Page 36 of Behind the Bars

“Look at me with those stupid Snow White doe eyes.” He groaned. “Fine, fine, but if we do this, I have a few rules of my own, like one: we will go to the studio after this datething.”

“Okay, deal.” My grin spread from ear toear.

“Wait, I’m not done, and you’ll also let me meet this boy. I drive and drop you twooff.”

I grimaced. “You’re not going to harass him, areyou?”

He laughed. “Oh, I’m going to harass him. I’m going to inform him that I’m going to make his life a living hell if he ever tries anything or breaks your heart.” He held his hand out toward me. “Deal or nodeal?”

I grumbled, stood up, and shook his hand. “Deal.”

Chapter Nine

Elliott

Uncle TJ kept frowningduring my music lesson Friday afternoon. “No, no, no. That’s not right,” he said, cutting me off as I played the saxophone. He marched back and forth in his living room, waving his arms around. “There’s nothingthere.”

“What?”

“The way you’re playing, it’s boring. There’s nothing there—no heart, nomeaning.”

“I played e-exactly what you wanted,” I stuttered, growing irritated by his criticism. We’d been working on the same opening bars for over two hours. We’d spent the past week working on the same section over and over. I was tired of hearing myselfplay.

“Yes, you played the chords, you hit the notes, blah, blah, blah.” He grimaced, still waving his arms around. “But where’s thevoice?”

“What?”

“Where’s. Your. Voice?” he asked again, this time moreemphatically.

“I don’t k-know what that m-means,” I barkedback.

He locked his eyes with mine, and sat down on his sofa. “You don’t know what thatmeans?”

“No.”

“It means, Elliott”—he lifted his cup of coffee from the side table—“that you sound likeshit.”

“There’s no way to make it better,” I argued. “It just is what itis.”

“Play itagain.”

I groaned. “But—”

“Play itagain.”

Sometimes working with Uncle TJ drove me insane. He always pushed me to give him something I could never deliver, but still, I kept showing up to our lessons, because at the end of the day, he was alwaysright.

I picked up the saxophone and began to play. My fingers moved against the keys and I performed the exact number he wanted me to, and still, it wasn’t goodenough.

When I finished, he didn’t make a peep. He didn’t criticize me. He didn’t hold the same annoyance in his stare. All he did was stand up, walk over to his own saxophone, and start toplay.

He played the same piece as Idid.

But man…it wasn’t thesame.

Uncle TJ performed in a way where his whole existence infused into the music. It wasn’t simply the saxophone that created sounds, but his soul bled out through each note. TJ made music that could fix any broken person. He made sounds that were meant to heal theworld.

When he finished, I sat looking like a fool. He took his seat and went back to sipping on hiscoffee.

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