Heartbeat

“Now, go out there and play whatever you want. Just try not to screw up. The talent at this casino is pretty dry, but I can’t have you scaring off what little suckers we can gather.” Not once did Mr. Lee look up from his paper to give the nervously fiddling Jack any ease. However, after several continuous seconds filled with nothing but the scribbles of Lee’s pen, he stopped, and finally looked at the young man.

“You’re good. Get out of my office.” He waved his hand towards the door to his office, and put pen back to paper. Jack continued to silently fiddle with the cuff on his shirt, wanting to ask the man behind the desk a question, but fearing he would mess up his first impression. Sweat began to bead at the top of his brow, and his eyes darted around the room. His breathing sounded labored in his head, and he became increasingly self-conscious of the volume of it.

Lee threw his pen lightly onto his desk and breathed a large sigh. “Look, kid. People don’t usually stare at me this long. If you have something to say, spit it out. You’re wasting my money standing around there like a statue. Or do you want me to throw you back out on the street where I found ya?” He leaned back on his chair and pointed behind him with his thumb. His legs were now crossed, and his foot tapped methodically to the side of his desk. His shoes and getup were largely sleek and modern, a man of business, but the bottoms of his shoes were not entirely stark black, covered lightly in a thin layer of dust and dirt, and the cuffs on his suit were tainted, showing a hint of brown near his palms which glared intrusively through the white.

Jack stuttered, but did eventually get around to speaking. “S-so…” He cleared his throat. “So a-after tonight, do I come back to play more or…”

Mr. Lee leaned forward again. “I guess we’ll see how tonight goes, but I can’t promise ya anything.” He smiled a half-smirk at Jack, barely visible underneath his moustache. “Now get out, you’re breaking my flow, and we got work to do.” He pushed his seat back to better position himself to resume his paperwork, and at that time, Jack nodded obediently, and scurried out through the door.

Outside Mr. Lee’s office, Jack had a full view of the interior, illuminated harshly with bright, iridescent lighting. In the center was a slightly raised, polished wood platform upon which sat a piano, not new, though with no visible signs of aging or scuffing. Surrounding were slot machines which loudly beeped and blinked with sounds that were supposedly meant to keep players paying, though to Jack, they were grating and irritating, and the gamblers sitting in front of them seemed lifeless and sinful to him. And yet, ironically, he envied them to a degree, at their ability to slip away from the harsh realities of life and consume themselves entirely in these banal games.

Jack walked down the stairs towards the stage in the center of the casino, passing by the zombie-like patrons, a relieving sight considering that he was beginning to shake and jitter with stage fright. Out on the streets with his keyboard, he could rest easy knowing that very few people would acknowledge him beyond his music, busy with their own, infinitely complex lives. But here, he would be the center. He would be under spotlights, he would be above nearly everybody. He would be treated as if he were somebody.

Jack stepped up towards the piano and sat down on the seat before it. He situated himself and placed his pack on the floor next to him, and through it he rifled, attempting to find a song that would resonate with the heartless individuals who continued to throw their money away, ones who, in his mind, would hate him no matter what he played. He sat and pondered at the thought for what seemed like hours, but was in reality only mere seconds. And in those few seconds, Jack ran through many emotions. In his ears, he could hear his heart beating, the same way it did when his father passed away. The same way it did when his brother left. Jack stared down into his incomprehensible pile of random songs, and slowly retracted his hand. He looked around the room, and saw no eyes. Only lights and lifeless forms. He sat straight on the seat, and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply in through his nose, and exhaled from his mouth. He spun around to face the keys, and began to play.

As Jack hit his first key, the rattles and slides from the slots began to slowly be drowned out. The lights around him framed him and encapsulated his physical body, but as he played, he felt his emotion flee him. He began losing himself in the raw musical escapism he was crafting for himself, his fingers sliding up and down the length of the instrument. His heartbeat also began to lose center stage in his own mind, as his body began to play notes instinctually. Jack hit a flourished scale, and took a moment to listen to the sounds of the casino. Nothing.

Jack played on, looking down at the keys in front of him as his hands danced. The lights outside the stage almost seemed dim in his peripheral vision, a void outside the proverbial gate of the musical performance. Despite his previous nerves, he felt the same as he had on the streets, but this time, somehow more isolated. This isolation was almost cathartic, however. He felt as if he was being freed from himself. He, if only for however long the song could last, felt distanced from his own being, from living the life he was, and from the realities of his troubled past. And in these moments, nothing more mattered to him. The sensations of his emotion spilling from his heart almost seemed to shatter something within him, a metaphorical wall being broken down to make way for feelings long withheld deep inside the recesses of his core. Now the heartbreak of his past, once the reason for his sense of worthlessness and meaninglessness, was the fuel for his passionate play. And having been enwrapped within the song he was playing, Jack sunk back down from his momentary trance, having played the final tone.

As he opened his eyes, Jack’s emotions slowly retreated back within himself. His arms went limp, and he looked down at the white and black keys, before looking up at the room. The first thing he noticed, before he could even interpret what he saw, was the silence. The obnoxious sounds that irked him so thoroughly were inexplicably absent. They were, however, replaced with eyes. Many of them. Nearly everybody in the casino had stopped what they were doing to watch Jack play. Jack’s eyes widened, and he began to once again, succumb to his stage fright.

Jack frantically gathered his belongings and was set to run off the stage and out of the venue. He was ashamed, not only at his lack of resilience, having let himself get so involved in playing that he felt it tantamount to having an emotional breakdown, but also in that he would be letting his sheepishness deprive him and his mother of much needed income. And as he turned around to leave, his path was obstructed by Mr. Lee’s tightly knotted tie. As well as the rest of him.

Mr. Lee placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder, Jack’s face now red and blushed. Jack was ready to hear he had been fired, and was prepared for the worst without realizing why he would even be let go. He had done nothing wrong, and yet, Jack had been so accustomed to it that it seemed an inevitability. It wasn’t. Mr. Lee smiled at Jack.

“Keep playing, kid.”