A Good Fall Read Free Page A

This became a problem for Fanlin, who had in mind a musical structure that didn’t always agree with the verbal text. Furthermore, some words were unsingable, such as “smoothest” and “feudalism.” He had to replace them, ideally with words ending with open vowels.
    One morning Fanlin set out for Staten Island to see Benyong, intending to get permission to change some words. He didn’t plan to take Bori along, but the second he stepped out of his apartment, he heard the bird bump against the door repeatedly, scratching the wood. He unlocked the door and said, “Want to come with me?” The parakeet leapt to his chest, clutching his T-shirt and uttering tinny chirps. Fanlin caressed Bori and together they headed for the train station.
    It was a fine summer day, the sky washed clean by a shower the previous night. On the ferryboat Fanlin stayed on the deck all the way, watching seabirds wheel around. Some strutted or scurried on the bow, where two small girls were tossing bits of bread at them. Bori joined the other birds, picking up food but not eating any. Fanlin knew the parakeet was doing that just for fun, yet no matter how he called, the bird wouldn’t come back to him. So he stood by, watching Bori walking excitedly among gulls, terns, petrels. He was amazed that Bori wasn’t afraid of the bigger birds and wondered if the parakeet was lonely at home.
    Benyong received Fanlin warmly, as if they were friends. In fact, they’d met only twice, on both occasions for business. Fanlin liked this man who, already forty-three, hadn’t lost the child in him and often threw his head back and laughed aloud.
    Sitting on a sofa in the living room, Fanlin sang some lines to demonstrate the cumbersomeness of the original words. He had an ordinary voice, a bit hoarse, yet whenever he sang his own compositions, he was confident and expressive, with a vivid face and vigorous gestures, as if he were oblivious of anyone else’s presence.
    While he was singing, Bori frolicked on the coffee table, flapping his wings and wagging his head, his hooked bill opening and closing and emitting happy but unintelligible cries. Then the bird paused to tap his feet as if beating time, which delighted the poet.
    “Can he talk?” Benyong asked Fanlin.
    “No, he can’t, but he’s smart and even knows money.”
    “You should teach him how to talk. Come here, little fellow.” Benyong beckoned to the bird, who ignored his outstretched hand.
    Without difficulty, Fanlin got the librettist’s agreement, on the condition that they exchange views before Fanlin made any changes. For lunch they went to a small restaurant nearby and shared a Hawaiian pizza. Dabbing his mouth with a red napkin, Benyong said, “I love this place. I have lunch here five days a week. Sometimes I work on my poems in here. Cheers.” He lifted his beer mug and clinked it with Fanlin’s water glass.
    Fanlin was amazed by what the poet said. Benyong didn’t hold a regular job and could hardly have made any money from his writing; few people in his situation would dine out five times a week. In addition, he enjoyed movies and popular music; two tall shelves in his apartment were loaded with CDs, more with DVDs. Evidently the writer was well kept by his wife, a nurse. Fanlin was touched by the woman’s generosity. She must love poetry.
    After lunch they strolled along the beach of white sand, carrying their shoes and walking barefoot. The air smelled fishy, tinged with the stink of seaweed washed ashore. Bori liked the ocean and kept flying away, skipping along the brink of the surf, pecking at the sand.
    “Ah, this sea breeze is so invigorating,” Benyong said as he watched Bori. “Whenever I walk here, the view of the ocean makes me think a lot. Before this immense body of water, even life and death become unimportant, irrelevant.”
    “What’s important to you, then?”
    “Art. Only art is immortal.”
    “That’s why you’ve been writing full-time all