1. "Take The A Train"

This is the first piece of a work in progress that is not yet titled.
Each segment is identified by the sequence number and the name of a tune that plays some significance in the segment.
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            Zach Rivers’ piano playing embraced a menu of music from everywhere he had been. Although he chose Billy Strayhorn’s “Take The A Train” as his final piece tonight, Rivers was determined to take his audience not straight to Harlem, but on a fifteen minute sonic excursion through the many ethnic neighborhoods along the way. With the direction “we’re taking them to Harlem, the long way” given to his bass player and drummer, he introduced the piece with a grumble of subterranean minor tone clusters picking up speed as Omar Foucault laid down a fat round bass grumble, joined by Tyrus Dupree’s steady chachugga chachugga with his brushes, emulating the sounds of iron wheels clinking on the seams where the rails joined. This tune has always been played as a train song for Riverrun. After a couple of minutes click clack and thrumming, Rivers pulled a switch and shifted into the celebrated run that announces the song, changing the atmosphere in the club to a more familiar line. The band played the bridge jazz-straight before Rivers took his first solo – transporting his audiences with a salsa beat through little Puerto Rico, Juju harmonies through the West African neighborhood, a wisp of Klezmer melody to honor the Jewish residents long gone, and finally ending with the elegantly phrased chords of the Duke, opening the door for Omar Foucault to engineer the train through his own rich historical tendencies.

            Toward the end of his bass solo Dupree joined him, accelerating the pace to where Foucault had exit at the next station. He said his goodbyes and left the drummer to travel alone. Dupree tended to take his solos in chunks of 32 measures. His limbs were not connected to anything other than his gut, and he laid out polyrhythms from all the places he’d been: tribal West Africa, Bali, Motown, New Orleans, the rice patties of Viet Nam, the bath houses of Hell’s Kitchen, and Rikers Island. Rivers loved playing with him because his sense of rhythm came from the rawness of the street, the jungle, and doing time, yet they were never brash or crude. Dupree made statements from places unfamiliar to citizens, but they carried weight, never burdened or preached, and always supported the music.

            The crowd was typical for Riverrun’s regular Thursday night gig. The band had its followers, mostly students from the local university, a handful of jazz fans who expected splendid music who were never disappointed. Then there was Foucault’s student entourage, tourists looking for something different from home. Like Kingston Mines in Chicago, Ryles in Cambridge, and Tipitina’s in New Orleans, Tibor’s’s could be found in every tourist guide, and had a well-deserved reputation for presenting the best local talent across genres in the area. Tibor Meszaros owned the joint ever since he emigrated from Hungry where he was a Freedom Fighter during the revolution in ’56. A miserable son-of-a-bitch who owned a dozen or so slum apartment buildings in the city, he had a wart on his cheek that resembled a dead spider, wore outdated pin stripe suits he bought at the local Salvation Army, had an awful comb over that looked like a squid laid down and died. Yet he took pride in his club, and had an uncanny sense in finding musicians who had something new to offer. Rivers got a solo gig after he fixed some problem for Meszaros, and expanded to a trio in order to explore new musical terrain and to increase his musical possibilities.

            As if there were some powerful sonic magnet, the trio pulled to play the head, fairly inside, one more time. They stopped on a dime, bowed, and Rivers mumbled “Omar Foucault on bass, Tyrus Dupree on drums. Thank you for coming,” and left the stage. After receiving the envelope from Rivers with his share of the door, Foucault headed for the bar where his buddies from college were waiting for him with a pitcher of beer. Dupree broke down his drum kit. Rivers handed him his envelope and two fingers of  Wild Turkey neat. “Good gig. Thanks. See you next Thursday.”

            By 2:30 the fog outside had turned into a drizzle, which distorted the lights from the other businesses along the waterfront. This was a favorite time for Rivers, who measured his life by chunks of favorite times, a strategy that served him well when he worked for the CIA, and for now, as he lived alone in a world of his choosing. The combination of fatigue and satisfaction heightened his senses, and as he walked the half mile in the moist salty night he thought of how his unencumbered life, simple, with a great deal of time, without obligations or responsibilities, was a good life. His old life as an agent got too complicated. Too many situations were beyond his control; too many jackasses giving orders; too many dirt bags having their asses saved; too much duplicity, treachery, cruelty. His adult life had been as chaotic as his childhood when he was living with parents who were drunks. Now things were good. He had no close friends, but that was his choice. Lost trust in others, and he was good with that. Yet he continued to help people in jams. It added interest to his quiet life, and those favors were reciprocal, and he collected many unspoken markers for later use. There were no special woman in his life and he was good with that. Being a piano player he had no trouble finding a willing companion for a night or a weekend when the desire arose. Longer than that and they began to ask questions that he didn’t want to answer. Being his age the desire arouse as often as a full moon, and he was good with that too.

As he walked to the entrance to his condo on the marina, he breathed in the cool sea air and thought, “as long as I continue to keep a low profile and stay uninvolved, I could live the rest of my life like this.”

            From the beam of the streetlight he saw what looked like a pile of rags bunched against his door. Moving closer he realized that it was a body. The long blond hair was matted and disheveled, a dark raincoat over a white dress that was drenched with blood. He bent down on one knee, placing his right ear near her nose. He heard a faint girlish moan. She was breathing. She was still alive. He got up and scanned the perimeter of his complex, seeing nothing suspicious. He looked down at the crumpled figure at his feet, and whispered, “fuck.”