Shout Down the Moon

by Lisa Tucker

  “I’m not saying it’s your fault,” he says slowly. “You’ve obviously had a difficult life.” He pushes his messy hair back, looks past me. “I realized after what happened in Omaha… I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”

  He’s never mentioned this to me before, none of them have, but I’ve overheard Carl and Dennis talking about it. My “psycho boyfriend,” as they refer to Rick. Irene says they have to talk about what happened that night because they’re still freaked. Maybe so, but from what I heard, they didn’t sound freaked, they sounded amused.

  I glance at my hands. “I think I’d better go.”

  “Are you upset?” He’s blinking, confused.

  “No.” I pause and hook my fingernail in the couch cushion, rip at a loose thread. “I mean, why should I be? I suck, but it’s okay. I have a good excuse.”

  Before he can say anything, the door swings open. Harry steps inside, says “Hey” to me before he tells Jonathan, “The jam starts at six thirty, man. We need to take off.”

  “Give me a minute,” Jonathan says.

  “There’s no reason,” I say, standing up. “I’m leaving.”

  By the time he and Harry come out of his apartment, I’m halfway down the hall. They turn the other way, towards the parking lot. Before they disappear, I hear him tell Harry that he can’t wait to jam tonight. For a split second, I forget how bad I feel, wonder if he plans to play his beautiful new song. I’m sure the guys will love it.

  I’m almost to the front door when I run into Irene. She’s been out jogging in Loose Park; she’s out of breath, but she manages to say I can’t go home until we have a beer.

  “I’m not really in the mood,” I say, but she takes my wrist and starts pulling me back down the hall. “Come on, kiddo, I haven’t seen you for what? Thirty-one hours. It’s too weird.”

  Her and Harry’s place is furnished exactly like Jonathan’s, but it looks very different. Irene is such a clean freak; she’s already unpacked everything. Her beads and silver tools are neatly arranged in baskets on the coffee table. The only evidence that a musician is staying here is Harry’s electric bass, propped against the wall by the couch. He must have taken his acoustic to the jam.

  Irene says she needs to change out of her sweaty running clothes. When she returns holding two bottles of Coors, I’m staring at the wall. “What are you thinking about?” she says.

  “Nothing.” It’s true. I feel like all my thoughts have been crushed out by what Jonathan said.

  We sit on the beige couch and drink while she tells me about an argument she and Harry had last night over who is smarter, Bart or Lisa Simpson on the TV show. “Harry bought the standard line: Lisa is smart because she reads and plays the sax. But that Bart, I said, he’s clever. He gets out of any jam ’cause he knows people, he knows the streets. Like me.”

  Irene is laughing. I laugh too, even though I’ve almost never seen that show; it’s on at the same time I’m putting Willie to bed.

  She points to the twenty-inch television across the room and says she and Harry did nothing last night but watch it. “We didn’t even have sex.” She grins. “Well, not till after the news.”

  I smile, but when she goes to get another beer, I go back to staring at nothing. “What’s the deal, Patty?” she says, as she sits back down. “You look like you lost your last friend.” She pauses for a moment, lowers her voice. “You haven’t heard from him lately, have you?”

  I know she means Rick. I tell her no, he’s back in jail. Before she can ask any questions, I say it’s a long story; I don’t want to get into it right now.

  “Okay,” she says. “So it must be Jonathan. What did he do this time?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Nothing, I guess.”

  I stand up and walk to her window. It faces a popular seafood restaurant. As I watch the couples milling around outside, waiting to hear the hostess call their name for a table, I realize I’ve never been on a real date. I wonder what it would feel like to get dressed up and go somewhere other than work.

  I turn around and look at Irene. “Do you think I’m a good singer?”

  “Hell yes.” She giggles and purses her lips. “You’re better than Darla, my dear.”

  “For real,” I say. “It’s important.”

  “How would I know?” She grins. “I’m just the groupie. But okay, I’ll tell you what Harry says. He says you’re lucky, ’cause you can succeed without even trying.”

  “But I do try.”

