“Hey, guys,” Laura greeted, offering a slight flash of her smile.
Sally only nodded. He was a man of few words, Laura had found, and he always seemed to be scowling. Squiggle, on the other hand, liked to talk and make jokes. He was in his early thirties, appeared to be in decent enough shape, and had a mop of long blonde hair that fell to his shoulders. His arms were covered in tattoos, most of which were music related.
“You’re doing pretty good, Laura,” he told her. “I think we might be able to get back out there in a couple of weeks at this rate.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked doubtfully. She felt worlds away from being ready to actually step out on a stage before an audience.
“I do,” he said. “You seem to be a quick study. You’re definitely a natural with your instrument. Been playing all your life?”
“Ever since grade school,” she confirmed.
“Yeah, me too,” he said. “I was in the music program in fourth grade and could have picked any instrument available—I didn’t really have a preference at that point—and what did I pick? The goddamn trumpet.” He shook his head a little. “You ever heard of a rich trumpeter?”
“Louis Armstrong,” she said immediately.
Squiggle chuckled. “He’s the exception that proves the rule. I got a joke for you. What’s the best way to make a million dollars playing jazz?”
“Uh ... I don’t know,” she said.
“Start off with two million,” he told her, laughing at his own humor.
She laughed along with him, the expression genuine. For those who played jazz, it was a true statement.
“Do you play anything else?” she asked.
“I’ve played around with the sax, the piano, a couple of the woodwinds, and the harmonica, of course. The trumpet has always been what I’m best at though, the only one I can really feel, if you can dig that.”
“I can,” she said truthfully. To feel one’s instrument meant that one would reach a level when playing it in which it felt as if the instrument was an extension of your body and your brain, that you could just envision the notes in your mind and your mouth, fingers, or any other body part involved would just automatically do what they needed to do to produce that note without conscious thought. “I feel the sax when I play it. I always have.”
“I can tell,” he said. “You know, we were a little antsy when Z told us you were going to replace Dex on the sax.”
“He’s a hard act to follow,” she admitted. “I was more than a little nervous about even trying to fill his shoes.”
“Don’t be,” Squiggle told her. “You’ve got the talent. I won’t say you’re as good as Dex is—that’s hard to do because he’s one of the best there is—but I’ll put you in the same league with him.”
“I think that’s a compliment,” she said.
“That’s how I intended it,” he said. “Hey, here’s another one: You’re locked in a room with Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Kenny G. You have a gun but it only has two bullets in it. What do you do?”
A smile came to her face. “I don’t know,” she said. “What do I do?”
“Shoot Kenny G twice,” Squiggle told her.
They both laughed a considerable amount at this one. It was jazz humor at its finest. Though Kenny G was admired and loved by the non-musically sophisticated masses, he was despised as a hacking sellout by any true jazz musician.
“God, I’m so sweaty,” Laura said when the laughter died down. “I thought it was warm in LA.”
“Yeah, nothing like Pennsylvania in the summer,” Squiggle said. “Once we get you up to snuff and start hitting the road again, we’ll be heading south down the eastern seaboard. It’s only gonna get hotter and muggier.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” she said sourly.
“Life on the road,” he said. “At least the bus has good air conditioning. Sometimes I sleep in it instead of the motel room. The cheap places they put us up in don’t always have working air conditioning or heat.”
“They don’t?”
He shook his head. “That’s what you get for choosing jazz,” he said. “They spare lots of expenses for our tours. Cheap motels to stay in and cheap venues to play in. Occasionally, we’ll get a little food poisoning from the cheap caterers.” He chuckled. “Nothing like trying to clench the old butt cheeks together to keep from having an accident when you’re only three songs into the set.”
“That sounds horrible,” she said.
“It builds character,” Squiggle told her.
“What happens if you can’t ... you know ... hold it?”
“You’ll find a way,” he assured her. “You can’t leave the stage and you can’t let it go while you’re up there. The show must go on, right?”
“The show must go on,” she agreed. “Thank you for giving me one more thing to worry about.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
They sat in silence for a few minutes—not exactly a companionable silence, but not exactly an uncomfortable one either. Finally, Laura broke it. “Why do they call you Squiggle?” she asked.
“Because I’m left-handed,” he said.
“Come again?” she asked. She had noticed that he was left-handed—it was quite obvious from the way he fingered the valves on his instrument—but she did not see the connection to the nickname.
“Left-handed people have terrible handwriting,” he explained. “When I first hooked up with Z, they put me in charge of ordering supplies. Several of my order sheets got sent back because no one could read my squiggles on the paper.” He smiled. “And that’s the genesis of a nickname.”
“Interesting,” she said.
“And advantageous too,” he said. “They stopped asking me to do the supply orders within a month.”
“Hmm ... Squiggle,” she said. “I kind of like it. Are you all still working on a nickname for me?”
He shrugged. “It’s not like a committee thing where we sit down and try out names to see what we think. Something will come up and it’ll stick. Trust me on this.”
“Can I make some suggestions?” she asked.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “You don’t get to pick your own nickname. That’s a law.”
“Is it now?” she asked.
“I think that’s in the constitution,” he said. “And if it’s not, it should be.”
A few minutes later they went back to work. They made their way slowly through each song of the set before breaking for lunch at 12:30. The food was greasy hamburgers and French fries from a nearby McDonalds. After lunch, they carried on until just before five o’clock, when Z called an end to the day’s session.
The two security guards were left to guard the warehouse while the rest of the crew climbed on the tour bus for the trip back to their lodgings. They were staying at a Motel 6 just south of downtown Pittsburgh, again, not in the best of neighborhoods. Laura went to her room—she was the only one, including Z himself, who had a private room—and stripped off her sweaty, smelly clothes and took a cold shower. She contemplated masturbating while she showered but, in the end, just didn’t have the energy for it.
The entire group met in the motel’s dining room for a tasteless, cheap dinner that went on National Records’ tab. It was not terribly satisfying. After dinner, Laura went to her room and dialed long distance to Los Angeles (Pauline had insisted in negotiations that Laura be granted unlimited use of long-distance phone calls at every lodging they stayed in).
“Hey, babe,” Jake greeted when he picked up the phone. “How was the day?”
“Hot and miserable,” she said, “but we’re making progress.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m starting to think I’ll really be able to pull this thing off.”
They talked for about twenty minutes, Laura describing her day and Jake telling her the news about Ben and Ted and Phil and Lenny agreeing to play with them for the summer. Laura was genuinely glad to hear this. A large part of her wished that she had refused this particular opportunity and would be in LA playing with them. But she had already done that. She had never toured with a jazz group before—and it was Bobby Z!