Bluebird
Long, cool notes spilled into the late November chill each time the door of the Bluebird Lounge swung open. Of course, nobody was leaving. Each time the cold dashed through the door it was accompanied by those hoping to find a place to sit, or even to stand, in the crown jewel of Milwaukee’s East side. The club had earned a reputation as an oasis of classic jazz and blues, a brave last stand of authenticity against the encroachment of the banally pretentious and self-consciously commercial. That’s not to say the “Bluebird” wasn’t a financial success. It’s just to say that wasn’t the point.
The main event on this night was the Kimble Hodges Combo featuring Nero Kimble, acknowledged axe master, in particular the alto sax. Local talent, the Chuck Free quintet, got a boost from the privilege of opening for the star attraction on an evening celebrating thirty years for the Bluebird. A collective sigh of relief from faithful patrons that their beloved haunt had survived the forced closings that punched permanent holes along once-familiar streets floated above the excitement swirling like leaves along the sidewalk.
During the closure, the club owners made a bold move to expand. They hired an architectural engineering firm to devise a way to open ceiling space between the lower bar, which was sunken halfway beneath the level of the sidewalk, and the first floor, which previously held the only seating in the lounge with a view of the stage. Twin spiral staircases in the corners at the back joined the two floors. The ceiling of that first story was also opened wide to the second story, save for load-bearing pillars. A narrow aisle wound around the iron café tables, lining a three-sided balcony overlooking the main floor and stage. The whole affair was simply adorned in exposed brick, weathered brass, low lighting, and an enormous stained-glass picture of a bluebird suspended in midair from the rafters. The expansion for their anniversary re-opening couldn’t have been more prescient.
The last time Nero and his friends were on tour, the nearest they got to the Milwaukee area were select Chicago venues with well-worn steps and iconic signage. Ki-Ho, as devotees quirkily called the band, had returned to the studio after the pandemic furor subsided. Consequently, they had not been on the road in over two years. They had chosen the Bluebird Lounge to launch their new tour. With no Chicago dates until the schedule’s end, for blocks the east side streets of Milwaukee were littered with Illinois plates. The trains had been packed. The taxi and Uber services did a brisk business. Some pilgrims had even come in that morning, taking in the Calatrava and an early dinner. Others booked rooms and made reservations for brunch the next day. The Bluebird almost single-handedly gave the local hospitality industry a badly needed boost. It was no wonder the club was a cherished fixture of the eclectic east side.
A few blocks west of Farwell Street, just past the flurry of activity that surrounded the Bluebird, was an odd little spot, not really a park at all, just an irregular bend in the street where a few trees eked out an unnoticed existence at the open end of an alley between a duplex and the back of a commercial building. Their skinny arms, stripped of meager rags of brown and yellow, reached skyward in defiant hope.
Cars squeezed into any available spot, disgorging local occupants who had miscalculated the parking situation near the Bluebird. These hopefuls wistfully cast wishes of a table or spot at the bar as they passed the lonely trees. None of them saw that beneath and behind these erstwhile sentinels hid a seemingly random collection of skids and crates. In their hurry they failed to discern the flaps of black tarpaulin fluttering in the cold darkness. They did not notice the eyes watching them from inside the pretense of a shelter.
He could see them as they passed. He could hear their every word. As they walked beneath each successive streetlamp, he took in the glitter of the women, the deep laughter of the men. Over and over, he heard the names of the club, of the band, and of the star who they had come to see on the lips of these passing strangers, the faithful seeking musical nirvana on the cold streets of his city.
It was his city, you know. He had slept in a million of its overlooked corners. He had traversed miles of its neighborhoods by day, always moving lest he garner the attention that might lead to his capture. On the few occasions he had let his guard down, he had found himself in custody. Some part of him knew those times had not really been so awful. There had been a shower, and a warm, clean place to sleep, a hot meal. On one occasion, he had even been subjected to a medical exam and an assessment of his mental wellbeing. Though he had tried the shelter several times, he could no longer conform to reality sufficiently to make it last. There was no life for him as others had, with a job and a place to rest when the sun began to set. For him, it might vanish by morning.
As he sat with his random perceptions, he recalled the poster on the marquee next to the door of the Bluebird. Even in the harshness of daylight that afternoon, it had held his gaze in a tender caress. The purples and blues, the gold against the inky black, all celebrating the return of one he revered as a one might a potentate. Nero Kimble. He had stared at that face and the ax in his elegant hands for delicious moments, sipping, swirling, savoring memories of perfect sound until the war-whoop of a siren on the cross street sent him skittering down the sidewalk in the company of a few fistfuls of dead leaves.
The passing voices had gradually receded into the night only to be replaced by those other voices, the ones that were always with him. Even in those few times that he didn’t hear them, they hung back, waiting to ambush him with whispers he had to strain to hear. Sometimes they screamed at him in a discordant chorus so loud they could drown out the words coming from people around him. He would get very angry then. The people would recoil from him in fear or disgust or even return the anger, never knowing his rage was really directed at the voices who seemed bent on keeping him all to themselves. This left him deeply sad.
He rarely tried to defend himself from misunderstanding because the words would trip and stumble on the way out of his mouth, like he and his Army buddies on a drunk. It was their voices he feared the most. In truth, he loved all those guys, but they were gone now. So, their voices made him cry, and he’d lose his balance inside, falling, falling, down through the darkness of nothingness.
Only the music inside of him, rich and lush as Memphis at twilight, silenced the voices. Their cacophony would quiet, joining him in silent reverence so as not to miss a single note. The helpful people had given him pills once. The voices went away, but so did his music. He had run away then, walking, hitching his way south. An odd collection of jobs had managed to keep his body and soul intact. He was gone a long time.
