Soft Landing

Soft Landing

By Jeff Van Dell

“We’re lost!”

“No, we’re not.”

“We’ve passed the same convenience store three times. Turn around and get back on the highway.”

“I am not going back there because we’re on the right road.”

“The sign said ‘Postal Road’, we’re on the right road we just have to keep following it.”

“The directions say ‘Old Post Road’. You didn’t copy the spelling properly.”

“You’re lecturing me on my spelling? How about ‘sycamore’? I think you spelled it S-I-K-A-M-O-O-R.”

“You still remember that?”

“Postal Road, Old Post Road…they’re homonyms.”

“I know what a homonym is and we are not on one.”

“Alright, if we don’t find the turnoff in a few minutes we’ll go back to the convenience store and call him. It will make us look like idiots though.”

“Oh hey, slow down! Look, it’s right there. We couldn’t see it because the mailbox is brown. It blends in with the trees. We must have passed it three times.”

“I can see the house all lit up now. It’s hidden by all of those blue spruce trees. They must be eighty feet high. I wonder if he decorates them for Christmas?”

Gravel crunched under the car’s rubber tires as I turned into his driveway.

“The trees are a double row. No wonder you can’t see the place from the road.”

“Creepy, are you sure you want to do this?”

“We have three hundred reasons to each to play with this guy. He sounded normal over the phone.”

“Don’t accept any food, especially cookies that taste like almonds.”

“Why?”

“Almonds mask the taste of arsenic.”

“Jodi Foster?”

“Very good! ‘The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane.”

I turned the car’s engine off and looked at the house.

“Let’s go meet our fearless leader.”

“Ok, you go first.”

The colonial house was painted canary yellow with black and white trim. It reminded me of the yellow roses my mother grew in her garden.

“Can you grab my shoulder bag? I’ll get the cabinet with my other head and we can load in with only two trips.”

“You’re the model of efficiency.”

“Thank you, nice house.”

“This must be him.”

A tall, sable haired man in his sixties opened the front door and greeted us with a warm smile.

“Welcome boys, You can call me George. I’m glad you made it. Any trouble finding the place?”

I shook his hand, large and warm.

“I’m Bill, this is Matt, and no, we didn’t have any trouble finding the place.”

“Most people drive up and down the road and miss the mailbox. Do you want a hand with your gear? Nice amp.”
”No, just show us where to set up and we’re good.”

He led us through a family room with a huge brick and granite fireplace that dated back to colonial days with a roaring fire that lent a friendly glow and wonderful aroma to the oak paneled room. Books, magazines, and notebooks dotted the furniture. George was a man whose mind was not inactive. A sliding glass door led to a modern sunroom addition that served as a recording studio complete with sound dampening panels and a beautiful Kawai baby grand piano. Black microphone cables were coiled here and there that led to a sixteen-channel snake that ran into another room where the mixing board and digital processing gear lay.

“Nice space George, do you do a lot of recording here?” asked Matt.

“A little, I used to do a lot more but I’m busy with other things now. Sometimes I let people come and use the studio for their projects.”

“We’ll be set up in fifteen minutes. Can we use those music stands?” I asked.

“Go right ahead. You look like you’re used to being in the studio. The cables are all marked Matt, you can plug those microphones in. You’re playing a four-piece kit?”

“Yeah, ride, two crashes, and hi hats for cymbals. I’ve got my own drum mics. Do you want everything miked individually or are you going to use overheads for the cymbals?” He asked.

“Let’s use two of my mics for the hi hat and I’ve got two wonderful condenser mics for the overheads. Bill, I’ll let you go direct as well as recording the sound of your amp. I find the combination of room sound plus direct input to give a fuller sound that simply going direct.”

“I agree, great minds think alike.” I laughed.

“I’ll bring out a pot of coffee and some food. The bathroom is over there. After you’re plugged in I’ll get levels and we can get started.”

Matt set up his drums and I plugged my amp and direct line into the snake then tuned up my bass. I was always ready before he was. “You need anything pal?”

“Hey, I actually forgot my stick bag in the car. Can you grab it for me?”

“Sure.”

