The Howling Man (25 page)

Spoof Collins blew his brains out, all right--right on out through the top of his head. But I don't mean with a gun. I mean with a horn. Every night: slow and easy, eight to one. And that's how he died. Climbing, with that horn, climbing up high. For what? "
Hey, man, Spoof--listen, you picked the tree, now come on down!
" But he couldn't come down, he didn't know how. He just kept climbing, higher and higher. And then he fell. Or jumped. Anyhow,
that's
the way he died.

The bullet didn't kill anything. I'm talking about the one that tore up the top of his mouth. It didn't kill anything that wasn't dead already. Spoof just put in an extra note, that's all.

We planted him out about four miles from town--home is where you drop: residential district, all wood construction. Rain? You know it. Bible type: sky like a month-old bedsheet, wind like a stepped-on cat, cold and dark, those Forty Days, those Forty Nights! But nice and quiet most of the time. Like Spoof: nice and quiet, with a lot underneath that you didn't like to think about.

We planted him and watched and put what was his down into the ground with him. His horn, battered, dented, nicked--right there in his hands, but not just there; I mean in position, so if he wanted to do some more climbing, all right, he could. And his music. We planted that too, because leaving it out would have been like leaving out Spoof's arms or his heart or his guts.

Lux started things off with a chord from his guitar, no particular notes, only a feeling, a sound. A Spoof Collins kind of sound. Jimmy Fritch picked it up with his stick and they talked a while--Lux got a real piano out of that git-box. Then when Jimmy stopped talking and stood there, waiting, Sonny Holmes stepped up and wiped his mouth and took the melody on his shiny new trumpet. It wasn't Spoof, but it came close; and it was still
The Jim jam Man
, the way Spoof wrote it back when he used to write things down. Sonny got off with a high-squealing blast, and no eyes came up--we knew, we remembered. The kid always had it collared. He just never talked about it. And listen to him now! He stood there over Spoof's grave, giving it all back to The Ol' Masshuh, giving it back right-- "
Broom off, white child, you got four sides!
" "
I want to learn from you, Mr. Collins. I want to play jazz and you can teach me
." "
I got things to do, I can't waste no time on a half-hip ped young 'un
." "
Please, Mr. Collins
." "
You got to stop that, you got to stop callin' me 'Mr. Collins,' hear?
" "
Yes sir, yes sir
."--He put out real sound, like he didn't remember a thing. Like he wasn't playing for that pile of darkmeat in the ground, not at all; but for the great Spoof Collins, for the man Who Knew and the man Who Did, who gave jazz spats and dressed up the blues, who did things with a trumpet that a trumpet couldn't do, and more; for the man who could blow down the walls or make a chicken cry, without half-trying-- for the mighty Spoof, who'd once walked in music like a boy in river mud, loving it, breathing it, living it.

Then Sonny quit. He wiped his mouth again and stepped back and Mr. "T" took it on his trombone while I beat up the tubs.

Pretty soon we had
The Jim jam Man
rocking the way it used to rock. A little slow, maybe: it needed Bud Meunier on bass and a few trips on the piano. But it moved.

We went through
Take It From Me
and
Night in the Blues
and
Big Gig
and
Only Us Chickens
and
Forty G's
--Sonny's insides came out through the horn on that one, I could tell--and
Slice City Stomp
--you remember: sharp and clean, like sliding down a razor--and
What the Cats Dragged In
--the longs, the shorts, all the great Spoof Collins numbers. We wrapped them up and put them down there with him.

Then it got dark.

And it was time for the last one, the greatest one . . . Rose-Ann shivered and cleared her throat; the rest of us looked around, for the first time, at all those rows of split-wood grave markers, shining in the rain, and the trees and the coffin, dark, wet. Out by the fence, a couple of farmers stood watching. Just watching.

One
--Rose-Ann opens her coat, puts her hands on her hips, wets her lips;
Two
--Freddie gets the spit out of his stick, rolls his eyes;
Three
--Sonny puts the trumpet to his mouth;
Four
-- And we played Spoof's song, his last one, the one he wrote a long way ago, before the music dried out his head, before he turned mean and started climbing:
Black Country
. The song that said just a little of what Spoof wanted to say, and couldn't.

