When we began our junior year, Baback was changed.
He returned five inches taller and was ripped with so many bulging muscles. He’d grown out his thick black hair and began keeping it in a ponytail. And he had these fantastic cheekbones that all of the girls noticed. He no longer looked like a kid to pick on or pity.
When I went to the auditorium during lunch period, he broke the silence by saying, “I’ve been thinking about you, Leonard. Why do you come here every day to hear me play?”
“It’s the best thing that happens at this school on a daily basis. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“You should pay to listen,” he said. “I’m providing a service for you. Artists need to be compensated. If you give it away for free, people stop appreciating art. It loses its value.”
“What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look different. You talk now. You seem confident.”
He laughed and said, “I spent the summer in Iran studying music. I grew up a little, I guess. Literally and metaphorically. But you’re either paying for the privilege of listening to me play, or you’re going to leave.”
“How much do you want?”
“I don’t know,” he said in a way that suggested he was expecting me to leave. “Maybe pay what you will? But something. I’m not playing for free anymore.”
“Why don’t you leave your violin case open and I’ll put something in it every day I come listen? I’ve seen musicians do that on the streets of Philly.”
“Okay,” he said, and then began to play.
When he was finished, I walked up to the stage and dropped a five-dollar bill into his violin case. He nodded, which I assumed meant he was okay with the amount.
So I gave him my lunch money every day for the rest of the year—except for a few times when either he or I was absent, or when the drama club was in the auditorium creating sets for plays and Baback didn’t practice.
My daily donations added up to more than eight hundred dollars by the end of the year. I know because Baback told me the exact number on the last day of classes junior year, saying, “I sent every penny to True Democracy in Iran, a nonprofit fighting for, well, true democracy in Iran.”
I thought it was a good cause to support, so I nodded.
I saw Baback in the hallway during finals and when I flagged him down, before I could explain what I wanted, he said, “Do you want to hang out sometime, Leonard? Maybe see a movie or something? We don’t really know each other, do we? It’s kind of odd, don’t you think?”
I thought about it and said, “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but listening to you play your violin is by far the best part of my day. And I think part of the magic is that I don’t really know you at all, but only as a performing musician. And I worry that if I got to know you as a friend or whatever, your music might not seem as magical. Did that ever happen to you? You think someone is really important and different, but then you get to know them and it ruins everything? Do you know what I’m talking about?”
He laughed and said, “No. Not really.”
“Can I listen to you practice sometime over the summer? I’ll pay you five dollars.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s a great idea. It would probably weird out my parents if you were just sitting in my practice space staring at me. And I’m going to Iran at the end of the month to visit relatives and continue my musical training with my grandfather. So I won’t be around much,” he said, obviously backpedaling, maybe because he found my explanation weird.
“Okay, then. See you next year,” I said, and handed him an envelope I had labeled TRUE DEMOCRACY IN IRAN!
I had talked Linda into donating five hundred bucks as a tax write-off. She needs those for her business and is always eager to buy me off/assuage her guilty absent-mom conscience with money. The check was inside, but I didn’t want him to open it in front of me, so I said, “That’s for later. I look forward to listening next year. Enjoy your time abroad.”
This year when I met him at the auditorium during senior lunch he was even taller and more confident-looking. Baback smiled and said, “I told my grandmother about you and your donation. She made you some tasbih beads. Persian prayer beads. But some people use them as worry beads. Here.”
He handed me this long looped string of reddish-brown wooden beads with a tassel on the end.
“Thanks,” I said, and put the beads around my neck.
He smiled and then said, “You don’t have to pay to listen to my music anymore. You can listen for free. My grandfather says that music is a gift you give to others when you can. I told him about you and the donations. He said I should play for you without charging money. So I will.”
I nodded and took my regular seat at the back of the auditorium.
Baback played his music.
I didn’t think it was possible, but he was better—more magical—than the year before.
I closed my eyes, listened, and disappeared.