The Secret Tapes of Jack Forrester

“So, is it true?” Lia’s voice carried to me over my shoulder as I headed out the door of the lecture hall, backpack slung across one shoulder and a half-eaten apple in my hand. Dread filled me as I stopped with my back to her and my mouth full, trying to figure out how to answer.

I knew what “it” was, even though Lia hadn’t specified. It was the same “it” as always. It wasn’t that the question itself was so bad, or even the answer. It was that it always led to more questions, the same questions, all ending with the one they had really wanted to ask from the start. And that was the question I was dreading as she caught up to me, all smiling blue eyes and bouncing red curls.

I swallowed the half-chewed apple, feeling it stick uncomfortably in my throat as it went. “Is what true?” I stalled, beginning to walk towards the main door of the building. Lia fell into step beside me and we joined the herd of students moving out to the courtyard. She grinned, a look of excitement on her pretty face.

“Is your grandpa really Jack Forrester?” I sighed internally. Truthfully, I had been expecting her to ask for weeks now -- ever since I went over to her apartment to study for our philosophy midterm and found a shelf lined with Grandpa’s albums. He was a local legend and most of my family was very active in the musical community so she was bound to find out we were related sooner or later. Not seeing any way to avoid it, I answered her.

“Yes, it’s really true.” She immediately began squealing with excitement and I took advantage of the pause to finish my apple.

“Ohmygod I have so many questions! You probably don’t know this but he is one of my favourite musicians! I have every single one of his albums! It must have been so amazing to have such an incredible musical influence …” Lia trailed off as she took in my expression. She frowned, her mood immediately dampened, and I felt guilty for squashing her excitement.

“I’m sorry.” I sighed, tossing my apple core into a trash can as we passed through the first set of doors to outside. “It’s not that I don’t love him or want to talk about him, it’s just ... not that good of a story.”

“What does that mean?” Lia watched me curiously as we stepped out into the afternoon sun. The courtyard was bright and open with a large lawn in the centre, ringed with flagstone and dotted with benches and picnic tables. The pack of students exiting the building began to disperse and we followed the crowd, keeping left towards the main bus stop. I contemplated running through all the usual questions with her but decided that I would skip right to the part she really wanted to know.

“Grandpa Jack doesn’t play anymore.” She gaped at me, as expected.

“Never? Not even just for himself?” I shook my head at her question.

“Not even for himself. Don’t get me wrong - he still loves music. He taught my mother and sister how to play and he writes extensively, but he never plays anymore. I’ve only ever heard him play in recordings. My mom heard him in-person a few times but she was so young she says it’s hard to remember.”

A crease appeared between Lia’s brows as she absorbed my words.

“But … why? He was so talented! They said he was the one of the best to ever play, that his music could make you feel things like no one else’s. Even the recordings are amazing - I can’t imagine how incredible it would be to hear live. They say he never played the same song twice! To think it hasn’t existed in almost sixty years is … heart-breaking.”

I nodded, sympathizing with her reaction. It was the same response for anyone who had heard Grandpa’s music – there was something about it that moved you in such a unique and inexplicable way that it made you immediately hungry for more. Like the sound was a drug, delivering concentrated emotion directly to your soul. To find out that the supply was limited, never to be expanded or renewed, brought a sense of desperate loss to most of his fans. It was probably why the legend of The Tapes had remained such a stubborn presence in the history of my grandfather’s musical career. Hell, even I had felt the same way once, before I had asked him myself and seen the pain in his eyes.

“I don’t really know. No one does. My mom says it’s heartbreak – after his wife died, the part of him that made that music died too. My uncle says it was just the stress of raising two kids alone while still mourning. That he just didn’t have time and eventually he lost the taste for it.” I shrugged, head down as I dug in my pocket for my bus pass. I felt a twinge of sadness as I thought about how my grandfather must have felt after receiving the news that his wife had been killed in a fatal car accident, leaving him the single father of a six-year old daughter and a two-year old son.

“What do you think?” Lia’s voice was soft, her expression curious. I thought back to when I was nine; watching Grandpa lean over Lyric, helping to place her tiny fingers on the piano keys.

My sister’s legs swung from the bench, sparkly blue shoes catching the sunlight. I sat on the couch opposite them, a juice box in one hand and a dark green pencil in the other.

