FEBRUARY 8, 2024 – (Cont.) As I sat among my fellow law students hard at work on their exam essays and all destined to pass the course and successful lawyers, I was sure, I contemplated my alternative prospects and inventoried my employable skills. This didn’t take long . . . my only option was . . . no, on second thought, if I could call myself a violinist, I was a rank amateur. No money in that. And having sold books door-to-door (see The Sales Job series on this blogsite), I knew I didn’t want to replicate that adventure. Having exhausted my options for gainful employment, I turned to my unmarketable fantasies.
Already a compulsive long-distance runner, I could crank up my training, win the Boston Marathon and compete with running greats Bill Rogers and Frank Shorter for endorsements. I could also be the first man to walk on Mars—a prospect, I realized, with a higher probability than winning The Marathon. Maybe I could move up to our family’s cabin near the Birkebeiner Trail and train single-mindedly for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo—only slightly less probable than my landing on the moon. In America, at least, there was far less competition than in marathon running. I’d earn a berth on the U.S. team, then pull a stunning upset and become the second American after Vermonter Bill Koch to win a medal in x-c skiing[1]. Gold, silver or bronze, I’d turn it into gold by opening my own ski shop chain stocked with my name-brand skis that my fame would sell to the world.
If these were pipe dreams in a hookah den, then perhaps I could settle for something more realistic. I could write stories and sell them to magazines. Yes—that was it! I could become a writer. After all, writing was something I’d always loved to do, and I’d filled stacks of journals in my parents’ attic and penned hundreds of letters stored in closet shelves, desk drawers—and no doubt, dumped in landfills—across the country. And to stave off the boredom of law school between my daily 15-mile runs (or 20-kilometer x-c ski workouts), hadn’t I already written a whole book—The College Prankster’s Handbook? Surely with a more disciplined approach I could sell some of my writing and work my way toward a best-selling Great American Novel by the time I was middle-age, say, 32 . . . and past my prime as a runner and skier.
By this time, I imagined Ray as General Patton writing euphorically, “TELL IKE WE WON! TELL IKE WE ONE!” He’d filled his original three blue books and had had to interrupt his momentum to stride down to the front table and snatch a couple more. I told myself that however well Ray was doing on the insurance law exam, he’d never write the Great American Novel.
In the moment he resumed writing, I decided to launch my formal writing career. I would open my blue book, but instead of identifying and resolving issues of insurance law, I would write a story—an allegory. It would feature the downfall and redemption of a great man, a great musician, the inimitable Vladimir Horowitz; a man who’d pulled victory from the proverbial jaws of defeat, thereby inspiring me in the moment of my distress to do the same.
Horowitz was a household name when I was growing up. My parents, both accomplished pianists, had multiple recordings of the Russian-born keyboard artist and revered his playing. Moreover, Greg Schatten, one of my best friends and piano collaborator at Interlochen Arts Academy (high school) had been a big fan of Horowitz’s recordings. It was Greg who in concert with Mr. Horowitz had provided the material for the story I was about to recount in my insurance law blue book.
Greg was a veritable prodigy at the piano. He was also two grade levels ahead me in math. Yet, he was always in wit-and-prankster mode, which is the primary reason we got along so well. We were charter members of a hell-raising crew that mostly but not always flew under the radar of adult supervision—and reprimands.
Greg’s impishness was exhibited one day when he called me down to his dorm room to hear a Horowitz recording he’d just received in the mail (our school was in the wilderness of northern (lower peninsula) Michigan, with no easy access to commercial outlets, let alone a classical record store). The album featured the great pianist’s 1965 return to Carnegie Hall.
The recital was remarkable because it was Horowitz’s first public appearance in many years. Despite his prodigious talent, the poor guy suffered from a raging case of stage fright—so awful that it had prematurely derailed his career. For an interminable time Horowitz languished, impoverishing his devoted fans around the globe. Then, finally, he’d summoned the courage, undergone the therapy, taken the medication, done whatever else had been required to walk out on stage again, take his place at the Steinway and fill the hall with his musical genius. Except . . .
“Now, you’ve got to hear this,” said Greg, as he pulled the Horowitz album out of its sleeve. “Keep in mind that Horowitz was staging his comeback. He’d been out of commission for years; couldn’t play in front of an audience without falling apart. But of course, he was still the god of the piano, right? He had to make it back on stage. So after many years he decided it was time, and the place would be Carnegie Hall. And the whole recital was to be recorded and records sold of the live performance—no special editing, just a pure rendering of the comeback recital.”
Pressing his palms against the edges of the album, Greg blew off a speck of dust and delicately placed the record onto the turntable. “His first piece is a Bach Toccata,” said Greg, building suspense, “. . . for him, for any decent pianist, a piece of cake; just a warm-up, really, for the rest of the demanding recital. It opens with a lefthand figure—a simple phrase. In a minute or two you could learn it. Except . . . what happens? Horowitz screws it up! And not once, but twice!”
With that, Greg lowered the needle. I listened carefully to Horowitz initiate his comeback. Sure enough—the flub was unmistakable. With persistent incredulity, Greg lifted the stylus and reset it so I could hear with repeated amazement, the Great Mistake by the Master of the keyboard.
“He then goes on to perform the greatest recital of his career,” said Greg.
This is the story I recounted in my blue book. I don’t remember my closing verbatim, but an accurate paraphrase of it is,
The lesson in the maestro’s grand falter at the grand piano of Carnegie is twofold: his comeback as one of the greatest pianists of all time was not defined by his failure, but by the stunning performance that followed it. Likewise, I am determined not to allow my failure of this exam—this course—to define my future. I am not as bereft of ability, academic or practical, as the contents of this blue book might suggest. My record heretofore is an ironclad case of res ipsa loquitur.[2]
Ray had already finished and was waiting for me impatiently. I closed my blue book and with about a minute left to the exam time, I signaled that I was ready to leave. Together we stepped to the front and placed our blue books atop the growing pile in front of The Walrus. The aging professor granted us a perfunctory smile, largely camouflaged by his mustache but betrayed by a slight upward motion in his cheek muscles. He uttered the stilted farewell, “So long, gentlemen.”
As Ray and I walked out of the classroom, I found bittersweet pleasure in knowing with certitude a fact of which the erudite professor was blissfully ignorant and would remain so until he waded through the weight of blue books ahead of mine—the fact that one of his students had crashed and burned beyond remediation. (Cont.)
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1] In 1976, the year I’d graduated from college. The next American Olympic medal in x-c skiing wasn’t until 2018.
[2] A classic phrase learned by every in first year torts, “the thing speaks for itself,” meaning some acts are so bumbling or reckless as to be deemed patently negligent. The Latin can be readily adapted to other settings, however.
