SELF PROMOTION: A Tale Of Workplace Terror Read online

Otis Willis is found near the East River, his chest cut open, heart torn out. They leave the next day, heading west. At The Regal Theatre in Chicago, guitarist Fat Willie Smith goes down, and trumpet player Louis St. Pierre gets garroted in an alley behind The Fox in Detroit. Both men have their chests emptied out.

  “Deek, whatchu doin’ with them hearts?”

  “What hearts?”

  “I ain’t dumb. I know what’s goin’ on.”

  “Then why you askin’ dumb questions?”

  “What are you doin’ with their hearts, Deek?”

  “Hush, boy. You don’t know nothing. Some songs demand sacrifice…”

  +++++

  Bach and Handel try to turn it into a church hymn. They burn in hell for that. Always will.

  +++++

  When Wilma Walters sings “Blues From Beyond,” it sounds like she’s dying. Or giving birth. Or—as the boy learns during a weeklong stint at a whorehouse near Mobile—experiencing a toe-curling orgasm. All the mysteries of life, death, love, and sex are there in Wilma’s vocal.

  So it’s hard to tell that night when the boy hears Wilma’s unearthly sounds coming from behind the woodie after a gig in Tallahassee, if she’s orgasmic or dying, the pinnacle of pleasure and the extinguishment of life sound so alike. Even when he sees Sonny Deacon moving and thrashing on top of her, the boy can’t be sure of what’s happening. It isn’t until Sonny Deacon stands and turns, revealing his blood-soaked hands and Wilma’s torn-open corpse, that the boy fully comprehends. He finally gets a chance to see Wilma’s big, beautiful breasts, though they look flat and sad now, hanging on either side of her hollowed-out rib cage, her tiny photo locket splashed with blood.

  “Oh, Deek...how could you?”

  Sonny Deacon looks ashen and pale, weak and confused. The boy knows this will end soon…knows he must end it.

  “How could you?” the boy asks again, and Sonny looks like he doesn’t even recognize him.

  “The song,” he says, words slurred. Sonny’s been drinking, and the boy wonders how drunk you have to be in order to tear your lover to pieces. “Some songs demand sacrifice…”

  +++++

  The snake twists in Mozambique, and the Chopi beat their primitive xylophones, capturing music far beyond their ability with their timbila, and it twists again…

  +++++

  The next night, in Panama City, Sonny’s too drunk to play piano, so he sings and plays harmonica, and lets the kid sit behind the keyboard. They got a drummer, and a stand-up bass player, Big John and Little John, and things sound tight. Then that young fool goes into “Blues From Beyond,” nailing that opening run to the wall, and filling the club with dark ghosts few could see.

  Sonny makes the harp moan and wail, his part an homage to Wilma’s absent vocals, calling out for them like a lost lover. Sonny’s in tears by the end of the number. So is the boy. The two Johns could care less. It’s their first gig with Sonny. They’d never met Wilma Walters, and never would.

  Sonny signals for a break, and heads out back for a smoke. A few minutes later the boy joins him, cupping his hands against the ocean breeze so he can light a cigarette of his own. His hands shake. His entire body vibrates like a string tuned up too tight. He can’t hold it in any longer. He starts crying. His tears make him look even younger than he actually is, make him look like a little kid, despite the cigarette dangling from his lips.

  “I loved Wilma Walters,” the boy says, weeping openly, without shame. “You shouldn’t have done what you done, Deek.”

  “I loved her too, kid. But you don’t understand shit about shit,” Sonny says. “That tune gets hungry, and it don’t ever want to stop eating. You’ll see. Guess after tonight you reckon to feed it yourself from now on. That what you figurin’, boy?”

  “I’m figuring to kill you, Sonny Deacon, because of what you done to Wilma,” the boy says. “And all them others. You’re sick, Deek.”

  “Think so? You’re gonna be sick too, now that that song’s yours. You’ll spend the rest of your life trying to get rid of it. It eats what you love, boy. Whatever you love most, that’s what it wants most. You’ll see.”

  The boy pitches his smoke into a puddle.

  “Have another one, Deek. Next set starts in five minutes.”

  “I will,” Sonny says, lighting another cigarette off the smoldering filter of the one preceding it.

  The boy goes back into the club, straight to the bar. There’s an old white man serving drinks.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the boy asks politely. “I was wondering if you have a weapon I can borrow? A rifle or something. There’s some kind of animal out back by our wagon, and I want to scare it off.”

  The old man gives the boy a narrow look.

  “I got a shotgun behind this bar, both barrels loaded with buckshot. But I ain’t letting nobody borrow it, least of all some little colored kid,” he says. “That animal still lurking around your wagon after the show, I’ll help you chase ‘em off. Meantime, you best tell Sonny he’s got one set left. I don’t care how drunk he is; I’m payin’ for three sets of music, and he better give me three sets.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy says.

  He goes back outside. Sonny’s still smoking by the wagon. There’s a cord of firewood stacked up by the back wall of the club. Near the woodpile is a bunch of unsplit logs, and next to that is a long-handled, double-headed ax sticking out of a chopping block.

  +++++

  The end.

  The beginning.

  An ape-man strikes two stones together at timed intervals.

  Rhythm is born.

  He moans and wails, mimicking pain and pleasure.

  A story is told.

  Music is born.

  The beginning.

  The end.