Unlike my mother and sister, I had no interest in music. I took more after my father and preferred to draw rather than play. After months of torturous music lessons in my grandfather’s study, he had finally sat my mom down and told her that one musical child was enough. I was released from the hated lessons and now I got to eat snacks and draw instead of suffering through scales and songs.

“Grandpa, why don’t you play piano anymore?” I regretted the question immediately as I watched a flicker of pain pass over Grandpa’s face. He was silent for a moment, seeming to consider my question. Lyric and I were quiet too, waiting for him to speak.

“I loved playing very much. But it took me away from things and it took things away from me. When your Grandma died, I realized that it took too much. So now I teach. I pass on my knowledge so that something pure and new can be born. Now I give something without losing something.”

I blinked and turned my eyes back to Lia, standing next to me under the shelter. The bus stop was crowded; students pushing against each other to get into already-packed buses, the smell of exhaust heavy in the air. I shrugged and she leaned in to hear me over the cacophony of the platform.

“I think that after his wife died, he decided to go in a different direction. We don’t push him on it out of respect, but I can guarantee you there’s no secret tapes. No extra recordings or unreleased songs. If you want to hear his music, it’s going to be through other people.”

Lia’s disappointment was palpable as I destroyed the last of her hopes in the rumours that circulated online. The Secret Tapes of Jack Forrester was a cult legend that insisted my grandfather had continued recording music all these years but no longer released it to the public. It was the most long-lived, but far from the only rumour about him. Some believed he had never really played to begin with and the refusal was just a way to protect his scam. Others swore he had sold his soul to the Devil to learn how to play and had stopped to keep the beast at bay. That was the problem with a local musical icon suddenly and mysteriously vowing never to play again – people talked until gossip became legend. And now in the age of the internet, they shared their crazy theory online.

I sighed, running my hand through my hair as I looked down at Lia. “Look, I’m sorry to dash your hopes like that. But the truth is that despite what you may have read online, he’s just a sweet old man who likes to teach music and leave the past where it lies. He used to be Jack Forrester but that was a long time ago. Now he’s just a composer and a grandpa of three.” I smiled ruefully at her and she returned it, though it was nowhere near as bright as when we began our walk.

“It’s okay, I probably shouldn’t have jumped down your throat like that. I was just so excited! I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or sad.” I brushed off her apology with a wave of my hand, a light flush spreading across my cheeks. She smiled at me then leaned out of the shelter, scanning the line of buses pulling in.

“Well that’s me – number 77. I’ll see you tomorrow?” I nodded and offered her a wave as she pushed out of the shelter. Elbowing her way across the platform, she scrambled up into the bus just as the doors shut. I stared out into the road long after it pulled away, my mind on my grandfather and his infamous past.

I was so distracted that I missed my bus pulling into the station and had to run and flag them down before they left without me. Panting slightly, I picked a seat in the middle of bus and dropped down next to the window, backpack flopped across my lap.

The bus ride home was uneventful and fifteen minutes later I was walking into the kitchen of my grandfather’s house. The narrow two-storey had stood there for almost a hundred years and my grandfather had been there for more than half of them.

Even though my mother lived twenty minutes away and visited three times a week, she worried about Grandpa being alone in the house. So, after my acceptance to our local college I had moved in with him. I hadn’t complained – Grandpa’s house was way closer to school and far quieter. Plus, I loved him. As the only male grandchild in the family, Grandpa and I had always shared a special bond. I was as happy to be there as he was to have me.

“Grandpa, I’m home!” I called out as I dropped my backpack down on the kitchen table. Grandpa’s steaming mug sat at his favorite spot, completely forgotten and rapidly cooling. I grinned and rolled my eyes, grabbing the drink and heading down to his music room, where I knew he would be.

He stood with his back to the door, rifling through an ancient music book. Its pages were yellowed with age and wear, infused with years of loving use. He hummed softly under his breath; the closest he ever came to singing nowadays. He looked up when he heard me knock against the door frame, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Coda! I didn’t hear you come in. How was class?” He beamed at me from across the study and motioned for me to give him his mug. I rolled my eyes again and laughed, handing it over to him. He was always leaving his coffee cup in strange places. I would have worried if it hadn’t been happening for as long as I could remember.

