Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

You stealin. Plain and simple. False prophets follow heavy on the heels of true prophets.

Now you gon church me?

Maybe you need some church.

The smooth, clear music moved on undisturbed, waterlike.

Put in our tape, Hatch said.

Abu squelched Spin’s song. He clicked in the requested tape. Third Rail.

Now, new music rose, an unexpected match flaring up in the dark. Abu point-blank on the wheels of steel, backtracking the whacked, doctoring measured doses of beats. Both hands buck wild on two turntables, working the discs in opposite directions. Telescopic grooves. (Yes, Hatch had produced the mix — looped it to tape — and Abu cut it.) Ah, here was the next song. Abu’s hands flickered once or twice, then died. His rhythms fell away from the fullness of the song. A scratched record, repeating the same beat, jumping on the same groove, no mix no mission. Listen to your heart. No. Not like that. Listen to your heart. Notes floated, aimless, chaotic. It’s like exercise. The heart changes. That beat in between the beat. Fast, then slow. Fast. Fast. Slow. Fast. Slow. Hatch’s ear strained to bring the pieces together.

You hear that?

Hear what? Abu said.

That.

Abu said nothing.

Can you play it?

Abu breathed in the darkness.

Abu? What are you playing? Mr. Stingley said.

Nothing, sir.

Nothing? I can see that. I can hear it too. My ears are too old for this.

Sorry, sir.

Notes of the same key respond to each other.

Yes, sir.

And if you wet your reed you will blow better. You can’t blow anything with a dry reed.

Can’t I jus bend it?

Bend it? Wet it! What do you think I’ve been saying to you? I must be talking for my health. You can’t play anything with a rigid reed. Can’t I bend it? What is Mr. Nelson teaching you in that science class? Nothing in the universe is perfectly rigid.

You jus think you better than me cause you had more theory.

Theory? Nigga, I read the same books you do. Indeed, they shared books, creasing a page with two sets of thumbprints. We were here! Folded both page corners (top and bottom), two dog ears for double listening.

So. You read more.

No, that’s not the problem. See, you need an eye single to the music.

Don’t try to sound smart. You had more instruction.

Not as much as you. Abu had trained under the most refined drum teachers.

You had better instruction.

Memory sounds in the slowness of the pause. Ripens to red visions.

Hatch’s one guitar teacher had been Hank Hazlett. Listen and bounce it back. Hank taught Hatch the basics. See that’s your tonic, your dominant, and your subdominant. Music got to have that or it won’t swing.

Okay.

And when you bend a note, you try to hit the notes that ain’t there, the missing notes of the scale. That’s the blues.

How’d it get up here? I mean, the blues, how’d it get all the way up here?

The music followed us here. Cause the ‘Sippi River ain’t nothing but one long guitar string. Hank was an old man. A belt of white hair circled his head, squeezed out wrinkles in his face and neck. He had led a trio in his short career as a professional musician—

We played our first gig downtown … a Chinese restaurant.

What?

Baby, them chinks love them some jazz.

— and harbored a trunkful of stories.

But I was talkin about the junkies. Baby, most of them cats were junkies. Hank leaned in close and put distance between the words and his wife’s pious ears. And H makes you all constipated. Imagine Trane digging up his crack, trying to pull out a rock-hard lump of doo-doo.

Ah, man.

And thieves. H makes you steal. Bird would steal your mamma’s draws, brown stains and all. Steal the flea collar off a dog’s neck. Bird only looked after himself. He used to say, This is a solo flight and you may take no one with you. Talkin in that phony British accent.

I never heard nothing bout that.

Had to put on airs cause that H had taken everything else he had. Why you think he played a plastic horn?

Creative. He wanted to be —

Miles used to have to loan him a suit to play in. Skinny old Miles and fat old Bird. You know he was lookin silly. Sleeves too short and flood-high pants. But Miles took the H train too. And you know Bird and Miles were sissies.

Come on, Hank. I know Miles was on the H. But I never heard —

H, horn — he and Bird would toot anything, if you know what I mean.

Hank —

H brings out the fag in you. Make you do things you wouldn normally do.

Hank —

And Billie, you know she was a mess. She would kiss a roach for a quick fix. And she would eat anything for a buck. And I do mean anything. The joke was, she had sensitive teeth. Get it? Sensitive. S-i-n. Sen-sen.

Hatch laughed, belly-hard. Then his laugh caught in the mitt of his throat. He spoke to himself: I shouldn’t be laughin about Billie, Lady Day. Show some respect, he told himself. Respect. R-e-s-p-e-c-t.

And she had this little dog named Melody. Billie’d come in the club and sit down at the bar with a stiff drink — you know how that alcohol ate up her voice. Used to sing so sweet. Billie’s bounce. Well, she come into the club and sit down at the bar with a stiff drink and spread her legs. She never wore no draws. That dog start to lickin her and lickin her like greasy chicken.

Hatch shook his head. Now, why’d you want to tell me something like that? Hank, you talkin bout Lady Day, man, Lady Day!

By the way, she didn’t like to be called Lady. (Prez called her Mamma. Bless his soul.) She said, Lady, that’s the name for a dog.

The pinnacle of his career, Hank shook hands with Charlie Christian. Yeah, we were workin this gig and Charlie came in as we were leaving. Ole Charlie was tough. Lots of cats used to copy his style. Convert their style to coincide with his.

After Hank gave up the life, he put in thirty years at a paint factory. I played a gig here and there. Man, I used to work with all those cats when they came to town. Prez, Monk, Bird, Miles, Trane — I used to buy all those guys hot dogs. I still can’t understand it. Why do a guy want to be a junky to play a horn? a guitar? That’s why I gave it up in 1945. I was afraid to go on the road. The paint had wrecked his body. He stood reed-thin, knees squeezed together like a girl needing to pee. Took him ten minutes to quit a room.

Face to face with Hank, Hatch’s mind often drifted, trying to image two persons in one, the young Hank, the hepcat — cuff-linked shirt, suspenders, painted tie, patent-leather kicks, and a sky red as autumn day — in the old Hank. The language was there— I had this long cord. The longest in the world. Made it myself. I’d leave the stage and go table to table, running riffs and hustlin in tips. On Sunday nights we’d go down to Lamb’s Cafe when the symphonic session was on. We going to church. But most nights the cats hung out at the Red Onion. The P.I.’s wore these big diamonds, big as dimes. Seen a few bigger than a quarter. And the hot women wit those big behinds. That was the place for cats to jam. But people wasn’t paying much mind to what was happening onstage. Then the cats in the band would start to mess up. I used to ride the drummer for not playin the sock cymbal on the afterbeat. Mop-a! Like that. Mop-a — but the flesh was long gone.

His wife, a yellow woman with a healthy wave of straight hair— Used to be fine in her day. Wish I had known her when she was eighteen —often interrupted a lesson. Hank, ain’t you tired? You know you need your rest.