No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  “What is it?” Billy’d ask.

  “It’s caviar, son. Go ahead and taste it, and if it’s a little strange, get used to it, because the way you play, you’re gonna perform for royalty, and they always serve this kind of thing.”

  He trusted Pop Butterworth and ate the stuff on the cracker, eyeing the round little marble-like globules suspiciously but liking the taste immediately; asking him what it was, and Butterworth laughing at him and telling him it was fish eggs. He nodded and took a handful of crackers and dipped them in the caviar and ate them. They’d sat down and eaten nearly a quarter of a pound of caviar and had champagne and he’d felt blessed and strong, like nothing would ever happen to him and the whole world would hear him play.

  Billy was grateful for his neighborhood jobs, since they provided extra money, even though now with the store the children didn’t seem to need much. Still, he enjoyed giving them gifts for their birthdays and at Christmas. They were good kids and he loved them. He had no idea how he and Lurleen had ended up with them all. He recalled those days in that first apartment when he and Lurleen made love three or four times a day, his body hungering for her like she was some life-giving essence without which he’d perish. In time he knew he was addicted to her, as much as he was to smoking pot, which he did with as much regularity. She had tried it a few times, and liked it, but she began reading about the effects and one day said she never wanted to smoke dope again and that he had to stop, too, and that if he didn’t stop she would have a very difficult time explaining to the children that no matter how you cut it, if they were called drugs, it meant that whoever used them had to be sick. “Sick from what?” he’d said. And she said that she didn’t know, but sure enough if people used drugs they had to be sick of something. “I don’t want drug use in my house, and I don’t want my children exposed to them, especially from their father. I want them to be healthy and learn from our example. I hope you can respect that, Billy. No drugs and no guns. You’ve had plenty of both.”

  It didn’t dawn on him for another half hour that she was telling him, in a roundabout way, that she was expecting their first child. When he finally asked her, she said she thought so, but that she’d have to see the doctor to be sure. The idea of having a kid with Lurleen was unbelievable. He didn’t say much, but inside he was churning. For a while he snuck around, copping a smoke here and there, always outside the house. After a while, however, the knowledge that he was lying to Lurleen ruined the experience. He quit smoking weed and eventually stopped taking pills, and only had a beer once in a while. But then all the stuff about Joey got worse, and all he could do was want to go and find cover.

  It all happened very quickly with the kids, except for Caitlin—that had been an accident. One day he was walking down the street, carrying Cliff with his right arm, Horty holding on to his left hand, and Lurleen pushing the carriage with Fawn in it, and it sort of woke him up that he had three kids. Four really, except that he never expected to see the other one, the one he’d had with Elsa. And now there she was, beautiful and mysterious and so smart that he could hardly believe it, although he’d always thought Elsa was pretty smart. He imagined where he’d be if things had worked out with her, if they had stayed together and maybe had other kids. It was always weird to think about those things, because it meant that he never would’ve known Cliff and the girls. He thought about Cliff and wondered how he’d turn out. What would he do if Cliff came to him and said he wanted to join the Marines? But he wouldn’t. He was growing up big and strong, but he had no interest in proving himself. He was a good athlete, but sports didn’t interest him much. “That’s cool,” he’d told a friend, when he was warned that he’d be cut from the basketball team if he didn’t show up for practice. “I gotta study and rehearse.” Cliff was totally unlike him. Even at thirteen he had seemed in command of his own life. It was especially apparent in the way women treated him. Even older women complied with his wishes without his having to ask. The only ones he seemed to have little power over were Cookie and Vidamía. And with them he’d state what he wanted in a nonchalant, take-it-or-leave-it way and off he’d go, leaving them to throw things at him or call him names. Billy wished he hadn’t been so rough on him.