Relaxing, I dropped down onto the weathered couch and lost myself in the familiar safety of Grandpa’s house.

~~~

A few weeks later I woke up thirsty and too hot, my clothes sticking to me uncomfortably. It was dark out and a quick glance at my phone confirmed it was 1 AM. I needed water desperately - like I’d eaten a whole bag of chips in my sleep.

Happy to feel the cool air on my skin, I kicked off the covers and stood up unsteadily, lumbering towards the hall. I opened my bedroom door and turned right, headed down the narrow staircase. The house was dark and still. I had heard Grandpa go to bed when I still studying and knew he wouldn’t be up for hours.

It was around the bottom step when I suddenly heard it. A soft, gentle sound with a distinct melody. I stopped in my tracks, thirst forgotten, and focused all my attention on listening. After a moment I realized it was a piano – coming from Grandpa’s music room.

In disbelief, I began to walk towards the sound. It was no song I had ever heard before and it was beautiful. As I got closer and the song became clearer, I felt a warmness within and my heart was filled with calm. The song made me think of the beach and I felt as relaxed as if I’d sat next to the ocean all day. By the time I got to the doorway, I swore I could feel sand under my feet; a soft breeze on my face.

That’s when I saw the impossible – Grandpa, sitting at his piano in the dimly lit room. His eyes were closed and an expression of bittersweet joy painted his face. He swayed in time with the music, his fingers hitting the keys without hesitation despite years of disuse.

This close to the music, to its source, my mind was filled with thoughts of a sunset on a tropical beach, the wind warm and the air salty. It felt strangely familiar to me, like a place I had been to with my family when I was twelve. We had visited Mexico for a family reunion and had stood on the beach to watch the sunset together the first night we arrived. The music reminded me of that memory, filling me with love and warmth even as I stared at my grandfather in shock. This wasn’t one of his old songs – this was something new, something I had never heard before. Something no one had ever heard before.

As the final notes of the song drifted off into the night, I stood rooted to the spot, unable to speak. Grandpa opened his eyes and his gaze found mine. He didn’t seem surprised or embarrassed to see me. He simply watched me with an unreadable expression in his ancient eyes. At length, he sighed and motioned me into the room as he had a thousand times before.

“Come in Coda, we need to talk”.

My movements felt stiff and jerky as I came to sit on the couch across from the piano, in the same spot I always chose. As I had every time before, I ran my hand over the worn cloth, feeling the softness under my palm. It brought back memories of years past, replaying in my mind as I waited to hear what he would say.

Grandpa stared down at the piano keys, his fingers brushing the smooth surface as gently as you’d stroke a beloved pet. His face was etched with sadness, his eyes lost to the past. For a moment I wasn’t sure he would say anything but then he spoke.

“Do you remember when you were a kid, how I told you that playing music took something from me?” I nodded, the echo of his voice whispering to me from long ago. He sighed.

“Well I meant that literally. Sixty-two years ago, I was a young man with a pregnant wife, no steady job, barely making ends meet. I could play music but while I was good, I had no prospects. I was playing gigs every night I could. I had the soul, the desire, but lacked that crucial last step between “good” and “great”. I wanted to provide for your grandmother and our unborn daughter, your mother, but we could barely afford food as it was, let alone with another mouth to feed. I was desperate and sad, filled with a crushing despair that I was failing the ones I loved most.” Grandpa sighed again, running his hand over what was left of his hair. He took a sip from a tumbler I hadn’t noticed before; crystal filled with amber liquid. Another unusual move – Grandpa didn’t drink anymore. He said it reminded him of bad decisions from long ago.

“I was drinking. Trying to numb the panic, the choking desperation, the pressure of failure that accompanied my every waking moment. One night, after a particularly nasty fight with your grandma, I took a walk down by the river and found myself following an old road. It was overgrown and hidden behind shrubbery, almost fully reclaimed by nature. I don’t know how long I walked but suddenly I became aware that it was quiet. Too quiet – the way it gets when a predator passes by. When all of nature holds it breath and waits for the scary thing to go away … and then I saw him. Leaning against a fence at the crossroads, smoking a cigarette. He was handsome, though its hard to recall his face. In the moment it was clear but the memory has always been … hazy. His eyes though - those have haunted me since that night. They were a deep red-orange that I knew was inhuman the moment I saw it.”

Another pause, another sip of whiskey as Grandpa collected his thoughts. Mine, on the other hand, were scattered beyond collection. What was he saying? The setup was too perfect – a tale as old as time. Was he trying to tell me the legend really was true? When had his mental health taken such a sudden turn?

