Dirty Beat

by Venero Armanno

  ‘Whatever stupid girl it’s all about,’ I told you, ‘she’s just the trigger,’ but I’m not sure you heard me. You were asleep with your mouth open on the sad remains of my breasts, the sort a woman like me used to be really, really proud of.

  VI

  I sure was asleep, Patti, and it was my deepest for months, and if you were to let me lay on your breast now I’d sleep with a smile on my face. Yes, you’re a little on the mature side, and I know you feel positively ancient, but when you smile you’re just like a girl, you know that?

  The morning after, there was the smell of food in the house and I thought Conny had returned to create some Italian delicacy. I rolled out of bed and found Patti all right, and the breakfast feast she was making in the kitchen looked a lot less exotic than anything Conny would have put together.

  ‘You could have slept more, but I hope you’re feeling better,’ she said in a raspy morning voice.

  I sat at the dining table, one hand shading my eyes from a sun that seemed all the harsher for the disarray in my head. She put a plate of scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes, crispy bacon and sautéed button mushrooms in front of me. Next came buttered wholemeal toast and fresh filter coffee.

  ‘How do you have it, sir?’

  ‘Black.’ I stared at the stack of food in front of me. At such close quarters, I thought I might be sick.

  ‘Don’t turn your nose up at all that,’ Patti said, sitting beside me. ‘I went shopping while you were still asleep. Down to my supermarket. Managers get ten percent off.’

  ‘You manage that place?’

  ‘Parts of it. Deli, meats and customer complaints. I took one look at the food you didn’t have here. A mouse wouldn’t live on what you had. Now eat up.’

  My hand was shaking as I picked up the cup and brought it to my lips. The coffee was good, but I couldn’t face her breakfast. The look and smell of food were nauseating.

  ‘What is it?’ Patti asked. ‘Come on, start small. Just taste a bit.’

  I tried. In appreciation of her efforts, I really did, but there was a genuine physical resistance to the act of taking food off my fork, chewing it and swallowing.

  ‘It’s good,’ Patti said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  It was good and bad and the one forkful was all I could manage. She shook her head and finished the plate off herself, and with good gusto. As she did I kept sipping my coffee.

  ‘You think you want to die, but you don’t really. If you did, you would have jumped off a bridge or something. Not that I want to put ideas in your head. Dying by degrees is bullshit.’

  ‘You know something about that?’ I asked, a last act of selfdefence. Patti shook her head, but it could have meant Yes and it could have meant No. She didn’t want me to push it. Maybe she’d thought about a bridge or a rope plenty of times. ‘So you stayed here after you brought me home?’ I said instead.

  ‘For a little while. I fell asleep too, but you woke me up with all your shouting and struggling.’

  ‘Shouting?’

  ‘Oh yes, but not words. Like as if you were trapped under a rock or something. God knows how long you’ve been doing that, huh? Your neighbours, they give you strange looks?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never see them.’ I tore a corner of toast and took the tiniest nibble of it. Patti observed this with some satisfaction.

  ‘I did stay with you, but I’ve got a home to go to as well. I stopped by on my way to the supermarket and did some fast explaining. Got myself married since the last time we met, you know.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. To my Roger. Used to be a public servant in water resources, retired now. Old school, decent man. Ten years on me, but I bless his blue socks every day.’ She cleared away the breakfast plates, then took some fresh cheese from the refrigerator, cut a wedge and gave it to me. I chewed it in small bites, just like the mouse Patti had referred to. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘We really will have to start small. Bland might be best for a while.’

  ‘We?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not getting out of your hair until you’ve got a bit of flesh back on those bones.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry.’

  ‘Max, you just leave it to Auntie Patti.’

  ‘You weren’t much like an aunt last time we got together.’

  She grinned. It was a big, craggy smile on her face. ‘And don’t you forget it.’

  ‘What happened,’ I asked, ‘last night when I woke you up?’

  ‘You suspect foul play?’

  ‘Something went on,’ I said. ‘Something Roger might not like.’

  ‘Sure you want to know?’