You remember. Spider-slow chords crawling down, soft, easy, and then bottom and silence and, suddenly, the cry of the horn, screaming in one note all the hate and sadness and loneliness, all the want and got-to-have; and then the note dying, quick, and Rose-Ann's voice, a whisper, a groan, a sigh . ..

"Black Country is somewhere, Lord,

That I don't want to go.

Black Country is somewhere

That I never want to go.

Rain-water drip pin'

On the bed and on the floor,

Rain-water drippin'

From the ground and through the door . . .

We all heard the piano, even though it wasn't there. Fingers moving down those minor chords, those black keys, that black country -

"Well, in that old Black Country

If you ain't feelin' good,

They let you have an overcoat

That's carved right out of wood.

But way down there

It gets so dark

You never see a friend--

Black Country may not be the Most,

But, Lord! it's sure the End . . ."

Bitter little laughing words, piling up, now mad, now sad; and then, an ugly blast from the horn and Rose-Ann's voice screaming, crying:

"I never want to go there, Lord!

I never want to be,

I never want to lay down

In that Black Country!"

And quiet, quiet, just the rain, and the wind.

"Let's go, man," Freddie said.

So we turned around and left Spoof there under the ground.

Or, at least, that's what I thought we did.

Sonny took over without saying a word. He didn't have to: just who was about to fuss? He was white, but he didn't play white, not these days; and he learned the hard way--by unlearning. Now he could play gutbucket and he could play blues, stomp and slide, name it, Sonny could play it. Funny as hell to hear, too, because he looked like everything else but a musician. Short and skinny, glasses, nose like a melted candle, head clean as the one-ball, and white? Next to old Hushup, that café sunburn glowed like a flashlight.

"
Man, who skinned you?
"

"
Who dropped you in the flour barrel?
"

But he got closer to Spoof than any of the rest of us did. He knew what to do, and why. Just like a school teacher all the time: "That's good, Lux, that's awful good--now let's play some music." "Get off it, CT--what's Lenox Avenue doing in the middle of Lexington?" "Come on, boys, hang on to the sound, hang on to it!" Always using words like "flavor" and "authentic" and "blood," peering over those glasses, pounding his feet right through the floor: STOMP! STOMP! "That's it, we've got it now--oh, listen! It's true, it's clean!" STOMP! STOMP!

Not the easiest to dig him. Nobody broke all the way through.

"How come, boy? What for?" and every time the same answer:

"I want to play jazz."

Like he'd joined the Church and didn't want to argue about it.

Spoof was still Spoof when Sonny started coming around. Not a lot of people with us then, but a few, enough--the longhairs and critics and connoisseurs--and some real ears too--enough to fill a club every night, and who needs more? It was COLLINS AND HIS CREW, tight and neat, never a performance, always a session. Lot of music, lot of fun. And a line-up that some won't forget: Jimmy Fritch on clarinet, Honker Reese on alto-sax, Charles di Lusso on tenor, Spoof on trumpet, Henry Walker on piano, Lux Anderson on banjo and myself--Hushup Paige--on drums. Newmown hay, all right, I know--I remember, I've heard the records we cut--but, the Road was there.

Sonny used to hang around the old Continental Club on State Street in Chicago, every night, listening. Eight o'clock roll 'round, and there he'd be--a little different: younger, skinnier--listening hard, over in a corner all to himself, eyes closed like he was asleep. Once in a while he put in a request--
Darktown Strutter's Ball
was one he liked, and some of Jelly Roll's numbers--but mostly he just sat there, taking it all in. For real.

And it kept up like this for two or three weeks, regular as 2/4.

Now Spoof was mean in those days--don't think he wasn't--but not blood-mean. Even so, the white boy in the corner bugged 01' Massuh after a while and he got to making dirty cracks with his horn: WAAAAA!
Git your ass out of here
. WAAAAA!
You only
think
you're with it!
WAAAAA!
There's a little white child sittin' in a chair there's a little white child losin' all his hair
. . .

It got to the kid, too, every bit of it. And that made Spoof even madder. But what can you do?

