(Strong Language)
He sits at the bar of the downtown Orchid Club on Eighth Street near San Pedro, nursing his fifth (sixth?) scotch rocks, and weeping over the singer on stage. He weeps a lot when he drinks. Not the kind of weeping that slobbers kisses and expressions of drooly love your way. But angry, achy weeping. Every wound is exposed when Nick Brandt drinks, and this day is no exception. Except that there is no singer on the stage at 2:30 this afternoon. The place has a few diehard regulars, but is otherwise quiet. He stares at the stage, the grand piano that is covered with a tarp, the microphone on its stand. And the empty space behind it.
He managed to finish his gig at the Ritz Huntington without getting fired for the four scotches he had sneaked in on his breaks, and was on his way into Hollywood for Hayes’ benefit (he’ll still make it in time), when he suddenly had an overwhelming urge.
“Where’s Dorothy?” he slurs to bartender Otto. “I came to hear a great singer, cuz they are just a rare fucking breed in this town.”
“Dorothy doesn’t come in till later. It’s two in the afternoon, mate. There’s no music till tonight. And you know you’re not supposed to be here, anyway.”
“Man, jus’ wait, jus’ hold on. I’m not here to make trouble.”
“Nick––“
“Naw, really, Nick…I mean, Otto––” he starts laughing. “I’m Nick. You’re Otto.”
“Want me to call you a cab, Nick?”
“Naw, man, I’m fine. I got a thing later. I jus’, I’m just stoppin’ in. I won’t be here when she shows up. I promise. I never am, am I?”
“Nick––“
“Naw, man, I’m serious. I got this thing I gotta be at. Benefit for an old friend.”
“Well, you’re gonna sober up before I let you drive out o’ here.”
“Tha’s fair. I’m jus’ gonna sit for a minute.”
But Nick can see her up there. His imagination can conjure just about any old needed vision if he’s drunk enough. There she is, singing her Ellington, for which she was always signature.
Nick wishes he could be in her piano player’s shoes, instead of the ones he is presently wearing. Not because the guy on stage (who looks an awful lot like him) isn’t doing her justice. The guy fucking is! In the best sense of the word. But because it would be so much less painful backing this amazing singer, who would be, with him and the rest of the trio, traveling to heaven; instead of hanging, in a stupor, off the bar rail, with an overwhelming need to purge gut and sins. Maybe. Maybe not.
Too many singers, in this day and age, are about bullshit. Too many of them about shouting the roof off, about showing everything they’ve got in a single cadence, which is usually some gaudy circus of vocally acrobatic, over-wrought, elaborate, melismatic crap. Usually a case of being too afraid to sustain a single, exposed, beautiful note, because someone may just discover there’s no actual voice there, just this thin, reedy gimmick. Nick can spot a fraud at twenty paces. But it is even more achesome to spot the real thing.
“Goddamn, she’s good,” he mutters.
Otto looks in the direction of Nick’s stares, the empty stage, and shakes his head.
“Yeah, she’s good, mate.”
Nick invariably ends up wallowing with a painful longing in the days of doing gigs with his ex-wife. The first ex-wife. The second one he barely remembers. Arm Candy. That’s all. But Dorothy. He wonders if Dorothy is still good. In his conjurings, in the Dorothy chimera that stands on that stage right now, evoking every lovely memory he’s ever had, she is stunning. But he has no way of really knowing, because she has refused contact with him from the day he moved out of their house, eight years ago. Something about a restraining order, which even bartender Otto seems to know about, and a charge of spousal abuse, which Nick refuses to give any credence to. He never hit her! She claims it, but it isn’t true.
And why? Why would she accuse him of something so heinous, when she knows him better than anyone? Nick Brandt is harmless. Except maybe to himself. He plays a tender piano, fraught with fragility and poignancy. How could she possibly think that the man who loathes a brash note would have the capacity to wield a brash hand?
And at that thought, Nick stumbles up and makes his way to the men’s room for a piss.
“Dear God, why?” he cries, as he undoes his fly, leans his pelvis forward, takes a leak in the urinal, and does the ritual he does every day. Has arguments with God. Pleads with him, badgers him, challenges him, debates him. And apparently it doesn’t matter whether he carries on this domestic squabble at home or in some public restroom somewhere. He simply paces his space, wherever that happens to be, and today it happens to be in some foul toilet in a downtown bar, only a block from Skid Row, and goes Round One with the Almighty.
