Kurt Scott
Light in Your Heart, Crisp in Your Step by Kurt Scott
The Parrot Commons, which sits in the shadow of the University on the corner of 57th and Kenwood, is as good a squat as any, and on Saturday mornings, you can’t beat it. I have the park to myself until around midday by arrangement with Gerald, Marion and some of the other cats who sit-in at the Checkerboard lounge. We play in shifts through the day beneath the giant bell-shaped nests that hang from the ash trees, and into the evening until the club gigs start, if you’ve got a gig. If you haven’t got a set to sit-in at, you play the Commons into the night until someone from the Dorchester Apartments calls the police, or you tire of playing to no one but the birds.
It's a good morning to be out here with my horn. The park itself, and everything in it, is riding a song that I could chase for hours and hours. But what I don't forget, can't ever let myself forget, is that a beautiful day like this is the most dangerous time to be playing. It has a way of tempting you into the comfort of what you already know. The hot sun and the lake-cooled breeze, they come to you and say, you'll never know anything so fresh and familiar at the same time! And why wouldn't you believe it? Christ, I've believed it. But you let it under your collar, and like that, that song of yours, that true song of yours, dies, in front of all these people. To look at them, shit, they couldn't care less. What has left you is something they all know, but could never, ever recognize. And so, I have learned, I am learning, to play outside the beauty of a day like this. I walk to the edge, describe it to myself as simply as I can, and then contain it. And that’s where my sound comes from. It comes from what I’ve contained. A bum who has been listening from his spot of shade under the ash tree, he knows the sound. He jumps up and casts garbage all over the grass so he can beat out the perfectly hollow sound of an overturned trash bin. Well beat on, brother. I'm going to hold this thing down as long as I know how.
And then a little girl comes, seems a little girl always comes, and on this Saturday, a little girl is walked by two grown people over to where I'm playing. They are dressed in clothes that are nearly fine. The man is wearing corduroys with pleats that shine from years of bad ironing, and the woman, who is holding her arms folded under her breasts, has too-short sleeves that expose a man's watch on her wrist. The little girl is listening, but they've brought her to see the parrots.
You already told me about them, she says.
What did we tell you?
They flew away from their owners a long time ago.
And then-
And then they had lots of babies and now they're wild again. See? I know it. And then she breaks free of their hold to go throw sticks into the fountain.
With my time on this squat coming to a close, I stuff my tips into my pocket, and decide to play one last song. The birds are flying above my head, threatening the disruption of song or shit, and I want to play for her, all of them, a tune about disrepair. But there, standing beneath those nests, I can't find the notes to conjure anything quite so permanent.
After the park, I head to Gloria’s place. She meets me at the door in pajamas, though it’s the early afternoon. She is in a red t-shirt that meets her halfway down her naked thighs. I suspect she’s been up all night. I kiss her on the forehead, and she walks that heavy-footed walk of hers into the kitchen, from which returns with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“I’m not in the mood,” I say.
“You’ll change your mind in a second, so why don’t I leave it out.”
“If I change my mind, it’ll be because you left it out, and I don’t want to change my mind because I’m not in a natural mood to be drinking at this hour of day.”
“Don’t be like that,” she says.
“Like what?” I say, “You offered, and I’ve declined. Politely.”
I lay my trumpet case beside me on the couch, and she sets it on the floor. When I sit down, she takes my face into both of my hands and kisses me below my ear.
In Gloria’s apartment, the furniture is all a deep rust color, and there are windows all along the West wall. When in the afternoon the sun passes to that side of the building and the stereo is humming with something good, the small ornamental mirrors on the wall, items she’s collected from antique shops since she was a little girl, shake a little bit, winking with the light. I watch them when I don’t feel like talking. You can look at the blinking mirrors because they are always interesting, and you, being a person who appreciates such things, hope to be forgiven your silence as you stop to take interest.
Gloria sits up quickly, shifts her nearly-bare ass to the edge of her cushion, and looks down at me from the heights she’s ascended to.
“Something’s on your mind,” she says. “Gideon, come on now. If you’re gonna sit there all sullen, may as well take your butt back to your daddy’s place and do it there. What’s up?”
“Can we turn on the stereo? I think Arkansas Red’s show is coming on.”
She gets up and turns on the stereo, then goes into the kitchen. When she comes back she has a carafe filled with cloudy tap water, and she begins to fill the plant pots on the window ledge.
