Praise for Louis Maistros and his novel, The Sound of Building Coffins:
"Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off. He is a writer to watch and keep reading, a writer to cherish."
—Peter Straub
"The Society of North American Magic Realists welcomes its newest, most dazzling member, Louis Maistros. His debut novel is a thing of wonder, unlike anything in our literature. It startles. It stuns. It stupefies. No novel since A Confederacy of Dunces has done such justice to New Orleans."
—Donald Harington, winner of the Robert Penn Warren Award
"The Sound of Building Coffins is easily one of the finest and truest pieces of New Orleans fiction I've ever read."
—Poppy Z. Brite
"Maistros creates a city that is part dream, part hallucination. His New Orleans embodies both the grim reality of a particular time and the city's eternal, shimmering beauty. And, with the book's title, he provides us with a new and unforgettable metaphor for the sound of hammers at work, whether boarding up for a storm or rebuilding after one."
—Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune
"The Sound of Building Coffins a macabre and utterly hypnotic feat of literary imagination…"
—Philip Booth, St. Petersburg Times
"Highly recommended for all fiction collections, especially where there is an interest in jazz."
—Library Journal
"The multiple plot lines smoothly interlock like simultaneous horn solos in an early Louis Armstrong single, and the steady flow of closely observed details and dialogue are a consistent pleasure."
—Joab Jackson, The Baltimore City Paper
"This book sings out in true jazz fashion—wildly inventive, oddly formed yet perfectly made, and never a sour note."
—The Anniston Star
"The Sound of Building Coffins is riveting …a remarkable first novel."
—Endtype: A Canadian Literary Magazine
"A sprawling, complex, and ultimately absorbing work.
—John Lewis, Baltimore Magazine
"Louis Maistros has an original and dark vision, full of power."
—Douglas Clegg
More reviews of The Sound of Building Coffins can be found at the end of this ebook, and at http://louismaistros.com.
Anti-requiem:
New Orleans Stories by Louis Maistros
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 1994-2010 by Louis Maistros
Smashwords Edition, License Notes:
This is a free ebook presentation of "Anti-Requiem: New Orleans Stories by Louis Maistros." It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No derivative Works 3.0 United States License. That means that you are allowed to read it, and to share it with friends, but you may not alter it or sell it in any way.
Print, electronic, audio, foreign language, dramatic and film rights are maintained by the author through his agent, Barbara Braun. http://www.barbarabraunagency.com Print rights for "Calisaya Blues" are controlled by The Toby Press.
The cover photograph was taken by the author at City Park in New Orleans in the summer of 2006. The little boy playing beneath storm clouds is his son, Booker Maistros.
These stories, except where noted, are works of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
*
If you enjoy this free ebook, please consider purchasing a copy of the Smashwords edition ebook of The Sound of Building Coffins, here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1955 .
The Sound of Building Coffins is also available in hardcover format from The Toby Press, available from fine booksellers everywhere.
*
Reviews of The Sound of Building Coffins can be found at the end of this ebook, or at http://louismaistros.com.
The stories:
NEAR TRUTHS
Gwen
New Orleans, December 24, 1994 (previously unpublished)
Gleeby Rhythm is Born
Twitterheads
Calisaya Blues (excerpt from "The Sound of Building Coffins")
Unpublished Interview with Buddy Bolden
You and Yer Big Goopy Brain
HARD TRUTHS
Sense of Place
How Much For This?
Hot 8 Here Now
Wild West Down South
The Case for Kindness During Hurricane Season
Random Thursday Night at the Gold Mine
CODA
Anti-requiem
NEAR TRUTHS
Gwen
Ugly a little; that's Gwen.
Dumpy-small body, no hips, baggy brown corduroy jeans and the kinda combat boots gotta big round toe lika clownfoot. Close-cropped dirty blonde head almost hidden by a hunting cap a la Elmer Fudd circa Kurt Cobain but bright blue.
Hands: pink and steady.
Face: Well, kinda pretty. Strangely tattooless, pierceless—naked almost.
Gwen's gotta pencil and a buncha colored sticks, padda grey paper meant for watercolors: rough. She's walking round Kaldi's Coffehousemuseum staring soft at people, sometimes hard. Sometimes folks get stared at so soft they hardly feel the tickle, sometimes so hard it shoves 'em right out the front door.
Sometimes Gwen stares so hard she makes herself mad, takes out her pencil and colored sticks and draws em right in the face, sometimes in the gut, but never below the waist. That'd be unsportsmanlike. After she's done drawin' em good and hard she makes em pay. Five bucks a picture, take it home.
If they don't wanna pay then she really makes em pay: Crunches their picture inna little grey ball and eats it lika apple right in front of em, tiny pretty molars squeaking hard on the rough paper. They always pay somehowirrother.
A lady walks in with a fella, she's wearing a bright yella t-shirt sez:
Jesus died for your sins and.. YOU OWE HIM BIG TIME!! There's a cartoon of a wild-eyed, muscle-ripped Jesus gushing blood out of his side, pointing a pumped index finger at Gwen or whoever's looking. Monster-like.
Gwen stares soft awhile. Then hard.
It's the lady's turn in line: Two bavarian mochas, please.
Gwen walks up quiet lika cat, keeps her distance, close but far.
Stares hard and loud. Deafening.
She doesn't stare with anger or hate but with a sorta wonder—what's it mean? Gwen asks herself under the little blue hunting cap. All this jesus-talk. She knows what it's supposed to mean but what's it really mean? She's tricking herself thinking she doesn't understand, though. The answer to every question she's ever asked herself has always been there, twisting and stewing under the little blue hunting cap. It squirms around in there so bad right now that she is sorta mad. Sorta hateful.
The lady walks over to join her boy-who-grabbed-a-table, bavarian mochas in tow, acting like she can't feel Gwen's pointy little eyeballs. Fella-man can't act so good and looks damn uncomfortable. He: Who's yr friend? She: Sshhh, crazy girl.
Gwen's a little mad: doesn't like it when people pretend they don't hear when she knows damn well she's staring with perfect, crisp, high-fi audibility.
