The Virtuoso

Nick Lafonte glided down the front stoop of his Clinton Hill brownstone. It wasn’t his brownstone, of course, but the old lady from whom he rented his piece of it had a price you couldn’t beat.

It was newly autumn, and the late afternoon sun carried with it the faintest promise of frost to come overnight. The noise and bustle of the city’s streets had almost fully recovered from the pandemic, and Nick was happy to see New York returning to normal. Even the panhandler on the corner was a welcome sight—the man wore a long beige sheepskin coat and held a tattered cardboard sign: “Gustavo Macheillini is a FRAUD!”

What an unhoused, likely-schizophrenic man had against the greatest orchestral composer of the modern era was anyone’s guess, Nick thought, toeing the curb as he narrowly skirted by the man. That was what made New York City great, though: the characters you got to see, the raw, filthy wildness of the place. He turned at Myrtle and Carlton and headed in the direction of Manhattan. Crisp brown leaves crunched under his boots as he strode to the bus stop, half wishing he’d told Stefanie he was too busy to go to her birthday party, half excited he hadn’t. Truthfully, he had been surprised when he ran into her at Chubby’s that Thursday and she’d asked if he’d be coming around. They had kept in touch intermittently, but he’d always assumed she wanted him to keep his distance.

The bus squealed to a jerky stop in front of him and Nick found a seat near the front. He still needed to buy Stefanie a gift. He’d briefly considered framing the breakup note she’d left him (“Sorry, Nick. I thought it’d be easier this way. - Stef”) and giving it to her as a joke. That could be funny, right? It’d been almost four months, after all. He could laugh at the past.

“Wow, Nick, I’m so impressed you and Stefanie can be cool after everything,” her friend Jennifer would say.

“Yeah, it’s no big deal,” he’d say back, and catch Stefanie looking at him from across the bar, the ambient neon lights bouncing off the liquor bottles behind her.

But he had thought better of all that. Something told him it'd be best not to reveal that he’d kept the note—preserved neatly in the back right corner of his desk drawer—for these months after she’d left.

He stepped onto the cigarette and gum-dotted sidewalk of Manhattan at 56th and ninth and meandered aimlessly through the smattering of pedestrian crowds. The sun had sunk below the skyline, leaving only shadows at street level. Nick saw a boutique fashion shop on the next corner and pulled open one of its impossibly tall glass doors. Inside, it smelled strongly of sandalwood and lavender, and he wondered if one of the thin, serious-looking women behind the counter had been tasked with perfuming the space. He strolled around the women’s section and let his fingertips trail across the handbags, then the delicate chiffon blouses. He could imagine Stefanie sliding one on over her bare breasts. It would look so good sitting against her soft skin. A woman laughed loudly to his left, knocking the image from Nick’s mind.

An attractive blonde appearing to be in her mid-twenties was hanging onto the expensively coated arm of a man with a close-cut beard. She looked up at the man adoringly and pointed at one of the chiffon blouses. “That,” she said, and Nick suspected she might be drunk. “I want that.” The man shook his head and pulled a small cuff bracelet off a shelf just behind the clothing rack.

“That’s too boring for you,” he said. “This is wild and weird and gorgeous in all the same ways you are.” He held her chin in his hand in a way that suggested he wanted to bend her over the Ferragamo display right there. Nick shuffled his feet uncomfortably, and the couple moved away to the front of the shop. He examined the jewelry stand more closely.

There were a dozen or so thick bangle bracelets neatly clasped around the velvet display rack. Judging by the price, they were all custom-made: two pressed metallic accent pieces came close to touching on either end of the cuff, their shape like that of a snake’s head, dangerously alluring and sleek. The cuff itself was painted in a dark green emerald. Nick had it gift-wrapped at the counter, and tried not to think about the significantly lowered balance of his bank account.

It was fully dark when he stepped back through the boutique’s glass doors and walked the few blocks to Stef's party. He was neither surprised nor pleased to see that the bar it was held in was the sort to use large oak barrels as tables and cut-off wine bottles as glasses. There were, in Nick’s opinion, far too many succulents in the dimly lit room for any establishment that wasn’t exclusively a greenhouse. No doubt Jennifer had been in charge of location.

It didn’t take him long to spot Stefanie. She was standing at the bar in a tight red dress he didn’t recognize. She looked better than good, and the way she laughed and slid her hair off her cheek as she patted the arm of a woman next to her made Nick ache. She used to brush her hair away like that when she sat at his kitchen table in his sweatpants and watched him cook breakfast. They weren’t so far removed from that, were they?

The woman at the bar slipped away into the crowd of people that were already packing into the small room. Nick took the opening and walked over to Stefanie in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. “Hey! You came!” She sounded maybe a bit too surprised under the warm smile she gave him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was in the city having dinner with a potential client, so it was on my way home.”

“Oh, so your solo firm is doing well then?” The genuine warmth in her face sliced through him.