“It’s like this, Gloria,” I say as I stand up. “I’ve been thinking about my music, and what I’m going to do with it, and most of the time, I feel like it’s nothing. And I’m fine if it stays nothing. It’s just that thinking I’ll never do shit is a dangerous place to start from, if I ever do something with this music.”
“I’ll pretend I follow.”
“In the park today, I could hear my sound becoming my own. Do you know what I mean by that?
“Think so, yes.”
“Once that happens, things can come together so quickly. I could get second trumpet on a recording, quit teaching, sit in regularly at the Green Mill or The Dolphin Club; somewhere out of the goddamn neighborhood. I’m afraid I’m going to be left-“
“Reeling?”
“I know you’re poking fun, but yes.”
“That’s when the heroin addiction starts. There’s always the heroin addiction.”
“Please stop.”
“Then alcoholism. Loose women. Crabs!”
“Gloria.”
"And after your lady and your manager run away with all of your money, you'd think the canon would give you credit for your contributions to the form, but nope. At least not until a Jewish boy from Brooklyn covers your album.”
“Today, for once, I need you to take me seriously.”
“I think I’d better, because you are looking very, very serious right now, boogie bear.”
“Listen to me,” I say. “If you’d rather get drunk and mock me than exercise the little bit of imagination and character I’m asking of you, I’ll go home.”
This cuts her. I walk to her and kiss the back of her neck, and her skin tastes like garlic. When Gloria cooks, she stands in front of the pot the entire time and hasn’t the sense to crack a window. I think of a line in a song that warns about mistaking impracticality in women for poetry. I don’t know if I believe in any such thing. But I’ve never thought a good song tempted you to believe so much as borrow, and it’s a sentiment I’ve been carrying in my pocket for some time.
She pulls away from me.
“You think I don’t take you seriously. Well, I’ll tell you, you don’t seem serious about this thing to me. Not the way you act. Did you think I hadn’t heard about what happened at the Checkerboard the other night?”
“I know you haven’t heard my side of it.”
“To talk to another musician like that on stage with everyone watching. For fuck’s sake, Gideon. It honestly hurt me to hear that you’d done that. Do you think you’re that good? Think you can shit on somebody else’s talent like that? I know I just teach music, as you like to point out, but let me tell you-”
“Don’t say what you can’t take back,” I say.
“ What the hell are you gonna tell Bumby ? I’d imagine he’s had his fill of this crap from you.”
“I’ll apologize when we go in tonight. What more can I do?”
“When we go in? Nuh-uh, there’s no we tonight. No sir. You let me know when the folks over there are once again under the impression that you’ve got some manners.”
“I’m asking you to please come with me.” I move into her, and pass my hand under the back of her shirt, searching for where the muscles in her back meet in a valley, and follow it down to the crack of her ass. “Please.”
“No.”
“I’m going to need you.”
I sit down on the couch and pull her down beside me. She finishes the bottle of wine and we listen to music as we flip playing cards over in successive games of Rummy, Egyptian Ratscrew and Beauregard. When the heat and the sunlight of the lowering sun begin to pass through her dirty windows and the overlapping leaves of the scheflarra plants, we stretch out onto the couch and settle into sleep. On the radio, Red is playing an old Leon Fidahbeck track, from before Leon got corny. In his unspoiled beginnings, his cornet rings high and shrill and true. Even at low volume, it cuts the very dust of afternoon. Disturbed from her nap, Gloria tries to lift off of me, but I hold her.
“Leave it on,” I say. “When Red’s show ends, I’ll know it’s time to get ready to go.”
We leave the apartment some time around 10:00 pm, and walk slowly down Lake Shore Boulevard on the side of the street where there’s only enough sidewalk for us to walk single file. The air is cold and has a late summer night’s dampness so I button up, and turn to make sure Gloria’s wearing a jacket. She isn’t. I give her mine, and she turns up the collar and sticks her hands deep into the pockets, her knuckles stressing the seams. After a few blocks, I start to really feel the cold and so I cross us to the other side of the street, where we can walk arm in arm.
We pass Horace Mann Middle School which looks strange and ruinous at night. There isn’t a spot of grass around it, just weed-poked concrete and the twisted steel of the jungle gyms. I look up at my classroom on the fourth floor. From the light of the street lamp I can see the flag, and the first two faces in the row of “Great African-American” achievers posters. Can’t make them out but I remember from their positioning that the first is Paul Robeson, and the second is either Carol Mosley Braun or Bill Withers.