  The week before he’d called the number and spoken to Pop Butterworth briefly, telling him that he was coming to see him. So he went up to Harlem, his mind on the music, oblivious that he was a white dude, and feeling, but without any arrogance, as if he belonged because he played the music and it was his life, hundreds of tunes coursing through his body and, as if the history of the music were alive in him, loving the life and what it meant to him. As he walked in Harlem he imagined that he was going to have his picture taken with all the greats in front of the stoop of a brownstone, kidding around with Monk and Diz, he one of the few white cats, so his fantasy went. Pop Butterworth had shown him that photograph in Life magazine, the one titled “A Great Day in Harlem,” that featured over fifty jazz musicians. Pop Butterworth wasn’t in it and said he didn’t belong in the photo, and the rest of the cats must have agreed because no one had called him to let him know about it.

  As soon as Billy saw Butterworth he shook his head. Entering the apartment he could smell death, just as he had smelled it in Nam. Blood had a particular too-sweet smell to it, and when there was enough of the smell, death was usually at hand. Death also had its own brand of silence, and that is what he felt walking into Pop Butterworth’s apartment. He took one look at the old man and knew there was something drastically wrong. He was much thinner than the last time he’d seen him and his movements were too deliberate, as if any more effort would cause him pain.

  “How you doing, Pop?” he said, putting his arms around the old man and patting his back. “You hanging in there?”

  “Yeah, trying to, son,” Butterworth rasped, his voice worse than ever.

  “Sit down over here and tell me all about the gig.”

  Billy sat down on one of the chairs in the kitchen, observing the unhealthy, grayish tint of Butterworth’s skin.

  “You know Wyndell Ross, don’t you, Pop?”

  “Yes, I do. He’s that colored boy that sees your daughter. Fine tenor saxophone,” he said and coughed.

  “Anyway, he went and talked with Art D’Lugoff down at the Gate and got himself a gig. It looks like I’ll be playing with him.”

  “Who else?”

  “My boy Cliff, on trombone.”

  “Another J. J. Johnson,” Butterworth said proudly.

  “A friend of his on drums. Real young, but he’s like Philly Joe Jones.”

  “White boy?”

  “Yeah, but he can swing.”

  “Bass?”

  “Buster Williams.”

  “No kidding? Fine style. Fine musician. He and some fellas used to play Monk’s music.”

  “Sphere with Charlie Rouse.”

  “Right, Charlie, before he passed. My memory’s slipping.”

  “Yeah, with Kenny Barron and Ben Riley. Wyndell met Buster through Larry Coryell.”

  “The guitar player?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Heard him a couple of times at the Gate. Brilliant musician.”

  “Yeah, a beautiful cat. Anyway, I guess Wyn asked Buster. He’s gonna be in town so it’s set up. Wyn and me was talking and we figured maybe you could sit in for a few tunes.”

  Billy saw the pain in Butterworth’s eyes and regretted making the suggestion. It was a poor attempt to make him feel better. He was about to apologize when Pop spoke up.

  “Thanks, son,” he said. “But I’m real sick. I went to the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry, Pop.”

  “It ain’t your fault. I shoulda left the cigarettes alone a long time ago.”

  “Bad?”

  “Bad as it can get. Throat cancer, son.”

  “Can they do anything?”

  “Oh, they’re talking about going in and removing the voice box and giving me one of those numbers to talk through.”


  “Sure, I’ve seen them. The important thing’s to hang in there, Pop. You can’t be checking out without seeing me play again.”

  “I don’t know, son,” Butterworth said, his voice sounding defeated by the illness. “It don’t seem worth it to go to all the trouble.”

  “I ain’t having none of it, man,” Billy said. “Whatever you gotta go through it’ll be worth it. They got real fine treatment these days. When did they say you had to go in?”

  “I gotta go up to Harlem Hospital for some tests and observation tomorrow.”

  “What time?”

  “I gotta be there at ten.”

  “I’ll be here at nine to pick you up.”

  “You don’t have to, Billy. It’s okay. You got things to do. I don’t want you to go to any trouble on account of me.”

