Content note: racist slur
Come Saturday afternoon, the premier conference on computer micro-architecture will go into session. Professors, graduate students, and industry professionals from around the world will stuff themselves into the outfits they wear only for conferences, job interviews, and funerals. We will then file into one paper session after another and at least try to take seriously the work of our peers, no matter how cherry-picked the data are.
It is, however, still Friday night. Some of us have gathered in one of the larger conference rooms. They’re slightly drunk, chatting and watching the karaoke on the makeshift stage at the far end from the doors. A bunch of grad students are on stage hamming up “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They’re screaming, head-banging, and air-guitaring away. It’s, of course, all for the sake of the children or whoever the conference is fundraising for this year. Nope, no one is having any fun at all and karaoke certainly doesn’t double as an icebreaker, and definitely not for the folks going to the conference to network.
I’m slightly drunk too, but not drunk enough to walk into that conference room. You don’t have to be sloshed to karaoke, of course. It’s just that going to the icebreaker feels like slamming the door on a part of my life that that’s not actually over yet.
Do I absolutely have to go to the icebreaker? Well, it’s complicated.
On one hand, it’s not like Grapp ever tells me what to do. On the other hand, he’s my dissertation advisor. Yes, it’s all over except for the hooding ceremony. However, when you stick a toothpick in me, it doesn’t come out clean. Not yet. Whether the cake is fully baked or not, though, it’s coming out of the oven now.
The problem is his words of wisdom are still inevitably helpful. Things just go better when I pay attention to what he says.
There are entire categories of problems that simply have never existed because I took his advice or I ran my design decisions past him. I’ve spent what feels like every moment of the years we’ve worked together trying to get into his mindset, trying to figure out how, given the same constraints, to derive solutions just as elegant as his. When I go astray, his nudges to get me back on track are so gentle nowadays that, sometimes, I wish he’d just tell me what to do. I’ve managed solutions he deems acceptable, even excellent at times, but I’ve never managed to design what he would have. It’s an ongoing process.
Anyway, Grapp doesn’t have to tell me that I need to mingle with folks at the karaoke fundraising icebreaker. A job in the industry is already all lined up, but things will work out better for my career in the long run if I make some connections tonight. Knowing that this is what Grapp would do in my place, I feel an irresistible force pushing me in as well as an implacable pressure keeping me out.
For a moment, I consider going back to the bar for another shot of whiskey. Maybe then, I’ll stumble through the door in a stupor. Sadly, I’m not drunk enough to think that’s a good idea. That said, it’s not like Grapp is throwing me to the wolves. I’ll be tagging along while he’s networking. He may already be in there.
What finally gets me through the door is the karaoke. Waiting to sing is anxiety-making, but the singing itself is great. There aren’t enough chances to do that in life. I take a deep breath and hold it as I stride into the breach. All things fall against the trust that, whenever I do what Grapp would do in my place, things will be better somehow in the long run.
The grad students clatter their way off the stage. The karaoke guy glances at his clipboard then shouts out the name “Sherry.” She darts on stage, throwing money into a bucket on the way. When her music starts, Sherry fires up the vocal pyrotechnics from the jump. She’s grooving but, unfortunately, the unforgivingly metronomic music track blasting from the speakers on either side of the stage is not. The singing and the accompaniment go in and out of sync. This doesn’t help things. My throat hurts just listening to it.
Strip the tune of all that ornamentation and I might recognize it, but that’s not the percentage play. School, undergrad and graduate, has kind of done a number on me. If I ever formed any memories of popular culture in the last ten years, they’re definitely gone now. Popular culture is over there and my cultural references are somewhere in the wasteland over here. I am an unmitigated joy to talk to at parties.
The karaoke guy is sitting at a table covered with audio gear next to the stage. He’s this model of efficiency and casual dexterity. One hand is adjusting knobs on the mixer board, while the other is typing into a laptop. What he’s actually looking at, though, is the clipboard resting on his thigh.
Involuntarily, I shudder to a stop about five feet from him. It takes me a second to realize why.
Once in a while, you see someone at the supermarket or the airport who seems to be a visitor from a world where everything is, say, seven percent bigger. He’s tall, but also so broad that the height doesn’t register right away. You do a double take and wonder whether you’ve stumbled into a movie. All the extras waiting at the airport gate have been cast short. The supermarket is a scaled-down set and his head is higher than the top shelf of the refrigerated section. His grocery basket and the family packs of chicken breasts and cartons of egg whites inside are downsized props.
Then you are behind him on the jet bridge as he ducks to board the plane. He stands next to you as you both pick through a pile of garlic in the produce department. His actual size finally registers and you see him for who he is, the visitor from the seven percent bigger world. That’s the karaoke guy, except at eleven percent rather than seven. Next to him, his chair, table, and gear look like a My First Karaoke Rig playset.
In high school, a few boys beat me up after asking me who I was looking at. This isn’t to say they didn’t also come out of it a little bruised and bloody. Back then, they probably desired the body I’m looking at now even more than I did. Maybe they still do. I’m not saying I don’t now. It’s bad to stare at anyone, but in the moment, I’m stuck facing this stranger and I can’t look away.
His gaze meets mine. His face lights up with recognition. It’s both blinding and scalding. He waves excitedly at me. I wave back.
Memories flood my mind. Ponty and I met at freshman orientation. Even then, he was simply taller and broader than everyone else. We were both computer engineering majors eventually specializing in microprocessor architecture. By senior year, he was also an All-American heavyweight wrestler. Did I mind him sitting next to me in dozens of classes over the course of four years? Absolutely not. When he wanted to work on the Advanced Topics in Microprocessors final project with me, did I refuse? Of course not. Did I ever tell him how much I desired him? Deeply closeted me couldn’t even consider it. Out me never had a reason to.
When we were graduating, he was trying to decide between a full-ride to Stanford for grad school or a ridiculously well-paying job designing microprocessors with a shamelessly large signing bonus. It’s a measure of how deeply I love him on several different levels that he agonized endlessly to me over which of his two perfect options to pick and it was only mildly annoying. He went for Stanford and became an associate professor at the University of Michigan a couple years ago. Nowadays, we mostly text. It hits me that this can’t be. My phone has approximately one contact and it’s not him.
