Plot: Charlie hates his clarinet lessons for his dreams are far away from that. What's a dead poet left to do?.
"Just like Sax"
"No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul."
Rudyard Kipling, "For all we have and are" (1914)
"What should I do?" said Clarice looking hopeless. She played with her hair while walking towards Henry, who was (obviously) being difficult, doing the I-just-won't-let-you-have-me-so-soon thing.
"You know how Lu--"
SWITCH!. Mother turned off the Tv. I don't really care too much. I mean, what's the point of seeing two absolutely idiotic people if I can just go outside and see them play an entirely pointless play, only for me to watch them?
I'm not a complete jerk. I know what I'm doing. I'm watching TV just to have an 'excuse' to forget clarinet practises. But they won't let me. The maid is here now, mother won't even speak to me. All right, nothing new under the sun. She doesn't speak to me or anyone since some time ago.
Father thinks she is seeing someone. I don't think so, if she was she would be happier, always with a smile on her face. And she would forget more things (like clarinet lessons for instance). No, she is not seeing someone; she is just fed up with her sucky life.
I mean, I would be.
Father doesn't talk to her or me. I tend to think he does this because he is too worried over himself. And his work, and his friends, and his poker nights, and his social club. He has so many things to do, he doesn't even look at us!
The maid leads me into the largest room of the house, which would be the lounge, actually.
In the middle of the lounge there is a piano, then, really near to the piano, there is a clarinet that belonged to my father, when he was young and did unusual careless things. Like me, or worse.
Next to the clarinet, there is a flout, and next to the flout, my grandmother's violin, and next to it, my grandfather's trumpet.
And then, far from the other instruments, there is a lonely Saxophone. I don't know who that sax belonged to, not even father knows. It's kind of old, and no one dares to play it again. I must say I've loved that sax from the moment I first saw it. I tried to hold it in my hands but mother prevented me from doing so.
To honour the truth, I didn't want to hold it. I wanted to do more than just hold it.
Yeah, I think that was the first time I thought of becoming a great musician.
"Shall we start mister Dalton?" asks Professor Carson.
I have no choice. Although my soul flies for that sax I take a huge breath and I force myself to smile.
What a glorious musician will I be!
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
"Neil, stop it, I'm not a child"
The cave was full of sounds and voices. It was hard to believe that no one had ever found out about their little secret. Well, they have had some serious doubts of including Cameron into the society, but finally, kind-hearted Neil was victorious.
"Evening, Sergeant Perry" greeted Pitts as he crawled into the cave.
Someone laughed hysterically as if Pitts had said something really funny. Charlie guessed it was Meeks. Those two were always celebrating their lame jokes, he thought to himself and smirked the way he always did.
"Now, who's first?" asked Neil, and Todd tried to make himself look smaller so that no one would noticed his humble presence and wrote something in a little booklet he had previously brought to the cave.
"Oh, c'mon, guys, are you men or mice?" Neil Perry asked them looking quite satisfied of himself. Actually he didn't expect anyone to read that night for the previous afternoon he had been doing some research at the Welton academy library to find some more poems.
"I'm first"
Knox got up, jumping from one foot to another.
"All right, mister, what did you write this time?" asked Charlie lighting another cigarette.
Neil gave him a harsh look and gave Knox a little nod.
(Todd smiled hesitantly and continued smoking his pipe in complete silence)
"You woke me up on night
Told me your dream,
About a sailing ship,
Not far away from here
And a deep river,
That had no end,
Although the dream was wonderful,
Full of stars and lights,
I would have been happier,
To have heard my name"
Knox finished and smiled sheepishly. "It's rubbish; it doesn't even rhyme too much"
"Don't be so hard to yourself" ventured Todd and seeing that no one else was talking, instantly blushed.
"Who did you write that for?" asked Neil with a deep voice, the one he used for things that were truly important and needed to be talked seriously. Cameron gave Pitts a significant look, Pitts laughed. "Chris" were they both thinking.
But Knox still wouldn't talk.
"Oh, please!"
"We all know you've written that for Chris"
"No" and with this single 'no', everyone got silenced. The tension was more than intolerable. "This … the poem … I, just didn't write it for Chris"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
The Sax was from my mother's sister. She was really young when she started taking classes. Their parents strongly disapproved her aims of becoming a musician and did not let her continue practicing for her own good, or so they thought.
As Jazz was born in the black culture, the old Daltons thought wrong of Jazz, not only for being such a racists, but because they hated music. In their cold hearts there was no room for those kind of aspirations and never wanted her daughter to develop her talent.
My mum wrote and entire diary telling about her sister. Mother eavesdropped, and listened to her sister playing sax when their parents were gone working. Promised a million times she wouldn't tell anyone, that those practises would be their secret.
Mother was a cold hearted woman too, and of course, everything she happened to know of her sister's secret practises, she divulged it to my grandfather, who was not happy at all and took the sax away from mother's sister. He intended to destroy the sax.
Or so he believed he wanted to do.
Truth is, grandfather couldn't destroy the sax and no one talked any more about the sax, or mother's sister.
I found out about everything from a dusty old book I found on the Dalton's library, which would be an entire room full of books. My mother's dairy.
But the sax wasn't forgotten.
At least not for me
I thought father would never let me get even ten centimetres close to the sax. No matter how much I wanted to play it just once.
So I just kept practising clarinet. Although I hated it, I knew that if some day I wanted to play Jazz with that sax in my hand, I would have to know a bit about other similar instruments and clarinet just fitted perfectly.
"So, you want to play Saxophone, Charlie?" asked Mister Carson one afternoon after clarinet lessons.
"Yeah … desperately" I grinned.
Professor Carson agreed to teach me how to play sax. He was a kind teacher.