Gwen sits her dumpy self 3 tables from the 2. Brandishes pencil.
Draws that lady right in the damn nose.
The lady thinks it's creepy gettin' drawed by someone nuts: C'mon, let's go. They split.
Gwen tears the paper in a straight line from the edge up to the nose, tears a circle around the nose-picture. Crushes the little nose into a tiny ball, marble-size. Opens her pretty little mouth and places the greymarblewad on the tip of her tongue, reels it in. Washes that fucker right down the hatch with two halfdrunk brown glasses of bavarian mocha. Closes her little eyes.
Smiles a little. Ugly a little.
Skips outta that coffeeplace singing.
Ugly but kinda pretty.
Like someone in love.
* * * *
Gwen darts down the sidewalk at topspeed, slappin' clownfeet loud and hard. Doesn't quite stop but slows alla sudden: feline-neurotic-like.
Hungry.
Gwen could stuff her whole belly full of little drawn-on chunks of rough gray paper and still feel hungry.
Walkslow.
Topspeed.
Slowalk.
People clearapath—
Topspeed zoom.
Gwen checks the trashpile in front of her favorite Nawlins fine dining establishment, singing something about it's a small world after all. All the good stuff is tainted with damp cigarette ash - Gwen finds this to be unacceptable fare. Near the bottom towards the left is a small white plastic bag, knotted shut. Pokes a pink finger in, rips it open.
A cat: the fluffy orange kind, dead from eating rat poison, tongue black and swollen, chin dotted by dried blood-foam, eyes yella and frozen scared. Gwen stares soft, same way she looks inna mirror when she's sad. Looks like a Joey, she thinks. Ugly little thing.
She brushes the cig ashes off Joey's damp fur with her hand.
A trash pile ain't a fittin' end for anything with a soul—Gwen is irrefutably certain of this one fact. She tucks the little scruff into her green backpack, being careful he don't get stuck by her colored pencils. She hauls him to the riverside. Joey. She hauls Joey. Little Joey.
It's only a block away, the riverside.
Joey's laying next to the water now. Gwen looks at him and flattens out a large grey sheeta paper. Holds an orange pencil. Sees:
a big, beautiful lion, surrounded by toys and flowers and tuna fish sandwiches. a thousand tiny lions look on from the distance, wishing they were as large and beautiful and well-fed as the Joey picture. wouldn't be a need for munching any little rat killin' pellets with so many tuna fish sandwiches around...
Gwen picks up Joey's sad little body, puts him in the center of the picture, wraps him in it. Teaches him to swim. Swim Joey, sez Gwen.
Gwen sits at the edge of the river watching Joey swim away. Cries a little. He swims into the sunset, the sky purple and torn with orange crust lika pie. Isn't it romantic? thinks Gwen.
Gwen skips back towards Decatur Street, feeling tiny drops of bavarian mocha splash around in her belly, splash against a million faces with two million blind eyes, faces crunched into balls. She begins to sing again, not hungry at this moment. It's a small, small
world.
"Gwen" originally appeared in "Son of Brainbox" anthology, 2002, edited by Steve Eller. Written in 1995.
New Orleans, December 24, 1994
I've been in this city just nine days.
I was living a smothered life in Charm City; the kind of smother that's comfortable at first but starts to scare the hell out of you after a while. I talked about leaving all the time. "I don't need this shit," I'd say. "I'm with you," my friends would say. Everybody talks like that in Baltimore. No one thinks much of it. People don't actually leave.
Finally, I made a run for it. I swear I never thought I would actually RUN, but that's what I did. I damn well did run.
So it's Christmas Eve already and I'm still a complete stranger, not a friend in the whole state of Louisiana—which is ok with me really; socializing costs money which I'm low on. The music scene's pretty cliquish around here, too—could take a little time before I have any gigs lined up. I feel like playing, though.
I grab my guitar and head for Jackson Square. It's just getting dark.
I walk past the huddled figures of sleeping homeless and their piles of belongings, park myself on an iron bench to the right of St. Peter's Cathedral. Just left of the church there are two police cars facing each other and an ambulance with its spinning cherry-on-top light going but no siren. I take out my guitar and play a Randy Newman song to no one as I watch the spinning light; it feels good.
I play a song called "Glory" next and though I sing with my eyes closed I sense someone to my right. A man whose face and hands are covered with burn scars is taking my picture. I finish the song and he walks up to me; "The light, your shadow on the church, it looks.." He doesn't speak English so good but I figure he's trying to tell me that he was capturing some kinda dramatic Kodak moment. No problem, buddy. He strolls away without putting anything in my guitar case. That's ok, I tell myself, I'm not doing this for money. Not tonight, anyway.
A homeless guy with a red baseball cap tries to scam me, something about his wife's pregnant and he needs to get her to a doctor so if I could just spare thirty-five cents... The story makes me laugh. He laughs too. "Merry Christmas," he says, walking towards the church with a grin. "Merry Christmas," I say.
Fingers getting cold, not moving as quick as my brain wants, ignoring rhythm. Voice hoarsening, it's cold but the air is still thick: the air is always thick in this town. People passing. Nods and Merry Christmases. Some quarters. Then, I'm singing with my eyes closed again and I sense someone watching. Quiet.
I'm playing a song called "Lit Cigarette." I crack my eyes: the man's eyes are closed, too, like me. His complexion is dark, Mexican maybe. After a minute, he puts a hand in his pocket, feeling around for something. The act of searching his pocket throws him off balance; he goes down to his knees. He's drunk.
The hand comes up; he carefully counts the coins in it, taking inventory. He throws a small handful of coins into my case, mostly copper, says, "Play good." I'm not sure if it's a compliment or a request. I stop playing. I say, "Tell me, pal, is it Christmas, yet?"
"It gettin' there," says the man.
I play another song, the man dances crazily to it, complete with Elvis karate moves. He claps when I'm done. I clap, too. He puts out his hand. "They call me Chief Blue Eagle."
"My name is Louie."
"I be right back. You stay here?"
"Sure, pal. I'll be right here."
