Francisco X. Stork - Marcelo In The Real World

ARTHUR A. LEVINE BOOKS An Imprint of Scholastic Inc.

For Ruth, my mother

M arcelo, are you ready?

I lift up my thumb. It means that I am ready.

Okay, Im going to wheel you in.

Then he slides me inside the tunnel of the machine. I like the feeling of being closed in. The lights are not bright enough to hurt my eyes but I close them anyway.

Dont forget to lift your finger when you first hear the mental music. The tunnel has a speaker. Dr. Malones voice comes out from there.

I wait for the music. It always comes. The hard part is remembering to lift my finger. Theres a tiny camera that allows Dr. Malone and Toby to see me from up in the control booth.

Marcelo, Marcelo. I hear Toby in the distance. I like Toby. Hes a medical doctor just like Dr. Malone but he doesnt let me call him doctor. Once I called him doctor and he corrected me and said, Toby, please. His face is covered with freckles.

Ready for the so-called real stuff? he asks when he slides me out.

Yes, I say to him. The real stuff is what he calls the music that is piped in through the speaker in the machine. The music that comes from inside my head is not considered real.

Toby is holding a piece of paper that lists different kinds of real music. How about choosing from this side, this time?

Okay, I say. The music on the back of the page contains rock songs. Thats Tobys favorite kind of music. I dont recognize any of the songs or composers. I finally pick a piece by a composer named Santana because the name looks like Sandoval, my own name. I also like the title of the song, The Calling.

Sweet, says Toby. The smile on his face means I made a good choice. Santana and Clapton together. Sweet.

Sweet, I say to myself. I make a mental note to use that word the next time I like something.

A few minutes later Toby is back with the list. He is frowning. You have to pick from this side. The old man thinks that rock will overstimulate your gray matter. Toby rolls his eyes while looking in the direction of Dr. Malone, who is up in the booth fiddling with some controls. I do not understand the precise meaning of Tobys facial expression.

I quickly pick Beethovens Largo from Piano Concerto No. 3. I like the musics simple melody. Also, I know it only lasts about ten minutes.

Toby slides me back inside the tunnel.

Whats the mental music like? Dr. Malone asks when Im out of the tunnel. I stop tying my sneakers so that I can think about his question. But it is impossible to put into words what the internal music is like. (I prefer the word internal to the word mental when referring to the music. The fact that the IM, as I call it for short, is inside my mind does not necessarily mean that it is produced by my mind.) What is the IM like? How many times has Dr. Malone asked me that question and how many times have I not been able to answer it?

Sweet, I say. It is sweet. I look for Toby but he is up in the control room.

You mean it sounds pleasant? The sounds are pleasing to the ear?

The music is not heard with the ears. Then I realize that sweet wasnt the right word. The music is pleasant all right, but it is much more than that.

If its not heard, then what?

How do I describe it? It is like listening to very loud music with headphones. Only the music seems to be coming from inside the brain. It is actually a very neat sensation. It is just there, I say to Dr. Malone. Then an image comes to my mind. It is a big watermelon.

Excuse me? One of the reasons I like working with Dr. Malone is that his facial expressions are so clear and easy to understand. That one he just made, for example, is a textbook example of baffled.

I expand on the image that came to me. It is the first time I have made this connection so I am not sure exactly where it will lead me. When the internal music is there, Marcelo is one of the seeds. The music is the rest of the watermelon.

Dr. Malone frowns. Actually, it is a half-frown, half-smile, like he is trying to remain serious. Do you know that you just put emphasis on exactly the right word right then? Thats good. A year ago you couldnt do that. Paterson has been good for you.

Paterson. I look at my watch. Aurora is driving me to Paterson after the session with Dr. Malone to see the baby colt that was born last night. Harry (that is what we call Mr. Killhearn, the stable master at Paterson) called this morning and told Aurora that the colt had been born at 2:35 A.M. I pleaded with Aurora to take me today even though she worked all day at the hospital. I could have waited two days until Monday, when I start my summer job taking care of the ponies, but it is too hard to wait. I had hoped to be there when he was being born, and the hours of this day have seemed as long as a week.

I have half an hour left with Dr. Malone, I remind myself. This time, I must make sure that the session does not go over the allotted time, as it sometimes does.

Dr. Malone is speaking again. But lets get back to the music. What is the content of the mental music? Does it sound like regular music? Does it have a melody?

Yes and no, I say. I hate sounding so imprecise. Imprecision in this case is as close (and as fast) as I can get to accuracy.

Okaaay. Dr. Malone grins. What part is like regular music?

I close my eyes and imagine a cello as big as the earth and a bow as long as the Milky Way and the bow moving sometimes slow and sometimes fast across the cello strings.

I hear Dr. Malone in the distance. Music has a melody, rhythm, beat. Does the mental music have any of these components?

Now I am thinking about my summer job and how I can be with the ponies all day long. I return to Dr. Malone and his questions. I am getting paid for this, I tell myself. I have to give this process as much as I can. Besides, I like Dr. Malone and I like Toby. Not exactly.

Can you hum it?

No.

Then its not music.

It is the feelings of music without the sound. There. That is as precise as I can get in the kind of language that Dr. Malone is seeking.

What kinds of feelings?

I have no idea what to call these feelings. Sometimes the music is lively and fast so I call it happy. Sometimes it is slower and lower in pitch, so I call it sad. Mostly the music is just incredibly peaceful. Sweet. I like that word.

Marcelo! Come back. Were almost done here. Are they always there, these feelings of music without sound?

Yes. When I look for them. When Marcelo looks for them, they are always there.

When Marcelo looks where?

Here. I touch the back of my head, just above my neck.

Do these sounds ever come when you dont want them to come or stay when you dont want them to stay?

I think about it. The truth is that the pull of the music is always there. Like just a little while ago when I was trying to describe it to Dr. Malone, I wanted to slide into the music again. And it is also hard to pull out when I am there. But this is not what I tell Dr. Malone. I dont know if I could find the right words to describe these thoughts. Instead, I say to him: If that happened, then Marcelo would be crazy, would he not?

Dr. Malone laughs and nods at the same time. He is always testing, doing his research but keeping an eye on my mental health as well. Despite his unanswerable questions and his silly sense of humor, I dont mind coming to see Dr. Malone. Ive been doing it every six months since I was five, which means, since Im seventeen, that Ive seen Dr. Malone twenty-five times. The visits last two hours and serve three functions: First, he makes sure that my brain is physically okay. Second, the data he gathers helps other people who truly need help. Third, as of last year, I get paid three hundred dollars per visit in accordance with regulations from a grant that Dr. Malone received.