PAUL G. TREMBLAY
“Killing a junky doesn’t make you an artist.” He laughed. “That junky was a monster who had murdered three husbands just to fatten her bank account. Or shall we call it a dowry? Find yourself a New York paper during your visit to our fair city and read all you want about her. “Yet you are correct, the act of punishing her does not, in and of itself, make me an artist.” I heard footsteps on the street. But he kept talking. And no one came to my rescue. “Listen closely, my patron, to what my art has to say. . . . ” The man’s face was so close I felt his breaths. “Last year, I attended the first, and until tonight, the only performance of ‘4’33.’ After the shock of witnessing something so different, so completely revolutionary wore off, I have to admit to being depressed, even losing my will to create. A devastating moment, really. “I knew that I wasn’t listening to silence, as so many would say. Cage had created the ultimate work of music, the ultimate art. How could I go on trying to create something that would be destined to fail in Cage’s shadow? I was convinced perfection had been achieved. “’4’33’ is nothing, yet it has everything. A chunk of time without beginning or end. Every performance would always be different. Every performance would always be the same. It is an empty music sheet composed with the sounds of the universe, of life itself. “But I realized something was indeed missing. There can’t be life without death. Death, jazz-man. ‘4’33’ only needed the simple sound of death to be complete, to be whole, to truly communicate the universe in four minutes and thirty-three seconds. “Tonight, you heard the masterpiece.” He removed the knife from my throat and let go of my jacket. I slumped against the oak door, sliding to my knees. I watched him step back and adjust his tux jacket. And the woman’s dying moan filled my head. An awful sound that killed the music maker in my soul. He left me sitting in the doorway. And before leaving he said, “It has nothing. And now, it has everything. And this artist can finally rest.”
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