Forgive me, Leonard Peacock

FOURTEEN

My friend Baback is of Iranian descent, but when I first met him, he used to tell everyone he was Persian, because most American teenagers don’t know that Iran used to be Persia, and most American teens have watched enough news to hate Iran.

Back when he was a freshman, if you gave Baback some wrinkles and a salt-and-pepper beard he’d look exactly like the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which could cause him problems, especially during patriotic times like 9/11 anniversaries, and whenever Ahmadinejad made anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American comments, which was all the time.

At the very least you would have thought that Baback definitely could be related to Ahmadinejad, that’s how much he used to look like the Iranian president.

I met Baback during freshmen orientation, right after he came to America and ended up in our school. For a year I saw him around the halls looking tiny and terrified, dressed in really formal clothes—like if you gave him a tie, he’d be a prep school kid in a uniform. He had a backpack that was bigger than him, and he was always carrying this violin case—like everywhere he went. He wouldn’t leave it in a locker, except during gym class, when he was forced to—I know because we had gym together as sophomores.

There was this one gym class where we were playing floor hockey and our teacher Mr. Austin got called away on some sort of business for ten minutes. Baback and I were on the same team and not really participating all that much. We were sort of just standing in the middle of the gym holding sticks, watching everyone else chase and slap at a little orange ball.

Asher Beal was on the other team, and just as soon as he saw that Mr. Austin was no longer in the gym, he slap-shot the ball at Baback. It hit him right between the eyes. Baback blinked a few times in this really comical way, which made everyone else laugh, but I could tell that Baback was actually hurt so I didn’t laugh. I remember feeling hot, like my face was on fire, because I already wanted to kill Asher Beal back then, but I still thought I might want a future so I wasn’t really actively planning his execution, well not consciously anyway.

I saw all of the stupid übermorons with whom Asher now hangs exchange glances and then they all started to smile in this really creepy way. It was almost like they were a flock of evil birds or a school of evil fish, because they all instinctively reacted in unison without even talking.

Do übermorons excrete pheromones?

Everyone started to pass to Baback, and just as soon as his stick touched the ball, Asher or one of his übermoron cronies cross-checked Baback so hard he became airborne. Baback tried to flick away the orange ball really quickly, as if that could protect him, but they kept checking him whether he had the ball or not. He was getting killed, and I wanted to tell him to stay down or run up into the stands, but it was like he didn’t want to believe that he was being targeted for violence. It’s like he had to believe we were all better than that here in America. Maybe because that’s what his parents told him when he left Iran—America is better.

Several people checked Baback before Asher lined up a shot that sent the little Iranian kid flying into the stands. His feet went up above his head and I heard his skull thump the wooden bleacher slat.

Almost everyone[26] was laughing really hard, because Baback’s body spun around like a windmill and now his feet were in the air, his torso stuck in the bleachers.

But Baback didn’t get up this time.

“Come on,” Asher said to Baback, like they were friends. “You’re okay.”

Asher sort of pulled Baback out of the stands and you could tell Baback was woozy because he was swaying like a field of wheat in a beer commercial.

“Welcome to America,” Asher said—even though Baback had been in our school for more than a year—and then Asher patted Baback on the back twice.

Whenever I replay this memory, I see myself running, and before I know it I’ve left my feet and I’m a flying cross-check. In my mind, my hockey stick turns into a samurai sword and I decapitate Asher with an awesome swipe so that his head flies through the air and right through the basketball net.

Two points!

But in real life, I just stood there.

In the locker room they started in on Baback again while he was changing.

“What’s this?” Asher asked as he plucked the violin case from Baback’s locker.

Baback was trying to get his pants on and actually fell over. His little naked brown chest was concave. His nipples were purple-black. “That’s my grandfather’s violin. Careful. Please. It’s been in my family for generations!” Baback’s eyes were wide open—he looked terrified.

No one was really paying me any attention, so I snuck up behind Asher and snatched the violin out of his hands before he realized what was going on.

“Peacock?” Asher said.

I gave the violin back to Baback, and he clutched it to his chest like it was a baby.

