The Jack of Spades, the Castle Road Princess, and the Arabesque Paradox

from As It Were: The Long-Lost Blue-Noted Romance Yarn by Amos Bankhead

The days were shorter now, the air cool and crisp, and hearts did not seem averse to being beguiled. It was increasingly rare that father and daughter found themselves in Manzana at the same time, but now it was October, and she was back for a visit, while he had business to handle at the restaurant. And so on a Sunday morning they sat together at the bistro table on the rose garden patio, with the mokapot and fresh croissants and The New York Times, as Lady in Satin played from the bluetooth speaker on the brick sitting wall beside them. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been with her father like this, just having coffee and reading the paper with a record playing in the background. Like she used to do with Jesse, she thought, and she felt a pang of grief in her stomach. Jesse, of whom her father never approved, but Jesse, in whom she saw so much of her old man. They'd always had their special bond, she and her father, and yet he remained a riddle to her, even after all these years. The relationship with her mother had always been more adversarial, likely on account of it being more direct and unambiguous, whereas her father had always kept her guessing and wondering, and as such they'd always enjoyed a harmonious shroud. But recently she'd become increasingly discontented with the pretense, and then over lunch in New York some weeks previous, her mother had inadvertently expressed to her a rather cryptic concern (upon which she declined to elaborate) regarding his business and their life together. Still, whatever her suspicions amounted to, her mother had no backbone and would never stand up to her husband. And Calliope was not her mother.

The train sounded and the fountain babbled. Billie was rasping and struggling through 'It's Easy To Remember'.

Oof, Bill, she said. She sounds terrible.

He finished reading the paragraph, and then folded the paper and laid it on the table in front of him.

What does terrible sound like?

She narrowed her eyes at him and then cracked a droll smile.

You've always liked this album, though. This death-rattle shit.

'Death-rattle'? That's from The Penguin Guide. Don't plagiarize.

Plagiarize? It's a quote.

He sipped his coffee.

The difference?

She sipped her coffee.

Acknowledgment, she said. Not explicit, necessarily, with quotation marks. But with context. Intention. Like Parker quoting Stravinsky at Birdland, say.

What about the audience beyond Igor?

She sipped her coffee.

There was no audience beyond Igor.

He smiled.

'Good artists copy; great artists steal'?

She smiled and sipped her coffee.

I never did like that quote. But the distinction is serviceable, I suppose. Copying is crude, but theft done well simultaneously pays homage and creates something new. And I think maybe, insomuch as we're always sharing words or melodies or ideas, I think that a good artist—regardless of how great they're purported to be—a good artist understands the context in which they create.

Pasticcio, he said.

Yes, she said.

They sipped their coffee.

But back to Billie, and the death-rattle shit. Intertextuality aside...would you rather she sound like Sarah? Don't forget what made her Billie.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head gently.

See, that's my point exactly. ‘What made her Billie.’..is this what made her Billie? She narrowed her eyes at him. You're just like Jesse, she said.

He smiled.

Mr. Mulligan, ah yes, he said. Another tragic hero of his own story. Romanticizing hopelessly. Bewitched by the myth.

Yes, all of that. The both of you. Something is rotten, she said, and she sipped her coffee.

He smiled graciously and leaned back in his chair.

Alas, poor Yorick, he said evenly. And...I wonder if perhaps we're enduringly unqualified to judge lives other than our own.

She poured coffee from the mokapot into his cup. He nodded in gratitude and lifted the cup from the table.

Go to, she said.

He smiled.

Lives are shaped beyond lifetimes, and our conviction as to what constitutes a successful life is simply this, our conviction. Conjecture. Supposition. Idle speculation. Who are we to suppose we know what is best for another?

She set her cup on the table and leveled her gaze at her father.

A parent? Or maybe just someone who cares? Someone who is affected by the actions of another?

With the pad of her left forefinger she nervously polished the elliptical schnoz of the Bialetti man. She turned her head to look at the sun on the water.

Someone who doesn't subscribe to your brand of stoic, star-crossed fatalism, she said, without looking at her father.

He sipped his coffee stoically.

Of course, he said finally, the Stoics also suspected the false dichotomy. Labor AND logos. Predisposition—but not predetermination. And as such, you mistake me, my dear. I don't believe we're hopeless, or that it's all a big farce. And neither do I think we can ever truly comprehend the water in which we swim. Which, of course, should not keep us from swimming, or from wondering what it means to swim. I think how we navigate the currents is up to us—but I also think that those currents are ineluctable, and take us all where they will. Maybe it's just about how we swim in the river.

She studied him, his visage cleaved by the late-morning light, half lambent in the sun off the water, half indistinct and graced with the filigree of shadow from the blue oak leaves.

He saw the angst in his daughter's eyes as she looked at him.

Demitasse for your thoughts? he said.

She turned her head and looked out at the water for a long beat.

I've known you my whole life, she said.

In a manner of speaking, he said.

Her pained and tight-lipped smile pretended not to hear him.

And still I get shook sometimes, by your mind, your heart, the depth of truth I find in your words, she said.

He smiled lovingly and knowingly at his daughter, waiting for her to finish the thought.

Her head shook gently, wistfully.

And then sometimes I just think you're full of shit, she said.

His spine straightened, and his countenance was radiant—and in that moment she felt the full force of her father's love.

He thumped the table gently with a closed fist. Well, he said, which is it?

There was a beat, and then they both giggled, and he poured the last of the coffee into her cup.