Man with an Axe

by Jon A. Jackson

  “But what do names like ‘Kilwa Kisiwani’ and ‘Victoria Whatever-it-was’ mean, then?” I persisted.

  “Oh, yes.” Kinanda looked thoughtful. He didn't seem in the least put out by my impertinence. “You know what? I think at the time I had some idea . . . maybe some memory or image of visiting Tanzania. I had been there on a State Department-sponsored trip a few months before. So I had that thought. But"—he shrugged, as if in apology—"I can't say that the pieces, despite their names, are about Tanzania. I was taken to see Lake Victoria, so I remembered the African name, which is really a holdover from colonialism—Victoria Nyanza/Lake Victoria.”

  “So you're saying,” I pushed on, “that music can never be about something other than itself?”

  “Well, it's just music, you see. It's purely abstract. Of course, once you add words . . . a song can be about something other than itself, than music. A hymn, for instance, is about God. And Bach's Mass in B Minor is about God, or about religion, at least. But I don't think that a Bach fugue is about God, although I guess some would say that God is in the details. But for me, it's about something else—rhythm, harmony, tonality. I have written music that was about places and people, events. But ‘Kilwa Kisiwani’ probably evokes an ancient African capital only for me.”

  Agge had listened to this with great interest. “What did you write about people?” she asked. “An opera?”

  Kinanda screwed up his handsome face. “No, not really. It used some lyrics, some narrative . . . it's never been recorded, or even performed. It was an early work. But"—he brightened—"you know, I may do something with it yet.”

  “Does it have a name?” Agge said.

  “Well . . . ah, I think I'll have to rename it—if I rewrite it.” He turned to me. “Are you a player”

  “A jazz player?” I shook my head. No one had ever asked me such a thing. “No, of course not.”

  “Of course not? Does that mean you don't play at all?”

  “Well, I took piano lessons, as a boy. But no, I never thought of myself as a player.” Now that I thought of it, I wondered why I had never attempted to play anything other than my lessons. Why not a jazz tune? “I don't know why I never tried it,” I said. “It never occurred to me.”

  “There are two kinds of people,” Kinanda said, his voice taking on a certain pontificatory inflation, “players and auditors.”

  “I would be an auditor,” I affirmed. “I love music. But there are people, you know, who don't seem in the least interested in music. A third type. I wonder what they would be called.”

  “Idiots,” Kinanda said, decisively.

  “What was Grootka?” Agge said.

  As one, Kinanda and I said, “Player.”

  I think at the moment I was taking Kinanda's dichotomy to be one of those great generalities that people often invoke, and that what he meant by player was an activist, a doer, as opposed to someone like myself, who was more an observer. Although I hasten to say that I don't subscribe to these gross dichotomies: I've never been content, for instance, to merely observe; and there is no doubt that Grootka was a crocodile of a watcher.

  “There are certain kinds of players, however,” Kinanda said, “who probably should have stayed auditors.”

  6

  Fine and Dandy

  “I believe that Lao-tse says somewhere that you should govern an empire as you would cook a little fish,” said Books Meldrim. He was cooking a little fish. Several of them, in fact. Bluegills. We were on the deck of his house on the Lake Erie shore. I nodded and smiled and sipped some more of the excellent champagne he had provided, a Moët & Chandon, not too brut.

  “I'm not familiar with Lao-tse,” I said. “He was a Chinese philosopher, I guess, but what period”

  “You heard of Lao-tse! Very early, pre-Christian. He wrote the Tao-te ching. Lately, folks call him Lao-tzu.”

  “Oh, that Lao-tse.” I was embarrassed.

  “He may be just a myth,” Books said, as if to comfort me, “though usually there's something to a myth. Anyway, the Tao certainly exists. It's a basic text, good for rummaging through. And I have to admit"—he smiled as he turned the fish on the portable grill—"that's what I do, rummage. I never really studied it. I get these pithy quotes that sound like good rules for living. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Even Charlie Parker quoted from Ellington. It's knowing that it's a quote, not something you invented your own self, that's important. A feller gets to believing what he stole is what he made is when he gets into trouble.”

