“What’s with you and the pineapple juice?” James said. “You suck that shit down twenty-four-seven.”
“Vitamin C,” Will said, walking into the kitchen. “Keeps you from breaking out.”
Erik chuckled. “Among other things.”
“Don’t give away trade secrets, Fish,” Will called.
“What?” James said, looking from the kitchen to Erik and back again, eyebrows wrinkled.
Secure in the privacy of a private joke, Erik shook his head with a smile and went back to tinkering.
Difficult Time Signatures
Will chose not to dance in the fall concert. Instead he put all his energy into his senior project. Challenged by Kees to step away from classical ballet and create a work for the contemporary dancers, Will was struggling to come up with an idea. All through September he spent long hours listening to a variety of music, either loaded into his Walkman while working out or running, or playing on the stereo at the apartment.
He sat motionless or sprawled on his back in front of the speakers. He sighed and cursed a lot. Occasionally he jotted something in a notebook, only to tear out the page and throw it in a crumpled ball at the wall. Erik sensed the clouds of creative frustration releasing the first drops of creative terror and, he had to admit, he was more than a little fascinated. This was the eternally self-assured Will on the verge of panic. What would he do?
Then one evening James burst into the house on Colby Street, breathless and panting, waving a tape. “I got it,” he said. “Listen.”
He popped the tape into the stereo and tossed the empty case to Will, who looked and passed it to Erik. It was Philip Glass’s soundtrack for the movie Powaqqatsi. Out of the speakers blasted, of all things, a coach’s whistle. And then an explosion of joyful sound made Erik’s eyebrows first fly up, then wrinkle as he took in what sounded like an indigenous drum-and-bugle corps. First a hypnotic, repetitive foundation of acoustic percussion, followed by a cavalry charge of trumpets over fat tuba bass notes. Then a children’s choir layered a simple melody on top of the rhythmic cadence of constantly changing time signatures.
Will unfolded his tall body and stood up.
“How do you count this?” Erik asked, losing the beat and finding it again.
Daisy got up and helped James push the coffee table aside. Will continued to stand still.
“It’s straight eights,” Daisy said.
“No,” James said. “This section is two sets of eight then a set of six. But then it changes.”
“I count ten beats in every phrase,” Erik said.
“You can’t count,” James said, his eyes shining. “You have to sing it.”
“I like this,” Will said, both hands on his head. “Holy shit, I like this a lot.” He looked visionary. His chin nodded in time to the drums. His head tilted, his eyes closed. Fingers dug in his hair as his feet moved in a simple pattern. Three steps forward, one back. Three forward, one back. The back step became a hop. Then a hop with a half-turn to repeat the sequence facing the other way. Eight steps against ten beats in the music.
“It doesn’t match up,” Erik said.
“It’s not supposed to,” Will said.
Rapt, Erik watched as Will kept building on the theme. It had started as not much more than walking—literally steps. But by changing levels and changing dynamics, it evolved into a phrase. Will turned Daisy in one direction while he and James faced the other. The phrase became three dimensional. Will added arm movements, picking up the sharp percussion. “Wait, what did you just do?” he asked Daisy. “Do it again. I like yours better.”
“Are you writing this down, Erik?” Daisy said, smiling at him. Her cheeks were growing pink.
“Write it? I can’t even count it.”
“Don’t worry, I have it,” James said. “Wait until you hear the next section. It’s in five-four time. It’s sick.”