A BELATED ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The day after my high school graduation found me walking several miles down city streets to the home of my girl friend. It was her birthday, and I had used what little money I had to buy her a present. It wasn't much of a present; in fact, it was only a bar of soap—Yardley's English Lavender Soap. One bar was all I could afford, but I had packaged it elaborately using wrapping paper and ribbon I had stolen from my grandmother, who would certainly have given me the paper, but even then I was somewhat withdrawn, and I didn't want anyone to know about my spending money on a girl.

Needless to say, I hadn't attended my senior prom as the price of rented formal wear was far beyond my means, and I was too socially awkward to attend a dance even if I'd had riches. In fact, I hadn't even attended the graduation ceremonies of the previous evening. At the time I had assumed the haughty posture that my absence from the ceremony was a magnificent act of defiance on my part, and I was overcome with mirth when I was later told that when my name was read out, the person who walked across the stage was a severely overweight black girl whose name happened to fall alphabetically after mine. But in retrospect, it seems likely that I avoided the ceremony out of a sense of shame over having done so poorly in school that I hadn't been accepted to any college.

Things were also not going well in my romantic relationship, and I hadn't seen my girlfriend in weeks. This was entirely due to my oafishness, and it seems amazing to me now that anyone would have tolerated my mordant petulance in the first place. Even as I walked to her house I realized that I had some serious apologizing to do. When I finally arrived at the residence, her mother answered the door. "Pam," as we'll call her, wasn't home, but she was expected to return at 4 p.m., and I was invited in to wait.

As I sat in their old-fashioned parlor with the box of soap on my knee, Pam's mother was being unusually kind and friendly toward me. She'd never had much to say to me before, but now she was actually speaking to me as if I were a human being. (Perhaps she was hoping for an expensive gift in the gaudily-wrapped box.) This made me feel self-conscious, but I didn't have long to suffer, as shortly after four o'clock a bright red Thunderbird convertible roared up to the front of the house.

It was Pam and her new boyfriend returning from a ride in his car. When they walked into the house there was an awkward moment, and then I handed her the birthday present with my mumbled best wishes.

"Oh, it's your birthday?" said Pam's new beau. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Pam seemed understandably disconcerted at the situation, but there was nothing for her to do but to sit down and unwrap the gift. When she saw what it was, she at first began laughing but then checked herself and looked into my eyes and told me that it was a sweet gift. She said this with such soft feminine grace that I immediately felt assuaged.

Pam had met her new boyfriend through Jeana, her girlfriend who was the first of the leftist student radicals in our area. She had once asked me if I wanted to try smoking marijuana, but in those innocent days I had recoiled in horror and said, "What? You crazy? You wanna get addicted to that stuff?" (Little did either of us know that within five years I would have a collection of works—needles—for mainlining heroin and/or speed.) It seemed as if everyone Pam knew was more worldly and sophisticated than I was, especially her new guy. His name was Paul Schoenfield, and I am not making that up—it was, and is, actually his name. We had both been born in the same year, but Paul seemed much more mature than I, and he had been promoted at least one grade ahead of me in school so he was already in college.

To break the awkward silence that afternoon, Paul asked me what I planned to do during that summer. I replied that I was to teach at the Salvation Army's band camp for underprivileged and orphaned children. I was proud to say this, as it seemed that I wasn't completely worthless if I was to be an instructor. True, the job paid nothing, but I got a free bed and starchy meals, and my parents were jubilant that I was leaving.

Paul, however, said that he would be returning to Aspen, Colorado, to attend another master class with Darius Milhaud, and then he launched into a series of anecdotes about Milhaud's laconic wit. I don't recall much of what he said, because I was feeling then as if I should crawl into the woodwork to try and find an egg sac I could fertilize, and I sort of spaced out into a blank zone. I believe that Paul noticed this, and to regain my attention he began shouting his story. "SO HE GOES TO THE PIANO AND HE SAYS, 'YOU WANT UNITY IN MUSIC? YOU WANT UNITY IN MUSIC? I'LL SHOW YOU UNITY IN MUSIC!' AND HE PLAYS A C-CHORD ON THE PIANO! And Milhaud said to him, 'Congratulations! That's the best thing you've ever written!'"

