“And I thought you were the same thing, and I almost put a hole in your head when you made a sudden reach for your pocket. So don’t ever do that again, either, you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get this goddamn car off the streets and consider yourself lucky. You seem like a nice bunch of kids, so we’ll let it pass this time. We could haul you in for speeding, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, and I certainly appreciate—”
“All right, get moving.”
“I’d... I’d like to get some gas, sir. If it’s all right.”
“Go ahead, get your gas.”
The cops piled back into the green Hudson sedan and gunned away from the gas station. The attendant came over, his eyes wide.
“Jesus,” he said, “what the hell was that?”
“Those miserable bastards,” Artie said.
“Man, I was scared stiff,” Tack said.
Jonesy’s face was still white, and his hands were shaking. “Did you see the size of them?” he asked.
“Those miserable bastards,” Artie said.
“Man, I thought they were going to... man, when I saw him pull that gun on you... oh, man... man, I thought I’d... Jesus, I thought I’d drop dead.”
Artie smiled. “Those miserable bastards. Thinking we were crooks.”
“You can’t blame them,” Tack said. “Shooting up the avenue at—”
“You want gas?” the attendant asked.
“Fill ’er up,” Artie said. “How you feel, Andy?”
Andy gulped. “Okay,” he said.
“Hey, dig Andy,” Artie said. “Man, you look like you’re ready to pass out.”
“I’m just a little... a little shaken,” Andy said.
“You’ll be lucky to get out of this burg. Man, I wish I was goin’ on the road.”
“How about some coffee before we go home?” Tack asked. “Man, I can sure use a cup.”
“Good idea. What do you say, Andy?”
“All right,” Andy said.
“We can go to the White Tower on Remsen and Utica,” Artie said. “Those miserable bastards.”
They stood around while the attendant filled the tank, silent now, glad the episode was over. Artie paid the attendant, and they climbed back into the car. Andy hesitated a moment. He looked down to the patch of concrete near the right rear wheel. He saw the cracked inhaler nestling against the rubber of the tire. He wet his lips, staring at the inhaler.
“You coming, Andy?” Tack said.
“Yes,” he said.
He opened the back door and then stooped quickly, his fingers closing around the inhaler tube. He put the tube into his pocket and then climbed into the car.
“I’m ready,” he said.
20
change of key, ii
MAY-JULY, 1945
Lying on his bed in the hotel room, Andy could hear the sounds of Michigan Avenue far below him, filtering up to and through the open window. It was still raining, but the wind was blowing from the opposite direction, and so the sharp silvery wet needles slanted away from the window and the room.
Rain in a strange town was a very depressing thing somehow. He wondered why this should be so, and then he picked up Bud’s letter again and began reading from the second page.
...big-time outfit, so I guess you’re really in your element now. I always knew you would amount to something, and I think you did the wise thing in grabbing the opportunity when it came along. In her letters Carol tells me she didn’t think you should’ve quit school, but the decision was yours to make, really, and your first responsibility is to yourself, isn’t it? Anyway, you’ve been with Black for some months now, so I guess it must appeal to you.
The navy certainly appeals to me. I know there are a lot of guys who find it chicken, but I love it. I guess it’s hard to explain, but I like them telling me when to wake up, and when to go to sleep, and when you can leave the ship, and when you have to be back aboard, and they feed you when they want to feed you, and they tell you what to wear, and that all sounds kind of lousy when you say it that way, but I like it.
You don’t have to worry about a damn thing. Do you know what I mean? All the decisions are made for you. You don’t have to worry about anyone but yourself. When you think of it, you don’t even have to worry about yourself.
There are officers paid to do the worrying. Jesus, it’s a great life. I’ll tell you the truth, I’ll be a little sorry when it’s all over. I mean, when I have to come back and pick up where I left off. Not that I don’t want to be back with the old crowd — hell, there was nothing like the old crowd — but, well, I guess this is beginning to sound crazy, so the hell with it.
I understand they’ve shipped Frank to Okinawa where he...
Andy folded the letter and put it on the night table. He was happy that Bud was enjoying himself because he couldn’t exactly say he was doing the same. It was strange, too, because he sure as hell should have been enjoying himself, but he wasn’t, and that was the simple truth of it. He missed Carol, and he missed Bud. It was funny he should miss them and not his own mother and father, but he had to admit that was the way things stood.
Then, too, the band was boring him a lot lately.
There was a dull regularity to the routine of traveling with a big band. Breakfast at noon, rehearsals at two, a movie to kill the rest of the afternoon, or a few drinks in a bar; a late supper, and then onto the bandstand until two in the morning; a sandwich with the boys, and then bed. This would have been all right, he supposed, if he were enjoying the bandstand part, and he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t.
It was just that... well, hell, what was the reason now? Why the hell wasn’t he really blowing the way he wanted to blow now? He had a big-time section behind him, and he had big-time arrangements, and, Jesus, Jesus, he certainly gave it everything he had, didn’t he? He blew his lungs out, and his heart out, and still something eluded him, and he kept grasping for it, not even knowing what the something was, only knowing that the sound wasn’t the right sound — good, yes, but not what he wanted. And because it was not what he wanted, he sought excitement, and because the excitement could never compare to this thing he wanted to achieve with his horn, he found only boredom instead.
There were ways to break the monotony, of course — the jam sessions in the all-night bistros, where musicians from every band in town congregated after hours to blow their heads off. He’d blown with Barney Bigard at one of those sessions, and Art Tatum had given him a piano background at another. He had felt excitement on those nights, blowing with the greats, and then the excitement had died — in spite of the wild applause that greeted him — because again he’d felt this empty longing, this desire to give his horn a tongue, to make his horn speak from hidden wells within him.
He had enjoyed his freedom, too, at first. No mother or father to watch him, no well-meant words about what time to get in, none of his mother’s fussing over him, and none of his father’s tacit disapproval of everything he did. He had enjoyed this feeling of independence immensely, until even that wore off, leaving him only a lot of empty time on his hands.