“You tell me,” said Bobby.
“Sure.” The guy grinned and reached out for a handshake. “That’s you all right. I just wanted to tell ya I love your work.”
“That so?” Bobby got up from his barstool and stood toe to toe with the guy.
“I’ve got a lot of your albums. ‘Iridescent Sessions’ still kicks my ass every time I hear it.”
Bobby smirked. “I like the way you put that.”
Ten seconds later, he plowed a fist into the guy’s doughy face. In this way, Bobby continued his hands-on personal campaign to lose the few fans he had left, one at a time.
*****
“Please...stop it,” said Omar, crooked fingers twitching in mid-air. “You’ve...done enough.”
Bobby barely heard him over the sax and the riot of noise from “Solomon.” Even then, he wasn’t entirely sure what the old man had said, but he stopped playing anyway.
“What’s that?” said Bobby.
Omar pointed at the phonograph on his bedside table. “Off!” He raised his voice over the tumult of “Solomon.” “Turn it...off!” After he said it, he had to sink into his pillows and heave for breath. He seemed to have lost ground since the day before, forcing him to struggle harder just to breathe, let alone speak up.
Bobby, who was throbbing with the hangovers of ten men plus bruised ribs from where the guy he’d beaten up had gotten a shot in the night before, was only too happy to lift the needle. When the racket cut out in mid-squeehonk, a wave of relief rippled through him.
“Now take a look...at this.” Omar slid a stack of pages from under the bedsheets and handed them to Bobby. “What do you...think?”
Bobby was surprised. “This is it,” he said, flipping through the messy stack. “The new stuff.” Each page was lined with preprinted music tablature scrawled with hand-written notes and symbols. The title atop the first page in the pile was “Revelations.”
“Go on,” said Omar. “Give it a try.”
Bobby had expected to slog through “Solomon” for the rest of the day, but he wasn’t about to look a gift jazzman in the mouth. He spread out the pile of pages on the edge of the bed and raised the mouthpiece of his sax to his lips.
At first, as he played the intro from the chart on the bed, he thought that Omar had written a conventional mainstream piece. The melody was simple and sweet, swinging along at a brisk, breezy tempo. Very nice.
Then, the craziness started. The scribbled chord changes and tempos that served as the framework for improvisation were all over the map. Complete chaos for four bars, moderation for two, back to chaos for four more. It was a swirl of sense and nonsense, a blend of alternating traditional and free jazz...and then the two styles rushed together. At the same time Bobby tripped through the incoherent freestyle mish-mash, he had to lay down a linear progression leading somewhere else entirely.
And then he had to turn that on its head and break the whole thing into something different. Which he did.
It was then that he stopped looking at the charts altogether. He closed his eyes and kept playing through the new place where he’d found himself, blowing runs of weird non-chords with no harmony along a constantly shifting meter.
Somehow, it still sounded like music.
Just then, as Bobby powered toward a huge crescendo, he saw something in his mind’s eye. Someone.
Bobby saw Diona being attacked. The scarred and withered woman struggled as a man with long hair pinned her to a floor. His black t-shirt and bluejeans were full of holes. He wore scuffed brown cowboy boots. He let go of one of Diona’s arms long enough to draw back a fist and punch her in the face.
After that, she didn’t struggle so much.
The man undid his belt and opened his bluejeans. Diona bawled, but Bobby couldn’t hear the sound she made over the strange music he was playing.
When the man turned his head, Bobby could see he had a huge, hooked nose and a black goatee. He could have been in his thirties or forties, maybe half Diona’s age.
He hit her again for no reason, and that was when Bobby stopped playing. The second he did so, the vision vanished from his mind.
Omar’s applause drew him back to reality. “Good start...son.”
Bobby sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Now aren’t you glad...you spent that time...on ‘Solomon?’” said Omar. “Playing this...probably seems like a relief...after all that crazy ‘Solomon,’ huh?”
“Sure.” Bobby felt a little dizzy and wanted a drink. He couldn’t stop thinking about his vision of Diona.
“You all right, son?” said Omar.
Bobby wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’ll have to get back to you on that one.”
*****
An hour later, Diona shuffled into Omar’s bedroom. Bobby could see no change in her, no sign that what he’d seen in his vision had already happened.
So had it happened further in the past, or had he glimpsed the future? If neither was true, had he simply imagined the assault on the old woman? If so, why on Earth would he dream up something like that?
Bobby thought that if he could just talk to Diona, he might be able to work out the answer. When she left the room to fetch Omar’s lunch, Bobby told Omar he had to go to the bathroom and followed her to the kitchen instead.
While Diona made noodle soup from a packet, Bobby rooted through the refrigerator, pretending to look for something.
“How long have you been taking care of Omar?” he said, trying to sound casual.
Diona stirred the soup in the pot on the stove and didn’t answer.
Bobby pulled a half-empty two liter bottle of soda from the fridge and put it on the dirty countertop. “Did you guys know each other from before?”
Diona kept stirring the soup as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Do you live around here?” Bobby opened cupboard doors until he found the drinking glasses, then took one out. It had a film around the inside, just like all the rest.
