There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming. --Søren Kierkegaard
Every love story is a ghost story. --David Foster Wallace
Bad Rabbit - RABBIT’S PARENTS, lapsed Protestants, had managed to pass along the big-ticket ideas of Christianity, but practically speaking, Rabbit had learned Judeo-Christian history from the school of Indiana Jones. Bambi’s mother taught him about loss, and he was too in love with dinosaurs to entertain the idea of a literal seven-day Creation schedule. Charlie Brown (or rather, Linus) told him the Christmas
story; Jesus Christ Superstar covered the crucifixion. He did not regret his secular education. He may have been baptized Presbyterian, but music was his true religion. In his earliest memories he was sitting on the floor in the family room, in front of the giant stereo his parents had bought themselves as a wedding present, his face pressed into the padded fabric of one speaker. The fabric was prickly against his forehead but his nose fit perfectly into a little groove, and he could feel music spilling like molten gold through his entire body. He’d sit back on his heels when the song was over and his father, an accountant and amateur drummer whose (still-unrealized) dream was to open a jazz club and coffee house, would say “Order up!” and put another record on
the turntable. Rabbit’s favorite albums were by Earth, Wind & Fire (syncopation made his brain feel like it was laughing) and Also sprach
Zarathustra, its opening rumbling like an earthquake. And he loved The White Album, and when his mother played ABBA on the piano and
they’d sing together (though Alice couldn’t do it without being a total showoff), and the Star Wars soundtrack, and of course Zeppelin. For six
months in 1984, he had asked his parents to play “Stairway to Heaven”
instead of a bedtime story. Rabbit and Disney’s Fantasia turned ten and fifty, respectively, in the same year. Rabbit had only seen pieces of it on TV—the Disney Channel liked to play “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and the dopey Beethoven scene as filler between shows—but it was his father’s favorite movie of all time. His father had first seen it in a theater in college (high as a kite, he said, with a hushed don’t tell your mother) and had been waiting twenty-one years for it to return to the
big screen. It had changed him, he said. It had opened him to music in new ways. So when it was rereleased for its half-century anniversary, his father skipped work, pulled Rabbit and Alice out of school, and bought them all tickets on opening day. Rabbit had never seen him in such a state of excitement. His father’s eyes blinked furiously behind his glasses, and his smile was so broad and wide Rabbit wondered if his lips ached. Except for a few hassled-looking parents with very young children, they were the only people in the theater—it was a Friday matinee on a school day, after all—and Alice, typically, wouldn’t shut up about how amazing this was going to be, how magical, because she knew what their father wanted to hear more than anything was how very much like him his children were. Alice was always good at knowing what people wanted to hear and giving it to them in symphonic stereo. Rabbit was less enthused. It was exciting to be out of school, but he was suddenly worried about his dad. What if the movie wasn’t as incredible as he remembered—and how could it be, after twenty years? Not in college, not on drugs? The parts Rabbit had already seen weren’t exactly mind-blowing; those silly flying horses were for little kids, and he found the story of the sorcerer’s apprentice acutely frustrating (if Mickey Mouse was stupid enough to mess with the magician’s hat, he deserved all the trouble he got). Rabbit’s stomach soured in anticipation of having to pretend, first to enjoy the movie, and then not to notice his father’s disappointment. The toddlers in the theater fussed and Alice knocked over her soda at the end of “The Nutcracker Suite,” because, she whispered theatrically, she was so caught up she forgot where her
foot was. During the Beethoven segment, with its dippy fauns and centaurs and baby unicorns, Rabbit dared to glance at his father. The wide smile was still there, the blinking eyes—and then they were gone, and so was all the light streaming back at them from the screen. A child shrieked in the sudden dark and people began to rustle, but Rabbit’s father grabbed his hand quickly, gently, and whispered, “Don’t worry, it must be the light in the projector, the music’s still there”—and Rabbit really, truly heard Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony for the first time.