"You stay." And he was gone. Thirty seconds later he's back with a cart holding a scuffed up Rubber Maid cooler and a bundle of ripe clothes wrapped in a blanket. He sets up camp on the bench across from me. I think callously, great, I'll sure make a lot of tips with Chief Crazy Horse here scaring away all the tourists.
He pulls a can of generic beer out of the cooler, hands it to me. I say thanks, but tuck the thing under my coat, not wanting to get rousted; there's a container law that says plastic only; no cans, no glasses. Chief Blue Eagle smiles at me, says, "Cup!" and hands me a plastic one that he pulls out of the blanket. "Chief, you are the man," I say.
"I am the man!" he agrees, grinning.
The beer is warm and good.
The Chief is a man of few words but he smiles and laughs a lot, except when he brings up the subject of his wife. "I come back home to New Orleans. Been gone three years. She not come with me." He sounds sad.
"Where is she?" Just making conversation.
"She my Indian wife," he smiles, looking past me, not answering my question. I figure she's probably dead.
"You like New Orleans, Chief?"
He brightens, "Yes. Like New Orleans."
"Me, too."
I play another song, something by Elvis, hoping to keep the Chief's spirits up, maybe inspire some more karate moves. The Chief:
"Louder."
I stop. "What's that?"
"Play louder. You play louder, you attract more customers, make more money."
"Gotcha," I say, banging out a too-loud version of "Somethin' Else" by Eddie Cochran. The Chief dances and whoops like a man deranged. I know there won't be any more "customers," but that's ok. I'm grinning like a fool for the first time in months.
The guy in the red baseball cap comes back, slaps the Chief on the back; "Hey Chief!" he says. Then to me: "You know my friend, Chief Blue Eagle?"
"Yeah," I say, "We're buddies."
"Be nice to the Chief, he's got beer."
"He's a good man," I say, raising my cup.
The Chief and Red Cap start shouting and laughing about a previous adventure they had shared, something about that motherfucker won't fuck with us no more, will he? We sure told that motherfucker where to go, didn't we? Next time we'll kick his damn ass, won't we?
A sexy girl walks by, probably a dancer from one of the clubs on Bourbon Street. The Chief: "Hey, baby, sit down and talk to me for a minute."
"Stay away from me or I'll cut it off," she snarls.
I glare at the girl as she passes. "Merry Christmas to you, too," I say. The Chief just laughs.
Red Cap: "It's ok, I know that girl. She's just messin' around."
I play a song about Frances Farmer. The Chief and Red Cap laugh and shout while I play. A third man joins them, a little guy with a red sore on his nose. Some do-gooders with a thermos show up, dispensing cups of hot chocolate to the homeless. "Don't forget my friend, Music Man," says The Chief, slapping me on the back. The do-gooders pour me a cup while I sing something about "I hope that God will help you find your way," not really listening to my own words.
After a while The Chief says to the little guy with the sore, "You watch my stuff?"
"I'll watch," the guy says.
Then to me: "You be here, Music Man?"
"Dunno, Chief. Probably be heading out soon."
"We leave." Meaning that he and Red Cap were gonna go make the rounds, looking for charitable "customers." "Be back though. If you not here, Merry Christmas."
Red Cap: "Merry Christmas, pal. They call me C.C."
"Merry Christmas, C.C."
Chief Blue Eagle: "You don't forget me, Music Man."
"I won't."
They left.
I played some more for the guy with the hurt nose, whose name I didn't catch. After a while he says, "Do you know any Guns and Roses?"
"Sorry, Boss—don't know a single tune by those guys. Mostly do my own songs."
"You write songs?" he says, sounding amazed.
"Yeah, sure. Here, I'll play you one." I play "Glory" again. And I pack my guitar.
"Merry Christmas," the guy says, sounding sad.
"Merry Christmas, boss." I put out my hand to him, but he only stares at me like I'm gonna play some mean joke on him. Reluctantly, he puts out his hand to me. His hands are meticulously clean, but his face tells me he's embarrassed by the sight of them.
"Goodbye," he says.
"You'll watch the Chief's stuff?"
"I'll watch."
I walk to Checkpoint Charlie's. Some guy who sounds like Tom Waits is singing Slim Harpo songs. White trash girls in stretch pants gyrate on the dance floor. I order a Guinness and close my eyes.
Christmas morning Danielle calls at ten, wakes me up. Asks me if I miss her. I do.
I tell her about my good deed Christmas concert for the homeless the night before. Then it occurs to me.
you don't forget me, music man.
Chief Blue Eagle, C.C., the Guns and Roses guy.
They gave me beer and hustled me hot chocolate, listened to my stupid songs, let me into their little group. They were my first friends in this strange city. I didn't belong in their sad world, but they recognized sadness in me, recognized loneliness. And they let me in.
It was not me who had done a good deed that Christmas Eve.
I pull some clothes on and walk out onto Decatur Street, thinking.
The streets are crowded though most of the shops are closed. About every fifth bar and coffee house is open and packed.
By chance, I see Chief Blue Eagle walking past Kaldi's Coffee Museum. I'm about to call out to him when we make eye contact. And then I know.
In his eyes, I see that he does not remember me.
Suddenly the thought of this old fellow being kind to a stranger on Christmas Eve means even more. Because to the Chief, acts of kindness flow out into the air, soon forgotten. He knew his own mind, and he knew that he would not remember.
And so he knew that I had to be the one who did.
you don't forget me, music man.
No way, Chief.
"New Orleans, December 24, 1994" is previously unpublished. Written on December 25, 1994.
Gleeby Rhythm is Born
Marine Boy stared glommy-eyed like a lover at the blackish storm clouds forming outside, their creamy bodies thickening by the second in the whipping wind. With a slight twist of imagination, which Marine Boy had plenty of, the clouds became a swarm of overfed rats, greasy and agitated, looking for a good place to give birth.
The sky filled with pregnant black rats at least once a day this time of year in New Orleans. August...