“Why have you given me such a miserable life? I give all glory to you, Lord, I wear out my fucking knees asking for your bountiful blessings. I never hit her! You know I never did. She was afraid of me because I’d get drunk. And even I was afraid of me when I’d get drunk, but she was never in any danger. I mighta ransacked the house once or twice, or punched a wall, or bashed a car window. I admit those things. But I never laid a hand on her. And that was a decade ago, anyway! Why is it burdening me now? See, that’s what you do, Lord! You play with my head. You put things back in there that I’ve tried my goddamnedest to shut out. And why? Are you s’posed to be teachin’ me some sort o’ lesson? What lesson! I’m doin’ my bes’ to live a pure life. I make music with no compromise. None! And it’s not that popular a position to take, I gotta tell you. These goddamn casuals. It’s like I’m sellin’ my soul to the Devil, and for what? So some asshole in power can come up to me at the end o’ the night, and pat me on the head, and say, ‘you did good job’? And I’m s’posed to cakewalk and gyrate and smile and be grateful that the royals threw me a crumb? Well, I say ‘fuck you’ to that. Okay, so I don’t smile for the pretty people, but I give ‘em something more important. I give ‘em my heart. Which they never fucking recognize right there in front of ‘em anyways, because they’re too busy bein’ insulted that I’m not bein’ their yes-boy, and gushin’ about how happy I am to be there. But I DO give ‘em my heart, Lord, because I know tha’s the only way it can be done. Your own son came down from heaven to give the world his heart. And I am only tryin’ to follow the word of your only begotten son, Lord. And how do you repay me for it? You plague me with bein’ able to recognize the real thing when it comes to music. The kind o’ music that transcends the spirit in the very same way that your benevolent son did it. And because there’s so little o’ that kind of music bein’ made today, in this fucking cutthroat world that is wooed by money and celebrity, you make it impossible for me to smile. You make me hate the game, and you make everybody else hate me. You make me the town grouch, because I can’t cope with the goddamned mediocrity out there that isn’t even about some elitist notion of who’s special and who’s not. It ain’t about chops, man. The mediocrity can be so easily, easily bamished…banished by, by, by jus’ bein’ dedicated to a pure cause. It’s so easy. And yet so few musicians are, man. God, man!
“AND you make me a weakling for the juice, because you know how much better it makes everything feel jus’ to be able to numb it all out and make it go away for a night. F-f-fu-u-ck …I…c-c-ca-an’t…c-c-cope. Why can’t you give me any peace, Lord? I praise your name every day that I breathe, and try to give to this fucking world my pures’ heart through this music that you’ve seen fit to burden me with, like a thirst I can’t quench. Why did you even bother to make it so important to me? Why couldn’t you jus’ make me okay with all the bullshit? My life would certainly be less tormented. My own brothers, they’re not tormented. Cyril is jus’ so happy to sit behind a piano and play a great tune great, and smile, and bow, and shake their hands when they put a buck in the tip jar. Why have you given him peace with it all, and not me? What do I have to do, Lord? Please tell me? Tell me what is thy will, and it will be done. I am happy to do your work, but you gotta give me a clear map.”
Nick grows exhausted, but not before he hears a few knocks on the wall from outside the restroom, to keep it down. God, he hadn’t even realized he’d been ranting all of this out loud. That’s what six (seven?) scotches will do to you. He is being as socially reprehensible as Phone Lady from the airport last night. He needs another drink badly –– he knows that for certain –– before he’ll be able to face the plethora of musicians and singers and sell-outs at this shindig later.
“Have you ever heard of Hayes DeWitt?” he asks Otto, after returning to his stool at the bar.
“No, mate. Can’t say as I have.”
Nick is suddenly distracted by the darkness of the room. There are no windows in bars, he realizes for the first time in his life, as he replays every bar he’s ever frequented in his head. They must be designed that way to give the illusion that it is perpetually nighttime, the bewitching hour of drink. Because who drinks in the strutting vainglory of daylight? No one who isn’t feeding on the bottom rung. And he is comforted, cocooned even, by the darkness. And then he suddenly remembers he’s in conversation with Otto.
“Yeah, well, Hayes DeWitt is, uh––he’s a mother-fucker, is what that mother-fucker is. Yeah, him and me and Dorothy and this drummer, Balthazar Brava, now there’s a name, right? Anyway, we used to do this quartet thing, man, no horns, jus’ this sweet rhythm session, man. I mean, SEC-tion. Sorry.”
Otto shakes his head in acknowledgement of what Nick is saying, even as he tugs his way subtly to the other end of the bar to help another patron. Wouldn’t want Nick to think he doesn’t like chatting with him. But Nick doesn’t even notice. Just keeps talking, from down at the other end.
“Did you know this guy played with Dizzy Gillespie?”
“Well, seein’ as I’ve never heard o’ the guy, I did not know this. But that’s very cool.”
“You DO know who Dizzy Gillespie is.”
“Yes. I know Dizzy Gillespie.”
“Yeah, well, you should fuckin’ know Hayes DeWitt, too, man. And I’m not sayin’ you, like, as in YOU, like it’s your fault that you don’t know him. I jus’ mean, it’s a fuckin’ shame that the world hasn’t hailed him enough for even any ol’ bartender to know.”
“Thanks, mate.”Otto knows Nick’s rants right now are alcohol inspired. He knows Nick means no harm.
“Naw, man, I’m jus’ sayin’––”
“I get’cha,” says Otto. “So, tell me about this musician friend of yours who should be famous.”
