Rusty was true to his word, and at the chorus’s Christmas Concert he made no obvious mistakes. I knew he could have played without the music. In fact, he could have done that from the second rehearsal on, but he refrained, turning pages at the appropriate times. David and I both noticed that, and he swore us to secrecy.
Rusty was at last tall enough to reach the organ pedals and had learned through trial and error, with some help from Muriel, how to coordinate playing them with his feet while he was playing on the manuals with his hands.
One Saturday Rusty told me that he was searching through collections at the music store in Springfield and asked the clerk if Bach was someone important as there was a whole drawer full of organ music by the composer. When he told me, I had to refrain from laughing. He said the clerk looked shocked but told him a little about Bach. Having a limited amount of money as usual, Rusty picked out only one book of Bach’s preludes and fugues.
When he took it to the front of the store to pay for it, the clerk asked, “Are you sure you can play these?”
“I’m not sure I will play them,” Rusty replied, “but I want to study them and figure out what a fugue is.”
“Well,” the clerk had said, “you’ve certainly picked the master of the fugue to study.”
At home, he put the book on the kitchen table and opened it. The first piece he came to was the Toccata and Fugue in D minor. As I puttered in the kitchen preparing supper, I observed that Rusty read through it a few times and put it aside.
When he went to the church on Saturday to prepare for the Sunday service, I had time on my hands, so I accompanied him. As he worked his way through the Toccata, Pastor John came in from his study and said, “That’s one of my favorite pieces of music.” Rusty said he’d save it for a special occasion.
After studying the D minor Fugue and other fugues in the collection, Rusty tried to create his own. He told me he wasn’t at all satisfied with his early efforts and never wrote them down.
When he finally had one he liked, he wrote it out and played it as the postlude in a service.
As usual, Muriel and I were standing near the organ watching and listening to him play. I was always amazed.
When he finished playing, Muriel asked, “Did Bach write that?”
“No,” Rusty replied. “Did it sound like Bach?”
“Yes, it did,” she said.
Rusty tore up the manuscript. He said he didn’t want his music to sound like that another composer. He wanted music that was distinctly his. Unbeknownst to Rusty and me, after we left Muriel picked up the scraps of the manuscript and taped them back together.
I went with him to the music store the following Saturday. Rusty asked the clerk what other composers had written fugues. The clerk mentioned Buxtehude and some pre-Bach composers, but when the clerk told him more about them, Rusty said he wanted something a little later, perhaps from the nineteenth century.
“Maybe you should try Mendelssohn,” the clerk suggested. He told us that after Bach had died, his music had become less fashionable because the art world moved from the Baroque era to the music of composers like Mozart and Haydn in the Classical period.
“It was Mendelssohn who rediscovered the genius of Bach and began to make him popular again.” Neither Rusty nor I knew what the Baroque and Classical periods were, but we got the idea, and Rusty purchased a collection of Mendelssohn’s organ music.
Later, at the library, Rusty looked up the two periods and found that they related not just to music but to all forms of art.
At home, when he looked at the fugues, he told me wasn’t as impressed with Mendelssohn as he had been with Bach. He thought Mendelssohn wasn’t as skillful at developing the theme, but he did learn from the music, and he played it sometimes in church.
With the help of David, Mr. Morgan, and me, Rusty somehow managed to keep his secret throughout the school year.
When the boys moved into the tenth grade, Rusty began to accompany a small, select group of singers in addition to the chorus. He did well in his classes without a great deal of effort, so he didn’t need the study time.
David was very farsighted. Since he had difficulty focusing on anything up close, he wore glasses with very thick lenses. One day in the car he said, “The literature class has so much reading my eyes sometimes hurt.” After that, Rusty read parts of the books to him which brought them even closer.
Having turned 14, Rusty was hit with the onset of puberty. As he had assured me, he knew perfectly well what was happening. Still, his sudden mood swings sometimes caught him off balance. A few times he had been rather short with me. Realizing what he had done, he apologized profusely.
Don’t worry too much,” I said. “You’re just acting like a typical teenager.”
“Well, at least I’m typical at something,” Rusty said laughing.
I assumed that Rusty was masturbating, probably more than once a day, but neither of us talked about it.
One day he told me that David had asked him, “Do you think it’s possible for two boys our age to be in love?”
“Oh, dear,” I thought.
Rusty said he’d not even begun to think about that.
I said to Rusty, “Remember, David is two years older than you, and boys’ thoughts do tend to turn to both sex and love. He’ll most likely find some girl soon and fall madly in love.”
One Sunday in the early spring, I was surprised to see Mr. Morgan in our church. At the end of the service, he and I both stood near the organ as Rusty was finishing his postlude.
“Is that your own composition?” Mr. Morgan asked after Rusty’s final chord. Rusty nodded.
Mr. Morgan asked if he ever played the music of other composers and Rusty said he did. He turned toward the keyboards and played a lovely and simple Bach chorale prelude, “Wachet auf” [usually titled “Sleepers awake” in English].
“Thank you, Russell,” Mr. Morgan said when Rusty finished. “That was beautiful.” Then he brought up a subject which neither Rusty nor I was prepared for.
“Russell,” he said, “the organist at the Methodist church in Springfield has to retire because of back problems. I wondered if you’d be interested in the job.”
When Rusty began to speak, Mr. Morgan said, “The organ is a four manual E.M. Skinner, and of course you’d be paid for it.”
“Four manuals?” Rusty asked. “Why would you need so many keyboards when you only have two hands?”
Mr. Morgan said that the different manuals had different purposes and sounds. I could see that Rusty was intrigued. He thanked Mr. Morgan for the suggestion and said he’d talk with me about it.
