Of Song and Water (4 page)

He opens and closes his hand. He wants to lean toward the companionway and touch the shadow that's standing there. But then, in the next moment, it fades. There's nothing now but black, gray, and silver. He listens. Not a breath of wind. Even the shrouds are silent.

IN DETROIT is a large subterranean nightclub, difficult to locate and forever untouched by the neighborhood's decay, where the waiters, bartenders, musicians, and patrons live their lives in black and white. Men and women dressed in bright colors walk through the door and then slip into comfortable duotones. The room admits fedoras and berets, zoot suits and bell-bottoms, pocket watches and piercings. The terraced floor descends gently to a stage; the bar, handsome and well-stocked, dominates the rear; and the tables, arranged in perfect rows, offer white linens and soft silver lamps.

Waiting on stage, brilliant in a wash of light, is an archtop guitar. Always a classic instrument from the 1930s or '40s, usually a Gibson, maybe an L5 electric or a Super 400, it stands as an open invitation.

Those who finally take the stage do it as a kind of ceremony, a rite of passage, having earned admission to the club. All the old masters sooner or later turn up. This is where they perform, now when the world has spun away and become something strange and inhospitable.

Coleman knows all this and often spends time at the bar. He watches the people come and go speaking of Tony Mottola or Barney Kessel, of Art Ryerson or Charlie Christian. He gazes at the L5 bathed in light and imagines what it would feel like in his hands, resting against his body.

He likes to think of his father in this place. He buys him a drink. In the smoky haze, they talk about what matters. Sitting at a table on solid ground, he explains, in terms his father appreciates, the anatomy of a fine instrument, how each part has a purpose and a very particular name. He points to a legendary guitar, describes its quirks, tells how it speaks or shouts for the person who plays it. He says what he believes, that a great guitar will challenge the limits of what's possible.

After a while, he tries a different tack. “I've seen you at haul-out,” he says, “with the boat in its slings. You stood there fretting about the gel coat and the frayed lines. You said, ‘It's my life, this beat-up plastic heap.'”

His father stirs his drink. “I wanted more children,” he says.

Something in the room tilts.

He sees his father's sadness and wonders how their conversation arrived here. “Why?”

“I always wanted a brother or a sister. I wanted you to have that. It wasn't easy being H.M.'s only child.”

“So what happened?”

His father shrugs. “After you came, your mother lost interest.”

“That's hard to take.”

“Why? It had nothing to do with you.”

“If you say so.”

“I would've traded my boat for a brother,” says his father.

“Is that the truth?” He raises his vodka and drinks. “Why didn't H.M. and Grandma have more kids?”

“She wasn't able.”

“That must've stuck in H.M.'s craw.”

“Maybe,” says his father. “But he never said a thing about it. At least not to me.”

“H.M. taught you to sail. He made you a singlehander.”

“That's right.”

“That's something that most people can't do.”

“It isn't so much.”

“You're being modest.”

“And what about you?”

“Only classical players go solo.”

“I didn't mean that,” says his father. “I meant – ” He lowers his voice. “Was there anything you learned from me?”

His father shifts in his chair. Most of the nearby tables are empty. The lights come up for a moment and then the Black & White Club goes dark.

 

HE PUTS down his glass. It's Saturday. The faucet lies in pieces on the kitchen counter.

As it turns out, the new washers are the wrong size, and this gives him a reason for another vodka and tonic, his second of the afternoon. He isn't going to the boat. What happened there the last time makes him stay away. If the snow keeps up, he'll have to shovel the driveway. He wants it clear in case Heather comes by.

In the garage, he keeps pickle jars filled with screws, nuts, and washers. To find exactly what he needs is purely a matter of chance. He dumps the washers on the workbench and spots a couple that might fit.

He walks through the living room on his way back to the kitchen and sees his black guitar case leaning against the wall. It looks like a small sarcophagus. A curious echo of what his father said runs through his brain. He goes over it, rehearsing it like a difficult lyric. “It's only my life,” he hears himself whisper.
“This thin, hollow-body guitar, banged up and scratched. There's a head and neck, too. Even a bridge.” That's it, he thinks. I should've mentioned the bridge. So much of what we loved was the same. It would've been easy to explain had I found the right word.