“That’s right, keep looking. You wanna be thinking about how there’s school tomorrow all night long?” She takes my face in my hand and turns it towards her. “Man, you should’ve shaved.”
“We have to go back whether we think about it or not, and it’s not like not looking is gonna make me not think about it.”
Gloria’s classroom is on the floor below mine and six windows to the right. She teaches music to 5th and 7th graders. On her first day, one of them called her a dyke on account of the afro-puffs she wore her hair in, and when she walked to her car after last bell, she found three unwrapped condoms on the windshield of her car. I’d been in the principal’s office filling out forms when she came in. She had looked relatively steady, considering. That was the first time I’d seen her, but we didn’t meet for weeks after that. And not for weeks after that did I invite her to my father’s apartment to listen to music and play Chinese checkers and bake jerk chicken in a old, grease stained pan.
“You don’t hate it that much, do you?” she says.
“No more than you should.”
“Well I don’t. And if you were going to convince me to hate it, you would have done it by now, so stop.”
“Not trying to convince you of anything, baby. I promise.”
“Don’t start talking like that. Please? You get within a mile of the club and you think you’re Shaft. I realize you like to have fun and turn on the jive with your friends, but spare me that act ok? ”
I pull my arm out of hers, and lay it on her narrow, forward-slumping shoulders. “Look, Gloria. There’s a line tonight.”
The old Checkerboard, one of the last holdovers from when the scene moved to the North side of the city, sits so close to the street the traffic light hangs above it like a slow-flashing disco ball. Tonight, there’s a group of kids waiting by the side entrance. They tried to use the door in the alley as a VIP entrance for a couple of years, but after everyone began to know everyone, they just made it the main door. Now you can go and lean under the marquee in between sets when you want to smoke a cigarette and be left alone. Gloria and I walk to the front of the line. Walking to the front always makes her uncomfortable, and I wonder if I’d be sad if that ever changed.
The bouncer, a sour-faced brother whose name I can never remember is bouncing nods to us, and we walk through the door.
Everybody and nobody is in tonight. I look up and down the long parallel benches that run perpindicular to the stage, and close to the front are the college students, and a bit father back are the graduate students, and even farther back are grad students who’ve managed to get themselves some neighborhood girlfriends. In the back, on the other side of the island bar, sit the regulars. Mechanics from the Aamoco down the street, short line cooks, bus drivers from the number 6 route and some old men who I imagine don’t do much at all. They like to sit there because from there you can see both stage and the college kids, and the bartenders can see you, and it’s a trip when one of the old-timers catches the feeling of a good tune, raise two fingers for a drink, grabs one of the young girls for a dance and barely completes a three-step before they have a whiskey and water in their hands, of which they never spill a drop. It’s a very good trick, I think. The Checkerboard isn’t a great club, but it’s good for seeing tricks like that.
Gloria and I sit at one of the tall tables beneath the neon Heineken sign in back with the regulars. The bartender, Neoleene, brings by a glass of wine for Gloria and a tonic water for me, and quickly moves onto another table. There’s a good set going on. Van Heusen has made a rare appearance. It must be a slow night up North. Adlo is fairly crisp on the keys, and Barry’s bass…Jesus, Barry. Barry’s bass is walking them in and out of something positively gorgeous.
And there is Gerald, outclassed as always, trying to play catch-up like a short-legged dog.
We eat the free popcorn in the plastic dishes and occasionally smile at each other. I’m holding Gloria’s hand under the table and spin her rings between my thumb and forefinger, when Bumby Chalmers walks in from the back, carrying two big bags of ice on each of his broad shoulders, ducking his bald head beneath the threshold of the door. Neolene and one of the waitresses rush to him, take the ice and place it behind the bar. Once he catches his breath, he nods at one of the girls and she hands him a drink. He swirls his cocktail straw in his drink, and surveys the scene. I know Gloria is going to ask so I answer.
“I wanna give him a minute,” I say. “There’s no rush.”
“None at all.” she says, and puts her folded hands on her crossed legs. “Do you know what you’ll say? Of course you know what you’ll say.”
“I’m not begging, if that’s what you mean”.
