A few minutes after Sandra went home sick, Becky turned the dial on the office radio from the station playing current r & b and hip-hop to one featuring alternative rock. Though Becky normally, indeed frequently, outranked Sandra in every other area, she did not defy the unspoken but universal law among whites, which dictates that in the field of popular music, the authority of any black person is absolute. "You’d think the radio is stuck on one channel," Becky said to James after Sandra left.  

James didn’t care much for either station. If it had been up to him, he’d put on jazz, which would, he thought, reflect well on his taste, or classical, which was what he listened to when alone.  

He had arranged a chair near the rows of files lining the office, not far from where Betsy, his young and pretty boss sat. He was filing briefs, a task he didn’t mind because no one else wanted to do it and he’d be allowed to continue, uninterrupted, in letting his mind wander to those far away hours after work, when he would have a beer, read a magazine and maybe watch a little TV.  

"Hey, look lively chief," Becky said to James, in a tone of voice that sounded kidding, but really wasn’t: "those briefs don’t file themselves." 

James smiled as little as he dared and lifted his head, while pushing back his slightly long, brown hair, the same color as the paper bag he brought his lunch in. He then organized the briefs in his lap, and shoved his chair a bit closer to Becky.  

But suddenly, out of the little beige radio came a song sung with a voice, so breathlessly clear, so pure, so angelic even, that James’ mind was spirited away from the circular ruts in which it had turned for so many years. The voice was infinitely understanding, compassionate--it knew that though he never complained, he had suffered deeply, that there was something inexpressibly, eternally tragic in his situation. Longing, and of course regret, but also admiration: He was meant for so much more, but his honor, his inability to compromise, kept him poor in a world of hypocrites.  

The song was about love, how much the singer wanted her man, how no matter what he did, she would always love him, and how there really wasn’t anything that could possibly stand in the way of a love like theirs. 

Each word, each phrase, by itself the heart of triteness, but making in the whole, a glorious, separate, and complete universe from which the two lovers would battle the world. "Contra mundi something," James thought to himself. 

In a daze, James listened, knowing the music would haunt him long before the 3-½ minute song was over. Yes, there, that melody again, so far from repetitive; it’s like the return of an old, trusted friend. And what anguish! What beauty! This should not ever end he thought, yet desperately he waited for the DJ to announce the name of the song and singer.  

James listened to the tail end of the song, that though slowly fading in sound, remained complete, its power undiminished, even as the DJ trampled on it with his execrable patter "Wow, you’ll never guess which very fine lady I was hanging with last night. Yeah, I know you’re like ‘that’s really cool Raffer.’ Gosh y’all must think I’m a real celebrity whore. Anyway the next song’s a real ‘hoot.’" 

James looked over at Becky and asked "excuse me, the girl who sang that last song, wasn’t she in some sort of trouble with the law?" 

"Treena?" Yeah, she beat up a waitress at Oil Slick." 

That was enough, now he would find her on the Internet. 

On his next break he went over to the Internet terminal, found Treena’s biography, and listened to samples of her songs. He found the name of the song, "Yours ‘til’ the end of time," and that it had long since peaked in popularity and would soon be far beyond the top 40. Treena herself seemed to have packed more life into her 17 years than James had into his 42.  

He recognized her now from hundreds of half glanced at gossip pages. The media had dubbed her ‘peacock princess’ both for the plumage occasionally stuck in the back of her skirt and because she had reportedly thrown a quill in an admirer’s eye. Her exploits at the clubs in which James had never been were near mythical: While performing a ‘magic trick’ with a cigar-cutter, she had cut off the tip of a man’s pinkie; she had sexually assaulted a pretty cocktail waitress with a pepper grinder; and several animal-rights groups were suing her for setting 17 ravenous Vietnamese pot-belly pigs loose at a jazz club in honor of her birthday.  

"Didn’t know you liked that bubble-gum pop stuff," said Bob, James’ bear-like colleague who peered over his shoulder as he sat at the terminal. "Is that Treena’s fan page?" 

"I’m just curious about one song she did," James said, "It’s kind of catchy."  

"Which one?" 

"This one," he said pointing, not wanting to say the title aloud. 

Bob read slowly and loudly: "’Yours ‘til’ the end of time,’ Myself I prefer fusion, like my man Coltrane." 

James ignored him. 

"So you gonna get the song? If you just want one, what you can do is just download it direct-" 

"Yeah," he said, and while Bob shuffled unhelpfully around the terminal pawing at the mouse and screen, he continued remembering the song while it was fresh in his memory. 

After work, James headed over to a record store. Only a hard copy, something he could possess, would do. The CD, titled the same as the song, was found in a section favored by very young teenagers and European tourists. He quickly purchased it and went to meet his friend at a bar. 

Tom was already there watching a ball game. James greeted him, sat down and talked about baseball, work and women; but through it all, the melody ran through his head and he could only think of how soon he could get away home to his room where--oh-unimaginable privilege! --the song would be his to play whenever he wished. After listening, with sincere, though forced, interest in Tom’s troubles, he brought up the subject close to his heart.  

"James, you look a little out of it today, you OK?"  

"Never been better." 

"You’ve finally fallen in love?" 

James smiled, paused, and asked if Tom had ever heard of Treena. 

"Guess the answer’s yes since you want to change the subject." 

"I’m serious, have you ever heard of her?" 

"Yeah she’s that snotty little pop star who got beat up by the waitress at Slick’s. It’s one of those things you read in the paper and then wonder ‘why did I just waste 3 ½ minutes of my life reading that.’" 