He rarely meets anyone new at the Black & White Club. No one ever buys him a cocktail. On a slow night, he thought he heard a woman who was three sheets to the wind ask him why he was there. “Waiting for Bogart,” he heard himself say. “Really,” she said, “I had no idea.” He likes to use this line whenever he can.

He admits now that wherever he is, regardless of the hour or the company, he finds himself waiting for Jennifer. Or is it Brian he's waiting for? The possibility that either will appear or wish to do an encore in his life strikes him as pretty far-fetched.

It's because of Jen that he actually knows a few things about living. “What stays with us for the long haul?” she says. “Not books. Not photographs. Not even music. It has to be something bigger – an early thaw, maybe, or a lightning storm.” He pictures her in summer with the sky growing dark and the smell of damp earth floating in the air. She sits at a window and listens for the first drops. And when the trees rustle and the rain begins, she rests her cheek on the sill and observes, in a sudden illumination from childhood, that nothing important has changed.

I spent a lot more time with Maureen, he thinks, but somehow no essentials remain. He can only dig up bits of practical advice, common wisdom about cleaning the house or raising a child. But Jennifer persists, her scent, her way of seeing the world.

She asks him to stand in an open field at dusk and watch for the rising moon, but the vast, featureless sky makes him dizzy. She calls to him.

He turns but loses sight of her in the turning. She can't be far, he thinks. I can hear her breathing. I can feel her heart moving under mine. He wants her
to stay with him, the generosity of her smile, the way she lifts her arms to gather her dark hair and pin it. And her words, so many still in his head, but always the last words she spoke when he walked out of the orchard in October, the ripe apples waiting to be picked.

He'd looked for anything that would cause her pain, because to his young mind needing her was a kind of weakness, an admission that he was no good on his own. He told her that none of it mattered, that he didn't know when he'd return, that getting away from where he found himself was what drove him, kept him from drowning in his father's life. “Come back or not,” she said. “You won't find me.” He hesitated, feeling himself torn in two for the second time, not realizing that all this was familiar and final. She held him then, giving him the words that never leave. “It happened too fast,” she said, brushing her cheek. “For a while, everything was whole.”

His mind begins turning. He drifts to Chicago and the last years with Jen, the two of them just out of college and glad to be in the Midwest once again.

He likes Chicago for the musicians and the clubs; Jen's returned to salvage what family she can. She wants to settle down in the city, away from her parents, both of them tired and bitter, but close to her sister and a few old friends.

They take an apartment in Wrigleyville. He eventually gets bookings in some of the better rooms around town. She teaches high school part-time.

Jen seems forever young. Her face is round with brown eyes and a Roman nose. Her olive skin is smooth. Her black hair falls long and straight over her shoulders and breasts. She wears tight jeans and sleeveless shirts. The whole of her body achieves a perfect rhythm when she walks. Jen is always this woman.

On most nights, she comes to hear him play and brings to bear a remarkable concentration, concerning herself not only with the guitar but with the other instruments as well, drawn to the shifting qualities of tone and phrasing. She'll go anywhere, the hotel lounges, the seedy, out-of-the-way places, but the Green Mill soon becomes her favorite. She likes being on a first-name basis
with the people there. She enjoys the no-nonsense authority of the bouncers and waitresses. She respects the audience for jazz: small, eccentric, and reliable.

They meet Brian James at the Green Mill, and Jen invites him to the apartment after the show, after listening to a perfect balance between guitar and bass, a sublime counterpoint rising from the stage that she recognizes as chemistry, as some sort of communion.

 

BRIAN sits at the kitchen table drinking bourbon neat. “Here's to you, Cole.”

“And to you,” he says, returning the favor, his vodka like polished ice. “And for Jen, too.”

He suddenly feels at home, nearly satisfied and calm, taking in Brian's dark skin, the deep resonance of his voice, the rhythm of words, of laughter, and the careful raising and lowering of drinks. At the Green Mill, they fluently went back and forth, trading licks and choruses, speaking for each other in a new language. Now, in the kitchen, he feels the same way, confident that if he started a thought, Brian would finish it.