In the car I found his bag, my water bottle, and an extra copy of the charts we’d been sent. We had gotten this recording job from an online ad and we’d only communicated with George by e-mail. Matt and I had played hundreds of gigs together since we were freshman at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Blues, Jazz, Punk, Speed Metal, and even country music were in our shared musical history. We made a decent living teaching and playing and planned on moving to Nashville or Los Angeles someday.

“Hey Bill, could you grab that little felt pad. It’s on the back seat.” Matt shouted from the front door.

“I’m a bassist not a roadie!”

“Thanks! I won’t spit in your coffee anymore.” He said.

I grabbed the little felt pad and shut the door with my foot when I saw something move near the stand of blue spruce trees that spooked me.

It was a tall man, barely illuminated by glowing red light from below his face in the fading twilight.

“Hello?” I spoke, too quietly for him to hear me perhaps.

The man didn’t answer me. He puffed on his pipe and his face lit up again. He stood staring in my direction.

“Hello?” I said in my full voice. “Are you recording with us?”

A cold sweat broke out on my face. The man wore an English Fog raincoat and a dark brown hat. Another puff of his pipe brought out his features in relief against the darkening background. I could hear Matt warming up on the drums, muted through the house’s walls and turned to walk away from the man. As I reached for the door knob the man spoke.

“You’ll have to kill him. In the end, you’ll just have to kill him.” He said.

 The man took another puff of his pipe and blew out an elliptical smoke ring. He smiled at me.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“You’ll see, in the end you will have to kill him.”

The front door was pulled open and I was pulled forward by my death grip on the knob.

“Hey, are you waiting for an invitation? Come on, we’re eating. You ok Bill?” Matt asked as he took the stick bag and felt pad from my hands.

“I…um…yeah, I’m fine.” I said and shut the door behind me, turning the dead bolt.

“These are great! My mom used to make tuna with apples, just like this.” Matt popped another finger sandwich into his mouth and hit each drum so that George could get proper levels for the recording.

“I put curry powder in the chicken salad. Those are the ones on pumpernickel bread, they have a little kick to them.” George said from the other room. “Ok, good level on the drums. Bill play as loud as you are going to. Good signal Bill. You boys finish eating while I get my guitars set up.”

I scarfed down a few sandwiches and gulped down two cups of coffee while. Matt and I played through the songs once through to get our heads in the right place musically.

“It sounds a little busy, don’t you think?” I said.

“We’re just a trio, we need to fill the space up.”

“We don’t know how much he’s going to be playing. Isn’t he going to overdub the rhythm parts?” I played with the knobs on my bass and made a mental note to change the strings. George came in with his guitar on and played through the familiar sounding licks that were the basis of the songs he was recording.

“Hey George, we can’t decide if we’re playing too much. Are you going to be adding an overdubbed guitar or is it just like the demo you sent us?” Matt asked.

“Well, I want to make the best recording I can but I still want a live vibe for what we’re going to be playing here right now. Just stick to the form and play what feels right at the time. I will play my solos and then overdub rhythm guitar or piano and B-3 organ if it sounds too thin. You guys are great players, I’m sure whatever you lay down will fly.” George had set us at ease with that comment and I knew that he must have worked with lots of musicians before.

After playing through a standard blues form he checked the recording levels one more time and prepared to record the first song.

“The inlay on your guitar is beautiful.” I said, noting the intricate detail of abalone shell and mother of pearl on his instrument.

“Thanks, a guy in Vermont does them full time, a real craftsman he is. I asked him for the Twenty-Third Psalm and he did the entire thing on the upper bought and front. See? The whole thing is in the shape of a lamb.” He held up his guitar for us to see.

“Amazing, what religion are you, if I might ask?”

“A Christian.” Dan said.

“Matt you have a friend.” I winked at Matt because he was a devout Evangelical and wouldn’t play gigs that interfered with his church activities.

Dan and Matt exchanged a few familiar sounding religious words and I looked over the charts.

“Ok boys, the clock’s running. Let’s go through ‘Wonder Bread’ first.”

“Which one is that?” Matt asked as he shuffled through his music.

“The shuffle in twelve-eight. I’m doing it in the key of ‘D’. I’m dropped tuning for this one, can you drop too, to get that nice low note?”

I did the little trick where I lowered my ‘E’ string down a whole step to ‘D’ with one twist of his tuner. People were amazed I could get it exactly in tune on the first try, but it had become second nature to me, like tying your shoes.

