The Sound of Building Coffins (33 page)

The poison went down quick; hot and bitter, stinging his throat and blurring his vision immediately. He felt a sharp pain in his gut—this was good. But also it was a signal to move fast or not at all.

He collected the scattered pieces of Lily from the table and floor, put them in his trusty, all-purpose, burlap coffee bag. As he began this final errand, the lyrics of a song marched through his mind like a line of diligent ants.

A song whose melody he could no longer recall.

Chapter forty-four

The Twenty Tens

Buddy Bolden was sleeping the remorseless sleep of drunkards and angels.

Bap bap bap bap bap bap bap bap bap.

“
Damn,” he whispered. Then, not loud but neither a whisper: “
Whoever that is, get lost!
Man trine to get a little shut-eye in here.” Buddy pressed his eyes closed once more, muttering, “Working man, too. Hard working man just needin’ a little sleep is all. People knocking in the middle of the damn night ain’t got no manners ’round here. True, true. Sad but true.”

Bap bap bap bap bap bap bap bap bap.

“
God
damn
it.” Buddy’s eyes stayed defiantly shut. More muttering: “Ain’t answerin’ that damn door.” Then louder, for the benefit of the knocker, “
Ain’t answerin’ that damn door, ya hear?
Come back in the mornin’ if it’s so doggone ’portant!”

“
It
is
morning,” said a high-timbered voice that Buddy struggled to recognize. “
Past
mornin’, Buddy. Nearly one in the afternoon.”

Buddy wasn’t in the mood for arguing such minutiae. “I don’t hear ya and I
won’t
hear ya! Now git gone!” Then, diminishing from angry to desperate: “I work late and need to sleep in a little. Have a mercy now and leave me be.
Please!
”

“
Up
drinkin’
late is more like it,” said the voice. “Get up now, Buddy. The world is passing you by.”

“
Let it pass, then!” Buddy shouted, his head settling back into the pillow, his mind drifting rapidly towards unfinished dreams. The would-be intruder’s persistent knock turned into a dream of knocking; mercifully pounding Buddy deeper into dreamland. It wasn’t till the rhythm changed that Buddy found himself coming back around.

Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.

It was a knock he hadn’t heard in years—the secret knock from Charley the Barber’s old backroom gin joint. To hear that particular knock all the sudden and from out of nowhere was a curious thing; so curious that Buddy found himself fully awake and in a sitting position, staring at the door. Suddenly, he placed the voice.

Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.

He got to his feet, undid the latch; the door swung wide.

“
Where’d you learn that knock, boy?”

“
Didn’t learn it. Just made it up,” said Jim Jam Jump hopefully. “You like it? Mebbe you can put it in a song.”

Buddy rubbed his eyes and let himself believe Jim doing Charley’s old knock was a product of his own rye-soaked imagination. “Dammit boy, what in hell is so allfired important you gotta stand out there beating my damn door when you know damn well I’m trine ta sleep? I’d do good to whip yer damn hide and there ain’t a judge ner jury who’d convict me fer—”

“
Settle down, now, Buddy. I come to make you a richer man. Just let me speak my piece, wouldja?” Jim extracted a thick wad of ten-dollar bills from his back pocket.

Buddy eyed the wad suspiciously, figuring the top bill to be hiding a roll of ones or, more likely, just plain newsprint. Still, the sight of that top bill alone was enough to bring him near sober. “What’s this about, sonny?”

“
Gotcher curiosity up, have I?” Jim unrolled and flipped the money between thumb and forefinger like a deck of cards. All tens. Buddy didn’t respond, just raised his eyebrows some.

Jim went on: “I expect you’ll be interested in selling that horn of yours now, Buddy. I mean considering all that’s transpired of late. In fact, in a gesture of sympathy towards yer loss, I’ve decided to double my final offer. What you see here is not one but
two
hunnert American legal tender U.S. dollars.” Jim flipped the roll again for punctuation.

