Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (45 page)

"You talkin' to me, boy?"

Sonny's face was red, like I hadn't seen it since that first time at the
Continental Club, years back. "You've got ears, Collins. Touch her again
and I'll kill you."

I don't know exactly what we expected, but I know what we were afraid of.
We were afraid Spoof would let go; and if he did … well, put
another bed in the hospital, men. He stood there, breathing, and Sonny
gave it right back—for hours, days and nights, for a month, toe to
toe.

Then Spoof relaxed. He pulled back those fat lips, that didn't look like
lips any more, they were so tough and leathery, and showed a mouthful of
white and gold, and grunted, and turned, and walked away.

We swung into
Twelfth Street Rag
in
such
a hurry!

And it got kicked under the sofa.

But we found out something, then, that nobody even suspected.

Sonny had it for Rose-Ann. He had it bad.

And that ain't good.

Spoof fell to pieces after that. He played day and night, when we were
working, when we weren't working. Climbing. Trying to get it said, all of
it.

"Listen, you can't hit Heaven with a slingshot, Daddy-O!"

"What you want to do, man—blow Judgment?"

He never let up. If he ate anything, you tell me when. Sometimes he tied
on, straight stuff, quick, medicine type of drinking. But only after he'd
been climbing and started to blow flat and ended up in those coughing
fits.

And it got worse. Nothing helped, either: foam or booze or tea or even
Indoor Sports, and he tried them all. And got worse.

"Get fixed up, Mr. C, you hear? See a bone-man; you in bad shape
…"

"Get away from me, get on away!" Hawk! and a big red spot on the
handkerchief.
"Broom off! Shoo!"

And gradually the old horn went sour, ugly and bitter sounding, like Spoof
himself. Hoo Lord, the way he rode Sonny then:
"How you like the dark
stuff, boy? You like it pretty good? Hey there, don't hold back. Rosie's
fine talent—I know. Want me to tell you about it, pave the way, show
you how? I taught you everything else, didn't I?"
And Sonny always
clamming up, his eyes doing the talking:
"You were a great musician,
Collins, and you still are, but that doesn't mean I've got to like you—you
won't let me. And you're damn right I'm in love with Rose-Ann! That's the
biggest reason why I'm still here—just to be close to her.
Otherwise, you wouldn't see me for the dust. But you're too dumb to
realize she's in love with you, too dumb and stupid and mean and wrapped
up with that lousy horn!"

What
Sonny
was too dumb to know was, Rose-Ann had cut Spoof out.
She was now Public Domain.

Anyway, Spoof got to be the meanest, dirtiest, craziest, low-talkin'est
man in the world. And nobody could come in: he had signs out all the time
…

The night that he couldn't even get a squeak out of his trumpet and went
back to the hotel—alone, always alone—and put the gun in his
mouth and pulled the trigger, we found something out.

We found out what it was that had been eating at The Ol' Massuh.

Cancer.

Rose-Ann took it the hardest. She had the dry-weeps for a long time,
saying it over and over: "Why didn't he let us know? Why didn't he tell
us?"

But you get over things. Even women do, especially when they've got
something to take its place.

We reorganized a little. Sonny cut out the sax…saxes were getting
cornball anyway…and took over on trumpet. And we decided against
keeping Spoof's name. It was now SONNY HOLMES AND HIS CREW.

And we kept on eating high up. Nobody seemed to miss Spoof—not the
cats in front, at least—because Sonny blew as great a horn as
anybody could want, smooth and sure, full of excitement and clean as a
gnat's behind.

We played across the States and back, and they loved us—thanks to
the kid. Called us an "institution," and the disc jockeys began to pick up
our stuff. We were "real," they said—the only authentic jazz left,
and who am I to push it? Maybe they were right.

Sonny kept things in low. And then, when he was sure—damn that slow
way: it had been a cinch since back when—he started to pay attention
to Rose-Ann. She played it cool, the way she knew he wanted it, and let it
build up right. Of course, who didn't know she would've married him this
minute, now, just say the word? But Sonny was a very conscientious cat
indeed.

We did a few stands in France about that time—Listen to them holler!—and
a couple of England and Sweden—getting better, too—and after a
breather, we cut out across the States again.