“Ok, count us off and play the chart as is.”

Matt counted, “One, two, one, two, three, four!”

After the first few bars of music I knew it was going to be a good session. Dan’s song writing was simple, but he had a great bluesy voice that really sold his “I love God!”  lyrics with aplomb. His solos were obviously rehearsed because he played the same one for each of the three takes, even so, they were beautifully melodic and enhanced the song.

After the third time through the song Dan stopped.

“Good job boys, let me just make sure we’ve got a good recording level and do this one for real.”

For the rest of the night, and into part of the morning we did one run through and one take of each of the seven songs. Dan would overdub the vocals and other instruments later. We listened back to what we had recorded as we packed up.

“Great job boys. I really like your bass drum mic Matthew. It’s nice and punchy, but warm too.”

“Thanks, good solo at the end of that song Dan, very lyrical.”

“You’re very kind Bill. Do you boys want a burned CD of the rough tracks? I may call on you for a live performance this fall if I can get the thing finished.”

“Yes that would be great. We’d love to play with you.” I said.

“Sounds good for a rough mix. Isn’t Pro-Tools a great program?” Matt twirled his sticks.

“It makes things easier, that’s for sure.”

I picked up my gig bag and amp and went outside into the cool air. It was a perfect night with white stars set against a jet-black sky. No moon or haze of lights from a city occluded the inky blackness and points of white. It reminded me of the diamonds my father displayed against black felt under special lights that magnified their best qualities.

Dan carried out Matt’s cymbal bag and set it in the trunk.

“You boys know how to get back to the highway?” He asked. “It’s a right, another right, and straight on till you hit the highway.”

I heard the scrape of and pop of a match being struck then saw the flare of light casting white light on the creepy man’s face before it dimmed to the red glow of his pipe.

“In the end, you’ll have to kill him.” He said again.

“Walter! You’re going to scare off my rhythm section.” Dan said this in a tone reserved for a beloved old dog that wouldn’t stop jumping on the sofa. “Boys, this is my nutty brother Walter. He thinks he’s a prophet. Don’t mind him. I only keep him here because he’s pretty good with the little farm we keep, plays piano well, and can write string quartets.”

Walter bowed a to us and said, “Rutgers, class of ’67, neo-romantic and baroque stylings are my specialty.” He tipped his hat to us and smiled.

Up close he wasn’t menacing.

“Nice meeting you again, Dan … Walter.” I shook their hands, started the car, and left.

I saw them wave to us in the rear-view mirror.

A month or so later we received a package from Dan.

“Hey, look what came in the mail!” Matt held up a CD.

“Put it in and let’s hear.” I said.

We listened to our performances, enhanced by studio effects and overdubs of other instruments.

“Great guitar sound, he must have spent a long time getting the clean channel balanced.” I said. “Nice fill Matt. It builds just enough to get us into the chorus but not too much that it’s a distraction.”

“Thanks, remember when we first started playing? We would have walked all over his pieces, overplaying everywhere and trying to be the center of attention.” He said.

“Less is more.”

“Dan definitely has a cool vibe going on between his singing and playing. It’s funny how he stops playing to let just one word come though.” I said.

“Like Muddy Waters or B.B. King.” Matt said.

“You can tell he probably walks around his house with a guitar on, just playing his songs.” I laughed, because this is what I often did when trying to learn and memorize new material.

I changed the strings on my four instruments and Matt surfed the Web for possible gigs.

“That last solo was only so-so. If we e-mail him back let’s be sure to tell him.” Matt said.

“Are you nuts? He might get offended.”

“But he doesn’t want a crappy sounding solo on his CD, does he?” Matt picked up a pair of sticks and did some double paradiddles his thigh, which must have hurt.

“You’re the Christian, maybe you should tell him. I mean, the guy paid us, do we want to risk not getting more work because we ticked him off?”

“Six of one, half dozen of another pal. I’d rather be honest with him and have him re-do the solo.”

“Maybe we could do it, just more diplomatically?”

“Like, we could say ‘those were some interesting note choices’, or ‘were you listening to a lot of Bartok when you played that solo?” Matt said, laughing.

We both loved Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra and our rock and jazz friends poked fun at us because they thought it sounded too modern and atonal.

