A Saxophone, a Girl, and a Soul.(Kevin Hughes) I was thirteen the first time I heard him play. He was in the shed back behind the old garage. I was looking for my cat- Socks. Socks had four perfectly white paws on his body, the rest of his fur was black. So of course I called him: “Socks.” Socks was a “house cat” unless he could get out. Then, well, we had to go find him. You would think he would know where home was…but not Socks. He had a mind of his own.

I was pretty upset when I went behind old Mr. Patches’ beat up garage. You know that combination of emotions that comes when someone you love is lost. Part of you is worried sick and just wants them to be okay, the other part says if you find them you will kill them. Only Parents and people who love pets know that weird combination of emotions. I was having them both. I couldn’t find Socks in any of his usual hiding spots outside the home. That is the only reason I ventured out into old Mr. Patches’ back acres.

That is when, after combing the entire raggedy garage area- I first heard the music. It was a Saxophone. I couldn’t believe the sweetness of the sound. It sort of enveloped me and pulled me towards the shed. Ever seen the movie: “The Pied Piper” ? Or read the book? Well, it was like that. I could only move towards the music. It was calling me. I don’t even remember if my feet touched the ground. I swear I floated. Or maybe…it was just the music took away time so you forgot you were walking. Anyways, the music took away both my anger and my fear. I was one with the music.

There was a small window on the side of the shed. It had those old style four panes of glass, but one was missing. A few spiders had used that open area as a great place to build a silky web. Those webs might have been good for catching bugs, but they didn’t stop a single note from gliding through into the air. I stopped just outside that window. I didn’t want the music to stop. But…I had to get closer.

Creeping along in almost a silent glide to the window, I got close enough to see where the music was coming from. A boy was sitting on a stool. He was about my age, maybe a year older…or younger. He had short red hair, freckles, was barefooted and he had closed his eyes. The saxophone was a beat up looking brass instrument. Not dented or anything, but it gave the impression that the patina of age came from a well loved instrument that had been used often. I mean, I know it sounds silly, but you kinda wanted to like the darn thing. Like it was a person or something. I liked the saxophone right off the bat.

And him.

You know how sometimes people see someone in the throws of delight, or joy and remark: “They look like an Angel!” That is what he looked like to me…at least while he was playing. I swear he glowed. I could see right thru to his soul. The music made a pathway all the way down to his inner being. I couldn’t help it. I gasped.

He stopped playing. The silence was deafening. The loss of the Music being snuffed out left a small trail of smoke, like when you put out a candle. It wasn’t smoke exactly but you could sense the notes fading away. He didn’t yell. He didn’t move at all. Except to lower the sax and look at me. He was just sitting there on the stool, his saxophone on his lap. The look he gave me was quizzical. Like he was wondering where I came from, how I got there. There was no malice in his look. He wasn’t irked or frustrated that I interrupted his playing. Not at all.

It was the most open welcoming look I had ever seen. I stuttered a bit, managing to blurt out (to my own surprise):

“Can…can…can I come in?”

His smile was as soft, whimsical, and captivating as his playing. He nodded his head towards the door. I raced along the shed and pulled that door open. I burst into his space like someone had pushed me (willingly) thru the doorway. It made him laugh. That laugh wasn’t at me, but for me. I laughed back, knowing full well I was cherry red with embarrassment. He pointed with the top of his saxophone to another stool. It was under the window I had been looking thru. I dusted it off with a quick swipe of my hand.

He nodded. Closed his eyes. And played.

I swear I could see my soul being dragged from my body. It hung in the air between us. When he first pulled it out of my body, it had the scrapes and bruises of tiny regrets and wrongs I had committed in my young life. The time I stole five dollars from Betsy’s purse in second grade. I saw the guilt I still felt over that incident lift like a stain in a TV commercial. My soul was a little cleaner. The ugly words I spoke to my Mom when she wouldn’t let me go to the dance with Eric.

“He is not a good boy.”

Was all she had said. I thought he was hot. I told her I hated her. Even later when I found out what Eric tried to do to Melissa after the dance…I still didn’t forgive her. I saw that stain lifted from my soul too. Every unkind word I ever said to my little sister Heather, and my younger brother Zach, was a stain on my soul to.All those hateful words left little gray smudges on what used to be a pure white satin soul. Every mark of guilt, shame, or malicious intent, was eased out of my soul. I could plainly see my soul being cleaned.

I didn’t care.

It was the music…music so pure it could cleanse the soul. Any soul. I never even noticed the tears rolling down my face. That was the first time I noticed the tears rolling down his face. His eyes were still closed, he was still playing with a smooth effortless fingering that caressed each note, inviting it to join the others in the air and ears of anyone nearby. Then he stopped. My soul drifted back into my body. Clean. Spotless. Innocent.

I thanked him.

I walked out of the shed.

*****

I was thirty years old the second time I heard him play. I was in Ireland. My life had taken so many twists and turns that I just needed a place that was a bare and barren as I was. The North West Coast of Ireland was perfect. It matched my mood. Dark, gray, ominous. A sullen drape over scraped by howling winds down to bare rock. I could go to the cliffs from my tiny isolated cottage in just a few minutes. The nearest cottage was miles away, the nearest town seemed like it was near the edge of the earth. I was alone in the land of Druids. All the power of Nature evident in weather. The sun would come out a few hours a day… like it was just visiting and to timid to impose.

I was as bleak inside as the weather was outside. I had made money. I was a success. Two failed marriages proved other wise. I sold my Company for an exorbitant amount. I spent a long year mistaking pleasure for happiness. Finally, in a small hotel in Turkey…I looked in the mirror. I saw me for the first time since I was thirteen. Or rather I saw my soul. It was black. Dark. Pitted.