It was gonna rain real damn hard, real damn soon, Marine Boy thought to himself as his eyes probed the tall thin windows that lined the coffeehouse. Smiled a little. Marine Boy liked the rain. Rain was one of three things that Marine Boy gave a shit about, the other two being Screaming Jay Hawkins and Louis Prima.
Talkin' Tom sat quietly across from him in the near empty java dive, slurping at the edge of a jumbo cup of black something and wearing a t-shirt that said "if they call it tourist season why can't we shoot them?" In a slow lazy motion, he raised a tattoo covered hand to his crewcut head and scratched just above the row of assorted metal pins and rings that chewed his right ear all to hell; slowly, severely. In the cloud-bruised sunlight that shoved through the long, lean window, Talkin' Tom's tattoos looked like day old motor grease.
"You don't understand, Marine Boy, I'm telling you you just don't fucking understand. No one does. No-fucking-body" Tom's rants always started with something about somebody not understanding. Ho hum. All the gutterpunks in New Orleans seemed to come from wealthy homes with tons of petty angst and minor Greek tragedies.
"My old man built rockets, man. He was on the Gemini team, bigshot in the space program, rubbing dicks with motherfuckin' John Glenn and shit. He had it all, everything you could want. But the really important things in life he never had the stomach for, he was just full of fear, I mean full of it, man. That was what got him, man—that was why he offed himself. It was the fear. It was always with him"
Marine Boy was familiar with this line of jabber. Tom's dad really was a bigshot Aerospace executive in the sixties. But no one really knew why he blew his brains out one day in his Woodland Hills mansion. Especially not Tom—who was only three when it happened. But Tom liked to speculate—and occasionally even talked himself into believing that he'd aced the mystery. No one would ever really know, though. Tom's Dad had left no note.
"Fucking rockets, man", Talking Tom intoned dramatically, water in eye.
Then all at once the black bellied rats ripped themselves open and dumped tons of dark water on the city.
*
Funny how you're still aware of the sting of cut skin even after the knife begins its see-saw into bone. The bone-pain is certainly more profound, it just doesn't sting like the flesh-pain. Funny.
Ampirella pushed harder on the knife, putting all of her hundred and ten pounds into it.
"Almost through the hard part—you okay?"
"Shuttup and hurry—goddam motherfucker!" The boy's head swam in pain, the pain itself no longer stinging or throbbing but sort of washing over him like tidal wave of warm flame. Funny how the smell of your own raw blood has no mysterious quality—it smells exactly like the meat section at the A&P. Funny.
*
Much to Marine Boy's relief, the sheer volume of booming thunder and pounding rain punched a neat little hole in Talkin' Tom's train of thought. He jumped into the dead air like a Mexican hat dancer:
"C'mon Tom, I can't stay inside when it's like this. I get too fuckin' gleeby,"—GLEEBY referring of course to the prophetic 1934 Louis Prima tune which foretold the birth of Gleeby Rhythm. Marine Boy loved a good downpour but it gave him a kind of trapped feeling if it hit while there was a roof overhead. A strange strain of claustrophobia you might say; when it rained hard Marine Boy had to be in it. It's one of the reasons they called him Marine Boy. The other being the fish-like appearance that his thick eyeglass lenses and equally thick lips conspired upon his face.
"Shit, Marine Boy. We're gonna fucking drown out there." The drops had already begun to fall and they were as big as softballs—water balloons without the balloon—splashing onto the pavement. "You're a fucking masochist, man."
"Fuck you, Talkin' Tom," Marine Boy grinned, getting up and taking the taller thinner boy with him, pinching firmly at the largest ring that pierced Tom's left brow. "You're the fucking masochist. I'm the sadist".
"Leggo, gleeby bitch!"
The two walked out into the black sheet of water, laughing.
"You know Tom, I been thinking." Marine Boy had to raise his voice over the applause of water and cement colliding. "You torture yourself over your old man everyday. You think he killed himself 'cause he was afraid of being himself—maybe that's true. But you try to over compensate by living like a damn freak. You're covered in tattoos. Every loose flap of flesh on your body is pierced, branded or nailed. It's almost like you're punishing yourself for what your dad was—or wasn't. I mean, I know lots of degenerates who dig pain, but you take it to an extreme—"
"Hey man," Talkin' Tom butted in, "all you know about pain is the kind that you inflict on your eardrums with all that Screaming Jay Hawkins crap. There's a reason that noisy fucker was a one hit wonder, you know."
"Correction: 'Constipation Blues' hit number one in Japan."
"Japan don't count in baseball or rock and roll."
"Point," Marine Boy conceded.
*
There was a high timbered THAP as the knife hit the cutting board.
Ampirella tried to brush away the boy's severed thumb but it was still somewhat attached by a bit of skin and vein. Annoyed, she hastily yanked it free and tossed it to the ground all in one swift motion.
"Fuck!" the boy shrieked, as the vein connecting his thumb and hand stretched then snapped.
"Sorry, man," she answered with nigh a trace of damn sorriness as she slipped on the oven mitt. Suddenly, the boy was aware of the sheer quantity of sweat flowing from his every pore; GALLONS it seemed...
The new thumb—the one made of 100% surgical steel except for the gold plating, the one shaped like a FUCKIN' ROCKET as requested—was sitting joint first like some weird vegetation in Ampirella's heating receptacle—the edge of it white hot. She picked up the shiny-hot rocket-thumb with the oven mitt, exposing what looked like the pointy end of a coffin nail protruding from the center of the base, also white hot. With her free hand, she held up the boy's squirting thumbless hand by the wrist, held it an inch from the rocket-thumb under a bright light, eye-balled the metal and flesh to-be-joined with a squint. The blood jumped out of the boy's hand with the rhythm of his pounding heart.
"Do it!" the boy squeaked through clenched teeth, wanting it over/not wanting it over.
"Pay attention to me," she said, " This is very important: be completely still. Don't jerk back. This is gonna hurt. I mean really, really hurt."
*
"Anyway, if you're so hopped up on harming yourself, I'm surprised you haven't gone to that freak maker over on the West Bank."
"I've gone to her lotsa times but that ain't no way to talk about your mom, Marine Boy."
