Uptown Blues

by Seth Pevey

  He was pushed by a similarly gawking Felix Herbert, who rubbernecked each wonder of modern architecture as their little trio passed underneath. The boy kept sticking his nose in some antiquated guide book, decades out of date, and using it to pontificate on the many nuances of the skyline.

  The old detective, David Melancon, was with them too. He seemed calmer than normal, taking it all in. The man claimed he had been to New York on more than one occasion and reminisced about his honeymoon here, acting as if he was no stranger to the cosmopolitan joys of the place. Tomás had watched the old goat devour plate after plate of sushi just the night before, and it was some spectacle. Though Melancon seemed to be enjoying himself, he certainly didn’t blend in in his out-of-fashion clothes. But then, none of them did. They walked (and rolled) the streets with a syrupiness and ease that betrayed them as wholly alien, as tourists.

  They had been moving down sidewalks for at least an hour and had nearly arrived. Yet they were early for their engagement. Tomás, spying a pub across the street, suggested that he buy them a drink.

  They crowded around a small table in the back. Melancon ordered a club soda, Tomás a scotch on the rocks, and Felix some sort of a beer that was not beer. The room was cool and spacious and had not yet begun to fill with after-work drinkers. It was the perfect place to say to them what had been burning a hole in his chest since the phone had rung an hour earlier.

  He cleared his throat, took a sip of the strong liquor.

  “Gentlemen, it is such a pleasure to be here with you on this day. We have been through a lot together. And I am happy that it is you are here with me now, here to be the first to share this joyful news with me. For I have an announcement. And now feels like the time. I’d like to propose a toast,” Tomás said, raising his glass and beaming at them warmly.

  “What’s the big occasion?” Melancon asked, turning his attention away from the window, already lifting his soda in preparation to celebrate the news, whatever it might be.

  Tomás flushed. Was it the scotch? The excitement of what he had to share? Perhaps it was just being here now with these two he cared so deeply about. He did his best to retain his composure and dignity, though if he had been able, he might have stood up and danced on the table.

  “First, a toast to you two bravest of men, who risked everything so that a young boy could be saved! You are true defenders of the helpless, the downtrodden, the people who need you most. Our city is lucky to have you.”

  “Aw shucks,” Felix said, running a finger around the rim of his pint glass. Melancon took to tearing a bar napkin to bits. But, at Tomás’s insistence, the two detectives begrudgingly toasted their own courage.

  “Alright, enough of that. Something tells me that’s not the big news,” Melancon said. “Don’t keep us in suspense, pal. Spill it.”

  “Alright, then,” Tomás said, rubbing his hands together as if warming them by a fire. “Just one hour ago, as we were preparing to leave, I received a very important phone call. The paperwork has all been accepted.” He paused, waiting as they hung on his words.

  “The adoption has gone through!” Tomás finally said.

  Felix stood up, a huge smile playing on his face. “It did?”

  “It did.”

  They raised their glasses, higher this time. The few heads in the small pub turned towards them as they raucously yelled and slapped each other on the back.

  “You’re going to have a son!”

  “That’s right, Felix. It won’t be the first time, but perhaps the first time legally.”

  “That’s amazing. Congratulations.”

  “What about Lashawn Jones?” Melancon asked when the toasting was done.

  “Well, it wouldn’t have happened without her blessing. We have talked many times since those dreadful events unfolded. She agreed that this was for the best, though she will still be a part of young Andre’s life as she is able.”

  “And Melph?”

  “I heard he was moving away for a while. To Austin. Poor man.” Tomás took another sip of his scotch, shook his head thoughtfully as he peered down into the brown liquid, tinkling his ice against his glass. He pondered the strange situation.

  “He was lucky,” Melancon said. “Lucky and a crack shot. And so were we. Lucky he saved us.”

  “Yes. Although it was he who saved you that night in the park, it is also fortunate you were able to repay as you did. Who else could have done so much to help the poor man prove his innocence? And to have charges thrown out on the basis of self-defense? Since then, he has put his trust in you, and by extension, in me. He told me as much when I spoke to him recently. And I plan to live up that trust. If it weren’t for him, you fine gentlemen would perhaps not be sitting across from me now. And the news I have just shared may have never come to pass.”

  “To Melph,” Melancon said, raising his glass again. “And congratulations to you, sir. That boy is in good hands. The best hands.”

  “Speaking of the boy, we must be going!” Tomás said, glancing at his wristwatch and putting his scotch down emphatically. “We wouldn’t want to be late.”

  Outside the streets were busy, but not as packed as they had been. Tomás was a bit fatigued by the exhaust of the many taxicabs, by the noise, by the glass and cement, and by the long journey across Manhattan. But, despite the draining nature of the metropolis, his happiness remained unflagging as they moved towards the final destination.

  “A bit more room to breathe now,” Melancon said, taking a slow stroll besides his two friends. “Not shoulder to shoulder like rush hour.”

  “I’m just still surprised that the boy has had such an about-face. Who would have thought, six months ago, that we would be here today?” Tomás said.

