The Human Chorus” William Wood

The Human Chorus The Human Chorus The Human Chorus

BY: WILLIAM WOOD

I finished the last sentence and gently closed the book. 12:30 am. In exactly six hours I

had to wake up to get ready for school. I should have been tired, but my mind was ablaze. My

conscience screamed to sleep now, or I would suffer tomorrow in my classes. But its pleas were

drowned out by the whirring of my mind. Never had I felt so convicted and connected to a fictional

character. I reopened the book and turned to the last page of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.”

Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And

Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat statement of the opening phrase

of the song. Then he began to make it his… I heard what he had gone through, and would continue

to go through until he came to rest in the earth. He had made it his:

I paused my reading and glanced toward the door where my brothers were sleeping.

James Baldwin had captured the brotherly dynamic so masterfully that I instantly connected with

the story’s narrator, Sonny’s older brother. I understood his familial obligation for his brother ’s

welfare. I understood the anger that he felt when Sonny ignored his advice. I understood the

sadness and guilt when he saw Sonny was arrested for substance abuse. Baldwin’s story of two

African American brothers living in Harlem in 1945 deeply resonated with me, a white teenager

in 2018. But how? Everything about us seemed so different - our skin color, where we grew up,

our socioeconomic backgrounds. How could I possibly relate to what the narrator felt toward his

brother?

But what if those differences did not matter? Perhaps, our connection would make sense.

We both grew up with brothers that needed and demanded more attention from our parents. We

across half a century and half a country. We did not have prejudices against each other. We

simply listened to the other as he poured out his story. Today’s society tends to place people in

stereotypical categories, and all hell breaks loose if these boundaries are crossed. It restricts

us. The boundaries are a product of our own doing. Can we not break them down? Can we let

everyone’s voice be heard without a prejudiced filter? Of course, we can. We choose not to.

CAN WE LET EVERYONE’S VOICE BE HEARD WITHOUT A PREJUDICED FILTER? OF COURSE, WE CAN. WE CHOOSE NOT TO. THEN, THE QUESTION BECOMES NOT CAN WE LISTEN, BUT HOW DO WE LISTEN? I continued reading the closing scene of “Sonny’s Blues,” and my eyes seized a section ” of the narrator’s final realization.

I saw my mother ’s face again, and felt for the first time, how the stones of the road she

walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moon-lit road where my father ’s brother died...

I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel’s tears again, and felt my own tears begin to rise. And I

was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger,

and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.

It was not until the narrator physically entered Sonny’s world that he truly understood

his pain. And in Sonny’s pain, the narrator saw his own. Their differences no longer kept them

apart. For a brief moment, they were inexplicably connected. The answer to my how questions

became apparent: casting aside prejudices and living through others experiences is the first

step to understanding them. Everyone has a story and a unique voice, and none should be

A R T BY : M A I RY N M C G I LV R AY

We need to step into the beauty of someone else’s world. I witnessed this revelation

firsthand when my brother was hospitalized. He spent three months on IVs and a strict diet

of hospital food. And I was jealous! He got all the attention, and our entire family’s schedule

revolved around him. He even got to watch whatever movie he wanted to all the time! But

Baldwin’s narrator put aside previous judgments and stepped into his brother ’s shoes; I could

do the same. My brother was kept away from his normal life and his family for months while

constantly feeling sick and nauseous. He could not sleep in his own bed in the shared room

with me, and he could not play outside and attempt the Parkour he was obsessed with. His

life for the next three months had been reduced to pills, IVs, monitors, nurses, and powdered

eggs. By looking at life from his perspective, I could feel nothing but regret for my jealousy

and pity for my brother. I learned right then that every story has multiple perspectives, and I

needed to consider all points of view before I made judgments.

As my eyes became droopy, one quote that I could not quite remember nagged at the

back of my mind. I opened the book one last time and skimmed the pages until I found what I

was looking for. I had to get it verbatim, so as not to skew the true meaning.

And Creole let out the reins. The dry, low, black man said something awful on the drums,

Creole answered, and the drums talked back. Then the horn insisted, sweet and high, slightly

detached perhaps, and Creole listened, commenting now and then, dry, and driving, beautiful

and calm and odd. Then they all came together again, and Sonny was part of the family again.

I could tell from his face. He seemed to have found, right there beneath his fingers, a damn

brand-new piano… Listen, Creole seemed to be saying, listen. Now these are Sonny’s blues.

I reread it again. I was there in the bar that night sitting next to Baldwin’s narrator.

I observed how the musicians improvised the song and made their own voices heard in the

music’s flow. I saw Sonny, tormented by drugs and jail time, loosen up and make his own voice

heard. I felt Sonny’s pain. I felt the narrator’s pain. I realized it was my pain as well. While ev

eryone has a unique voice, we are all part of the music. Everyone’s perspective contributes to

the mosaic. Our voices create a harmony that magnifies our individual beauty, but at the same

time, we sing together in a larger human chorus.