Talkin' Tom thusly received one sharp knuckle punch to the left shoulder.
"Fuckin' ow, man!"
"I'm serious man, this chick is bent. They call her Ampirella cause she looks like that cartoon vampire babe only instead of sucking blood she AMPutates pieces of people in the name of fashion."
"Hmmmm, the next logical step, I guess. I mean what's left? We've done it all. Fuckin' rockets, man."
"That ain't all."
"Stop teasing."
"I'm telling you this girl is the High Fucking Priestess of Gleeby Psychosis. Not only does she render obsolete the old fashioned pierce, brand and poke school of self destructive fashion, her trip is to hack, remove and replace.."
"Replace?" Tom's mouth began to water.
"You know how rappers knock their own teeth out so they can put in some nice fancy gold ones..."
"Fuckin' rockets."
*
As the boy's quick, sharp gasps degenerated into the violent shudders that ER physicians look for in cases of extreme shock, Ampirella pressed hot metal to skin and bone, pushing hard so that the coffin nail would take permanently into the center of the thumb-joint, piercing and cooking tender bone marrow. With a brief hsssss and the instantly recognizable aroma of a Burger King Broiler the bleeding stopped, the wound instantly cauterized. She wrapped her oven mitt around the newly joined gold thumb and purple throbbing hand, held on tight as the boy spasmed then went limp in the chair. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the sight of his former digit on the floor next to a litter of orange peels and the tinny sound of a portable tape player with a blown speaker blasting in the next room; "The gleebs are rompin'/ The gleebs are stompin'/ Oh, gleeby rhythm is born."
*
"I think Tom'll be back, sis. He still talks about his dad a lot. He'll want to take the next step."
"Poor guy. Good thing we're here to help him out. I mean as long as he's got the dough..."
"Rocket Daddy left him a bundle. He can afford all kinds of hardware..."
"Good thing we're here to help, little brother. Sounds like he's got a lot of inner anguish to work out..."
"Good thing there's lots of poor little rich boys and girls in this city looking for a pricey way to self destruct."
"At least we're drug free and fashion conscious. The Gleebs certainly do romp and stomp, don't they?"
"Just like the song." A sound as big and no frills as a trailer park slamming to earth rattled the windows. Once again, the black bellied rats committed hari kari and all was beaten and wet. "Time for me to go, big sis."
"Hey, Marine Boy -" Ampirella called after her kid brother.
"Yeah?"
"I got an umbrella if you want -"
"No thanks, babydoll. Don't believe in 'em."
Marine Boy walked into the indifferent storm, his soul consumed by water.
"Gleeby Rhythm is Born" originally appeared in Grue Magazine, 1999, edited by Peggy Nadramia. Written in 1995.
Twitterheads
Through the crackly speaker of the little wooden box, The Lady Doctor On The Radio advised the blue-eyed child's parents:
"Introverted children sometimes only need a creative outlet to break a spell of terrible, quiet seriousness". The message felt a warning, its voice slightly salted.
Although the revelation put the parents' worried minds at ease somewhat, along with it came the problem of what to do. Then Mother had an idea.
The idea would entail a process of painful scrimping and saving—but she believed they could do it. And, in fact, by Christmas Eve they had accumulated enough cash in their little Maxwell House coffee tin to take home the second hand piano.
But holiday joy can be complicated for children unaccustomed to receiving spectacular gifts—and on Christmas morning the mysterious appearance of the large musical instrument, which sat like an alien monument in the middle of the family's tiny living space, seemed only to disturb the blue-eyed child further. He appeared unusually anxious as he suddenly pushed his focus away from its presence.
With a stutter that passed for fright in his parents' concerned ears, the blue-eyed child soberly informed them that he'd seen what appeared to be Santa's sleigh hovering above the house the night before—had witnessed said alleged hovering-sleigh activity through his bedroom window at approximately twelve thirty-seven a.m. Mother speculated quietly to herself that even The Lady Doctor On The Radio might be stumped by this unusual display of Hovering-Santa-Fright. Then again, The Lady Doctor On The Radio never showed undo concern. No, reasoned Mother without a word; it was much more likely that The Lady Doctor On The Radio would—in her usual calm manner—explain how the parental charade of Saint Nick deceitfully sneaking presents into place in the dead of night can be not only strenuous for the parents but confusing for an intelligent child. Unable to consult the radio for exact instructions, the parents winged it; gently interrogating their son in hopes of settling his churning little-boy-soul.
The brief interview seemed to work. After a few moments, the boy's uneasiness turned to curiosity—allowing the special gift to do the job for which it was intended. The blue-eyed child sat at the old upright, brushing the keys with little fingers for long minutes, then finally: pressing down. Searching for notes that sounded right together.
There was one more present to be given.
With the boy still exploring the keys of the wonderful piano, Mother made her smiling approach. She withdrew three rectangular pieces of paper, white and light blue in color, from a bright red stocking. The blue-eyed child was a year or so away from being able to decipher the characters of the alphabet proficiently, so she read the words that appeared on the top ticket aloud to him: "ADMIT ONE: January 1st, New Year's Day, 1946. Barker Brothers Six Ring Circus. Showtime 6:00PM Sharp! Come one, come all!" Being only four, the blue-eyed child could not fake enthusiasm well. He wasn't sure what a circus was.
New Year's Day brought a chill.
The day-sky turned from yellow and blue to orange and purple as evening fell and the family of three made it's long walk to the Civic Center. As they shoved through the crowd towards their assigned seats at the rear of the arena, a strange man's hand suddenly clutched the arm of the blue-eyed child's mother. Startled, she turned to face the man.
"Hello, Maria," the man said.
She returned the gaze of the stranger's smiling blue eyes with odd intensity. Her expression wasn't of fear, or even surprise, it was... something else. The boy had never seen this new look on his mother's face before, and so he considered it very carefully. But just as suddenly, before the child had had a chance to consider it as closely as he would have liked, the look was gone. Without a single word of response, she yanked her arm from the man, refocusing on the urgent business of locating seats YY12, YY14 and YY16, dragging the blue-eyed child along. Father had seen the odd exchange between Mother and the man, but said nothing.
