Struts & Frets (19 page)

Mr. Russell was acting really weird now. He kept nodding his head and rubbing his hands together. “I have a recording. You might know it. The Newport Jazz Festival in 1966. I was a student in Rhode Island at the time. I must confess that my interest in jazz was minimal. But a friend of mine convinced me to go with him. It was a pivotal moment in my life. It was where I developed a true love for modern jazz. I witnessed your grandfather play an extended solo improvisation of ‘Stormy Weather' by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, and in
that moment, I understood, for the first time, the possibilities of the form. It was then that I realized that jazz was not simply popular dance music. It had been elevated to a noble artistic form.” Then he suddenly stood up. “If you haven't heard it, I'd be pleased to play it for you.”

“Yeah,” I said, kind of stunned. “That'd be great.” I'd never heard a recording with Gramps. He was mainly a live performance musician, someone who sat in with whoever was coming through town. That was back when you could do that and make a living without ever really putting out an album of your own. He'd told me he was on lots of other people's albums, as a fill-in studio musician, but that most of those albums were impossible to find or else just total crap.

Mr. Russell walked quickly over to a big wooden closet. I saw his hands shake a little as he reached for the handles, and the expression in his eyes was just like when Rick got a new Xbox game. Jen5's dad was totally geeking out on jazz right in front of my eyes. He opened the closet and on the inside was a huge mahogany frame with speakers and a record player inset. He slid open a drawer at the bottom that was packed tightly with records. It looked like they were in alphabetical order, and he flipped through them quickly until he pulled one out. The album cover was a picture of either a sunrise or a sunset (I couldn't tell which) and just had the words
Newport
Jazz Festival, Live, 1966
. He carefully slid the record out of the sleeve and placed it on the turntable. I could tell he knew exactly what he was looking for, because he counted the lines and set the needle down about halfway through the record.

Right away, a drum-and-upright-bass combo kicked in over the speakers, pretty much just a mellow, cool vamping groove. Something to give the soloist room to do whatever he wanted. Then a piano came crashing in and I knew immediately it was Gramps. His playing style was as familiar to me as his voice. But I never heard him play like this. So free and wild, but you knew that every note was on purpose. One moment it sounded like he was pounding those keys so hard he would break his fingers, then he would slide into some smooth, ultracool riff that just sent shivers down your back.

I don't know how long we listened, but Mr. Russell and I were still standing there with music washing over us when I heard Jen5 behind me. “Dad, are you forcing your record collection on my boyfriend?”

I turned to her and I think I might have been getting a little teary all of a sudden as I said, “It's my grandfather. He has my grandfather on record.”

Jen5's mouth opened wide and she stared back and forth between me and her dad.

“Oh,” was all she could say. “Wow.”

And then, with Gramps's music still crashing in my ears, I looked at Jen5. Really looked. She had carefully twisted up her dreadlocks and tied them in chunks with bits of old lace and ribbon. She'd put on eye shadow or something that brightened the kaleidoscopic colors of her eyes. She had on some kind of tight lacy tank-top thing that looked more like lingerie than anything, and over that was a fitted red satin suit coat. And she wore a skirt, or maybe a black canvas kilt, all ragged and torn, with safety pins glittering everywhere. To finish it all off, she had on knee-high chunky black boots.

“Wow,” I said, like an echo of her. “Fiver, you look . . . unbelievable.”

She gave me a sly grin and winked.

“I clean up pretty good, huh?” she said.

“Well,” Mr. Russell said absently, still staring at the record, still zoned into Gramps's piano. “You clean up
well
.”

Jen5 and I showed up at Idiot Child around six. It was weird seeing the place during the day and before the cigarette smoke and the smell of dirty punks and hippies had time to fill it up. I had never noticed that there were big bay windows up front. The late-afternoon sunlight shone in through them and lit the place up all warm and happy, with little bits of dust floating around. It was almost like some enchanted fairyland. But, you
know, with old couches and graffiti and stuff. It was so bright and fresh that when Jen5 and I first stepped through the door, I thought we'd somehow come into the wrong place. That is, until I heard a harsh female voice say, “Sammy Bojar, I don't give a shit if you're happy to see me or not, but that better be a guitar you're holding.”