I check my phone. It now has the numbers of everyone in the D&D game Ponty dragged me into at university. My texts with Grapp are here, but so is the group text chain with the D&D gang that I both remember reading and have never read before. Ponty and I have this long-running text conversation that extends back to freshman year. There’s even a text from Ponty looking forward to seeing me tonight at the icebreaker.
Ponty, as always, looks ready to win a wrestling match. Except for a few scars on his forearms, hands that are even more calloused than ever, and an abrasion scar on his right cheek, he’s exactly the extremely memorable guy I knew in college. It’s impossible that I didn’t recognize him right away. The unease that I didn’t have any memories of him at all until a minute ago settles on me like a sticky film. Ponty as my best friend and Ponty as a complete stranger live side by side in my mind.
He gestures for me to come to the table and I do. That face is so familiar and so kind. His button-down shirt fits awkwardly on him, like every button-down shirt I’ve ever seen him wear. This one is both stretched across his chest and arms and baggy around his stomach. He picks up the clipboard with one hand and a pen with the other.
“Carter! It’s been a moment.” He leans conspiratorially into me. “Here to karaoke? I’ve missed hearing you sing. Your high C has come in, I bet. Ah, mes amis, quel jour de fête?”
Hearing his voice is a singularly weird experience. It has a resonant baritone timbre that is simultaneously gruff and gentle. He sounds like no one else I know. The voice is both seared into my memory and one I have never heard before. For whatever reason, how operatic his voice is has never struck me until now.
Decades pass before I realize he’s not asking me a question in French. He’s asking whether I want to sing the aria from Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment.
“Ah, no.” I snap back into real time. “If I could sing nine high Cs in a minute, I would be doing that for a living.”
Not only do I have a degree in computer engineering, but also vocal performance. Between the understated but unrealistically high expectations of a dad who emigrated from Taiwan and the overcompensation of being a deeply closeted undergrad, it’s incredible that I escaped university with only the two declared majors. There were maybe a whopping five classes in the course catalogue that I didn’t take. It makes one very well-rounded, but it doesn’t give one much of a social life. Well, in the life with Ponty, I had the D&D game, which I guess counts. We played every week from freshman to senior year.
In any case, as with many tenors my age, my high C is a work in progress. Not that I’m working on it at all at the moment.
“Ah, io seggio quell anima bella?”
Ferrando’s act two aria from Così Fan Tutte. This one I can do, or at least I have. I sang the role my senior year. The rehearsals were lots of fun. So were the performances once I was actually on stage. For a moment, singing the aria seems like a fun thing to do. I’ve really missed working on my voice day in day out. With the dissertation, there hasn’t been the time. So, I remind myself that the tessitura is on the high side. Aria tops out at a B flat, but it leaps there again and again and again. Not to mention there are any number of very showy passages of coloratura. It’s been a moment since I’ve done any of that.
“Not without a warm-up.” I hold up my hands. “Look, Ponty, I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Angel Eyes.’ You know, Frank Sinatra?”
“Perfect!” He jots something down on his clipboard. “We’ll meet each other halfway.”
He balances the clipboard back onto his thigh. I’ve seen that neat, elegant script in so many notebooks. I remember doing logic design homework with him while he dehydrated himself down to 285 pounds for a meet, but the sense that this is the first time we’ve met is just as real. Two similar but not identical versions of my life, particularly the university years, rub against each other in my head.
Ponty co*cks his head. He notes the expression on my face.
“You still remember the life where we never met.” He looks surprised. “Not only did Grapp take you on as his student, but you’re ready.”
“I defended last month. The paperwork’s already filed. You know that.” We both look at each other oddly. “Oh, that’s not what you mean.”
I have no idea what he actually means. There’s an obvious guess, though. Considering he’s both my best friend, whom I’ve known for like a decade, and someone I didn’t know at all until a few minutes ago, the idea that Grapp and I also have this additional mentor-student relationship I knew nothing about until now isn’t even that outlandish.
“Look, I’m sorry. I need to find him as soon as I can and—”
“Ponty, what are you doing here?” Grapp’s voice floats next to my ear.
Grapp is standing next to me. We’re about the same height, not Ponty tall but the ordinary sort where it feels weird to call yourself tall. Also, Grapp is as solid as a brick wall. His sudden appearances used to be startling. Nowadays, I always half-expect it. At the lab, after I commit a change to the project database, sometimes, I’ll turn around and Grapp will already be at my desk. After a brief hello, he’ll point out the “subtle, near impossible to hit” bug that I have inadvertently introduced with my commit.
“You recognize me! I’m honored.” Ponty’s smile is positively joyful. “I was still a student when you were exiled.”
Grapp has always been tight-lipped about himself. I’ve never pried. I’ve also never not had a list of questions. To that list, now I get to add where he could possibly be exiled from and why. Grapp reminds me of my dad, only kinder and alive. They’re both, among other things, Taiwanese men with absurdly high expectations of me.
“You’re very recognizable.” Grapp shifts his gaze from Ponty to me. His eyes widen. “He’s inserted himself into your life. Remarkably, you remember both lives. You are dealing with this admirably. The differences don’t seem significant?”
That he knows just from looking at me tracks. Secretly, I think he knows everything. Him doing things normal people can’t even dream of isn’t even remotely surprising. Knowing for sure that he does is kind of a relief. It knocks a few questions off my list. As for his question, he’s more curious than concerned, as though having two sets of memories is just no big deal. And, honestly, after years of working with the doer of inconceivable things, I feel oddly prepared for it.
“Nope.” I shrug. “Falling hard for some guy and doing nothing about it happened a lot while I was closeted.”
Ponty’s mouth forms a small “o.” He has never realized. In retrospect, this also tracks. The calculation on his face is obvious, at least to me, as this very delayed revelation works its way through him.
“Oh, no. I’m sorry.” He looks genuinely contrite. “Please, let me explain—”
“It’s fine, Ponty.” I mean it, but he’s going to keep apologizing until at least the end of the conference.