They found their seats.
The blue-eyed child sat between his parents and watched the elephants and lions and the men and women who flew through the air without wings. He listened to the strange calliope music and smelled the cotton candy and popcorn and heard the shouts of the other children. And he too began to shout. Had he not been so taken by the magic of the circus he might have heard the warning silence that hovered between the parents who sat on either side of him.
The walk home was quiet except for the circus organ hum that lingered in the blue-eyed child's head. By the time they reached the little stucco house where they lived, the sky had faded from gray to black.
Mother put the blue-eyed child to bed. As she pulled up the soft blue cover to his chin, the look on her face was one he had only seen only once before. The child, who was normally subjected to an almost unwholesome amount of motherly attention, felt a sting at the absence of her hugs tonight. She failed to stroke his hair, to kiss him goodnight as she normally did. Even more hurtful was that, though their eyes met; she seemed to look past him.
He had no way of knowing—and never would know—that she was not seeing him at all at that moment, could not see him; that she had found someone else's eyes in his, someone she had lost, then found, then lost again. And she knew there were no Lady Doctors On The Radio who would be willing to offer advice regarding her pain. For her pain, she believed, was born of immorality and weakness. Of wrongful love.
Tears welled in her eyes. The blue-eyed child turned away from her, fixing his confused gaze to the window instead, to the starless black sky. She left him.
Through the wall the blue-eyed child could hear a sound from his parents' bedroom. Voices hushed and angry.
Whispering, twittering.
The blue-eyed child could not make out any of the words. Not until after several long minutes when his father's voice began to rise: "...one lie too many," he stated clear and even, no longer angry. Sharply, his mother's voice: "No!"
A shot. Then another shot.
The blue-eyed child sat up.
Walked out of his little bedroom. Past the closed door of his parents' room and down the steps to the living room. He sat at the piano, brushing the plastic keys with tiny fingers, then: pressing down.
Searching.
* * * *
Carlos thinks it's funny that the other homeless guys refer to the tourists they relentlessly pester as "customers." Like they're providing a service of some kind. Hell, maybe they are in a way. Carlos doesn't need customers, though—he can always find food somehow—people throw a ton of it away every damn day. He doesn't want money, either. What for?
But sometimes he'll stop someone passing by:
Lookit the sky! Will ya juss looka that? Look!
Sometimes the sky over the French Quarter is knockout gorgeous—most folks don't look up, though. Carlos likes to share his knack for looking up—it's his version of a public service announcement. He doesn't get it when people answer someone else's question—sorry, I don't have any money, they say. He only wants them to see the sky. At night, Carlos sees the sky and it makes him sad, makes him remember when he was four:
It's Christmas Eve...
He's looking at the sky, watching for Santa's sleigh, refusing to sleep. He wants to be the ONE, the only kid who doesn't fall asleep, the ONE who sees Santa cut through the blackness. He is determined to stay awake—but he's a sleepy little kid and his eyelids sting with effort—he rests them a while. In the morning he's mad even though he knows Christmas morning is a lousy time to be mad. Tells Mom and Daddy that he did see Santa in the sky last night, embarrassed at having slept through the event. Are you sure? they say with skeptical, worried smiles. Yes, I'm sure, says four-year-old Carlos. What did he look like? they ask. He was fat. Red suit. Deers and a sleigh. Didn't see any elves, though. Yup, that's him they say—elves were probably back at the shop.
one lie too many.
The lie that Carlos told that morning about seeing Santa when he did NOT has nagged at his stubborn conscience for five decades now. It doesn't make it better that the little lie was spawned by the other, bigger one; the one that Mom and Daddy told him about Santa existing in the first place. Doesn't matter.
It spoils the night sky.
But during the day the sky is beautiful. It's his love for the day-sky that endears him to the kids who work behind the counter at the coffee bar. But they are nervous now. He is freaking out. No one wants to bounce the old fuck. They like him usually; but not today, not right now.
The 2 girls in the coffee bar sitting by the middle window are out-of-towners—everything about them screams it. Their tight expensive clothes yell about hidden wads of unspent vacation dough in their bras & boots. Their hair is tall and awful, stunned frozen, paralyzed by spray; perfect. Their faces display various stages and types of fake pinkness: shiny gloss, powder, deep, pale, creamy. Their smell is as strong and stony as a virgin urinal tablet: sweet.
2 girls. Sitting by the middle window. Whispering, twittering. Shooting looks at the locals. Laughing quiet; not quiet enough.
Carlos' eyes are bright blue and normal but his ears are unscrubbed reddish black lumps of flesh that are impossibly sensitive; they hear everything, tiny details crowd into the grimy head-holes, dozens at a time, perfectly retained and sorted inside.
Carlos begins swinging two thin farmer-tan arms in circles like dueling-retard-windmills, whipping the air, an explosion of gray hair and beard sprouting from his purple-brown head, swaying slightly in the tiny windmill breeze. The girls won't quit. Whispering, twittering.
The counter kids keep a close eye. They're kind of sensitive for a bunch of punks but can't know, can't understand the profound snowballing of images triggered inside Carlos' gray mop-head, pictures triggered by the sneaky feather-sharp tongues of the twitterheads. Little feathery sounds doing damage a little at a time.
Just a little, a little at a time—like a thousand cigs chipping at a lung over years. Invisible almost. And it starts so tickly in a feather-breath, an angry whisper through a bedroom wall. Like a tiny child's victimless lie, setting into motion a lifetime of searching gazes at an inky, empty sky, filled with nothing but sparkly, leaky pinpricks, useless stars, satellites, space junk. No miracles, no interventions, just doomed stories of something magic, doomed by years of magicless existence and nagging hidden memories too painful to recall; black. All that's left of the memories are ghost images that dance through his mind; lions and elephants and jumping people soaring through the air wearing bright colors. And something about elves back at the shop.
Windmill arms chop nearer the twitterheads, out of town eyes miraculously unaware. The counter kids watch Carlos' eyes: they are darting and wild, cutting squiggly laserpaths around the stiffened little twitterheads.
