Struts & Frets (5 page)

He was playing Duke Ellington's “I'm Beginning to See the Light.” It was one of his favorites, so I knew it really well.
I began to sing along:

“
I never cared much for moonlit skies. I never wink back at fireflies
.”

I tried to remember what he looked like back then. He used to wear lots of beatnik turtlenecks and berets and heavy sweaters. I remembered that. But I couldn't picture his face. I knew he used to smile a lot, but I couldn't remember what that looked like. A year ago he had to retire from playing because he was having trouble remembering songs, and he hadn't really been the same since.

“Boy, are you going to stare at that food or are you going to eat it?” said Gramps.

I'd been so zoned out that I hadn't noticed he'd stopped playing. Now he was standing in the kitchen doorway glaring at me.

“Hey, Gramps,” I said. “Dinner's ready.”

“I can see that!” he said, and sat down at the table. “I'm not completely blind, you know!”

“I know, Gramps.”

“Just mostly.”

“Yep.”

“Haven't lost my perfect-pitch ear, though.”

“Nope,” I lied. “Have something to eat.” I nudged his tray.

He shook his head. “You first.”

“Gramps,” I said. “I swear I didn't put anything in it.” My mom doesn't think he takes his medication regularly, so sometimes she tries to slip it into his food.

His eyes narrowed and he gave me a weird look, like he thought I might be lying. “How do I know for sure? Why don't you take a bite and prove it to me?”

I rolled my eyes to show him I thought he was being totally ridiculous, but I took a bite of his food and chewed slowly while he watched me carefully. I guess he was waiting to see if I keeled over and started foaming at the mouth or something. When he was sure none of that was going to happen, he sat down and started shoveling food in so fast I couldn't believe he had time to swallow.

“That damn McCarthy was here again today,” he said between bites.

“Again?” I asked. He'd recently been talking about this guy a lot. Senator Joseph McCarthy was some freaky congressman in the '50s who went around trying to prove that artists, actors, and musicians were all communist spies for Russia. No matter what I said, Gramps refused to believe that the guy died in 1957. At first it had been weird the way he always went on about him, but after a while it got kind of fun. So now I played along with it.

“Do you think he's on to you?” I asked.

“Ha! I'm no commie, and certainly no spy.” He stirred his beef stew around a little bit, then looked back at me fiercely. “I'm a socialist! But the distinction between a commie scum and a thoughtful socialist is far too difficult for an ignoramus like McCarthy to grasp.”

I couldn't really figure out the difference either, but I still played along. “That's the truth,” I said.

Gramps was getting more worked up now. “Last I checked, this was still a free country!”

“I don't think you have to worry about him, Gramps.”

He placed his fork on the side of his nose and gave me a wink. “Damn right.” When he took the fork away, there was a blob of gravy on the side of his nose. Then he frowned. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Have you covered your tracks?” he asked, looking worried. “I can't have my own grandson in prison!”

“Gramps, I'm not a commie
or
a socialist.”

“Ha! You think that matters to scum like McCarthy? He and his kind despise musicians. They can't comprehend living a life of creativity and individualism! They try to turn anything you do into some kind of anti-American statement.”

“Really, Gramps,” I said. “I don't think it's a problem.”

He didn't look very convinced. Finally, he said, “Well, tell
me what your set list is right now. That's usually where they start looking, to see what kind of songs you're playing.”

I told him the set list we were working on.

“I don't recognize any of those songs,” he said.

“That's because I wrote them.”

“Wrote?” He blinked in confusion. “Why? Can't you play anyone else's songs?”

“Sure we could.”

“Then why are you writing your own? Only people who can't play the standards have to make up their own songs.”

“That's not how it is anymore, Gramps. Most people play their own music.”

“That's ridiculous! Are you telling me that at your age, you're writing better songs than the Duke? Than Bird? I love you, kid, but somehow I think you've got a few more years before you're ready for that.”

“Gramps, nowadays you only play other people's music if you can't write your own.”

“An entire generation of arrogant hacks.” He sighed. “Let me tell you something, kid. In all my years in clubs and bars, on cruise ships, and in festivals and concert halls, I was never forced to play anything that I had to
make up
.”

“I know, Gramps,” I said. There didn't seem to be much point in arguing with him. He wasn't even listening.

“So.” Gramps gazed balefully down at me, his old eyes wide and a little wild. “When are you getting married?”

Like clockwork. Music and girls. The only things he could think about.

“Gramps,” I said, “I'm only seventeen.”

“SO WHAT? When I was your age I'd already met the love of my life. Your grandmother. Vivian . . .” He sighed and his eyes went unfocused. “You don't remember her, do you?”

“Not really,” I said. “Although I think I remember her perfume, you know? I have this really vivid memory of sitting on someone's lap while I watched you play at some festival. And I know it wasn't Mom because of the way she smelled.”