It’s hard to carry on with life if you never set down your torches. I’ve made peace with my feelings for him and any number of lesser crushes. Of course, this is much easier when you live in different parts of the country and basically never meet in person.
Ponty takes a deep breath then exhales. Déjà vu swirls in my mind as I wonder how, with that lung capacity, not to mention that instrument, he never trained as a singer. Or maybe he has. He gave me memories of a life I didn’t exactly live. The Ponty I know might not be anything like who he actually is. If so, that’s strangely reassuring.
“Grapp, it’s time to come home.” Ponty’s voice and expression are serious. “But, first, I believe we’ve shown, if unintentionally, that Carter is ready to attempt the first threshold. If he weren’t, he would have lost the memories of the life where we never met.”
Grapp purses his lips. He looks vaguely annoyed at Ponty, who shrugs with mock helplessness.
“There was literally no other way to find me?” Based on Grapp’s tone, there had to be at least a dozen.
“With all due respect, we’re on a tight schedule.” Ponty taps his wrist where a watch would be. “We didn’t expect he’d be ready to cross.”
“It’s complicated. I wasn’t trying to make him one of the marked, but I’m his dissertation advisor. Shaping how he thinks is part of the job.” Grapp studies me and his gaze sweeps through me like a hurricane choosing to be a gentle, spring breeze. “How did you get this far with so little active guidance? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“‘Magische Tone.’ Are you up for it?” Ponty looks imploringly at Grapp. “However the attempt plays out, he’s earned the right to try.”
“You have to do this.” The words leap out of my mouth. “I’ve wanted to hear you sing for years.”
“Magische Tone” is an aria from Karl Goldmark’s Die Königin von Saba. It is notoriously difficult. The aria is a grueling test of a tenor’s ability to create and to maintain control of a vocal line. Grapp has to subtly vary how he blends his chest and head voices throughout the aria. Only by meeting the ridiculous technical demands, can he make it beautiful.
Grapp looks at me. I’m trying my best not to look hopeful. If his face is any indication, I’m not doing a very good job.
“Sure.” Grapp’s voice is tinged with resignation.
His gaze narrows as he pulls a few bills out of his wallet and drops them into the bucket as he heads back into the audience. Ponty’s expression is sober. Something is happening, and I look forward to asking what it is when Grapp is less testy and I’m less nervous.
“Done and done.” Ponty taps his laptop. “You’re up next, Carter.”
“What?” Yes, the wait makes me anxious, but I wouldn’t have minded a moment to settle myself. “Isn’t there a list?”
“Yup, and I tell people when it’s their turn.” He squeezes my arm, like he did backstage before my juries, recitals, and operas. It feels both familiar and reassuring. “When you get up there, don’t use the mic. The last thing you need is amplification.”
A stack of speakers sits on either side of the stage. There’s a mic on a stand between them. The flat-screen display where the lyrics scroll up is set off to the side. I extend the mic stand so that the mic reaches my face and brace for the music to begin. The Sinatra recording of “Angel Eyes” infamously starts in the middle of the song and the intro is all of one quick ascending run by the strings.
Which is not what I hear when the music starts. What I hear instead are strings playing a low chromatic figure. It’s the intro to “Lonely House” from the Kurt Weill opera Street Scene. That’s what Ponty meant by meeting each other halfway. “Lonely House” sits at the intersection of “40s pop song” and “opera aria.”
Grapp perks up. He leans in, ready to take in my performance. Bailing is no longer an option. I have about twenty seconds to pull myself together.
Words don’t scroll up on the screen. It’s fine. I know it. Find me an American tenor my age who doesn’t know this aria.
I sing, and the speakers clip my first notes. Ponty rolls his eyes and twists a knob on the mixer board. The mic dies, but I keep going. A few people are chatting quietly. It’s karaoke, not a concert.
The music seems to be following me. Rather than a recording, it feels like there is a conductor breathing with me. Maybe there’s a full orchestra playing in the next room, following me via video as well as audio. If they can see me, it’d be nice if I could see them, too. If there isn’t a live orchestra, then I’m interpreting the song exactly like whoever laid down the recording. Either way, it’s a little creepy.
The three and a half minutes go by faster than I expect. For an impromptu performance, I did OK, I guess. There is a smattering of applause, but Grapp beams with approval. I’ll take it, even if I wonder what he’s been listening to. I do a quick nod, then briskly exit to the side.
“Falsetto on the high B flat, but that’ll do.” Ponty nods at me with a satisfied grin when I walk by.
“That was an interpretive choice.” I try my best not to sound defensive. “Tell it to Brian Sullivan.”
Brian Sullivan originated the aria and also sang that soft high B flat in falsetto. There is video after video of tenors on the internet doing the same thing.
Street Scene was not a success on Broadway. Brian Sullivan went on to sing Peter Grimes at the Met the following season. Singing Peter someday doesn’t seem utterly impossible for me, if I ever work toward it again. Singing at the Met, on the other hand, isn’t even something I dream about anymore.
The first measures of “Magische Tone” waft through the air. The warm, sweet bed of strings and reeds swells in anticipation of the voice to come. Grapp is already on stage.
How he sounds is both inevitable and a shock. It is unquestionably the same voice as the one that’s been advising me for years. It’s the one whose warnings I eventually learned not to ignore, the one that patiently explained my mistakes to me and helped me set them right. But I never noticed until now the exquisite smoothness, evenness, and purity of tone that it has always had. His voice shimmers in limpid, shifting colors as he sings of being kissed by the mild night wind. It is both under his absolute control and utterly free.
My breath catches and for a moment I can’t breathe. His singing is so beautiful that I can’t bear to listen to it and I can’t bear to stop. What he’s doing is so incredibly difficult and sounds so easy. Tears fill my eyes and it’s all I can do to stay silent, to keep myself from openly crying and ruining the delicate effect Grapp has carefully set up.
Except Ponty, no one else in the room comprehends what is happening. The ones who know German nod along. A scattered few sit with serious faces, appreciating the tune. For the rest, it’s just background music for them to sip their adult beverage to.