An inanimate savior, an old out of tune upright piano sits Clark-Kentish in the corner of the coffee place, poised for drastic action if it comes to that.
It has come to that.
The upright joins psychic force with the counter kids, willing a space between the spinning arms and the offensive chicks. A sudden magnetic pull collides the piano bench with the seat of Carlos' pants. Leather-hard fingers brush old ivory keys, then: pressing down. The counter kids sigh inaudibly, together.
The sound is not a functional music, not meant for entertaining—the notes don't sound quite right together. It is a music of undoing. Undoing impossible mountains of damage, human disaster. It is a snowball in reverse, a little at a time, just a little, just enough. Somehow the infinitely large snowball must be made to roll backwards, far enough, long enough till it does not exist, gone without melting, without a single drop of water or blood. Carlos knows this isn't possible, knows this as he plays.
But there is a piano in the coffee house.
And some kids who refuse to toss out an old crazy guy who might be dangerous.
And a bunch of mean twittering elves back at the shop who can't let a small boy, now a man, forget about a tiny lie told fifty years ago.
"Twitterheads" originally appeared in "Dreaming of Angels," 2002, edited by Gord Rollo and Monica J. O'Rourke. Written in 1996.
Calisaya Blues
Well, little miss, I do appreciate wisdom in the young. And that's just what you done showed me tonight.
Pretty little miss like you coming round to Doctor Jack asking about a cure, sure nuff. Not asking for a cure, but asking about a cure—the difference between the two being larger than you might expect. One question show caution—the other just quick and dumb. And I do appreciate you for it, little darlin', indeedy I do.
Most gals come around to Doctor Jack just hoping for a quick fix to what they view as an imminent crisis or a state of impendin' personal doom. Figgerin' a cure is a cure and don't reckon much that a cure might turn out bad. But sometimes a cure can make things best for short and worst for long. So it truly is wise to ask about before asking for.
I'll answer your questions best as I can, little one, though, truthfully, my answers can't possibly be right for no one but myself. No, my answers are for me, but maybe I can point you in the direction of your own. Then, once you decide, we can go on talking 'bout curin' and such, if you still have a mind to.
The cure is a thing called calisaya. Bark off a shrub that come here on a boat from South America. Can grow pretty good in New Orleans, too, if you get it down in good so the roots take hold. Just grind up the right amount then put that powder in a tea. Once that calisaya get inside ya, little girl? The cure is on.
Sets your insides to contractin'. Might be some bleedin' and might be some dyin'. Lungs'll contract too, making it hard to breathe. Bladder too, making you wanna pee. Retina too, making it hard to see. Heart too, and that's where the real danger be. But if you get past all that, then past is past, and that—for some—is the cure.
But you didn't just ask on the how. You asked on God, too. What God might think of all of this curin' talk. Hmm.
Well, hell, I don't know what God thinks. But I do know this:
God has occasion to talk to each of us directly at one time or another—and all along he be telling us the same thing, to be sure. We just listen different is all.
Some folks turn away from God because he won't answer a peep when they ask him questions through diligent and heartfelt praying and such. He quiet as a mouse, that ol' God, when the prayers come out—almost like he ain't there. Well, maybe, just maybe, that's on accounta God waiting on us to answer a few of his own questions first. Bet you never even thought of that, eh? That's all right, little sis, not many do.
I see you scratching your head and I can't say's I blame you. But let me go on for just a bit and maybe it'll make more sense by the time I get through. If you got a few minutes, why dontcha take off your hat and have a little sitdown?
Typhus? Be a good little fella and make a cup of tea for our pretty little company.
I'd say coffee, sweetheart, but I don't believe coffee to be good for a gal in the family way. In case you decide agen' the cure, that is.
So, I was talkin'. That's right. Thank you, Typhus. Thank you.
Try this one on for size, little sis:
Try and think about God before he made the world. Before he made the saints and the angels and the puppies and the gators and the babies and the mothers. When all he had to mess with was planets and stars and moons made out of cold dirt and hellfire. Try to think of God as just a regular fella in that situation.
Now then. I bet you thinking he was powerful lonely.
He warn't lonely, sister. No, ma'am, he didn't know to be lonely. Before you can get lonely you have to miss someone, and if you're all there is and ever was then you never get the chance to pine—or even to imagine the pining.
But God's a smart feller and had plenty of time to think about all kinds of things out there in the universe all by himself with nothing to do except making stars and moons and swirlin' dirt. And I imagine somewhere down the line he mighta thought, "What if?" What if he weren't the only one? What if he didn't know all there was to know—as might be the case if there was another being he warn't aware of with thoughts he couldn't see. So God mighta considered the possibility of not knowing—and that possibility would be a foreign thing to someone like God, the only being ever was. And, to God Almighty Hizzownsweet Self, would such a possibility be a good thing or a bad thing, a right thing or a wrong thing? Which brings up another thing altogether.
When a creature is so utterly alone in the universe, such a creature got no use for right and wrong, good and bad. If there's only you and no one else, then there's only what comes to mind—and if what comes to mind don't affect no one but yourself, then right and wrong don't exactly apply. So right and wrong never occurred to God just as wings never occur to catfish in a river.
But when God got to thinking about the possibility of maybe not being so alone, then the idea of right and wrong logically sprung to mind—like the idea of wings might spring to the mind of a catfish plucked from the river and thrown up into the air. These earliest thoughts of morality didn't digest easily, though—for God had no way of knowing what morality might mean except in theory. I suppose this notion might've seemed more interesting than stars and moons and swirlin' dirt, so he hunkered down to business and threw some flesh and blood into the mix.
Flesh and blood. That'd be us; you and me and that little baby in your womb and ever'one else to boot on this big green earth. Ever'one ever was or will be, too.
And this thing that he put in our hearts might've been our very reason for being—the inner knowledge in each and every one of us about the difference between right and wrong. And the power to act on this knowledge in a meaningful way.
Y'see, little sister, God ain't a naturally moral being because he got no use for morality. It don't apply to his personal situation. But questions do arise and answers do beckon.
