Down, Out, and Over
Prohibition cried Time Out! and so
the world, when feeling down, went out and played
and partied for their pick-me-up. One day,
as unremarkable as any other,
I hoofed it to a speakeasy. There, three
jazz geniuses lit up the smoky world
with joyful turns so unlike any other
before or since, their sweetness born from sadness
(which was and is the wont of jazz) that, had
I been a writer, I’d have made them names
of note. Now, not all speakeasies had fire
doors. And that day, which started out
as unremarkable as any other,
some hepcat hooked on hooch who would be suave
lit up a cigarette and threw the match
down too far from a bin or ash tray. He’d
forgotten, in his brief inebriation
of that night, which seemed so like any other,
that hooch meant vomit. And sawdust. So, poof.
And none of those who did get out alive
could tell me the musicians’ names.
On my twenty-first birthday—this was still
in the Jazz Age—my father, who would have
his own be just like him, gave me an Old
Mr. Boston, The Guide to mixing drinks.
I learned to mix drinks and to think of it
as something suave. The book was red and thin
to fit down in a blazer’s inside pocket
so one could take it anywhere one went,
and so I did. I never thought that red
meant danger. But one day, unnotable
as any other, we took The Guide with
us on our yacht and went out past the three-
mile mark so we could drink. My father was
impressed, and even tickled, I mixed such
magnificent martinis, which he loved.
He kept me mixing “More!” and “More more MORE!”
and even told me to mix up a batch
for the crew, as well as the pianist
and chanteuse we’d hired for the day. The jazz
was heavenly as hooch. Now, looking back,
I realize that only the musicians
stayed sober. They had learned to sip so slowly
their glasses never emptied. (You can’t pass
out and get paid, after all.) But they were
not sailors, so when the storm hit, the yacht
went down, and everybody with it. As
the boat was sinking, I asked the chanteuse
and her accompanist, accomplished in
his own right as a master of the keyboard,
their names.
Even from Oblivion,
I’ve managed to dictate these pages to
a pen, who wrote it down, so I can be
where you are, be a part of you, if not
more than the breath of long ago, anon.
And if you close your eyes, you just might hear
between these lines the silence of jazz tunes
trilled and tickled by talents so sweet-sad
you’ll want to hear them over and over,
and even wonder, one day, on their name.
Or mine.