“No one said anything about begging.” She gets up. “Listen I’m going to go see what the girls are talking about,” and walks over to the picnic tables and sits with a couple of girls with whom she’d graduated from the University. I think of those old lyrics, Baby I Hate to See you Go, but I love watching you walk away. It doesn’t altogether fit. Gloria’s bottom is wide and motionless, but I like the feeling of a lyric finding you in the right moment, so I hold onto it. When the first set ends, that Gerald smiles and nods in a semi-circle, and quickly packs up his horn and lays it in his lap, and he talks to Adlo and Barry for a minute. How it is that they don’t know he’s showcasing their approval, I’ll never know. They receive a round of drinks, and they do their in-between set partying right there on the goddamn stage.
A big pork chop of a hand claps on my back. I turn around and it’s Bumby.
“Big Man, how are you?”
“Been all right, Bumby. What’s the latest.”
“Not a damn,” he says and pulls Gloria’s stool under him. He picks up her expensive, checkered purse, looks at it cross eyed, and puts it on the floor and replaces it with his drink. “It’s been slow, but I don’t mind. It’s nice to let the place air out every now and then.”
“Too bad about what sticks to the vents,” I say, and nod over at the picnic tables.
“The kids are buying drinks tonight.” he says, picking the long hairs from his ghoatee. He’s still shallow into the waters so he’s fidgeting more than you usually see a large man fidget.“Your girl says they ain’t tipping for shit, but they drinking.” He moves his stool over to mine and reaches into his pocket. “How’s your father Giddy?”
“He’s well. Out of town. Academic conference out East.”
“Woooh, run of the house! When’s the party?”
“Oh, no sir. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Good man. I’ll sleep easier knowing no one will be spilling Mad Dog on the Professor’s nice couch.” He takes a long drink from his cocktail. “Check this out, Gids.” He hands me a flyer that was drawn with a marker and then photocopied. . Van Heusen’s 76th birthday party. “You give that a look.”
“I’d heard about this.”
“So you cool with it?”
“The man’s gonna age with or without my say-so.”
He laughs and puts his arm around me. Gerald and them, who are sitting with some old timers, look over and nod.
“I tell people, Gids, when they’re saying what they say about you, when they look at you in those faggoty straight-leg pants, I tell them, ‘yeah, that’s what you see coming, but you know how I knew he could blow?”
“How’s that Bumby. How did you know I could blow.”
“I tell them, because the boy plays dumb and smart at the same time. That’s always the sign right there.” Bumby stops smiling, and takes another sip from his drink. “I’ll tell you, though, I haven’t forgotten that business about you talking to Gerald that way. You know better than to say anything like that to Gerald, and you know better than to say anything to Gerald like that with the microphone three-goddamn-inches from your face on my stage.”
“I didn’t -“
“...And the only reason why I didn’t throw you out by the seat of your faggoty straight-leg pants when I walked in tonight was because you were with your lady, and I doubt her bougie ass has seen a nigga get his ass-whooped up close, and it would have been a damn shame if the first time had to be her man.”
“It would’ve been a shame, yes.”
“But I sat for a minute and I thought about it. And I thought that maybe when someone smart like you does stupid shit over and over again, maybe there’s a frustration there. But I don’t recall you ever coming to say anything to me so you got me here guessing. You think I got time to be sitting here guessing about what’s eating you?”
“I’d imagine you don’t.”
“You been sitting-in on Sundays?”
“Every Sunday, Bumby. First note to lights out.”
“Tuesays?”
“Most times, yes.”
“So I suppose you want a permanent spot in the Saturday night set.”
Over at the tables, Gloria laughs loudly. She is there huddled in close with heads with the picnic-bench girls, and I quickly cast my glance elsewhere, hoping Bumby’s will follow.
“Bumby you see Gerald fucking up just as I do. He can’t read Barry at all.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you treated him real ugly, Gideon.”
“I know, it’s just -“
“I’m going to let you do the last set.”
“You’re serious?”
“And Vanny’s birthday.”
“You’re serious.”
“They’ll be playing some of that corny mess you don’t like to play. Ragging ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ and all that, but I’m guessing you’ll live.”
“No, I’ll play it. I’ll play it.” I say. “Bumby, you know I’ll play any of it.”
“I don’t know nothin’” He looks wistful. His eye catches a couple frayed wires hanging from a ceiling fixture. He squints and then turns those eyes on me, two black lights, searching. “What’s happening between you and me is something very sad, Gids. I like you. Neo says I’m drinking your Kool-aid big time, and I think I believe her.”