“You touch him or his violin again and I tell everyone the secret,” I said. The words just came out of my mouth before I could think. Suddenly my heart was pounding and my tongue was bone dry. But I added, “I swear to god. I’ll tell everyone. Everyone!”

Asher’s eyes got really small because he knew exactly what I was referring to, but he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Peacock. You’re so fucking weird.”

Asher laughed and then turned away from Baback and me.

I could tell that some of Asher’s friends were like—What secret?—and that was my power over Asher Beal back then.

He backed down from me, and that cost him.

Baback just got changed and left the locker room without even thanking me or anything, which depressed me a little, truth be told.

Just to make sure he was okay, I looked for Baback next period at lunch, but he wasn’t there, which was strange because all sophomores had the same cafeteria time.

The next day in gym I watched to make sure Asher and his übermoron cronies left Baback alone, and they did. So halfway through gym class, as we both pretended to play floor hockey, I jogged up to Baback and said, “Why weren’t you in lunch yesterday? Did you go to the nurse?”

“I don’t want any trouble,” Baback said without looking at me. His eyes followed the little orange ball that the rest of our gym class was running after and slapping at. “Just leave me alone.”

No one messed with Baback in the locker room either, which made me feel a little proud.

I decided to follow Baback when the period was over and I watched him meet the janitor at the auditorium. The janitor let Baback in and then left. The auditorium is in a part of the school that isn’t used for much else, so there’s usually no one around there. I looked through the window in the door and watched Baback take his violin out of the case, tune, and then begin to practice.

To say he was amazing would be an understatement.

He was world-class at fifteen—better than anyone you will ever hear play the violin.

A musical wizard.

I watched through the glass and listened to that little tiny boy make gigantic swirls of rising and falling notes that made my chest ache and ache.

It was so beautiful.

The best part was that he closed his eyes and kept nodding to the rhythm of his bow sawing, and you could tell that when he played his violin, he wasn’t a tiny misplaced Iranian boy living in a secretly racist town—no, he was a god in complete control of his world.

It was like the violin bow was a magic wand, and the vibrations that came out of the holes cut into that little wooden instrument were a force that few could reckon with.

He seemed to grow tall in front of me.

And I understood why he didn’t need friends or to be accepted at our shitty racist high school, because he had his music, and that was so much better than anything we had to offer.

“You’re a genius,” I said when he exited the auditorium.

Baback just blinked the same way he did when he’d been struck between the eyes with the orange hockey ball. “Were you spying on me?”

“How did you learn to play like that?”

“I don’t want any trouble,” he said, and then walked away.

The next day I made sure to be there when the janitor let Baback in.

Baback said, “I need to practice.”

“I just want to listen. I’ll sit in the back and won’t interrupt.”

Baback sighed, took the stage, and began to play.

I sat in the last row, closed my eyes, and was transported out of our terrible high school and into a new, better place.

When the music stopped, I opened my eyes and across the tops of so many rows of seats, I yelled, “Did you write that music?”

He blinked again and yelled back, “It’s Paganini. The violin concertos. Bits of the solos that I can’t get right—ever.”

“They were perfect! I love it. This is the greatest secret. Something miraculous happens every day at this high school, and I’m the only student who knows about it.”

“Don’t tell anyone, please!” Baback yelled back. “About my using the auditorium. I’m not supposed to let anyone know. My parents had to beg for permission. If other students ask to use the auditorium, I won’t be allowed to practice in here alone anymore. Please!”

I could tell that he was really worried about this, so I walked down the aisle and when I reached him I said, “Let me listen and I won’t tell a soul. I promise. Nor will I ever interrupt you. I’d never want to alter what happens here. Never. Think of me like a ghost.”

He nodded reluctantly.

And for the rest of the school year, I listened to him play.

It was kind of weird, because we never talked.

He didn’t seem interested in me at all.

I could tell he didn’t really want to be my friend—that he just wanted to be left alone with his music, and I respected that.

I mostly wanted to be left alone too—so we shared a large space and were alone together, if that makes any sense at all.

But on the last day of our sophomore year, I broke protocol, gave Baback a standing ovation, and yelled, “Bravo!” when he finished playing.

