"... an unbroken line,
a lineage of thousands of generations,
brings us to you ... and marches off
into a future yet to be determined."

A Ram thinks fondly of his son and all they have shared.
A tale of time, music and warm motor-cars.


oOo

The autumn sun slants warmly through the branches, their scattered ruddy leaves clinging to the last of the summer, to bathe the face of an elderly ram with gentle heat as he sits in the passenger seat of a sporty metallic-blue automobile.

He peers rheumily at two men chatting and laughing in a doorway. Middle-aged, though hale and hearty, one is a ram not unlike himself; the other, a tiger: exotic and vaguely mysterious. They laugh and bat at each other like teenagers, jesting and joking, teasing and grinning, and the old ram smiles.

–– My boy. I’m so damn proud of him.

The warmth of the vehicle soothes him; the insulating silence makes him feel remote – detached – as though the panorama through the windscreen is a vivid silent film being played for an audience of one. He feels a wave of drowsiness overtake him and shakes it off unwillingly.

–– Getting tired is one of the signs of old age. I am not old.

With an grunt of effort, he shifts in the deep bucket seat to reach the stereo controls and starts it up. It plays a track he likes, one by Paul Anka, at a comfortable level. He relaxes back in his chair.

–– Why these new cars can’t just keep the music playing when the driver gets out … pah.

Energy saving really has gotten out of control, he muses, looking up at clear sky and the fast-approaching sunset. His mind drifts to a time when he, like so many of his peers, was completely committed to cleaning the seas and campaigning for fresh water and an end to casual pollution. Of course, that was back in the day when most personal pollution was either smoked, injected or came in little coloured pills. He allows himself a little chuckle of embarrassment.

Not like his boy. His offspring, and most people of his generation, didn’t need or care for drugs. Nowadays, the waters and rivers run pure; nature is cherished, and even the car is powered via solar electricity that charge special batteries under the floor. He doesn’t really know or care how it all works, but no-one doubts that his generation has left the world in a lot better condition than they found it. His son’s fellows continuing that work gladly, and the social engineering of the past and present has certainly been for the betterment of all.

The music fills the car’s interior. It soothes him with the familiar. DAD&ME_FAVES scrolls slowly and repeatedly across the fluorescent display.

–– Just like him to have all my favourite music for when we travel together. Tracks I grew up with in the fifties and sixties: the greats; the hits; the stars. Decent stars. Decent music. Music with tunes and people who could really sing. What passes for music today? Boom-boom-boom and grunts of imbeciles, that’s what. Poseurs. My boy likes real music: my music.

He closes his eyes and recalls a time past, when his fleece was whiter, his horns shorter, his eyes sharper.

–– The boy was maybe what … seven or eight? Yeah …

It was a couple of years after his wife had rejected him and their mediocre existence. She had always wanted more, and the blue-collar life he offered became an anathema. It could never give the highs she craved and the respect she demanded. Though he toughed it out, dealing with the fights, the drunken brawls, the gin and the vodka, eventually she left, taking it all with her, and the house was silent.

No more cigarette stains, cheap perfume, booze bottles in the cistern, or broken dishes. He and the boy were alone and safe.

He wanted to make a home for his son. Life became steady and reliable, days passing like as comfortably as a soothing clock ticks off the seconds. No excitement, but no drama. Food on the table and a dad who cared.

That evening he returned from work to find the kid at his record collection. Though they often listened to music together in the evenings, it was more for the grown-up’s pleasure than that of the boy. He didn’t entirely trust his son to handle the delicate 78s and LPs, or want to allow him to drop the stylus on the rotating records. The ram actually had not given it much thought until that evening. The boy, alone at home after school, was playing tracks and going through records, playing the songs that both of them enjoyed most, and he was doing so expertly and carefully. Lost in the sound, he had the volume up high and forgot completely about the time.

–– He didn’t even know I was there at first. And he was singing. Clear … a real sweet voice. I stood quietly in the hall and listened to my kid singing along to my favourite music, and realised I had taught him something. He had gotten the same pleasure from my old 45s, 78s and LPs that I had when I bought them first as a music-mad young buck. In his own way, my boy told me: hey, old man, you got taste, and I’m getting the same tastes from you.

The ram’s smile grows wistful as he looks through the windscreen. He could see the boy standing the centre of the living room, singing along to Elvis and Marvin Gaye and The Everly Brothers; his fleece long and shaggy like the kids all back then, in the tail-end days of flares and bell-bottoms. Singles and albums were scattered all over the floor by the record player; their sleeves piled up in a small stack.