“Thank you Bumbs. You know I appreciate that things are still fine between us. It hurt me when I thought I’d fucked it all up.”
“Are you hearing me? It's a very sad thing. Because when I get soft like this, I can’t help you anymore.”
“You’re helping me now, Bumbs. You’re helping me tonight. And I’m going to help you as best I can.”
“I guess I can see how it is you feel that way, because my bet is that this is the only way you’ve ever had it. You can sit back here with the brothers all you like, but you’d fit in just as well up front. So I wonder if I’m not doing more harm than good by putting up with your shit. It’s not good for the club, it’s not good for you, and it’s definitely not good for you. But then why do it at all? You don’t need this place to eat. You teach. I turn you out of here and you’ll still play in the park, and have your father’s -.”
“Turn me out of here and I’d go up North and sit in at the Showcase. Or Andy’s. Not right away but soon. I don’t think you doubt that. It’d mean that I’d have to start over, but it would happen for me.”
“I know it would, Gideon.”
“And I’m not going to teach at the Middle School anymore, Bumby. Did I tell you that? I’m going to stay on until the holiday break, put in my notice, and that’ll be that.”
“Well damn, boy.” Bumby takes out a handkerchief and passes it over his bald head, which is pistachioed by the green neon lights. “Damn. I know my boys will be sorry to hear that. Awfully sorry.”
“They’ll get someone better. You have good kids. They can learn from anyone.”
Gloria comes back to the table, smoothing the front of her dress as she walks. I look at the old man, and like most old men he can tell when it’s time to be quiet. He takes a breath and shuts his eyes before he lifts his drink and pulls lips and arms apart and swallows her into his chest.
“Miss Gloria,” he says, “You’d better stay by me, Miss Gloria, lest one of these scoundrels bites that dress right off of you.”
“Mr. Chalmers, that’d be a shame. I chose this dress because of how bite-able it is.”
He holds her out by the shoulders just in front of his big belly. They both laugh, and then look at each other, briefly, with the surprised affection of children.
“Be good, y’all,” he says. "And Gloria, get this boy to unload some and stop acting so serious. This is a party!" He leaves the table and then joins a man with a purple, long-coated suit standing by the far wall.
“So?” she says.
“What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“You know exactly what I mean. What’s the verdict?”
“We’re good.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Really!”
“I said yes, Gloria. Come on now.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls places her soft hands on the back of my head and brings her mouth to my ear. She draws her breath in to whisper.
“You know I love you?”
“Yes, I do, sweets. And I love you too.” She can feel my wet glass through her dress on the small of her back so she feels around for it, takes it out of my hand and puts it on the table.
“No you don’t. But I believe you would if you could. And I see you’re trying to learn. You’re going about it the wrong way, but you’re trying to learn, boogie bear.” I want her to pull away so I can see her face and know that she is drunk but she holds me tight by the back of the head. “But I do know that you need to see that for yourself, and the only way for you to do that is to do...all this.”
“Gloria I never said that. You know I never -”
“All I’m saying is break a leg. Do good. Light it up tonight. Blow thunder. Or whatever.”
She pulls away. “Did Bumbs tell you what you’ll be playing?”
“We’ll decide a lot of it when we’re up there, but I’d heard Vanny definitely wants to do some Milky Colwell. He likes that old - ”
“Oh! Will they do the one that goes da daaa daa daaaaa-daaa, Young maaan, be crisp in your steeeeep? That one?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Except there are none of the girls who do vocals are in tonight, so it’ll be strictly instrumental. I put that song into Vanny, though.”
“You don’t have to,” she says. “Boogie bear, let’s go down and sit with my friends for a minute ok?”
“You can go ahead, but I’m fine here.”
She stays and toys with the straw in her drink.
Neolene comes to the table and stands leaning her back against the table and tapping her fingers on the empty tray to the beat.
“Hear ‘em?” she says.
“I hear ‘em,” I say.
“Hear ‘em, Gloria?”
“They sound nice.”
“Another round, my beautiful babies?”
“Slow comfortable screw, Neo,” Gloria says.
Neo turns her head in my direction, looking confused.
“It’s Sloe Gin, SoCo and OJ, boo,” I say.
“That’s a new one on me.”
“Save a sip for yourself, it’s not bad at all,” Gloria says.