I left for Ireland the next day. It was said (and I believed them) that in Ireland it was still possible to remove yourself from the things of man. After all, the Monks had been doing silent meditation there for millennia. The Druids for Eons. I tried to book a Monks Cell in a Monastery….but they refused me because I was a woman. They did tell me about a Nunnery that would gladly grant me both a room…and silence. I didn’t think I needed to be around a bunch of women…like me. Women who had decided they didn’t belong in the World of Man. Just the thought of it made me tired.

I was soul sick. Misery may like company, sick souls do not.

The Abbot was a kind man tho. He told me he had a brother who lived in Donegal. The family had an old cottage that hadn’t been lived in since their great Aunt Katherine died back in 1957. He could make an inquiry if I so desired.

“I must be warning you, Lass, it is a wee bit off the beaten path. You won’t be seeing much of people there. The walls are thick to keep out the wind and the cold. The landscape be keeping the people at bay. And it only has an outhouse for those needs of nature. There is no electricity. The stove is fueled by peat. Still it is a pretty place all in all.”

She told him to call his Brother.

And so she found herself taking long walks that covered peat bogs, heather, and the many brooks that bubbled and gurgled their way to the cliffs. She was far from the tourist sites, few locals ventured this far into the wilds to interrupt her solitude. She spent most days brooding. The wind did little to blow away the wheat and chaff of a decade and a half of dedication to things.

She had learned why so many wore thick woolen sweaters. Drenched and blasted by wind, she was still fairly warm leaning into the wind and rain to force her way back to the cottage from the outhouse fifty meters away. Nature didn’t care what the weather was…neither did she.

Then, she heard the music.

Her soul seemed to leap from her body, dragging her with impatience towards the cliffs. Part of her resisted. She wasn’t here to throw herself into the sea. Another part of her surrendered to the tug and pull of her soul. Maybe it knew something she didn’t. She let go of her will.

“What will be…will be.”

Then she pulled up short. Near the cliff edge was a long arc of gravel. She had called it her beach a good thousand feet above the sea. It would make her smile when she thought to dip her toe in the water, she would have to fall quite a way down. A beach you can’t reach from the water. That seemed to fit her melancholy perfectly. She called it: “Her Beach.” She never saw another person there. Not once. Until today.

It was him.

Same red hair. Same freckles. Same aura of complete calm,as music that would make Angels cry, poured out like sweet molasses , the notes filing out in the best order to be heard. Each note perfect for its time and place.

Once again she saw her soul hanging in front of her. She was ashamed. It had been pure once. Now torn, tattered, blackened by the pettiness of her interpersonal relationships, stained by the refrain she had often quoted to broke and despairing competitors : “It’s just business.” Her own infidelities pushed and shoved against those of the two men she had married, both eager to provide as much guilt, shame, and pain as possible. It was a soul with mortal wounds in it.

It disgusted her.

Still she followed it to the source of the music: him.

Just like that time in the shed…he stopped playing. He looked over at her with that same soft smile. A smile of promise, of hope, of redemption. There was no hubris or artifice in that smile. It was the smile of a soul well maintained. One bereft of judgment or pity. She loved that smile. He motioned with his saxophone to come sit near him. She chose a rock where she could see both him, and the ocean beyond he Cliffs. He could see her clearly as she sat on a rock not two feet from him.

He started to play. The wind stopped. The birds ceased chattering. The ocean stopped thundering against the base of the cliffs, choosing instead to provide a baseline that resembled a beating heart. A heart comfortable with the love growing inside it. She swore even the grass was leaning into hear the music. Her soul was now hanging directly in front of her. She could see the dark smelly thing wriggling as note after note hit it.

It was a miracle. She was sure of it. Those notes were raking the soot and muck of her muddled adult years with every phrase coming from the saxophone. Her soul went from black, to grey, to dirty, to old dishwater color. Then…it started to whiten. It became clear, smooth, shiny. When he finally stopped playing…her soul floated back into her body. Cleansed. Bleached. Pure.

He set the saxophone down on rock next to her. She stood up. Surprised to find she was a bit taller than him…and didn’t care. His eyes were open. The windows to his soul were open too. She knew he could see into hers. Not just windows, but doors opened, rooms opened, there were no secrets. She knew. So did he.

He kissed her. She kissed him back. That music was as sweet as anything he ever played.

They held hand as they walked her beach. The first pebbles of trust were gathering under them. Eventually the path led them both to her cabin. They hung his saxophone over the mantle. She called the Brother…and the Abbot.

They were married just outside the cottage. The Abbot and his Brother, lead the ceremony. She hugged them both when she opened the card from them. She showed the card to the Saxophone player. He smiled and hugged them both too. They shared a laugh over the wording:

“Sure and its a nice place if you are newly married and don’t want the bother of those seeking to visit. It is a couple hours to the nearest pint. As sure as God winks at a sunny day in Donegal, our Aunt Katherine would want ye to be having this place. A garden would be all she asked of ye.”

So they did plant a garden. Nothing should grow there in the rocky soil scraped by winds that would put a hurricane to shame. People came from miles away, not to intrude, but to marvel. The garden was beautiful every Spring, and most of the Summer. She would plant and prune, he would play his saxophone. The garden grew.

When people in that part of Donegal, got sick. They asked him to come play. She would go with him, either to hold hands with the dying family member, or to provide help as they learned to cope with a clean soul. Either way, peace was granted.

After all, he was the Soul Singer.

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