The howls

My mother's first name was Helen. 

I remember it because I can still hear my father screaming her name through her car windows when she left us.

She grew up in a modest family in Baton Rouge.

At 21, she met my dad, and from this point, her already low life started to decline even lower.

For the last five years, she has worked as a waitress in a renowned jazz club called Snug Harbor in the French Quarter.

She left when I was seven.

My father's first name was Harry.

I remember it because I can still hear my grandfather screaming his name when he would beat up her daughter, Helen, my mom.

He worked in a small car repair shop in Metairie.

And he never left. 

Never.

We used to live in New Orleans, Louisiana, in a small rotten wood house on the banks of the murky Mississippi.

Money wasn't in profusion and love and care were often replaced by booze, abuse and fights.

My grandpa was living with us in the basement. 

He was sick and my mother took him with us to take care of him and get a good grasp on his pension.

We were a family based on what I called deafening silence.

At home, nobody would talk.

We would have entire dinners without a single one word pronounced and if for some reasons, my dad had to tell me to go brush my teeth, it was already too many words spoken and it would probably cost me a slap in the face at the same time.

Looking back now, and from where I stand today, which is significantly higher, we were just another cliché of another white trash family.

My mother left and grandpa died the same year.

I overheard that she left with one of the bartenders of Snug Harbor she was working with and moved to Pensacola.

My father started to bring those women home.

They would spend the night but I would never see them in the morning.

One time, I found my dad being in a calmer mood than usual and I dared to ask why these women were leaving before I woke up.

Idly, he raised his head, his blue eyes rolled slowly towards me and in a monotone and baritone voice said :

“They will never replace your mama, kiddo…”

I swallowed my sip of milk while looking down, almost choking on it, grabbed my bag and left for school.

It was the end of January and a particularly cold winter.

We had a rat infection in the basement since grandpa died.

I could hear what I'd imagine to be tiny paws pounding and scratching on the rotten wood planks downstairs.

My father forbade me to go down or try to open the basement door or I would be bitten by those filthy creatures.

And when my dad would use other ways than a brown bear growl and a deformed face to forbid something and form actual syllables with his giant mouth, you would obey and never ask questions.

Two years and many women have passed in our house.

The rats were gone and the scratching became howls.

The women were not leaving in the morning anymore.

But I wouldn't meet them still. 

Remember I promised not to go downstairs long ago.

Piercing through my eardrums, every night, I was hoping that, miraculously, the sound of their voices would be blocked by the thick oak of my bedroom's door.

The silence was even scarier.

It was the only moment their screams would resonate in every cell of my brain. Hearing the sounds of the struggle for life when you are a child is far from the sweet taste of a lullaby.

My dad used to come back home at 8.00 pm and then, they would stop for 20 minutes.

Because he would feed them.

Because he would play nice with them before screaming again and scare the shit out of them.

I was an accomplice to my father's perversion and the only thing I could do was to look away and act as normal as I could.

I used everything in my room to become a little more deaf.

Pillow on my head, wet tissues rolled up and shaped into small cones to fit my bleeding ears.

A week before he died, my grandpa told me to look underneath his bed for a leather case. I opened up the box and was faced with this really old piece of instrument.

Mold was covering some of the back of the body and the strings were rust orange.

The moment the bow met the strings defined my entire life.

I never took a lesson but I had to learn.

Because as soon as the bow started to glide on the strings, the squeaky sound made them stop.

It didn't cover their screams. 

It actually made them stop.

See, you can't fight someone who's learning to play violin in the noise competition.

You surrender.

That's what they did.

They surrendered. 

In every way.

The red curtains are hiding my sweating face as I remember how it all started.

This is the premiere of Mozart's Concerto N°3 for Violin with the New York Philharmonic orchestra.

The Carnegie Hall is sold out.

I'm one of the most respected violinists in the world.

And nobody knows the reason what's got me to play in the first place.

I guess I had an ear for music.

The concert was a success, a huge press conference has been organized and every major paper were waiting for my entrance.

Every interview in my career, I had this fear.

The fear that the question would come and that for once, I would answer with the truth.

«Daniel, why did you choose to play the violin in the first place?»

I'm used to it now.

And still, every time it pops up, while I give a very average answer and a very elaborate lie, a shiver runs through my spine.

And while answering this journalist, in the back of my mind, I can still see in slow motion my bow leaning on the rusted strings. 

No, it was not because of my passion for music…

It was just to stop the howls.