He closes his eyes to think about this more.

By the time his son moved to middle school, their music was irreversibly entwined. On the shelf over the cherished and well-used gramophone was the elder’s collection of what the radio DJs were beginning to call “golden oldies”, together with his offspring’s cutting-edge albums and cassettes.

–– His new music and my old music. Good times. Some of his stuff was good, alright. I didn’t like a few bands, but he has a good ear for decent music.

A new track begins on the car stereo, and the ram chuckles. It’s a very familiar one.

–– That reminds me so much of when he went to college for the first time, all nervous and excited. He brought tapes of all his favourites and as he unpacked his belongings, I flicked through the inlay cards. Most of it was our music: the songs I grew up with that he played and loved as a kid: the same old tracks that he sang when he thought he was alone, or when we were driving in the car. Roy Orbison’s and Johnny Cash’s, the early Beatles’ and Aretha Franklin’s. His roomie flipped on the radio and what played but “I Heard It (On the Grapevine)”. Marvin. Great, great talent. It was just starting to get some serious radio-time again because a new commercial on TV used the track and it was taking over. The kids all thought it was a brand new song. Well, my son and I, we duetted and belted that song out for what ended up as a corridor full of freshers. They were spellbound. My son gave me a huge hug when I set out for home that night, telling me that all the other students agreed I was the coolest dad of them all.

–– I loved the kid even more than I ever thought I could, for giving me a sense that I had passed on something special to him, something that I had loved, that he grew to love in turn. It made me shiver under my fleece on my lonely drive home, for – and this was the first time I felt it – I could imagine time passing. I realised I was getting older and my son, my boy, was now a young man who, in turn and time, would share and teach his children about everything that was special to him, some of which was special to me before that, just as I picked up from my father in turn, a chain that stretched out into a white point of infinite brightness: a place of immortality where Forever offered its hand to take me. It scared me. I had to stop the car, my hands shaking, and cried for the first time since that night when his mother left.

–– When he was invested with his degree he was chosen by his class as Most Likely to Succeed. I was proud as punch. He had asked the band to play a particular song. Standing at the lectern with a scroll in his hand and a gown on his back, he dedicated it to me: it was “Grapevine”. I got called up to the dais, where he and I sang along with everyone in the auditorium and hugged. I was so, so very proud of my boy.

–– After college, he took a year to travel and back-pack around the world. I was anxious, but he rightly said that virtually all the conflicts were ended by then, and the last remaining places that Peacekeepers had not assisted were not on his itinerary. Some thirteen months later, lean and fit, he came back home safe and sound. He brought a friend. That’s when I met Sanjeev, the tiger. He was exotic alright, just as lean and fit, with the hint of predator that all felines share. He was polite to a fault and smelled like spices.

–– And that was when my only son told me that Sanjeev was his lover. I wept for the third time that night.

The driver’s door opens and shook the old ram from his thoughts. The younger ram smiles and asks if he is alright, to which the elder nods and points at the stereo approvingly. The younger male laughs and hums along with the music as he waits for the tiger to lock their front door and join them at the vehicle.

As Sanjeev climbs into the small back seat he squeezes the old ram’s shoulder in a familiar greeting, and receives a friendly pat on his paw in return. The tiger is someone big in computers. The old ram is pleased. Sanjeev is a nice boy.

–– The boys have chosen a new Chinese restaurant to try this week. I like Chinese food. It’s not too spicy. My stomach is like the rest of me. It’s not as good as my hearing and that’s like my knees, my bladder and my eyes. All part of getting old, I suppose.

The boys chat as the younger ram drives slowly through the city, but his father still listens to the music, recalling with pleasure each and every song. Each one sets off another wistful memory.

–– Together twenty-five years now and they still love each other … his mother and I didn’t manage eight.

A precious and familiar guitar riff begins, and the old ram experiences a sudden flashback – a rush of Infinity. Sanjeev, in his mellow, warm voice, starts to sing along. His partner joins in.

–– I am so proud of my son. He has grown up to be a good man, loyal to his beloved. Even if my dream of new generations didn’t come to pass, at least I can say my passions went slightly sideways to a different species. Thank heavens that tiger has a good voice or I’d bar them from going together.

The old ram’s voice adds to the harmony as the metallic-blue car cruises onto the motorway and the sun sets behind the crimson horizon.

“… honey, honey, yeahhhhh …”

oOo