Starlight Rhapsody, Chapter 1
Introduction
This story begins in 1946 in Boston, Massachusetts. The author was born in 1953 and never experienced life during the time in which the story takes place.
The concept for Starlight Rhapsody was conceived as I awoke one morning. I rushed to my PC to save the idea in a text file, and wound up staying at the PC for the entire day as the first four chapters literally wrote themselves. This novel is a complete work of fiction and the characters bear no resemblance to any real persons, living or dead. The main character's Christian name was chosen because it was the name of an online friend, but the use of his name is the only characteristic they have in common. I sincerely hope you will enjoy Starlight Rhapsody. It is a story filled with love, affection, friendships, relationships, competition and jubilation, however it was written as a same-sex love story without being pornographic. I cannot imagine that I could have written a different story with the same commitment and dedication I have given to this one. Those wishing to communicate with me about Starlight Rhapsody can do so at junkmail01801@gmail.com.
Chapter 1
James and Ann Marie Kennedy were a very happy couple. Their home was always filled with music, whether it be James's records of symphonies and concertos from the great classical composers like Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven and others, or the dance band hits from America that Ann Marie would hear on the radio. James also played cello and his wife the piano in a local concert orchestra. Occasionally he would take his wife to dance the waltz and fox trot in one of Boston's ballrooms.
James was only 20 when he married his bride, two years his junior. Their families had been friends for many years, and the couple practically grew up together. As a teen, James realized how beautiful and graceful Ann Marie had become. His father had made high quality furniture, and James spent many hours of his youth in his father's workshop, where his father taught his son his trade. It is unclear if the two families arranged the marriage or if the bride and groom chose one another on their own, but it didn't matter, as they were happy. In 1935, they became the proud parents of a baby boy, whom they properly named Alexander, but informally shortened to just Alex.
From the time of his birth to his earliest recognition of it, Alex was rarely out of earshot of music. As a toddler, he would bounce when he'd hear the up-tempo dance numbers his mother favored, while the dulcet tones of his father's shellac discs lulled him to sleep. When he turned six, his father taught him to count in time with the music, which seemed to come naturally to Alex. James was proud of his son's natural sense of rhythm, and wondered of Alex got it from himself or his mother. When his parents thought he was mature enough to sit through a live concert, he was allowed to sit in the audience while they performed. Taking his cues from the rest of the audience, he would appear to be applauding the orchestra, but in his mind he was applauding his folks!
One day, just before Alex's eighth birthday, a piano arrived at the Kennedy residence. James made a deal with a piano maker to build the cabinets for the man's instruments, making one more than the man ordered, and the man filled the cabinet with the musical workings at his cost. To have bought a complete piano of equal quality would have cost James ten times what he spent! Ann Marie would play and sing Irish folk songs, and would attempt her own versions of American and European popular songs she heard on the radio, keeping young Alex entertained. She began teaching Alex how to pick out tunes on the piano by ear, but was not equipped to give him any formal musical education. By this time, Alex was old enough to play records himself on the family record player, and had begun to identify the ones he liked by the designs on the record labels, then eventually by composer and title. Like most children, he enjoy Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker," but also Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade," and his favorite, Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# Minor." In just a few months, he had worn out the latter record, forcing James to buy a new copy. His father thought it unusual that a boy of his age would wear out a record performed at such a slow tempo and written in a minor key, but Alex soon wore out the replacement copy as well. Although their son's love of music was proving to be an expensive proposition, James and Ann Marie didn't seem to mind. The boy was happy and had a passion for music. At least he wasn't outside, running around, playing baseball with his friends and breaking people's windows or getting into some other form of mischief. For that, his parents were grateful.
Shortly after the arrival of the piano, Ann Marie discovered she was pregnant and that year, Alex was presented with a baby sister that his parents named Christine, after Ann Marie's mother. Alex didn't know what to make of this tiny creature who seemed to always smell funny, cry a lot, and require lots of attention from his parents. James and Ann Marie believed in having a lot of physical contact with both of their children, expressing their love and affection. Alex would hold Christine in his lap, and cradle her in his arms as if it was second nature to do so. It was, after all, how his parents treated him as an infant. He would hum melodies he knew from the records and his parents' concerts as she lie in her crib, formerly his, so that she would fall peacefully to sleep. Alex became his sister's constant companion when he had free time, and she would smile at him with her wide eyes as though she knew her brother loved her, which he did.