“No, baby, no. It’s whisky that brung me and it’s whisky that’s gonna take me home.”
“Stay on your feet, boo, ‘cause I’m coming for my dance,” I say.
“I love how you think you gonna have me out there like these little girls. You must be out yo’ damn mind.”
“We’re going to start with some steppin’, and then the Charlie Brown, and then finish it off with the Percolator. Double time. Make your draws dirty.”
She laughs from her stomach and then grabs Gloria’s head and holds it to her chest.
“Don’t bring his stupid ass in here anymore, you hear me? I can’t take it!”
Gloria looks at me stone-faced as she waits for Neo to let go and walk away from the table.
“She’s lit tonight. Wow,” she says.
“Just in a good mood, I’d say.”
“No, Neo never really even looks at me, but tonight, all of a sudden she’s rubbing Activator all over my shirt.”
“She makes you uncomfortable.”
“Not nearly as much as she’d like to.”
“I don’t believe she’s ever said an unkind word to you. Not once, in all the times we’ve been in here.”
“Boogs, if words were the only way to make people feel something, you’d have to find yourself a new hobby.”
She turns her head towards the stage and puts two fingers in her mouth to whistle, and then she claps loudly. Gerald and them have just finished a song and she takes the opportunity to look away so as to pretend she doesn’t see that she’s hurt me. Only Gerald and the gang are behind in the set, so they jump into the next song quickly and she must turn again to look at me and I am here waiting, waiting to give her the receipt for what she’s bought and a little bit of change.
“I want to tell you everything you’ve got wrong about me, and you, but I don’t know who to start off with,” I say.
“Stop it, man. You know I didn’t mean it.”
“Who would you rather that I start off with, baby? I’m gonna leave it to you.”
“Man, don’t. I was just trying to piss you off.”
“I won’t. Because you asked Gloria, I won’t. But if ever, in the light of day, you’d like to know it all, just know that the offer stands.”
“Oh, I know it does. And I’ll take you up on it one day, believe me. But not tonight. I just want to hear you play. I don’t want you to up there upset.”
“Upset won’t mess with me any.”
When Neolene returns, she comes within a few feet and looks at us as if to knock on a door that isn’t there.
“Drinks!”
“Thank you.”
“Neo, let’s juke.”
“Now?”
“Yes now.”
I take her by the hand which is wet from the condensation of the glasses that she’s served and we walk out to dancefloor.
The music stops and Gerald and the boys look at me. Gerald raises his eyebrows as if to say to me, here it is! You wanted it! Here it is!
“Play another one Gerald,” I say. “Go on, I’m not gonna run you off yet. Stay your old butt up there and play another one.”
They all look at each other for a moment but are quick into their next song, which is a fast Sonny Rollins. The predictability of it makes me laugh and I spin Neolene around.
“You are too silly,” she says.
“Crisp up your steps some, Neo. I feel like I’m dancing with my Aunty.”
“Your Aunty!” She turns her back to me and switches her hips back and forth slowly. “Your aunty might’a taught you something about this.”
Vanny plays a hot lick, and she bucks-back, and it’s difficult for me to keep my balance when she punctuates her movements in that way. But I bend my knees, and grab her around the waist with both arms and lay my head on her back. The old-timers look on.
Young-BLOOD! Young-BLOOD! Don’t hurt y’self!
Put down what was too hot for you to pick up in the first place!
“Awww, isn’t he sweet?” Neolene says.
Sweet like a vinegar! Young-BLOOD have a seat and lemme have a go!
The two of us sway like this for a bit, and I turn her around. I put my face into her neck, which is sweaty between the folded flesh.
“Gideon, you should stop,” she says. “I don’t know if your girl knows you’re kidding.”
“Who says I’m kidding.” I place the fingertips of my right hand in the back of her pants.
“Stop.” Neo pulls away. “I’ve got tables Gideon. Thank you, baby. This was fun.”
“My pleasure, Neo.” The old men who sit at the tables beneath the chandelier are all wide-eyed and smiling. “Neo, why don’t you get the gallery here a round of drinks. Whatever they want.” I turn to them. “What is it you old bastards are drinking tonight? Ripple? Hennesey? What’s an old bastard drink on a Saturday night?”
“Gids, you shouldn't.”
“Of course I should. This is my night to celebrate.”
“Ok then. I’ll bring ‘em each another of what they had last.”
Neo returns in a few short minutes and hands out a drink to each of the men. None so much as looks in my direction.
