Sitting on his bed, he cleaned the clarinet thoroughly, especially the mouthpiece, admiring the sheen of the wood, the fine grain of the composite materials. He bought some new reeds for it, Vandoren No. 2 and 1/2, a beginner’s reed. He selected and installed his reed with care, bending it slightly to feel its resistance, cautiously sliding it into the mouthpiece.

Abandoning the video and its incomprehensible orders, Bob started taking lessons, once a week, with a reluctant old black guy named Frank. He found Frank through a mutual friend, a fellow former druggie named Phil, who plays the saxophone, even gets paid to do it sometimes. Phil gave Bob an address and a warning: Frank wasn’t too friendly, but he’d take on students now and then, to make some cash, pay his rent. And Frank knew what he was talking about when it came to the clarinet. He’d left St. Louis during the war, Phil explained, winding up in Toronto. He played all over the city in his prime, before old age and laziness grounded him in a rooming house in Cabbagetown.

“Which war?” Bob asked, interested.

Phil looked at him incredulously. “The Boer War, Bob!” he said sarcastically. “C’mon! Think it through, man.” Bob shrugged.

Phil looked Bob over for a full minute. “I don’t know about this. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea, you and Frank.”

Bob waved his hand. “No, no. It’ll be okay. I’m cool. It’s cool. I was just joking about the war.”

Phil narrowed his eyes at Bob. “Frank’s the real thing, Bob. So don’t embarrass yourself – or me.”

Bob snorted. “Whatever.”

“Don’t tell him I sent you.” Phil laughed as though this were a joke, and slapped Bob on his jean-jacketed back, forcing a cough out of Bob’s narrow chest.

The next day, Bob took the subway to Castle Frank, then walked to Carlton and Parliament. He knocked on the front door of Frank’s rooming house. While he waited, Bob looked up at Frank’s house, which seemed about to fall over, leaning back and away from the stripped and prettified houses on either side. Its pitted brick surface was painted a depressing shade of maroon, the colour of dried blood. The screenless screen door in front of Bob had been heavily abused, its base torn open by a boot, its mechanical guts bulging from its side. Standing there, Bob thought, with patient recognition and no anger, that his fate was to be aligned with the inhabitants of such falling-down domiciles. He knew, now, at the age of 42, that the course of his life would never take him into the shining front halls and clean living rooms of its gentrified neighbours.

When Frank stuck his head out of an upstairs window, flakes of mustard yellow paint drifted from the frame. Head silted with lead-laden dust, Frank looked down at Bob’s skinny form on the stoop below.

“What you want?” he shouted.

“Are you Frank?”

Frank nodded.

“I want you to teach me to play the clarinet.” Bob held up the instrument in its case. “Phil said you could teach me.”

Frank said nothing.

“I’ll pay you. Once a week. I’ll pay you $20.00 for an hour.”

Frank pulled his head inside the window, and slammed it shut.