Well he can play that horn alright that I admit. He’s an almighty asshole most days but he’s Saint Dominic himself w/that horn pressed to his lips. He talks too much. He’s a mooch. A leech. He’s bad to women. He smells. But he blows like the last miracle Jesus left on the table just before he went out for cigarets & never came back.
He’s heartless, gutless, ruthless, brainless. Doesn’t have a LICK of common sense. Doesn’t know right from wrong or even right from left for that matter. Cocksucker STILL owes me $$$ from 2 yrs ago. Hey man nail THIS to the cross: that’s the last time I bail HIS scrawny ass out of jail when the rent’s due.
Here he comes now walking up slow on those feet way too big for the rest of him. His feet barely touch the ground. Those heavy eyes barely hang open. He just climbed out of bed I bet. Some married career woman you know. Climbed out the window TWO SECONDS ahead of her husband home early from work. Yeah here he comes now, the gray-tooth sun over his shoulder, & that bruised beat up horn dangling from long thin fingers. It’s sacrilege if it touches the ground. Has to be burned like the flag if it touches the ground. My little brother. Dool. Look at him. Probably in trouble w/the law again.
The night ma died she made me promise to keep him out of prison. Said I had to keep him alive long enough at least to see his thirtieth birthday. That boy he’s got talent that’s for DAM SHOR, she said. But he won’t ever be able to take care a himself, not even a little. So it’s up to you to keep that boy out of trouble. I’m going to see your father now.
& here he comes, twitch twitch snarl. Low hum & heat rising off him. Throwing one foot out in front of the other. Cigaret tween crooked lips. Mumble. Grin. Twitch twitch Snarl. Blotch under his eye. He says, Would you look at my horn. & shows us a new dent. I hit that big motherfucker square on the jaw man. I mean it. I clocked the motherfucker & the fucking ape didn’t even blink. So I hit him again right over the head & Christ Almighty what the fuck. He ain’t fucking human. See look at this dent. Look what he did to my horn. Christ Almighty what the fuck. Then HE hit ME. Made a fist big as the sun. Here look, he says & points to his own eye that looks like an open wound moist w/pus & crusty around the edges.
Tony The Phony. My kid brother owes the big man 6 bills from the Knicks game. Tony’s six feet five, four hundred pounds. Killed his own mother w/a hammer when he was six or so the story goes for switching his lunchbox Twinkie for a red ripe apple.
So’s I tells him I’m broke you know, my little brother says. Just tell him straight up, no fuckin around, that’s the way it is. & he goes & tries to take my horn for it so I went crazy & beat him to a pulp man. He was just meat & juice & a cheap gold chain by the time I was done. He kept crying at the end & whimpering like a dog & begging me to stop. But I wasn’t stopping. Figured I better kill the fuck or this thing’ll never end. He’ll come after me. I’ll go back after him. On & on & I just can’t live w/that kinda shit hanging over my head so…
He rolls the sax over. There’s blood on the horn. Clumps of hair & skin stuck in the fingerings. Brain juice splashed on the brass & even more dents. He says, I kilt him. He wasn’t even breathing a little when I split.
He draws hard on the cigaret. Blows out a stream. His lazy face slides down the narrow cheek bones. Dool says, I figure I should probably get rid of the body but then I get to thinking well what the hell, why not just leave him there, who’ll care. Gotta be a hunnerd people at least want to see him dead & another hunnerd at last who wisht it was them that done it. So what do you think BIG BROTHER. Should I get rid of the body or just leave it for the buzzards, those little spick urchins, those little white niggers w/the blond streaks in their hair. Let’m strip the carcass. They’re always picking somebody’s bones clean. Let’m rub his bones together & start a fire, burn the whole fucking city down. What do I care huh. Options yeah nothing but options. Christ Almighty what the fuck. I hate having more than one thing on my mind. Fucks up my head man. All I wanna do is play my horn in the sun, in the rain, I don’t care. I just wanna play my horn. Coltrane died w/that thing tween his lips & you can bet your ass I will too.
He hisses. The snakes slither up & down him as he split down the street. They protect him w/tongues just long enough for him to disappear in his own long leg strides.