It didn't happen fast, but it happened sure. Something was sounding flat
all of a sudden, like—wrong, in a way:

During an engagement in El Paso, we had
What the Cats Dragged In
lined up. You all know
Cats
—the rhythm section still, with
the horns yelling for a hundred bars, then that fast and solid beat, that
high trip and trumpet solo? Sonny had the ups on a wild riff and was
coming on down, when he stopped. Stood still, with the horn to his lips;
and we waited.

"Come on, wrap it up—you want a drum now? What's the story, Sonny?"

Then he started to blow. The notes came out the same almost, but not quite
the same. They danced out of the horn strop-razor sharp and sliced up high
and blasted low and the cats all fell out. "Do it! Go! Go, man! Oooo, I'm
out of the boat, don't pull me back! Sing out, man!"

The solo lasted almost seven minutes. When it was time for us to wind it
up, we just about forgot.

The crowd went wild. They stomped and screamed and whistled. But they
couldn't get Sonny to play anymore. He pulled the horn away from his mouth—I
mean that's the way it looked, as if he was yanking it away with all his
strength—and for a second he looked surprised, like he'd been
goosed. Then his lips pulled back into a smile.

It was the
damndest
smile!

Freddie went over to him at the break. "Man, that was the craziest. How
many tongues you got?"

But Sonny didn't answer him.

Things went along all right for a little. We played a few dances in the
cities, some radio stuff, cut a few platters. Easy walking style.

Sonny played Sonny—plenty great enough. And we forgot about what
happened in El Paso. So what? So he cuts loose once—can't a man do
that if he feels the urge? Every jazz man brings that kind of light at
least once.

We worked through the sticks and were finally set for a New York opening
when Sonny came in and gave us the news.

It was a gasser. Lux got sore. Mr. "T" shook his head.

"Why? How come, Top?"

He had us booked for the corn-belt. The old-time route, exactly, even the
old places, back when we were playing razzmatazz and feeling our way.

"You trust me?" Sonny asked. "You trust my judgment?"

"Come off it, Top; you know we do. Just tell us how come. Man, New York's
what we been working for—"

"That's just it," Sonny said. "We aren't ready."

That brought us down. How did
we
know—we hadn't even thought
about it.

"We need to get back to the real material. When we play in New York, it's
not anything anybody's liable to forget in a hurry. And that's why I think
we ought to take a refresher course. About five weeks. All right?"

Well, we fussed some and fumed some, but not much, and in the end we
agreed to it. Sonny knew his stuff, that's what we figured.

"Then it's settled."

And we lit out.

Played mostly the old stuff dressed up—
Big Gig, Only Us Chickens,
and the rest—or head-arrangements with a lot of trumpet. Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky …

When we hit Louisiana for a two-nighter at the Tropics, the same thing
happened that did back in Texas. Sonny blew wild for eight minutes on a
solo that broke the glasses and cracked the ceiling and cleared the dance
floor like a tornado. Nothing off the stem, either—but like it was
practice, sort of, or exercise. A solo out of nothing, that didn't even
try to hang on to a shred of the melody.

"Man, it's great, but let us know when it's gonna happen, hear!"

About then Sonny turned down the flame on Rose-Ann. He was polite enough,
and a stranger wouldn't have noticed, but we did, and Rose-Ann did—and
it was tough for her to keep it all down under, hidden. All those
questions, all those memories and fears.

He stopped going out and took to hanging around his rooms a lot. Once in a
while he'd start playing: one time we listened to that horn all night.

Finally—it was still somewhere in Louisiana—when Sonny was
reaching with his trumpet so high he didn't get any more sound out of it
than a dog-whistle, and the front cats were laughing up a storm, I went
over and put it to him flatfooted.

His eyes were big, and he looked like he was trying to say something and
couldn't. He looked scared.

"Sonny … look, boy, what are you after? Tell a friend, man, don't
lock it up."

But he didn't answer me. He couldn't.

He was coughing too hard.

Here's the way we doped it: Sonny had worshiped Spoof, like a god or
something. Now some of Spoof was rubbing off, and he didn't know it.

Freddie was elected. Freddie talks pretty good most of the time.

