Uptown Blues

by Seth Pevey

  I go through a series of fences. I don’t know why I keep going, but maybe it’s because I’m not ready to do it yet. One place is as good as any, I suppose, but still, I walk a little further.

  I climb over a low cinder block wall, and halfway down I suddenly hear a sound that makes me freeze.

  Claws on metal. Scraping, crawling, ticking against a hollow piece of tin. I feel so terrified, and I wonder why. Didn’t I come here to die? Whatever it is making that awful sound, it can’t do anything worse than just kill me. Still, I turn in a panic with my breath sucked right out of me.

  But it’s just a raccoon scurrying across the top of the busted merry-go-round. The little creature comes out into the moonlight and looks down at me with his beady black eyes. But I don’t have any food, so he loses interest and goes on about his evening. It’s quiet again after that. Except for the few crickets and frogs that have come out a bit too early for spring, it’s nice and quiet. Quiet for what I’ve come here to do.

  People like to think places like this are haunted, or spooky, or filled with danger in some kind of way. But they are wrong. It’s the people who are really dangerous. That’s why abandoned places like this are the safest places in the world. It’s the city back behind me that’s dangerous and spooky. It’s the places that are filled with men and women that you should be afraid of.

  The quiet is good, I suppose. I guess maybe some music would be nice, music to make me brave. Because I’m so scared, tired, cold. But I still don’t stop walking. I still don’t just do it. Because…

  Then I see him. Of course he would be here. Of course it makes sense that I would come, just like the poster welcomed me to.

  In the moonlight, you can hardly make out his face. He is quiet, still, frozen forever in plastic. From a pedestal, he is watching over everything, the lonely king of a wet kingdom, and I know him in the darkness from the way he’s standing—holding court over lily pads and kudzu creepers. Crawfish make little mud chimneys at his feet, but there’s no mistaking the silhouette of what he holds in his outstretched arms, the joyful curve of his cheeks.

  I feel peace. Here, in this lonely and abandoned park, maybe I can finally have some sort of a choice about what’s going to happen to me. Everything here has been drowned a hundred times over, left to sink, but Louis hasn’t yet been brought low. Isn’t that a sign? To find him standing here in the middle of the swamp?

  I’m thankful for that, in these last moments. I know, in my heart, about how he’s just a plastic copy of someone long dead, someone who never knew my name, or that I would even exist. But it doesn’t matter. He’s something important, perfect even, and I’m not. My eyes are adjusting now and I can see him more clearly. Louis’s face is smiling, happy, his eyes are wide and friendly. The paint has faded and some kind of a moss has covered his forehead.

  It’s going to happen one way or another. The vanishing point is at the end of every single road. It’s there for everyone. I can tough it out and try to go through life as an orphan without a voice, without even a horn to make a sound with, but after all of it I would still just end up right here. And maybe I couldn’t even have my own choice about it. Even Louis Armstrong died. When he died, he was in his seventies and a hero across the world. His voice floated out into space and he was on the cover of Life magazine, but he died all the same. That was a long time ago. I’m thinking about this and I’m realizing that not only am I an orphan, I’m also a crazy person. A crazy orphan who’s too shit scared to even speak. A crazy orphan who let his daddy die and now is just sitting here in the middle of the night, in an abandoned place, thinking about a man so long dead and—

  Anyway, I’m glad Louis hasn’t fallen apart yet, so he can be here with me. That way I won’t be alone when I do it. Or, at least I won’t feel like it.

  I pull the gun out of my backpack, look at it for a long time. I like the way it shines in the moonlight, almost reminds me of my horn, which I know must be settled down now onto the bottom of the Mississippi by now. The pistol is heavy and the grip on it looks like it’s about worn out, like it has been gripped a lot of times by sweaty hands, just like my horn. I wonder for a second if it has ever been fired in anger. I wonder about every place it has been and all of the things that led it to being right here, in my hand.

  I think about my daddy and wonder where did they bury him.