“
Goddammit, if I done told ya once I told you a thousand differ’nt times that horn ain’t fer sale. I’m handin’ her down to my boy when I’m through with her. Now if you would only get that through yer thick—”

“
Oh dear,” Jim interrupted. “You haven’t heard. Well, gosh, of course you haven’t heard. You been asleep all afternoon. I guess I just thought maybe they’d-a sent a copper out to tell ya. Well, hell, I’m truly sorry, Buddy. Mebbe I should just be off and on my way. We can talk about this at a better—”

“
Fer the love of Christ Almighty what in hell are you goin’ on about, kid?”

“
Well, I hate to be the one to break it—”

“
Fine, I’m going back to bed.” Buddy wasn’t in the mood for games.

But before the door closed, Jim managed to get out: “West is dead.”

The door held at six inches, and opened no further. In Buddy’s fragile, hung-over state of mind, to open it wider might make the words more real. “What?”

“
Kilt dead this morning out by the river. Murdered. Seen it myself.”

“
What are you saying? Murdered? My little boy was murdered? I don’t believe—”

“
Seen it myself. Seen it happen. Sorry.”

“
Yer lyin’ to me. Why would you make up something like that? Fer a damn horn?” There was a part of Buddy unable to believe West might really be gone—but another part filtered the truth from Jim’s eyes.

“
Yer brother-in-law the dummy did it. Dropsy. Snapped his little neck with one quick twist. Real coldhearted-like.”

“
Now I know yer lyin’,” said Buddy. “Dropsy ain’t much fer brains but he loves my little West.”

“
Ya mean
wasn’t
much fer brains. Dropsy dead, too. Killed his own self right after. Walked in the river with a blank expression on his face, like one of them hoodoo zombies. Like to make my blood run cold the way—”

“
Yer lyin’.”

“
Coldest, weirdest thing I ever seen.”

“
Oh my God…” Buddy could no longer pretend—breaking into sobs, backing away from the half-open door. Jim walked in as Buddy lowered himself to the edge of the bed, reaching for the cornet that lay to the left of the pillow, stroking it for comfort. The tender display of flesh against brass made Jim’s mouth water.

“
Now about that horn, Buddy…”

Buddy’s eyes went blank as he got to his feet, waving the cornet at Jim. “You want this horn? This what you want? Will all the evil in yer black little heart’ll just lay down and die if you get yer hands on
THIS. DAMN. HORN
?”

“
Buddy, now, take it easy. I’m just talking about a simple business transaction is all. Pretty lucrative one for you, I gotta say…”

“
You want this horn?” Buddy was shaking at the knees. “Well, I’ll just go and let you have it then.”

Jim Jam Jump, who prided himself on quick reflexes and a keen ability to work out most any angle well in advance would kick himself later for not having seen this coming. He honestly never expected Buddy might do anything to put his beloved cornet in harm’s way. As it turned out, Buddy’s grief and anger were just strong enough to put him over that edge—and now here he was pounding Jim’s head with the cherished instrument. Got in three solid hits before Jim managed to collect himself, to twist away and out of range.

“
Now, Buddy, that ain’t no way ta—”

“
I’ll kill ya. I’ll kill ya, ya little shit.”

“
I believe you would…”

Jim executed an artful dance around the shaky swings of Buddy Bolden, staying close but dodging further blows, trying to figure a way to throw a few of his own. A quick, right fisted jab to Buddy’s groin caused the horn to drop, another dropped Buddy to his knees, the musician sucking in air with bulging eyes. Jim snatched the cornet from the ground—immediately spinning it longways in a horizontal circle till the wide end connected with Buddy’s temple. The hit was direct and decisive; Buddy went down hard.

Jim hadn’t even broken a sweat. Examining the cornet with loving fingers and worried eyes, he checked it for damage.

“
They sure do make these things durable,” said Jim aloud, marveling at how the instrument had survived the scuffle unscathed.