  “I ain’t hearing it, man,” Billy said. “If you wanna lock the door on me, that’s fine, but I’ll be here nine o’clock sharp.”

  “That’s real kind of you, son. I’ll be ready.”

  “How long they want you in the hospital for?”

  “About a week. They wanna see if it’s spread anywhere else.”

  “Good. The gig’s the twenty-third of this month. Thursday. Today’s the twelfth. Tomorrow’s Monday the thirteenth. In a week it’s the twentieth and you’ll be out, and that Thursday we’ll come and get you and you can sit up front with Lurleen. It’ll be great. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds great,” Butterworth rasped. He reached over and took Billy’s hand. “Real great.”

  He’d never seen Billy sound so good. Even back when he was in high school he’d sounded sad most of the time, but now he seemed excited. It was as if he had learned something about life which up to that moment had been hidden from him. They spoke a little more and then Billy said that he had to get back. There was a rehearsal that evening. He asked if Butterworth needed anything, but the old man shook his head.

  Billy said goodbye, but, true to his word, there he was the next morning. He helped Butterworth pack a few things to take to the hospital. And then Butterworth asked that Billy bring down a cardboard box from the closet.

  “Open it,” Butterworth said when Billy had set the box on the bed.

  Billy opened the box. It was full of photographs of Butterworth with other jazz musicians. Monk, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and dozens more.

  “What do you want me to do with them?” Billy asked.

  “Keep them for me,” Butterworth said. “All except Lady Day’s picture. Take that one out and put it with my stuff.”

  “We’ll put the pictures in albums,” Billy said, recalling Albert T. Zorich’s suitcase full of pictures which nobody had ever bothered to care for. “We’ll organize them and make albums and write under the pictures who the people are. If we don’t know somebody, you’ll tell us, okay?”

  “That’d be good, son. Thank you.”

  He went into the box and took out a framed, glass-covered picture of Billie Holiday, with a gardenia in her hair. It was signed: To Alfred—With my greatest affection, Billie. He placed the picture between the layers of pajamas, bathrobe, and underwear, and closed the beat-up suitcase which Alfred Butterworth had taken on the road when he had traveled with different orchestras.

  Outside, Billy hailed a gypsy cab and felt proud that he could pay the fare with money he’d earned at the Cornelia Street Café, where he’d been playing the last couple of weeks. Butterworth protested when Billy paid the driver, but Billy explained that he had a little extra money.

  “I got a steady gig, Pop,” he said proudly.

  “Where?”

  “Place called the Cornelia Street Café.”

  “Say what?” Butterworth said, his voice suddenly stronger for a moment. “Cornelia?”

  “Yeah, on Cornelia Street in the Village. Why? You know the place?”

  “No, but that was my mama’s name.”

  “Cornelia?”

  “Yeah, Cornelia Butterworth,” he said, omitting the Lockwood. He tried laughing, but instead began coughing. “That’s a real good sign,” he said when he stopped coughing.

  At the hospital, Billy helped Butterworth check in and signed several papers. A nurse helped the old man into a wheelchair. Billy was standing behind him. When asked if he and Butterworth were related, he nodded. The black nurse laughed.

  “Oh, yeah? How?” she asked.

  Butterworth started to answer, but Billy interrupted him.

  “He’s my father,” Billy said, his voice serious, as he squeezed Butterworth’s shoulder gently. Butterworth reached up and touched his hand.

  “Oh,” the nurse said. “I didn’t mean to laugh. Sign here, Mr. Farrell.”

  Once they were in his ward and they had dressed him in his pajamas, Alfred Butterworth looked at Billy and shook his head. Beneath the illness, there was a great satisfaction that made Butterworth grin a nearly toothless smile.

  “That was real kind, son,” he said.

  “It’s the truth, Pop,” Billy said. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow. And you do everything they tell you so you can get out of this place right away and hear us play.”