Instead of answering, Diona opened a cupboard and drew out a soup bowl. She tugged open a drawer and fished out a green plastic ladle.
“I’m just trying to be friendly,” said Bobby as he unscrewed the cap of the bottle and poured cola into the glass. “What’s it gonna hurt?”
Diona switched off the stove and ladled soup from the pot into the bowl. She put the bowl on a tray, then plucked a spoon from a drawer and put it on the tray, too.
“Come on,” said Bobby. “I want to help.”
That, at least, got a reaction from her. She glared at him for an instant from under her misshapen brow, casting her scarred features in an expression that could have been grateful acknowledgement just as easily as bitter hatred.
Then, she pushed past him to throw open the cupboard where the drinking glasses were stored.
When she’d finished fixing Omar’s lunch on the tray, she slouched out of the kitchen without ever having said a single word to Bobby Ball.
*****
Later, when Bobby was making another run at “Revelations,” he dipped into the vision again.
It came at about the same point in the piece, and seemed to pick up where the first vision had left off. The man with the long black hair and beard was on top of Diona. He was having sex with her, and she was crying in pure agony.
It was hard for Bobby to watch, but he wanted to know more about what he was seeing. Most importantly, he wanted to find out if it was happening in a time yet to come.
Bobby kept playing his horn, and the vision continued. As the brutal scene dragged on, he focused on background details, searching for something significant.
The setting was a shabby living room at night. Bobby saw a beat-up brown sofa in front of a picture window with tattered curtains half-open on night-time darkness.
Bobby found that in his vision, he could turn away from the action and look around the room. He saw spilled grocery bags on the floor by the front door. A spindly wooden
chair lay on its side, and a telephone with its cord ripped out of the wall jack had been thrown down near it.
What really caught Bobby’s eye, though, was a yellowed newspaper article in a frame on the wall. “Minaret Wows Queen at Royal Albert Hall,” read the headline. Alongside the columns of text, Bobby saw a black-and-white photo of a slender, beaming black woman in an elegant evening gown. She stood in a spotlight on a stage, holding a microphone in one gloved hand and waving the other hand overhead.
Just as Bobby tried to zoom in for a closer look at the article, he was distracted by a flurry of movement in the shadows on the wall. Turning, he saw Diona thrashing on the floor, fighting harder than ever.
And the man was choking her with both hands around her throat.
At that instant, Bobby’s concentration was broken by the sound of Omar’s voice. Bobby stopped playing his horn, and the vision rushed away like a wave receding from the shore.
“I said...what’s the matter, son?” Omar sounded half annoyed and half worried.
“Nothing,” said Bobby. “Just really in the zone. You know.”
Omar nodded and narrowed his eyes. “Yes I do,” he said. “I surely do.”
*****
The next morning, as Bobby ran through “Revelations” for the first time that day, a stranger burst into Omar’s bedroom.
“Where the hell is she?” The stranger was a woman with a shrill voice and extra-sharp edges. She had the look of someone who has lived rough and aged beyond her years, a sense of immediate danger. Her long, brown hair was tangled and mangled, her bony body flapping around in mismatched baggy shorts and a tank top that probably weren’t designed to fit loosely at all.
Within seconds of first seeing her, Bobby had her pegged as an addict. Booze, meth, crack, heroin--it didn’t matter. He had seen the look in her eyes before.
In the mirror.
“Where’s Grammy?” Fearlessly, the woman stalked up to Omar’s bedside. She stopped close to Bobby but didn’t even look at him in passing.
“If she’s not...downstairs,” said Omar, “she must not...have come in yet...Recka.” Though Omar’s health seemed to have gone further downhill overnight, he still managed to get across his dislike of Recka. His voice, raspy and weak as it was, carried a bitter chill, and his posture stiffened as he spoke to her.
Recka rolled her eyes, shook her head, and blew out her breath in disgust all at the same time. “She knew I needed her to go to the bank with me this morning!”
“Sorry...I can’t help you,” said Omar. “I’m sure...she’ll turn up.”
Recka lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in Omar’s direction. “At least I always know where to find you,” she said with a smirk.
Bobby leaned in to stare her in the face. He didn’t have a drop of alcohol in his system, but he was dying to take a swing at her anyway.
“‘Scuse me,” he said. “Mr. Wild and I have work to do, if you don’t mind.”
Recka met Bobby’s gaze for a long moment, her bloodshot eyes probing his with what felt to him like a mix of hatred and horniness.
Before she could make her next move, the moment was broken. Bobby heard heavy footsteps stomping up the creaky stairs and down the short hallway to the bedroom.
He heard the man’s voice before he saw him. “Hey, Recka.” The voice was hoarse and crackly, like that of someone who’d just spent an hour yelling over loud music in a bar.
Recka held Bobby’s gaze for another beat, then turned away. “She’s not here,” she said.
“Then we’re outta here.” The man stepped into the doorway as he said it. “Let’s go.”
As Bobby got a look at the guy, he felt a chill shoot through his body. The room seemed to fall away, leaving no one standing there but him.
And the guy. The guy from the vision.