Ponty is leaned back in his chair. His arms are folded across his chest. A tiny, satisfied smile rests on his face. When he notices me, he stands and, in one smooth motion, envelops me in the circle of his arms. I sob silently against his shoulder. The act of embracing him is practically reflexive. It’s as though graduation wasn’t ten years but only ten minutes ago. I suppose, in a way, it was. Ponty gently strokes my back.
“Your reaction is unusual but not a huge surprise. Whoever’s crossing usually reacts at least a little, but this is a sublimely subtle performance and you’re already able to recognize how special it is,” he whispers in my ear. “Welcome to the marked.”
I have no idea what he means by any of that, but this feels like the wrong time to ask. Not while Grapp is still singing.
He releases his hug, but holds me by the shoulders. His gaze is warm and reassuring. When I’ve gathered myself again, he lets go.
“Magische Tone” culminates with a soft high B and high C. Grapp’s are delicate, but not breathy. They fill the room even as you strain to hear them. His tone is sustained and silvery. He has sung them in full head voice, not falsetto. Maybe two tenors have sung the ending this way this well. Ever. Grapp’s high B and high C are the two most glorious sounds I have ever heard.
I almost lose it again, but I hold myself together. Ponty gives my shoulder a slight, but reassuring, squeeze.
The aria ends. Grapp steps off the stage and conversations start again. It’s only now I realize that the audience had been silent all that time. Also, the speakers have been dead all this time. Thinking about it, I’m not sure the music for “Lonely House” came from the speakers either.
Rapid vibrations itch the base of my skull. They create a complex, ever-shifting polyrhythm pounding in my head. Ponty’s laptop, all the phones and watches in the room, and everything else electronic all play out in my mind. Even without looking, I can pinpoint every one of them.
I back away from Grapp and Ponty. As I turn to go, I catch the concern on Grapp’s face. Of course, he knows why I need to leave. Despite the urge to sprint, I manage as normal a pace as I can. Grapp walks by my side. He isn’t trying to stop me or anything. I think he’s just making sure I don’t do anything stupid like stab my head with a pick to get everybody’s computing devices out of my head. As nonsensical as it sounds, the thought has already crossed my mind more times than I can count.
The itch at the base of the skull grows into a sharp, stabbing pain. Sweat drips down off my forehead and down the back of my neck. My ribs want to lock and it takes work to force air in and out of my lungs. Tears fill my eyes.
“Carter, let’s get you to your room.” Grapp’s voice is calm and quiet. “We can deal with this better without a crowd.”
His voice is this soft blanket that envelops me. My breathing eases. The pain becomes bearable. The panic no longer screams in my head. It settles down to a quiet roar. I don’t manage that state of peace I’ve seen Grapp inhabit so many times, but I’m not completely agitated either.
I pace in circles waiting for the elevator. Grapp gently guides me up the stairs instead and through the hallways to my room. All the while, he chats in a soft, soothing voice. It is five flights of stairs to my floor. Grapp is coaching me in how to be still. I keep slipping off his words, but they’re words I already know. Instead, I distract myself by counting. It is forty-seven steps, a left turn, and another thirty-four steps before we reach my door. I fumble for my key card but Grapp taps the lock and the door clicks open. I collapse into bed and curl into a ball.
The thing is that this is a hotel hosting a very large number of computer engineers. Every room in this hallway has at least one laptop or tablet, and I can sense all of them. At least most of them are asleep. Those only threaten to crush my head.
“Crossing the first threshold has hit you harder than most.” Grapp pulls up a chair and sits next to me. “That’s my fault, I’m afraid.”
“The first threshold?” I sit up and face him. “You mean me melting into a puddle at the utter beauty of your voice and performance? If I could sing like that, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be booked for years in advance with leading roles at the great opera houses.”
Grapp looks vaguely embarrassed and uncomfortable. He sighs.
“I’m sorry. I should have prepared you for this.” Grapp fluffs and arranges the pillows behind me. “All I ever do is help my students go where they need to. With you, though, the more you thought like one of the marked, the better your work. So, I nudged you down this road. How could a few words matter? It takes years of deliberate, mindful practice to become one of the marked, but here you are.”
Someone a few rooms down wakes up their laptop. Pain spikes through my head again. Not for the first time in my life, I focus on my breath and try my best to be still. Grapp is always going on about ways to be more mindful. That’s what he means about nudging me down the road, I guess. It’s never more than a few seconds before something distracts me, but I always return to the breath. At some point, I notice the pain and fuzz are gone. The hundreds or thousands of electronic devices don’t crowd my mind. They sit nicely in the background. Of course, as I notice this, they immediately start storming back in. Once again, I return to the breath.
Grapp starts to say something, but stops himself. His gaze sweeps through me again and a slight smile forms on his face as he nods.
He starts to hum a Taiwanese folk tune. The last time I heard it, I must have been eight. Tonight, the song fills the room and all of the electronics in the world are suddenly 112 feet further away from my mind. The pain is gone and I can keep the electronics in the back of my mind without constant meditation.
I peel off my sweat-soaked shirt. Grapp takes it from me and drapes it on a chair.
“Allow me.” He takes off my shoes and sets them by the foot of the bed. “This won’t take a moment.”
Even without his singing, the assault on my mind is still bearable. Whatever Grapp did to shield my mind, he’s still doing it. The shielding is carefully calibrated to cover only what I can’t handle myself. The electronics creep closer as I quiet them for myself and scurry away again when I slip.
“Every suggestion you made, every bit of advice, I’ve spent years studying all of that trying to get into the mindset you get into.”
“Yes, I realize that that now.” He slides his arms beneath my back and legs. “You’re quieting your mind astonishingly well considering we’ve never explicitly worked on this.”
Grapp lifts me off the bed. I’m not Ponty, but I’m not light either. That doesn’t seem to matter. The blanket untucks itself and pulls itself towards the foot of the bed. Given everything else that’s happened, I have no idea why I’m finding this astounding. He sets me down and pulls the blanket over me.