  “He made his own choice,” Melancon replied. “That’s the important part. He chose it himself.” The old detective lit a clove cigarette as they stopped for a break near a bench.

  “It’s great the way things turned out, Tomás,” Felix was saying, his hands gripping the handles of the old man’s wheelchair. “You’re going to be a great pop to that boy. I know you were for me.”

  Tomás put a hand over his shoulder to pat the top of Felix’s wrist. “Let’s not dally. It is nearly time.”

  Their destination was a place of great importance. It was an institution that Tomás de Valencia had been hearing about, reading about, seeing in movies and television shows for his entire life. But he had never been there, never once dreamed that, on some wonderous future occasion, he would be sitting in the middle of it. Now it was nearly time. When they turned the corner and saw it, he was slightly underwhelmed, deflated. He cocked his head and wondered, Is that all? Near the park, brightly lit with windows all ablaze in the sunset, a plain enough brick building. It did not overwhelm nearly so much as its name did. In fact, it was but a few stories tall and dwarfed by the surrounding commercial enterprises.

  They found their tickets at the will call and went inside.

  While the plain exterior might have underwhelmed Tomás de Valencia, the inside gave him the lasting impression he had come to expect from a name so world-renowned as Carnegie Hall’s.

  It hit the old man as he was wheeled to the front, to the handicapped section on the ground floor. The lights were dizzying, the rooftop soared, and multiple balconies overflowed just above him. There was a smell here like an old vault, a must to the place that felt profound and distinguished. Tomás could not help but look up, straining his neck. Finally, here was the grandeur and magnificence he’d been expecting. The audience had not yet quieted down, and the acoustics of the great room doubled the noise of the chattering, which was all focused around the excitement of what was soon to come.

  And then the curtain was raised. Tomás could hardly contain his pride, his anticipation. A hush fell over the crowd as the lights dimmed, all except for the main spotlight hitting center stage.

  A happy trill filled the auditorium: a quavering, dancing series of notes. The boy stepped into the s
potlight, dressed in a suit and tie, fourteen now and wearing a smile from ear to ear. He blew a few more long, doleful bleats, and then leaned into the microphone and took a bow, a gleaming new trumpet in his hands.

  “Thank you for coming to see me tonight,” he said, his voice cracking with manhood.

  And he pressed the horn to his lips again.

  For the next hour and a half, accompanied by a band just out of the spotlight, Andre Adai gave a magical performance. Up to dizzying heights and down to blue and wondrous lows, he blew the audacious sounds of a small, faraway place.

  It brought Tomás de Valencia to tears, to thrills, to the vague longing for a thing so terribly missed. It was a sentiment, an indulgence so fleeting it might never be captured—a wordless, silent burning that arose from the gut. You either knew about it from feeling it yourself, or you knew it not at all. For that hour and a half, whatever it was, it filled that alien auditorium: wordless, palpable, bombastic. The snarl of love. The howl of want. The bellowing of discontent. The music of the horn was like gold coins twinkling from the gutter, from the eyes of the dead. It was roots breaking cement, empty chairs and high-water marks and all the losing Tomás had done in a long life in which he had finally, at this late hour, realized how much he had truly won.

  In the end, when the boy came out for his final bow to raucous applause, the audience began to stand up.

  Only a few patrons stood, at first. The rest soon followed. The clapping was deafening, yet Tomás managed to make his trembling voice heard, at least to the two friends sitting astride him.

  “Pick me up.”

  “What?”

  “Pick me up?”

  “I don’t think—” Felix said.

  “Pick me up, damnit.”

  And so, working together with Melancon, Felix managed to bring the old man to his feet. Tomás, with an arm held over the shoulders of each of them, stood up for the boy and joined the crowd at Carnegie Hall in a standing ovation for one of the greatest sons of New Orleans.

  Twenty-Four

  When people asked Louis Armstrong why he played the way he did, he said he did it “in the cause of happiness.”

  For a long time now, I’ve been thinking about that. About being a soldier for that cause. But I haven’t been a very good one, because a soldier is someone who isn’t scared. And for so long I’ve been absolutely terrified. What I’ve been most scared of is remembering. These days, I practice memory almost as much as I practice trumpet. People like to say to me, you have your whole life ahead of you. But people don’t say that you also have your whole life behind you, moving away from you slowly, like the oak trees on St. Charles getting smaller and smaller as you sit in the backwards conductor chair. That feeling has always made me sick, terrified me even.

  But remembering must be done, and after every performance, that’s what I try to do. I put as much happiness as I can into the show. I play for the people and try to give them something beautiful and full of joy. But when the curtain falls, and I’ve let out all my happy feelings, I’ve got no more defense. So, I let the past all come flooding back at once.

  It is hard, but it’s for a good cause. I owe a debt. All the dark thoughts and memories have to be remembered. They have to be unpacked again from whatever corner of my mind I’ve stuck them in.

  So that’s what I’m doing right now.

  I’m in my dressing room and the after-show jitters are starting to quiet down. I sit on the couch and open the letter. Just like every other time I’ve opened it for the past six months, an old photograph falls out from between the crease.

  I look at the picture and remember.