He had long black hair, a goatee, and a huge, hooked nose, just like in the vision. He wore the same black t-shirt and bluejeans, identical right down to the placement of the many holes and rips. He wore exactly the same scuffed brown cowboy boots.
Recka dropped her lit cigarette on the floorboards and charged out of the room past the man in the doorway. “Tell her we’re looking for her, Gomer,” she said without looking back.
“Sure.” Omar said it like he planned to do no such thing. “Whatever...you say.”
As Recka’s feet drummed down the stairs, the guy from Bobby’s vision ducked into the bedroom and ground out the burning cigarette with his shoe. “Thanks anyways,” he said, giving Bobby a friendly smile and wave on his way back out the door.
“Who were those two?” Bobby asked Omar after the front door downstairs had slammed shut.
“Diona’s granddaughter...Recka,” said Omar, “and Recka’s boyfriend...Boot. They’re both...bad news.”
“He looks familiar,” said Bobby. “I think I might’ve seen him somewhere before.”
“Probably...in a police lineup,” said Omar. “Or a bad dream.”
“Sounds about right,” said Bobby.
*****
Bobby was sucking up a storm, and he knew it. His attempts to play “Revelations” were pathetic.
And he didn’t care. All he could think about was Diona, and how Recka and Boot were looking for her.
And Boot was dressed the same as in Bobby’s vision...meaning that this could be the day when the vision came true.
Bobby kept listening for the sound of the front door or the phone. The split concentration led him to fumble changes, drop notes, and jumble meter...and not in a good way.
Finally, Omar spoke up. “Stop...it. You’re butchering...that piece...so bad...I can’t listen to it...anymore.” He reached under the bedsheet alongside him and drew out a stack of tablature sheets scrawled with music. “Play this...instead.”
Bobby reached for the pages and flipped through them. The title at the top of page one was “Testament.”
“More new material?” he said, studying the charts closely.
“Part two...of a song cycle,” said Omar. “First part’s...‘Revelations.’”
“What’s the third part?”
Omar didn’t answer his question. “Play ‘Testament.’ You need to...play something different...to snap your rut...on ‘Revelations.’”
“Right.” Bobby could see from the music that “Testament” was further in the free jazz direction than “Revelations” had been. The notations on the pages established from the first bar that “Testament” was written as “Solomon”-style pure chaos.
“Go on,” said Omar. “Play it.”
Bobby considered refusing. As long as Diona’s fate haunted him, he knew he wouldn’t play “Testament” any better than “Revelations.”
Sure enough, he didn’t. Even in the muddle of random noise that was “Testament,” Bobby’s discordant wanderings jumped out as all wrong.
What bothered him the most, though, was the lack of a vision.
Playing “Revelations” had tuned him in to what seemed like prophetic visions. Playing “Testament” showed him nothing.
And somewhere out there, Diona was moving toward what might be an impending attack at the hands of Boot.
Midway through “Testament,” Bobby finally stopped playing and lowered his sax. He walked over to look out the window at the street below, but he saw no trace of Diona, Recka, or Boot.
“Why’d you...stop?” said Omar. “Piece needs a lot...of work.”
“Shouldn’t Diona have been here by now?”
“Maybe Recka...caught up...with her,” said Omar.
Bobby turned from the window. “What happened to her?” he said. “How’d she get the scars?” He ran a finger over his brow and down his cheek.
“Bad taste in men.” Omar struggled for his next breath, then caught it with a lurch. “The mean...drunk kind. Many years ago. Ended her...career.”
“What career?”
Omar stared as if he thought Bobby was crazy, stupid, or both. “Singing...of course. Didn’t you ever.
..hear of...Dionetta Minaret?”
Bobby’s eyes shot wide open. He recognized the name immediately, though he’d looked right at the woman without knowing her. He hadn’t even gotten the picture when he’d glimpsed the name “Minaret” in the headline of the framed newspaper article on the wall in his vision.
He wanted to kick himself. What kind of world-class jazz musician doesn’t recognize one of the all-time great chanteuses when he sees her in the flesh?
“I thought she was dead,” he said.
“You’re not...the only one,” said Omar.
Bobby nodded as the pieces fell into place. “You worked together.”
“More than...worked.” Omar smiled sadly. “But it didn’t...last. Now, I thank God...for the cancer...because she takes care of me...and I can see her...every day.”
Bobby looked out the window again. Diona was nowhere in sight, and the sun was low in the sky, not far from setting. In his vision, Boot had attacked Diona at night, after dark. “I think she’s in trouble.”
“What makes you...say that?”
Pacing the room, Bobby wondered what he should say. If the roles were reversed, he didn’t think he’d buy the explanation he had to offer.
Then again, maybe Omar wouldn’t find it so hard to believe after all.
It’s...a key, Omar had said about “Solomon.” It...opens things.
Maybe Omar had known all along about the special properties of his music.
“I saw something,” said Bobby. “When I was playing ‘Revelations.’”
Omar narrowed his eyes. “Saw what?”
“Boot and Diona,” said Bobby. “He was hurting her. Raping her.”
Omar had to struggle for his next breath. “You think...you saw...the future?”
Bobby shrugged. “I don’t know. It was dark out. Boot wore the same thing he had on earlier today.”
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