<\/p>\n
This sad quintet was sucking life itself out of the jazz standards they probably meant to resuscitate.<\/p>\n
The frenzied cymbal and snare work of the drummer had many in the audience worried he was suffering a seizure right in front of us. The upright bass player had forgotten or consciously chosen not to get in tune with the nearby piano, or any established musical key.<\/p>\n
The band\u2019s trumpet man faked muted trumpet sounds into a green plastic horn straight from some discount store\u2019s toy aisle. He stared daggers through his discount sunglasses, too\u2014daggers clearly aimed at the saxophonist, who introduced every song in a whisper, then just stood around nodding his head until it was time for him to squeal and squawk his next solo on his genuine instrument.<\/p>\n
At the piano sat a one-armed old woman who looked like she belonged behind the church organ on a sinking pirate ship. Her arm ended in a silver metal hook, which drastically limited her harmonic possibilities.<\/p>\n
So this was what it was like. I\u2019d never stayed in a hotel with a band performing in its downstairs lounge.<\/p>\n
There was no stage or bandstand, just this gang crowded around the piano in the corner. Hotel guests were crowded up against the bar in the opposite corner, doing our best to drown our sorrows, musical and otherwise, with bottles of lukewarm beer and mixed drinks that were little more than the thought of liquor splashed over a cube or two of ice.<\/p>\n
From the agonized expressions I saw around me, the booze wasn\u2019t getting the job done.<\/p>\n
We were all hostages and knew it\u2014of this band\u2019s botched, back alley rendition of Thelonious Monk\u2019s \u201c\u2019Round Midnight.\u201d Or were they struggling through some number by Dave Brubeck? It was impossible to tell. But hostages we most certainly were. The bartender had a handgun stashed under the bar. She brandished it at anybody who made a move toward the exit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere you think you\u2019re going?\u201d she asked when I stood up from my hobbled barstool. \u201cUnless you\u2019re getting up to dance, sit your ass back down. I\u2019ll loan you a cigarette.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried to make nice, flashing her my best smile. \u201cThis band gets paid in tips, right? Maybe they should invest in a few music lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n
She scoffed, crossed her muscled, tattooed arms. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t laugh if you understood their aesthetic. They\u2019re avant-garde. They\u2019ve toured Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I believe it.\u201d I sucked down half a beer. \u201cI\u2019m much more sophisticated than I look. Seriously. You just see a middle-aged dude in a wrinkled tie, but there’s a lot more to me than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.\u201d She handed me my next beer. \u201cYou idiots in your JCPenney suits are all the same. The sales clerk insists Chinese suits are best because their little worms spin the finest silk. And you fall for it every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bartender chuckled as if she\u2019d heard this story delivered a million different ways. \u201cThing is, losers like you don\u2019t even deserve to hear this music. I\u2019m doing you a favor.\u201d She shelved her pistol and brushed her ragged pink bangs out of her eyes. \u201cYour pitiful ass should be thanking me for booking these guys. But in an hour you\u2019ll be upstairs in your room, jerking off to hotel porn, wondering if I wear thong panties or nothing at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
She shook out a second loaner cigarette. I fired it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not you\u2014of course not. That\u2019s what they all say.\u201d She wiped the bar with a towel, then nodded toward the band. \u201cRuth is the mother of the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExcuse me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur little jazz combo there. They play like they\u2019re telepathic because they\u2019re brothers. Two sets of twins. Not identical, obviously. Ruth at the piano is their mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that moment, the one-armed pianist was jabbing at the black keys of the hotel\u2019s baby grand with her gleaming hook. She missed more keys than she hit and didn\u2019t seem to care, but the commotion the old woman created\u2014the sound of mistaken trust in the stoned thugs accompanying her, forever innocent little boys to her\u2014suddenly made sense to me.<\/p>\n
Everything I\u2019d ever feared came crashing down around my ears, considerably louder than the tuneless ruckus confounding my fellow hotel guests.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d returned to Ohio after two decades away because my own mother had died and couldn\u2019t bury herself. I\u2019d taken care of that fine, only I didn\u2019t know what was supposed to happen next. Very little shit in life resolves itself like some perfect chord progression, let me tell you. There\u2019s no escaping that fact.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s another fact: I started crying. Tears poured down my face. I’d never considered myself a mama\u2019s boy, but what I’d never considered turned out not to matter very much.<\/p>\n
The bartender set a stack of napkins in front of me, then wandered off so I could blubber in private. That was the last I would see of her. I stayed put all night, comfortable as I could make myself in the shadows of my cheap funeral suit.<\/p>\n
Whether that hotel band was playing a Duke Ellington ballad or some John Philip Sousa march behind their mother\u2019s hunt-and-peck solo that night, I have no idea. Maybe it was their take on “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols.<\/p>\n
I guess I\u2019ll never know for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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