  I had that unmistakable feeling in the pit of my belly that comes after some sort of sex, no matter how odd or inappropriate. Patti smiled.

  ‘Well, I tried to quiet you down. You were in a state and your heart was pounding like mad. Really scared me.’ She was standing next to my chair. She leaned down and whispered, ‘Something a girl learns. There are times when a little blowjob can save a young man’s life. Sometimes even her own too, right?’ She straightened. Slightly embarrassed, she went into the kitchen to get the dirty dishes and utensils done in the sink. ‘Then,’ she went on, ‘I cleaned you up. Um, there was a lot. You still didn’t wake up. That’s when I left you and went home to Roger on my way down to the supermarket. Which is what I should be doing right now. I’ve got good stuff for you here, you make sure you eat today. There’s orange juice waiting too. I’ll see you tonight. I’ll cook.’

  ‘You don’t need to come back.’

  ‘Vegetables with chicken. You’ll see, you’ll have your appetite back in no time.’ She poured me a fresh cup of coffee and left a little plate of cream biscuits. Patti walked down the dark corridor to the front door. ‘Whatever’s been going on with you, it’s time to get over it. Tell yourself that.’

  Your approach was simple, Patti, but my recuperation was underway. You never had to use your nocturnal ministration on me again. Still, I was glad that ‘your Roger’ never joined us for meals. It would have been difficult to face the friendly pensioner whose wife had kindly sucked me off. Instead, Roger would pull up outside, beep his horn, and you’d be on your way. He must have thought you were providing home-care for some hopeless invalid or something.

  How long ago did that nice man die, Patti, only three years? Then at least you had some good time with him, hey?

  And look at you on your own down there in row fifteen. You should be right up here next to me, where I can better share the way you’re reliving your Florence Nightingale days.

  One night, over another mostly wasted meal, you were curious about my parents, my family, so I told you about Conny.

  ‘Your stepdad was Italian? Didn’t he teach you to cook? Well, I’ve had enough of being your servant. When I come on Thursday night, I expect to be fed. Feed me something Italian and exotic. The shoe’s on the other foot now.’

  A day of panic. Conny, I asked, help me please. What the hell would you make?

  It struck me that if he’d been with me, he would have been in a mood to make a special entrée of his that involved oysters. For a nice, healthy woman like Patti he would have followed it with braised swordfish steaks crowned with asparagus. Plus, on the side, rosemary-sprinkled steamed baby potatoes. I thanked the empty air; sometimes I didn’t feel so alone at all.

  Of everything I made that night, I liked preparing the oysters the best. I had sixteen of the plumpest and freshest Tasmanian specimens. I made a tomato and balsamic topping, crushed blue cheese over the top of each, and baked them in the oven till they were gold. Patti devoured each with gusto. When she saw my main course, I thought she was going to weep with delight. I prepared extra so that a warm plate could go home for Roger. When I started washing up, I realised all the dishes were clean. What I mean is, everything was gone, not only had Patti enjoyed the feast, but I’d eaten my portions too.

  I looked around and you were standing there, Patti, and you knew your little homes
pun miracle had come to pass. You were so proud of yourself. What did you say to me?

  Down in the long, crowded pew of row fifteen you remember it well, and you know you’re about to say it again. With the smile that makes you look like a much younger woman:

  ‘It was good, so for now, Max, it’s gotta be goodbye.’

  VII

  Conny’s old records lifted me out of myself even more. I’d kept them neatly stacked and covered for years, but on a rainy afternoon I dusted a few off and started spinning them again. Some of my stepfather’s tastes I would never warm to, old big-band and trad Dixie in particular, but once I found his modern jazz, starting with John Coltrane’s many records, particularly Blue Train but also My Favourite Things and A Love Supreme, it was going to be hard to step back to simple rock-and-roll.

  The diamond-needle comes down.

  Tenor sax intro, ratatat on the snare: here’s me cooking in the kitchen, eating like a human, looking around and thinking, This place is the only thing that’s stayed constant in my life. Even I’m different. What happened with Iron John and Debbie Canova and Tony Lester might have demolished me, okay, but maybe the upside is that I can put myself back together any way I want.

