Sean Williams - Impossible Music

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Government of South Australia through Arts SA.

Clarion Books

3 Park Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Copyright 2019 by Sean Williams

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

hmhbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Names: Williams, Sean, author.

Title: Impossible Music / Sean Williams.

Description: Boston; New York : Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2019] | Summary: In a class for the newly deaf, former musician Simon meets G and his quest to create an entirely new form of music helps him better understand her, himself, and his relationship to the hearing world.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018051216 | ISBN 9780544816206 (hardcover)

Subjects: | DeafFiction. | People with disabilitiesFiction. | MusiciansFiction. | Dating (Social customs)Fiction.

Classification: PZ7.W6681739 Imp 2019 | DDC [E]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051216

eISBN 978-1-328-63006-3
v1.0619

For my sister, Christyna,
and Rachel, my sister in crime

The sign language in this novel is Auslan, the language of the Australian Deaf community. I have taken some liberties with regional variants.

Perhaps music happens elsewhere than in ears.

Anna Smaill, The Chimes

How?

Small word, big question. Thats what Mum used to say when too tired to answer properly. Only its not a small word anymore, not for me.

How? in Australian sign language, a.k.a. Auslan, starts with two palms held upward, one above the other. You slide your hands apart to create a space between them, and they stay facing up, emptythe idea being, I guess, for someone to metaphorically fill them with knowledge. I think of it as a shrugless huh?

Its a big sign, then, rather than a small word, but the question remains huge.

I think G knows that, which is why its taken her so long to ask.

Were sitting side by side in a corner of the campus that most people avoid because its too noisy. Perhaps thats what drew us here. The first time I came to the University of Adelaidefor a winter school held in the holidays between second and third terms, when everyone else was heading northward for warmththe renovations were annoying, but I cant hear them now. All I can feel is the occasional vibration as machines hammer and thunder on the other side of a canvas fence, invisible but presentlike our uncertain futures. Everything has been thoroughly overturned in the last three months and nineteen days.

G has her knees drawn up tight to her chest, scuffed Doc Martens jammed hard on the bench as though shes bracing herself to jump. When shes not talking, her hands clutch her forearms in a monkey grip, scars vivid violet like theyve been drawn on with marker. Were so close our hips are touching, and I consciously note for the first time that she doesnt smell like other girls. Where most I know are too sharp and sweet, shes pleasantly sour, lemon in hot tea. With every breath, I strain to take in a bit more of her.

Weve been seeing a lot of each other lately, but Ive not yet admitted to myself that Im falling in love with her. This is just one of many things I cant put into words. How can I? All I have are numb approximationsshapes in the air that bear no relation at all to sound or language or music, as irrelevant as my fingers on the neck of my guitar...

G nudges me with her shoulder, reminding me of the question, and I nod, reaching into my pocket. Some things are easier to explain by phone, or at least less impossible.

I have brain damage.

She, leaning closer to read the words on my phones glowing screen, makes a gesture I guess means, Tell me something I dont already know. I scrunch up the left side of my face and keep tapping on the screen.

No, really. Bilateral embolic stroke to Heschls gyrus.

I havent typed the words to anyone before, so the phone autocorrects the last two to Heathland Guru. It sounds like a band but not a good one, a bland purveyor of the kind of Top 40 shit that I once loved to hate but now would kill to hear.

Ears work fine, but my brain is deaf as a post.

G snatches the phone from me and types: Hysterical?

I think shes being ironic before I absorb the question mark. Trying not to bristle, I answer, Im not imagining it. I can show you the scans if you want.

She reaches behind me and puts her hand on my neck, thumb and fingers on either side of my spine, and butts my shoulder with her right temple. The smell of her becomes much stronger. I tilt my head and breathe in deeply, clearing my mental sinuses: hair, skin, G. Maybe Im smelling a bit of her home as well, and suddenly I really want to see where she eats, where she watches TV, where she sleeps.

While Im lost in a pleasantly detailed daydream, she takes the phone and types something with her left hand.

Well, thanks to you and your gimpy gyrus, Ive lost a bet.

Its my turn to make the how? sign, which creates a small space between us. Her hand leaves my neck. She sits straight as she taps out the words.

Rock god goes deaf, duh. You didnt say, so we thought you were embarrassed about blowing your eardrums out onstage. As you should have been. So obvious

I snatch the phone from her.

You think Im that stupid?

I dont mention the times I gigged without plugs or practiced solos with my headphones turned up so loud my ears rang for hours.

She snatches the phone back.

Being deaf is...

She stops Swyping, and I stare at those three words, knowing she was about to write stupid but thought better of it. Theres no reason to make it personal.

At the same time, though, her auditory nerves arent going to magically repair themselves any more than my Heschls gyrus is going to hatch like a cocoon to reveal a beautiful butterfly. When were angry, we have to blame something.

Or change the subject.

How much did you lose on the bet?

A round of drinks for the whole class.

When did all this happen?

One of the many days you didnt show.

Im not pissed at G, but it does shit me a little that she and the rest of the newly deaf discussed me behind my back.

Farid said you showed all the signs of traumatic brain injury. Everyone agreed.

Except you.

Dont give me a medal or anything. I thought you were an idiot for playing your amp too loud.

Shes smiling. I can see her expression reflected in the strengthened glass.

I need to do something to regain the initiative. Cant have her thinking Im the punch line of a bad joke.

You ever hear any Blackmod?

That was the name of my last band. I am briefly but immensely relieved it wasnt one of the others: Ratzinger, InTerrorBang, bertor, Anal Twin...

She signs, No.

I stand up and strike a pose: imaginary guitar in left hand, pick held high in right, hair swept over my shoulder, grimace. Never forget the grimace. With the sound of remembered drums in my useless ears, I bring my right hand down for the opening chord of Intoxicated Tyrants. The moves are fresh in my mind, having played through it only yesterday, on a real instrument, for the benefit of no one but myself. This time, I rapid-fire air-guitar and head-bang for G in our secluded corner of the campus, playing in time to the hammering from the science wing, mouthing the growls and sneering the squeals of my former bandmates lyrics, and wishing with all my heart that it was more than just a fantasy, this gift Im giving her. This piece of me that I cling to, even though everyone tells me it is dead. Hell, my parents and counselors even held a