Another Kind of Madness

by Ed Pavlić

  Less lonely “here,” she thought, picturing the old man in Cambridge again, because this has got to be a mirage. Off to the piano’s right, the man with the bass stood at the corner of the rug. They must have nearly brushed shoulders when she’d followed Cass through the back door and into the crowd. How could she have missed it? Him? Then she recalled the amplified feeling of depth she’d felt. So she hadn’t missed him; she just hadn’t seen him. Either she’d felt him right away, or he wasn’t there at all. Mirage or not, she was glad he was—whoever he was—where he appeared to be. The way he played was like taking a handful of here and throwing it over there. But even over there it still felt like it was right here. It sounded like a kind of presence that had nothing to do with the question of distance.

  ■

  Before the set, the man had been standing beside his instrument, wiping it down, when Shame came out from the back. Shame walked in, took his drink, and sat down on a round stool at the piano. Shame hadn’t ignored him as much as he’d taken no notice to ignore. The talk in the room had stopped when Shame walked in, so he sat there with his legs wide apart, waiting for the talk to resume and, he figured, for the stranger with the bass to pack up and leave. In a few moments, a thin steam of talk began to sift from the ceiling and drape over the room. It filled in the space between the bodies. Shame looked over at the bassist, now done tuning, who was looking back at him. Shame’s first thought was “No way he’s an American.”

  –So. Forgive me, are you the opening act or something? What am I missing?

  –My brother, I came to play. With you. My name is Kima. I came to sit in.

  –Well, I’m afraid you’re fifty years too late for a “sit in.”

  –I know! I get it. Ha! Seriously, I heard you play with yourself.

  –That’s by myself.

  –Right. At the Cat’s Eye. They told me there that you’d begun to play down here. Last week, I saw a short article about you in the Reader.

  –The Reader?

  –Yes, a good article. So, I came down here to find you.

  –Oh, I see.

  Shame’s impossible tone flew past unnoticed.

  –Yes. If I may. I’ve studied this music.

  –You know I don’t play “music,” no lead sheets or whatever …

  –I’ll follow you. I’ve heard you. It’s like Rotary Perception.

  –Like wha—

  –Rotary Perception, Mingus and his drummer, their theory of playing together like an expanding conversation. It goes around and around, wherever it likes, but always finds its way back to where it began.

  –I don’t know about that.

  –Ah, yes you do-oo. Look, it doesn’t matter. I’ll follow you.

  –Me? Well, stay out of sight.

  –I’ll stay out of sight. Like acoustics …

  –Acoustics, OK, whatever. Um, your voice. Where are you from?

  –Kenya. The coast. Mombasa. Have you been? To Africa?

  –No. Actually, I almost went for a job a few years ago. It was supposed to be six months, maybe a year. I had my passport, work visa. A whole rack of shots.

  –A construction job?

  –How did you know that?

  –The Reader.

  –Right, of course. It was in southern Tanzania, near Uganda. Then there was trouble in Uganda, rebels in the north. I don’t remember the details. It got postponed.

  After a year or so the boss went there to sound it out. The foundation of the plant, a brewery, was still visible but he said the site had gone back to bush. The materials and equipment had been shipped. Two containers. The equipment was gone. The material was in mounds going back to earth. The shipping containers had been moved down near a stream about a mile away. Families were living in them.

  Kima stared at Shame for an instant, wondering if he should correct his geography. Then he tossed his head.

  –Of course, it’s Naipaul!

  –Nepal?

  –Never mind. You should go to Kenya. To the coast, though. Don’t mess with those upcountry people. I should know, my family is in Nairobi.

  –Right. Maybe I should leave now and then you can play with yourself in here tonight? “Live at Inflation …” What was your name again?

  –Kima. The name’s Kimani.

  Shame reached out his hand in acceptance.

  –Well, Kima Kimani—

  –No, Kimani’s the surname. My given name is Merlin. People call me Kima.