The issue of how to tell Dan his solo sounded awful when we received a call from him a month later.

“So boys, I’ve got a show at a Christian coffeehouse and if you’re free you can just practice with the CD. I’ll be doing the songs exactly as they are on the CD and you can show up and do a sound check and play.”

“Yes!” I said immediately because this was the perfect kind of gig for us. Matt and I received another CD with only a click track for reference and the rhythm guitar. We rehearsed the music together to the CD and arrived at the good sized room an hour before show time.

“Hop right in boys, the water’s fine!” Dan said with a smile as he shook our hands, Matt got a hug. It was a Christian thing I suppose.

After setting up I had to endure praying with Matt and the other believers. Apparently this was some kind of Christian outreach, but I didn’t care. It was good music and it paid well. Apart from Dan’s sermonizing every three songs or so the night was like the thousands of others I’d played.

Except for Tricia.

When I shook her hand I felt a warm connection to this young woman and made more small talk than I every thought possible.

“So, um…listen…um…we’re playing at a nice club in a week or so that has an awesome  BBQ. We’re playing blues and jazz tunes, laid back…um…really nice atmosphere. Would you like to come and hear us? We could go for an ice cream between sets at this great micro-creamery that has real vanilla bean vanilla ice cream, and pistachio ice cream that has real pistachios mixed in.”

To my utter surprise she said yes. Most of Matt’s Christian friends who were women wouldn’t date me and I wondered if she were a “true believer”.

“So, my dad’s a pastor and my mom home schooled me.” She said.

“You’ve got ice cream on your cheek.” I pointed at a spot next to her lower lip.

“Oh…and three of my sisters and married with kids and my twin kid brothers are joining the Marines together.” She gushed.

“No way!”

“yea, my parents flipped out over that. It will be good for them because they were the rough and tumble types. One time they made a giant parachute out of bed sheets and jumped off the roof into our round, above ground pool.” She laughed. “They hit the edge and the pool collapsed. My parents were livid.”

“That’s intense.”

“It sent water into our basement and I’d never seen my dad so angry. I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”

“How old were they?”

“Twelve, I’m amazed they survived to seventeen.”

I crunched the cone of my ice cream and savored the sugary goodness.

“You have an interesting family Trish. I was an only child so I never had the big family experience.”

“Well sharing the bathroom with my sisters was the worst part of it, but I always had someone to talk to. Have you always wanted to be a musician?”

We talked for a long time about…everything. I’ll never forget that first date for the great music, food, and warm companionship. I didn’t even care that I didn’t sleep with her.

Our second date was memorable because of a conversation I had with Trisha after a movie we saw.

“The message was garbled, don’t you think?” Trish said as she sipped her coffee and leaned just a little closer to me in the outdoor café we went to.

“The bad guy got it in the end, didn’t he?”

“But he was held up as a hero for all those kids.”

“To them he was.”

“But was he really? I an absolute sense he was evil, wasn’t he?”

“There are no absolutes in the world Trish.”

“Water freezes at zero degrees Celsius. If you stop breathing for ten minutes you’ll probably die. That’s an absolute.”

“That’s different Trish. You’re talking about strictly physical laws.”

“I’m speaking in a philosophical sense, a moral sense.”

We paused to think and sip our drinks.

“I used to think that people were inherently evil, like, all the way through.” She said.

“That’s harsh! Are people really all that bad?” I asked, Hitler came to my mind, and Pol Pot and Stalin too.

“Read the news lately?”

“You said, ‘used to’, do you still believe that?”
”Well, now I think that although we’re bent towards evil we have the capacity for good too.”

“I agree with you there.”

“You can’t completely blot out God’s image in human beings Bill. Although some people do their best to avoid the God question.”

I raised my mug. “Here’s to avoiding the God question.”

“You can’t avoid it forever.”

“Tell you what, you kiss me once and I’ll let you have more God talk.” I laughed.

“Tell you what, you give me more God talk and I’ll think about letting you kiss me, on the cheek.” She laughed and reached across the table to hold my hand. I was smitten.

“Ok, Here’s what I think Trish. Is it really logical to believe that a Palestinian peasant, crucified by the Romans two-thousand years ago rose from the dead and will forgive my sins?”