Now, being God might very well mean to know everything. But you must understand that even for God the knowing don't come easy. So when a question come up that stumped his big ol' God-brain, he set about finding an answer. And that's where we come in. He invented morality and planted it in our breasts. And only through our actions could he ever hope to learn about that particular thing.
Now, if this be so, then it'd be a maddening thing for the human race to reconcile such a notion in its collective heart and mind. But what I'm saying is this here. Might be this. Just might be.
Typhus, boy, where's that tea? Make mine special like always. Just a touch but don't be stingy. And keep it clean for the little gal. Hard liquor ain't good for a gal in the family way, I s'pect.
Now, where was I going? That's right. I was talkin' might-bees. Might be this. Might be this, indeedy.
Now, listen up and let your own self decide, little darlin':
Could be we're here to answer God's questions and not the other way around. Follow?
God is learning from us, little sister. Giving us free will and waiting to see what we do with it. He don't give us no details, because the tellin' would taint the answers. He needs us to be straight up with him about this stuff. He don't even come right out and admit to being there, don't even supply us with proof-positive of his very existence. Just give us enough smarts to recognize the possibility, then let us ponder it out on our own. Folks call that sort of pondering "faith." Nothing wrong with that because, truthfully, it don't make a licka difference.
The problem of morality is something that God is inclined to know about, but can only learn from creatures with a need for it. So we must oblige. We've got to do our very best to show God what's right. Only a man can do right, little sis. Only a man can save. Jesus, little sister, was an earthly man. Could be Jesus was God's way of testing out the waters.
But the question of right and wrong that's been put to us by God is sometimes a tricky one—because right and wrong don't always wash as clean as black and white. All kinds of grays in the hearts of men, little sis. What feels right in the heart of one might feel wrong in the heart of another, and so forth and so on. But there are some exceptions that stay mostly constant. Some things stay mostly light—like loving. And some things stay mostly black—like killing.
And since you come to talk about a cure, I guess that means we're talking about both. The cure is the trickiest kind. Because the calisaya cure is surely killing—but it can be about loving, too.
You've got to ask yourself a question, little missy—and try to find the answer in the deepest part of your soul.
If a second life resides within your own body, a life that has no choice whether to live or die on its own, do you have the right to make such a decision by proxy? Is that second life close enough to your own life that you can treat it as your own? If that child is doomed to live a life of hurt, would it be truly right to keep that life from touching air and earth and water, never to draw a natural breath?
It's a question that only breeds more questions, for sure. After all, how can you know that the life of this child will not be a good one? How can a person know whether taking that life, before it's even had a chance to show itself, might be a right thing or a wrong thing? Can the morality that God put in your heart even begin to decipher such a thing? Of course, this might smell like a question best put to God himself. And now we're back to the beginning.
Because if what I say is close to true, then we're here to answer God's questions and not the other way around. And even if I'm wrong, well, do you think that God could even answer a question like that?
Hell, I don't know. But I do know this:
God ain't tellin'.
So the answering is left up to you, little sister. And when you make your answer then things do unfold, and then God might learn from the unfolding. And when God gets enough unfolding, then the unfolding might start to look like answers, and then, maybe, just maybe, from these answers he can make the next world a better one for every eternal soul that come back around.
But there you are with that little second life in your belly right in the here and now and wondering about a cure. Not even thinking about this world or the next. Stuck in a situation and wanting to know what to do. Right now, this very minute. And so you have a decision to make about killing—and it ain't a decision with an obvious answer, nothing purely black or white about it, child.
The decision must be a hard one. And it must be answered very carefully. So you must draw on that thing that God gave you, the thing that God has never felt for himself; that thing about right and wrong. You must teach God from your own suffering. And you will suffer.
You only get to decide how.
So close your eyes and listen deep, little sister. Listen to the thump of that second life in your belly. Try to hear if it's talking to you—and pay attention to what it has to say. And listen to your own heart, too. When you've pondered long enough, you come back here and see Doctor Jack again. If you're still looking for a cure, then I will gladly oblige. And I'll oblige just like so:
Your tea will be just as sweet, but it will have a bitter aftertaste and that taste will be calisaya. Typhus will make your bed and you will lie on it. Then you will be sick, as I have explained. The second life will come out of you, and then it will die. There will be pain for you and for the little one, too. Typhus will take good care of that baby, bring him to the river for nightswimmin'. And I will do my best to ease your suffering. It will be your saddest day. And there will be more sad days to follow.
If you go by that path, little sister, after listening to all the love in your heart, then you may take solace in knowing this one thing:
All life is eternal because all souls are eternal. Even little lives taken by calisaya tea. Little lives like that stay with you always, and sometimes even visit you in ways you don't expect. That's because even little lives come from the will of God, and there is a mysterious joy in that fact. For God is learning about love from you, little sister. And he is eternally grateful for the lessons that you give. Through your pain you teach God right from wrong.
It is never the other way around. Never has been and never will be. It's the reason we are here on this earth, little sister. We are educating God.
With a pain that he could never feel.
"Calisaya Blues" is an excerpt from the novel, "The Sound of Building Coffins."
Unpublished Interview With Buddy Bolden
Transcript of unpublished interview with Charles "Buddy" Bolden, conducted by Marshall Trumbo at Bolden's place of residence, the Louisiana State Asylum for the Insane in Jackson, Louisiana, recorded and transcribed by Benjamin Price on August 13, 1923
Trumbo: Mr. Bolden, I appreciate you giving me your time this morning.
Bolden: Don't see many white folk in this place. 'Ceptin' the doctors. You look familiar to me. I know you?
Trumbo: Mr. Bolden, do you feel all right—I mean, do you feel up for this interview?
Bolden: Whatcha mean do I feel alright? 'Course I'm all right. Do I look like I ain't alright?
Trumbo: No, no, of course not. I mean, you look fine. It's just that—
Bolden: Just that since I'm in a place for crazies must mean I'm crazy, and so maybe I ain't alright. Crazy folk scare you, mister?
Trumbo: Well, no—
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