We discussed the question in the evening, and I said I thought he should at least explore the possibility further.
At school on Monday Rusty told Mr. Morgan he’d like to know more about the job. Mr. Morgan suggested that he take Rusty to the church and let him try the organ.
The following Saturday Rusty, Mr. Morgan, and I went to the Methodist church in Springfield, where there was someone waiting to let us in. Rusty, Bear, and the music teacher went up to the organ while I sat in the choir loft to listen.
Rusty methodically tried each sound on each keyboard, starting with the top one. Mr. Morgan told him that the keyboards were named and said the top one was called the Solo manual. Sure enough, it had stops that sounded like orchestral instruments ─ a clarinet, a French horn, an oboe, and a flute.
Moving to the next manual down, he said, “This is the Swell.” He played some lovely sounds on it, manipulating one of the large pedals as the sound gradually grew louder and softer.
The next manual was called the Great and had the stops which made the usual organ sound for larger organ works or for hymns.
The bottom manual was called the Choir. It had quieter stops than the Great but generally the same sorts of sounds, though some of them had more the quality of flutes.
When Rusty finished trying all the stops individually, he moved to combinations of sounds, some of them quite full, others softer and quite lovely. He played portions of his compositions on the organ, and I was overwhelmed by the power of the sound and how it enriched Rusty’s pieces.
Finished with his experimenting, he turned to Mr. Morgan and asked how to apply for the job. Mr. Morgan asked me, “Can you have him here for the service tomorrow?”
“Not really,” I said. “He’s already committed to playing for our church tomorrow.”
“How about Sunday afternoon if I can arrange for the music committee to be here?”
I looked at Rusty, who nodded, so I agreed.
As we rode home, Rusty couldn’t stop talking excitedly about the organ and all the things he could do with it. “I just hope I get the job,” he said.
I was quite certain that once the music committee heard him play, the job would be his.
Mr. Morgan called that night to tell us the music committee would be at the church at two o’clock Sunday afternoon.
In the morning, while Muriel and I stood as usual near the organ as Rusty finished the postlude, I said quietly to her, “Rusty has a surprise for you.”
When he finished playing, Rusty turned on the bench and told Muriel about the previous day’s excursion and the possibility that he might have a job.
“If you get the chance,” she said, “take the job. You’d be missed here, but there’s nothing more here for you to learn. You need an instrument that matches and challenges your ability.”
When we got home, Rusty went to David’s house and told him what had happened. David asked if he could go with us to the church, as he said, “For moral support,” and Rusty quickly agreed.
So it was that on Sunday afternoon, Rusty, Bear, David, and I drove to the church, where we met Mr. Morgan and the church’s music committee.
Before Rusty played anything, we all sat in the pews and he talked with the committee. One of the men asked, “Rusty, aren’t you rather young to be playing for a large church?”
Interrupting, Mr. Morgan said, “I suggest you listen to him and then decide for yourselves.”
The choir director, a woman who was on the committee, asked how Rusty’s sight reading was. Since they were seated in the nave near a grand piano, Rusty asked her to provide a piece of music. She handed him a copy of the anthem the choir had sung that morning. He looked it over for a minute and then played it from memory.
“Oh my,” she said,” I didn’t expect that.” She nodded to the rest of the committee.
The chairwoman of the committee asked Rusty to play something on the organ for them. He went up to the console with Bear, turned on the organ, sat for a moment, and then played one of his compositions which he had once used as a prelude. It sounded even more beautiful on the Skinner organ.
When he finished, he was asked to play something he might use for a postlude, and he played the piece he’d used that morning.
The committee clapped after the last chord. The chairwoman went up to the organ and said, “Russell, I didn’t recognize either of the pieces you played. Who wrote them?”
A little shyly Rusty said, “I did.”
One of the committee members asked, “Russell, what’s with the bear?”
Looking fondly at the stuffed animal, Rusty replied, “He’s my good luck charm. I’ve had him for as long as I can remember. He’s the only thing I have from my old life, before I went to live with Abe.”
Probably the committee knew there was more to the story, but they didn’t pursue it.
Saying she would get back to him in a few moments, the chair of the committee went with the other members as they filed out a side door.
David told Rusty that he was sure he’d get the job. I was also quite certain. After all, how often does an organist of Rusty’s caliber appear in a rather small city?
Soon the committee returned. The chairwoman announced to us all that they would like Rusty to begin at the church as soon as possible. Then she told him what he would be earning. He looked surprised but said he’d start immediately.
The choir director told him that rehearsals were on Thursday nights, and she hoped that would work for him. Rusty looked at me and I nodded, so he agreed.
On the way home, I noticed that David was silently holding Rusty’s hand. He certainly met with no resistance.
At one point in the ride, Rusty asked, “How am I going to get to rehearsals?”
“I’ll drive you,” I said.
“Remember, I can drive now, so I could drive you, too,” said David, who raved about the sound of the organ, saying he’d never heard anything like it.
Later in the ride Rusty said, “I’d forgotten all about this being a paying job, and when she said the amount I’d make per week, I was flabbergasted. I guess I can pay you both for the gasoline.”
We all laughed. I took the boys for ice cream before Rusty and I dropped David off and headed for home.
As we entered the house, Rusty turned and hugged me, hard. “Thank you so much, Abe,” he said.
“What for?” I asked. “What did I do?”
“Well, first you encouraged me to try for the job and then you said you could drive. You’ve always been so supportive of me.”
I hugged him back saying, “Thank you, Rusty, for being the wonderful boy you are. You’re so easy to support. You’ve earned this job.”