Came Honker's trip to Slice City along about then: our saxman got a neck all full of the sharpest kind of steel. So we were out one horn. And you could tell: we played a little bit too rough, and the head-arrangements Collins and His Crew grew up to, they needed Honker's grease in the worst way. But we'd been together for five years or more, and a new man just didn't play somehow. We were this one solid thing, like a unit, and somebody had cut off a piece of us and we couldn't grow the piece back so we just tried to get along anyway, bleeding every night, bleeding from that wound.

Then one night it busts. We'd gone through some slow walking stuff, some tricky stuff and some loud stuff--still covering up--when this kid, this white boy, got up from his chair and ankled over and tapped Spoof on the shoulder. It was break-time and Spoof was brought down about Honker, about how bad we were sounding, sitting there sweating, those pounds of man, black as coaldust soaked in oil--he was the
blackest
man!--and those eyes, beady white and small as agates.

"Excuse me, Mr. Collins, I wonder if I might have a word with you?" He wondered if he might have a word with Mr. Collins!

Spoof swiveled in his chair and clapped a look around the kid. "Hnff?"

"I notice that you don't have a sax man any more."

"You don't mean to tell me?"

"Yes sir. I thought--I mean, I was wondering if--"

"Talk up, boy. I can't hear you."

The kid looked scared. Lord, he looked scared--and he was white to begin with.

"Well sir, I was just wondering if--if you needed a saxophone."

"You know somebody plays sax?"

"Yes sir, I do."

"And who might that be?"

"Me."

"You."

"Yes sir."

Spoof smiled a quick one. Then he shrugged. "Broom off, son," he said. "Broom 'way off."

The kid turned red. He all of sudden didn't look scared any more. Just mad. Mad as hell. But he didn't say anything. He went on back to his table and then it was end of the ten.

We swung into
Basin Street
, smooth as Charley's tenor could make it, with Lux Anderson talking it out:
Basin Street, man, it is the street, Where the elite, well, they gather 'round to eat a little
. . . And we fooled around with the slow stuff for a while. Then Spoof lifted his horn and climbed up two-and-a-half and let out his trademark, that short high screech that sounded like something dying that wasn't too happy about it. And we rocked some, Henry taking it, Jimmy kanoodling the great headword that only Jimmy knows how to do, me slamming the skins--and it was nowhere. Without Honker to keep us all on the ground, we were just making noise. Good noise, all right, but not music. And Spoof knew it. He broke his mouth blowing--to prove it.

And we cussed the cat that sliced our man.

Then, right away--nobody could remember when it came in--suddenly, we had us an alto-sax. Smooth and sure and snaky, that sound put a knot on each of us and said: Bust loose now, boys, I'll pull you back down. Like sweet-smelling glue, like oil in a machine, like--Honker.

We looked around and there was the kid, still sore, blowing like a madman, and making fine fine music.

Spoof didn't do much. Most of all, he didn't stop the number. He just let that horn play, listening--and when we slid over all the rough spots and found us backed up neat as could be, the Ol' Massuh let out a grin and a nod and a "Keep blowin', young 'un!" and we knew that we were going to be all right.

After it was over, Spoof walked up to the kid. They looked at each other, sizing it up, taking it in.

Spoof says: "You did good."

And the kid--he was still burned--says: "You mean I did
damn
good."

And Spoof shakes his head. "No, that ain't what I mean."

And in a second one was laughing while the other one blushed. Spoof had known all along that the kid was faking, that he'd just been lucky enough to know our style on
Basin Street
up-down-and-across.

The Ol' Massuh waited for the kid to turn and start to slink off, then he said: "Boy you want to go to work?"

Sonny learned so fast it scared you. Spoof never held back; he turned it all over, everything it had taken us our whole lives to find out.

And--we had some good years. Charley di Lusso dropped out, we took on Bud Meunier--the greatest bass man of them all--and Lux threw away his banjo for an AC-DC git-bot and old C.T. Mr. "T" Green and his trombone joined the Crew. And we kept growing and getting stronger--no million-copies platter sales or stands at the Paramount--too "special"--but we never ate too far down on the hog, either.

In a few years Sonny Holmes was making that sax stand on its hind legs and jump through hoops that Honker never dreamed about. Spoof let him strictly alone. When he got mad it wasn't ever because Sonny had white skin--Spoof always was too busy to notice things like that--but only because The 01' Massuh had to get T'd off at each one of us every now and then. He figured it kept us on our toes.