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your
pretty little ey-y-y-y-yes his mouth quivered, he looked at us, Dean and me,
with an
expression that seemed to say, Hey now, what s this thing we re all doing in
this sad
brown world? and then he came to the end of his song, and for this there had
to be
elaborate preparations, during which time you could send all the messages to
Garcia
around the world twelve times and what difference did it make to anybody?
because here
we were dealing with the pit and prunejuice of poor beat life itself in the
god-awful
streets of man, so he said it and sang it, Close your and blew it way up
to the
ceiling and through to the stars and on out Ey-y-y-y-y-y-es and staggered
off the
platform to brood. He sat in the corner with a bunch of boys and paid no
attention to
them. He looked down and wept. He was the greatest.
Dean and I went over to talk to him. We invited him out to the car. In the
car he suddenly
yelled, Yes! ain t nothin I like better than good kicks! Where do we go?
Dean jumped
up and down in the seat, giggling maniacally. Later! later! said the
tenorman. I ll get
my boy to drive us down to Jamson s Nook, I got to sing. Man, I live to sing.
Been singin
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Close Your Eyes for two weeks I don t want to sing nothin else. What are
you boys
up to? We told him we were going to New York in two days. Lord, I ain t
never been
there and they tell me it s a real jumpin town but I ain t got no cause
complainin where I
am. I m married, you know.
Oh yes? said Dean, lighting up. And where is the darling tonight?
What do you mean? said the tenorman, looking at him out of the corner of
his eye. I
tole you I was married to her, didn t I?
Oh yes, oh yes, said Dean. I was just asking. Maybe she has friends? or
sisters? A
ball, you know, I m just looking for a ball.
Yah, what good s a ball, life s too sad to be ballin all the time, said the
tenorman,
lowering his eye to the street. Shh-eee- it! he said. I ain t got no money
and I don t
care tonight.
We went back in for more. The girls were so disgusted withDean and me for
gunning off
and jumping around that they had left and gone to Jamson s Nook on foot; the
car
wouldn t run anyway. We saw a horrible sight in the bar: a white hip ster
fairy had come
in wearing a Hawaiian shirt and was asking the big drummer if he could sit
in. The
musicians looked at him suspiciously. Do you blow? He said he did, mincing.
They
looked at one another and said, Yeah, yeah, that s what the man does,
shhh-ee-it! So
the fairy sat down at the tubs and they started the beat of a jump number and
he began
stroking the snares with soft goofy bop brushes, swaying his neck with that
complacent
Reichianalyzed ecstasy that doesn t mean anything except too much tea and
soft foods
and goofy kicks on the cool order. But he didn t care. He smiled joyously
into space and
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kept the beat, though softly, with bop sub tleties, a giggling, rippling
background for big
solid foghorn blues the boys were blowing, unaware of him. The big Negro
bullneck
drummer sat waiting for his turn. What that man doing? he said. Play the
music! he
said. What in hell! he said. Shh-ee-eet! and looked away, disgusted.
The tenorman s boy showed up; he was a little taut Negro with a great big
Cadillac. We
all jumped in. He hunched over the wheel and blew the car clear across Frisco
without
stopping once, seventy miles an hour, right through traffic and nobody even
noticed him,
he was so good. Dean was in ecstasies. Dig this guy, man! dig the way he
sits there and
don t move a bone and just balls that jack and can talk all night while he s
doing it, only
thing is he doesn t bother with talk ing, ah, man, the things, the things I
could I wish
oh, yes. Let s go, let s not stop go now! Yes! And the boy wound around a
corner and
bowled us right in front of Jamson s Nook and was parked. A cab pulled up;
out of it
jumped a skinny, withered little Negro preacherman who threw a dollar at the
cabby and
yelled, Blow! and ran into the club and dashed right through the downstairs
bar,
yelling, Blowblowblow! and stumbled upstairs, almost falling on his face,
and blew the
door open and fell into the jazz-session room with his hands out to support
him against
anything he might fall on, and he fell right on Lampshade, who was working as
a waiter
in Jamson s Nookthat season, and the music was there blasting and blasting
and he stood
transfixed in the open door, screaming, Blow for me, man, blow! And the man
was a
little short Negro with an alto horn that Dean said obviously lived with his
grandmother
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just like Tom Snark, slept all day and blew all night, and blew a hundred
choruses before
he was ready to jump for fair, and that s what he was doing.
It s Carlo Marx! screamed Dean above the fury.
And it was. This little grandmother s boy with the taped- up alto had beady,
glittering
eyes; small, crooked feet; spindly legs; and he hopped and flopped with his
horn and
threw his feet around and kept his eyes fixed on the audience (which was just
people
laughing at a dozen tables, the room thirty by thirty feet and low ceiling),
and he never
stopped. He was very simple in his ideas. What he liked was the surprise of a
new simple
variation of a chorus. He d go from ta-tup-tader-rara . . .
ta-tup-tader-rara, repeating
and hopping to it and kissing and smiling into his horn, to
ta-tup-EE-da-de-dera-RUP!
ta-tup-EE-da-de-dera-RUP! and it was all great moments of laughter and
understanding
for him and everyone else who heard. His tone was clear as a bell, high,
pure, and blew
straight in our faces from two feet away. Dean stood in front of him,
oblivious to
everything else in the world, with his head bowed, his hands socking in
together, his
whole body jumping on his heels and the sweat, always the sweat, pouring and
splashing
down his tormented collar to lie actually in a pool at his feet. Galatea and
Marie were
there, and it took us five minutes to realize it. Whoo, Frisco nights, the
end of the continent
and the end of doubt, all dull doubt and tomfoolery, good-by. Lampshade was
roaring around with his trays of beer; everything he did was in rhythm; he
yelled at the
waitress with the beat; Hey now, babybaby, make a way, make a way, it s
Lampshade
comin your way, and he hurled by her with the beers in the air and roared
through the
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swinging doors into the kitchen and danced with the cooks and came sweating
back. The
hornman sat absolutely motionless at a corner table with an untouched drink
in front of
him, staring gook-eyed into space, his hands hanging at his sides till
theyalmost touched
the floor, his feet outspread like lolling tongue his body shriveled into
absolute weariness
and entranced sorrow and what-all was on his mind: a man who knocked self out
every
evening and let the others put the quietus him in the night. Everything
swirled around him
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