  Shame wasn’t exactly sure what a “sir name” was. He decided it meant a last name.

  –OK, Kima. Got it. I don’t know how you’re going to follow me when I don’t know where I’m going. But it’s nice to meet you, man.

  Kimani bounced his gaze in reply and smiled. He shook Shame’s hand, surprised. Despite whatever it said in the Reader, Kima was still shocked to be shaking the hand of a farmer in America. In Chicago.

  –You’ve got a villager’s hands.

  –Yeah, well, we don’t have villages here.

  And Shame turned around to the keys. Kimani waited with his eyes closed. After a few minutes, during a chance moment’s rise in the volume of conversations, Shame found a few brick to pick up with his farmer’s left hand. He answered with his right at the very top of the keyboard. A few moments later, he noticed Kima back there, way back down the street. He’d never played with company. It felt like the bass pressed firmly into the small of his back. He felt like he could lean back off the stool onto Kima’s sound and not fall. He thought, “OK, I’ve got a villager’s hands, and you, sir Kima, have the hands of a masseur.”

  ■

  Sitting there with her back turned, Ndiya didn’t see it. The music didn’t end. Shame snatched his fingers from the piano with a gesture that made it sound like he’d hit the last two keys by accident, the way a man might not quite accidentally knock a fork off the table. It felt like he’d put his hands on her shoulders. He would soon; he hadn’t yet. Shame turned to his right on the stool, sat sidesaddle and waited for Kima to complete his thought, or catch up from where he’d been following, or maybe just notice that no music was coming from the piano. Kima kept on, looking up, his hands moving like he was climbing a rope to the ceiling.

  Still waiting for Kima to come around, Shame stood up and, for the first time, looked out at the room between the bar and the booths. A few people started to clap but Shame’s vision was frozen so he didn’t see them move. There was a sound at the bar like a drawer slamming shut. His eyes veered left and saw nothing capable of such a sound. At the end of the bar to his left, however, he recognized Colleen, who did move. She smiled, and waved. He may have smiled thinly, he may not have. But as soon as Colleen waved he heard, as if catching it midway, a loud applause and could now see people moving. A young man in a white coonskin hat whistled. And he looked right and saw that Ndiya had been sitting behind him, in a booth with Junior’s trio.

  He hadn’t seen Junior in months. His appearance tonight, in a room that looked like this room, greeted Shame like a whiff of smoke. It was a warning. When he saw Junior, the sound of applause morphed into the cracking-sticks sound of a fire. Underneath his thoughts, and in the copper taste in his mouth, was Shame’s knowledge that, in the worst fires, people didn’t die from burns or smoke, they simply lost the contest for air to the flames and so suffocated, often quite peacefully, while asleep. They exhaled in a dream and then just didn’t inhale again in life. Then that dream didn’t end.

  When the applause ceased, with the certain feeling of invisible hands still massaging her shoulders, Ndiya opened her eyes and smiled diagonally across at Valerie. She reached out.

  –Hi, I’m Ndiya.

  –Val. Nice to meet you.

  And Valerie, taking over:

  –To your right, P. W. P. W., say hello to the lady.

  –Nice to meet you, End-iya. Am I saying that right?

  And Ndiya:

  –Close. Áh-ndiya.

  –Áh-ndiya.

  –Perfect.

/>   Junior didn’t wait for Valerie to continue. He reached over his empty glass of ginger ale.

  –I’m Junior. How do you do?

  Ndiya blinked quizzically. Junior’s greeting sounded like a real question. She didn’t know what to say. Then she thought of his name.

  –The Junior?

  In a mock-search of himself, Junior looked down at his chest and surveyed his extended arms.

  –I think so.

  –Owns-the-building-Shame-lives-in Junior?

  –That Junior. Yes.

  –A pleasure.

  –It’s mine. All mine.

  Junior caught himself and waved at the table. An iced light danced behind his face.

  –My bad. I mean the pleasure is ours.