  I put the barrel of the gun up to my temple, feel the cold ring of it against my skin. I hum an old song in my head to try and make myself brave.

  Oh, when the saints go marching in.

  Because that’s the way that everything will happen. Something wonderful will bloom and then it will fall away and die and rot and maybe flow away with the river.

  Oh, when the moon turns red with blood.

  It’s all coming to the vanishing point. I can see everything that could have been and won’t ever be.

  Oh, when the sun refused to shine.

  Will it hurt? Not so much as living will.

  Oh, when the trumpet sounds its call.

  I pull back the hammer, like I’ve seen them do in the movies. I put my finger on the trigger and start to squeeze.

  And I think about Louis Armstrong.

  Twenty

  “You couldn’t have brought two flashlights, Felix?” Melancon said, nearly falling over a crumpled steel trash can. It rolled off into the darkness with a thud. The truth was, it wasn’t the darkness but the cold. A chill had worked its way into the detective’s old knees and turned his legs clumsy and stiff.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know we’d be creeping around an old abandoned amusement park tonight,” Felix replied. “This was never in the help wanted ad. You hold the torch, then, man. I’ve got to lug this horn anyway. Thing is heavier than it looks.”

  It wasn’t only the cold either. Something else was causing the old detective to stumble and shake: the empty, forlorn feeling evoked by the failed park. The boarded-up popcorn stands. The wind sweeping the torn, wet flags. It was all working overtime in Melancon’s imagination. It might have been closed to the public, but the dark thoughts had an all-access pass in this place—no waiting in line and free concessions for life, step right up, all you nightmares and demons.

  “I don’t see any sign of the kid,” he finally said, after the next three twists and turns revealed nothing but more decrepit carnival rides.

  Felix said nothing but kept marching forward, and the two of them penetrating further into the rusty labyrinth of iron and cement.

  Melancon, flashlight in hand, was now fully able to take in the place. It was with grim curiosity that he explored his surroundings, and he couldn’t help but find the defunct optimism of the place absolutely chilling. It was like looking through the photo album of a young, ambitious person who died tragically the night of her graduation. It was like looking at a picture of Julie Melancon. The rides never ridden. The happy little statues peeling and rotting in forsaken mires like half-baked goblins. The painted murals all covered up in graffiti and black mold. All of this wasted potential hit the old man right in his gut with some unspeakable reckoning, a haymaker of regret.

  “He’s got to be here, right?” Felix said, skirting around a gaping hole in the pavement. “Or are we crazy?”

  “He’s got to be here,” Melancon repeated.

  “I’d say either he’s here or we’re crazy,” Felix said. “Only two things that make sense to me.”

  “Only two things that make sense.”

  The further in they went, the more the hair on the back of his neck stood at attention. The park was far from silent. From around every corner and collapsed roof came strange metallic patter. The two detectives pressed forward nervously, sensitive to every rustle of leaf and dripping of condensation. Further on, they came to a burgeoning forest of small saplings that had broken through the cracked cement. They wove through it, next circumnavigating a hot dog stand turned island, its craggy wooden corpse surrounded by a frog-filled pond. Past that, they entered a maze of fence
s and pillars supporting some large skeletal attraction, built to dizzying heights overhead, so high that the flashlight barely reached its upper vertebrae.

  They then came to a clearing bathed in moonlight, some unrealized focal point of the park.

  And there he was—standing in full view, under a large statue.

  “Andre!” Felix shouted.

  But Melancon had already seen. There was the boy, withered since the old detective had last set eyes on him. The child cowered, shielding his eyes with one hand and wincing as the high-lumen beam hit him.

  And what was that? The thing the boy held in his hand? Bile rose up in Melancon’s stomach and he froze as he recognized the terrible shape of it, the glint, the horrible direction it was pointed. He put a hand up to still his young partner’s advance towards the boy.

  “What do you have in your hand, Andre?” Melancon said, unable to hide a quivering weakness in his voice.

  “We’re here to help you,” Felix cried.

