Everyday Dagaz: Chemists

"Well, I'll be."

Michael heard surprise, anger, and a hint of fear in Fiona's voice. He turned, followed her gaze. "What?"

"Keith O'Connor, in the flesh."

Irish name. Michael scanned the crowd. He didn't see anyone who looked like a former IRA compatriot of Fiona's, but she didn't look like a former IRA figther herself. No one looked particularly combat-ready, either. Fiona was always combat ready. Even in bed.

"He hasn't aged a day."

Michael scanned the crowd again. There, at the shaved ice shack, were two teenage boys. One had light brown skin and tightly-curled back hair, a guitar slung over his back. The other hand pale, freckled skin, glossy red hair, and an electric five-string bass slung over his back. He threw his head back, laughed at something the other boy said, and he had classic Irish features, the high cheekbones and thin lips. 

"The wannabe emo rockers?"

Fiona nodded. She reached up, tugged her shades down to perch on her nose to cover her opportunity to stare. "The ginger. I'd know him anywhere."

The kid was slender, wearing a faded punk-rock t-shirt, with the sort of wiriness Michael associated with running or swimming. "What was he?"

"A chemistry student," Fiona said.

Improvised explosives expert, she meant. 

"What's he doing in Miami?"

"I have no idea. Last I checked, he was dead."

The teenage girl at the shaved ice shack handed both boys their treats, and they pocketed their change, turned to go. Fiona had stared too long and too hard. The redhead turned toward them and paused. Recognition crossed his face, and he caught his friend's shoulder, shoved, hurried him toward the sidewalk where a couple of skateboards were propped up against the low wall of a planter.

Michael called out, "Hey Keith, long time no see."

If looks could kill, Keith would have been dead, and his friend would have been a murderer.

But Keith bit his lip and sighed, shook out his shoulders, and started toward them.

"I don't know you, sir, but I do know you." He lifted his chin at Fiona.

"Keith," Fiona said. She looked him up and down, lip curled in disdain. "Still so...juvenile."

Keith winced. "Still so acrimonious."

"No one likes a traitor."

Keith lifted his chin. "Family first, wasn't that our motto? Turned out half of my family was on the other side of the barricade."

"Really," Fiona said, "you haven't aged a day."

"Aye. And neither have you."

Up close, Keith and his friend were definitely teenagers. 

Michael said, "What brings you to Miami?"

Keith tugged on the strap of his electric bass. "Battle of the bands."

"I didn't realize you liked music," Fiona said.

Keith shrugged. "There was a lot we didn't know about each other. I played cello in the school orchestra and me mam was a Prod. You fell in love with an undercover CIA agent."

Michael raised his eyebrows. "I thought you didn't know me."

"Knowing of someone isn't the same as knowing them." Keith shrugged. "So...we have to be at soundcheck. No snitching, ho foul, right?"

"Wrong," Fiona said. "My brother's dead because of you."

"On the contrary - your brother's dead because a British soldier shot him. My own brother is alive because of me - no thanks to you." Keith raised his snow cone in salute. "You had a gun at his head."

"He was a Prod."

"He was eleven," Keith said flatly. He leaned in, his voice low and dangerous. "If you want to play the 'who was worse game', I can defeat you roundly. Believe me." And he said something in rapid, rolling Irish.

Fiona went pale. "I didn't mean to. I was sorry. I didn't know --"

"And I did. You'd have done the same in my place." Keith straightened up. "So...enjoy your stroll along the beach. We're going to win a battle." He turned and walked away, toed his skateboard flat, and hopped on. His friend did the same, and they quickly vanished into the crowd.

"What was that about?" Michael said.

"I was wrong. He's not a teenager anymore." Fiona sighed, tossed her head. "Call Sam. I want mojitos."

Hallelujah - Rufus Wainwright

If Silas had paid more attention in music theory, he'd have figured out how to play the song sooner. The chord progression - at least part of it - was in the first verse, "The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift". Chords had numbers. Pretty much every song could be broken down into a chord progression. Most pop songs were I-V-vi-IV. And if Silas had listened to Ms. Dempsey and learned which chords corresponded with which numbers, he'd have had the song figured out weeks ago instead of the night before his performance in front of the entire class.

He hated math. He wanted to be an artist and musician because they were the opposite of science, which required math. Lots of math. Math was awful.

And apparently math had invaded his music.

Silas stared at the chart at the back of his mother's dance journal (she was a lawyer and had a freakin' journal for her dance notes) and wondered if she'd taken great pains to memorize the strings of numbers (four-chord pop, five-chord doo-wop, twelve-bar blues). Mom was amazing at memorizing things, which was why she'd survived law school and still made other lawyers cry. But she was a good musician, too. Dad would pick up his bass, Mom would sit at the piano, and she'd just...play the blues. Or a pop song. Or an old-school doo-wop song. She and Dad would switch chords effortlessly, grinning at each other, bobbing to the beat, but keeping in perfect synch. How did Dad know when to switch? How did he know what to switch to? Dad was a scientist. Had he also memorized the numbers?

Silas stared at the various offerings of chord progressions and sheet music that Google had splashed across his tablet screen. Four chords. That was all. If he'd figured out the first chord and listened to the lyrics in the first verse...bam. He'd have figured the song out weeks ago.

Silas sighed and placed his hands on the keys, hoping his tablet would stay propped up against all the books of sheet music Mom left piled on the piano stand. Then he began to play.

Half an hour later, Mom swept in through the front door. Her keys jangled as she tossed them into the basket on the counter just inside the kitchen door. Silas kept playing doggedly, determined not to lose the chord progression (thank heavens it was so repetitive).

Mom began to sing along, but it wasn't a verse Silas had ever heard before. She sang as she roamed the house, performing her daily after-work ritual (shoes kicked under the table in the mini-foyer, purse on the table, jacket hung up), her voice fading and rising as she moved from room to room.

She stepped into the den and paused.

"Oh. I thought you were Dad home from the lab early."

"I need to know this for school tomorrow. It's the recital," Silas said.

Mom patted him on the shoulder. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Silas kept playing, fumbled a chord transition. Sighed. "How did you figure this song out?"

"Dad did it by ear, years ago. We used to sing it together all the time. You could've asked him for help." Mom smiled fondly at the memory.

"It's a four-chord song. Did you have to do the math, too?"

"Math? No." Mom huffed. "We go to law school because we're bad at math. Dad was always better at musical theory than me. I play what sounds good to me. Turns out what sounds good can be expressed mathematically, which is handy when you're doing improv with a group of strangers. But don't think you're stuck with the math." She ruffled Silas's hair and sang another verse.

Even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before The Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but...Hallelujah.