I’ll never know what her answer would have been because at that moment a pickup truck loaded with teenagers and driven by a drunk seventeen year old star athlete, plowed into the outdoor café area of the Starbucks we sat at, killing four, injuring thirteen.

“I’ve got a wheelchair and the van’s pulled up to the door. You want to say goodbye to Nancy?” Matt asked.

“No, she’s doing her med rounds. I’ve got her number. She’s got mine, if she wants to call. Let’s get out of here.” I said.

Our apartment looked cleaner but smaller and than I remembered it to be.

“I put your basses in their hard shell cases and the amps and stuff in the front hall, for now. I gave you most of your important mail, the cards and stuff in the hospital. There’s a ton of junk mail and I took care of the ordinary bills. Your sister put the hospital bills and insurance stuff in a file on your desk.”

“You are way too efficient.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “I really cannot thank you enough buddy, for everything.”

“Don’t mention it. As soon as you’re back on your feet we can start gigging again right?”

I smirked, “As soon as I’m on my feet…”

“Oh, I’m sorry…I forgot.”
”Look Matt, don’t worry about it. I’m a gimp now. At least I can walk and thank God my arms or hands weren’t injured. I can still play! I just don’t feel like playing much right now.”

“I understand. Take all the time you need. I’ve got gigs lined up with Steve and lots of private students.”
But Matt didn’t understand. Trisha’s dead body lay next to mine under the truck for an hour and a half while they moved the wounded and dead from beneath the wreckage. The only reason I didn’t bleed out was because the metal flap that severed my leg also cauterized the severed veins and arteries.

I had “Phantom Limb Pain” and recurring nightmares about the accident. My artificial leg was easy to walk on, a miracle of carbon fiber and titanium. I would never drive a stick shift again. Trisha’s parents came to visit me in the hospital a few times. They asked several times what the last moments of their daughter’s life were like. I told them exactly what I remembered. The last time they came, just before I was released her dad said, “Call us if you need anything, anything at all. Trisha chose her friends carefully and if she went out with you you’re most likely a decent man.” He hugged me and they left.

A few weeks later Matt caught me staring at the phone with my hand perched atop my fist looking to all the world like Rodin’s “Thinking Man”.

“Bill, you’ve got to push the little button

Trisha’s parents had suffered a terrible loss. My keeping in contact with them would only serve to remind them of her. I didn’t want to bring them any more pain so I didn’t call.

It was a year after that that Nancy and I got married. Matt was my best man, of course, and all our musician friends took turns playing in a rotating band that played every musical style imaginable. Even Nancy, who gave up clarinet in fifth grade, sang “Girls just wanna have fun!” to the delight of her bridesmaids.

We settled down into domestic life. I took a teaching job at a state college and played bass wherever I could. Nancy was six months pregnant when I got the call.

“Bill, it’s Pastor Steve O’Donnell.”

Bad news, a gig, or something else? I thought.

“How are you Steve?”

“Not bad. I’m calling because Dan went home to be with the Lord last night, massive heart attack.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. He sent me an e-mail last week about playing on another CD and doing some concerts with him next month.” I said, calmer than I felt.

“Well, his brother Walter asked me to put a service together that would celebrate his life, would you and Matt be available to play live along with a recording of his guitar and singing? I know it’s a little odd, but Walter thought Dan would have love it.”

“Of course I would, I’m sure Matt would as well.”

“Excellent, I’ll send you a CD with a click track and Dan’s voice and guitar.”

“Ok, it’s good hearing from you Steve, even if it’s under these circumstances.”

“You can always call to talk Bill. God bless.”

Matt and I chose Dan’s last performance off the CD and rehearsed it together. Playing along with a CD of someone who I knew had died was surreal. The last note of the song died away and Dan’s recorded mini-sermon began playing.

“Kind weird hearing him talk about Jesus knowing that he’s with him now, isn’t it?” Matt asked.

I took off my bass and sat on my amp. Nancy came in with a pot of coffee and cookies.

“You guys don’t know how lucky you are! I feel like a cow and I have to pee every ten seconds.” She poured cream into Matt’s mug and handed it to him. “And I miss my coffee! Caffine is a drug and I need a fix.” She handed me a black coffee with a little sugar.

