21. Songs of Our Fathers
Mountain reveals the source of his musical ambitions...sort of.
This is an ongoing story, meant to be read in order. If you’re just arriving here for the first time, please start at the beginning by following the index.
I pull the Saturn up to Mountain’s nondescript prairie-style house on the west side of Evanston—as far away from Northwestern University and its sky-high property taxes as possible.
The futile attempt at an early winter sleety rain has given way to an early winter frozen mist. The car, sensing what’s coming, coughs once, then stops, just missing the wheels of an overturned recycling bin jutting out into the street.
Mountain hasn’t spoken for the past 20 minutes; he hasn’t moved for the past ten and, staring straight ahead, doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to start now.
“We’re here,” I offer.
“Oh...yeah.” He looks around in a slow-motion startle. “I was thinking about my father.”
“The physicist.” I unlock the doors.
“Astrophysicist,” he huffs. He attempts to unfold his lanky frame but then sighs, gives up, and leans back, closing his eyes. This might take a while. “There is a difference.”
“He must be why you weave all those cosmological themes into your music.”
“We’re all trying to resolve and finish the work of our parents. It’s unavoidable.” He grabs the dashboard to pull himself up but again falls back.
“Really? So you’re attempting somehow to resolve your father’s physics with your mother’s literary genius? And I’m, what, trying to resolve cardiology with politics?”
“Maybe science with idealism, or reason with passion. Obviously, it’s not that direct. It’s the duality of impulses you inherit from your parents. They’re always at war with each other to some extent. Your parents are at war within you. You have to resolve their conflicts, or at least try to get anything meaningful done.”
“Unless you decide to fight a completely different battle.” I restart the car for the heat, sensing we are beginning another battle of our own.
“Even if you are fighting another battle, you are unavoidably fighting it on their terms, with their mental-emotional DNA. One side will usually dominate, but both sides will have their say. Can’t help it. You are literally who you are—half mom, half dad.”
He opens the door and begins the process of getting out, this time grabbing the top of the door frame, which begins to swing back in, almost closing on his right hand.
“Shit.” He pulls his hand back in, avoiding injury, then falls back into his seat again. Bucket seats are no place for tall creaky old men.
Mountain sighs deeply and turns to me. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to come and help me out here.”
“Right.” I turn off the engine, jump out and run around to his side.
After pulling him out, he stands up straight, stretching his arms high. I wait.
“Thanks,” I say.
“What? Oh, yeah, thanks.”
“Anytime. So what about your dad?”
“What about him?
“You said you were thinking about him.”
“I am.”
“What about?”
He opens the back door to get his guitars. “Is this really your business?”
“You brought it up.” I pop the trunk and start pulling out his amp.
“I just said I was thinking about him. Which wasn’t necessarily an invitation for a follow-up question.”
“Wasn’t necessarily…and yet—“
“I was thinking about the fact that at some point, he gave up.”
“Gave up what—“
“Well, we all do. Nobody resolves it; nobody completes the work.”
“Of their parents.”
“Of anything.”
His next-door neighbor’s living room light flicks. An eye peeks through a Venetian blind. Seeing that I notice, the blind and the eye quickly shut.
“What? My neighbors? The Kings?” He’s looking the other way but notices the light. “Talk about people who didn’t complete the work—those motherfuckers never even started. They assumed their parents’ flaws like they were a gift, then built upon them like they had founded a new religion.”
“Racists?”
“Well, that ain’t new exactly.”
“No.”
“Come to think of it, religions are founded by dudes trying to work out their parents’ issues.”
I grunt as I lift his amp out of the trunk. “Yeah. Probably. Maybe.”
He’s still staring at his neighbor’s window, waiting, perhaps, to see if the guy (I think it was a guy eye) will peak out again. “What are you doing right now?”
“What do you mean, ‘What am I doing,” I laugh. “I’m unloading your shit.”
He ignores this. “Do you have five minutes? I want to play you something.”
I’m tired and want to go home. Tired of listening to music after playing it all day, then sitting through two sets of Mountain. But he’s the Mountain, my failed mentor, but still my mentor, so I shrug. “Sure.”
We carry his rig into the house and set it down in the living room as he turns on some lights.
“Check this out….” He’s looking through his LP collection.
“You still play LPs?”
“It’s here…somewhere…Ah. This right here? This is the shit.”
I try to peak at the album cover, but he quickly covers it. “Uh uh, son. You need to listen without knowing.”
“How very Zen of you.”
“Yeah, that’s about the right idea.” He places the record on the turntable, turns his system on, gently places the arm about a third of the way in, then backs away as if to unveil an unknown masterpiece.