“The bad news is that microelectronics are impossible to avoid here. This is way more than anyone newly crossed can be expected to handle. I’ve taken the edge off, but it will hurt you in the long run if I do more. You need to learn to handle this and it needs to be now.” He appraises me on the bed. “The good news is that because they are so densely packed, your mind will adapt quickly. If you make it through the night, I promise you things will be better in the morning. I recommend sleeping through this if you can.”
Besides the laptops, the machinations of the TV not to mention air conditioning, the door, and the sleeping phone in my pocket whiz through my mind. I have never felt less sleepy or more agitated in my life. I still kind of want to rip my brain out of my skull.
“That is so not happening.”
“Would you like me to sing you a lullaby? I didn’t even bother trying earlier, but it might help a little now.”
There’s a fraction of a second where I wonder what good that would do. At least I didn’t say it out loud. If Grapp knows I thought this, he isn’t letting on.
“Please.”
It is egregiously past sunrise when I wake. The light is obvious even though I haven’t opened my eyes yet. This never happens. It’s summer. I’m usually up around 4 a.m. whether I want to be or not. If I’d known about his lullabies earlier, I wonder whether he would have considered knocking me out like this every night every summer.
“You’re awake.” Grapp’s whisper is so resonant he could be anywhere in the room, but I can place him with the mark in his mind.
“You’re still here?” I open my eyes and he’s sitting in the chair next to the bed.
“How do you feel?”
I don’t have to look to place the alarm clock. My phone is across the room with my laptop. Grapp must have taken it out of my pocket last night. There are still laptops and tablets all the way down the hall. However, nothing is demanding my attention anymore.
“Not bad.” As with my dad, coming from Grapp, this is high praise. He pats my thigh. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be leaving.”
“Wait, I have questions.”
“Let’s have breakfast in a couple hours. You, Ponty, and I need to have a chat.”
The alarm clock displays 6:03 a.m. I didn’t need to look at the clock to know the time, I belatedly realize. Its state was already sitting in the back of my mind. I turn back to the chair and Grapp is gone. The chair is now slightly farther from the bed. The “Do Not Disturb” sign is no longer hanging off the door handle. Presumably, it’s now hanging on the other side. Grapp’s not even trying to be plausible around me. There’s no point, I guess.
I make myself presentable for breakfast. It won’t be for at least another hour, and there are a few things I want to check on. The world must line up with one set of my university days or the other. It’d be nice to know which.
You can’t be an All-American wrestler and an associate professor in computer architecture without the internet remembering you. I don’t flinch when I wake my laptop. Photos and videos of his matches on the internet are all the right age. Pre-prints of his papers are, too. His webpage at U of M has been updated regularly over the past few years. If no one had said anything, I’d wonder whether my life without Ponty is the hallucination.
It’s 6:47 a.m. and the Ponty I know would be in the hotel gym. I wait a few minutes so that I catch him at the end of his workout. I genuinely don’t want him to be there. If he isn’t, then I fell for an act he put on because he needed me to get to Grapp. It would make him leaving for good easier to take. I’m almost certain, though, that he will be there.
The gym is in the hotel basem*nt. It is a tiny room, with an adjustable bench, a row of dumbbells, and a treadmill. Ponty is there by himself predictably failing to get a good workout. Hotel gyms don’t stock dumbbells heavy enough to challenge a heavyweight wrestler. When I walk in, he’s bent over, his right hand gripping the top of an inclined bench. Very slowly, his left arm rows a large dumbbell with perfect control up to his lats. I sense that he is marked as easily as I can see him.
“Hi, Carter.” He gently sets the dumbbell down and stands up. “I thought you’d show up.”
“I don’t want to interrupt your workout.”
“No, you timed it perfectly. That was my last set.” He casually reracks the dumbbell. “Come on, let’s chat.”
I follow him into a small locker room and wait while he takes a shower. Maybe this should be weird, but it isn’t. Whether it’s in a locker room, a dorm room, or in my practice room in the music school, we’ve had any number of conversations where he’s nonchalantly dressing or undressing and the college-aged me is trying maintain some sort of cool. He wouldn’t be the Ponty I know and love if he weren’t a little oblivious about this. Of course, if I minded him taking his clothes off around me, I could have told him.
He walks from the shower to the bench where his clothes are laid out. A towel is discreetly wrapped around his waist. He cuts an even more powerful, more exercised, if also a little more scarred, figure now than he did in school. It’s as though he’s spent every day since moving furniture and beating up his fellow giants.
“Rough night? I offered to relieve Grapp after the karaoke wrapped up, but he turned me down.” He lets the towel fall to the floor then steps into his underwear. “Actually, by the time I showed up, you were somehow sound asleep. That’s kind of amazing. Well done.”
“Grapp sang a lullaby. I don’t even remember hearing it.”
Ponty’s eyes grow wide. His jaw drops.
“Oh, of course.” Ponty smites his forehead with the heel of his palm. “It wasn’t just any performance of a lullaby. It was Grapp’s. You probably slept past sunrise for the first time in your life.”
“Well, not literally, but close enough.” Knowing that he’s marked, I have to ask. “When you welcomed me to the marked, what were you welcoming me to?”
“The nature of the marked is something a mentor explains to their students.” Ponty is choosing his words carefully. “We repair that which has been broken.”
With that, the subject is closed. Ponty picks up the towel and folds it.
“What was it like when you crossed?”
“I didn’t cross in a room packed with phones and watches. The rest of us build up our tolerance over time.” He sits down and pulls on his socks. “At least the reason you needed to fully adjust last night came with the means.”
“What does that mean?”
Ponty looks down. He purses his lips. His chest visibly swells with a deep breath. Slowly, he lets it whistle out before he locks eyes with me.
“Carter, I owe you an explanation and an apology.”
“Ponty, I told you. It’s fine.”
“No, not that. Well, yes, that too. Look, I have a lot to apologize for, okay?” He pulls on his pants. “I figured if it had to be all done last night because of Grapp, at least he’s also one of the few who can shield you from literally anything you can’t handle regardless of the intensity. I just wanted you to have your shot. I didn’t really think it through.”
“Why did it all have to happen last night?” I hand him his T-shirt.