“I know what you’re thinking.” He said, his fingers idly playing notes on the piano. “You think I’m senile now, that I’m confused about the past … but it’s the truth.” His eyes raised to mine, steady and lucid as I’d ever seen them. “I made a deal with the devil – though I knew it was a mistake even as I made it.”

Grandpa’s confession hung in the air as I grasped futilely for something to say. “So… what? The stories are true? You sold your soul for fame?” I laughed weakly, hoping to hear him say something, anything, that made sense. To my relief, he shook his head. It was short-lived though, as he corrected me.

“Not my soul. Something infinitely more precious and utterly irreplaceable. He said as much when he made me the offer. He promised my soul would remain intact, and that I would live to see myself successful, my wife and daughter cared for, and a son to carry on my name. And in exchange … something that I would not miss. Something of my choosing, precious and irreplaceable, but infinite in source.” An aura of bitter regret filled the air around him as he recounted the devil’s offer.

“I knew it was too good to be true, but I was drunk and desperate and more than half-mad and I … said yes. The next thing I knew, I was in my own bed. Your grandma woke me up with coffee and a message from the most prestigious club in town, inviting me to play that evening. I accepted of course, though I was filled with fear that I would fail. I didn’t feel any different since the deal had been struck and I had myself half-convinced it had all been a dream.” Grandpa’s head lifted; his eyes distant as he remembered that night long ago. There was an almost wistful look on his face now, though it was still tinged with the sadness that suffused the room.

“But it wasn’t a dream and when I sat down that night to play, I looked out into the crowd and saw a woman with eyes like those of my first love. And in that moment, as I remembered all the heartbreak that gaze had brought me, I felt a song growing in my soul. Though I had never written anything down, never composed the melody, never penned the words, I began to play. And as I did, I felt those memories of that first heartbreak flowing through me, becoming the music in a way I had always strived for but could never reach before. I felt her presence enter the room, brought to life through the keys of the piano, the tenor of my voice. So vibrant, so alive, so real. And as those last notes faded away, the memory of her did too. I felt our last moments together slipping away, taking with it the heartbreak that had been so palpable only moments ago. It was only then that I understood the price of the devil’s bargain. I could finally play the way I wanted to – to make people feel with my art the way I had always ached to – but at the price of the memory that birthed the music.” Grandpa lifted his whiskey to his lips as an expression of self-loathing crossed his wizened features.

“But Lord, the applause was thunderous and the recognition was instant – from that night on, I never struggled to pay the bills again. I turned down more gigs than I’d ever dreamed of. And like a fool, I convinced myself I didn’t need those memories anyway. After all, what was the memory of an old flame in exchange for greatness?” He laughed bitterly, chasing it with another swallow of whiskey. I sat frozen on the couch, wanting to deny his story but already half-convinced. Having heard his music in person, it held a ring of truth that couldn’t be denied.

He looked up at me and smiled sadly. “You’ve felt it, you know it’s true. That song I was just playing - it was the family trip to Mexico. That sunset on the first night, you remember. The effect is even stronger when you share the memories too.” I was speechless, unable to make a single sound. But Grandpa either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He went on with his story, as if now that he had begun to tell it, he could not stop.

 “I had to make some adjustments to my act of course. I never played the same songs twice, I did more recordings and fewer live performances. But the restrictions only added to my appeal, my intrigue. People lapped it up and my “eccentricities” became associated with my “genius” and my fame grew and grew. Just like the devil had said, I was able to provide for your grandmother and mother. But my art was a greedy mistress. My memories were many, but the ones I was willing to lose were a much smaller number. I knew that even careful use couldn’t sustain my music forever. Slowly, I lost all of my past flames, my old loves and heartbreaks. My childhood memories – first kisses and sneaking out to meet girlfriends. Fights and friendships lost, guilt for mistakes long past – all of it went into my music. Drained from me, lost to me; only the emotion of the memory left behind as a song. Over time I got better at using them, at drawing the sentiment out and wringing the memory dry so I could make the most of what I was sacrificing. Even still, by the time your grandma got pregnant with your uncle I had nothing left – only memories I wanted to keep. But there was another life on the way, relying on me, and I couldn’t walk away … so I started chipping away at those memories too.”

He shook his head and I caught the gleam of unshed tears in his eyes. “At first it was small things – doing the shopping with her, our morning coffee, stupid fights over nothing at all. Things that seemed replaceable or better off forgotten anyway. But eventually, more important memories began to creep in. Birthdays, dinners with friends or family members. I’ll keep the really important ones, I thought. After all, you want to remember your first kiss, maybe even your second or third, but do you really need the thirtieth? Do you need the fourteenth date you went on? Or the one dinner you had with your wife’s second cousin? Slowly, I began to forget things - things that your grandma remembered.”

