Beckerel Roentgen, District 3 FINISHED

[Appearance]

Why would you look when you can listen? Becks is all oscillating sound waves and good vibrations- nothing more than particles buzzing happily to their own rhythm. Perhaps that’s why he always appears so laid back, unmoved and unfazed by what he sees, aware of the limitations of the eye’s perceptions, taking it in his smiling stride. With his head bowed over a sound board, dark fingers knotting through a set of twisting wires or pressing headphones against his ears his plump lips might curl up at the corners, his eyes flutter closed in total absorption- but detached isn’t the word.Becks is permanently connected to everything; the vibrations of the world swirling together into an eternal symphony.

He’s biting those lips now, fiddling with screws in an up ended wooden box. A metallic antennae juts out, poking him almost in the chest, as a rudimentary circuit board lies on the table. His hands are delicate but firm where they need to be, precise and adept at the business of assembling and dissembling wires. They are always steady, they never seem to tremble- not with nerves, never with emotion. He has learnt to bury most of those emotions so completely that no outward sign ever seems to show. His eyes though can usually be counted on to betray him, so long as you know how to look; Becks has never learned how to make his eyes lie.

“What’s that?” the little boy-his kid brother- peers in, sticky fingers outreached threateningly but Becks doesn’t mind the kid hanging around. Likes the company, even when he has one eye on a circuit board and the other on the line of spittle falling onto the child’s chin.

He doesn’t answer at first, only smiles knowingly.

“A surprise.”

Generous is the best way to describe his smile, always starting at gentle soulful eyes; darker than sloe berries, which have this way of piercing through veneers like twin guided missiles, stretching to that effeminate mouth and crooked teeth, jostling for room inside of his mouth like the overcrowded apartments widespread throughout district 3. His ability to hold a gaze can be disarming, but even when he is serious, the twitch of that smile is ever present, always lurking in the corners of his mouth and waiting to break through.

There is a well practised ease to everything that he does; carried on those waves of sound, like slipping into a cool pool of water, slow fluid motions in his lanky body, narrowed and effeminate, stretched to six feet and one inch precisely, not a half measure more or less (though a good portion of that must be hair). He is always more likely to be described as ‘pretty’ than anything more masculine, having inherited the lion-share of his looks from his mother. He’s seen pictures of her and the resemblance is remarkable; from the high cheekbones to the long, broad nose. “She used to be prettiest woman in the district,” his father would smile. “Used to be?” A snort from his mother and a laugh from the children.

But Becks would prefer it if you didn’t call him pretty. Like a girl, he’d say, his thumb cradling the corners of his mouth, finding secret crevices between chin and bottom lip, an element of teasing in his voice. But tenderness present in every touch, deceptive enough to coax a trembling body into a false sense of ease and security.

To say that it is an act would not be to Beck’s credit. Fake it til you make it, was the adage that his father used to spout and it has served him very well over the years until now, in his seventeenth year, Becks can safely say that he has made it most whole heartedly. He’s worked hard and made that smile come as easy as it does now, forced his eyes to always look upwards, direct, shoulders back and head held high, made it so the dim recollections of something nervous, hiding and meek are confined only to the slipping shadows of the past.

His slim frame blends well enough with the kids of district three; smart kids, distinctly un-athletic with rail thin arms and ibis long legs, more likely to be hunched over circuit breakers, the smell of soldering irons playing in their nostrils. He is a strictly indoors sort of person, a yellowing sheen falling over his dark tan complexion like skin forming over stewed tea left in the pot for too long, untouched by the sunlight, giving way to light adolescent pimpling.

His hair is a helmet of tight curls, a coarse brush fixed and standing to attention atop his head and Becks is fond of it; of it’s untameability. Just like him, it travels to its own pace, won’t be moved or coaxed into anything it doesn’t want to. It chews up the teeth of combs, swallows falling twigs and envelopes debris like warm hugs wrapped inside of locks of hair, never to be seen again. Perhaps it’s just too comfortable getting lost inside of there.

[Personality]

Becks is one of the lucky ones, he’s mindful of that in every way. Music has been his provider, confidant and friend for as long as he can remember; drips from every one of his pores. From his low, melodious voice standing in stark contrast with his feeble splinter of a body to the nimble fingers that understand most instruments, he lives and breathes in sound. The phrase ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ is the most pervasive, as his natural talent is unhoned and often sloppy on guitar or piano- precisely the way he likes it. It makes the music seem more primal, coming from somewhere deep inside as opposed to from years of learning. Well, save for one instrument in particular.

Flipping the strange device onto its base, Becks presents his work to the child. He is, to say the least, unimpressed, only wrinkling his nose up at the work table. “Come and play, Becks,” the kid lisps. “I’m bored.”

He holds a finger to his lip, a hushing noise. “Patience is a virtue,” he says. Beck’s likes old sayings, can usually be heard reciting the antiquated advice of people who are long dead. He collects the good ones, applies them where he can and does his best to use them as a guide. It might get a little trite, it might make him seem unoriginal; but Beck’s has found that there is usually someone else, from a time long ago, who has put his feelings into words better than he ever could.