  I felt like saying “Amen,” but thought that might sound phony. I contented myself with my cigar and watched the sun continue to fall into the great lake of the Eries, scene of fierce battles among the Hurons and Chippewas, the Potawatomis and the English, and the Americans and the Canadians. It looked peaceful enough now, with a scattering of clouds to the west, black and blue and red and gold. A few large seagoing ships were barely moving out there. Gulls were stroking their steadfast way home. It was pleasant, indeed, and the fish were as well governed as an empire, according to Books: “Not overdone.”

  I had come down at Books's invitation. He'd said he wanted to show me something and he also wanted my reaction to the M'zee Kinanda concert. I was happy to comply, especially if it meant a fish feast on the deck. And especially since Books condescended to play the piano. His house was small, but very cunningly and beautifully designed and accomplished. It featured, for instance, heavy glass doors that essentially opened the living room onto the deck, which in turn gave onto the jetty itself. On a warm night like this, with little breeze, a pianist could comfortably sit in the living room, as on a stage, and perform to a gathering of dozens, sitting on the deck chairs or the seats built into the railings—it made the lake itself an extension of the house. But I was the only fortunate auditor this evening.

  “When I had this house built I was a little worried about these windows,” Books confessed, talking while he rummaged through sheets of music, in the manner of all musicians.” ‘Cause I know how the wind can howl off that lake in the winter and I didn't want my piano ruined. But the carpenter got these good insulated doors and he put them in so they seal tight.”

  He arranged some sheets on the music stand and peered at them. “I got this piano out of the old Graystone Ballroom, many, many years ago and I spent a lot of money getting it restored. It's a great piano, a Bechstein. It was just thrown into a basement corner, a waste. This was before the Graystone's reincarnation as a rock palace in the sixties, so I figured the piano must have been left over from the heyday of the big bands. I like to think that it may have been played by Fletcher Henderson, or the Duke, maybe ‘Fatha’ Hines, or even God Himself—Art Tatum. Ahh, here it is.”

  I was sprawled on the rail seat, smoking and enjoying the first really warm evening of the year. The piano under Books's fingers suddenly blossomed into sound that filled the air. It was almost miraculous, like watching a bud unfurl into an apple blossom, rich in not only color and texture but aroma. The tune was simple, a plaintive blues, but Books had a remarkably soft touch, seeming to prod the keys gently, barely moving his fingers. It raised the hair on the back of my neck. For a moment I had the peculiar impression that the piano was alive, filled to the bursting with music, and when Books pressed gently it released these sounds into the air.

  I told him at the end, when his long, thoughtful exploration of an idea had evaporated on the evening air, that I was amazed by his ability. I could tell he was pleased, but he was also genuinely rueful.

  “I wanted to be a player,” he said with a sigh, “but I just didn't have what it takes.”

  “Oh, you're wrong,” I insisted.

  “No, no . . . I know what it takes. For one thing"—he held up one slender hand—"the Lord didn't give me the hands. Too small. A feller can learn to play within these limitations, in jazz anyway, but it's a limitation. I'm sure I could have made a living in the clubs, maybe even cut a few records, but I could never be first-rate with this span.�
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  “You're too hard on yourself,” I said.

  “Maybe. I envy the people who aren't. Like Grootka. He never worried about being first- or second-rate. I talked to him about it. ‘That kind of thinking is bullshit,’ he'd say. And he was right. It is bullshit. It's giving in to vanity and ambition, social pressure, other people's opinions. I know it, but I can't help it. I never pursued the piano, except for my own uses. I can't help admiring those who push ahead with their own agenda—they get things done. Even if you're somebody like Grootka, who couldn't play a horn for shit. But he didn't care—if he was even aware. He enjoyed it, so he went at it, full speed and damn the rocks.”

  “Though, sometimes, the consequences are terrible and someone else has to clean up the mess,” I observed. Books nodded agreement.

