Sydney Lea: Remorse

He’d brought along his damned accordion. When, almost as if in worship, he went down on his knees to open the case, I almost screamed, no! no! no! Though what I describe is forty years old, I remember how hard it was to strangle such protest.  

     I knew he’d play better things than old accordion wheezes like “Lady of Spain” or “You’re A Grand Old Flag,” because he did have skill, no doubt about that. At other parties, I’d heard him start, say, with some Brahms folk song arrangement, then jump to the Modern Jazz Quartet’s “Django,” then seamlessly on to soul tunes from Stax.

     The Stax stuff, I needn’t add, always went straight to the morgue in his squeeze-box. “Mustang Sally” on the accordion? I ask you…

     Do you ever recall some minor misdemeanor or even one you committed only in mind, and –however absurdly– half believe it contributed to a disaster? 

     My clever wife slipped away to the kitchen as the guy slipped his arms through the instrument’s straps, no matter that for sociability’s sake, she’d carefully chosen a dish that needed little tending, if any. She could have stayed. 

     As for me, I grabbed a poker. I may have looked (and even felt) like a whodunit murderer, but all I did was shift some logs in the fire, though the fire needed no tending just then, either.  I oohed and aahed about the embers’ colors before our guest could begin his recital. He likely supposed that all of us would be doing the same over his looming performance. 

     Whatever his virtuosity, I resented the man’s presumption that of course we all wanted to be on hand for that performance. I was especially irked that his playing would interrupt me and a dear old friend, one I rarely saw now because he’d moved to the Pacific Northwest a decade before. We’d been very close in college and for quite a while after.  

     He and I were reminiscing on some whitewater paddle trips we’d shared in our younger days.  As we talked, it turned out that each of us still enjoyed running through riffs on beautiful rivers, but as we aged, the runs we took were over decreasingly furious waters. They became more like pleasant outings, really, than adventures. He smiled and shook his head at that. “C’est la vie,” he said. I smiled back.

     The accordionist had still not begun, and he’d clearly overheard our conversation. He claimed that he’d soon be doing a river trip himself. My friend and I exchanged what I hope were surreptitious smirks. That guy on heavy water? I’d have been surprised if he could paddle across a mill pond. He was a city boy, through and through, and had been all his life. I felt certain he didn’t know a J-stroke from a breaststroke.

     Neither kitchen nor hearth would provide me with a credible escape for very long, 

so as he put his fingers on the keys, I quickly looked for some distracting daydream to preoccupy me during the performance– which now lurked in the awful offing. 

     Offing, offing. I whispered the word to myself.  It was a maritime term, so as he started with “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” I immediately closed my own eyes and conjured a seaside scene: soughing surf, salt air, damp sand squeaking as I walked along the beach. Far out– in the offing– I saw a thicket of sails.

      Perhaps he thought I’d been carried away, as indeed I soon was, but not as he imagined. I got more and more involved in my imaginary stroll, likewise seeing stranded jellyfish, wrack washed up from the bay, and gulls squabbling loudly over washed-up horseshoe crabs.

     And, from all the beach’s random bits of decay, I smelled death’s pungent, primal odor. 

     I snapped to when, quick as that, the music died. Back then I rejoiced. Today I shudder. Had my arrant self-distraction from his performance driven that player to silence? Worse, would it drive him onto dangerous rapids in June of the very same year? Of course not, but a vague compunction, ludicrous as it may be, lingers nonetheless.

     My wife brought out her casserole and lifted its lid to applause, which I’d bet the accordionist thought was intended for him. He should have known better.

     And he should have known better about his imminent canoe outing. How did he imagine he could navigate true rapids? I didn’t challenge him about that at the table. I considered that a politeness, and I guess I also figured that what a fool doesn’t know can’t hurt him. 

     I was the fool on that account. Come spring, his ignorance would hurt him about as thoroughly as anything might have. At least he didn’t have a partner or family.

     Had he really played “Drown in My Own Tears” that evening? No, that’s surely my guilt talking. 

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Copyright 2026 Sydney Lea

Sydney Lea was Poet Laureate of Vermont from 2011-2015. In 2021, He received Vermont’s highest artistic distinction, The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. His latest novel is Now Look  (Down East Books/Roman Littlefield) To browse his many books, including novels and poetry collections, click here.