I was feeling so self-conscious by this point that I didn't know if I was supposed to laugh or not, and Paul Schoenfield began to regard me with pity.

"Hey! I've got an idea! Since it's your birthday, Pam, I'll take you to DelMarco's! Keith, would you like to come with us?"

That was especially gracious of him to invite me, but I knew that it was only a token invitation, and that I'd never even get in as a busboy at DelMarco's, and since I didn't have the price of carfare, I had a long walk ahead of me. So as Pam and Paul Schoenfield thundered off in his Thunderbird convertible, I began the long trek down Forest Avenue. I never laid eyes on either of them again.

Fast forward, now, to the year 2000. It's a Tuesday night, and I'm happily occupied at my job at the local record shop. I chose to work Tuesdays and Thursdays because the owner's rude and belligerent son is off those nights. He runs the store, and despite the fact that he's twenty years younger than I am, he addresses me as "Boy" or "Buddy-boy," so I try and avoid him, although I've made up my mind that if I should get into a fist fight with him, my strategy will be to keep punching and not let him get me in a hold, because while he's quite athletic, I know I can take a punch. (I've spent a considerable portion of my life devising such strategy. Sometimes it's successful, most times not.)

I took great pride in keeping the bins of CDs in perfect order. Thanks to me, not one classical CD was misfiled. I even figured out how to get into the restricted pages of the store's computer so that I could add the name of a soloist to a listing if, say, only Herb von Karajan was listed as the performer in the "Emperor Concerto." Among composers not famous enough to have their own separate section, I had taken it upon myself to arrange all their names in alphabetical order, and that Tuesday evening I was making progress in the S row, putting everything in precise sequence when I came across a CD with a vaguely-familiar face on the cover.

It was a recording of the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra subtitled "The Four Parables," by Paul Schoenfield and performed by the Dresden Symphony. I stared at the CD for a while in dismay, as I knew exactly who he was. I unclenched my teeth, then grimly unwrapped the CD and took it behind the counter to play on the store's stereo.

There was nothing I wanted more out of life that night than to be able to dismiss the music of Paul Schoenfield as pretentious crap from an utter fraud. True, I was only making $5.25/hour as a lowly clerk, but at least I was doing honest work instead of masquerading as an artist and fobbing off pseudo masterpieces on the gullible public. As as I hit the play button, I was prepared to hate his music, but the instant the music sounded, my hate began transforming into awe.

I was astounded at how superb Paul Schoenfield's skill is. His music is clever without being trivial. It is complex without being recondite. He has a command of all facets of music—form and countermelody, rhythm and syncopation, drama and emotion. He has such superior talent that if anyone is worthy of the title maestro Paul Schoenfield certainly qualifies. I've always wanted to be able to compose music, and this is the type of music I wish I could compose...if I could compose music.

There are various recordings of the music of Paul Schoenfield, and his web site is at http://www.paulschoenfield.com. He recently presented a new composition in the Klezmer style and performed it in New York City. You really owe it to yourself to listen to his works, and what better testimonial to his art could you have than an encomium from me, the guy who, for years after our single meeting, regularly searched the obituaries in vain for his name.

That night after work, I sat at Howell's Bar throwing down gin after gin and talking to my lady friend Marge, who is in her 80s but who can still smoke and drink with the best of them (she only lacks teeth).

"Marge," I asked while signaling for the bartender to bring me another double. "Whaddya think if someone wuz to give you a cake of shoap fer a birfday present? Huh?"

"Hah? Bar o' soap? [cackle] Yew saying I needs a bath? [cackle]"

Ever notice how the surface tension of raw liquor is such that it appears to be climbing up the side of the glass in an attempt to escape its confines?