His bony frame lay across the couch, arm hanging off the edge, resting on the ground with a remote in its hand. The TV was flashing images. There was an empty bottle of wine on the floor-beside the couch, beneath his feet-and an unopened bottle of wine in the kitchen cabinet with the cereals. I wish someone would get that bottle of wine for me, he thought. He slid a cigarette from the pack in his chest pocket, lit it, then sat up. He sighed and rubbed his lower back. But his back hadn't hurt in days; he'd convinced himself.

The phone rang.

He picked up the receiver on the armrest above his head. "Yeah?" he says.

"Raymond," the voice says. "Its Bary. What's up bud?"

"Oh, hey man. I'm just relaxing. My head hurts and I have this back thing." He dropped the remote.

"The same back thing you told me about last week?"

"Yeah," Raymond says. "But it's worse now."

"Well," Bary says, "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I think it's spreading."

"That's not good."

"I know."

"But hey, I was thinking about getting a drink after work," Bary says. "Do you want to get a drink with me? We don't have to go to Ted's. We can go someplace quiet. I know a place," he says.

"Yeah," Raymond says. "Okay. That might help me keep my mind off my back. It really gets going," he says.

Bary told him the time and the place and listened to Raymond for a few minutes longer, standing behind the pastry case and playing with his mustache in its reflection. He was the manager of The Espresso Farm, a local coffee shop that held weekly poetry readings and live music. Raymond played there sometimes but only when Bary gave him a hundred-dollar-guarantee. Bary said he had to go. I have to grab some coffeecake for a customer, he'd said. Then he hung up the phone and stroked his belly beneath his apron, jogging to the back. Raymond pushed the OFF button, tossing the receiver on the couch and glancing through the living room window. The parents across the street were hauling a barbeque out of the front door-each holding a wooden handle-and their kids were running around playing tag. The husband held it easily, walking backwards on the cement path and smiling to his wife who kept having to pause, set it down, then shake out her hands. Their eyes rarely left each others. She's so fat, Raymond thought, and then stood up.

He walked to his room and sat down on his brown faded piano bench-its arthritic legs squealed with pain. He reached to his dresser and grabbed a crystal ashtray and set it on the flat surface above the keys and spilt ashes. He wished it was a real piano: ivory keys, strings, pedals that don't unplug. But those cost a good deal, he thought, and then lifted his arms. He let his fingers work the keys for awhile, running through some scale patterns, some favorite chord progressions, some standards. It was ritual, tedious but essential.

He turned his head and looked out the window through the thin cracks of the blinds. It was windy. Leaves and things were being flung around by invisible strings. The sky was beginning to go pale, a yellow poignant sun turning to liquid like melting butter. The parents across the street had started barbecuing in their garage. The dad was flipping slabs of red meat, the mom bent over, turning off the sprinkler. He rolled his eyes with the fierceness of an epileptic fit, then refocused on the keys, going through the modes. A cigarette hung from his bottom lip.

Two boys were tossing around a neon-green Frisbee. The youngest boy was riding a tricycle dressed as a car. Their dad called out that dinner was ready and Raymond took a drag with no hands, leaning over and peering through the blinds. The older boys were running to an off-white fold-up table next to the barbecue, passing their dad who was walking down the driveway to get the youngest. Raymond blew smoke out his nose. Their mom was ripping sheets of paper towels and setting plastic silverware next to foam plates.

He grabbed his keys from under the dim spotlight of his olive green lamp on the table by the couch. On his way to his truck, he watched them, sitting in pink lawn chairs, picking up meat patties with their fingers and putting them in hamburger buns. They all had U-shaped curves beneath their noses. The older boys started pulling leaves from a head of lettuce and tossing the icebergs on the younger boy's plate. Their mom smiled at them and shook her head, patting her husband's hand. How could you marry her? he thought. She's so big. I'd make her lose some, he thought. The youngest boy ran from the table and pulled up the Frisbee from the driveway, twisting his body and wrapping his arm around his torso. Raymond watched the Frisbee in the kid's hand, gave out a breath, then watched it go. He felt happy watching it go, imagining things he would play, his music staff trailing behind its green arch like braids of hair, converting its color to match his own life. If only I were God, he thought, and the Frisbee landed in some bushes in their neighbor's yard.