  “I got something for you,” Books said and disappeared into the interior of the house, returning shortly with a neatly wrapped parcel, about the size of a book. “Open it when you get home,” he said. “And here's a little tape to listen to. It's Kinanda, from a jazz festival that a friend of mine taped off a broadcast in San Francisco. I think you'll like it. He calls it ‘A Fine and Dandy Lion,’ after the old tune, which a lot of jazz musicians have used as a basis for other tunes. The chord progression is conducive to blowing, I guess, but as you'll see, Kinanda doesn't stick to the chords . . . he blows them away.”

  I really had no idea what he was talking about. He tried to explain what a chord progression was, but it was either too simple or too complex for me. I guess there are people, perhaps most of us, who are introduced to music at home and at school, take a few lessons, learn something about harmony and so on, without ever really penetrating its secrets. Basically we just like music. That is, it's important to us, more or less, but it's not important the way it is for those people who become musicians. We don't breathe music. I nodded and said “Unh-hunh,” and promptly forgot what a chord progression was.

  I listened to the tape while driving home and it was great. It sounded kind of familiar. It was a blues, all right, and I'd heard it recently . . . and then it hit me: it was the blues that Books had played when I was sitting on his deck. I hadn't recognized it because it was a much more complicated exploration of the basic theme, plus it heavily featured a baritone sax.

  This was what was in the package. A notebook, or composition book, as I've already described. I put it here because this was actually book #2, although it was the first one to come to my attention. Like book #1, it was written in blue ink, in a nice hand, and I've edited it for ease of reading, retaining a few of Grootka's usages for effect.

  Grootka's Story

  I walked quite a ways, not really dressed for it, in my street shoes and a suit. The day had warmed up a little by now, but it was pretty breezy and anyway, I never was a guy for shorts and sport shirt, and I didn't bring none with me. So maybe I looked a little funny to the farm lady when I knocked on the door.

  [I could imagine. Say you're an Amish farm wife, probably cooking pies or something in your kitchen, wearing an apron over your floral housedress, with the characteristic babushka, or scarf, on your head, and suddenly you hear this pounding on the front door. It's out in the country. Usually, people drive up into the barnyard, or whatever, and honk their horns or get out and halloo and you go out to greet them. You don't expect someone to come walking up to the front porch and pound on the door, certainly not a big, mean-looking Detroit police detective. No wonder she wouldn't come out. Grootka says she peered through the muslin curtains (I assume they were muslin—isn't that the see-through stuff that your mother hung on frames to dry?) and talked to him through the door. I don't know the life of these people—I get the impression that they're very chary of strangers, especially the womenfolk.—M.]

  She won't let me use the f——g [The dashes are G.’s curiously delicate usage. Sparing my sensitive eyes, I suppose, but you will notice later that when he's excited he forgets the f——ing dashes.—M.] phone, to call Books, and by now it's pushing noon. I don't want to walk all the way back to the f——ing resort, but it looks like I got to. She did let me get a drink of water from the well, which they got a little hand pump out by the side yard and you can sit down on a bench under a big maple or oak tree, I don't know which it was. I was sitting there when I seen a big car pull up at the gate to the resort.

  This gate is just beyond the farmer's driveway and it's the way a lot of the resort people go in and out to avoid the prick on the front gate. But the farmer insists that they gotta keep the gate closed, to keep his cows out of there. It's a barbed-wire deal, a kind of loose fence that goes across the road and the pole fits into a hoop at the base of the regular fence and another hoop slips over the top of the pole—you got to pull the gate kind of tight to do it—and it works fine, except that once in a while some jerk don't bother to reclose it after he drives through, so then the cows wander in and the kids have to go round them up.

  Anyways, the guy who gets out to open the gate is a white guy, wearing a golf shirt and fancy slacks, big black shades. I knew him right away and I wondered if he made me, but he didn't seem to even see me. A course, I was sitting under the tree, in the shade, and I suppose he didn't expect to see nobody there anyway. It was Cooze, a boy from Buffalo that Carmine liked to use from time to time when he had a problem, a real asshole and a guy who I always thought oughta give thanks every morning if he wakes up ‘cause nobody blew his f——ing head off yet. Cusumano is his real name—Valentino, God help us, which is why he goes by Cooze. So I know that Carmine must be in the car, and maybe the Fat Man too, since I can tell from the way Cooze is acting—not being a smart-ass, just taking care of the gate like a normal guy would do—that he's not on his own. But naturally, the windows of the Caddy are tinted so the peasants can't ogle His Holy Eminence when he's out riding around. Cooze hops back in the car and off they go, not bothering to rehook the gate, naturally.

