The 9 Muses

1: An Invocation to the Muses + Clio1 and her Histories

         My name is Cali Musa and this is the story of Sophia and me.

         The rest of my unpleasant family arrived in Boston from Italy in the late 1800s, as did Sophia’s family. She was born the same year as me, but her grandfather, Vecchio Amato, founded General Magnetic and struck it rich.

On the other hand, my father could only establish his name in drinking circles, while my mother died when I was young after regrettably bearing eight other insolent creatures. But she must’ve pampered us well because we all lived, grew, and then grew too big for our worlds.

         My eldest brother Clifford went on to become a stuffy professor at a stuffy university along the east coast, doing something in history. I once drove all the way down to his house just to be turned away. I had brought with me an expensive bouquet for his anniversary, but he slammed the door of his mansion right in my face and flowers.

My next brother, Ulysses, was my best friend when I was young and he was fun, but while I was away he dove too deep into astronomy. The first and last time I visited him, he had traded away all of the romantic aspirations he had when he was young. Instead, I found him writing some godforsakenly bland paper for some ho-ing and hum-ing journal full of uptight balding scientists with their noses perpetually in a state of stargazing.

My eldest sister became the famous singer Esther, but she never found true love not named heroin. The bathtub she died in must’ve been worth more than our childhood house. Teresa, my next eldest sister, had always had a fascination with ballet and tried to drag me into it. Even after she left with her pirouettes for grander stages, I’ve constantly been bombarded with handwritten mailed invitations for whatever waste of two good hours she’s putting on for the bourgeoisie world.

Then there are my twin brothers who went into acting: Thatcher as a staple in tedious, second-rate comedies and Melvin as a staple in boring, B-list dramas. And as much as I wish my next sister never existed, Erin does, and is a household name in the dark arts of pornography. And the last of the siblings, the second-youngest sister named Polly, became a nun.

The song begins.

2: Urania2 and her Astronomies

         As the youngest of the wretched, I lived most of my early years on the streets of Boston, partly to escape my household, and partly to provide for myself and my former dearest brother.

         “Ollie! Come and get it!” I remember calling one day. No one could pronounce his real name, Ulysses, he became Ollie.

         “Cali! Get back here!”

         We skinny children played across the playground and fairs, sneaking onto amusement parks and stealing prizes from stands. On that day, we had scored a jackpot of a merchant’s tip jar and a bucket of turkey legs. I stood at the top of a cement outcropping in the nearby woods.

         “Whicheth dost thou wanteth: this sack of medallions or this, um, bucketeth of chicken?”

         “It’s turkey, Cali, and give me back the jar.”

         “Are you sure, Ollie? Thou can’t eat gold. Fine.”

         I hopped down and handed the jar to him. I ate my turkey legs in silence, while he counted his cash.

         “Cali, I’m hungry.”

         I brushed away a braid that had fallen in front of my mouth. Looking at him for a few seconds, I stretched out a free hand and beckoned.

         “There’s only, like, five bucks in here.”

I continued to stare and beckon.

         “I’ll undo Teresa’s braids for you. I know you don’t like them.”
         I tilted my head back and crossed my arms.

         “Okay, there’s ten in here and I’ll give you half for half of the chicken. I mean turkey.”

         I smiled and we shared the loot. We sat in the forest until nightfall, and then we gazed into the stars. The empty bucket and jar lay next to us as we rubbed our bulging bellies and pockets.

         “Can you believe the moon isn’t just a sticker in the sky? I heard it’s a giant rock the size of the earth,” said Ollie.

         “Then why is it so small?”

         “Because it’s far away, idiot.”

         We kept staring until we fell asleep.

3: Euterpe3 and her Music

         Sometimes, we were forced to return home. Maybe we couldn’t find food for the day. Maybe we stank too much. Regardless, Ollie and I would trek back to the shack of a house our father owned. Many days we crept through the squeaky front door, masked by Esther’s voice whistling past broken furniture and stained wallpaper.

We danced a waltz along creaking floorboards past Teresa, Thatcher, and Melvin, who acted out their own plays in our excuse of a living room. Clifford, Erin, and Polly sat at their ragged table, reading. We went pianissimo past them and up the dilapidated stairs. We climbed the scale of black tiled steps and, when the top of the steps were missing their covers, we stepped on bare-white wood.

Up and up we went, swinging around the twist of the stairs to the top of the house. The room that we all slept in greeted us, and to the right was the source of the song that grazed the walls of the house.

We entered the bathroom and bathtub that one Esther held holy to perform for the ungrateful. She stood in the porcelain like the symbol of the treble clef, eyes closed, cleft chin trembling, and unaware of our presence. And then the spell broke, and the real dance commenced.

4: Terpsichore4 and her Dances

The scene sets for the Musa house. All the Musa siblings enter the stage…

Cali and Ollie were chased down the stairs by Esther. The gremlin and the astronomer spilled out of the stairway followed by flowing golden hair. They romped around the house to scuffle, shuffling left and right under the noses of Teresa, Thatcher, and Melvin, and under the table of Clifford, Erin, and Polly. And they crashed against the brick walls of the fireplace, and tossed onto an old feather-leaking couch that went flppppppth! at the seams, and back again onto the interrupted actors.

