“Damn Frogs never could handle Monk,” Max said, laughing. “Man, that was beautiful!”
* * * *
A few weeks later, my buddy J.J. came by with this poster he'd found on some lamppost nearby. He read it out to me while I brushed my teeth one morning.
“Now hiring jazz musicians of all instrumental specialties ... the intergalactic society of entertainers and artists’ guild ... Colored Americans only please, special preference currently given to aspiring bebop players. No re-hires from previous tours please. One-year (possibly renewable) contracts available. See the solar system! Play blues on the moons of Jupiter! Go someplace where The Man won't be breathing down your neck! Press HERE for more information!”
I spat out the foam from my toothpaste, put down my electrobrush, and asked, “So? Where's the audition?”
He pressed his finger on the word HERE and the sheet went blank for a second. Then a map appeared on it. “Over on West 52nd, at the Onyx.”
"What?" I was shocked. Going to the Onyx for an audition, man, that was like going on a tour of Mississippi with a busload of negroes, women and children and all. Over at the Onyx, man, it was all what my father used to call ofays—white men—running the joint, every last one of them so goddamned racist it wasn't even funny.
“You heard me. The Onyx.”
“Shit. What time?”
“The Onyx?!” That was my woman, Francine. She'd been cooking and she'd come up behind J.J. so quiet we hadn't heard her till it was too late. She looked at J.J. and man, it was like, No bacon for you this morning, mother—
She pushed past him, put her hands on her hips, and said, “What are you gonna do? Go on up in space, and leave me alone with this baby?” she said, putting her hands under her big belly.
“Francine,” I said.
“No, Robbie, don't try to sweet talk me,” she said, shaking her head like she was having none of this. “Goddamn! My mama told me I should stay away from you. Said musicians weren't nothing but trouble.”
I looked up at J.J. and tilted my head in the direction of the door, and he just nodded and left us alone. She didn't say nothing till the screen door clicked shut.
“Robbie, baby,” she said, looking up at me with those sweet brown eyes of hers. “You are not going to that audition at the Onyx,” she said.
Man, it just about broke my heart, but I knew that I was done, completely done with her. I knew she'd be a good mama, but not to my babies. It was all over right then.
So I looked at her, and I said, “I seen those letters you got all wrapped-up. Up in your sock drawer.”
“What letters?” she said, and it was almost believable, except I could see she was pretending. Lying.
“Francine, come on, girl. I wasn't born yesterday. Maybe last week, but not yesterday, baby. I know about you and Thornton. And don't be telling me it's some one-sided thing, because I seen how you wrapped them letters up in a ribbon and hid them and all. And I seen the dates on them, too.”
She slumped a little, and said, “Baby, I...” and then she stopped. She couldn't lie to me no more, and she knew it. She was tired of lying to me, too, I think. She was a good enough woman, Francine.
“Now listen, baby,” she said, and her voice cracked but she tried to sound strong just the same. “It ain't like I never heard about you running around with those other women. I know I ain't the only one of us who been unfaithful.”
“Francine, you and I both know that baby probably ain't mine, the way you been rationing me around here—which is why I been with other women, since you don't give me what I need. Did I complain to you? Have I been nagging your ass? No, that's fine, I understand. But this ... look, you want that baby to have a daddy, you better go marry the man who done gave it to you.”
“This is bullshit,” she said. “You can run around as much as you want, but you can't never get pregnant. Me, I do it once or twice behind your back, and look what I get.”
“I know,” I said, and I tried to put my arms around her, but she pushed me away. “Life ain't fair, is it, girl?” I said, and tried again. This time she let me hug her. It was breaking my heart, those brown-sugar eyes all full of tears, her arms shaking a little as she hugged me back. But I wasn't gonna have no other man's baby calling me daddy, and I wasn't gonna stay with no woman who been going behind my back with no other cat, so it was probably a mistake, me being so nice to her just then like that.
She started crying, saying, “I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry.” Begging and pleading, and kissing on me. She told me she wouldn't never do it again.