  Now where could these high and mighty Crime Lords be going? There must be something damn important in Nigger Heaven to bring them all the way up here. I thought it over and it seemed to me that it had to be Lonzo. He was the only one of these guys who was connected at all. I mean, there was probably twenty tinhorn drug peddlers and thieves down there, but none of them was likely to attract the exalted attention of the big bosses, actually bring them driving up to a Negro resort. Not even Lonzo, really, so he must be onto something f——ing huge, and since they were shrewd enough to use the back gate either somebody was showing them the way or they knew the place.

  So I had to get my ass back down to Lonzo's, which was about a mile away on a bad road. I seen a old Schwinn bike leaning against a barnyard fence. It was one of them fat-tired kinds, with a lot of chrome and handlebar tassels—some kid's dream. I figured one a the Hamish kids had earned this bike the hard way, bucking hay and shoveling cow shit. I ran to the house and pounded on the door, but of course the old lady ain't coming out for me. So I yelled that I was a cop and I had to borrow the bike, but here was a fifty-dollar deposit, which I would bring the f——ing thing back, don't worry. And I stuffed a fifty in the doorjamb and I jumped on the bike and went pumping away.

  This was not the road to hell. They didn't have no intentions, good or otherwise, of paving it and even with fat tires it wasn't so easy to get going in the sand, especially since them old Schwinns didn't have no fancy gears. It was just stand up and crank that mule. But it was better than walking by God and I got down to Lonzo's in about ten minutes and sure enough, there's Carmine's

  Caddy sitting in the driveway. I hauled the bike into some bushes down the road and decided to hunker in myself, to wait and see what might be going down. What the hell was I gonna do anyway, bust in wavin’ the Old Cat [Grootka's nickname for his revolver, an enormous old .45 caliber Smith & Wesson.—M.] and arrest everybody? For what? And anyways, I'm outta my precink.

  I don't know if you ever sat in the bushes in the summer, Mul. It's innarestin’. I don't know if I ever did, but it seemed to
bring back something. These were pretty thick bushes out back of the house with just a weedy field beyond and then some woods, honeysuckle bushes, I guess, and a few little poplar or willow saplings, but I don't know bushes much. There was a lot to see, though, if you're just taking a squat in the bushes on a summer day with nothing to do but observe nature—ants taking a regular road they got, but very busy, hauling pieces of trash like a bit of seed or a part of a dead beetle. A spider is hanging in a web. A robin flies in once in a while. It was pleasant and cool, the leaves rattling in the wind. I was comfortable, leaning back against a sapling, the sun kind of flickering green and gold, and there was that musty old cool dirt smell. So I kind of drowsed, sitting there waiting, about a hundred feet up behind the house. There were only a couple houses on this ridge, so far, none of them close and there wasn't nobody about.

  But I woke up when Vera comes out. Vera is Tyrone's wife. She was the broad I seen earlier, which I thought it was a whore of Lonzo's, not that Lonzo actually runs whores, he's not a pimp by trade, but he's into just about anything and so I figured this blonde with the big boobs must be one of his whores. But she looked familiar, like I said, and now it hit me—this is Vera Addison. I met her before a couple of times. She seemed like a nice enough babe. I didn't pay her any mind after I got through scoping that frame, like any guy would. She's one of these gals that loves to show it—low-cut dresses, miniskirts, real high heels, and, of course, hair blonder than what's-her-name, the Swedish bombshell. You run into babes like this in jazz circles, groupies. They're into black stuff, it turns ‘em on, I guess. Usually they're low-life babes, attracted by the myth of the big black cock, I guess. But not always. I had a vague notion that maybe Vera was different, I guess because Tyrone was different. Tyrone wasn't a nigger.