TERESA: Where’d my braids go, Cali?

         Cali, Ollie, and Esther laughed. Teresa turned Cali out under her arm and promised she’d braid her unruly hair again. They stood on the stage of the living room, sunlight blasting through the half-boarded windows from the audience of the woods. The children spun round and round, tangling the faded carpet and their shadows along the plaster wall.

THATCHER AND MELVIN: Where do we go?

         The twins sang and the voice of Esther pierced above them singing jubilee, and the caduceus of sounds rose through the ceiling lights, above the second floor, past the attic, and screaming into the cloud-dotted sky.

CLIFFORD: Shut up!

ERIN: Keep it down!

POLLY: We don’t wanna hear you no mo’!

         The Cerberus thundered, saliva dripping from their hungry jaws, ready to snap up the sinning singers.

THATCHER: We’re innocent!

MELVIN: Not guilty!

ESTHER: Let us go!

         The front door slammed open. The choir went quiet and the dancers stood still, their intricate footwork replaced by drunken staggers. Cali whispered to Ollie.

CALI: We should leave.

OLLIE: I-I have to stay. You should too.

CALI: Why?

OLLIE: You can’t keep running away forever. You have to stand up—

CALI: What’s that gotten me? Look at my nose!

         Cali softly shouted. Her nose was slightly bent.

CALI: I’m leaving for the night.

5: Thalia5 and her Comedies

I continued my intermittent stays at our home for a few more years, hiatuses gradually increasing, until finally I left for good. It was a few years after when I first met Sophia.

Storm clouds had formed and started thundering. I held my lawyer-esque pleather briefcase over my head to block out the rain. But I was not a lawyer: I was a freelance writer. And all that meant was that I was broke half the time. I arrived at the Helicon Cafe, my favorite haunt, and rushed in drenched. In such nocturnal hours, I had not expected a single other soul to be present, and yet there she sat, in the corner, like she was a regular. When I walked in, she waved and smiled. I smiled nervously in return, and then retreated to my favorite booth in the far back.

         I opened my briefcase… and a river of rainwater flowed out.

         “Oh f*ck! Oh no!”

         I couldn’t help but scream. I could see bits of my drafts and manuscripts washing out in the water. Before I could scramble though, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

         “Ooo. That looks bad. Here, don’t panic. You could make things worse if you move it around too much.”

         It was her. Her big black eyes gazed with utmost calm at my storming sea of wet paper. My mouth hung open as she delicately unzipped the pockets of the briefcase and deftly removed my remaining tattered notebooks. It took me a bit to stop standing around like an idiot and help her.
         “Let’s warm these up so they dry faster. If they’re soaked for any longer they’re as good as that.”

She motioned at the puddle of paper on the floor. I dumbly nodded. We tried looking around in the bathroom for a hand dryer but none of them worked, and then the heating vents were all too steep to hold anything, so she placed them on an electric stove. Curiously, there weren’t any staff besides janitors at this time of night. It was just open for loners like me.

“This’ll work.”

I was so enamored with her already, but the conviction with which she spoke those words only allowed me to agree. I stared at her bobbed-up black hair and skinny body. She smelled so good and her hips tilted with utmost grace. I swear I’m not short, but she was tall and I felt comforted in her shadow.

“I’m Sophia, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Uh, I’m Cali.”

“Cali, huh? Are you from around here?”

She started walking back to our table and we sat under the dim orange lighting.

“Yeah, I grew up not far from here, actually.”

“Are you a… budding lawyer?”

“Oh, God no. I’m a writer.”

“Journalist?”

“No. Well, I’m freelance, so sometimes I have to be. But I like writing. Writing about people.”

“I suppose I’m a bit of a writer too,” Sophia chuckled.

“Yeah? What do you do?”

“It’s just a hobby, but I sing my own songs.”

“Can you sing for me?” I blurted out. I couldn’t help it. Her voice was bubbling over me like a cool stream over my hot coals. A completeness I didn’t know I could feel steamed out of my mind. It was magical in the moment, and magical forever as she laughed with mirth and started singing.

“She’s with the gods, that girl

Sitting on that swing

Face to face, and I’ll

Sip on that voice’s ring

And that girl excites me,

Her laugh glittering

And she kisses me,

My lips left quivering

My tongue freezes. Fire.

Blind, stunned, deaf

Thundering, I cry—”

And the flames exploded into the air.

“Sh*t! What was that?” Sophia jumped like a deer and hurried to the kitchen. I was shaken out of the trance and followed her. On top of the stove sat my once-soaking manuscripts now blazing. Sophia looked at me with her childlike eyes.

“Oops.”

         A few months later and Sophia Amato moved in with me. It was after one of our daily Helicon rendezvous:

         “Can I move in with you?”

         “In my apartment? You’ve been there. It’s so-it’s so sh*tty.”

         “I think it’s comfy.”

Why she wanted to give up everything to live in the junkyard that was my one-bedroom apartment was beyond me. But more surprisingly, I learned during that time that she was the granddaughter of the founder of General Magnetic, and that she was quite wealthy.