“That's good. You learned your lesson. Like you gonna be a good wife to Teddy Thornton,” I said. He was the one who'd written her the letters. Used to play drums around town, though I heard his granddad died and he went into business off the money he inherited.
And I tell you, when I said that, it was like the werewolf in them movies, you know, how he changes shape in a second? That was Francine, man. Bam. “What, you mean you ain't staying, now, after all that?” Her eyes were full of a kind of fire only a woman can fill up with.
I shook my head. “I'm gonna get this gig, girl. Damn, Bird, and Hawk, and ... all those cats who gone up there, they come back richer than Rockefeller. You damn right I'm going up there.”
“You son of a bitch!” she yelled, tears still running down her cheeks, and she grabbed a lamp from the hallway just outside the bathroom. “You was gonna run off to space no matter what, wasn't you? God-damn you!”
Then she threw the lamp at me, but I was quick and jumped sideways, so it hit the floor and broke into a million pieces. Man, that pissed me off like a mother. It was my goddamn lamp, I'd bought it with the money I'd made off gigs, and I knew it'd be good as new in a few hours—it was the new foreign kind that was just coming out then, the kind that could fix itself—but this shit was still just a pain in the ass. I never did like being disrespected by no women.
But I just nodded my head. Didn't matter what she broke, long as it wasn't my horns. I wouldn't need no lamp where I was going.
* * * *
The Onyx was a nice place, inside. Fancy, I mean. Every cat I knew was in there, plus a few I wished I knew. Sonny Rollins was in there, Red Dog, and Art Tatum, and Hot Lips Bell, and some other cats I recognized too.
We were all outside the green room, waiting. Green room, that shit was funny: it'd always been called that, but at the Onyx, during these auditions, it was really the green room, with real green Frogs inside. That was where cats went in to play their auditions, and the Frogs would listen and decide whether they wanted them on the ships.
I waited my turn. Everyone was real quiet, more than you'd expect, and through the wall we could hear drums and bass start up every once in a while after guys went in. The bass sounded like one of those expensive self-amplified ones, the kind that looked like a regular bass but got real loud all on its own, except you had to plug it into the wall at night.
Cat after cat went in, played for five or ten minutes, and then left. I sat there with my buddies, Back Pocket and J.J. and Big Jimmy Hunt, and we all just cradled our instruments and watched the TV in the corner of the room, no sound, just color picture, and waited without talking.
Finally, after a few hours of listening and waiting, it was my turn. The door opened, and this skinny white hipster came out and called my name: “Robbie Coolidge?”
“That's me,” I said, and I followed him into the room.
There were a couple of Frogs sitting on a couch in there, both of them smoking bouquets of the same damned cigarettes on long metal cigarette holders. They were wearing shades and black suits that didn't hide the bumps they had all over their bodies, and they didn't say nothing to me at all. On the other side of the room, a couple more of them hipsters sat there at a small table with piles of old-fashioned paper on it. Nobody bothered to stand or shake my hand, but one of them hipsters started talking to me. Didn't introduce himself or nothing, just started talking.
“Tenor pla
yer.” It wasn't no question.
“Yes sir. I can also play the alto and the flute, a little,” I said, just as cool as I could.
“You got a manager?”
“Uh, no sir. I, uh ... I manage myself.” I wanted to sound cool, but I felt like a damn country negro right then.
“Well, that's just fine,” he said, grinning that white hipster grin of his. “Why don't you play us a song, then?”
So I called the tune, counted it off, and launched into it. The tune I played was one of Bird's, “Confirmation,” and I guess their machine knew it, because as soon as I started playing it, bass and drums were piped in from nowhere. They wanted bebop, so I played my best bebop tune.
“Not bad,” the hipster said, and the Frogs were agreeing, nodding. “Can you play anything sweet?” he asked, and I played them a chorus of “Misty” as soulful and pretty as I could.