He parked in front and shut off the engine. He felt he deserved the front parking spot. With my back and all, he thought. He went to the entrance-black-painted wood, gold knobs, diamond-shaped windows-and opened the door, hurling in yellow shadows. A still man sat in a burgundy booth, like a wax sculpture, and Raymond strode through a thin stream of smoke, slithering from its mouth. He saw Bary sitting at the bar and reached around to rub his lower back, slowing his feet. He straightened himself and sat down next to him. "Hey Bary," he says.

"Raymond," Bary says. "What do you think of this place? It's quiet, huh?"

"Yeah, it's quiet," Raymond says. "But have you ever been to that old bar across town?" He pointed to the right. "What's it called?" he says, and moved his pointing arm to scratch his head.

"I don't know," Bary says.

"Well, anyway," Raymond says, "that one's even quieter. That's a nicer bar. Sometime we should go there. This place is nice," he says, "but not as much."

"We should do that," Bary says. He put his head down, directing his eyes to the ice in his whiskey.

Raymond called the bartender and ordered a Black Russian, lighting a cigarette, never making eye contact.

There was a pause.

The bartender gave him the drink.

"I don't like my job," Bary says. "I wish I could do something else."

"Why can't you," Raymond says. "Look at me." He held up his drink. "I want to play music so I play music. It's that easy," he says, and drank a mouthful.

"It's easy for you," Bary says. "What about Lisa? What about the kids? I have to contribute." He squinted and paused, watching Raymond inspect the cherry of his cigarette. "Raymond," he says.

Raymond looked up.

"You know what I mean?"

Raymond started chiseling the red dot with the ashtrays frame, rotating the cigarette in his fingers. "But you have to be happy," he says.

"I am happy," Bary says. "I just think my job could be better. That's just a part of me, you know, my job. But bringing something to my family-that makes me happy, that's my real job. Sometimes I have to be selfless," he says, "think to myself, 'This is my duty.'" Bary encased his glass with his fingers. "You know?" he says.

Raymond beat the cigarette against the wall of the ashtray, knocked out the cherry, then stabbed it with the filter. He shook his head. "I guess I don't see it. But I don't have a family and all that," he says.

Bary made parallel lines with his forefingers. "Look," he says. "Good things can't come out of me if all I think about is myself. You know what I mean? I have to be a part of something, not just do whatever I like, expecting Lisa and the kids to follow." His cell phone rang.

Raymond says, "I don't know man."

Bary says, "Hold on a sec." He got up from the stool, leaving Raymond to curl his back over the plastic ashtray. Bary came back and put a hand on Raymond's shoulder as he leveled himself. "Sorry to do this to you," he says, "but I have to go. Lisa's mom's not feeling too hot, so I have to pick Alex up from soccer practice." He gave a little smile. "I have to do my contributing," he says.

"Man, my back was just starting to feel better," Raymond says, "sitting here and-"

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry," Bary says. "But I really have to go." He felt uncomfortable and combed the part in his hair with his fingers. "I'm already late," he says. "Sorry," he says.

Bary jetted through the door.

Raymond thought it was a shame he had to go. There are so many things I want to say, he thought.

Raymond pulled in his driveway, not stopping till the blurry balls of light had shrunk to finely articulated circles on the garage door. The windows of his house were plastered with blinds and he lit a cigarette as he passed them. In his room, he flipped the switch and the light bulb clicked, then burnt out. The glow from the stereo illuminated the room with a black-lights glare. He drug his feet through clothes on the floor. He filled the piano bench, dragging hard on the cigarette, then positioning it in a rounded slot of the ashtray. He put down a fake book and set his quiet hands on the keys. Smoke poured out the holes in his face. He couldn't stop thinking about Bary's terrible condition, the way he's lost himself. How did he get so confused? he thought. He rested the back of his head on the top of his back, staring at the house across the street through the side of one eye, blue light attached to his skin. The house was left a silhouette. They shouldn't be allowed to sleep so heavy, he thought, and shut his eyes. He dreamt his room was hovering above their beds, the black-light swarming through a haze of smoke, where he'd sprinkle new soundtracks upon their eyelids, altering their lives. He hit a chord, sustained it with his right foot, then rubbed his hands through his hair. He opened his eyes and turned his head to the house, making out the Frisbee in the dense bushes of their neighbor's yard-dark, lifeless, winded. He threw his face against the blinds, damp eyes sliding between the cracks, like screaming gifts of passion, caged behind panes of glass, pounding to be free.

But he knew, in this way, he could never let them go.