“Yeah, things have really picked up the last few months,” he said. They hadn’t, of course. He was still slinging stocks under the same company he’d worked for since college. He had all but completely folded his plans to start his own trading firm. It didn’t matter though. If just for now, he let himself believe the lie. “Oh, which reminds me…” He handed her the small wrapped present and watched her eyes light up with curiosity. After the required niceties of telling him he didn’t have to, she unwrapped the box and pulled off the lid.

“Oh my god.” She lifted the serpentine cuff out of its cushioned bedding and watched it reflect the dusky glitter of the bar lights. “Nick, this is gorgeous.” She said it with an earnestness that made him feel somehow more a man.

“I couldn’t help it,” he shrugged. “I saw it and thought it was wild and gorgeous and a little weird, just like you.” She beamed.

“Oh, you know me so well,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s perfect, really. Thank you.” She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He thought of the Ferragamo shoes back in the boutique.

“Hey babe, Jenny wants to know if you want to do the cake now or later.” A broad-shouldered man emerged from the crowd and slipped his fingers comfortably around Stef’s ass.

“Oh, it can wait a bit longer.” Stef turned into the man and Nick had the distinct displeasure of watching the stranger’s hands run up the length of her back. Stef must have introduced them, but Nick didn’t register the man’s name. He shook hands with him stiffly, then watched as they moved off through the crowd. Alone with the bartender in his pretentiously plaid bow-tie, Nick regretfully paid $18 for the shot of whiskey he desperately needed. Then, he was back on the sidewalk.

He moved briskly through the dropping chill of the night without a clear direction in mind. It was as if his legs were directly attached to whatever piston had fired off when that guy’s fingers pulsed into the curves of Stef’s body. He knew that touch and that woman well. She’d certainly moved on quickly. Nick found his feet carrying him to Central Park, the people, streetlights, and traffic around him both too bright and a dull blur all at once. He walked until he came to a bar nestled in among the western border of the park. It was old and cozy-looking, like a more adult version of the cabin Hansel and Gretel must have found in the woods. If Nick had been fully drunk, he might have thought he was half imagining the ethereal-seeming apparition amidst the boughs of trees, tucked away so close to the incessant rush of the city. He stepped up to its sturdy oak doors and went inside, sitting himself down at the short but clearly old-money antique mahogany bar. The polished wood reflected the tea candles burning in their crystalline saucers along the little length of space, and the soft yellow light of the room calmed him somewhat. Other patrons sat at tables dispersed throughout the pub room, tea lights burning on all of their tables as well. Nick ordered a whiskey from the well-dressed bartender and drank it down. Then he ordered another. As he put the second glass down on the bar with a satisfying thunk, there was a chuckle beside him.

“Yeah, me too,” said the man next to him, shooting back his own drink. Nick hadn’t realized he’d sat down beside someone. The man looked a bit older than him—maybe late forties. His thick dark hair was slicked back over his scalp in a style suave enough to suggest a professional stylist had been involved. He was wearing a full tuxedo. He lightly dropped his empty glass back on the counter and motioned to the bartender for two more drinks. “Here,” he said, sliding one of the fresh whiskeys over to Nick.

“Thanks,” Nick said, and they tipped their glasses to one another before shooting the contents. When that was done, the man turned to Nick.

“So, what’s got you here tonight?”

“Just my own dumb hopes, I guess,” Nick sighed. The man nodded, and Nick found himself studying the stranger’s face. It looked familiar somehow. “Do I know you from somewhere?” he queried at last. A smile slipped across the man’s face.

“Yeah, you’ve probably seen my poster outside Carnegie,” he said with a laugh and a nod in the general direction of Carnegie Hall a few blocks away. It took Nick a second to connect the dots.

“Holy shit,” he said, now staring wide-eyed at the man. Of all the bars in Manhattan, somehow Nick had walked into the very same one Gustavo Macheillini happened to be drinking in. Macheillini watched Nick’s face and chuckled.

“Well, calm down,” he said. “I’m not Elton John or anything.” He nodded to the bartender, who began pouring yet another round of whiskey.

“No,” said Nick, “you’re only the greatest orchestral composer of my lifetime. Didn’t you write your first symphony when you were fourteen or something?”

“Thirteen,” Macheillini said with a shrug, “ and it was shit.”

“Well it sure didn’t stop you,” Nick said, looking around the bartop now for a napkin and a pen so he could get Macheillini’s autograph. “I’ve read about you in all kinds of magazines and newspapers. The critics all say you’re a natural orchestral genius. Didn’t the Pope come to see you the other year?”

“No, he had me fly to Rome, actually,” Macheillini said, pretending to be put out by the honor of such a travel request. The bartender set two new drinks in front of them and they cheersed properly this time, clicking the rims of the glasses together with a light tink. “You know,” Macheillini said, with the burn of the alcohol still on his voice, “just because other people think you’re great doesn’t mean that you are.”