“That was just fine, Mr. Coolidge. Please leave us your phone number and we'll call you soon. Thanks,” the boss man hipster said when I handed him my name card, and one of his sidekicks showed me out. After that, I waited around while my buddies all auditioned, and they all said it'd gone pretty much the same.
I wondered whether that was a good sign or a bad one, but a few weeks later, I was on the subway when my pocket phone rang. I fished it out of my pants pocket, and dialed in my access number on the rotary dial to open the connection.
Looking at the face on the little screen for a second, I wondered why this slick, pale-assed young hipster was calling me, until I realized that it was that same hipster from the Onyx.
“Mr. Coolidge,” he said, “I have some good news for you.”
And that was how I ended up touring the solar system with Big C.
* * * *
The space elevator, that blew me away. It was a fucking gas, man. I only ever rode up it once, and I swear it was smooth as Ingrid Bergman's skin, or Lena Horne's smile, even though it was going faster than anything I'd ever been in before.
J.J. Wilson was the only one of my friends who also got a gig up on the Frogships, and he and I sat there side by side with our seat belts around our waists, looking down through the glass floor—it wasn't really glass but we could see through it—at the Earth and everything we were leaving behind. It seemed so strange to be looking at the whole world like that. I could see South America, the ocean, some of Africa. Clouds, and ice on the north pole and south pole. I could see places I've never gone in all the years since then, and probably will never go.
Only a few hours before, J.J.'s wife had driven us up into the Catskills where the Frogs’ launchpad had been. She'd cried a little, but soon she was making jokes and small talk. Francine, on the other hand: the first time she called, she was crying, and she pleaded with me on my pocket phone till I hung up on her. Then she called back screaming, and made me listen to her break plates and windows and shit. I'd felt a little lonely on the way up, and a little bad for her, but after that, I was glad she hadn't come along for the ride, and I was sure I'd done the right thing by leaving her.
It was strange, that trip, because I hadn't ever seen the Catskills before. Right there by New York, but I never went and saw them till I was leaving to go to outer space. Can you believe it?
We caught us a jet up there, one that flew on up almost into space, but then come down again in some mountains up in north Brazil somewhere. I was hoping we might stop by in the city, so we could try out some Brazilian chicks. I heard good things about them, Brazilian girls, I mean. But we didn't have time for that—it was straight up to the ships for us.
We weren't the only ones strapped down into chairs in the elevator, though. There were all kinds of interesting people in there. There were a couple of skinny Chinese girls with some kind of weird musical instruments, what you might call a zither; and there were a bunch of Mexican and white guys dressed like cowboys with spurs and lassos and all that shit, just like in the Hollywood westerns. There was also this Russian cat in a suit who tried to talk to us through some kind of translator machine, but we couldn't understand him at all. He had a satchel of books with him.
And I swear there were about fifteen French girls in there with us, too. Cute, with fine cheekbones and low asses and long-assed legs, dressed up in their can-can outfits. I caught one of them looking at me a few times, and I just smiled and reminded myself to look her up sometime. French women, you know, sometimes they're less racist than American women. They're ladies. But you know, women always bring too much shit along with them when they travel. Those can-can girls each had a big stack of suitcases strapped onto the ground beside them, every last one of them.
Me, I just brought my horns, a couple of extra suits, and my music collection, some on vinyl and some on crystal.
When the elevator got to where it was going, we all unstrapped ourselves, got out of our seats, and stepped out into what looked like an airport. I had pulled on my big old herringbone winter coat, thinking it'd be cold in space, but it wasn't. It was like a train station, and as soon as we were in it, I started hearing a beeping sound. The card they'd given me to hang around my neck was beeping. A glowing red arrow pointed to my left, and same for J.J., too. We went off in that direction, following the can-can girls, full of hope and dreams of long legs.
Turned out we'd all been sent up for the same ship. J.J. and me and the can-can girls arrived together in a small waiting room, and the cowboys came a while later. We figured that once the Russian guy showed up, and the Chinese girlies, maybe someone would come and get us, so we just chatted for a while. Turned out the cowboys were rodeo heroes, you know, the guys who ride bulls and catch cows with lassos and shit like that. They'd been hired as entertainers, just like us, one-year contract. Same pay and everything.