  “I’m sure you do, hon. I think what Harry means is you don’t work like they do. You know how they’re up all night, improving their chops, rehearsing, obsessing. It’s everything to them.” She smiles. “At this very moment, they’re off working and you’re here getting drunk with me.”

  “I’m not getting drunk,” I say, but I see her point. I go back to the couch, rub my temples. “It’s not all that easy for me. I have a kid, they don’t.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And I’m new at this. Jonathan’s been playing for over ten years. Ten years ago I was in grade school.”

  “That’s true too, honey.” She looks at me. “But what’s this about? Did Brewer say you weren’t good?”

  I tear at the label of my beer. “You know what? I bet I could sing jazz. All I’d have to do is listen. Fred says I can sing anything.”

  She laughs. “Listening might help.”

  “I’m serious here.” I wad up the gummy label and stick it in the empty beer; then I exhale deeply. “At least, I think I am. I want to be serious.”

  After a minute, I tell her I’m going over there.

  “Where?”

  “To their jam. I’m going there and tell them I want to sit in and do some jazz.”

  “Oh honey, it’s not just the guys tonight, it’s this huge thing at Eliot’s sister’s farm. Harry said there might be forty or fifty musicians, some of the best jazz players in Kansas City. You know, since the clubs are all closed for Labor Day.” Irene pauses. “But Eliot’s sister is a singer. I guess you could check her out. She’s good; she used to front for Max Adams and his trio.”

  I’ve never heard of Max Adams, but Eliot is the guitar player who crashed with the band for a couple of weeks last spring. We were staying in hotel rooms; I rarely saw him. All I remember is that he was always high and always wore sandals, even though it was only fifty degrees. And his clothes were ripped-up rags. Jonathan had to lend him a shirt one night after the club owner complained that Eliot was a bum, scaring off the customers.

  “Eliot has a sister with a farm?”

  Irene laughs. “You wouldn’t know it from meeting him, huh? It’s not a farm, farm. It’s on thirty acres, but she doesn’t have animals or crops, just a big vegetable garden.”

  I sit up straighter. “Can you show me how to get there?”

  “Yeah, I was going over anyway. I told Harry I’d be there around eight.” She looks at me. “But are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I have to prove to Jonathan that he’s wrong.” I shrug. “I’m going to listen until I get the hang of it, then get up and sing. Really belt one out.”

  My voice is confident, even though my stomach is doing flips and my heart is pounding so hard I can feel it against my shirt. But what choice do I have? I can’t just let Jonathan tell me I’m not good enough and walk away.

  When I call Mama, I’m hoping she’ll say she and Willie need me, but she doesn’t. She says they’re doing fine. There’s no way out.

  “I’m glad you’re coming,” Irene says, as we walk out of her apartment. She smiles. “I know you’ll pull it off.”

  I can’t smile back; I’m way too nervous. But later, as I’m steering the Ford down a dirt road, trying to keep up with Irene’s Honda, I remind myself that this is my chance, I have to take it. I’ve wanted to be a singer my entire life. I am a singer and a good one too. Tonight, I’ll show everyone what I’m made of.

  ten

  The farm is about ten mi
les south of Kansas City, outside a suburb called Raytown. The house is so much bigger and nicer than I expected. As we walk in the door, Irene whispers that Eliot’s family has money; his father is an investment banker who made a killing in the stock market.

  “This place is like a mansion,” I tell her.

  “Yep.” She laughs softly. “Calling this a farm is like calling a millionaire comfortable.”

  Eliot’s sister Lydia doesn’t look rich, I think, as Irene introduces us. She has on baggy jeans and a Miles Davis T-shirt, no shoes. She’s in her mid-twenties, and she isn’t wearing makeup. Her brown hair is cut short and so close to her head it looks like a cap.

  Lydia is telling us who’s here, but the music is loud; it’s hard to hear her. And the names I do catch don’t mean anything to me anyway. If Irene didn’t have her hand on my arm, I’d probably run back to the Ford. It’s stupid, but I’m obsessed with what I’m wearing. I still have on the lime green sundress I wore to Fred’s this morning; I didn’t have time to change, but also I thought it would be good to be dressed up. Wrong. Every time somebody walks by—always in jeans or tattered shorts—I feel like I’m wearing a neon sign that blinks Outsider.