In those days, record stores would put all the available stock into bins customers could browse, and if they found a record they thought they might like, a phonograph was available on which they could listen to it. If they liked it, they bought that copy. If they didn't, they just put it back in the bin and browsed for another. The first time Ann Marie brought Alex into a record store, he was wide-eyed upon seeing all the records. Ann Marie wanted some American record by Ella Fitzgerald she'd heard about chewing bubble gum, but Alex requested Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Minor." Ann Marie told him to ask his father for that, after discovering it took four records for the entire concerto, with two sides for each movement. Since the store didn't have her Ella Fitzgerald record, she selected Freddy Martin and his Orchestra's dance arrangement of the same Tchaikovsky concerto that her son wanted. She took it over to the store's record player and let the needle reproduce the song, but when the boy heard it, he looked at her funny and asked, "Who ruined it? It's awful!" Ann Marie returned the record to the bin and left the store without buying anything.
By the time he was ten, James began bringing his son to his shop to help out with menial chores, such as sweeping up sawdust, bundling wood scraps to be burned for heat, and whatever other light duties might arise. A radio was always on in the workshop, tuned to a station that broadcast classical music. James paid his son enough each week to buy a few records, go to movies with his neighborhood friends, and buy himself some sweets for snacks. The boy soon discovered that if he didn't waste his money on sweets and the movies, he could bring home an additional record. Eventually, he had a pretty good collection of 78s, a few more than James, in fact. Most of his records were either piano solos or orchestral works featuring a pianist, although he had string quartets, harpsichord solos, violin solos, and even a copy of the "Okeh Laughing Record" he found at a bazaar. Whenever he wasn't in school, hanging out with his friends, or working in the shop for James, Alex could be found at home with his records. Part of this was because Alex's friends were fond of ice skating and playing hockey, neither of which appealed to Alex.
James started teaching Alex the basics of carpentry, beginning with sanding the hardwoods prior to applying the finish, then eventually the proper methods of rubbing in the various stains and brushing on the gloss. To say that Alex was not an attentive student would be a gross understatement, since the boy seemed always to be distracted by the melodies emanating from the radio. Finally, James realized that his son was far too interested in music to become his heir to the family business and decided Alex required an education in music. He had planned to have a friend of his, a piano teacher, give the boy music lessons, however those plans were aborted due to unforeseen circumstances. One evening, the family left their home for a concert in which James and Ann Marie were performing. On the program was Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor," the same concerto Alex wanted (and eventually bought) on records. The musicians took their places, with James on cello and Ann Marie as the featured soloist, while Alex sat in the audience in the second row, behind the sponsors of the concert. Alex listened intently as the orchestra played the three movements of the concerto, which lasted 35 minutes, after which the orchestra continued with a few pieces that were unfamiliar to him, including some modern thing that was very dissonant and unappealing to the boy. Finally, the concert ended, and the family climbed into their vehicle to return home. They were on the road only a few minutes when they approached an intersection. James, always a cautions driver, looked in every direction and, seeing no approaching vehicles, proceeded into the crossroads when, out of nowhere, came a speeding truck with no headlights. Bam! The truck plowed into the family's car with such a broadsided impact that the car was then on its side with the front seat of the driver's side totally crushed. James and Christine died instantly, while Ann Marie and Alex survived with Ann Marie in a coma and Alex suffering two broken legs. The boy was in such intense pain that he passed out for what seemed like a day. When he awoke, he was in a hospital bed with both of his legs in casts, unable to get out of bed. A doctor came in to ask him if he remembered what happened, which he did not, and the doctor explained to the boy that his father and sister were dead and his mother was unconscious in a room down the hall. Alex asked to see Ann Marie, and the doctor arranged for a wheelchair to take him down the hall to visit her. When he was wheeled to her bed, she was all cut and bruised from the windshield glass that shattered during the impact. The eleven year-old burst into tears, only then realizing that he might lose Ann Marie as well. The doctor tried to console the boy, but to no avail. Alex was returned to his hospital bed and the morphine they gave him for his pain let him sleep.
Ann Marie Kennedy remained in a coma and was transferred from the hospital to a chronic care facility. Since the hospital had no provision for providing a safe haven for a child with no parents to care for him, he was sent to St. Patrick's orphanage, a facility operated by the Roman Catholic Church. He was to remain there until he hit puberty, unless Ann Marie came out of the coma, when he would be transferred to a government-run home for boys. St. Patrick's was a good orphanage. The children were treated well, although meals were less-than-spectacular. The staff was kind, but strict, and the director, Father Sean Moriarty was a famous and well-respected man. Being operated by the church, religious instruction was imperative, and Alex was taught to pray for God's help to deal with his disability, and that He would eventually heal his legs. Being eleven, of course Alex was skeptical, but he did as recommended while using a wheelchair for mobility. Since he couldn't be physically active with the other children when his legs were in casts, Alex found himself with too much time to mourn his losses. He thought about his father and the times he'd spent with him in the furniture shop, his sister that he used to bounce on his knee or chase on all fours as she crawled around the house, and shopping with his mother, especially at the record store to buy new records. Records, he thought! He asked if was possible to have his records at the orphanage, but was told everything the family possessed had to be sold to pay for his and his mother's care. Naturally, this made the boy feel even worse, until he spied an old piano in a corner of the dining hall. Alex inquired if he might use the piano while the other children were engaged in their activities, and permission was granted, an event that, however minor, changed Alex's future forever.