In the end, Milwaukee meant home to him for some reason he could not grasp, so when it beckoned, he returned. Fragments of love, scraps of life, threadbare memories of boyhood, manhood, even marriage and two children, lay squirreled away in corners of his being for safekeeping in case he might need them someday, though for what he couldn’t quite remember.
The music was calling to him amidst the street sounds and muted mumblings. It began inside him like always, softly, growing in volume as the murmuring within him stilled. Emerging from his sanctuary, he shivered as he gazed at a clear but moonless sky, marred only by garish city lights competing with fragile stars. He pulled up the hood of a stained, army surplus sweatshirt as far as it would go over a black knit cap with a hole growing where an emblem of some kind used to be.
He trudged slowly, tentatively along the edges of the sidewalks. If others came his way, he ducked between buildings or into doorways. He hesitated as he got nearer to Farwell, a veritable symphony of traffic and people. Alight with the energy of the auspicious night, the very air held its breath in anticipation.
Unexpectedly the voices shouted out, startling him. Panicked, he almost fled into the night, but the music called to him over the insidious mocking of the voices, coaxing him onward with its warm and voluptuous beauty. He turned the corner and crept along, keeping close to the buildings, averting his gaze from passersby, most of whom either didn’t notice him or, if they did, they pretended they didn’t.
He stopped when he got near the entrance to the Bluebird. He stood staring at the marquee poster again, now lit up on the display for the evening’s arrival. The music was growing louder within him with each step but also outside of him with each opening of the door to the club. He reached out a shaking, gnarled branch of a hand, grasping the door handle. In a single desperate move, he stepped across the threshold.
Inside the club, velvety light cast from wall sconces warmed faces with satiated smiles beneath eyes glued to the stage or closed in ecstasy arising from the sounds pouring out like fine vintage. Nobody noticed the ragged form that was slowly making its way toward the main floor. Sumptuous syncopation smiled as luxurious riffs swirled seductively along each line of melody. Cool notes glided to their side, embracing in tender flirtation that begged for consummation. As the homage to Coltrane’s “It’s Easy to Remember” faded into the afterglow, the apparition in the filthy sweatshirt wove his way between the tables.
The music coming from the stage had stopped; in fact, it seemed all the sounds had ceased, as if those present were straining to hear the music he heard. Surrounded by members of the audience and a band too stunned to process what was happening before their eyes, he climbed onto the stage, walking right up to Nero Kimble. Perhaps it was a certain tenderness in his mad eyes, a look of passionate desire long tended in a tattered but pure heart. When he reached firmly but gently for the saxophone in the master’s hands, they surrendered her to him.
Unbeknownst to him as he cherished the golden creature in his fingers with dirty nails, someone had called for the police. He winced as the voices came screaming. The music though was stronger now, assuring him. He raised the beloved to his lips, and the man and his love became one as the music flowed through him to her and took flight sweeping across the otherwise still, silent atmosphere of the room. His eyes closed to all but the unfolding rapture, he did not see the officers enter the main floor. Neither did he see he see Nero raise his hand in sovereign authority, shaking his head in the direction of the man and woman in uniform.
The gilded throat of that sax uttered a song heard for the first time that night. His savior, the music, silenced fear and loss and pain and every dark voice that hounded him down a thousand voids. Baptized and reborn, he played on and on, as no sound but his music filled the room. Part of him knew his actions were wrong‒not to be accepted or excused. His hands shook some as he wove into his melody threads of a riff from “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Soon though, the music took over completely, the melody and counter notes rising like a heron from a lake. Sultry eloquence soared as Nero picked up a tenor sax, joining in as his band followed suit. The others present were gripped in awe. It was as if they no longer saw the man in his revolting degradation. They only heard the music.
The last note kissed his lips in a lingeringly tender farewell, gentle as the tear rolling down his grizzled cheek. Holding it from him, the man stared for a timeless moment at the beauty lying silent in his now trembling hands. Only as he handed her reverently back to Nero did he become aware of his tears. Wiping at them only smeared the grime on his crumpled face.
The jeering of the voices rose within him then, threatening, mocking. He glanced at the packed room in fear. The gloom beyond the footlights held a thousand eyes, among them the outline of two police officers. Nero was speaking, but it was hard for him to understand over the screaming in his head.
“Cool jammin’, man! Really out there! I mean right. Some chops!” The crowd leapt to their feet in roaring applause.
The voices were shouting a strident stream of conflicting orders.
Nero looked into the man’s bewildered eyes. “What’s your name, man? You one cool cat!”
“Keith!” A sweet voice shouted from the crowd. “Keith. Is that you, hon?”
He could not see her, but his mind knew that voice. The only kind voice in his invisibly miserable life. He associated it with hot coffee, free hot coffee, truly free with no strings.
“Keith! It’s me, Bridget…and Henry. You know Henry.”
A slender girl dressed in black with long blond hair graced by a single pink streak and her date, a tall, dark man in a tee shirt, blazer and jeans left their table, which was quickly filled by a couple of women who’d been standing the whole time along the wall near the back entrance. The young woman, with her man in tow, tried desperately to reach the stage ahead of the officers. The names Henry and Bridget floated to the surface of the man’s mind, but he couldn’t remember why those names meant something to him.
The man began to push his way toward the rear door. Tripping over a table leg he almost went down. The voices inside howled in laughter, chiding him. He began to swear at them, but it seemed he was yelling at the patrons who pulled away from him in familiar disgust.
“Hey, Keith is it? Come back, man. It’s okay…” Nero shouted. But the man couldn’t hear him clearly over the taunting in his head. He pushed at the door with his shoulder. He had to get out before they took him.
By the time backup arrived at the back entrance, he had slid between the shadows undetected. As he vanished into the darkness, the music returned.
“Do not neglect hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