He slips it on. As snug as it is across his shoulders and chest, the T-shirt billows around his midsection when he stands to tuck it in. His gaze shifts left and lands on his dress shirt. He puts it on as he speaks.
“Only the marked can go between worlds without losing their memories. Grapp’s exile ended years ago. We’ve been searching for him ever since. If there’s anyone who knows how to hide, it’s Grapp. We got lucky because you were, as it turned out, all but marked. We couldn’t find him, but we noticed you and guessed. Anyway, Grapp and I need to leave as soon as possible, so we needed you stabilized by this morning. Who knows what might have happened to you otherwise.”
“Wait, now you’re concerned about messing with me?” I can’t help the grin, so as I glare up at him, I manage no menace whatsoever. “Yesterday morning, I wouldn’t have known you from Adam. Today, you’re my best friend from college.”
“I said I had a lot to apologize for and, besides, I expected the changes to be barely noticeable.” He tucks in his shirt and belts his pants. “Normally, when you stitch yourself into someone’s life, you calculate the tiniest, most surgical change you can, as well as the inverse change for when your job is done. That said, I didn’t have enough time and it seemed simple enough, so I winged it. The ramifications reverberating into the past were larger than I expected. All I wanted to do was make sure you recognized the overgrown, funny-looking guy from your graduating class, so when we met last night, it wouldn’t be weird.”
“Congratulations, you certainly did that, and it was still weird.”
He laughs and the room laughs with him. The lockers vibrate. Their soft, high-pitched shimmer hangs in the air.
“I only needed you to remember me in passing so that I could get to Grapp. I didn’t mean to lead you on. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t.” I hold my hands up. As much as I love him, he is also exactly as annoying as he has always been. “Do not underestimate my ability to fall for someone without his active participation.”
If Ponty were just a stranger to me, I’d be angry that he became yet another unattainable man in my life to navigate. If I were just a stranger to Ponty, he wouldn’t be apologizing so much.
“I thought I’d find the two of you here.” Grapp is now standing next to me. “Come on, let’s chat over breakfast.”
Grapp entering the locker room without me noticing is the most normal thing that has happened today. I honestly can’t tell whether Ponty noticed Grapp coming in or whether he, like me, doesn’t startle when he notices Grapp standing there.
Ponty puts on his shoes, then stands in front of a mirror. His shirt is tight where it should be loose and loose where it should be tight. As he pats it, rolls his shoulders, and slowly windmills his arms, the shirt changes shape until it is tailored to his body. I’ve never seen him look this good in clothes.
We walk over to the hotel restaurant. Ponty’s shirt moves with him like a second skin. Grapp’s shirt is black and also uncommonly well-fitted. I’ve never seen it before. He looks like he, too, could demolish anyone foolish enough to fight him. Unlike me, neither of them make any noise when they walk.
“I feel like I’m giving away our position.” I’m honestly not sure whether I’m joking or not.
“Oh, don’t worry.” Ponty grins as he leans down to stage whisper in my ear. “Our exact position is currently of no operational significance.”
“Ponty.” Grapp glares at him.
Ponty rolls his eyes and holds his hands up in mock-surrender. However, as we continue on, neither of them become any noisier. It never occurred to me how silent Grapp is until today, of course. He always pops up with no warning so the obvious inference was always there, but I never made it until now.
At the hotel restaurant, Grapp goes for the smoked salmon plate, I get an omelet, and Ponty gets three egg white omelets. Grapp and Ponty make idle chatter like two stage magicians talking shop. Whatever they’re saying must make perfect sense to each other, but no one is giving away any tricks of the trade. Despite the relaxed tone, I get the sense that they are discussing something urgent. Then again, it also sounds like they’ve trapped each other inside a tortured metaphor and pun involving bricks in the BRICS nations.
In the meantime, between bites of omelet, my mind spins wondering what Grapp wants to talk to me about. It’s been obvious since I woke up that he has Something He Must Tell Me. Maybe he’s looking forward to saying goodbye about as much as I am. That is to say, not at all.
Ponty’s plates are empty and stacked to his left. He looks remarkably content sitting with his hands folded in front of him on the table. He’s also the sort of poised where if someone suddenly charges at any of us, Ponty will have dropped that person before I can blink. His college self was a caterpillar compared to the glorious butterfly he has become, with magnificent wings now dry and fully deployed.
Grapp has left his smoked salmon mostly untouched and taken maybe one bite of the bagel. He is sipping his third cup of green tea.
“Ponty and I should have left already.” His face is miserably sober. “When we do, we’ll tie off the threads that tether us to this world. No one will notice the change except you. Everyone else, they won’t forget us exactly, but we’ll never come to mind. Keep that in mind when you deal with them.”
“I’ll miss you.” My words sound so small and empty.
Grapp looks weary, but not tired. In fact, he seems surprisingly alert for someone who hasn’t slept in at least a day.
“I’ll miss you, too. We did good work together.” He takes another sip. “Perhaps it’s better that you crossed. You were already all but marked, so you were going to remember us anyway, but I wouldn’t have known to warn you. We would have left, assuming you’d forget. The world would have gotten all weird on you and you wouldn’t have known why.”
“Whereas, now, the world is still going to get all weird on me, but I will know why. That’s not actually better.” I can’t tamp the anger from my voice. “Why can’t you take me with you? If there is a first threshold, there must be a second. Maybe there are more than two. Guide me through all of them.”
Grapp winces. Ponty, oddly, bounces a little in his chair.
“No.” Grapp’s voice is clipped and sharp. “You are going to be a highly successful, well-paid engineer. Given your training, you will have an exceptional, trouble-free life. You will have everything you could want and you will never encounter anything you can’t handle. You’ll be safe here.”
Everything about him, the expression on his face, his body language says, “I have thoroughly explored the entire design space and arrived at the optimal solution.” Maybe this makes what I’m about to say not my best life choice.
“I’m not living in a world where you two don’t exist when there is one where you do. I won’t do it. If you need a reason, you’re my mentor. Please, I’m begging you. There’s so much more I want to learn. Teach me how to sing.” I’m trying and failing to keep my voice level. “You are my two deepest, closest friends.”
