Tommy Cecil
Chapter 10
Joe Lawrence loved music, all kinds too, and I admired that about him. He often had bands from our local area come to play on the weekends. My first intervention with Tommy Cecil was on a Friday Night, playing an Eagles’ song, James Dean, then he followed up with David Bowie’s Suffragette City. Damn, this blew me and the whole audience there away! Tommy had a gift that few could ever master in twenty lifetimes.
Tommy wasn't educated at Harvard or Princeton, yet you could certainly say his erudition was an innate musical phenomenon. I conjecture that Tommy’s French ancestry runs deep with Gallic euphonious minstrels. Tommy utilized this gift to perfection; one might even say he had a pact with the devil, or delved deep into the Codex Gigas, because he was a master.
Tommy was a reserved man of few words, yet when he sang, the women hovered around him like ancient elders around a campfire. How could a person like Tommy conjure up so much talent from modest surroundings? Tommy was quiet as a ghost in a monastery, yet patient as a marble bust. Tommy’s music is his universal gift, he's a profound musician who always thought his sound was superficial when haggling over the right magical chord. Like Tommy, we both received our knowledge from the same God-lit candle at St. Thomas. His conscience was as stark as Gabriel's, he could sleep through a hurricane; he had no enemies!
He played that mandolin magnificently, he was adroit as an octopus, and yes, I envied him, and for whom myself, was as adroit as a sloth-I'm no musician. Tommy was kind to everyone, very respectful to all who entered his charmed circle. Ignorance never won any battles, yet kindness wins every contest.
Tommy had brothers too, and I think all of them played music very well. The Cecil Family endured hardships like every Catholic family, yet never lost God.