  “There’s a spread in the dining room,” Lydia shouts. “You hungry?”

  Irene shakes her head. “How about you, Patty?”

  “No.” I feel a little nauseated. It’s nerves, but also the smell: the place reeks of weed, tobacco, and patchouli oil. Irene always says that patchouli oil is the musician’s all-purpose product because it substitutes for deodorant, aftershave, cologne, even the necessity of a shower.

  “I’m going to wander around,” I tell them. I’m hoping to find a dark spot close to the music, where I can listen and not be seen.

  I wander through room after room, nodding at people I don’t know, as the music gets louder. Some of the rooms are almost empty, but others are full of solid, heavy furniture and have walls covered with bookshelves, paintings, thick colorful tapestries hanging from wooden poles. It seems funny that I thought Eliot was so poor he was homeless when he slept on the floor of Jonathan’s hotel room in Joplin. I should have known better, since I’d heard Eliot tell Jonathan he’d just gotten back from Paris. In all my time in shelters, I’ve never met one homeless person who talked about their time in Paris.

  I follow the music until I finally get to the back of the house, where the jam is taking place. It’s an enormous room, as big as some of the clubs we’ve played, and it seems even bigger because all the furniture has been pushed against the walls to make room for the musical equipment. It’s so dark I can’t tell how many musicians there are. They’re standing all over the room, facing each other. Those who aren’t playing are sitting along the side, leaning against the furniture, smoking cigarettes or joints.

  I know Jonathan isn’t playing right now. The piano player has a completely different style—more rhythmic, less melodic— than Jonathan. When my eyes adjust to the dark, I can see the drummer and it isn’t Dennis. After a minute, I make out Harry. He’s over on the right, playing his acoustic bass. The guitar player is taking a solo. It’s Eliot. He has long red hair; he’s hard to miss.

  I’m relieved as I move over to the corner next to a leather couch. There’s so much going on here, no one is going to care about my dumb dress. I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to sing, but I am hoping Lydia will. I want to check it out, see if it’s really as difficult as Jonathan claims. In the meantime, I’m going to sit back and listen. Maybe I can figure out something I can use.

  The first thing I figure out is that clapping is inappropriate at this jam. When Eliot’s solo ended, I was the only one who clapped, but not for long. I gave two big claps, then two halfhearted ones, so it would seem like I was only fading out, not suddenly dropping my arms because I’d made a stupid mistake. Clapping is for audiences, but everyone here is part of it: they don’t clap, they yell. “Cool.” “Damn.” “Play it.” “Yeah.” “Like that.” “All right.”

  After about twenty minutes, Irene plops down next to me and shouts that she hasn’t seen any of the guys but Harry. Maybe they left, I suggest, but she says no. Lydia told her they were around here somewhere.

  When Lydia comes in, the musicians are paused, discussing what they’re going to play next. Eliot sees her, tells her to quit playing hostess and get over here, get busy. She laughs. “I am busy. I’m making sure all these sleazy musicians you invited don’t steal anything.”

  Everybody laughs. Before Lydia leaves, she says she will sing in a little while. “But not ‘Satin Doll.’ I sang that every night for three years. I vowed never to do it again.”

  “How about ‘Going to Kansas City’?” somebody shouts and the whole room groans. I’m not surprised. Jonathan hates that tune; I’ve heard him tell the guys that the chord changes are completely uninspired, stupid. Of course it’s a popular request in clubs all over Kansas City, so maybe that’s why he hates it; maybe that’s why they all do. Popular always seems to mean bad.

  The music here is good, I know, and I like it, but I don’t love it. Even when Jonathan takes over the piano, I still don’t love it. He isn’t playing his songs, he’s playing what Irene tells me are jazz standards. “That’s what you need to learn,” she says. “The words to one of the standards.”