  In Junior’s world there was always something wrong. Maybe most things, all the time. He paid very little attention to trivia. He viewed the world as if the lights were dimmed, at an angle that canceled out degrees of gray and minutia. He loved the taste and scent of all the clashing details in and around his life. He just never looked at them, never stopped to consider them. He knew they never really were what they presented themselves to be, knew that by the time one noticed such details they were already something else anyway. Life was a fully saturated solution. So he’d say to himself, “How do you solve a solution?” He treated things like a bowl of soup brought to him each morning made from the leftovers of the previous day. There’d be a spoon somewhere. He’d ask for bread.

  The trouble at Inflation was obvious, and he didn’t appreciate the taste of it. He could handle that. But after sitting across from her as he had, keeping her just off the center of his vision, he found he was aware, conscious in a way that sliced him somehow, that another trouble was about. This was no detail. And then, something else had begun to crawl in him when she’d spoken her first words to Valerie. It wasn’t about what she’d said. He knew that. It was something in what she said. He was used to things not being what they appeared to be. He slurped spoons from that bowl every day. This was different. Something had fallen off a tree into the palm of his hand; something that was exactly what it was. Something had stayed impossibly still; it was still what it had always been. But what? He couldn’t tell just yet.

  After a pause, Junior continued,

  –So where are you from, Ndiya?

  –Oh, same old boring story. Chatham girl. Whitney Young. My father was a bus driver. I went to college near Boston. Jumped between jobs, nothing serious. Then I came back to town late last spring. How about you?

  Junior waved off the question and leaned forward across the table:

  –Don’t sound boring to me. How does it feel to be back?

  –I’d been gone a while, many years. The city has changed a lot. At times I have to check to see if this is really Chicago. What about you?

  –Me? I haven’t noticed much change. Until lately. Have you all?

  Valerie and P. W. knew better than to answer. Their silence bluntly nudged Ndiya in the ribs; she wondered if it was a signal to her. Still, this wasn’t the usual script. P. W. and Valerie were shocked at Junior’s interest in this woman’s life. He never asked people about themselves. They knew he couldn’t be interested in anything she said. They knew if he really wanted to know something about someone, he’d say nothing. He’d watch and listen while they talked to someone else, or he’d watch what they did with their hands, or eyes, while no one was talking. They were shocked at each of Junior’s questions and by his steady focus on what she said. Something was up. Meanwhile, he ignored everything else. They knew Junior: “Puh-leeze, fuck what niggas say, man, I eat what niggas say. Now, what? I got to hear it too?” At each of Junior’s questions, they stole glances at each other. Junior saw this too. He was proud of them for noticing.

  While Junior’s question twisted in the air above the table like a perfectly balanced mobile high in a museum foyer, Shame wheeled the stool from the piano up to the end of the table near Ndiya. He stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Shame noticed a pause in the conversation, a shift in the weather over the table. He decided to ignore it, everything.

  –Evening, people. Val. P. W. What’s going on, Junior?

  –Man, you know what. You what’s going on, right?

  –Please? This? Has anyone checked the snow outside?

  –Naw, we’ve been in here. I’ve been checking out all the snow that blew up in-side.

  –What about you, P. W.?

  –“Mystery.”

  –No doubt.

  P. W. nodded knowingly. Junior caught his reference. Ndiya looked at Shame who was watching a slice of Junior’s reflection in the side of her glass. Breaking the silence, Shame observed,

  –Well, word gets around, I guess.

  And Shame saw six slices of Junior’s face turn toward Valerie. His profile refracted like successive phases of the moon.

  –Around? Oh. So that’s where word’s been getting itself to.

  Junior looked back to face Ndiya. In a fake down-home accent, smiling:

  –I’ve been plum a-wondering where word done got itself off to.

  And Shame:

  –Word ain’t going nowhere.

  –I don’t know, cousin, I wouldn’t—

  And Kima arrived carrying a chair from the back room over his head through the crowd. He placed it down next to Shame’s stool. Kima sat. Shame remained standing behind Ndiya.