  I look at his round little cheeks, the adorable mess of curly hair on top of his head, his pure baby-faced happiness. He was smiling in the picture and I try to remember the look of his real smiling, happy face. I’m also in the picture, at about three years old. I try to remember sitting there next to him. Sometimes I have success with memory and other times I don’t. But I always think about Louis.

  That’s right. His name was Louis. My brother, Louis.

  Sometimes I read the letter out loud to myself, try to mimic the sound of my daddy’s voice, to give it life again. Sometimes I don’t.

  “Dear Andre, if you get this it means your daddy is gone.”

  It finally seems true. I don’t like remembering it, but I have to. Next, I skip down to my favorite part.

  “First, I love you. That’s important.”

  With that out of the way, Daddy gives me some advice.

  “I always knew you would be a big, great man one day, but you didn’t need to know it, at least not while I was around. At least, you didn’t need to know it too well. The last thing on earth I wanted for you was to have a big head, or to grow up putting on airs, or to become full of yourself like I’ve seen happen to some other children. But not everyone always agreed with me on that.”

  I think about marsala lipstick. It’s a color I can’t hardly stand to see anymore. I told Uncle Melph that and he said he felt the same way. I keep on reading.

  “That’s what the second part of this letter is about, your real mama. Because if I’m gone, I don’t know what kind of stories you might be hearing about our family’s past. So, I want to make sure you get the straight dope from me, come hell or high water, once you’re old enough to understand it.”

  Which I guess I finally am. Whether I am or not doesn’t matter, though, because I have to be. I’m the only one left to remember. I lay back on the big fluffy couch in my dressing room in New York City, open a Coke and read it again.

  “Her name is Nola Hazmuka, and her family were big-timers back in the small town we grew up in. Dad was chief of police, uncle was a judge, and another uncle was the mayor. To top it off, her grandfather owned a bunch of real estate. I knew her since we were both little kids in Greensburg. We got married when she was just nineteen years old. Later we had you. And when you were two years old, we had Louis.”

  I look at the picture, look at his happy face. It always makes me smile, even when I’m sad.

  “That’s right. You had a baby brother. You remember, even if we never talk about it. I know you do. His name was Louis and I named him after my (and now your) favorite jazz musician. He was cute as a button. He would have been smart too, just like you. Here is a picture of him sitting next to you when you were just three years old. Just right before…”

  I remember now. It’s hard to believe it left my mind for so long. Or maybe it never really did, maybe I hid it behind other things. Maybe I had to do that. I keep reading.

  “Well, there is no easy way to explain all this. I’ve never been a writer, but I will do my best. This is some stuff I had always planned on taking to my grave, and if you’re reading this, I probably did. I hope at least knowing about it gives you some peace, Andre. I think you already know it but…”

  This is the part where I always feel a lump in my throat, right near my scar, but I never stop reading, no matter what. I’m a soldier in the cause of happiness.

  “Your mama was never very well. She was broken somehow. I can’t explain it to you, but that was one of the reasons I was so in love with her. I always felt like she needed me. Like if I could just show her the right thing…well, here’s where my writing fails me again. Suffice to say, she couldn’t see a sunny day and smile. But sometimes I could point one out to her, and then it would be like all the clouds on earth parted just for one second. One thing she did have was big dreams. Expectations and things she wanted out of life which she reckoned would finally make her feel happy, but which no one could give her. She always expected so much. She was never really happy, that’s just who she was. She had trouble with people. During our marriage, she had a big blow-up with her family and became estranged from her daddy and uncles. That’s just a fancy way of saying they didn’t speak to each other for a few years. It ended up that her father died, with them never making up, and when he died, Nola was not included in the will. She was cut out o
f the inheritance money, totally. Her old man donated all the money to colleges instead. Can you believe that? Well, I could. But Nola sure couldn’t. When your mama found out about her father’s death, she went into a deep depression. I mean deeper than deep.”

  I pause, like always, and wonder just how much of her is in me. I can feel it sometimes, her darkness. For a long time, I never recognized what it was, but now I know. It is there, on the edge of things, watching and waiting. I have to guard my happiness like a soldier in a watchtower.

  “And in the worst part of her depression, that was when we had you. It was her idea. And I thought that having you, and Louis not long after, would make her happy again, give her purpose. But it didn’t work. ’Cause the real secret is that some people just have a hole in them. They try to fill it their whole lives but sometimes they just never manage to. I fill mine with hard work, and with…well…with you. You can fill yours with music or art or another person. But Nola was one of those people who could never get that hole to stop eating her. She got worse. There were weeks at a time when I couldn’t get her out of bed. She talked about killing herself. She hated everything about life in our small town, the pettiness of it. She felt trapped. She wanted something different, she said. But she could never say just what. Different is all. But I don’t think I ever really understood what drove her to do what she ended up doing.”

  I remember it now. I remembered it always. The feel of the warm water, of safety and comfort and then—

  Oh when the saints,

  Go marching in…

  “One night, Andre, while I was at work…”

  The horror of it. The bathwater turning all red. The swirl of it around the drain. All of the red going round and round and finally disappearing away at the vanishing point. My head is getting light and—