Flipping a switch on the machine, a light hum rises across the room. It’s littered with fragments that make up a boy’s life. It reeks of oil, burnt metal and glue, there are twisting wires of all description, bright primary colours and shimmering copper threading around the room like spider webs. Some the components are gifts from his father, brought home from work, others salvaged from dumpsters behind technical works, taken apart, explored and not always managing to be pieced together. A dissected guitar lies at the foot of his bed, tall pieces, strings and electronics spread out like bones to a pathologist, four maybe five gutted amplifiers spilling out onto the floor with their beautiful intertwining intestines.

His mom doesn’t dare venture into the room any more, sighs and clicks her tongue in her teeth with frustration, but somehow Becks can’t bring himself to part with any of it. What do they say? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. To Becks, all of it is treasure- he feels an affinity with these broken down old circuits and metal sheets. With the used up and discarded things of the world. One day he will get all of them working again, he’s confident of that. But Becks goes at his own pace…won’t be rushed. From now on eventually is good enough for him.

“If you loved me, you’d let me do this. You do love me don’t you, kid?”

Sliding his hand across the air, the motion sends waves through the air and the machine responds. The sound is haunting and ethereal, making the small boy’s eyes light up in delight. That kind of joy from music is never anything but infectious to Becks. He likes to make people happy, to please them and perhaps he is more desperate to be liked, to be seen as cool and interesting than a real honest- to-ripred natural at this should be.

“You didn’t touch it!” he squeals.

“You don’t have to touch this instrument. Just…you let it feel you.”

Hands poised into the correct position, Becks moves his fingers slowly, fluidly…imagining the music as a dance, the waves and particles around them colliding, intertwining and twisting to the songs that are always there and always will be, so long as you listen closely enough. He becomes it all; the instrument, the music and every lingering sound. This bizarre instrument is the one Beck’s has devoted the most practise to, the most single mindedly he has been about anything.

He called it a theremin, the person who taught it to him. To build one, to play one, practised over and over until it becomes as easy as breathing. Becks is practised at moving his hands in the proximity of the two metal antennas, the distance from one antenna determining frequency and the distance from the other controlling amplitude- words and science and theories that together produce something so tangibly beautiful. It could be like a dream made real. The world is in harmony, with him as its conductor creating the sweetest straining sounds.

It’s strange to think that there was a time not so long ago that he hated the damn thing, for the memories it brought up in him, painful reminders turning sweet songs to poison. Not now though, that part of him is long gone, long forgotten. Or perhaps just mulishly ignored. Becks faked it all the way to making it. In his way, he is even indebted to the man who taught him so much, both on purpose and without ever meaning to at all.

They are lessons forged in crude oils, turpentine and soldered metal; in tears and sweat and semen.

Perhaps he gave away his heart too quickly in the past and maybe he still does; perhaps in that sense he has learned less than he thought. But Becks is older, and he is wiser- how does the old saying go, ‘once bitten and twice shy’. He has come to appreciate the music in the air and the spiders in the smiles of men. But still he likes to think that there is no need to squirrel away a heart like the metal contraptions that litter his floor, no matter how much it stings…because, if even for a short time, there will always be music.

And he wouldn’t have known it before. Wouldn’t have known how to play the world through radio waves either. Beck’s is smart; but only in the most practical of senses. Smarter with his fingers, smarter at taking instruction- he can fix almost anything when he puts his mind to it from air conditioning units, to hair dryers to wind up toy figurines that chatter and squeak when you twist them. Smart but not clever. He has always been lacking in a certain drive, and a certain ambition that separates the bright young people from the masterminds…content to do his own thing for the most part, gently ride the radio waves of life and go wherever the electrical currents will deign to take him.

“Sometimes kid, your lack of imagination depresses me,” was what he always used to say.

“My turn!” his brother demands when the song is finished. Becks can only grin at that. His hobbies have always demanded patience, coaxing the tiniest of wires with tweezers into shape. Sometimes things go wrong, sometimes a person is too heavy handed, and it never does to lose your temper over it. Machines break, people break. There isn’t much to be done but try to fix them all over again. So Becks nods, lets the kid with his sticky fingers and his runny nose wave his hands wildly across the instrument.

The sound is less than pleasant, shrill and whining, attacking at his eardrums as it vacillates wildly in pitch and volume. But Becks still just smiles. He could learn, in time, and if he wants to then Becks will teach him.

[History]

He isn’t the first boy to have his heart stolen away by music, and he certainly won’t be the last.

Becks has always been a good kid, from a happy home. One of the lucky ones. His father, the electrical engineer, mother the technician. There have always been laughs, brave faces always smiling through whatever hardships district 3 conspired to place upon their heads. The middle son of five boys, Becks always managed to slot into his role neatly without much fuss. The great family ambitions fell to his older brothers, the maternal care to his youngest and Becks thrived as he always does under this complete lack of pressure. His parents will love him no matter what he does, where he goes and that security has always been liberating.