  +++++

  The boy grabs the handle with both hands, pulls the ax from the chopping block. It’s heavy. Even though the boy is becoming a man—has been a man, technically, ever since their stint at the whorehouse—he still needs two hands to carry the ax down to where Sonny sits.

  “Done with your smoke, Deek?” the boy asks.

  Sonny nods. “I suppose so. What you doin’ with that ax, kid?”

  “Goodbye, Deek,” the boy says.

  He raises the ax over his head, and brings the blade down onto Sonny’s skull with all his might. Sonny makes no effort to fight back or defend himself. He doesn’t scream, or try to run away. He lets the boy cleave his head in two without protest. The boy pulls the ax away, can see clear down into Sonny’s windpipe, which bubbles like a red fountain. Sonny falls over. The boy lays the bloodied ax down on the block, heads back into the club.

  He takes the stage. The two Johns are waiting. They see blood on his clothes and hands. There’s a chunky patch on his shirt that looks like strawberry jam, only those fluffy white bits aren’t marshmallow, they’re what passed for brains in Sonny Deacon’s head. But neither John says anything. They stare at him.

  “Sonny ain’t gonna make the third set tonight, fellas,” he tells them. “Let’s finish this out as a trio.”

  He plays “Lazy River Waltz,” and “Mississippi Moonshine.” He even works in two original numbers: “Lord, Lay My Sweet Soul Down,” and “My Baby Likes A Bottle.”

  The audience seems to like them. He keeps them dancing throughout the third set, and they give the band a warm round of applause when they finish.

  The old man behind the bar must have heard about Sonny’s body out back. He gives him a worried look, but pays the boy the agreed-upon amount for the night.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  He hesitates a moment, looks at the bottles lining the bar behind the old man.

  “Whiskey Jones,” he says.

  “Well, Whiskey, you played a good set tonight,” the old man says. “But I don’t want you back here aga
in. Understand?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Cops are on their way with the meat wagon to collect the dead nigger out back,” he continues. “Nobody gives a shit if an old, drunk nigger gets his head split open. Even so, you might not want to stand around with his blood and brains all over you. Police don’t care if you niggers kill each other, but they can’t turn a blind eye if you wave it in their faces. Understand, Whiskey?”

  The boy nods.

  “Musicians been coming through here for years talkin’ shit about murders on the circuit, but nobody believed them. Figured they was all a bunch of nigger dopers,” the old man says. “But maybe there’s some truth to those rumors after all. I don’t know what part you been playing in all this, Whiskey Jones, but I suggest you get the hell out of here, and don’t come back.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He pays the two Johns their share, and goes out back. Somebody had pushed Sonny’s body over by the garbage cans, and tossed a tarp over it. The boy pulls the tarp aside, and fishes around in Sonny’s pockets until he finds the keys to the woodie. He covers the body back up.

  “See you around, Deek,” he whispers.

  He has to sit on the edge of the front seat, and use the tips of his toes to reach the pedals, but he’s able to drive the woodie away.

  +++++

  Wolfgang. So mad. So tortured. You curse the day Salieri showed it to you. There is no escape. Even in death.

  +++++

  The next day he finds a butcher’s knife stuck up under the front seat of the woodie. The big, serrated teeth along the edge look coated with rust, but he doesn’t think it’s rust. He drops it from a bridge into the Mississippi River that afternoon.

  He drives and gigs, drives and gigs, Pensacola to Mobile, Mobile to Biloxi and Gulfport, Gulfport to New Orleans, then Baton Rouge, on to Texas, further west, then north, then doubling back east, then down south again, wondering if each gig will be his last, the one where the authorities question him about Sonny Deacon’s death. What would he say? He doesn’t know, just drives and plays, the routes familiar to him after more than a year on the road with Sonny and Wilma. He plays the song, the song that makes everything all right, makes everything possible, makes everything happen, and the spirits whisper to him, “You’ll never get caught, you’ll never get caught.”

  The spirits lie. He gets caught, but not by the police. The United States Army catches him, wants him to fight in the Big War. How can he refuse? Nobody asks any questions about Sonny Deacon. Evidently that bartender in Panama City was right. Nobody gave a shit about an old, drunk nigger getting his head split open.

  +++++

  Much is written about Beethoven going deaf in the final years of his life. But it is forbidden to write about the true cause of his deafness, the long needles he inserted into his ears in an effort to rid himself of that haunting melody, that infernal composition. It doesn’t work. Even deaf, the song continues to play on and on in his head.

  +++++

  He’s not a fighter. Even though the war is almost over, there are still plenty of brothers stepping on landmines, and taking snipers’ bullets. He wants no part of it. He dodges away in the Army Jazz Band, gets a transfer to the 41st Infantry Band, and plays with Quincy Jones for six months. He shows Quincy the tune one night after a drunken binge. Quincy gets Whiskey Jones transferred to another army band unit the following morning.

  +++++

  How many musicians die young, in their prime, before their time? So many. Too many. How many put their ears, hands, and hearts to that tune with the fantastical opening run, that tune with many names, that tune with no name at all?

  If someone told you “all of them” you wouldn’t believe it, and you’d be right not to. Some untimely deaths are merely accidents. Planes crash in bad weather. Drunken musicians fall into swimming pools and drown. It happens sometimes. Sometimes.

  And if someone told you “more than you think” you might also suspect it, because the idea of a