And the kid--he was still burned--says: "You mean I did _d.a.m.n_ 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' Ma.s.suh 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 ithad 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 ba.s.s 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'

Ma.s.suh had to get T'd off at each one of us every now and then. He figured it kept us on our toes.

In fact, except right at first, there never was any real blood between Spoof and Sonny until Rose-Ann came along.

Spoof didn't want a vocalist with the band. But the c.o.o.nshouting days were gone alas, except for Satchmo and Galloway--who had style: none of us had style, man, we just hollered--so when push came to shove, we had to put out the net.

And chickens aplenty came to crow and plenty moved on fast and we were about to give up when a dusky doll of 20-ought stepped up and let loose a hunk of _The Man I Love_ and that's all, brothers, end of the search.

Rose-Ann McHugh was a little like Sonny: where she came from, she didn't know a ball of cotton from a piece of popcorn. She's studied piano for a flock of years with a Pennsylvania longhair, read music whipfast and had been pointed toward the Big Steinway and the 0.M.'s, Chopin and Bach and all that jazz. And good--I mean, she could pull some very fancy noise out of those keys. But it wasn't the Road. She'd heard a few records of Muggsy Spanier's, a couple of Jelly Roll's--_New Orleans b.u.mp_, _Shreveport Stomp_, old _Wolverine Blues_--and she just got took hold of. Like it happens, all the time. She knew.

Spoof hired her after the first song. And we could see things in her eyes for The Ol' Ma.s.suh right away, fast. Bad to watch: I mean to say, she was chicken dinner, but what made it ugly was, you could tell she hadn't been in the oven very long.

Anyway, most of us could tell. Sonny, for instance.

But Spoof played tough to begin. He gave her the treatment, all the way. To see if she'd hold up.

Because, above everything else, there was the Grew, the Unit, the Group. It was right, it had to stay right.

"_Gal, forget your hands--that's for the cats out front. Leave 'em alone. And pay attention to the music, hear?_"

"_You ain't got a 'voice,' you got an instrument. And you ain't ever started to learn how to play on it. Get some sound, bring it on out_."

"_Stop that throat stuff--you' singin' with the Crew now. From the belly, gal, from the belly.

That's where music comes from, hear?_"

And she loved it, like Sonny did. She was with The Ol' Ma.s.suh, she knew what he was talking about.

Pretty soon she fit just fine. And when she did, and everybody knew she did, Spoof eased up and waited and watched the old machine click right along, one-two, one-two.

That's when he began to change. Right then, with the Grew growed up in long pants at last. Like we didn't need him any more to wash our face and comb our hair and switch our behinds for being bad.

Spoof began to change. He beat out time and blew his riffs, but things were different and there wasn't anybody who didn't know that for a fact.

In a hurry, all at once, he wrote down all his great arrangements, quick as he could. One right after the other. And we wondered why--we'd played them a million times.

Then he grabbed up Sonny. _White Boy, listen. You want to learn how to play trumpet?_"

And the blood started between them. Spoof rode on Sonny's back twenty-four hours, showing him lip, showing him breath. "_This ain't a saxphone, boy, it's a trumpet, a music-horn. Get it right--do itagain--that's lousy--do it again--that was nowhere--do it again--do it again!_" All the time.

Sonny worked hard. Anybody else, they would have told The Ol' Ma.s.suh where he could put that little old horn. But the kid knew something was being given to him--he didn't know why, n.o.body did, but for a reason--something that Spoof wouldn't have given anybody else. And he was grateful. So he worked. And he didn't ask any how-comes, either.

Pretty soon he started to handle things right. 'Way down the road from great but coming along.

The sax had given him a hard set of lips and he had plenty of wind; most of all, he had the spirit--the thing that you can beat up your chops about it for two weeks straight and never say what it is, but if it isn't there, buddy-ghee, you may get to be President but you'll never play music.

Lord, Lord, Spoof worked that boy like a two-ton jockey on a ten-ounce horse. "_Do it again--that ain't right--G.o.dd.a.m.n it, do it again! Now one more time!_"

When Sonny knew enough to sit in with the horn on a few easy ones, Ol' Ma.s.suh would tense up and follow the kid with his eyes--I mean it got real crawly. What for? Why was he pushing it like that?

Then it quit. Spoof didn't say anything. He just grunted and quit all of a sudden, like he'd done with us, and Sonny went back on sax and that was that.

Which is when the real blood started.

The Lord says every man has got to love something, sometimes, somewhere. First choice is a chick, but there's other choices. Spoof's was a horn. He was married to a piece of bra.s.s, just as married as a man can get. Got up with it in the morning, talked with it all day long, loved it at night like no chick I ever heard of got loved. And I don't mean one-two-three: I mean the slow-building kind. He'd kiss it and hold it and watch out for it. Once a cat full of tea tried to put the s.n.a.t.c.h on Spoof's horn, for laughs: when Spoof caught up with him, that cat gave up laughing for life.

Sonny knew this. It's why he never blew his stack at all the riding. Spoof's teaching him to play trumpet--the trumpet--was like as if The Ol' Ma.s.suh had said: "_You want to take my wife for a few nights? You do? Then here, let me show you how to do it right. She likes it done right_."

