Venie Vonshweets's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Friday morning Venie's grandmother set a plate in front of her and said nothing about the open door. Venie ate fast. She slipped out the back with two compact red speakers wrapped in her hoodie. Julian had built them in the shed from scavenged parts. They ran off a battery pack and pushed more sound than anything they had used before. Venie held them against her chest like proof. The protest last night had not been enough. Tonight they would play until the mayor came out himself. Julian was waiting at the shed with the others. He had a fresh stack of painted signs leaning against the wall. One read UNBAN MUSIC in orange letters. Another read MUSIC LOVERS in blue and red. He had pulled a small upright piano onto a flatbed cart, its wood scratched but the keys clean. "Found it behind the old hall," he said. "Pedals work." Venie ran her thumb across the keys without pressing. Three years since she had touched a real one. She closed the lid so she wouldn't cry. They wheeled the cart into the town square at six. A crowd was already there, drawn by word of last night's run. People carried their own signs. Venie set the speakers on milk crates and Julian wired them to his guitar. She lifted the piano lid, sat on an upturned bucket, and started Clair de Lune. Her fingers remembered. The notes climbed out of the speakers and filled the square. Julian came in under her with chords. The drummer from their group hit the scrap pots. The crowd went still, then started to sing the parts they knew. The police came within ten minutes. Six officers, then more. They formed a line at the edge of the square and told the crowd to disperse. No one moved. Venie kept playing. Julian stepped to the front of the cart with his guitar and started his own song, the loud one, the one he had written the week the ban dropped. The crowd packed in tighter around the cart so the officers could not reach it. Someone planted the UNBAN MUSIC sign in a crack between the stones. An officer raised a baton. The crowd raised their signs higher. They played for an hour. Then two. The officers radioed and waited and radioed again. Venie's hands ached. She switched to simpler chords and kept going. Julian's voice went hoarse and the crowd carried the words for him. A black car pulled up at the far end of the square. A man in a gray coat got out. Venie recognized him from the posters. The mayor. He stood at the back of the crowd with a young girl beside him, maybe ten years old, holding his sleeve. The girl was singing along. The mayor walked through the crowd. People stepped aside. He stopped at the cart and looked at Venie at the piano, then at Julian with the guitar, then at the girl still holding his hand. He spoke to the lead officer. The officer lowered his baton. The mayor climbed onto the cart and held up both hands until the music thinned out. He said the ban was lifted. He said it once, plain, into the quiet. The crowd did not cheer right away. They waited to be sure he meant it. Then the square broke open with sound. Venie played Clair de Lune one more time, all the way through, with the speakers carrying it past the square and down every street. Julian sat on the edge of the cart and let his guitar rest on his knee and listened. When she finished, the crowd was still there. Her grandmother stood at the back, arms folded the way she always folded them. She did not smile. She did not leave either. She stayed until the last note, and then she turned and walked home. Venie closed the piano lid and rested her hand on the wood. Tomorrow she would find a band. Tonight the city was loud, and she had helped make it that way.