“We can’t possibly be friends.” Ponty sounds both regretful and irritated at the same time. “Friendship is a two-way thing. You were an asset I needed to maintain in order to reach the target so I—”
“I think our relationship is more genuine than that. I’ll bet—”
“No, no, you don’t understand. Under normal circ*mstances, you wouldn’t like me. I am trained in manipulation. I made you feel about me—no, wait. I couldn’t have.” Ponty’s eyes grow wide and the realization that spreads across his face is epic. “You were all but marked when I inserted myself into your life.”
Ponty’s poise has evaporated and now he just looks confused. His brow furrows and his hands are brand new inventions he’s just now confronting for the first time.
“Yes, it is a wonder that he knows of you from his university years at all.” Grapp allows himself a slight smile and starts spreading cream cheese on the bagel. “The most you could have done to him was be your overeager, too excitable self. Now that he’s marked, the inverse change to unstitch yourself from his life is a lost cause.”
“Ponty, I’ll bet you one trumpet major that you reciprocate in your own way.”
Ponty’s brow rises. He co*cks his head and gazes at me suspiciously.
“How do you know about that?” Ponty says in a slow growl, and it sounds like an accusation.
“I practically lived in the music school. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.” I turn to an amused and curious Grapp. “At university, there was this trumpeter, Harvey, who thought annoying the hell out of me was hilarious. He. Would. Not. Stop. No matter how much I asked him to. It was stuff like calling me ‘Arter’ or a ‘hinky tenor.’”
“Because you didn’t have a top C.” Grapp pursed his lips. “He sounds lovely. I’m sorry you had to put up with him.”
“That’s the thing. One day, he just stopped.” I look pointedly at Ponty. “In fact, he started going the other way whenever he saw me coming.”
“I didn’t do anything to him.” Ponty’s hands ball into fists, but his tone is patient. “All I did was corner him at the Student Union one day and politely suggest that he leave you alone.”
Grapp sets down the butter knife and picks up his fork. Slices of salmon are layered on each bagel half with exquisite precision as he speaks.
“If you come with me, there’s a certain amount of stitching I am obliged to do.” He gently slides tomato slices on top of the salmon. “That will change you. You may not like who you become. Are you really willing to accept that?”
“I trust you, Grapp.”
Having loaded up his bagel, Grapp can’t seem to make himself eat it. He just stares at it for a bit before he shifts his gaze to me.
“I don’t know that you should.” He picks up the bagel but doesn’t bring it to his mouth. “How much do you actually know about me?”
“Please. Just take me with you. Guide me through all the thresholds. Teach me to sing. How many times do I have to insist?” Something ripples through me and, for an instant, the world spins upside down then right side up again. “Apparently, three times?”
Ponty, his hands now relaxed, looks more chipper. His body language has morphed into something active, as if he’ll spring from his chair at any moment. Grapp, between his expression and his now taut body, is radiating “you have reached a perfectly fine solution that is not at all what I would do” on all frequencies. I’ve seen variations on this from him quite a lot over the years. It’s kind of a miracle when I do anything he wholeheartedly agrees with.
“No one is marked without their consent or someone to guide them,” Grapp says simply. “Usually, the process isn’t this formal or contentious and we get through it before the student crosses the first threshold, but this’ll do.”
“Do you think I’ve made a mistake, Grapp?”
“No.” Grapp sets down the bagel. “It’s not what I would do, but I’m not you.”
“Young, foolish, and have no idea what I’m signing up for?”
Grapp smiles. His eyes, though, are sad.
“Life would have been much easier for you if you’d chosen to stay.” Grapp shrugs. “I’d stay if I had the choice.”
Before leaving, both Grapp and Ponty settle their bills with the hotel. I do too. The actual leaving is remarkable for how ordinary it seems.
We are standing in the lobby. There’s a line for the clerk. People are coming in and out through the revolving door. Grapp and Ponty fade out and no one else seems to notice. The world fades out around me and, even though Grapp warned me in advance, I freak out a little anyway. My hands ball into fists. My jaw clenches. I keep my eyes resolutely open.
A parking lot comes into focus. The air’s a little chilly and it smells slightly of smoke. There’s nothing burning nearby. Cars are scattered across the lot, each one parked exactly between faded lines on the asphalt. Green light poles form a coarse grid. At the far end, trees with yellowing leaves line the strip of grass that bounds the lot. Disappointingly, the cars, the light poles, and the trees are all normal sized. Part of me expected everything in this world to be like Ponty, eleven percent too big.
Ponty and Grapp start walking towards a squat, brutalist building at the near end of the lot. They match stride and still make no noise when they walk. I follow them, the asphalt obviously grinding under my feet. As we get closer, I recognize the building. Father used to bring me here when I was a kid, before he was exiled. I was banished with him or, rather, without him, presumably as an extra twist of the knife.
My memories of this world don’t flood my mind. I forgot them when I was exiled. Now, they’ve always been there. They just never came to mind.
“I was obliged to tether you back to the threads they’d tied off when they’d sent you away.” Grapp doesn’t miss a step in his stride. “Not unreasonably, no one expected you to return. Otherwise, I could have given you a fresh start free from my shadow and my mistakes.”
My two sets of childhood memories are astoundingly similar. It’s as if they have been copied from one world and pasted into another, only in one of them my father died when I was at university. There are still just two sets of memories of my university years. Like those memories, I can’t tell which is the original and which is the copy. No matter the world, my mother died when I was too young to remember anything. She only exists at the vague edges of my memory. I have always been raised by an impossibly rigorous single father. Abacus drills, typing drills, arpeggio drills, footwork drills, punching and blocking drills. You name it, I probably practiced it. If pressed, I might admit I enjoyed some of them, I guess. Anyway, it was a chance to spend time with him.
Years of exile has made Grapp no less rigorous, but infinitely kinder. The man who mentors me hardly seems like the same man who raised me. Granted, I’m probably less exasperating now. Probably. If nothing else, I’m no longer the kid who used a knife to pry out a plug stuck in a wall socket.
“Father?” The question almost doesn’t catch in my throat.