Eventually, father came to know about how much I wanted to play sax, and after me begging to his knees, he finally agreed to let me have my aunt's sax.
But then, troubles followed me.
"You just don't play it right!" told me Mr Carson one afternoon. This made me feel angry, because I thought I have understood how to play it perfectly well.
"I do it just fine, you should know that, you're my professor, aren't you?"
"You don't understand, Charles Dalton, you're supposed to love playing sax, feeling the sax in your hands. How is it that your music doesn't reflect that?"
I couldn't find an answer to that
"Find something that makes you feel deeply ashamed of yourself, happy, insecure, sad and joyful all at the same time. You just don't play Jazz for perfection; you have to feel it when you play it"
With those final words, lessons were over, and it was time for me to continue my studies at Welton academy.
It was time to try Hellton
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Charlie coughed a little.
"This is gonna kill me someday" he stated. Knox could see him smiled mischievously, the way he always did, but was not sure about the meaning of Charlie's words.
This is going to kill me. Cigarettes?
It was the kind of thing pessimistic people would say, non-smokers, and people that took seriously their lives. Charlie was not one of them. He acted recklessly, and started to smoke soon after entering Welton, because he wanted to look older, he wanted to be respected for doing exactly the opposite of whatever Nolan's words were.
It just didn't make sense.
What was the thing Charlie thought was going to kill him eventually?
"Hey Knox, how is it going for you at this old respectable school of Welton?" Charlie interrupted his own thoughts.
"Oh, well, fine, I guess…" Knox shrugged and looked around nervously. It was, indeed, his first time at Charlie's bedroom.
Charlie made a grin. "I guess?"
Knox was starting to get a bit uncomfortable at this point "well, yeah, because I really miss my family a lot and girls …" he sighed. Charlie couldn't help but laugh. The laughter was contagious and Knox had no other choice but laugh with Charlie.
The atmosphere relaxed quite a bit after this.
No longer silent moments in which Knox felt uncomfortable, no more strange feelings running trough Knox's neck, just laughter, talk, and smiles that warmed him in a way he hasn't experienced before. And then, he saw it, resting in Charlie's bed just waiting for someone to take notice of it, like screaming "hey, take a look at me!"
"Oh, that's just my Sax" said Charlie lightly as he lifted the instrument with his left hand.
"I bet you play it wonderfully" assumed Knox, but Charlie gave him a very sad smile.
"Not quite yet" he said softly and put it away "but soon, I'll play it perfectly well" assured confidently. Knox could tell by the glittering in Charlie's eyes, that it was not an empty statement, but a promise.
"In the meantime, would you play sax…for me?"
Charlie seemed surprised, but then just smiled. The air was full of expectation and Charlie finally agreed to play the old sax just for Knox.
As the sounds and notes filled the air, Knox felt something different, didn't understood at that time what it was, and regretted it for ever. Those melancholic notes that were easily flowing trough the metallic instrument were dedicated only to him, they meant something, they had a purpose, and the codified message that surrounded Knox was almost screaming it.
It was kind of simple, but hard to accept.
"That was really good!"
"You think so?" Charlie looked at the sax as if it had something wrong on it "Why?"
"I don't know why, but it was almost as if the music was alive" Charlie laughed loudly.
Outside, rain was pouring from the sky. Exactly like Knox's heart's rainy inside, it soon stopped and let its way for a sunny day.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
When I entered at Welton academy, I improved a lot.
Playing sax was no longer a recall of the hard words some professor told me long ago, and I wish almost everyday that the person that helped me to achieve one of my most important goals would be mine instead of one blond girl he met.
He won't tell me who he wrote that poem he read last evening for, as the mysterious person makes him feel deeply ashamed.
Neil told me what he thinks about this matter quite openly; he said (literally) that Knox is whether deciding to tell that person or not about his feelings or thinking seriously if it's worth to leave Chris for that person since he is still in love with Chris.
Todd didn't say much after the meeting, but when Neil told me this, Todd gave me a sad look and then followed Neil in silence.
Mr John Keating doesn't quite understand my ways, nor do I understand his ways either. However, when I told him about my little problem with sax, he took a good look at me before finally replying "Some people judge without thinking and don't see the real truth in themselves"
Of course he left me more confused if ever possible.
I don't think Knox is ever going to be mine. Not the way I want him to be.
He's never going to wake up late at night thinking only of me. He's never going to see no one else but Chris. Just look at her, she's perfect! That bloody blond girl.
Ah, if only I could be her!
Old Sax
Dear old sax, you were good to me, thanks for being here.
My hands take the sax delicately and start playing a song. I love this song. It's a French one, oh, those French folks really know how to warm your heart in a cold evening, and just like that, my thoughts return to you.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Author's notes: ok, this is my first fic in this fandom, so I'm kind of nervous. Charlie's character is a bit OOC in this fic, oh, well… I wanted to write something funny, but I guess my imagination just does whatever it wants. It turned out to be another angsty one-shot that jumps over time. Anyhow, if you still enjoyed it, there's a lot more from where this came from (people give her a really no-fucking-kidding-me look) no, seriously, I'm planning to write another short one-shot, but now I'm a bit hesitantly whether I should do it or not, considering that my imagination really does whatever it wants. Another thing, as I'm not an English speaker (but more like a Spanish speaker, actually) I tend to commit mistakes. I will be grateful to you if you help me improve my English by correcting any errors you may find in this fic. Oh, I just want to point out that I guessed Jazz came from the black culture, as Blues, but I don't know for sure. I didn't intend to sound offensive when I said that Charlie's grandparents where racists, in fact, I disapprove that way of thinking. I know that Charlie's mother's surname couldn't be Dalton when she was young, but I didn't want to make out some of my own. Sorry about that!!.