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.When it was time for us to wind it up, we just about forgot.The crowd went wild.They stomped and screamed and whistled.But they couldn't get Sonny to play any more.He pulled the horn away from his mouth--I mean that's the way it looked, as if he was yanking it away with all his strength--and for a second he looked surprised, like he'd been goosed.Then his lips pulled back into a smile.It was the damndest smile.Freddie went over to him at the break."Man, that was the craziest.How many tongues you got?"But Sonny didn't answer him.Things went along all right for a little.We played a few dances in the cities, some radio stuff, cut a few platters.Easy walking style.Sonny played Sonny--plenty great enough.And we forget about what happened in El Paso.So what? So he cuts loose once--can't a man do that if he feels the urge? Every jazz man brings that kind of light at least once.We worked through the sticks and were finally set for a New York opening when Sonny came in and gave us the news.It was a gasser.Lux got sore.Mr."T" shook his head."Why? How come, Top?"He had us booked for the corn-belt.The old-time route, exactly, even the old places, back when we were playing razzmatazz and feeling our way."You trust me?" Sonny asked."You trust my judgement?""Come off it, Top; you know we do.Just tell us how come.Man, New York's what we been working for--""That's just it," Sonny said."We aren't ready."That brought us down.How did we know--we hadn't even thought about it."We need to get back to the real material.When we play in New York, it's not anything anybody's liable to forget in a hurry.And that's why I think we ought to take a refresher course.About five weeks.All right?"Well, we fussed some and fumed some, but not much, and in the end we agreed to it.Sonny knew his stuff, that's what we figured."Then it's settled."And we lit out.Played mostly the old stuff dressed up--Big Gig, Only Us Chickens and the rest--or head-arrangements with a lot of trumpet.Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky.When we hit Louisiana for a two-nighter at the Tropics, the same thing happened that did back in Texas, Sonny blew wild for eight minutes on a solo that broke the glasses and cracked the ceiling and cleared the dance-floor like a tornado.Nothing off the stem, either--but like it was practice, sort of, or exercise.A solo out of nothing, that didn't even try to hang on to a shred of the melody."Man, it's great, but let us know when it's gonna happen, hear!"About then Sonny turned down the flame on Rose-Ann.He was polite enough and a stranger wouldn't have noticed, but we did, and Rose-Ann did--and it was tough for her to keep it all down under, hidden.All those questions, all those memories and fears.He stopped going out and took to hanging around his rooms a lot.Once in a while he'd start playing: one time we listened to that horn all night.Finally--it was still somewhere in Louisiana--when Sonny was reaching with his trumpet so high he didn't get any more sound out of it than a dog-whistle, and the front cats were laughing up a storm, I went over and put it to him flatfooted.His eyes were big and he looked like he was trying to say something and couldn't.He looked scared."Sonny.look, boy, what are you after? Tell a friend, man, don't lock it up."But he didn't answer me.He couldn't.He was coughing too hard.Here's the way we doped it: Sonny had worshiped Spoof, like a god or something.Now some of Spoof was rubbing off, and he didn't know it.Freddie was elected.Freddie talks pretty good most of the time."Get off the train, Jack.Ol' Massuh's gone now, dead and buried.Mean, what he was after ain't to be had.Mean, he wanted it all and then some--and all is all, there isn't any more.You play the greatest, Sonny--go on, ask anybody.Just fine.So get off the train."And Sonny laughed, and agreed and promised.I mean in words.His eyes played another number, though.Sometimes he snapped out of it, it looked like, and he was fine then--tired and hungry, but with it.And we'd think, He's okay.Then it would happen all over again-- only worse.Every time, worse.And it got so Sonny even talked like Spoof half the time: "Broom off, man, leave me alone, will you? Can't you see I'm busy, got things to do? Get away!" And walked like Spoof--that slow walk-in-your-sleep shuffle.And did little things--like scratching his belly and leaving his shoes unlaced and rehearsing in his undershirt.He started to smoke weeds in Alabama.In Tennessee he took the first drink anybody ever saw him take.And always with that horn--cussing it, yelling at it, getting sore because it wouldn't do what he wanted it to.We had to leave him alone, finally."I'll handle it,.I--understand, I think.Just go away, it'll be all right.Nobody could help him.Nobody at all.Especially not Rose-Ann.End of the corn-belt route, the way Sonny had it booked was the Copper Club.We hadn't been back there since the night we planted Spoof--and we didn't feel very good about it.But a contract isn't anything else.So we took rooms at the only hotel there ever was in the town.You make a guess which room Sonny took.And we played some cards and bruised our chops and tried to sleep and couldn't.We tossed around in the beds, listening, waiting for the horn to begin.But it didn't.All night long, it didn't.We found out why, oh yes.Next day we all walked around just about everywhere except in the direction of the cemetery.Why kick up misery? Why make it any harder?Sonny stayed in his room until ten before opening, and we began to worry, but he got in under the wire.The Copper Club was packed.Yokels and farmers and high school stuff, a jazz "connoisseur" here and there--to the beams.Freddie had set up the stands with the music notes all in order, and in a few minutes we had our positions.Sonny came out wired for sound.He looked--powerful; and that's a hard way for a five-foot four-inch baldheaded white man to look.At any time.Rose-Ann threw me a glance and I threw it back, and collected it from the rest.Something bad.Something real bad.Soon.Sonny didn't look any which way.He waited for the applause to die down, then he did a quick One-Two-Three-Four and we swung into The Jim jam Man, our theme.I mean to say, that crowd was with us all the way--they smelled something [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]