Man, ain't nobody in the world back then who paid a black man and a white man and a Mexican and a woman the same money for the same gig—not before them Frogs done it.
So finally, when the Russian and those Chinese chicks showed up, it was because this big tall-assed Frog in a white suit and tie brought them to the waiting room. Like the Frogs I'd seen on Earth, this one was smoking a few black cigarettes on long cigarette holders, all of them poking out of one side of its mouth. It stuck its tongue out and looked at us slowly, one by one, with all of its gigantic eyes on its face and the little ones on its tongue, as if it was checking us against a memorized list of faces.
“Welcome aboard the space station. This way, please, to the ship that will be your home for the next year.” It wasn't the Frog itself speaking; the voice came from a speaker on the collar of the Frog's suit. It waved its three-tentacled hand at the wall of the waiting room, and the wall slid open. There was a hallway on the other side, and at the far end of the hallway was another door, far away, slowly opening in the same way.
We went down the hall in little groups, staying close to the people we'd come with. Walking down that hallway, we all looked like old dogs, walked with our heads down, bracing for some bad shit to come down onto us.
But at the end of that hallway, when we came through the second door, you know what we found? Can you guess?
The whole place was done up like a big-assed hotel or cruise ship or something. There was this huge-assed lobby and ballroom, and main stairs leading up and down. One whole wall of the lobby was transparent, you could see right through it to the stars. Frogs wandered every which way, a few cats and fine skinny women of every color here and there, all of them dressed bad, real hip.
“Welcome on board The Mmmhumhhunah!” Ship name sounded something like that, like how people would talk if they had socks in their mouth or something. That was what the Frogs’ language sounded like to me, at least at first. He tried to make it sound like we were guests. “Your navigation stubs should guide you to your places of accommodation. Should you have any questions, please feel free to ask any passing staff member, who can be identified by the subordinate rank uniforms they are required to wear, and which have been modeled on uniforms denoting similar posi
tions in your culture. We will begin preparations tomorrow, and the tour will commence a week henceforth.”
“What's he talking about, man?” J.J. asked. His eyes were wide, like he'd seen his grandmama's ghost.
“Follow the little arrow thing to your room,” I explained. “If you need help with your bass, ask a bellboy. First rehearsal's tomorrow.”
“And please give me your instruments,” added the Frog. “They need to be treated specially to withstand both repeated decoherence and space travel.”
“Deco-what?” J.J. was very protective of Big Mama, which was what he liked to call his bass. “Hey, can you put one of them self-amplifiers into her?”
“Yes, of course, that was already planned,” the alien said, and its eyes went round in circles. “Everyone else, also, we must collect your instruments. They will be returned to you tomorrow.”
“Awright,” J.J. said, twisting his head to one side and the other as he leaned on Big Mama in her carrying case, gave the bass one last hug.
I handed them my tenor sax, but I wasn't happy about it. I didn't know what the hell they was going to do to it, but it was a Conn and had cost me an arm and a leg to get. But I handed it over. I already had the serial numbers written on a piece of paper in my shoe, just in case.
* * * *
Now, listen up: I know me some drugs. I seen what heroin does to a cat, how it robs him of his soul, turns him into a pathetic junkie. I even tried it once or twice. And I know how spun-around a cat can get on bennies, cause I've done lots of them too. I've drunk every goddamn thing a man can drink, a lot of drinks at the same time, even. I've been so fucked up I didn't know what planet I was on. But nothing fucks you up like the drugs they gave us on the ships.
I first tried them at that first rehearsal, day after we arrived on the cruise ship, but before we got our own horns back. Me and J.J. showed up at the same time, and met the cat who was running the music program. He was a fat old brother with a trumpet style nobody ever copied right, nobody ever beat, and his name was Carl Thorton, but everyone called him Big C. He gave us these pills to swallow. Three of them, each one a different color.
Asimov's SF, July 2008 Page 4