  Actually, I realize I already know the words to some of these songs. I’ve heard them on the radio in the van, when Jonathan tunes in a jazz station. The one they’re playing now is called “Body and Soul.” I’ve heard it several times, but only once with a singer. But I remember the words, or at least I’m pretty sure I do. There’s no way I could sing it though, not the way they’re playing it. Everybody is playing around the tune, over it, under it, and every way they can except straight through it. I can’t imagine how a singer could fit in.

  When Lydia joins them on the next song, I find out. They play it much straighter. They have her do the verses and the bridge, and then they start taking solos. She doesn’t have to do a solo; she doesn’t have to do anything but sing the usual words while they back her up. And I do know these words; I can mouth them as she goes along. The song is “When Sunny Gets Blue,” and I just heard it yesterday on the way back from Topeka.

  She’s not a power singer. Her voice is what Fred calls smoky, which means breathy with lots of vibrato. By the end of the song, I realize I don’t see what’s so great about her. I have a bigger range, better intonation. I’m a better singer; at least, I think I am.

  At some point, Irene elbows me in the ribs. “Check out the way Lydia keeps leaning on Jonathan. They used to date when they were in college. The rumor is she still has a crush on him.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And notice how she waited until he was playing before she got up. She definitely has a thing for him.”

  They do seem to be having a good time together. By the third song, a lot of the other musicians have dropped out: it’s just Jonathan, Lydia, Harry, and the drummer I don’t know. After Jonathan’s solo, Lydia laughs and says, “You’re pretty good for a white boy,” and the others laugh too. After she finishes the bridge, somebody shouts, “Damn,” and Jonathan says, “She’s all right for a white girl.”

  Irene turns to me, asks if I want to hear a joke. Before I can answer she asks if I know how many white jazz players it takes to screw in a lightbulb. I say, “No idea,” and she giggles. “There’s never enough. Even if you get a thousand of them together, nobody will do it. If they leave the light off, they can pretend they’re black.”

  I smile, but I can’t manage a laugh. Lydia’s on the verse again and I can hear her going flat on the low note at the end of each bar. I’m better than she is, I’m sure of it now. Yet Jonathan obviously respects her, and he has never respected me, not for one single minute in the year I’ve worked with him.

  Of course she’s been to college, like he has. She’s probably read all those “fascinating” books he’s always telling the guys about. I’m sure she knows all kinds of thi
ngs, just like his other girlfriend Susan, the one who played chess and wrote poetry.

  Irene wants to know if I’m coming along. I was so lost in thought I didn’t realize that the music has stopped, the room is emptying out. “Where?”

  “To the dining room. Lydia just announced that she made all this food; everyone has to eat something now or she’s going to end this party.”

  “She’s weird,” I mumble, and Irene nods. When she stands up, I follow her to the door leading to the dining room.

  The house is air-conditioned, but it’s warm in here. The dining room connects to a large screened-in porch and Lydia has the glass doors open so that people can fill their plates and go eat at one of the big wicker tables. The crowd around the dining-room buffet is intimidating, and the food looks strange: lots of unidentifiable dips and odd black-purple vegetables, a large bowl of brown gook that looks exactly like mud. Lydia’s talking loudly, explaining what each dish is. I hear someone ask where the meat is, and she laughs and calls him a cannibal.

  I grab a beer from the ice bucket against the wall and tell Irene I’m going out on the porch. I need some fresh air.

  No one is out here yet and it’s nice. There are probably a hundred candles sitting on tables and on brass stands along the walls, and in the breeze they’re flickering, dancing on the ceiling. I go to the darkest corner, settle in a rocking chair by a wind chime. The noise sounds as soothing as a lullaby.

  I’m not sure what time it is, but I know it’s late; Willie is obviously in bed. I wish I’d been there to tuck him in. As soon as Irene gets finished eating, I’m going to make up some excuse to leave. This is a waste of time.

  “What’s this? You all by yourself out here, green dress?”

  I look up and see a man standing next to my chair. He’s maybe sixty, black, and his voice sounds hoarse like a smoker’s, like Mama’s. He’s not wearing jeans, which makes me like him immediately. He has on gray pants, a bright yellow button-down shirt, and a fancy black hat with a broad rim. When he asks if I mind if he sits at this table near me, I say that would be fine.