“God, I loved her,” said Gramps, his eyes and voice drifting farther away until it was almost like he was talking to himself. “Viv. She was a real beauty. And kind, oh so kind. Your mother got her looks. Not too much of the kindness, though. Viv understood how hard it was to be a musician. She understood what a wretched, callous thing life can be to an artist. She was a singer herself, see. A voice like a fallen angel. And for a while, a short, sweet while, we were together, partners in crime, and we could handle
anything
. . .”

He was blinking away tears as he looked up at the ceiling. He really wasn't the crying type, so seeing him like that made me a little uncomfortable. Then, still looking up at the ceiling,
his hand groped across the table until it found mine, and grasped it hard.

“Oh God, how I loved that woman,” he whispered.

I patted the top of his hand, all liver spots and paper-thin skin, and said, “I know, Gramps. I know.”

After that, I felt like I couldn't just leave after dinner. So I stayed pretty late and we talked about music and girls, like always. His mood swings kept me kind of off balance, the way he would be angry and ranting and then suddenly get all sad and teary. But he was in one of his poetic moods, so he talked on and on about Parker and Gillespie, Davis and Coltrane. Names that I had heard whispered throughout my life with absolute reverence. These were gods to him, and I loved hearing him talk about them and about their music. It wasn't just about his jazz. He would talk about how important
all
music was. How it took us—not just the people who played it but the people who heard it—to a place above the normal boring world. A place of pure beauty. And that would somehow always lead him into talking about beautiful women. And how they were the last refuge of the creative soul in this harsh, modern world.

Sure, he was moody and a little crazy. But how could you not love him?

forever when you had something cool planned at night. That day seemed endless because later I was going to see Monster Zero play.

I was actually a little nervous to see them. They had been playing in the local scene for a couple years and they had a big following. They'd even had a regional tour, up to Cleveland and Detroit, down to Cincinnati, west to Indianapolis, and east to Pittsburgh, to promote an album they'd made on a local indie label. If you were in the scene, you knew who they were. But it wasn't like you could buy their album in New York, L.A., or even Seattle. They were ours alone. That was until last week, when some cheesy mainstream rock magazine
had named Columbus “The Next Seattle.” During the grunge thing in the early '90s, major labels could pick up unknown bands in Seattle and make a ton of money off of them by calling it “alternative rock.” Ever since, they'd been trying to do the same thing someplace else, getting their marketing minions to convince us that some up-and-coming city was the new cool scene. One year, the year Death Cab for Cutie got big, they even named Seattle “The Next Seattle.” How dumb was that? I guess some people believed it—the ones who watched MTV and read stupid mainstream rock magazines. But anyone who was already in the scene knew it was total bullshit.

But now Columbus had been named the new “Next Seattle” and Monster Zero had been named the best band in the Columbus scene. Tonight was their first gig since the magazine article came out. Would they be the same cool band they'd always been? Or would the lure of money and national fame have already sunk its claws into them?

At last the final bell rang, and I went straight home. I had to change, eat dinner, call everybody to figure out who was driving who and where we would all meet up, and be out the door before Mom got home and officially reminded me it was a school night and gave me a curfew. I didn't like going against her directly, but if we didn't talk about it before I left, then I could be a little later that night and plead misunderstanding
or forgetfulness. As long as I wasn't too ridiculously late, she'd let me slide.

Rick lived closest to me, so I picked him up first. When I turned on to his block, I saw him sitting out on the curb waiting for me. His house was much nicer than mine. His mom was a doctor and his dad was in finance (whatever that meant), so they made a lot of money. Although you wouldn't know it, looking at Rick. If anything, it looked like he'd tried to make himself look even scruffier since school let out. But that didn't mean he could resist taking shots at me.

“Boat's getting worse,” he said as he climbed into the passenger seat.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I came outside as soon as I heard it coming, thinking it was only a block or two away, but I've been out here for ten minutes.”

“Ha-ha,” I said.

“Swear to God, I think I heard you turn the ignition.”

“You wanna walk?”

“I'm just concerned for the health and well-being of our only mode of transport. Maybe you should take it to a shop or something. Have it looked at.”

“You wanna pay for that?”

“My money's all tied up in investments.” That was his usual joke response when people asked him for money. It's what his dad said when he'd asked why he couldn't have a car if they were so rich.

“Anyway,” I said, “I'm sure they'd probably tell me to sell it for scrap or something. It's only my remarkable Zen powers that keep it moving.”

“You, Sammy?” said Rick. “You're the anti-Zen.”

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind. Let's go pick up the floozy and then see that sell-out band.”

When we pulled up to Jen5's house, she wasn't waiting out front for us. That was normal, though, because her dad said it was rude if we didn't come inside and say hello to him. It was kind of like we had to ask his permission to take her out with us.

We parked the Boat out front, then trooped single file up the narrow, winding walkway through the little rose garden and up to the front door. There was no doorbell because, according to Jen5, the sound of doorbells didn't agree with her mother's nerves. Instead they had a big iron knocker that I guess did agree with her nerves. I picked it up and clanked it against the door a few times. We heard
shouts from inside that sounded like Jen5 and her father. Her mother was probably still at work. She worked even more than my mom did. But her father, who was some kind of language professor at Ohio State University, was home all the time.