“Hey, no cream? Aren’t you concerned that I might be calcium deficient?”

“You’re not cholesterol deficient that’s for sure. If you’re good you can have a half cup of ice cream later.” She said, kissing me on the forehead. “I am not going to make it to my due date. How much bigger do you think I can get?”

“Just wait till it tries to come out!” Matt said, twirling a drumstick.

“Matt!” I laughed.

“I don’t care about the experience, at the first sign of pain I want an epidural or a C-section.” She nibbled on a cookie and put two in her pocket for later. “Well, I’m pooped again. Have a good practice boys, I’m taking a nap.”

Nancy kissed me on the lips and gave Matt a hug. She was going to be a great mom.

At the memorial service Matt and I sat with Trisha’s family and perhaps because someone else was the center of grief it was easier to be with them. Walter spoke of his brother’s lifelong commitment to an orphanage in Thailand. A slide show followed, narrated by Dan, about the work he supported there. Walter played a rather stunning arrangement of Dan’s favorite hymn to which several people softly sang along. We did our part and played along to Dan’s best song. People clapped and I was about to sit down when I felt the urge to say something. Moved by a wellspring of emotion I blurted out what was on my heart and mind.

“Dan was a great guy. He treated us like family whenever we saw him and was generous with his kindness. I only knew him a short time but…I appreciated the honesty of his faith. I never knew how involved he was with charity work, maybe I only saw the tip of the iceberg, But…God sees the whole of the iceberg, our lives, the parts that are under the radar. He sees and knows and he won’t forget. So, Goodbye Dan. I hope I get to see you again.”

After the service several people, Walter among them, thanked me for my words.

“I don’t know where they came from. They just felt right.” I said.

“Sometimes Bill, the Holy Spirit works that way. We say things we don’t even comprehend the meaning of.”

“Your hymn arrangements were beautiful. I heard people singing to them.”

“Thank you, and many thanks for honoring Dan this way. I think I need a smoke.”

Walter pulled out his pipe, squeezed my arm, and went outside, searching his pockets for tobacco.

Faith is a strange thing. Some people experience a crisis, or hit bottom, or are raised in a Christian home, never giving a second thought to their beliefs. Matt told me the story of his conversion, over and over again.

“I read the Gospel of John over and over again one summer for my mother, who gave me a dollar for every time I completed it. One day I was reading and I realized, ‘Hey, this really makes sense!’ I started going to church and got baptized that summer.”

After the memorial service Matt told Nancy and I that he was going to ask Cherie, Trisha’s older sister, to marry him.

“Do you think she’ll say yes? I mean, we’ve talked about it a little but she wants to go to grad school and I’m not sure she’s ready to settle down.” He said, nervously bouncing on his toes.

“Hey buddy, if Nancy didn’t tear me away from you who knows what could have happened?” I smirked.

Nancy smacked me on the arm. “Bill, don’t make fun of him, of course she’ll marry you Matthew. You two are made for each other…oh crap.”

Nancy’s water broke right there in the parking lot of the church. Hannah Joy was born twelve hours later. Six months later Nancy and I went on our first date since Hannah was born, to Matt and Cheri’s wedding. I read a portion of scripture at the service and played in another rotating group of musicians at the reception. Matt was his usual happy self I was proud to be his best man.

The next day I was sitting in a rocking chair with my leg off, feeding Hannah while Nancy looked at single family homes in the paper.

“They’re all too expensive. Maybe we should get a condo?” She said.

“Honey, do you believe in God?” I asked.

“Yes, how can you not?”

“Do you want to go to church today?” I asked, putting Hannah over my shoulder to burp.

“Where? My hair’s a mess.”

“Matt’s church, it’s close and we sort of know people there.”

“Ok, I’m up for an adventure.”

There were a few surprised looks as we nervously left Hannah with one of Cheri’s sisters in the nursery. We walked into the unadorned sanctuary while everyone was still singing a rock song about the Blood of Jesus. After the singing we sat down on the padded gray chairs.

I don’t exactly remember what the sermon was about nor what the closing hymn was. I do know that between the time I entered and left the building that my lingering doubts evaporated, and I believed.

Pastor Steve shook my hand as we left.

“We’ll be back next week.”

“You’re always welcome in God’s house Bill.”