His eyes stung from the blackness, so he shut them and felt the music sweep him up faster and higher than he’d ever flown with his head mashed into the stereo speaker. He soared on the breeze of a brilliant spring day. The sun poured warm honey on his shoulder blades and he ran ahead up a small hill, bare feet tickled by springy new grass, and rolled down the other side, laughing. When the rain came, he shivered and ducked for cover, but it was gone soon enough, and what it left behind was a sense of the perfect rightness of this time and this place. Of himself—perfectly right, perfectly at peace with his family in the dark. He laid his head back contentedly and let out a long breath. His father squeezed his hand. Alice was muttering something but Rabbit couldn’t make it out, and didn’t care to. His father squeezed his hand again and Rabbit knew then that he needn’t have worried, that his father couldn’t possibly have been disappointed in the moment he’d dreamed of for decades. The wait, in fact, had been necessary, because what he’d been waiting so long to experience was the joy of sharing something so sublime with his children. Rabbit had never understood music before as an agent of connection, as a way for people not only to feel within themselves but to feel among themselves, a language that brought common souls into conversation. Beethoven could talk to him and could talk to his father, and he and his father could talk Beethoven to each other. Rabbit was a very shy child, more often spoken to than with. A recurring theme of parent-teacher conferences, beyond his academic excellence, was concern over his apparently self-imposed isolation. But on the day that Rabbit felt the Pastoral Symphony vaporize his body and plug his soul directly into his father’s, he realized he had found his native tongue. He had just started fourth grade at Ruby Falls Elementary, old for his year despite how young he looked; he was eligible to sign up for lessons on an instrument of his choosing. Uncharacteristically for Rabbit, he didn’t worry that no such instrument existed. He trusted that it was out there, and that he would find it when it was ready to be found, and that through it, Rabbit Hatmaker would be able to talk. To his family, to his teachers, to people he’d never met. To animals. To the universe. Maybe to God. That was the second of two revelations in his tenth year on earth. The first had already occurred that summer, at the swimming lessons his mother had been forcing on him and Alice since they could walk, when he got his first crush on a boy. On Mattie DeLuca, who was bused to the community swimming pool from his house in the city of Syracuse, who was eleven but just as short as Rabbit, who had olive-colored skin that glowed like a perpetual tan and the tilted-head cool of Ralph Macchio. Nothing happened, yet everything had: Rabbit discovered something fundamental about himself without understanding what it meant. And he felt instinctively that it was something he didn’t want to talk about. It was secret and safe inside his mind, and he would keep it there, in a sacred part of himself, until he knew what to do with it. As Rabbit grew older, he felt the world become unfriendly. He began to worry, more than he had ever worried before, about what he was and what he wanted, and what it meant his life would be. It didn’t stop him from knowing, but he worried that it would be the only thing anyone would ever see about him—that if he told his father or his mother he was gay, they would never see anything else. “Here is our gay son,” they would say. “Here is our gay son who plays music and is kind, but did we mention that he is gay? Because he is. Gay.” And if the only thing the world saw about him was his gayness, how could anyone ever fall in love with him? Would he have to go to parades and wear rainbow-striped buttons? Would he have to love Barbra Streisand? Would all his friends have to be gay, not that he had ever met another gay person (that he knew of)? Would he ever be able to not have this secret? Rabbit worried about all of these things. He also worried about graduation and about college, and whether he would know his own mind if Alice went to a different school (or, maybe worse, he worried that he would love his independence so much, he’d never want her around again). He worried that his sister was setting herself up to be disappointed by real life, and, Pastoral Symphony notwithstanding, he worried that his father was already disappointed, would never open up that coffee house he dreamed of, would never be truly happy. Rabbit worried himself into a hole for the people he loved, for the world at large, and if he hadn’t felt that organized religion had no love for men who loved other men, he probably would have become a priest. He worshiped and found peace, at the age of seventeen, the only way he knew how: in the temple of
Beethoven and Debussy, of David Bowie and Led Zeppelin. They filled his secret heart and made it less afraid. Alice will not shut up. This is not a new phenomenon. Rabbit thinks by now he should have developed a survival mutation, a sub-chamber of his brain like an overflow tank that siphons off and contains his sister’s endless talking. Less than five minutes after Rabbit checked into his room after that first rehearsal, Alice was at his door. About half an hour has passed since then—Rabbit has unpacked all his clothing, set up his toiletries in the bathroom, taken a quick shower, and changed into a crisp new shirt; they have left his room, walked the long creepy hallway, and are waiting for an elevator to take them down to the grand ballroom, to dinner—and he is certain his sister has not stopped speaking for longer than three seconds, which is the amount of time necessary for her to take a breath. He has gleaned that her roommate is famous and crazy, and her roommate’s mother is even crazier and a total bitch. Rabbit knows when to nod and when to raise his eyebrows, when to say Are you kidding? and when to say She did not. He does it seamlessly, thoughtlessly, as though he were actually engaged in the conversation and not silently overwhelmed by the events of his own afternoon. As it went on, his first rehearsal did not exactly improve. The flautist’s storming out was definitely the most dramatic moment. But then they had to sight-read Afternoon of a Faun without the key soloist, stumbling