For Rose-Ann, though, it was the worst. Every day she got that deeper in, and in a while we turned around and, man! Where is little Rosie? She was gone. That young half-fried chicken had flew the roost. And in her place was a doll that wasn't dead, a big bunch of curves and skin like a brand-new penny. Overnight, almost. Sonny noticed. Freddie and Lux and even old Mr. "T" noticed. _I_ had eyes in my head. But Spoof didn't notice. He was already in love, there wasn't any more room.

Rose-Ann kept snapping the whip, but Ol' Ma.s.suh, he wasn't about to make the trip. He'd started climbing, then, and he didn't treat her any different than he treated us.

"_Get away, gal, broom on off--can't you see I'm busy? Wiggle it elsewhere, hear? Elsewhere.

Shoo!_"

And she just loved him more for it. Everytime he kicked her, she loved him more. Tried to find him and see him and, sometimes, when he'd stop for breath, she'd try to help, because she knew something had crawled inside Spoof, something that was eating from the inside out, that maybe he couldn't get rid of alone.

Finally, one night, at a two-weeker in Dallas, it tumbled.

We'd gone through _Georgia Brown_ for the tourists and things were kind of dull, when Spoof started sweating. His eyes began to roll. And he stood up, like a great big animal--like an ape or a bear, big and powerful and mean-looking--and he gave us the two-finger signal.

_Sky-High_. 'Way before it was due, before either the audience or any of us had got wound up.

Freddie frowned. "You think it's time, Top?"

"Listen," Spoof said, "G.o.ddammit, who says when it's time--you, or me?"

We went into it, cold, but things warmed up pretty fast. The dancers grumbled and moved off the floor and the place filled up with talk.

I took my solo and beat h.e.l.l out of the skins. Then Spoof swiped at his mouth and let go with a blast and moved it up into that squeal and stopped and started playing. It was all headwork. All new to us.

New to anybody.I saw Sonny get a look on his face, and we sat still and listened while Spoof made love to that horn.

Now like a scream, now like a laugh--now we're swinging in the trees, now the white men are coming, now we're in the boat and chains are hanging from our ankles and we're rowing, rowing--_Spoof, what is it?_--now we're sawing wood and picking cotton and serving up those cool cool drinks to the Colonel in his chair--Well, _blow_, man!--now we're free, and we're struttin' down Lenox Avenue and State & Madison and Pirate's Alley, laughing, crying--_Who said free?_--and we want to go back and we don't want to go back--_Play it, Spoof! G.o.d, G.o.d, tell us all about it! Talk to us!_--and we're sitting in a cellar with a comb wrapped up in paper, with a skin-barrel and a tinklebox--_Don't stop, Spoof! Oh Lord, please don't stop!_--and we're making something, something, what is it? Is it jazz? Why, yes, Lord, it's jazz. Thank you, sir, and thank you, sir, we finally got it, something that is _ours_, something great that belongs to us and to us alone, that we made and _that's_ why it's important, and _that's_ what it's all about and--_Spoof! Spoof you can't stop now_-- But it was over, middle of the trip. And there was Spoof standing there facing us and tears streaming out of those eyes and down over that coaldust face, and his body shaking and shaking. It's the first we ever saw that.

It's the first we ever heard him cough, too--like a shotgun going off every two seconds, big raking sounds that tore up from the bottom of his belly and spilled out wet and loud.

The way it tumbled was this. Rose-Ann went over to him and tried to get him to sit down.

"Spoof, honey, what's wrong? Come on and sit down. Honey, don't just stand there."

Spoof stopped coughing and jerked his head around. He looked at Rose-Ann for a while and whatever there was in his face, it didn't have a name. The whole room was just a quiet as it could be.

Rose-Ann took his arm. "Come on, honey, Mr. Collins--"

He let out one more cough, then, and drew back his hand--that black-topped, pink-palmed ham of a hand--and laid it, sharp across the girl's cheek. It sent her staggering. "Git off my back, hear? d.a.m.n it, git off! Stay 'way from me!"

She got up crying. Then, you know what she did? She waltzed on back and took his arm and said: "Please."

Spoof was just a lot of crazy-mad on two legs. He shouted out some words and pulled back his hands again. "Can't you never learn? What I got to do, G.o.dd.a.m.n little--"

Then--Sonny moved. All-the-time quiet and soft and gentle Sonny. He moved quick across the floor and stood in front of Spoof.

"Keep your black hands off her," he said.

Ol' Ma.s.sub pushed Rose-Ann aside and planted his legs, his breath rattling fast and loose, like a bull's. And he towered over the kid, Goliath and David, legs far apart on the boards and fingers curled up, bowling b.a.l.l.s at the ends of his sleeves.

"You talkin' to me, boy?"

Sonny's face was red, like I hadn't seen it since that first time at the Continental Club, years back.

"You've got ears, Collins. Touch her again and I'll kill you."

I don't know exactly what we expected, but I know what we were afraid of. We were afraid Spoof would let go; and if he did. . . well, put another bed in the hospital, men. He stood there, breathing, and Sonny give it right back--for hours, days and nights, for a month, toe to toe.