Grapp stops in mid-step. He slumps a little. Ponty stops an instant after. The latter doesn’t seem even remotely surprised.
“Yes, son.” Grapp turns to meet my gaze. “But, Carter, please think of me as Grapp. Please.”
I wrap my arms around him and he hugs me back. Neither of us are who we were when I was fifteen. Ponty smiles but also taps his wrist to say “Hey, we’re on a schedule here.” They speed ahead in long, silent strides. I want to know how they’re doing that, but for now, I half-jog noisily to keep up.
The building looms over us. The key card reader next to the door tickles my mind. Grapp looks at the reader, vaguely appalled.
“Why do I still have administrator access?”
“Well, we didn’t exile you.” Ponty reaches for the door, but stops when Grapp holds up his hand.
“Carter, meet the nice security gizmo. It’s confused because you’re marked now, not to mention broader and a foot taller. We might as well take care of this now.” Grapp positions me in front of it. “This will sting for an instant.”
The sting is more like an itch inside my mind. Grapp pats me on the back and nods to Ponty, who opens the door.
Every time Grapp brought me to work as a kid, he picked me up and held me tight as he stepped through. This time, even though it’d be easy for him, he doesn’t. Grapp and Ponty keep me between them and Grapp whispers “It’s going to feel different to you now that you’re marked” to me as we walk through.
When someone opens the door via key card, they just go through into the first floor. When someone convinces the nice security gizmo to unlock the door, that’s not what happens. When I was a kid, everything went dark and silent. The only thing I felt was my father’s impossibly secure grip. Now, we may not actually be in free fall, but my stomach sinks, air whistles up past my face, and vertical streaks of color blur by. Grapp and Ponty guide the current that flows around us, and my trajectory shifts in response.
We never fell so we don’t land. A floor is just suddenly beneath our feet and it’s as though we’ve been standing in this hallway all along. Marked folk stand on both sides. In exquisite sixteen-part harmony, they beg the muse to tell them about the difficult, determined man who both saved and broke the world. It takes me four measures to realize they’re singing about Grapp.
Ponty leads us down one hallway and up another. Marked folk are lined up in each one. They continue to sing the epic about the man who was exiled for exposing the despot who would chain the world. The music is lush and dissonant punctuated with spare passages of soothing diatonic harmony. Grapp’s stride is as smooth and fluid as ever. Pain on his face isn’t even noticeable unless you’ve known him since you were a child.
“You can make this stop.” I whisper this realization to him. “You can silence the entire company with a thought.”
“But I won’t. This is an honor,” he whispers back. “If someone is lucky, the marked might sing of them after their death. If someone is extremely lucky, they might hear a few measures of their song in their lifetime. Several minutes of mine is being serenaded to me and it’s apparently an epic. I don’t even recognize half these people.”
“But we all know you.” Warmth and awe fill Ponty’s voice.
“I don’t think this song is how things actually went.” Grapp allows himself the slightest frown. “Someone better at my job wouldn’t have let himself get caught.”
After several hallways, we reach one that dead ends. Someone I recognize stands at a door at the end, Grapp’s boss. He introduced me to her once when I was like twelve. Either she’s shrunk or I’ve grown.
Ponty reaches her. He steps aside and stops precisely on the penultimate beat of this first section of the epic. The singing stops when he stops, interrupting the cadence. Grapp steps to Ponty’s side then shrugs at her. Everyone else has swiftly and silently cleared the hallway, leaving the four of us alone.
Her gaze actually falls on me first. Surprise flashes across her face before it’s erased by a curious smile. She meets Grapp’s gaze and takes the measure of him. There is an approving nod. The door opens behind her and she gestures him in.
“Carter, it’s been ages.” Her voice is high and warm. “Welcome to the marked.”
She nods to Ponty and me, then goes back into her office. The door closes behind her.
“Well, I doubt I’ll experience anything like this ever again.” Ponty puts an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, I’ll give you a tour. I’m sure things have changed some since you were fifteen. Besides, now that you’re marked, you’ll notice things.”
My current duties are mostly classes and research. Working here is like studying at a grad school where everyone is silent, efficient, and deadly. They are all incredibly casual with the elegance and dexterity. No one here ever lets on and no one else ever seems to notice. Once at the supermarket, I tried to point out to someone how Ponty makes no noise when he walks. The idea lasted in their head only until their next thought.
I am silent as I race from Intermediate Parkour to my practice room. My colleagues and I pass each other in the halls, in the stairwells, and on the ramps. Despite the fact that we work in a multi-level maze, none of us ever gets lost or makes a wrong turn. I have navigated areas of this complex no one has ever shown me. Grapp says it’s a normal part of progressing from one threshold to another.
Grapp’s unavoidable shadow is vast and would cast me in perpetual darkness if I let it. In an hour, I’m teaching a class on gizmo design. Sure, it’s analogous to what I’ve been doing with Grapp for years, but I’m teaching folks who’ve passed through more thresholds than I have. No one finds that odd. There are any number of the marked who, when I open my mouth, expect Grapp’s voice to come out. What I want is a voice just as perfect, just as heart-rending, but just not that voice. Grapp guides, but getting there is a road I have to navigate myself.
The practice room is a tiny space. There’s just enough room for a piano, bench, and a tiny desk. I press my back against the door. This is the time-honored way of training yourself into the pelvic tilt you need for good breath support. As an undergrad, I sang this way for years and will be singing this way for years more.
Slowly, on an “ah,” I alternate between a middle C and D in a steady rhythm, careful to place my sound in my mask. The mental image is that the sound is really originating a few feet in front of me. Note by note, I work my way up the scale. After about an octave, I do it again, with a different vowel. When I get through all the vowels, I start again with a different rhythm. All the while, I’m mindful of my instrument, careful to supply it with breath, but allow it to remain free and easy.
I can phonate not only a high C, but a fourth beyond. None of them are usable yet. Not really. As with many tenors my age, my high C is a work in progress.
(Editors’ Note: “Wonderland Is a Parking Lot in Revere” is read by Matt Peters on the Uncanny Magazine Podcast, Episode 59B.)
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