He liked to stand out there and look back at the shore, at the long white beach, the red lifeguard twoer, the green row of palm trees -- it was a gorgeous scene, maybe a little too picture-postcard perfect. Off to the right, the beach ended in a line of dark craggy rocks that led to the hotel cottages where he and his wife were staying. It was the end of June, still early in the tourist season, and there weren't many people in the hotel or on the beach.
On the advice of a french horn friend, Freddy the Cello bought a ticket and flew to the islands. The French horn was right when he told Freddy that the islanders were not judgmental. They would not look at you as an old out-of-tune cello of which society no longer had use for. Freddy, who had been widowed for more than a dozen years, thought he could start his life fresh. He did not have children, and for the most part his friends were long dead.
The islanders were not judgemental. They did not look at you as an old man who society no longer had use for. And as the french horn had said, Freddy's money went further.
Freddy wanted some. Although he was an old Cello whose strings sagged, giving his voice a wasplike buzz, Freddy still wanted some. And who was to deny him, a prominent Cello, the pleasures that money can buy. It didn't matter that his abalone purfling no longer glistened like mother-of-pearl. In this place, who cared that hairline cracks webbed his maple face and back
Freddy the Cello was dying. His brittle strings sagged, giving his voice a wasplike buzz. His abalone purfling no longer glistened like mother-of-pearl. And over the years hairline cracks had begun to web his maple back.
As he stood on his second floor hotel room's balcony, where he had a sweeping view of Reeza Street, he greedily watched the young neighborhood girls play hide-and-go-seek. Thinking of all the possibilities afforded him by what he possessed and what the people of this country didn't, Freddy grinned.
Freddy patted his bathrobe pockets for his cigarettes. He lit one and leaned forward against the railing. Though a puff or rising smoke, Freddy spotted a young clarinet tucked in a low crotch of a leafy mango tree, half-hidden, her pink flip-flops swinging back and forth just above the ground.
He loved this place. It was an old Cello's fantasy come true. At nights, when the neon flashed brightest, women swarmed in from the provinces, careening through the streets with instruments twice their age.
Freddy admired the young clarinet's shadow-dappled legs and tried to imagine her naked, straddling him. He took a few Cello dollars out of his pocket and waved them in the air.
The clarinet's legs quit swinging. The leaves covering her face rattled, then parted to reveal a delicate, frowning face. The clarinet opened her mouth, curled her tongue and stuck it out at Freddy.
He liked that. And when the young clarinet shifted on her branch and gave him a clear view of the dusty seat of her pants, Freddy liked that, too.
He winked and held the Cello money higher, let the wind flap it.
The young clarinet glared at Freddy. She raised a hand and sliced the air in front of her throat. Then she hopped out the mango tree and bolted across a field, disappearing into a small tin shanty.
Freddy was baffled. It took him a moment to collect himself. Had there been something in his expression or posture that had led the young clarinet to disrespect him, a Cello? Usually, the clarinets were the friendliest, often leaning out of doorways, grinning widely, and cupping their breasts suggestively.
He lit a second cigarette and noticed his hands were shaking. He still couldn't understand what had just happened. At that moment a manhole cover slid loudly over the pavement in the center of the street. A young, plump tambourine peered up over the rim. Freddy, still fisting his cash, shook his hand. Like the clarinet, the young tambourine glared.
When she brought her hand out of the manhole and gave Freddy the finger. The cigarette Freddy was holding slipped from his grip and dropped to the sidewalk below. Then the tambourine slunk back down the manhole she'd climbed out of.
At first Freddy felt hurt. During his first few days here, he'd received nothing but love from the locals. Any instrument he wanted, he got. After all, he was a Cello, right? Spending his hard-earned money in a place that didn't have any. Then Freddy justified the tambourine's actions by remembering that he'd been told tambourine's were nasty little things. They were sleazy, lying, low-stooping little things. He'd even heard tambourines snatched your wallet from your pants pockets while you slept.
Freddy shook off the shame he felt and laughed. There were lots of young instruments in this country. Why should he be bothered over the ungratefulness of a few?
Turning his head, still laughing, Freddy followed the swaying hips of a young viola. Hips that swished side-to-side as the young viola raced for the cover of a high stack of tires. The young viola must have felt Freddy's gaze, because she suddenly whirled around to face him.
Freddy winked. She was a gorgeous young thing, her long black hair was tailed in a scrunchie. She wore a ruffled pink dress that clung to her adolescent body like dust on damp furniture. She had on white, elbow-length gloves.
One of those gloves into the air in front of the young viola's face and, while staring hard at Freddy, she drew an imaginary X in the air.
This time, though, Freddy was neither hurt nor surprised. It was obvious to Freddy that this younger generation of instruments hadn't suffered enough. They took the generosity of Cellos like him for granted. Still, he thought as the viola spun around and continued swishing up the street, she'd become a whore like the rest of them.
While he lit another cigarette, Freddy spied a young xylophone peeking up at him from behind a thorny bush speckled with berries that flared in the twilight like embers. The young xylophone snapped a branch off the bush. She leered at Freddy and stabbed the branch into the dirt. Again and again and again.
Freddy flicked his cigarette over the rail in the young xylophones direction. He tried to square his steeply-sloped shoulders. Laughing, he plucked his strings and listened to himself buzz. He inwardly smirked, knowing that someday these young, beautiful instruments would have no choice but to look past the fact that Freddy was old and out of tune, and accept the reality that he was a Cello who could make life meaningful for them.
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