“Hi, Francine,” I said.

She was over in the far corner, where she had cleared away the furniture to make room for a tiny, four-foot-wide platform. She was setting up a sound system with a mic and stand. She was pretty big, like I said before, but a lot of that was muscle. She was wearing a black tank top and her tattooed arms flexed and strained as she shoved an amp and speaker stack back behind the little platform. She had a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth as she talked. Once she had admitted to me that it took a lot of practice to master that.

“You
are
playing tonight, right?” she asked.

“I don't think I have a choice,” I said. “By the way, thanks for saying that I was the next best thing to being a lesbian.”

“Hey,” said Francine. “If I were ever to go back to boys, you'd be top on my list. Anyway, the both of you are on the house tab tonight. Hey, Raef!”

Raef's head popped up from behind the counter. “Yo, Franny!” he said.

“Any luck with that signal of yours?”

He sighed and shook his head. “So close, Franny. So close.”

“Well, Jen5 and Sammy get free coffee all night. The fancy stuff, if they want it.”

“Cool,” said Raef. Then he looked at us. “Mochas? Lattes? What's your flavor? I make a mean double con panna . . .”

“Straight espresso for me,” said Jen5. “I'm going to need it.”

“How about you, Sammy?”

“Just water until after I play,” I said. It sucked, but I knew I'd be nervous enough without the caffeine.

Raef shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Okay,” said Francine. “Now that's settled, Sammy, put your stuff down and come help me with this goddamn sound system.”

Setting up took a lot longer than it needed to. Mainly because the acoustics of the place were terrible and Francine was picky. I must have stood in front of that mic saying, “Testing, one, two, three,” for an hour while she ran all over the shop, listening, puffing on her cigarettes, swearing under her breath, and instructing me to bring up the reverb or bring down the bass. I knew it wasn't doing much because there wasn't much that could be done with a single mic and a cheap amp. But it seemed to make Francine happy, in her gruff, angry kind of
way, and it got me some time to get used to being at the mic. I knew it would all change once the people were in there, but it was better than nothing.

Jen5 was doing the same kind of pointless activity with her paintings. She would tilt the frame a little one way, step back, cock her head to the side, then move it back where it was before.

Once we finished with our pointless sound check, I walked around and looked at all the paintings. Jen5 sat in a chair and I could feel her eyes following me. She was probably fighting the urge to trail behind me, which I appreciated. It's awkward to try to check out someone's artwork while they breathe down your neck the whole time.

A lot of the paintings I'd seen before, at her house. When Jen5 was painting for fun and not for some assignment, the energy was still there, like the colors had been beaten on the canvas with a club. But these were darker, more private. It was Jen5 without the sarcasm. Without the shield. I wondered if she realized that the vulnerability she had such a hard time showing in real life was on every canvas.

Then I saw a painting that I'd never seen before. It was a portrait of me. Not taken from life, obviously, since we'd never gotten around to that, but from memory. As she saw me in her head. It's hard to describe how it feels to see something like that.
And how different it looks from your own self-image. In the picture, I was just standing there with my hands in my pockets. The edges were blurred, like I was emerging from the chaotic darkness in the background. Or fading
into
the chaos. It was hard to tell. I looked gaunt and hungry, kind of like a starved wolf. And I was staring up at a distant, dirty yellow crescent moon.

“That's my favorite,” Francine said from over by the counter.

“It doesn't have a price marked,” I said. “The rest of them have a little tag in the corner with the title and price.”

“It's not for sale,” said Jen5. “I just wanted to show it.”