"I just bought one of her CD’s," he said boldly. He had not wanted to bring it up, but now saying it, he felt defiant: he would not be ashamed to admit his feelings, come what may. Yet there was reason for his shyness: he knew Tom professionally; they both sang occasionally in church choirs and other choral groups. "One of the songs, it moves me." 

"Oh?" said Tom, and his interest in Treena evidently exhausted, he continued: "Are you going to be singing at Trinity? They need another bass; next month they’re putting on a performance of ‘Magnificat,’ by Bach," he added unnecessarily.  

"I don’t know if I’ll have the time." 

"Wow, you really are in love. That’s a first." 

All the way home James hummed the melody, occasionally whistling the lyrics, and beating out the rhythm with his tongue against his teeth. 

James lived in a small room in a large building near the center of the city. Though fortunate enough to live by himself, he did have contact with his immediate neighbors, with whom he shared responsibility for keeping the communal bathroom clean. After he got home he very deliberately heated up and ate his dinner before playing the song. Having secured the CD, he thought that further anticipation could only serve heighten his ecstasy. He might wait till bedtime before playing it. Slippers, warm milk and ‘Yours ‘til’ the end of time,’ Heaven! But then, looking at the CD cover, a picture of Treena looking extremely soulful and naked (except for some artful shadows) he felt a wisp of doubt seeping into his mind. The wisp solidified into a hint: why would he put off playing the CD? 

The liner notes gave Treena’s "tribute to my enemies," in which she listed her agent, the record label, and some girls from her Jr. High. "Without you trying to hold me back, I never would have gotten the strength to put this out. F___ You!" There was also some stuff putting down hippies and praising the Dalai Lama. James picked up his favorite classical CD and imagined if Treena’s name was substituted for the talented violinist’s: "Playing," he read in the liner notes, "of mind-boggling brilliance…<Treena’s> command of technique is breathtaking, yet never subsumes the music she is performing, for which she maintains a very proper reverence…<She> has mastered the instrument technically and brought a luscious augmentation of instrumental sonority and virtuosity to the piece without ever having <her> ego overshadow the music…<Treena> has," wrote the most respected critic," brought a revolutionary change to playing the <electric guitar>, an amazing clarity and dynamic range that I have never before come across in all my years." 

He chuckled to himself and put Treena’s CD in the player and fast-forwarded to his song; he had waited long enough! He then lay back on his narrow bed and listened, a dreamy half smile on his lips and his eyes warm with tears. Beautiful, wonderful, divine all these things, and yet, and yet, it wasn’t quite what he remembered. It was the same song but he detected a certain mechanism to its charm. The emotional swells in the music, just right, but maybe too perfect, held for too long and repeated too many times. He wasn’t caught off guard all over again. He didn’t feel any additional complacency being blown away, and there was no new, new beginning. "Funny," he thought, "that I should be surprised, but I guess nothing’s as good as your first time." Still he played the rest of the songs on the CD, and then played all the songs again, and then again. Just before dropping off to sleep, he thought "I couldn’t really expect the song to compare with my memory of it."  

The next day, a Saturday, while James was cleaning the bathroom, his next door neighbor Natalie surprised him by poking her head through the doorway and asking: "hey chief, what’s going on in your life?" 

They were both around the same age and had lived in the building for at least a decade, but had never been friendly. Natalie dismissed James as a loser, which, though unfair, was not an opinion that would have changed had she known him better. Whereas James thought that Natalie, an aging actress, had long lost her looks. 

James looked up from scrubbing the toilet and said "I’m doing well, thanks," and he meant it. 

"Something’s going on. I heard you playing music last night, not your usual old-person, pretentious stuff, but young music. There’s like a glow about you too." And there was sort of a halo around him, the freshly scrubbed white tiles gleaming in the background. "Someone new in your life?" 

James smiled very mysteriously and said, "let’s just say I’m in a really good mood."  

"Something has happened," he thought to himself later, relaxing his room. "Even other people can see it. It could be that when I first heard the song my mind was uniquely receptive at that point. A chemical or hormonal thing. Maybe a synapse misfiring. A reminder of a similar song from my childhood." For, in truth, James knew the song really wasn’t very good, that there was no logical reason for his feelings, and that it didn’t matter. "For better or for worse," he thought looking at the CD, "I’m stuck with you."  

These thoughts and others rushed excitedly through his head as he walked to work a week later. "There’s a lesson in here somewhere," he said to himself, "I’m not sure what it is but I think I’m going start paying less attention to what other people think. I’m giving notice and I’m looking for a new job, possibly in music. Maybe I’ll invite Natalie out to coffee and tell her my plans." He smiled, lifted his head and began whistling ‘Yours ‘til’ the end of time’ as he stepped off the corner and into the path of a speeding city bus (to be fair, the light had only just changed red and the driver was on a strict schedule).  

"What’s this," said James’ mother to Tom, as she held up her son’s newest CD, "was this his?" The two of them were talking in James’ room. 

"I don’t know; it doesn’t seem like his taste," said Tom. "I think it might have been from the woman he fell in love with. I know James always loved to play jazz when I came over." 

"James had a girlfriend? Where is she?" 

"I never really got to talk with her. Something must have happened recently; they broke up or something." 

"I’m so sorry I never got to meet her; I never got to meet anyone James went out with." 

They continued looking through James’ possessions. His mother had wanted to take a few small personal items to the funeral. From his effects they chose a porcelain coffee mug sporting both a picture of the Niagara Falls and a Maple leaf (from one of James’ few trips abroad), the pennant of his favorite team, and a fresh-looking copy of "The Wisdom of Buddha."  

After the funeral the family and Tom had a small party at a jazz club in James’ honor.