  Hit a diminished chord on the upstroke, a major chord on the downstroke: so the first thing to do is to forget about the me inside every thought, inside every equation, right? How sick am I of sleepless nights and one-way conversations with Debbie, of staggering in and out of rooms at two and three a.m. wondering, Who’s there? Why not show yourself? Who was there were the ghosts I’d created, so isn’t it time to end this fruitless imagining?

  Now change the key and improvise, let yourself go.

  How many people’s ownership had this house passed through? It was my turn to act like an owner. The easiest way to stop thinking was to start some hard work, and I’d never forgotten how good I’d felt helping Concetto San Filippo with his building project. My home needed fixing up all right, this poor old creaking, paint-peeling, timber-rotted mess of a place. There’d be a hundred things that needed doing once you got right down to it. So I made my plan: paint rooms, then attend to the carpentry outside, things I could maybe handle on my own.

  It was all more expensive and complicated than I’d imagined. I needed more income to support the project, a whole lot more than what shelf-stacking would bring in. What do I look like sitting at a desk, facing a bank manager, asking for money? Maybe not so bad. With the bank’s cash I bought myself a ute, then cleaned off my aunt’s garden tools downstairs. Putting together an ad in the local paper, I called myself Your Local Gardener and had the telephone reinstalled. Within days I was so busy with other people’s lawns that I had to find someone else to work on the house when I wasn’t there.

  Joss was a carpenter, plumber, electrician and builder combined, a grey-haired Dutchman going crazy in retirement. He whistled all day long and interspersed his labours with the odd, celebratory joint if something turned out particularly well. When I had money I paid him in cash and when I didn’t have money he kept a running tab and went home with huge pots of Italian food. In return, his wife would send me kartoffelpuffers, stamppot and snert, the green pea soup that became my favourite.

  One day, in the back of a bedroom closet that he was ripping out, Joss found a stinking, unwashed pile of my rock-pig clothes, left there from my last stage performance. That synth-pop-rock night Debbie moved out. Sweat- and beer-stained jeans, shirts, boots, socks – disgusting. He asked where he should put them. I told Joss to burn those clothes in the steel incinerator he’d set up in the yard.

  ‘No. Putting your music clothes back when I am finished. This is your legend, yes?’

  His sentences and word usage were sometimes more convoluted than Conny’s had been, but I understood what he meant. Well, I could burn everything later, when we were finished. All in all the work took a year and a half, after which the house gleamed and I was brown as a berry. Just about every yard and garden within a radius of several kilometres was touched by my hands.

  Pull the improv back now, let the notes do the talking and stretch them long, listen to how much space the ride cymbals are giving you.

  I decided to try selling the Rogers kit again. Now that the upstairs of the house was complete, I thought I could put in an internal staircase down to what was currently the huge, unused, soundproof practice studio. Then I’d create some extra rooms there – maybe another set of bedrooms or a large private study. Anything, really, just to take up the space.

  The kit was full of rust spots, dust and cobwebs. I remembered the way Conny used to keep his old drum kit protected with sheets and how he used to clean and polish it in preparation for his Sunday practice sessions. Ashamed, I crouched down and looked at dead spiders hanging off broken webs and the live spiders creeping back under the seat.

  ‘Look here, the fittings. Really do look at them. See what holds this into this? This piece here, how it fits with this one there? This is quality.’

  They still dancin’ out there? I walked around the kit, then went and found all the cleaning products I’d need. If I was going to sell it, then I’d make sure it was in perfect shape. Sprucing it up took hours. Not only did I clean it, not only did I scrape every spot of rust away and touch up the bare metal, but I pulled apart each and every one of those heavy, beautifully tooled fittings and oiled them till they were smooth. This kit deserved nothing less. By the time I was finished it was dark and the bare overhead bulbs cast spidery shadows.

  No, not really dancing, just hips sort of moving, couples swaying, this is an easy, easy beat: ‘Take driver’s seat.’