There's times when you feel so intensely about something or someone that you don't know what to do or how to say it without it sounding cheesy. There's times when real communication is just impossible because you'd need to invent a whole new language to describe how you feel. Words like “happy” and “sad” only make it more obvious how impossible it all is. That was how it was right then. I stared at Jen5. She sat in a chair and looked back at me, probably trying to figure out if I liked the painting or not. But “like” didn't really even make sense. It was a useless word. The painting
moved
me. See? It sounds cheesy. So I said nothing. But I couldn't just leave her hanging. I knew that. So I walked over to her, tilted her chin up with my fingertips, leaned over, and kissed her.

Maybe I was thinking it would be a nice, sweet, gentle kiss. But when my lips touched her, it was like she exploded. Her hand grabbed a fistful of my hair and she pressed her mouth against mine so hard it almost hurt. Almost. Funny how “almost hurt” can feel so good.

“God! Get a hotel room!”

Jen5 and I looked up and saw Rick walking through the front door.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“You're kidding, right?” he said. “How could I miss a double bill of Jen5 and Sammy Bojar?”

“I'm only playing one song,” I said. “It's mostly going to be a lot of people doing poetry and spoken word.”

“Well.” Rick shrugged. “I'd probably be hanging out here anyway. Where else would I go?”

“What about a club?” said Francine. “Isn't that where all the gay boys go?”

“Only if they dance,” said Rick. He usually didn't like being called a gay boy or even really talking about being gay very often. But for some reason, maybe because she was gay, Francine could talk about it as much as she wanted and it didn't seem to bother him. He turned to Raef, “Hey, dude. Set me up with a tall hot one.”

“See,” said Francine, “you have to go to a club to find one
of those. But I'll have a look around tonight and see if there's anyone I can introduce you to.”

“That's not even a little funny,” said Rick. “We talked about this. I'm not in the meat market.”

“Fine, fine,” said Francine. “By the way, I'll give you free coffee if you work the door tonight.”

“I didn't think you were charging a cover,” said Jen5.

“I'm not,” said Francine. “I just realized I should collect some e-mail addresses for a newsletter or something. You know, I really want to make this into a regular thing. Plus, it might make people feel better if there's a bouncer-looking person there.”

“Free mochas all night?” said Rick. “Just to collect some contacts and look tough?”

“
Try
to look tough,” said Jen5.

We all settled into place. Rick sat by the door with a notepad. He was wearing one of Francine's baseball caps because he said that would make him look more like a bouncer. I thought it actually made him look more like a frat boy, but I didn't say anything because he seemed to be having fun. Francine and Raef were both behind the counter, which only happened when they expected to be really busy. Jen5 and I sat on a couch in the corner, trying not to stare at everyone who came in.

First it was just a trickle, mainly regulars who had no idea there was even anything going on. Jen5 was nervous, and it looked like Francine was too. They were probably worried that no one would show. I wanted there to be a lot of people for them, but there was a part of me that hoped the crowd would be small. I was still pretty sure I'd freeze when I got up there to sing, so I thought it would be best if as few people as possible saw my public humiliation. My hopes were crushed around seven thirty, though, when it seemed half the underground scene in Columbus piled in at once. Everyone was checking out Jen5's stuff and it wasn't long before she started getting antsy.

“Screw this,” she said and jumped to her feet. “I'm going to hover.”

A moment later, she was weaving in and out of the clusters of hipsters, hippies, punks, skaters, and goths. That left me alone, which was fine. I didn't feel much like talking anyway. There was this ball of ice in my stomach. I found myself wishing that there were even
more
smokers than usual; maybe if everyone in the room started puffing, the smoke would get so thick that I couldn't see the audience. Because that was the only way I was going to be able to do this.

I don't know how long I sat there slowly sinking into terror, but eventually Jen5 came back.

“Hey,” she said as she sat down next to me.

“How'd it go?” I managed to force out.

“Great,” she said. “I already sold two pieces. Can you believe it?”

“You're kidding,” I said, hoping there was enthusiasm in my voice. “That's awesome.” I really wanted to be excited for her, but the dread was weighing me down so much I felt like I could barely breathe.