Impressions
"The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines." -- E.B. White
Running his fingers gently through the purple blossoms and nearly overwhelmed by the scent of the wisteria that trailed and cascaded down around him, Jacob's thoughts swirled around in his head. Half hidden in the shadows of the Pergola as dusk fell, he watched the activity in the shadows around the Central Park Bandshell: teenagers skateboarding on the concrete, couples fighting, drug deals being made, dogs being walked, homeless people settling in for the night, a few street musicians practicing. Drowning out some of the city noises, the sounds of violins and flutes filled the air. His finely tuned hearing picked out the sharpness of a violin's e string, telling him that soon that string will break, and that one of the flutes is tuned slightly flat.
From the newspapers and the talk around the Hunter campus, he knows that the Parks Department wants to tear the bandshell down, that they can no longer see its worth. That it is to them only a source of problems and no longer a source of joy. He is saddened by this. His father has taken him to concerts at the bandshell his entire life. Catherine, his mother, loved to go to concerts there, and he knew his father had tried to share that experience with his son. Music was important to Jacob. Indeed, as he made his way home through the park on this Friday evening, in addition to his knapsack, he carried with him his violin in a soft case slung over his shoulder. He knew his grandfather would ask him to play for the community, and he had been working on a new piece he wanted them to hear.
When he was a child, he called it the 'clamshell.' He loved to go with his father and sit on blankets in the tunnels underneath and listen to the music overhead. William would have packed them a few snacks in a picnic basket to enjoy during the intermissions -- some tea in a thermos, bread and honey-butter sandwiches, fruit, a few cookies. One glorious Fourth of July they had unpacked their basket to find lemonade and cool crisp slices of watermelon. Jacob could never hear the 1812 Overture without smiling in remembrance of the fun they had that night spitting the seeds at one another.
Jacob had been in this same spot under the pergola at midday to take pictures of the wisteria in full bloom. With his camera he was able to capture so much of the city above to share with those in the tunnels below. The colors of the afternoon world were, for the most part, unknown to his father, and he reveled in the joy he could bring Vincent with his pictures of the city.
His first memory of photographs were the black and white photos taken by Jessica, which were kept in a leather bound album by his Grandfather's bedside. On very special occasions when he was small, Jacob was sometimes allowed to spend the night with Grandfather. When bedtime could be put off no longer, they would crawl into the oak bed in Grandfather's chamber and the elder Jacob would show the photographs to his namesake and tell him stories of the exotic locations they were taken in. To share these photos with his grandson gave the old man great pleasure. Jessica's pictures had opened up the world outside to Jacob, and had made a deep impression on him.
When he had first come above to go to school he struggled with a way to share the new world he was discovering with his father, and when his Aunt Diana gave him a camera for Winterfest, he found his way.
Living below was a double edged sword for Jacob. While it provided great warmth and safety it also demanded sacrifices. Jacob had always felt caught between his father's world below and his mother's world above. There was a sense, not of being caged or trapped, but there was a tension as he stood between those two worlds. He had lived most of his life in his father's world ... far below the city streets. But his father was determined that Catherine's son should know the world above. Her world...
a/n: just a little appetizer as I start my journey into the world of BatB fan-fiction...