  –Everyone. This is Kima, sorry, Merlin Kimani. He plays bass, as you know. Kima, meet Valerie, P. W., Junior, and Ndiya. Kima’s from Kenya.

  –Hello everybode-ey.

  Shame began to sit down but stopped when Junior moved to stand. Junior rose up and took Kima’s outstretched hand.

  –Good to meet you, brah.

  –Likewise, Junior. A pleasure, man.

  In a voice like a wave coming ashore, Junior said to Shame,

  –Word ain’t the point. But some word done brought a whole lot-ta baby seals into the water. And you know what comes after the baby seals?

  As Junior turned from the table, he caught a glimpse of Ndiya’s face from above. She was looking down at her hands on the table. At first she looked too small, as if she was ten feet below him, as if he was looking down from a ladder, or from the top of a stairway. He wasn’t. That effect focused his attention. In the dim red light, amid the blizzard blown into the room, Junior felt a sharp pulse of white light go through him like a heavy blade. He wasn’t high up at all. The woman he was looking at wasn’t a woman. She was a little girl, a twelve-year-old little girl—

  If you’ve ever been hit in the face hard enough, you know you don’t feel the blow in your face. You know you don’t feel it at all. It takes you like a scythe at the knees. Junior’s knees felt the blow of light but he made his turn and walked away confident, not a hitch. No one had noticed that he’d almost fallen to the floor. Junior could take a punch. He moved through the crowd toward the rest-room, thinking:

  –Chatham. Whitney Young … and I’m Bozo-the-fuck-the-no-no in the Grand Prize Game.

  Junior knew the rest but couldn’t even say it to himself.

  While Junior was absent, the conversation was interrupted by a commotion up near the front door. Someone tried to leave and couldn’t get the door open. A nervous friction spilled back from the front of the room. Ndiya felt P. W.’s body fall loose sitting beside her like he’d been poured out of a pitcher. He leaned his right shoulder down like he’d dropped something on the floor. Cass told everyone to calm down, went out the back with his shovel, cleared the space. A minute later he opened the door.

  –No need to fret. Everyone’s free to go when they wish. Ain’t like we got a big cook pot out back—

  Junior came back and the conversation turned toward inevitable questions of geography, prompted by Kima’s voice. The pressure had eased. Shame watched as if sitting in a thunderstorm while listening to the radio report a clear, sunny sky. After another round of ginger ale and Valerie’s cocktail, the three were set to leav
e. P. W. and Valerie went to bring the car around. And Junior stayed behind. Leaning back, looking at the ceiling:

  –To go back to your question, Ndiya, where I’m from is gone. They tore down the buildings and razed the houses surrounding them. I’m sure you heard about that. Anyway. Good thing, the houses weren’t worth it, the old folks had mostly died. And those buildings … tall buildings, you know?

  –Yes. I know.

  –The place was shit. Those stairwells were deadly. And the elevators, well, they were worse. And there’s a cube of space still floating out there a hundred feet up in the air, floating in my life, Ndiya, and couldn’t nothing tear that down. You know why?

  –No.

  –Well, it can’t come down because it’s not really there, is it?

  Junior could feel his pores open up, so he pulled himself back, turned his head up, and sat still. He was blank again. Ndiya had been looking directly at him while he spoke. He smiled brightly, still staring at the ceiling. Then, with his smile broke and slammed shut, he looked down and their eyes met directly. She saw the cold light in the tunnels behind Junior’s eyes collapse into one flame. In the back of her mind, she heard the song again, Together we’re one not two, shine like diamond ice, and she felt sweat on her face. Then Junior’s look broadened, as he sat there for a moment, his face changed like a flipped coin, and he smiled a smile that made him look like a perfectly preserved body in a buried ruin, a boy emperor. After a second, Junior stood up to walk to the door.

  –You all have yourselves a good night.