Of Song and Water (5 page)

He thought at some point he'd confess all this to Brian, but he never discussed it with anyone, not even Jen.

 

ON HIS hands and knees, squinting at the yellow linoleum floor, he looks for the washer that slipped out of his fingers. He finds it just under the stove, uses a screwdriver to pull it out. With it comes a coil of greasy dust. He wishes it hadn't happened. It was fine not knowing about the crud under there. Now he has to think about it. Consider whether or not it's worth it to move the stove and scrape the stuff up. He figures ants will want their share sooner or later. Years of buildup – like the bottom of a boat that needs a stiff brush.

He holds the washer between his thumb and index finger. When a faucet leaks, he says to himself, a tenant usually calls the landlord. But I'm in no mood for a catechism.

Oddly enough, the landlord's last visit did involve maintenance. She'd made up her mind that the living-room curtains needed cleaning. When she came to collect them, she spotted his guitar case – the black sarcophagus – leaning against the wall.

“The talk,” she said, “is that you're a musician.”

“Who's talking?” he said.

“Some friends of mine. They say you used to play all over Detroit and elsewhere.”

“Do you believe everything you hear?”

“Why would they make up something like that?”

“I don't know.”

“They also said you were tall, dark, and handsome.”

“I was young then.” He liked the way her short hair revealed her face and shoulders.

“You're not so old,” she said.

“I'm turning gray.”

“Salt and pepper looks good,” she said. “Besides, you're the only man I know who doesn't have a gut hanging over his belt.”

“Thanks.”

“Where do you play now?”

“I don't.”

“It's God's gift,” she said. “Don't be ungrateful.”

He watched her hips as she walked across the room. “Can I help you with the drapes?”

She shook her head. She took down both panels and slipped them into a shopping bag. “Don't abandon your gift,” she said, standing at the front door. “And until these are clean, don't go running through the living room naked.”

The screen door slammed. She walked to the curb and squeezed her hand into the pocket of her tight jeans and then turned to display the perfect silhouette of her breasts. She opened the door of her station wagon, slid into the driver's seat, and started the engine, her rosary dangling like an air freshener from the rearview mirror.

He gets the washers and the hot-and-cold lever in place. It occurs to him that his hands feel fine, that he managed the job without stiffness or pain. He runs the water as a test. The steady leak seems to be fixed, but a slow drip remains. The heavy drops hit the stainless-steel sink with a decided thump. He knows he'll be able to hear it in the bedroom. He'll have to keep the door closed. He moves the spout over the drain. It isn't so loud that way.

It's always the trivial noises that bother him, a telephone ringing or a dog barking, someone talking or coughing during a beat of silence in a song. He grimaces at the pop of a bad cord or the humming and buzzing of amplifiers.

Setting up before a gig, he'd often tell Brian, sometimes more than once, to reverse the polarity on his amp.

“I will,” said Brian, “but it won't help.”

“Where's it coming from?”

“Who knows?” said Brian.

“I'm telling you, I can't start until we fix it.”

“Ignore it,” said Brian. “Pretend it's not there.”

“I can't,” he said. “It's not possible.”

 

WHEN Tom Traynor came in on drums, he invented the group's name, the CBT Trio – an acronym that put Coleman and Brian first.

“We ignore whatever's new,” said Brian, answering a question on a local radio show, trying to explain the trio's style. “We simplify. We break the music down and discover how the songs were built. Even the arrangements are lean.”

They made no apology for what some people called the “elegiac mood” of CBT's repertoire. They didn't have to. It was the trio's interpretations of the great ballads that audiences recognized with energetic applause: “Misty,” “In the Still of the Night,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Cry Me a River,” “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” “Come Rain or Come Shine.”

Coleman showed a gift for melody, stating the theme but then leaving it, traveling sad and complex distances until he reached an isolated world, a strange land where virtuosity mattered more than being part of any group or scene. At that point, having used up most of what he knew, he'd return in unexpected ways, playing familiar strains that seemed part of some deep and reawakened memory. Brian laid down the bottom with a steady poise, but when he took the lead, busting out with his smile and his exuberant assurance,
the music changed direction, moving into a realm that felt like church, as if a divine revelation were close at hand. He was also, along with Tom, an arbiter of dynamics, building the moment to a crescendo or reducing it to near silence. Tom kept all this together, marking time, using the brushes like a magician, reigning in the guitar or bass when he thought either had gone too far.

A well-known critic described the trio as “elegant and spontaneous – an island of spare beauty.”

After a while, the boys became regulars in two or three of the better rooms in Chicago. They did a few tours in the Midwest, enough to pick up a following. They started to write, slipping some of their own compositions into the middle of established sets.

There's proof, he thinks. In the closet are four reel-to-reel tapes and a box of black-and-white photos. Jen got a lot of CBT on film. Out of the corner of his eye he senses her movements, her curiosity, as she looked for a fresh angle or an expression she hadn't seen before.

He shuffles through the pictures. He appears to be a happy man. Don't get sentimental, he thinks. Nostalgia is a fool's game. Even so, the contentment on his face is undeniable. It's a fair record – Jen gets the credit for that – but a large part of the story can't be seen. The images, he realizes now, capture no background, no context, none of his attitudes, beliefs, or betrayals – none of the forces that carried him headlong toward damage.

 

IT BEGINS in Chicago. The CBT Trio opens for three nights at the Mill. Meredith Moore is in from Detroit to hear her son play.

She sweeps into the apartment with an aristocratic bearing that isn't the least bit pretentious. Tall and stylish, a thin woman with long auburn hair, she puts down her bag and takes in the entire place, especially the dust and disorder. “Your father wanted to be here,” she says. “But he's up on Lake Huron again – another extended trip.”

