Hurley

“As is,” the clerk told Hurley more than once. “No returns, no refunds.”

The clerk eyed Hurley’s bib overalls, tie-dyed t-shirt and sandals. “I mean it, old man.”

Hurley listened to jazz on the college radio station sometimes. How difficult could it be to play some of those romantic ballads? He would work his way up to the fast, chaotic numbers.

The music store clerk showed Hurley how to moisten the reed before affixing it to the mouthpiece then sent him home with the old, caseless horn and a spiralbound book full of note fingerings and basic beginner tunes like “Three Blind Mice” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

That first night and the weeks that followed, Hurley’s attempts to force music out of the horn sounded more like a goose in terrified distress than anything he’d ever heard on the radio. Hurley’s aged hound Monroe bayed along in sympathy with this invisible, tortured goose’s pain. When the dog’s added racket got to be too much for him, Hurley took his horn and music stand out to the woods behind his house.

In the woods, angry crows made it impossible to practice. Nothing went according to Hurley’s admittedly half-ass plan. After a month, he still couldn’t play a scale without mistakes. Simple songs from the front of his beginner’s book were still beyond him.

Hurley’s honking squeals were neither sweet nor sexy.

He’d imagined himself surprising his former beau Marjorie with a front yard serenade. Even with three divorces behind her, he was certain no man had ever done that for her. Such an idea was ridiculous with his banjo, but with a saxophone it would have been romantic indeed.

Soon it was late spring. That Easter Sunday, Hurley got up early to go outside for a look at the tulips that always came up beside his house. Their blooms looked so bright and cheerful, he cut all the flowers down at the base of their stems.

Their bouquet filled the saxophone’s bell in a way Hurley’s tone wouldn’t have for years.

He left the saxophone full of tulips in Marjorie’s yard without a note or even a knock at the door. Driving away Hurley was pretty sure nobody had done that for her lately.