I think I knew him once.

It may not have been him. The one I knew, back then, didn’t have such dull hair tied back indifferently but had instead a mess of flaming curls always in the way. And he never had such fine white skin but a rosy, healthy look. And he would never have sat there on the boardwalk, clad in mostly torn netting and black leather. He would never have looked so deliriously happy. Maybe he was high on something. Drawing deeply on my cigarette, I tossed that thought aside. His eyes were too bright and alert, and he had always hated drugs. Smoking too, I thought, almost guiltily. I stubbed mine out and tossed it away and when I looked back towards him he was watching me. It was him. There could be no question. Small violin case at his feet, leaning, lanky and slim against the wall. No one else stood like that.

I would have left and tried never to think of him again, but for that look of his. It went from surprise to indifference and he looked away. He wanted me over there but if I didn’t come it was okay. I could kick down a puppy running after me, begging for attention, but I could not ignore being ignored. I walked over.

Leaning against the cold stone rail, we were quiet for a long while, watching the crowds of people mull by, thousands after thousands, with the black expanse of the beach at our backs. There were no stars out. I never really understood the appeal of this place. Maybe the energy. Only it’s not energy, just smells and sights and noise. And the obscurity that comes from being in a big crowd. I felt a headache coming on. I touched my pocket, feeling the pack of cigarettes within. I felt a craving for the familiar smell. I glanced over at him. He was still young, somehow. His eyes hadn’t changed, but they had never been young to start with. My fingers twitched again. I wanted the filthy things that made my hands stop shaking and made them steady for a while. I clenched my hands into fists.

“You can smoke if you want,” he said, not looking at me. “Doesn’t matter to me.” And it didn’t, if he said so. You could trust him like that.

I lit one hastily, failing two attempts because of the strong sea breeze and my shaking hands. At the third try he grabbed the lighter from me and lit it himself and I saw as he did so a Pheonix tattoo bursting into flames about his wrist. His hands were steadier than mine. I took the lighter back, noticed his lip curled in disgust and smoked. Loosed my tie and took off my jacket. Maybe there was some appeal in anonymity. I was just another face in the masses here. You’d never remember having seen me. My hands’d  stopped shaking. I think he was tired. He looked it.

We sat carefully apart from each other, which was absurd. I couldn’t take it any longer.

“What are you doing here?” I asked finally, to break the silence.

“S***, I’m always here. What the hell are you doing here?” Time had not improved his filthy mouth.

“Client,” I muttered.

“Uh-huh. And that b***h?”

“My wife?” The time was long gone when I wouldn’t have taken that sort of thing from him. “Long gone.”

His eyes widened. “She find out?”

“She always knew.”

He laughed then, not one of his rare, pretty laughs, but that half sneer he had affected long ago. But he stopped abruptly, looking down.

“You look happy. You know, I think I always envied you,” I said.

“Envied me what?”

“Everything I guess. You haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Insomnia.”

“That’s what you always say. I don’t buy it.”

“You don’t like music.”

“What?”

“You don’t, do you?”

“What does that have to do with—“

“What does anything have to do with anything?” He snapped, turning to face me for the first time.

Fine. He was going to run me around in circles. I shut my mouth and said nothing. I lit another cigarette with the butt of my first and tossed it, not bothering to stamp it out. There were enough people around. Someone else would. Somehow it lasted for a while, burning red and bright before the life was squashed out of it. I almost yelled at that kid. He probably hadn’t even noticed. It was just a butt of a cigarette after all. A whole one and he might have walked off with it. I stared straight ahead.

“You working around here?”

He brightened. “The Opera House down on 24th. The opening night’s in a few days. I should be rehearsing now.” He laughed. “To hell with that. This,” and he gestured at the expanse of the crowded street in front of us, “is rehearsal, real rehearsal.”

“Uh-huh.”

I glanced down at his violin case, wondering if Julianne was still inside it. His greatest love affair had been with that piece of junk. He’d never touched the real, expensive beauties if he could help it, though heaven knows he could afford one easily. He said they were trite, over-hyped shallows bits of junk good only for broads and old men. What he wanted – needed - were synthetic pieces that ‘screamed of the city’. Well he had got himself a true hooker in Julianne, and she was gaudy and tasteless and always out of tune. I think he loved her. He touched those strings in a way he’d never touched anything or anyone else. I lit another cigarette, this time without his help.

“Well look where you’ve ended up,” I said softly.

“In the gutter. They want me to ditch Julianne as though she were nothing but some whore.”

“I see being in good company hasn’t helped your language.”

“Better company can go screw itself.”

I laughed.

He smiled a real smile, then. “I’ll put her away for a few concert nights, whatever. I’d go through more than hell to live music every day, for this darn job. I will, too. Your client,” he added, thoughtfully.

“Nah, I’m out of the job.”

“What?”

“Long time ago, too. I think showing up drunk finally did it. Haven’t been able to keep anything since. I screwed up. Good thing I had friends to leech off of, huh? Ran out of them though.”

That was the last cigarette. I rubbed my hands on my pants, through my hair. I never could keep them still. It wasn’t that I needed to smoke I don’t think, just something to do with them, someplace to put them. His hands lay relaxed on his thighs. He stared pointedly away. Then he held out a ticket, holding it between his index and middle finger in that infuriating way he had. I took it, saw that it was to the opening night he had mentioned. “You’re—you’re playing an original piece?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I can come.”

“Don’t have anything better to do, do you?”

“I guess we’re in the same boat then, aren’t we?” I retorted nastily.

 “Yeah.” He could never express himself when there wasn’t a full symphony to back him up. When it came down to it, words made him vulgar. He didn’t like words. Just music. And he’d made it, too. Made it big.

“I think somewhere along the line I messed up,” I said.

“No s***.”

“You always know the exact thing to say don’t you?”

“No,” he said shortly.

“Hey, why don’t you play Julianne already? Right here. Stand on the wall and play, all night if you have to.”

He stared at me. Then held out his hand.

“Get me up there.”

I did. I think playing makes him more beautiful sometimes, even though he still looked tired. That look of happiness returned. I wondered if it had anything to do with me. Probably not. But it was nice to sit there and have people stare at the man in black leather standing on the wall overlooking the beach playing an old out of tune violin. Playing it as though it were a Stradivarius and darn it, a Stradivarius never sounded so good as he did that night and he knew it. So did they, those people in the crowd, though I think some of them were shocked when I joined him up there. I think they’ll remember us.