Not having had any musical instruction, Alex would attempt to pick out familiar melodies with one finger of his right hand. These weren't complex classical compositions, but simple pop melodies he remembered from Ann Marie's dance records, like Glenn Miller's "In the Mood," Artie Shaw's "Moonglow," and Benny Goodman's "Let's Dance" which, unknown to Alex, was a swing adaptation of Von Weber's "Invitation to the Dance." These were tunes he had already learned to partially pick out on the piano at home, but now, having a lot of time and no records to play, he was left to create the melodies on his own. It was not an easy process, as this particular piano was so out-of-tune, that everything sounded dissonant. In spite of the poor condition of the instrument, Alex familiarized himself with which keys on the piano produced certain notes, and began to try picking out classical pieces, beginning with his favorite, Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# Minor." One day, Mrs. Krystal O'Reilly, a 42 year-old widow, stopped by St. Patrick's to visit her friend, Father Sean Moriarty. Upon passing the dining hall, Krystal heard the boy's feeble attempt at the Rachmaninoff "Prelude," and entered the hall to see who was desecrating the piece. Her mother had been a piano teacher, so naturally, Krystal could play and in fact, had been a concert pianist. She gave up her career in music upon marrying her late husband, when she turned her professional life to her first love, being a sculptor. In the dining hall, she encountered Alex, his legs in casts, seated in his wheelchair in front of the old piano.
"I take it you like music?" she inquired.
"I like music very much," he replied. "My father played cello. He died in an accident. My mother plays piano, but she's in a coma. We always had music playing at our house, and I had a lot of records."
"What music do you like?" Mrs. O'Reilly asked the boy.
The boy told her the names of the classical pieces and popular tunes he liked and who performed them on the family's records, and that his favorite was the Rachmaninoff "Prelude." Mrs. O'Reilly suggested that the boy move out of the way and she pulling the bench up to it, sat down and played the "Prelude" for Alex. Of course, it sounded awful coming from that piano, but Alex enjoyed it nonetheless. He thanked her for playing it, and she asked him to remain with the piano while she took care of some business with Father Moriarty and then she would return.
"I'm not going anywhere," Alex said with a faint smile.
Krystal O'Reilly lost her husband to cancer three years prior to her introduction to Alex. He left her independently wealthy, and she had amassed a considerable fortune of her own as a musician and sculptor. While her father had passed away nine years prior, her mother passed away the previous year, leaving the family's possessions to Krystal. One of those was her mother's piano. Krystal's music room already had a concert grand, so a second piano was unnecessary and found its way into storage. Being a dynamic, devil-may-care personality, and being quite used to using her influence, the woman's meeting with Father Sean Moriarty yielded positive results for Alex.
"It's nice to see you, Father Moriarty!" Krystal exclaimed.
"What a pleasant surprise, Krystal," Father Moriarty replied. "How have you been?"
"Bored," she complained. "I have more work than I know what to do with, but it's always the same thing. Women want busts made of their husband's heads. Nothing more, nothing less."
"What will you do about it?" Father Moriarty asked.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe take a trip for inspiration," she answered. "By the way, I see you have a boy here who was in an accident recently. What can you tell me about him?"
Father Moriarty gave Krystal the details he knew about Alex Kennedy, about the accident, James's furniture business and being a cellist with his wife on piano in the concert orchestra. Krystal's mind began thinking of possibilities, but was unsure of how probable they might become, but decided to suggest them to her friend for Alex's benefit.
"I have my mother's piano in storage," she said. That THING you have in the dining hall isn't worth the power it would take to blow it to hell!" she exclaimed. I will donate my mother's piano to your orphanage, IF, and only IF, you will allow me to give that boy piano lessons. I could tell just by meeting him for a few moments that the child has a passion for music. It would be a shame to waste that passion if the boy has talent."
"Well, I have the authority to accept your gift on behalf of the institution and the church, and considering the grief I know the boy is suffering, he can certainly use a diversion, something that will take his mind away from his loss," the priest answered. "I think your suggestion has merit all the way around. When would you like to begin teaching the boy, and how often would you want to work with him?"