“I’m sure it’s nice to be thought of that way, though,” Nick said.

“Sure, it’s nice enough. But it doesn’t change much. I mean, look at us. You seem to think I’m quite famous, yet here we are drinking at the same overpriced bar together.”

That was true, Nick had to admit. “What has you throwing them back tonight anyway?” he asked.

“Artistic pressures,” Macheillini said, wryly. “The Classical Composer’s Guild wants to hold an event in the spring. You know, welcome back the arts and all that after the pandemic. They want me to write something new for it.”

“Will you?” Nick asked.

“I’d like to.” Macheillini said, slowly spinning his now-empty whiskey glass in small circles before him. “Writing classical music is... complex,” he said. “Not only are you orchestrating four different musical sections, but you’re also writing parts for dozens of different instruments, some of which have a first, second, and third chair.” Nick nodded, as if he understood. He’d tried to play the saxophone for an exhausting two weeks in the fifth grade. He’d been thrilled when his mother finally let him give it up with no more than a slightly discouraging, “Surprise, surprise.”

“If anyone can compose a new show by spring it must be you,” Nick said.

“Maybe.” Macheillini seemed to be studying the various bottles displayed across the back of the bar.

“Well, how do you usually start composing?” Nick asked. Macheillini ordered two more drinks. Nick didn’t really want any more alcohol, but how many chances would he have to party with a famous classical musician? The drinks came and the men raised their glasses again. Macheillini looked thoughtfully into the mirrored backing of the bar, his and Nick’s reflections distorted and half-hidden behind the glasses and various liquor bottles.

“I tend to get my best ideas in Central Park,” he said.

“Well, cheers to Central Park, then!” Nick knocked his glass into Macheillini’s and they downed the drinks. Nick didn’t remember much after that.

It was painfully early when he woke the next day. He was in a bed, still in his clothes, in a plain-looking studio apartment. The blinds were drawn, leaving only thin strips of cloudy light to color the unremarkable room. Looking at his phone, Nick realized he had apparently rented himself an overnight studio in the city so he wouldn’t have to go all the way back to Clinton Hill.

He was half impressed by his blackout-drunk self, and half angry. Even one night in a downtown Manhattan apartment was not cheap. He never would have paid for something like this sober. Then again, maybe that was the price of an exceptional New York City run-in. Nick didn’t remember leaving the bar where he’d met Macheillini, but he was certain the events of the prior evening weren’t a figment of his imagination. The embarrassment of Stephanie’s party had been greatly eased by his brush with celebrity, at least.

Nick washed his face and drank two large glasses of water before he gingerly put on his coat and stepped into the apartment building hallway. He’d managed not to lose his wallet, phone, or keys, thank god. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blacked out like that, an irony that struck him even as the thought passed through his slurried mind.

He stepped out of the building and onto the sidewalk. It wasn’t yet 7 A.M. The air carried on it the sharp bite of freezing temperatures, and the streets were still mostly empty. Nick decided he’d try to walk off some of his hangover by cutting through Central Park on the way to his bus stop. He pulled his coat collar up around his neck and turned into the park at the Merchants’ Gate entrance. The USS Maine monument was embossed in a thin crust of frost, the bronze figures atop its peak captured in an ethereal, thin veil of white. Each cut and crevice of the statue was all the more outlined by the contrast of the ice.

The park was still, save for the dispersal of dedicated early-morning joggers and power-walkers. Nick followed its paths diagonally as he headed in the direction of 5th Avenue. As he neared Pinebank Arch, though, his groggy brain began to register a low thumping noise, hollow and rhythmic, that echoed in the otherwise still morning. As he approached the bridge, it became clear that the thumping was the bass of a full ensemble of street performance instruments. When the arch came into view, Nick could see a homeless man sitting just under its tunnel. He was bundled deep inside a long sheepskin coat, wrapped with a scarf, and topped with a hat, methodically slapping his hands against two large upturned barrels. Next to him sat an iron stand with a lanyard of glass bottles strung upon it. The man would occasionally trill the bottles with a small mallet, while also working smoothly between a steel triangle, several foot-pedal-operated cymbals, and even a small harp. The resulting music was in turns low and driving, light and airy. It reverberated off the walls of the throughway under the arch, and Nick found himself locked into place, mesmerized by this single person’s ability to create such a full and complete melody.

Digging into his pocket, Nick was thankful to find a five-dollar bill. He walked up to the small jar that sat on the cold ground at the man’s feet and dropped the money inside, regretful that he didn’t have more cash to give. He was about to walk away when he noticed a figure sitting at the far end of the arch, somewhat hidden in the shadows.

Gustavo Macheillini never noticed Nick. He was much too busy writing. As fast as the homeless man played his song, Macheillini’s hand flew across a sheaf of paper in his lap.