She turns to me. “I haven’t been feeling well, Gideon. So I’m going to be closing out my tabs and going home. I’m sure you don’t mind if you pay up on this round now.”
“The round is on Bumby,” I say.
“Jesus, Giddy. Did he tell you that? Did he say that was all right?”
“He didn’t have to say,” I say. “I’m on first trumpet in the prime time set. I’m moving up. We’re celebrating!”
“Wait there.”
Neo walks over to the far west wall where Bumby is sitting alone at a table, polishing a beer tap with an oily rag. She speaks to him, and when his eyes widen, she stands in his line of vision so that he doesn’t see me. But he is up out of his chair, moving frighteningly swiftly for a big man and he is over here.
“What’s this Gideon?”
“West End Blues. C’mon Bumby, they play it every night.”
“I’m talking about the drinks. I need you to pay the round.”
I don’t say anything.
“Boy, I mean now, goddamn it.”
We stand there, looking at one another.
“Gideon, if I have to take you outside and tax that ass myself, you’re gonna put down on these drinks.”
“You are the consummate host, Bumby. Really. I’m more impressed every time I come.”
He grabs me by the front of my shirt and two buttons break immediately as though for effect.
“Mr. Chalmers.” I had not seen Gloria approach. “Mr. Chalmers don’t. You know what he’s doing.” She turns to me and puts her face close to mine. “Let him do it to himself, but don’t hurt him. I’ll get the drinks.”
“Don’t get shit, Gloria.” I say. “If you pay this asshole so much as a dollar-“
The mallet of a fist holding my shirt tightens.
“Let him go,” she says. “Please.”
He lets go.
“You’re not paying anything, baby,” he says. In the way they look at each other, it is as though there is exchanged understanding that makes me angry and relieved at once. “Get him out of here.”
"Oh please let me stay. I know Gerald's got some fresh-out-the-oven Coleman Hawkins he wants to drop on us."
“Get out,” Bumby says. "You done it now. That's it. Get out."
"I'll walk him out," Gloria says, and leads me by the arm.
When we reach the door, we look at each other but don't say anything. Finally she shakes her head and looks at her shoes.
"Some stupid part of me admires that you won't ask me to leave with you," she says. "It comes from the best and the worst in you."
She walks back to the front of the long picnic table, and I walk out the door.
47th street is a ghost town in the after hours. Aside from the club, the only thing open is a five and dime a couple blocks west. I walk there. Coonin’, dried-up mother fuckers! . But never mind. There’s no shame in being out here. Out here is where one needs to be. Besides, I can only fault myself. The lack of discipline in having played at a place where the staleness was so apparent to me all along, is nearly unforgivable. Maybe ten years ago, I could’ve learned something important from Old Vanny. Maybe ten years ago, Bumby could have introduced me to someone who’s a someone. But now, the Checkerboard is just a crumb from that big, South Side pie that the white college kids ate up as fast as Vanny, Gerald and all of those sweet-note playing, edgeless old-timers could serve it to them. Well it’s shit when it comes out the other end, Vanny. And Bumby Chalmers, you’re the goddamn devil for standing by the door grinning while it all happened, allowing yourself to be satisfied with a little change in your pocket and the flattery of a few young thangs. Bumby just up and retired without telling anyone. The Checkerboard is his own Ft. Lauderdale ranch house, and there I had been, tending to the lawn. But not any more. My art will grow in the park, like the bushes and the trees and the bees.
I buy a pack of cigarettes and some gum, and then walk back over to the club. I’ll stand there in the old entrance and wait until the let-out. Maybe some of the folks will want to go party in the Commons, or jam a bit back at my place.
I watch as a green BMW drives down the street slowly, lost. It moves past the club and goes out into the middle of the intersection. It stops and idles for a second, and then makes a cautious u-turn against the light. When the car is parked, and a black couple, middle-aged and well-dressed, steps out and heads in my direction. It isn’t until they’ve come hal -way across the street that I recognize them as friends of my father’s who live in the unit below us. I extinguish my cigarette.
“Young man,” the man says. “Is this the way in?”
“Around the corner,” I say.
“Bobby,”the woman says. “Can’t you see this is Martin’s boy?”
“Jesus, I didn’t recognize you! Manners!”
“You’ll have to give us your name again.”
“It’s Gideon.”
“Gideon! That’s it, isn’t it!”