"Your people can come get the piano anytime," was her response. "I don't need to use it right away, because I have to teach the boy staffs, spaces, clefs, time signatures and everything involved with reading music before I can tutor him on the piano. For what I need to do now, I just need a table and two chairs, which are already in the dining hall. Can you give me two hours with him twice a week, maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays?"
"That is too simple, my dear," Father Moriarty replied. "Of course, I can."
"Then it's done!" Krystal exclaimed. "May I go tell Alex?"
"Be my guest," said Father Moriarty.
Krystal left her friend's office as though she was a sprite, flying without wings. She returned to the dining hall as she had promised to tell Alex of her plan, without letting him know it was arranged in advance. Alex was still one-fingering the Rachmaninoff "Prelude."
"You really like that piece, don't you?" Krystal asked.
"It really is my favorite," the boy replied.
"Is the piano your favorite instrument?" she inquired.
"We had one in our house," he said. "I did the same thing there I'm doing here, so I guess it is. I've never tried to play on anything else."
"How would you like to really learn how to play the piano?" she offered. "I could come to give you lessons twice a week, and on a better piano than this junk. I have an extra one I don't need and I'm letting St. Patrick's have it. This one can be used for firewood!"
"I'd really like that," Alex told her. "When?" he asked.
"Today is Friday. I will be here next Tuesday and we'll have our first lesson," she said. "We will start with the music as it is written on paper so you can learn to read it. Once you understand the notes, you will learn which keys to use on the piano that correspond to the notes on the paper."
Alex had mixed feeling about what she said, because it sounded very academic, and he initially thought learning the piano would offer a more hands-on approach. Still, the notion of being taught how to actually play the instrument appealed to him, and told Krystal, "It sounds like a lot of work, but I'll give it a try. Music is almost everything to me, now that I'm stuck her all by myself without my family."
"We will have two hours for each lesson, and you will have some work to do on your own in between each one," Krystal told him. "We can take our time, because there is no rush, and you will want to do everything correctly or you won't be any good at playing. I will see you next Tuesday, then."
"All right," Alex said with a smile. "Thank you!"
Alex wondered why this pretty lady with such a bubbly personality would want to teach him how to play the piano. He wondered what benefit she might get from her offer. What he didn't know was that this lady who appeared to be full of enthusiasm for life was in fact a lonely soul. Even though she was a wealthy widow, she felt her life still belonged to the man she married, and he was taken away from her. Krystal could not bring herself to begin dating another man when she still carried a torch for her late husband. Alex presented her with companionship for four hours each week, as well as a challenge as her student of pianoforte. The arrangement benefitted both of them in ways the boy was unaware, and no one could foresee the effects it could have on the future.
"Alexander!" Father Moriarty shouted with a smile as he walked into the dining hall. "I hear you've become a music student." He knew the boy was still suffering grief as the result of the accident, and having casts on his legs prohibited much interaction with the other children. "How do you like the idea?"
The boy smiled weakly and replied, "I think it is fine."
"Do you like Mrs. O'Reilly?" Father Moriarty asked.
That was something Alex was enthusiastic about. The woman's personality was just so effervescent and positive. "Oh, yes!" the boy exclaimed. "She's really nice! She seems to smile all the time!"
Father Moriarty had known Krystal for many years and had in fact dated her before she met her husband. In fact, his loss of Krystal's love was the reason he had entered the priesthood. He knew that behind the façade behind which she presented herself, she was really very lonely. It was part of the reason he agreed to let her tutor Alex. Father Moriarty also knew that, while he still maintained a social friendship with Krystal, contact with her would have to be limited. Her presence in his life could threaten to jeopardize his standing in the Church, and it would be scandalous for both of them. It was wise for them to have agreed on two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he could make himself scarce while Krystal was tutoring her pupil.
Alex was becoming totally irritated by the casts on his legs. They were creating itches he could not scratch, he couldn't change the pants he had to wear, couldn't bathe or use a toilet on his own, and had to urinate into a bottle. The boy found all of this humiliating, to say the least. Father Moriarty would have someone take Alex to see his mother once every couple of weeks, but there was no change in her condition. He would sit in a wheelchair, hold her hand, and talk to her because it gave him comfort. He told her about Mrs. O'Reilly's offer to give him music lessons and how nice a woman she was, and just going over the details in her room brought him some inner peace. Never a visit transpired without Alex's eyes welling up with tears, though. Each visit stirred up memories of a life to which he knew he'd never return. The love and affection he received from his parents and which he shared with them and his sister would be forever missing from his life, leaving him in a similar situation to Krystal O'Reilly! Alex didn't comprehend the events that were unfolding in his life, and that perhaps they might be God's answers to his prayers. Time would tell.
(To be continued)