Bang Plan

IV

Somehow that weekend was so average, but so extraordinary. It was really just a regular few nights of going out, following the flow of the typical Harvard social calendar that runs you into the ground by mid-October. Kind of thrilling in that you're there, but ultimately kind of boring. Boring except for, you know, all the specifics. I've been ripped away from life as I knew it just days ago, and thrust into Archie's world. Sandy pulled me in, and I pushed her deeper. It sounds dramatic, since I've only known him Archie for such a short time. But it's true. He shows no intention of backing off, and he's already proven himself to be a good friend in telling off Mike at dinner. I feel like a groupie saying it, but I really enjoy Archie's company, and how he brightens up my best friend's face. Sandy and I would usually go a lot of places alone, or with our blocking group friends. Which is always fun. But it feels special to have this little friend group of our own. I don't think too hard about the fact that the only reason it's a group and not a third-wheeling situation is Mike. As much as I detest him, I rely on his presence. He is an obstacle between Archie and Sandy, but he enables me to be nearby. I feel crazy as I think it, but truly: they will get nowhere on their own because they're both too polite about it.

I'm zoning out in Conducting class, by the way. It's Tuesday afternoon. I've got my viola in formal rest position, because the maestro insists. Maestro Robbens is a visiting professor. He came from the Philadelphia Symphony, and he is very... particular.

The student conductor stands on the block. Robbens circles him, giving pointed advice and adjusting as he sees fit. The kid gives us an apologetic direction, and we play from the top for probably the fifteenth time. Robbens stops him and lifts his elbow a bit. And the sixteenth repetition begins.

People think that playing an instrument is effortless if you're good. I guess I'm good enough to be in this program, and I have to employ all my attention when I play. The goal is to make it look effortless, but I'm not sure I seek to achieve it. The viola was my first instrument, the one I love most deeply. I love that it sounds like a richer, darker violin. Or a little cello that you play under your chin. I don't want to feel or look like I'm not trying.

I maintain disciplined flexibility in my shoulder, elbow, and wrist movements on my right hand, the bow hand. I keep my fingers spring-loaded and my wrist relaxed for a rich vibrato in my left hand. I also have to listen for and adjust the notes' intonation in an instant, because an out-of-tune note sticks out like a sore thumb in such a small ensemble. I straighten my back, conscious of my posture because my body always wants to bend under the instrument's weight. With the tempo in my chest and my eyes on... maestro-in-training Matt? I manage to not rush for the rest of the piece before it's my turn to conduct.

As I play the familiar and simple music of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, I'm swept away in a memory. I played the piece in high school. I smile a bit, and put my viola down as Robbens stops us to lecture. Suddenly, I'm seventeen again. I go to Milton Academy, as a day student. I go to class and play viola in school, and after, I go to squash practice. And then I trudge to the student lot and climb in the ancient, beat-up Land Rover that was given to me as a hand-me-down from my older brother Charles, who got it from our even older cousin Sam. Charles is about to graduate from Bowdoin College, and bought a Jeep up in Maine with his Goldman Sachs internship money. He's free up north, and I'm trapped at home. But the drive to the house is my solace. I don't mind the traffic. Once I get out of it, I stop at the one traffic light in my town, rattle down our long driveway, and drag my viola case, squash bag, and backpack into the white-clapboarded house with once-glossy black shutters. It was an opulent, nautical mansion in the 1800s, when it belonged to an ancestor who invested in big ships and taught at Harvard. Now, there's never a flower in the window boxes or a remedy for the paint flakes.