Read Square Wave for Free Online Page B

the word. He didn’t appear earnest, not consistently. But that might be what it was to be earnest, in the same way that the truest gentlemen have no truck with etiquette. Only imposters do. Gentility was in the bones—there was nothing to be done about it—and not being regulated by a concern for appearances, it could surface in ways that looked distinctly ungentlemanly to those who didn’t know better. It wasn’t merely sprezzatura either. There was nothing studied about it. It was the thing itself. Larent’s artlessness might be of the same order.
    There was silence. Larent leaned the bass against the speaker cabinet and joined the table of musicians. Five minutes later he saw them off.
    “So?” he said, looking at Stagg and tapping Renna’s shoulder. He was brighter now.
    “That was weird!” she said.
    “This is your group?” Stagg asked.
    “No, no, just people I know from school,” Larent said. “Sick of their orchestra gigs, for the night, anyway. It’s the only time I can get them to play my stuff.”
    “They don’t like what you write?”
    “Well, they like me . The music, well, they’d play it either way. Do you like it?”
    “I think I do.”
    “Interesting,” he said. “It’s not Bach, though—any of the Bachs—is it?” he said to Renna, the tiniest smile cresting on his lips. “Or Brahms.”
    “No, I liked it!”
    “The distorted parts too?”
    “Yes… but the last thing was more me.”
    “I know,” Larent said. He turned to Stagg. “I think the straighter pieces reassure them I haven’t lost my mind. But actually I want to send that one through the effects board—infinite delays, chorusing, pink noise—just to see. Make it unbelievably loud too.”
    “You’d see them in pain,” Stagg said, gesturing at the tables around them.
    “Well, as long as they clap.”
    “Why shouldn’t they.”
    Larent shifted in his chair. He set his hands on the edge of the table, his long fingers arched as if at a keyboard. “So what, drinks?” He caught the waitress’s eye and ordered the house red.
    Stagg woke Renna’s phone, which lay on the table, and checked the time. In truth it was a pantomime. He already knew he had to go. He lifted the tumbler to his lips and claimed the last briny drops. “I should go,” he said as he put the glass down.
    “Work,” Renna said without looking at him.
    “Sure,” he said.
    Larent seemed puzzled but before he could say anything Stagg got to his feet and bent over the table toward him. “I’ve thought about it. I did like it. Good luck.”
    “Thanks,” Larent said, almost to himself.
    Stagg took Renna’s arm brusquely in his hand. “So I’ll see you around, I’m sure.” She gave him a look of exasperation, real or faux, and was about to speak, but before she got anything out, he was away from the table and through the smudged glass doors into the bracing night.
    ■   ■   ■
    Larent’s bass lingered in his ears as he cut across two narrow lanes, down the sloping avenue leading to Halsley’s longest canal. The moon had turned the water a viscous black. A stiff breeze rippled its surface, drawing shallow crests toward the banks. The flow was always slight, and in the summertime the canal spawned great swarms of vermin. Now, though, entering fall, the waters were colder, the winds were brisker, and the canal was clear of rot.
    Tall streetlamps fluorescing blue unevenly lighted the asphalt path along the water. Stagg paused in a long unlighted stretch and watched. On the other side of the canal, their bikes laid in a pile, several boys passed a pipe. One moved off to the side and seemed to do an impression. He paced with an exaggerated pigeon toe and swung his arms in eccentric ways that had no meaning to Stagg. But as the smoke swirled, and heaving coughs drifted across the water, long laughs did too, showing it meant something to them. He could see the impressionist’s lips moving, hear a softly articulated garble coming