So of course he wasn’t out to rebel, to make his mother cry and his father wring his hands with worry. It just happened. As these things have a way of doing when you gently ride the radio waves of life and go wherever the electrical currents will deign to take you.

He was fifteen and awkwardly negotiating puberty, too pretty for his own good and not aware of it enough to be cautious. His oldest brother was still living at home, working and saving up enough to finally get a place of his own; twenty one, easy going and popular with a smile that came effortlessly to him. Everything that Becks wanted to be really. So of course he clung to him like a limpet, observing, hoping to pick up his confidence through osmosis or some kind of divine intervention. And Beck’s brother was, to his credit, as tolerant as one can expect an older brother to be of his weedy spotty kid brother. You couldn’t fault him for what happened, how was he to know?

He was a musician, twenty one years old just like Becks’ brother with a crooked smile and three moles on the side of his face arranged like the points of a triangle. For whatever reason or other, he took a shining to Becks; he always made an effort to speak to him at the house, and seemed to actually listen and care about what he had to say. He called Becks ‘Kid’ and lightly shoved his shoulders, standard horseplay, standard teasing- nothing that an older brother wouldn’t do. And then it seemed as though they kept meeting outside of the house, outside of the watchful eyes of older brothers.

“Hey, kid,” he’d say, leaning on the gates outside of the school house, cigarette between his lips, guitar slung over his back with that effortless…cool …that Becks could only ever dream of. “Heard you could play just about anything decently, fancy a jam?”

They’d go back to his place, of course they would. A run-down apartment in the centre of town, little more than a squat that seemed so desperately romantic to Becks, right down to the ash burnt into the carpeting and the soiled mattress on the floor. And the first time that he offered to roll Becks a cigarette it felt, somehow, as though he’d arrived.

“Sounds good…but try it in A minor.” He’d lean over and Becks could smell him; cigarette smoke, motor oil and metal, feel him rearrange his fingers on the keys.

And that was how it went. Learning a few chords here or there, fixing up circuit breakers, being offered alcohol and being only too eager to accept. Becks didn’t have to work hard to feel a stirring for him beyond a brotherly affection or anything platonic, but by then some part of him knew that this was how it went, always had done. And before that it had never come to anything. But this was different, all hazy under a thick cloud of smoke, tied up in sweet music and the strange buzz of alcohol that always seemed to leave him feeling strange and fuzzy going home. Expertly planned, so Becks has come to understand.

The theremin was his greatest trick. Combining Becks’ love of music and electronics, he appeared at school one afternoon, rattling a box, “Got us a project, Kid. Thought we could build it together.”

And build something they did. The machine, a growing coil of desire that hummed and vibrated as strongly as the waves and particles in the air. The music all around them. Again that strange fizz of alcohol, blurring the world until Becks could see the music in bright colors and shapes as real as the hand in front of his face.

“You know…you remind me of someone. She had a pretty mouth like you. Died didn’t she? Went into the games…I liked her a lot. I like you too.”

He leaned in close, alcohol swimming on his breath. “Do you like me too?” And if Becks had gotten the chance he would have said ‘yes’ but the mouth on his never let him. Tongue snaking between his lips, pressing into the wall as “I like you” became a fevered, “I love you, I love you.” It was musical, haunting and ethereal.

I love you.

“If you loved me, you’d let me do this. You do love me don’t you, kid?”

And if Becks had gotten the chance he would have said ‘yes’ but he didn’t. And when it was over, he rolled Becks a cigarette and got up to play the theremin. I love you, I love you, I love you, the vibrations in the air still seemed to sing. And Becks wanted so badly to be loved that he believed it too. He let himself be loved. Gave himself to music, gave his heart away as easy as blinking, the kind of alcohol that slips easily down the throat.

It continued in this fashion for a few weeks, and he’d still be lying if he said that he wasn’t happy in those times. But of course there was no way to end it but abruptly and painfully. His mother crying, his father wringing his hands.

There were others that Becks didn’t know about. But he came to know them, “what did he do to you?” his mother asked desperately.

And the only answer that Becks could think to give was, “he loved me.” And he couldn’t see the harm in that. But there were pills in the alcohol that always seemed to slip down so smoothly, splinters in his smile and poison wrapped all the way around his love. People call you a victim and sooner or later you have to be like one, have to start acting as ashamed and afraid as they expect you to be. You become a discarded thing; used up and broken. And when that came to a head, it felt like all of the music in the world, all of the vibration had stopped and everything was only still and silent.

His parents didn’t know what to do with him. Skated around him like a bomb about to explode at any moment, the tension palpable and alien.

So Becks decided to fake it. Vanished to his room one night and woke up a different person. They wouldn’t have recognised him at school; they barely did at home, but it was better to be somebody else, the somebody else he was happened to be better in every way. A boy with an easy smile, shoulders back and head held high, not ashamed to meet anyone’s gaze, who played instruments and built those wonderful, haunting ethereal machines that could pluck music from out of the air.

He just faked it. And after a while…a good long while… he made it.

Words- The Maccabees
The music- Becks plays the THEREMIN yo!