“You mean cruise,” he says, kissing her on the cheek.

“Do I? When I say cruise I think of ocean liners and distant lands. Not a dinghy in the middle of Lake Huron.”

“A thirty-six-foot sailboat is hardly a dinghy,” he says.

“Let's not argue,” she says.

He hangs her coat on a peg near the door.

Jen smiles and steps in Meredith's direction, but she snags her foot on the edge of the rug and stumbles. Meredith catches her. Without being the least bit flustered, she says, “I'd love to, my dear, but my dance card is full.”

“I greet all my guests this way,” says Jen, laughing and trying to regain her composure. Meredith's strong, she thinks. It must come in handy on the boat. She says, “Are you meeting up with the cruise later?”

“Heavens no,” says Meredith. “I can barely dip my toe in a pond, and I've never been on a boat.”

“I had no idea,” says Jen. She looks embarrassed and confused.

“Mom doesn't sail,” he says. “She's afraid of the water.”

“You're unkind to say it.”

“But it's true,” he says.

“It isn't so much fear,” she says, “as wisdom.”

Jen wonders why a man like Dorian Moore would choose a woman who cringes at the sight of water. Of course, she should've realized before this – and after several visits to Detroit – that Meredith never goes out, whether for a day or an evening sail. She'll make an excuse, report a sudden headache or discover a forgotten but long-standing appointment. It's all an extravagant game. Dorian, naturally, is too tight-lipped to say anything about it. But Cole could've let her in on the joke. The knot in Jen's stomach starts to loosen. She says, “Would you like a drink?”

“I've had more than I need,” says Meredith. “Where's the concert tonight? What time does it start?”

“It isn't a concert,” he says. “We're doing three sets at the Green Mill. We'll probably start around nine.”

“Fine. Where can I take you to dinner?”

“I don't eat dinner,” he says.

“That's absurd,” she says.

“I don't eat before a show.”

“So when do you eat – 2:00 A.M.?”

“More or less.”

“You'll wind up with ulcers,” she says.

“We can grab a salad before the show,” says Jen.

“Absolutely not,” says Meredith. “If Jason's crazy enough to eat in the middle of the night, then I can be just as crazy.”

“Mom, how many times – ?”

“I know. Coleman. Coleman. Coleman. What do you expect? I called you Jason for almost twenty years. Now, if you'll kindly point me to the guest room, I have some freshening up to do.”

Carrying her bag, she glides down the hall and disappears.

“She's hydrophobic?” says Jen in a loud whisper. “You never mentioned it.”

“It didn't seem important.”

“Not important – in your family I'd say it's very important. For Christ's sake, Cole, that's like forgetting to tell me you play the guitar.”

“Not exactly.”

“Did your father know? I mean, did he know before they got married?”

“I suppose so.”

“And he still married her?”

“She swept him off his feet. It's that Swedish thing. He probably thought he was marrying Ingrid Bergman.”

“Even so. He spends so much time on the lakes. It must be difficult.”

“Maybe he likes it that way.”

“Maybe she's a sexual athlete,” says Jen.

He shakes his head. “I can't think about that,” he says.

 

HE ANTICIPATES a long night at the Mill, but the sets run smoothly from one song to the next, the music flowing like water, and it seems they've just begun when Brian announces the last number, a request from Meredith, “Moonlight in Vermont.”

Tom and Brian fall back, leaving plenty of space, and so he takes the opening, finding new turns and dark corners in the song and creating a world all his own. He plays a cascade of diminished runs that electrifies the air. It sparks a small flame of tenderness and fills the room with audible light.

When the music stops, he glances at his mother and notices that something in her face has changed. Rather than the usual distance and pride, he sees sadness, even helplessness, but when he looks again the vulnerability is gone. Her eyes still sparkle, he thinks. She still commands attention.

Afterward, Brian and Tom politely explain that they've made other plans for dinner. Jen suggests an Italian restaurant on Halstead.

“It must be interesting,” says his mother, “to live so close to a baseball park.”

“We have friends,” says Jen, “who can watch games from their rooftops.”

“Do they sell tickets?”

“Some people do,” says Jen. “But it's considered bad form.”

“There are many kinds of bad form,” says his mother, “but that, I think, is not one of them.”

“If we had a driveway or a front lawn,” he says, “we could charge people for parking.”

The waitress brings three glasses of red wine and a basket of bread.

His mother raises her glass. “Here's to the success of CBT,” she says.

He dribbles wine on his white shirt.

His mother dips her napkin in a glass of water. “You need to deal with that right now,” she says, “or it'll never come out.” She dabs the stain.

Pretty soon most of the shirt is wet and clinging to his chest.

“I have an audition,” he says. “The Robert Shore Quintet is looking for a new man on guitar.”

Jen's face fills with exasperation.

“That's wonderful,” says his mother. “And is Robert Shore somebody I should know about?”

“He's in the big leagues. Tours the country playing major rooms.”

“Chicago's certainly filled with musicians.”

“Shore's based in Philly. That's where I have to go for the audition.”

“CBT is doing so well,” says Jen. “Why now?”

“Because that's what boys do,” says his mother. “At least the boys in the Moore family. They're never satisfied with their station in life. You should've known Jas – I'm sorry – Coleman's grandfather. The man was pure ambition.”

“It's a long shot,” he says. “I probably won't get the gig anyway.”

“Have you told Brian?” says Jen.

“Not yet.”

“I don't get it,” says Jen. “You won't be out front if you go with Shore.”

“It's the experience,” he says. “I'll be in the same circuit with guys like Joe Pass and Kenny Burrell. I'll get more notice.”

The waitress sets three steaming plates on the table. Jen picks up her knife and fork and starts cutting her sausage. “When are you leaving?” she says.