daron aric hagen

The late August 1981 air streaming up the escalators into that glorious thirties Art Deco celebration of the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad at its height Thirtieth Street Station, long past midnight, having just disembarked the Owl, felt like cold sweat on the back of my neck. I'd just dropped the moving van off in Bridgeport after a straight-shot drive from Wisconsin to Philadelphia. Unloading the truck and then driving off hadn't felt like an arrival. This did.

I had read somewhere that the roof had been reinforced so that small planes could land on it — it was that big. The original station even included a chapel and a mortuary. To me at that moment, it was the belly of the whale, site of my final separation from known world and self. I was nineteen, ripe for transformation, and had accomplished nothing; I was filled with potential, eager for the road of trials to unfurl before me. I'll never forget the first time I looked up into the sad, blank eyes of Walker Hancock's ebony statue of the archangel Michael cradling a dead soldier, or the first whiff of the city itself as I left the station's cool stillness and felt as though I were swimming through the clingy, alluring fetidity of the night air.

I'd been many times to Chicago, but Philly was my first Big City. Too excited to be scared, I walked for the rest of the night. After a few hours, I ended up at Day's Deli, a block away from the Curtis. The refrigerated air that poured out as I opened the door smelt of burnt toast and grease. I learned later that what I smelled was scrapple. The coffee I ordered as dawn broke was just terrible, the eggs not much better. I just loved them. Two old men drank tea and argued about Goethe. My sixty-something waitress had a broad south Philly accent and called me 'honey.' When I told her that this really qualified no kidding as the first day of the rest of my life she smiled wistfully and brought me a free piece of pie.

The most powerful scent, as I stepped through the heavy front doors of the Curtis Institute for the first time, a few hours later, that sweltering morning was of furniture polish. The second was of dust; the third was the cologne of Clarence, the burly African American security guard, who drawled, 'Now who might you be?' Back then the stairway was not yet enclosed, so the odor of the chunks of camphor that were placed in the pianos in the studios upstairs drifted faintly down.  I experienced a frisson as I took it all in.

Clarence jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. 'Speak to her,' he said, returning to his newspaper. I introduced myself to an elegant and dignified woman named Shirley Schachtel who welcomed me with an agreeable kindly formality and, noting my pallor, guided me quickly to a chair near the fireplace. I smelled her delicate perfume as she placed her hand on my shoulder. There were goldfish in my stomach; I looked down at my hands to steady myself.  'So, you're brand new. Did you come to compose?' she asked. 'Yes. Oh, yes,' I answered fiercely, looking up. Oh, I was on fire.