Brian admires the pictures taped to the fridge, the cupboards, and the walls. Most are black-and-white: street scenes, old women, CTA stations, vintage guitars.

“Jen's the photographer.” He pours more vodka for himself.

“I need a new camera,” says Jen.

Brian leans over and takes a close look at a street lamp glazed with ice. “Not bad,” he says. “How long you been here?”

“Just over a year,” she says. “I can hardly believe it.”

“I heard something about Boston,” says Brian. “Where's the accent?”

“We met in Boston,” she says. “Boston College. I'm from here and Cole's from Michigan. He grew up mostly in the thumb and then downriver Detroit.”

“Thumb . . . ?”

Jen shows Brian the back of her hand, four fingers together and the thumb
out. “You know,” she says, “this is Michigan.” She points to her thumb. “Cole raised some hell around here.”

Brian looks over her shoulder. “That lake,” he says. “Is that in Michigan?”

“That's Lake Erie,” she says.

Brian wraps his long fingers around his drink. “I stay out of the water,” he says. “I keep it out of my booze, too. And who's the big man in the picture?”

“Cole's father,” says Jen. “Dorian. Dorian Moore.”

“All right, Cole, I gotta know. Was it him that gave you your name?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, I knew some guys on the South Side named Coleman, but I haven't met any from the thumb.”

“My parents named me Jason,” he says. “I'm the one who picked up Coleman.”

Brian sips his drink and waits.

“It was a club owner in Detroit. My first decent gig – right after high school – an upscale room with good acoustics. Anyway, he thought Jason Moore was a little flat. He thought we'd attract a better crowd if I had an interesting name.”

“Once in a while I get the same shit,” says Brian. “I'm a man with two first names. Seems to confuse people.”

“I like it,” says Jen.

“I plan to keep it,” says Brian.

Jen cuts her bourbon with water and ice. “I'm hungry,” she says. “I wish we had some food in the house.”

“We could go somewhere,” says Brian. “I know a good after-hours place. Sometimes they pull a trio together. I've been hoping to play with a trio.”

He clinks Brian's glass. “Me, too.”

Jen looks at both men staring at their drinks. “So find a drummer,” she says. “Then you'll have a trio.”

HE THINKS of the early days when they went out searching for gigs and Brian's string bass seemed larger than life – a mirrorlike finish, sloping shoulders, and a deep, unequivocal voice. Brian made graceful and surprising moves, walking, running, and flying on the fingerboard, playing fragments of melodies and sudden chords, the music moving through him as if the bass and his body were fused.

He remembers too the first year working with Brian, living without sleep, picking up local gigs and then going on the road, doing the rust belt tour – Cleveland, Buffalo, and Detroit. In the end, they both returned to the Green Mill, to Jennifer.

He understands now, though he'd prefer not to, that wherever he went, through good clubs and bad, he traveled with a burgeoning self-doubt, a feeling that any value or substance he had, any claim to authenticity, came from playing jazz with a black man. In the back of his mind, he wondered if he was really an imposter, a fraud – a white man posing with a jazz guitar.

Every so often this feeling rose in him and made him act in ways that were awkward and self-conscious – like the year he drank only what Brian was drinking and wore the same color clothes, imitating Brian's style, though not so much in music as in the way Brian walked or the way he cocked his head.

In those days, he imagined the possibility of dyeing his skin, an elaborate scheme that led to a new father, black women, and circuitous conversations with Charlie Parker. He invented a black town where he walked all night without worry and practiced his black voice, his black expressions, and paraded in front of voluptuous women, each of them magical and dark, who returned his gaze and measured him with their eyes and smiled and clapped their hands. After such long and drawn-out dreams, he felt like a man in a haunted house, like a pale fool who thinks it's a fine idea to open the basement door, his arms and legs trembling, his thoughts teeming with excitement and shame,
possibility and fear. Almost always he welcomed the shaking and the fact of being overwrought, because only in those moments did he see his position and begin to understand that the people and places he desired came from a bottomless need, a yearning to be someone other – someone that didn't look, act, or feel like himself. He decided then that his only hope was a fresh start, a life without boundaries, the capacity to show the world a face not his own – a face not inscribed by history.