  Then let’s pick it up: I heard you then and I hear you now. And one day I overheard you say to my aunt, ‘Emma, mi tesora, this boy he need help, yes? Is for us to do the help – who else can?’

  Let’s get cooking: I went upstairs, meditative as a monk, and slid a record out its sleeve. I cleaned it off and put the needle down on another of Conny’s favourite records, a piece of vinyl he’d often made me drum alongside, Coltrane’s Blue Train. I had a thought and went into my bedroom. The new clothes closets were large and covered in mirror doors. Joss’s work was impeccable. I looked for the rock-pig clothes he wouldn’t burn and, sure enough, there they were in a fetid pile. Boots, jeans, underwear, t-shirts and shirts – leftovers from a different life.

  Kick it to the finish! I found what I was looking for with no trouble. The shirt I’d worn during that foul gig, my final show as a rock drummer. Even now the thing was rank with the smell of my own sweat, plus the stench of cigarette smoke and stale beer years old. In the top pocket was the piece of paper that skinny young guy had slipped into it, the cocky nineteen year old who’d claimed his grandfather had been a great friend of Conny’s. The name and number were still intact. Coltrane’s tenor saxophone hit a crescendo and I looked up and around at the shadows, suddenly staring.

  Okay, you sweatin’? Better be. So let the fade come easy because we did great, boys, we did great. Wind it down, wind it down, and bye for now.

  VIII

  At the lectern beside the nave, our Baron of Burying, Mr Buddy Bettridge makes prefatory remarks, welcoming everyone to the celebration of my life, and gives a warm rundown of Max’s human achievements. In a nutshell, I was a good, friendly guy of many talents. Drumming, audio technology and band management. Buddy would be beside himself if he knew that the latter description was so profoundly wrong, but no one is going to stand up from their pew and point it out. In the briefing about who and what I was, he must have misunderstood my relationship to the boys in Dirtybeat. Oh well, no matter. Buddy goes on to claim some kinship with me, a total stranger but a fellow musician, by telling an anecdote about how at the age of forty he purchased his first Fender Stratocaster, an American model of course, as these are the only ones that hold their value. The mourners titter politely, though they’d rather be getting drunk and stoned.

  ‘Now we have a surprise – in fact, a special request.’

&n
bsp; With a half-smile, because he enjoys the small oddities that tend to arise when dealing with the funerals of musicians, artists and assorted creative types on their way to their maker, Buddy nods toward a gangly, slightly stooped individual standing in the crowd at the back of the chapel.

  Hard to surprise a dead man, believe me, but I never even knew Jamie Lazaroff was here. Fake leg and all, souvenir of a landmine in Somalia. So his Somali wife helps him along by carrying his instrument’s case for him. Her skin is the darkest ebony and he is a little grey-haired but in no way is he old. You get the feeling a boy like him will never really age, not even as the venerable doctor and educator he will continue to become, already a veteran of umpteen medical campaigns in numerous African countries.

  I can tell that he’s extremely nervous. Not just because he’s not quite used to his prosthetic leg – only had it eight months now, the explosion still rings in his one good ear, and probably always will; the other ear is inert as a stone – but because he has played so rarely since abandoning his fellow jazz aficionados in his collective and undertaking what turned out to be his true calling with Médecins Sans Frontières. Sometimes in makeshift medical tents and mess halls, sure he’d been known to play a few tunes to cheer people up, but you wouldn’t call these performances, not by any stretch of the imagination. Now with only a bit of hearing left and little practice behind him he wonders whether he is going to embarrass himself in front of all these musically oriented mourners.

  As Jamie passes my coffin, his hand touches the lid. There’s warmth there, and a tremor. Good to have a little stage fright, right?

  The scruffy boys from Dirtybeat get up and follow him to the front. They produce acoustic instruments from various hiding spots inside the chapel. The crowd oohs in delight. The boys grin sheepishly. Jamie opens the instrument case and takes out his signature instrument, the alto sax. It gleams; it shines. His eyes flick to the others. Wow, I get it. The special request came from them. Doesn’t make much sense, though. Those rough and tumble young rockers asked a former virtuoso like Jamie to play with them?