“Gideon, what’ve you got in the case?” he says.
“It’s a trumpet.”
“You play here?”
“Of course he plays here!” she says. “Standing around on 47th street with a trumpet for no good reason. That make sense to you? That’s wonderful, boy, wonderful.”
“Unless you plan on smoking another,” she says. They both look at each other. “Will you walk us inside?”
“Give the lady your arm, son. It’ll make her night to walk in with one of the band. She doesn’t look it but Mirabelle is the original groupie.”
Talentless, stale-winded, no chops having...
“OK.”
We walk around the side and the line is as long as it had been when I’d first arrived. They look confused when I lead us to the back of it, but say nothing to me. As the line moves, I watch them trade comfort items in the way that married people do as they wait in lines. Did you bring chapstick? I did. Let me have a piece of kleenex. Here. A stick of gum, a lozenge, the corner of your kleenex so I can toss my gum? When we reach the front, I allow them to go in first. The same sour-faced brother is working the door. He may know what happened, he may not, but before he says anything, I reach into my pocket for my wad of this morning’s tips and put in his hand as I slide by.
The club is full now. There isn’t anywhere to sit, so we stand in the back corner near the restrooms.
“Boy, you have packed them in! Sweet Jesus!”
“I’ll be cussing your father when he gets back to town for not having told us! My God, he really should have told us!”
“Is the band on break?”
“Of course the band’s on break, dear. Do you hear music, dear?”
After we’ve stood for some time, the crowd quiets. The fellows take the stage again, and Gerald, enjoying the anticipation, takes a few unnecessary moments to chat and joke with the band. He then approaches the microphone, smiling.
“We had a request earlier.” He turns to joke some more, but shame prevents Bary, Adlo and Vanny from reciprocating this time. “We had a request from a very important man earlier, and even though it appears as though his royal majesty ain’t here no more to lead us on it.” He turns to solicit a few comedic flat chords from Adlo on the piano, and he receives them. There is some knowing laughter from the audience. “Even though he gone, it was a very, very good request, I thought, so we’re gonna play it. But we’re gonna need help. Miss Gloria, please grace the stage.”
“Who were they talking about?”
I shake my head.
After a moment, Gloria is both pushed by her girlfriends and helped by Gerald’s hand onto the stage. She smoothes out the front of her dress and smiles weakly while she blots her reddened eyes, and there is loud applause that seems to shake her about the knees. She is embarrassed and cannot decide whether to fight it, and in her indecision, she has a troubled beauty.
“Miss Gloria, you know this one well, I’m told, so here we go.”
Gerald plays the first few notes, and nearly hits all of them the way he’s supposed to, and then in come some lazy chords. The high-hat comes in, carefully knocking, and Gerald, with a crescendoed C, lets him in. For a few bars, it will be just automation now. The layers are down, and Gloria looks down at the rings on her fingers and rolls them around and around.
She comes in.
Brown baaaaaby, be light in your heart...
She sings it so soft that the first words are lost beneath the chatter, but the audience makes captive their breath so they don’t miss another.
Big booooy, be crisp in your step.
“Gorgeous,” the man next to me says, and his wife grabs his arm to both affirm and quiet him.
Sadness is going to come, but damnit, make it chase you,
“Kill it Gloria!” It’s my own voice that I hear, and I start clapping. Gloria looks out, but can see no further than her nose in the lights.
“Shh!”
“Blow hard now, Gloria!” I clap loud and deep.
“Young man, this is a soft song You’re shouting clear over her voice. You are ruining it.”
Gloria stops but is undistracted. She turns her head in my general direction, nods, and takes another breath.
Baaaaby boooy.
“You got us, baby! Break us off, now, break us off! Just blow it!”
“Young man, you should know there is a man pointing at you and walking this way. When he gets here I’m going to make it clear to him that you’re not with us.”
The people in our corner of the room are agitated and they part easily for Bumby. Agitated, yes, but they’ve got it wrong as to why. Gloria’s voice is all around us now, and it’s hitting them in that way they don’t recognize. She takes a deeper breath for the next verse, and with each word she has less and less of that sweetness that can spoil us all. The sound is sad, and complicated, and as she stands there crying, we can all forgive her, because it’s about something unfixable. She knows it, and she’s making this old dump of a club know it, and though she is perched on those drunkenly wobbled and bowed legs of hers, I can see her flying overhead.