kind of hereditary talent gene being passed down in the Nelson family.

My mother, passing through the room, teases a true warning in a casual sing-song voice. "Too close." I scoot to the right a little bit.

Prince stops in the middle of playing the song. "Hey, Mo..." My head turns. He cringes at his own words as refuses to look me in the eyes. "I been meaning to tell you that, uh, we got to raincheck our date tonight... and the one Friday."

"Why?" I probe with obvious skepticism of his explanation. I have a reason to wonder. He's been acting weird all day and now he wants to cancel and reschedule plans that we've had set up for days.

"I'm going down— We're," he corrects himself, "We're going down to play a gig in St. Paul. It's gone be some big league guys down there that'll be watching. You should come down."

My eyes rest heavily on his face. I should come down.

I stand up and back away from the piano. "I think we're forgetting a detail."

Prince never misses the chance to remind me that I don't meet the requirements to squeeze into one of his gigs. Trust me, I've tried to visit and show support. He's never bit his tongue when it came to reminding me that breaking the rules for seventeen and eighteen year old's is a lot easier than doing it for a fifteen year old. Ir's bugged me so much that I've thought about getting a fake ID. The issue of security hasn't always been so strict. This only happened with some new rule Governor Anderson pushed last year.

"Right... I'm sorry." I turn away from him. I don't want to look at him right now. "Why don't we finish up lessons? Rehearsal is in a couple of minutes and I told them that I'll only be late by ten minutes." I don't even want to do this anymore. In all actuality, I rather go watch television and laugh with Lindsey, maybe some others from school.

"Sure."

When my time is up on his watch, he rushes to pack his stuff. He shoves his things into his bag. "Check you later, Mo." My neck extends for a kiss but he only runs out the door.

It is still daylight and I have all the time in the world to do whatever I desire. I run up to my room and pack a bag as fast as I can. "Mama, can I go spend the night with Lindsey?"

"Go on."

As I'm walking down the street, I see Benny Flores riding his bike and he seems to be coming in my direction. What could he possibly want from me?

When I was in the sixth grade, Benny Flores and a number of his flunkies called me Small Fry. Everybody else in the grade was so much older than me. I was barely breaking the barrier of double digits. You'd think that wasn't too much of a difference. Well, with my height at my disadvantage, I looked about five or six years olds. One day, they set up this whole master plan to ruin my life. They had a set that up to a perfect point. Children are cruel but boys are evil. Lindsey had heard about it and practically saved me. That's a pretty brief story of how we met.