  “I’ll do my best, Billy,” he said.

  Two nurses came now and settled him again into the wheelchair. Billy watched as they wheeled him down the hall, recalling the hospitals he’d been in after getting wounded in Vietnam. Each hospital had a distinctive atmosphere. The one in Japan was the neatest, and yet the three months he’d spent there had been the loneliest, the period during which he’d begun to fully understand his loss of Joey, as well as his own tragedy. He wanted desperately for Butterworth to improve, but he had already smelled death on him and he knew that soon he’d have to mourn his passing. The pain never ended, he thought.

  50. First Date

  Fawn Singleton Farrell lived in a dense fog day and night, waking or sleeping, secure in a gauze of thought about circles and cycles and repetitions, just like the drums she played. Everything seemed circular—like orbiting stars in a universe totally ordered, except it wasn’t at all like that and they had finally grown and they weren’t just the two little pink cones that had appeared last year. They were big, like on the chests of her sisters Cookie and Vee, but bigger still, so that her mother said she’d have to start wearing a bra and they had gone to the store and the one she had to wear was a 36C. Her mother said she was going to be like Grandma Maud and that she had a lovely body, extremely well-shaped and she would be fine after the operation. The doctor said she would be just like any other girl.

  “It won’t be painful and no one will even notice after,” Lurleen had said. “Not even your boyfriend or husband.”

  “I don’t know,” Fawn said. “I’m scared. And, anyway, I’m never gonna have a boyfriend.”

  “Sure you are, honey. You’re a beautiful and talented girl.”

  “Not like Cookie and Vee,” she’d said.

  “Yes, exactly like the two of them because you not only have great physical beauty, but you have talent like Cookie and brains like Vidamía. That’s not to say your sister Hortense isn’t smart, but we all know she has a few academic problems. You don’t.” And then her mother looked to the side, as if she were talking to other people in the room. “This here girl is smart, folks,” she said, pointing at her. “You cain’t tell no blonde jokes about her, heah?”

  Fawn smiled and put her head down, not wanting to look at her mother.

  “Really?” she said. “Like Cookie and Vidamía?”

  “Yep, cross my heart and hope to die,” her mother said. “Nothing’s going to happen, darling,” her mother added, hugging her so that she felt little again, except she could feel her breasts getting mushed and hurting, so that she said ouch and her mother pulled away and asked her if she noticed Angela’s lip where they did the operation.

  “No,” she said. “She’s my friend.”

  “But do other people?”

  “No, nobody pays attention.”

  Lurleen
helped Fawn remember how she’d come home crying from school when she was seven because some boys had made fun of Angela. Fawn nodded and said the boys had said that Angela looked like a rabbit and Fawn had thrown a bottle at them and they’d hit her with a magazine and pushed her down. Lurleen asked her if she recalled that during the summer they’d gone and visited Angela’s parents to encourage them to take her to the hospital to have her lip repaired because she’d been born at home in Puerto Rico up in the mountains, and there was no hospital nearby.

  “I remember. We took Cookie to speak Spanish.”

  “Angela had her operation and she came back and you were so happy for her and she grew up beautiful and everything, though she’s still a little shy. So you’ll have your operation, and we’re the only one’s who’ll know about it, except for your daddy and the doctor and nurses.”

  “I know that, Mama. You’re the best mother and I love you.”

  “I love you, too. You’re going to be all right. Yessiree Bob. Thank you very much. Before school starts you’ll go into the hospital, they’ll do the operation, and in a couple of days you’ll be out and getting ready for high school. Are you sorry you won’t be going up to Performing Arts with Cookie and Cliff?”

  “No, Mama, it’s too far. I wanna stay with my friends, anyway. I’ll go to Seward Park. Angela and Margie are going there, and they have music at the school.”

  “Maybe after high school you can go to Juilliard. It’s pretty around there, with Lincoln Center and everything. Remember when we went to see The Nutcracker?”