  “He’s got the gun,” Melancon whispered to Felix, though it needn’t have been mentioned. It was clear enough what they had walked in on.

  Andre backed away from them slowly, ducking behind the statue and peering out at them, the pistol still pressed firmly to his own temple.

  Melancon tried to soften his voice a bit, lowered the flashlight out of Andre’s eyes and walked forward as casually as he could, a great fear hidden and heavy in his chest. “Whoa, there, young man. Where are you going? Don’t do anything just yet, not until we get a chance to talk to you. That’s all we want, just to talk. Okay?”

  Andre continued to peek at them from behind the base of the pedestal of the statue but did not show himself or step back out into the clearing. Melancon, his mind doused suddenly with adrenaline, happened to glance up and see who it was depicted there in faded plastic.

  “Oh, hey. Man, you just can’t get away from Mr. Armstrong in this town, can you? I see you found your friend, Louis, right where he’s supposed to be. That’s lucky.”

  The boy looked up at the towering figure above him. There was wetness on his cheeks, puffiness around the eyes, a dour angle to his mouth. Andre lowered the pistol from his temple but did not let go of it.

  “Andre, your daddy, he was…”

  The boy raised the pistol again to his head, a deflated look in his eyes.

  Melancon thought for a minute, glancing up again at the statue. “What I meant to say was…”

  A silence lingered while he chose his next words carefully.

  “You know…about Louis Armstrong…he’s not here anymore. He died…and, yeah, it was a tragedy. But if he was here, I think he would be really, really proud of you.”

  Andre stared off into the darkness behind Melancon, a million miles away, before returning his gaze to the old detective. The boy tucked in his lower lip and again lowered the pistol.

  “What are you doing?” Felix whispered.

  “Just trust me on this, Felix. I have a hunch,” he whispered back.

  “You’re not a fucking psychologist, partner. You don’t know what you are doing.”

  “Well, unless you see any PhDs around here, I’m going to try my best if you don’t mind. I don’t exactly have time to get a twelve-year degree at the moment.”

  “You could make things worse. What if he…?” Melancon could hear the defeat in Felix’s sigh, deep discomfort in the sharp intake of breath. “Alright,” he finally said. Melancon put a hand on Felix’s shoulder, cleared his throat and picked his words with all the strategic intuition his near seven decades could muster.

  “If Louis were here, Andre, he would tell you that you have a great gift. He would tell you that…well…that you are a marvel of creation.”

  Where this all came from, Melancon couldn’t have explained in another seventy years, but it flowed out of him nonetheless, one syllable after another.

  “And a gift like the one you have…that isn’t something that you can just…take out of the world anytime you see fit. Because that would be selfish, you see. What you’ve got is an important thing, a thing you have to protect, to not be selfish with. I think Louis Armstrong knew that about you, and he wanted to protect you and your gift from the world. And he might have even…died because of that. Because that’s the thing about being gifted…a lot of people want to take your gift and use it for themselves. Now that Louis is gone, there’s nobody here to protect you. That means you have to be a grown-up all of a sudden…means that you have to protect your own gift from all those that want to take it from you. That’s tough and I know it.”

  The boy actually nodded. It was slight, but it was there. As his scowl began to fade, Andre took a cautious step out into the clearing, towards the detectives. The pistol hung limply at his side. Melancon pressed on now with renewed confidence.

  “Hell, I’ll bet Louis, if he were here right now…in the flesh, I mean, no disrespect to the statue…but I bet he wouldn’t blame you one bit for thinking of doing what you’re thinking of doing. He probably knew some tough living in his day. He was a great man, in the end, though, because he stuck it out. But the secret, Andre, is that tough living makes you tough in turn…and so I think old Satchmo would also tell you not to act rash, to think about all the joy and beauty and happiness a person like yourself could bring to the world once they survive one of the worst things that can happen to a person… I mean, Louis kept right on going, right? He liked to sing about how wonderful the world was, now didn’t he? Now can you imagine the world without Louis Armstrong ever having existed? Imagine the world if he had shot himself in some dingy park at thirteen…I don’t know about you, but that wouldn’t be a world I would want to live in. Louis would tell you, if he were here, about the awesome life you’re going to have playing music for people and making them happy.”