He smiled, but didn’t say anything.

“Until we meet again, maestro!” I yelled down over a sea of empty red seats, and then left.

When we began our junior year, Baback was changed.

He returned five inches taller and was ripped with so many bulging muscles. He’d grown out his thick black hair and began keeping it in a ponytail. And he had these fantastic cheekbones that all of the girls noticed. He no longer looked like a kid to pick on or pity.

When I went to the auditorium during lunch period, he broke the silence by saying, “I’ve been thinking about you, Leonard. Why do you come here every day to hear me play?”

“It’s the best thing that happens at this school on a daily basis. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“You should pay to listen,” he said. “I’m providing a service for you. Artists need to be compensated. If you give it away for free, people stop appreciating art. It loses its value.”

“What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You look different. You talk now. You seem confident.”

He laughed and said, “I spent the summer in Iran studying music. I grew up a little, I guess. Literally and metaphorically. But you’re either paying for the privilege of listening to me play, or you’re going to leave.”

“How much do you want?”

“I don’t know,” he said in a way that suggested he was expecting me to leave. “Maybe pay what you will? But something. I’m not playing for free anymore.”

“Why don’t you leave your violin case open and I’ll put something in it every day I come listen? I’ve seen musicians do that on the streets of Philly.”

“Okay,” he said, and then began to play.

When he was finished, I walked up to the stage and dropped a five-dollar bill into his violin case. He nodded, which I assumed meant he was okay with the amount.

So I gave him my lunch money every day for the rest of the year—except for a few times when either he or I was absent, or when the drama club was in the auditorium creating sets for plays and Baback didn’t practice.

My daily donations added up to more than eight hundred dollars by the end of the year. I know because Baback told me the exact number on the last day of classes junior year, saying, “I sent every penny to True Democracy in Iran, a nonprofit fighting for, well, true democracy in Iran.”

I thought it was a good cause to support, so I nodded.

I saw Baback in the hallway during finals and when I flagged him down, before I could explain what I wanted, he said, “Do you want to hang out sometime, Leonard? Maybe see a movie or something? We don’t really know each other, do we? It’s kind of odd, don’t you think?”

I thought about it and said, “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but listening to you play your violin is by far the best part of my day. And I think part of the magic is that I don’t really know you at all, but only as a performing musician. And I worry that if I got to know you as a friend or whatever, your music might not seem as magical. Did that ever happen to you? You think someone is really important and different, but then you get to know them and it ruins everything? Do you know what I’m talking about?”

He laughed and said, “No. Not really.”

“Can I listen to you practice sometime over the summer? I’ll pay you five dollars.”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s a great idea. It would probably weird out my parents if you were just sitting in my practice space staring at me. And I’m going to Iran at the end of the month to visit relatives and continue my musical training with my grandfather. So I won’t be around much,” he said, obviously backpedaling, maybe because he found my explanation weird.

“Okay, then. See you next year,” I said, and handed him an envelope I had labeled TRUE DEMOCRACY IN IRAN!

I had talked Linda into donating five hundred bucks as a tax write-off. She needs those for her business and is always eager to buy me off/assuage her guilty absent-mom conscience with money. The check was inside, but I didn’t want him to open it in front of me, so I said, “That’s for later. I look forward to listening next year. Enjoy your time abroad.”

This year when I met him at the auditorium during senior lunch he was even taller and more confident-looking. Baback smiled and said, “I told my grandmother about you and your donation. She made you some tasbih beads. Persian prayer beads. But some people use them as worry beads. Here.”

He handed me this long looped string of reddish-brown wooden beads with a tassel on the end.

“Thanks,” I said, and put the beads around my neck.

He smiled and then said, “You don’t have to pay to listen to my music anymore. You can listen for free. My grandfather says that music is a gift you give to others when you can. I told him about you and the donations. He said I should play for you without charging money. So I will.”

I nodded and took my regular seat at the back of the auditorium.

Baback played his music.

I didn’t think it was possible, but he was better—more magical—than the year before.

I closed my eyes, listened, and disappeared.