“We used to do this gig, together, man. Him and Dorothy and this drummer and me, back in the day. It was so sweet. Those mother-fuckers know how to deliver a song. Man, Hayes’ bass is jus’ about the warmes’, deepes’ pocket…thing you ever heard. Man, that mother-fucker can swing.”
“You say he’s a singer, too, huh?”
“Not sing, goddamn it, SWING! What the fuck!”
“Sorry,” Otto says, smiling. Nick’s a handful.
“You know what it is to swing, don’t you?”
“I think I’ve heard enough jazz in my lifetime to have an idea. Been here with Dorothy for years now.”
“Tha’s right. Tha’s RIGHT! Your relationship with Dorothy has lasted longer than mine ever did. Once again, the key to a successful marriage proves itself to be…no sex!”
Both men chuckle at Nick’s sad attempt at humor.
“Anyway, we would trade fours, man. You know what tradin’ fours means?”
“No, mate, I guess I don’t.”
“It’s when, like, after the solo section, you, like, go back over the form again, but this time everybody takes turns soloin’ over four bars each, and then it’s handed over to the next guy for his four bars, and it goes round and round like that till the whole form is played, and then you go back to the head. Anyway, we would trade fours, man. Dorothy, too, cuz she could improvise over the changes. She really heard ‘em, you know? And every time we’d do that, it would jus’ be, like, this, this, this conversation that was never rude, and would never dare to interrupt you if you were speaking. No one needed to top each other. It was a conversation, you know? Not a debate, not an argument. But a dialogue. A stanza in a poem. And each new stanza would support the last, the way couplets compliment each other in a sonnet. And you would say your piece, and give way to the next man. And then you would listen to him, because he had something to say, too. And it might just take you in one direction, but then it might just take you in another. And you’d better be prepared for that. Because that’s the whole beauty. This unexpected road, perhaps one yet untraveled by any human being. And there would be something serendipitous about you and your comrades being the first. And you would emerge from this courteous exchange, this dialectic of gentlemen, of regard and respect and awe, and you would rise to the occasion, because you’d know you were in the presence of greatness. And you each felt that about the other. Each relevant. There is no caste system in a moment like that. Nobody who’s the leader. No alpha musician. No showing off or being so edgy that you’re falling off the edge of the fuckin’ earth, man. Your edge isn’t conscious, it isn’t something you put on, like a cloak, like vain pride. It is simply what you are, because you’ve dared to take a risk, trust your comrades as you would yourself…and be free.”
Otto now gives Nick his full attention, who’d stopped slurring for that one. Otto isn’t exactly sure what Nick is talking about, but he knows it’s pure, whatever it is. Because a man sobers up when he speaks of something holy.
“That’s how you’re free, man. Not by winning the lottery. Not by having some beautiful woman on your arm. But by tapping into beauty. Tapping into beauty is how you’re free, my friend.”
He almost tears up, until he catches himself.
“That, and a shot o’ whiskey.”
Otto laughs.
“How ‘bout a cup o’ coffee instead, mate?”
Nick chuckles and wanders over to the stage, where he sits behind the piano, pulls back the tarp, and lifts the lid. There’s no light on him, which is better. He doesn’t really wish to be noticed. He just wants to go to that place. That place he just finished describing to Otto. That place that is as elusive as a woman’s heart, but is so filled with promise, so illuminated with light, so free of worldly concern. Such as, who is willing to love him? Who is willing to forgive? And how does he get into his car right now, leave Dorothy behind, who isn’t waiting anyway, and celebrate his friend, his colleague, his brother in all things music?
He places his hands on the keyboard. Thank God it’s tuned. There is nothing worse than the neglect of an instrument. He’s played enough gigs on out-of-tuned pianos, pianos with keys missing, strings broken. It mars the journey, to be sure. But it’s also just a slap in the face to the music and the men who create it. How many times has he dealt with club owners who brag about the quality jazz in their establishment, yet refuse to keep their pianos in working order?
But at this moment, on a newly tuned grand, a tender minor 9th – flatted 13th has placed its massaging hand on Nick’s heart, and ‘Round Midnight sings to him. Almost as beautifully as his Dorothy used to do it.
He’s always been a piano player who hears the lyrics, even when the song’s being done instrumentally. It’s the fucking song, for Christ’s sake! Guys who play a song without knowing the lyrics, without truly hearing them, are not really connected (if that’s even important to them), and therefore have no clue how to interpret it, how to reflect the song’s meaning from their piano work, and as a result are only giving you half the heart of it. And as any doctor will tell you, half a heart isn’t going to do any body any good.
It begins to tell...‘round midnight, ‘round midnight.
It doesn’t take midnight to tell Nick that he is lost. It only takes three o’clock in the afternoon, an empty bar, seven scotches, and a kind soul named Otto, who now places a hot cup of coffee on the lid next to him.
I do pretty well till after sundown.
Most days that’s true. Today’s a hard one for Nick. And yet a song like this, and the permission to play it with every bit of heart invested, really is the only thing that just might keep Nick from another drink and a slow, downward spiral.
© 2005 Angela Carole Brown