from measure to measure, losing count and coming in at the wrong places. He heard the trumpets and trombones muttering mutinously behind him. Even mild-mannered bassoonist Kimmy on his right couldn’t wipe the scowl from her face. Through it all, Fisher Brodie yelled and pinwheeled his arms and lobbed Scottish insults like lawn darts. But he didn’t pick on any one person again; that dubious honor would forever be Rabbit Hatmaker’s. The elevator opens at the fourth floor and more students get on. Alice doesn’t stop talking. In fact, one of the new riders is in the chorus, so Alice, renewed, starts talking with her about their rehearsal, and how incredibly tacky their conductor is. “Did you see her pants? God, she dresses like my mom—it’s like my mom is conducting the chorus. Can you imagine? The whole program would be Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion. The whole thing!” Rabbit frowns at his sister. They both know their mother would make a great conductor. Does he really need dinner? Can’t he grab a packet of peanut M&M’s from the vending machine on his floor and call it a night? Because this, he now sees, is what he can expect for the next three days. This elevator is the weekend in miniature, with his sister talking to people she’s only just met as though they’re her dearest friends—this is what Statewide is. It isn’t about music, it isn’t about beauty and art and life and death, about connecting to others, soul to soul. It’s about nothing. It’s about air passing through lungs and metal and wood and plastic, making sounds, making noise. His heart deflates. There is no way he can tell Alice he’s gay when he cannot even tell her to shut up. The elevator doors open on the lobby. He hears singing in the distance. Kids practicing, he thinks. Dinner, according to the festival itinerary, is a buffet set up in the grand ballroom in the east wing of the hotel. He follows his sister and her new friend, who he’s figured out is named Chrissy. Chrissy tosses flirty little eye flicks in his direction that Rabbit doesn’t have the energy to feel guilty about. The east wing is in slightly better shape, newer and more anonymous-looking than the rest of the Bellweather. Rabbit is surprised he notices this much, because he feels he’s being pulled along by a tremendous tide, a bit of flotsam who wouldn’t be able to fight his own drowning. The singing is louder now. The singing is not practicing, Rabbit slowly realizes. It’s a performance, and it’s coming from a handful of young men in matching black T-shirts and jeans standing to the right of the grand ballroom’s open double doors. Rabbit’s feet stop working. His back straightens. His pupils dilate, his lungs expand, his cheeks flush. Every part of him pops, juiced. They are singing that song, he doesn’t know what it’s called, about wanting to use your love toniiiiiight, they are singing it a cappella, and the man in front, the man singing the solo, bears more than a passing resemblance to a college-age Ralph Macchio. They sort of dance, the singers, but it doesn’t feel dorky; they have an innate cool, a casualness and a swagger, that makes them charming. Their throats and faces are wide open and they are smiling into a horseshoe of onlookers, which the soloist, a full, bright tenor, is working shamelessly. His eyes are brown. His hair is dark. When he sings that he doesn’t want to lose your love tonight, his eyes crinkle and his lips curl up in a smile. Rabbit Hatmaker is in love. His sister and Chrissy and everything in his life that was slightly or more than slightly annoying fades away to nothingness. Rabbit has been punched in the heart. He knew, he knew it would happen like this someday, and he thinks he will liquefy with joy, with gratitude that he is here, in this one spot on earth at this one time in history, for this man to be singing this song and for Rabbit to hear it. “Yeah, that’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen,” Chrissy says. Rabbit snaps back. “They’re not gay, they’re college guys. A cappella clubs are how you get laid if you’re not a jock,” Alice says. “Do you have eyes? Look at the lead guy. God, he’s cute. If he’s gay, I don’t want to be straight.” Rabbit inhales sharply. Alice pushes herself up on her toes and tries to catch the tenor’s eye. Panic flares in his chest. Rabbit blushes and takes hold of his sister’s arm. “Hey, I’m starving here,” he says. “Let’s go eat. C’mon. Chrissy? Food? Like, now?” He needs to get her away, they all need to leave, the song is over and he doesn’t know which he is more afraid of, should the tenor acknowledge them—that Rabbit will make an ass of himself or his sister will make a move. Rabbit enters the ballroom behind Alice and Chrissy, herding them like distracted cats toward the end of the buffet line. If he hadn’t just fallen in love, Rabbit knows he would be disheartened by the pale, wet food stretching before them, borne above small blue Sterno flames, in dented silver warming pans. As it is, he looks on the grayish slices of roast beef and the weirdly off-white mashed potatoes and smiles, happy in the knowledge that the tenor is in the world. He disturbs a layer of skin across the vat of gravy and daydreams about a situation, a moment, when they might meet. In the elevator. At the ice machine. Maybe...