“What’s Amato from?”

“Italian.”

“I knew that. From who?”

“So pushy, Cali. I mean,” She looked to the side shyly. “I’m Vecchio Amato’s granddaughter.”

“Who?”

Sophia looked at me confused.

“You don’t know him? The founder of General Magnetic.”

“Wait, what? You’re the granddaughter of the founder of General Magnetic?”

She nodded.

“Are you rich?”

She nodded again.

“Well, if you’re so rich, why me? I’m just some starving artist—er, writer—but there’s a lot of fish in the sea. Like a lot.”

“I don’t really get invited to the Amato family reunions, if you know what I mean. My family doesn’t like… who I like. They still tolerate me though, but I’m on the outside.” Sophia was glum for a moment, but looked up with newfound glee. “With you!”

We tidied everything up and lived happily together, like two adjacent puzzle pieces: a spiky and jagged piece that was me, and the accepting piece that was Sophia, who enveloped all of me that needed to be.

6: Melpomene6 and her Tragedies

The stage is empty, save a figure in shadow. They walk up to the audience…

SHADOW: Clifford Musa, a former professor of history, has stepped down from his post after the death of his wife. Ulysses Musa, a prominent astrophysicist, is in critical condition after suffering a heart attack.

The fifth anniversary of Esther Musa’s tragic death was celebrated at memorial concerts around the world. Siblings of Esther—famed ballet dancer Teresa Musa and acting duo Thatcher and Melvin Musa—spoke at a drug abuse prevention conference the same day.

Erin Easton (born Erin Musa), adult entertainment performer, has retired, to the surprise of many, and announced her conversion to Christianity. Polly Musa has formally rescinded her vows.

Sophia Amato, granddaughter of Vecchio Amato, founder of General Magnetic, remains missing.

7: Erato7 and her Hymns

         Sophia Amato and I lived together for almost a year.

On one fateful day, I came back to our apartment.

I had spent the day working at my new job,

       A job I enjoyed a lot: scriptwriting for a studio.

Although Sophia didn’t need to work, given her family’s wealth,

       She spent her days as an editor for other writers.

She’d always arrive home before me, and it was the case that day too.

       I opened the door and walked in.

Both Sophia and I had tirelessly worked to renovate our room;

       We repainted the walls, fixed up a proper kitchen, renovated the bathroom—

It soon turned into a home.

       That day, Sophia was sitting on our couch, reading

         And then she looked up:
                   “Cali, do you love me?”

         I responded:

                   “Of course I do, honey.”

         Sophia smiled and stood up.

                   She wore her black hair in a cloud around her

         And I smelled her as she approached me.

                   I was once again lost on those big black eyes,

         Holes into another world that watched with divine sincerity,

                   Her cheekbones glinted off the ceiling lights

         In a way that made her face glow.

                   And then she grabbed me

And I was kissed for the first time,

       And then I kissed

And her lips tasted like cherries

       And the cherry lips tasted back

And we fell asleep kissing,

       With nothing to eat but cherry lips.

8: Polyhymnia8 and her Romances

         I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat. A spot on our bed was empty. Sophia had never woken at this hour before. I scrambled out of bed and rushed through our living room and bathroom. I dragged on some jeans and charged out the front door, running up to the rooftop and back down to the ground floor.

I found nobody, and our car was gone.

I stood on the empty midnight sidewalk, picked a random direction, and sprinted in hopes that I could somehow catch her. I ran possessed, but eventually I tired. I stood forlorn, huffing and puffing, on a bridge on the outskirts of the town over a gentle river and looked out at the reflection of the moon in the water. My tears dripped down the sides of my face and fell from my chin. I trudged home.

         A few days later I truly registered her absence. Sophia left me. The next two years of my life I spent in a haze. I would wake up, go to work, and then come home and sleep on my side of the bed. That was until one day, when I decided to walk to my childhood house. It was only a few hours away. I arrived to see it overgrown with vines and crumbling.

It was too rotten even for squatters. I pushed open the front door and looked inside. I ran my fingertips along the broken fireplace and smelled the moldy air. The bathtub had fallen through the ceiling long ago and now sat shattered on the first floor. Nothing was left to look at in this house.

I walked back home, past Helicon. I looked inside the window, but only dusty chairs were stacked up inside the bankrupt cafe. And then I stepped back inside our apartment and sat on the bed. I turned around to pick up the cherries on her pillow and slowly ate them.

My name was Cali, short for

9: Calliope9, and Her Name was Sappho10.

Notes:

1 The Muse of History (Clifford)

2 The Muse of Astronomy (Ulysses)

3 The Muse of Music (Esther)

4 The Muse of Dance and Plays (Teresa)

5 The Muse of Comedy and Idyllic Poetry (Thatcher)

6 The Muse of Tragedy and Plays (Melvin)

7 The Muse of Love Poetry (Erin), here borrowing from Polyhymnia

8 The Muse of Hymns (Polly), here borrowing from Erato

9 Chief of all Muses and the Muse of Epic Poetry (Cali)

10 A famed Ancient Greek poet, nicknamed “The Tenth Muse” (Sophia)