He paused to take a sip of his drink, staring down into the liquid pensively. I was quiet, held prisoner by his tale. After a moment he spoke again, his voice rough with emotion. 

“I was drinking heavily by then. The stress of the curse, my family, my fame, it was all so overwhelming. And when I drank, I wasn’t so careful with my precious memories … it’s hard to learn from mistakes you don’t remember. In a way, it’s worse. I wonder what memories I may have drained away in my reckless, inebriated state. But I’ll never know - they are forever lost to me.” His sadness was a tangible presence in the air and I felt choked by it, my throat tight with sorrow to see someone I loved in so much pain.

“Your grandma, she was worried about me. I had never been able to bring myself to tell her about the deal and I fought her on seeing doctors and resting more. We would argue before performances and I would leave, angry and anxious. Straight to the bar, to drink and play those memories away. A vicious, bitter cycle. And then one morning I was woken up by banging on the front door. I stumbled down still half-drunk, yelling at them to quiet down …. it was the police. They had come to tell me that your grandma had been in an accident. She was stopped in her car and someone hit her from behind, going far too fast. She was thrown free of the driver’s seat, right through the windshield – no seat belts back then. She died on impact. Massive head trauma, they told me. At least it was quick. Just like that, the woman I loved was gone. And I had traded away most of my memories of her.”

Grandpa was crying freely now, tears rolling down his face to land on the ivory of the piano, in the amber of his whiskey. “I vowed that day that I would never play again. The price was too high, my memories too precious. Like a miser, I have hoarded them all these years, refusing to use my “gift” and wishing desperately that I had been a smarter man in my youth. But now …  I am ready to play again.”

“What changed your mind?” The sound of my own voice, strangled with sadness, seemed too loud in the quiet of the room. After the story he had just told me, I couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that I knew what he would say.

Grandpa’s gaze met mine, sadness and love radiating from the watery depths. “I’m dying, Coda. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week or next month, but soon. I am old and I have lived a long, full life. Now it is almost over and I want to share it with people like I did long ago, before I’m too far gone to play anymore.”

I tried to protest, to tell him that he had many good years left. He waved me off, clearly in no mood for my objections. “That brings me to the reason for this talk – I want you to help me. I want to record my songs, my memories. Help me distribute them, share them with people. I don’t know how much time I have but I want to make it count.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Tears streaked my face as I absorbed my grandfather’s request. “But … will you forget me? Or Lyric or Mom?” My voice shook, tears salty in my mouth.

“No, never!” Grandpa’s voice was sharp and I drew back in surprise. His face softened and he added “I will keep those memories safe. Those are just for me, to carry me to the Lord. But I have a lifetime of experience to share and a gift that has been a curse for far too long.”

I was silent as I sat and processed what he was saying, the task he was asking of me. And I knew that I could never refuse. It was his dying wish and after hearing his story, kept secret for all these years, it was clear that he needed it. Wiping my tears away on my sleeve, I nodded to him.

“Ok Grandpa, I’ll help you. I would be honoured to.”

~~~

   The last few months of Jack Forrester’s life were spent in his home with his family. A few nights every week, we would go to his music room and record his songs, each one unique and perfect on the first try. I had tried to convince him to go to a studio but he insisted he would play in his room, in his house - “where the memories lived”. So, we invested in some fairly high-end recording equipment and barely a week after his late-night confession, he was playing once again.

I sat with him through it all, experiencing memories that spanned the range of human emotion – the product of a life well-lived. Anger, joy, love, fear, wonder, grief – all of it went into the music and away from the man who had spawned it. It is hard to explain how valuable it was for me to soak up that lifetime of knowledge, to hear and experience his memories. I learned more from those last few months than any education could ever give me.

As the memories left him, so too did the vibrancy and vitality his form had once held. What he had said was true – he was dying. But he kept his promise and even at the very end, he held my hand and called me by name. And in his eyes, I saw the same love and familiarity that had always been there.

Now, he has been gone for months and at last, I have completed his final wish. All his memories, recorded and uploaded where people will be able to hear them. The emotions of a lifetime, free to experience.

That is why I have written this story – to spread the word. The Secret Tapes of Jack Forrester are real, and he would want you to listen to them.