Bellweather Hotel was well beyond the age when a hotel was still in business. However, it was the only hotel large enough to host an annual High School Festival each year... So, the lousy food that none of the students wanted to eat was--tolerated--but never really worth eating... Or so the students there quickly point it out to anybody who will listen! After all, these were students who'd had to apply and be accepted each year from all over the state and their parents will be joining them there for the concert, Surely food could be catered?!
But, then, that wasn't the only issue with the Bellweather, which normally had just a few guests daily when there was nowhere else for them to stay... After all, most people really didn't want to stay in a haunted hotel even if the murder suicide occurred many years ago! At least not for the full period of practice prior to the final concert! Nevertheless, all of the students had been selected and arrived to begin getting to know the other students and to practice...
But Rabbit and Alice were both too excited to be accepted that they weren't too concerned about the hotel itself...These two teens were now adults and had come from a family always interested in music. Alice was a singer... She was a well-liked outgoing girl at school and so she was excited just to be going and meeting others... But it didn't turn out to be as she had dreamed of... All the other students were also involved in their personal lives and Alice's aggressive sharing really didn't work well. On the other hand, Rabbit had always been an introvert, shy, and still trying to figure out where he fit into the world. He was pretty sure he was gay, but had not had any real chance to consider, or even talk about it, including with his exuberant twin! Especially, when she began talking about a guy she thought was cute and Rabbit realized it was the same boy with whom he'd already "fell in love with..." Yikes!
Time was moving fast, especially because the conductor, Fisher Brodie, has on the first meeting of the orchestra, announced that he had changed his mind about the final concert's selection. Everybody was upset, learning that all the pre-practice they had done was now back to the beginning..In fact, the first flutist got up and stormed out of the hall...never to return for practice! Of course she was the daughter of the woman in charge of the entire event. And when people started looking for her, her mother quietly revealed that she had done this sort of thing before. And had probably just taken off like she'd always do...
Actually. Jill Faccelli was a prodigy, who had traveled all over the world... And she, instead, went to her room... Where Alice was setting up her side of the room, turning and immediately recognizing who she was rooming with! She was ecstatic and thrilled she would be able to get to know her...Jill threw her junk down and immediately brought out something to drink to party. She offered to share with Alice. And, of course, Alice just had to go along... In fact, they seemed to get to know each other very well, especially when Jill tells her about the room in which they were staying and the haunting! It was very long before Alice had left for a short time and when she returned, Jill was gone... And there was possibly that an accident or worse had occurred... Of course, Jill had already told her about her mother and that she could not believe that she was actually head of this event, wondering what had happened to the man who had earlier been named...
And while that is going on, Rabbit and Alice had begun to wonder exactly where their. chaperone had gone, realizing that they had not seen her since she had left them, after driving them from home when they arrived at the hotel... Weather conditions had greatly changed and getting in or out was now impossible... Would the concert even go on? The conductor said yes, even if nobody could get there to see them perform! Except for the other students... Best event ever! NOT!
But, music waits for not man, no alarm, no feelings of concern except to get the show on the road!
And that is exactly how Rabbit, who had caught the conductor's attention that first day,and ultimately chosen to do a bassoon solo, replacing the flautist, Jill, who had never returned, Yes there is much interaction between and among students which was always going on... But, Alice could not get past wanting to know what happened to Jill. She would go to rehearsals, but would also spend time trying to find her, perhaps hiding in a vacant room? And, then, one day, another girl appeared outside of Room 712... and she knew much more about that murder-suicide than anybody else--she had been there that day!
All I can say is that every last issue was tied up by the end of the book--a very satisfying conclusion indeed! A surprise or two... An endearing ending for two people... And Rabbit...he got to learn that he was somebody that other students would enjoy being with... Alice? I think she grew up a little with all that had been shared with her--probably a good thing! And of course, having a playlist is always a great addition, don't you think?! Delightfully entertaining and merge of mysteries was especially fun! Highly recommended.
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