Then Spoof relaxed. He pulled back those fat lips, that didn't look like lips any more, they were so tough and leathery, and showed a mouthful of white and gold, and grunted, and turned, and walked away.

We swung into _Twelfth Street Rag_ in _such_ a hurry!

And it got kicked under the sofa.

But we found out something, then, that n.o.body even suspected.

Sonny had it for Rose-Ann. He had it bad.

And that ain't good.Spoof fell to pieces after that. He played day and night, when we were working, when we weren't working. Climbing. Trying to get it said, all of it.

"_Listen, you can't hit Heaven with a slingshot, Daddy-O!_"

"_What you want to do, man--blow Judgement?_"

He never let up. If he ate anything, you tell me when. Sometimes he tied on, straight stuff, quick, medicine type of drinking. But only after he'd been climbing and started to blow flat and ended up in those coughing fits.

And it got worse. Nothing helped, either: foam or booze or tea or even Indoor Sports, and he tried them all. And got worse.

"_Get fixed up, Mr. C, you hear? See a bone-man; you in bad shape_ . . ."

"_Get away from me, get on away!_" Hawk! and a big red spot in the hankerchief. "_Broom off!

Shoo!_"

And gradually the old horn went sour, ugly and bitter sounding, like Spoof himself. Hoo Lord, the way he rode Sonny then: _How you like the dark stuff, boy? You like it pretty good? Hey there, don't hold back. Rosie's fine talent--I know. Want me to tell you about it, pave the way, show you how? I taught you everything else, didn't I?_ And Sonny always clamming up, his eyes doing the talking: "_You were a great musician, Collins, and you still are, but that doesn't mean I've got to like you--you won't let me. And you're d.a.m.n right I'm in love with Rose-Ann! That's the biggest reason why I'm still here--just to be close to her. Otherwise, you wouldn't see me for the dust. But you're too dumb to realize she's in love with you, too dumb and stupid and mean and wrapped up with that lousy horn!_"

What _Sonny_ was too dumb to know was, Rose-Ann had cut Spoof out. She was now Public Domain.

Anyway, Spoof got to be the meanest, dirtiest, craziest, low-talkin'est man in the world. And n.o.body could come in: he had signs out all the time . . .

The night that he couldn't even get a squeak out of his trumpet and went back to the hotel--alone, always alone--and put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, we found something out.

We found out what it was that had been eating at The Ol' Ma.s.suh.

Cancer.

Rose-Ann took it the hardest. She had the dry-weeps for a long time, saying it over and over: "Why didn't he let us know? Why didn't he tell us?"

But, you get over things. Even women do, especially when they've got something to take its place.

We reorganized a little. Sonny cut out the sax--saxes were getting cornball anyway--and took over on trumpet. And we decided against keeping Spoof's name. It was now SONNY HOLMES AND HIS CREW.

And we kept on eating high up. n.o.body seemed to miss Spoof--not the cats in front, as least--because Sonny blew as great a horn as anybody could want, smooth and sure, full of excitement and clean as a gnat's behind.

We played across the States and back, and they loved us--thanks to the kid. Called us an "inst.i.tution" and the disc-jockeys began to pick up our stuff. We were "real," they said--the only authentic jazz left, and who am I to push it? Maybe they were right.

Sonny kept things in low. And then, when he was sure--d.a.m.n that slow way: it had been a cinch since back when--he started to pay attention to Rose-Ann. She played it cool, the way she knew he wanted it, and let it build up right. Of course, who didn't know she would've married him this minute, now, just say the word? But Sonny was a very conscientious cat indeed.

We did a few stands in France about that time--Listen to them holler!--and a couple in England and Sweden--getting better, too--and after a breather, we cut out across the States again.

It didn't happen fast, but it happened sure. Something was sounding flat all of a sudden like--wrong, in a way:During an engagement in El Paso we had _What the Cats Dragged In_ lined up. You all know _Cats_--the rhythm section still, with the horns yelling for a hundred bars, then that fast and solid beat, that high trip and trumpet solo? Sonny had the ups on a wild riff and was coming on down, when he stopped. Stood still, with the horn to his lips; and we waited.

"Come on, wrap it up--you want a drum now? What's the story, Sonny?"

Then he started to blow. The notes came out the same almost, but not quite the same. They danced out of the horn strop-razor sharp and sliced up high and blasted low and the cats all fell out. "Do it! Go! Go, man! Oooo, I'm out of the boat, don't pull me back! Sing out, man!"

The solo lasted almost seven minutes. When it was time for us to wind it up, we just about forgot.

The crowd went wild. They stomped and screamed and whistled. But they couldn't get Sonny to play any more. He pulled the horn away from his mouth--I mean that's the way it looked, as if he was yanking it away with all his strength--and for a second he looked surprised, like he'd been goosed. Then his lips pulled back into a smile.

It was the _d.a.m.ndest_ smile.

Freddie went over to him at the break. "Man, that was the craziest. How many tongues you got?"

But Sonny didn't answer him.