“
Well, then,” Jim said to Buddy’s unmoving form, “to answer your question, I do indeed want this horn. Sounds like we done made ourselves a deal.”

Jim stooped down to stuff Buddy’s pockets with the twenty tens before leaving. Then he walked to the river, whistling a happy tune.

Once at the river, he washed Buddy’s blood from the cornet.

Chapter forty-five

This is Blood

Just below the river’s surface: smooth, white, sacred hands rub and loosen spots of red from the golden skin of Buddy Bolden’s cornet. Upon liberation, the spots become wisps of red, mingling and joining together into a cloud of nearly invisible pink, lingering with residual longing near the hands that have freed them. When the hands have washed away every drop, the horn is pulled back quickly into the tacky warmth of living air. There is no song to comfort this thing, this cloud of faded, loose color. It must find its own, create its own.

Thus delivered and abandoned by the exquisitely cruel hands, the cloud of pink is left to fend for itself in the great body of water. Locating its scent, tiny life-forms are immediately drawn to the smell of it, investigating the possibility of nourishment with hungry, minute thrashes, giving the blood-cloud its first bit of information, telling it that it can no longer stay in one place and survive, that it must move on. Must avoid premature consumption. Must deliver its message.

This is blood. This

(…)

is
jazz.

The pink is humbled by its own fragile existence, feeding only on the energy of its fear. It is fear that motivates it, fear urging it to complete some unknown transformation or transaction, to become something brand new, something bold, a pocket of strength from a thing recently weak, a garment extraordinary from unremarkable plain cloth. The pink dives downward, elongating and thinning in shape as it accelerates, occasionally pausing to dance, to hesitate and waver, investigating; cautiously, gracefully, to trip and glide, to swoop and soar, to make its own way, to devise its own type of existence; joy, pain, heartache, triumph.

Its initial sense of longing for familiar pain evaporates quickly as it grows accustomed to a freedom of movement it had never known in the veins of Buddy Bolden. Its form changes at whim of speed and current—there is no recklessness in this movement for there is nothing to lose. It is a wondrous thing, this elasticity of form.

The deeper it travels, the darker its surroundings become—and the more defined the lights. Lights. These are the lights of the dead; souls unknown to blood.

Unknown to blood, this blood, this song
en utero
.

The cloud of red is no longer what it was. It has reached the Spiritworld. It is home at last. Through water it will touch the world. Its time will come soon. It cannot die. But immortality carries a price.

What is sacrificed is a thing newly absent from the soul of Buddy Bolden.

Chapter forty-six

Diphtheria’s Cure

On the morning that Marcus Nobody Special buried the small body of West Bolden, the sky was slightly overcast and the air oddly unmoist for New Orleans, a comfort downright uncomfortable in a community so accustomed to discomfort. As if to make up for the oversight, the night brought a distinct chill.

Diphtheria had locked herself in her room at Arlington House since hearing the bad news, shutting herself off from the world just as Hattie had done in the wake of her cure. To work the parlor would feel inappropriate at the least and pointless at best. Old customers and friends had come to call, to pay respects and sympathies, but sharing grief and chit-chat were things she didn’t feel much up to. The only person she’d allowed comfort from was Hattie—and mostly because Hattie had put up with her own forceful sympathies in recent weeks.

The funeral itself had been a bleak affair that attracted few mourners. Not that she expected great numbers to attend the burial of the son of a whore, but the absence of Typhus and Buddy had left a bitter taste on her tongue. Buddy’s failure to show had surprised no one, of course—being that he was a no-account scoundrel and a drunkard on
good
days. Typhus, on the other hand, had always cared very much for Diphtheria and West. After Father Elois’ brief service, Malaria had whispered in Diphtheria’s ear, “Typhus got some troubles. Don’t feel bad he ain’t here.” But the whisper only served to underline her feelings of abandonment.