C4 antho - Chamber Four

Nothings
___________
by Aaron Block
from Alice Blue Review
The Olufsens’ annual Accomplishments Exhibition
started at 8:30 a.m. when the first movement of a twelvetone
symphony composed by fourteen-year-old Nolan
Olufsen sounded from the PA system set-up at the bottom of
the driveway and blanketed the neighborhood. The music
woke me but not Lyndon, my son, who I found downstairs on
the couch, eating a bowl of cereal in front of the TV and holding
the invitation to the festivities he’d received a week ago.
He was already dressed, in socks and shoes even, his
mother’s yellow rain jacket folded next to him, which he’d
brought from the closet because last night the weatherman
said showers were likely in the afternoon.
I put a fried egg between two stale pieces of bread and
fielded Lyndon’s questions about last year’s Exhibition,
whether I remembered the potato-mashing machine Dr. Erik
Olufsen built from wire and his hand-made, precisely measured
gears, or the way Maddy Olufsen sang her husband’s
songs while standing on the roof, wearing a costume she’d
sewn herself from clothes worn by her grandparents when
they emigrated to America. I lied and told him sure, I remembered
all that and the year before, too. It was Rosanna,
his mother, who took him every year, who was better at pretending
interest in the neighbors’ projects. The invitation
was delivered the day after she left. Lyndon made me read it
to him three times at dinner, once more before he went to
sleep; I knew I’d have to take him.
He was ready to go as soon as I’d finished my sandwich,
but I made him wait by the door while I brushed my teeth