"Get off the train, Jack. Ol' Massuh's gone now, dead and buried. Mean,
what he was after ain't to be had. Mean, he wanted it all and then some—and
all is all, there isn't any more. You play the greatest, Sonny—go
on, ask anybody. Just fine. So get off the train …"

And Sonny laughed, and agreed and promised. I mean in words. His eyes
played another number, though.

Sometimes he snapped out of it, it looked like, and he was fine then—tired
and hungry, but with it. And we'd think, He's okay. Then it would happen
all over again—only worse. Every time, worse.

And it got so Sonny even talked like Spoof half the time: "Broom off, man,
leave me alone, will you? Can't you see I'm busy, got things to do? Get
away!" And walked like Spoof—that slow, walk-in-your-sleep shuffle.
And did little things—like scratching his belly and leaving his
shoes unlaced and rehearsing in his undershirt.

He started to smoke weed in Alabama.

In Tennessee he took the first drink anybody ever saw him take.

And always with that horn—cussing it, yelling at it, getting sore
because it wouldn't do what he wanted it to.

We had to leave him alone, finally. "I'll handle it … I-understand,
I think … Just go away, it'll be all right …"

Nobody could help him. Nobody at all.

Especially not Rose-Ann.

End of the corn-belt route, the way Sonny had it booked, was the Copper
Club. We hadn't been back there since the night we planted Spoof—and
we didn't feel very good about it.

But a contract isn't anything else.

So we took rooms at the only hotel there ever was in the town. You make a
guess which room Sonny took. And we played some cards and bruised our
chops and tried to sleep and couldn't. We tossed around in the beds,
listening, waiting for the horn to begin. But it didn't. All night long,
it didn't.

We found out why, oh yes …

Next day we all walked around just about everywhere except in the
direction of the cemetery. Why kick up misery? Why make it any harder?

Sonny stayed in his room until ten before opening, and we began to worry.
But he got in under the wire.

The Copper Club was packed. Yokels and farmers and high school stuff, a
jazz "connoisseur" here and there—to the beams. Freddie had set up
the stands with the music notes all in order, and in a few minutes we had
our positions.

Sonny came out wired for sound. He looked—powerful; and that's a
hard way for a five-foot four-inch bald-headed white man to look. At any
time. Rose-Ann threw me a glance and I threw it back, and collected it
from the rest. Something bad. Something real bad. Soon.

Sonny didn't look any which way. He waited for the applause to die down,
then he did a quick One-Two-Three-Four and we swung into
The Jimjam
Man,
our theme.

I mean to say, that crowd was with us all the way—they smelled
something.

Sonny did the thumb-and-little-finger signal and we started
Only Us
Chickens.
Bud Meunier did the intro on his bass, then Henry took over
on the piano. He played one hand racing the other. The front cats hollered
"Go! Go!" and Henry went. His left hand crawled on down over the keys and
scrambled and didn't fuzz once or slip once and then walked away, cocky
and proud, like a mouse full of cheese from an unsprung trap.

"Hooo-boy! Play, Henry, play!"

Sonny watched and smiled. "Bring it on out," he said, gentled, quiet,
pleased. "Keep bringin' it out."

Henry did that counterpoint business that you're not supposed to be able
to do unless you have two right arms and four extra fingers, and he got
that boiler puffing, and he got it shaking, and he screamed his Henry
Walker "WoooooOOOOO!" and he finished. I came in on the tubs and beat them
up till I couldn't see for the sweat, hit the cymbal and waited.

Mr. "T," Lux, and Jimmy fiddle-faddled like a coop of capons talking about
their operation for a while. Rose-Ann chanted: "Only us chickens in the
hen-house, Daddy, Only us chickens here, Only us chickens in the
hen-house, Daddy, Ooo-bob-a-roo, Ooo-bob-a-roo …"

Then it was horn time. Time for the big solo.

Sonny lifted the trumpet—One! Two!—He got it into sight—Three!

We all stopped dead. I mean we stopped.

That wasn't Sonny's horn. This one was dented-in and beat-up and the
tip-end was nicked. It didn't shine, not a bit.

Lux leaned over—you could have fit a coffee cup into his mouth.
"Jesus God," he said. "Am I seeing right?"

I looked close and said: "Man, I hope not."