  Melancon turned his head towards Felix, whose heavy eyes were staring right into him with a confused look of hope. The old man cracked a sad smile, glanced down at the horn in Felix’s hand, nodded it towards Andre.

  The young detective timidly held out the brass so that Andre could see it. “Think this belongs to you…and I think that piece in your hand might belong to me…trade ya?”

  A look of absolute joy came over the boy’s face, louder than any words. Andre leaned forward, towards the horn, and it seemed he might even reach for it. But he stopped short, wincing out of a pained resolve.

  “Look, there’s something else,” Melancon went on. “Felix and I…we went to see your stepmama. She gave us something for you. It’s from…well, it’s important anyway. You’re going to want to read this letter one day, son.”

  The boy gave a meek nod, wiping a tear away from his eye. The gun still hung loosely at his side. Melancon took the damp envelope from his coat pocket and handed it to his young partner.

  Now Felix was inching his way towards the boy, an envelope in one hand and the horn in the other.

  “Come on now, kid. There’s a lot left for you here.”

  Andre took a step forward. He let the gun drop from his hand, where it rattled down on the pavement, then took the horn from Felix. Next he grabbed the letter and sat down cross-legged with the two items in his lap. Melancon approached him cautiously, kicking the pistol out into the damp darkness and finally putting a fatherly hand on the boy’s sobbing shoulder.

  “It’s going to be alright, kid.”

  Felix flanked the boy, putting a hand on the other shoulder. “I know how you feel, Andre,” he said. “I really do.”

  They sat there for a minute, just letting him cry. The set jaw, the narrow-eyed readiness to die, the white knuckles locked on the butt of a weapon—all of that had completely dissolved. All that was left was a boy who was deeply hurt. And he sobbed like a small boy in the thrall of deep, silent pain. He cried until he dampened the coat of the old detective even more than the swampy romp through the park had done, clutching a brass horn and a crumpled letter.

  Until, all at once, he stopped crying.

  He
grew very quiet and began to stare out into the darkness with a focused, unwavering gaze. So intently did he fix his sights that both detectives couldn’t help but follow his eyes.

  “What are you looking at, Andre?” Felix asked.

  “She’s here,” the boy said.

  Melancon covered his mouth with his hand, shone his flashlight out into the darkness, saw nothing.

  “You can speak,” Melancon said, joy filling his voice. For a second, the content of what Andre had said, the words he had spoken, didn’t register. Nothing mattered so much as the simple, melodious sound of his voice, still the high-pitched and unbroken soprano of a child.

  But Andre did not mark this moment with any special acknowledgment or weight, nor did he say more. Instead, he raised a finger and pointed urgently out into the darkness. Melancon, with his hand still on the boy’s shoulder, felt a sudden tightening that he couldn’t yet comprehend.

  “Howdy,” said a female voice said, causing Melancon and Felix both to jump.

  Felix let out a small cry of surprise and splayed his hands out under himself lest he topple over. The voice had come from just behind a pillar, and it was terribly close. So close that Melancon couldn’t imagine how they had been snuck up on in such a way. He felt the waves of adrenaline, which had only just begun to fade, return with a vengeance.

  Melancon turned his flashlight on the voice instinctively, revealing, in the orange glow, the shape of a woman. Whoever she was, she must have been extremely practiced at sneaking. She had gotten the drop on them completely and absolutely.

  It was then he noticed what she was holding.

  “If you don’t mind, that light is a bit hard on the eyes,” she said, chambering a shell into the shotgun to make certain she got her point across.

  “Now stand back from the boy,” she commanded, in a voice that invited no argument.

  But the detectives could not comply, even had they wanted to. Andre stood brazen, unmoving between the detectives and the tip of that scattergun, his arms spread wide—one hand holding his trumpet and the other still grasping the crumpled letter.