Notes From The Midnight Driver

The next time that Alex is scheduled to meet with Sol, he’s late after jazz band practice, where he had been struggling with the music. At the hospital, Nurse Case explains that Sol is at hydrotherapy and Alex can wait for a little while, so he goes into Sol’s room and continues practicing his music, finally “starting to get the rhythm and the notes right at the same time” (75). Alex is so distracted that he doesn’t hear the nurses wheel Sol back into the room. Sol immediately begins pestering him about what he’s playing and why. Though Alex is prepared for criticism, Sol asks instead that Alex play for him.

Alex starts out with the other song he has sheet music for, a song by Miles Davis; after starting, Alex sees that Sol’s “eyes were closed” (78) and his “face looked almost peaceful” (78). When the song ends, Sol requests more, and Alex feels overjoyed that he “had found something […] that Solomon Lewis liked” (79). 

Though Alex is finally “un-grounded” (81), he stays at home often to keep practicing guitar so he can play jazz for Sol, which he does twice a week. When Alex unveils a new piece he’s been working on, which is a “medley from this play called Fiddler on the Roof” (82), he is shocked to find that not only have multiple senior residents come into the room to listen, but Sol “looked as though he was crying silently” (85) after the final song, “Sunrise, Sunset.”

After the other residents leave the room, Alex asks Sol if he is ok. Though moved by the music, Sol responds dismissively. Alex leaves feeling confused about the reaction he received but also happy that he and Sol were able to connect in this new way.

Over December vacation, Alex is lonely since Laurie is away and his mother is working extra. So, when Alex finds his father sitting “on Mom’s front step one day” (87), he is a little more open to talking with him than before. They begin talking, and Alex is surprised to hear that his father has “accepted a job in Philadelphia” (89). Alex is upset at the news and begins responding more critically to his father. As the conversation gets to a head, Alex’s mother shows up, so his dad leaves, and Alex shares the news with his mother.

A few days later, Alex brings a book on jazz to Sol, where he finds Sol hooked up to a tube in his nose. Alex describes what the book is about, the pianist Thelonious Monk, and is pretty sure Sol’s response is “I knew him” (93), but “it was hard to make out the exact words” (93). Sol is having trouble talking with ease, so answers Alex’s next question, about where his new flowers came from, very slowly. The flowers are for his daughter, Judy, a lawyer.

Alex decides to ask Sol more about his health condition since it seems to have progressed. Sol explains about having emphysema and all of the related treatments he receives. Before leaving, Alex talks to the nurse at the front desk and finds out that Sol’s daughter “never comes” (95), even though Sol buys her flowers every year. Alex writes in his follow-up to Judge Trent about the discovery, saying that he has learned that “you can’t just throw somebody out of your life when they displease you” (97). Alex closes the letter with a request to work more than the 100 hours of community service.