Transits (2 page)

“Put them on,” she says, blowing on her newly manicured nails.

I realize the butler is holding out a pair of folded pyjamas. I accept them and start to exit the room, but she wags a finger disapprovingly. Quickly I step out of my filthy attire and redress in Indian cotton. She pats the bed. “Tell me about your play.”

Chapter 5

It's been seven months since I left home. I figure Odette should be giving birth any day now, if it hasn't happened already. I haven't heard a word.

Fine by me. Life is as sweet and juicy as a mango. I have plenty of words. Words run like gurgling streams.

The play opens in five minutes. Ardashir Irani and I sit in the balcony passing a pipe. The curtains part soft as lovers' lips and she appears onstage: a glittering demigoddess.

Ardashir nods his approval. During the thundering standing ovation, he slips me an envelope.

Chapter 6

Remember the kid Pete who took proprietorship of the little saloon? He finally got caught. I guess we all do eventually. I read about it in the paper:

TEENAGE BAR-OWNER ARRESTED

Only he wasn't arrested for assuming false ownership of anything. In fact, no one even questioned his employment. He was caught doing something else that I won't even name.

(I check the paper at least once a week to see if anyone's been murdered with a toothbrush.)

I'm living in Reno now with the Iranis. They foot the bills as long as I keep inventing new characters for the Mrs. to embody. She desires her characters younger every time. The one I'm writing for her at present is practically pre-pubescent.

“You're my fountain of youth,” she says, tickling my chin and dropping silver dollars.

Every time she says it I picture the children I saw climbing into the public fountain the day I met her in the hotel bar. They looked like they were drowning themselves.

I miss Odette.

Chapter 7

I received a message today. They are bulldozing my father's house. The whole area is going to become a shopping complex. I'll bet they remove the headstones and not bother with the bodies. I don't like the idea of my family being trapped under escalators and fat men in Hawaiian shorts. But I guess I don't get a say unless I'm willing to go down there and move them myself. And I can't be bothered.

I hope they rest in peace, even beneath such noisy neighbours.

Chapter 8

Odette's back. She showed up on the doorstep in the middle of the night with a stylish haircut and a bunch of ratty excuses. She said she'd been doing some bad things for money: voice-overs, jingles, hotline psychic readings.

“You can't live off those gigs,” she said. “They're just a quick fix and you're right back to hawking ball cards at the flea market. One here, one there, and suddenly I'm down eight Jackie Robinsons.”

She must have fallen on slippery times because Odette counts those cards in her sleep. Or she had the whole collection intact in her suitcase and I was the last ditch effort to keep it that way.

“So what are you doing here?” I pressed. “Run out of Hank Aaron?” She didn't respond. After a few minutes passed she asked me if I thought short hair makes her legs look longer.

“Your lies are definitely longer,” I said.

She said she read about my success and realized I wasn't cursed after all. Before she left she used to put bone talismans around my writing desk and make magic ink for my typewriter using insect blood and animal juices. I wonder now if that had something to do with my
snake visions, which I no longer have.

Long story short, I made a pot of tea.

Being rich with me suits her. We're trying out our relationship again: me, her, and my reflection. All three of us. Four of us, actually, and he also looks just like me.

It occurred to me that maybe Odette was the curse, but my words are still streaking across the page like lightning in a dark valley. The newest play is about a worthless land deed that sets off an interesting chain of events. Critics agree that it's my finest plot to date.

And that's about it.

Oh, except this. One of father's wilder hobbies: he too was always writing stories and then trying to live in them. That might have tipped me off about the land deed.

Also:

In a play, you must be directly involved in the action to count as a character. You can't just be mentioned, like my father, my son, my reflection or the lawyer. If you apply the same rule here, this story has 8 characters and 8 chapters. So I've moved up two whole numbers. (And isn't it a strange coincidence that Mrs. Irani's phone number didn't contain any 7's?)

PLAYBILL

CAST OF CHARACTERS
(in order of appearance)

Narrator

Odette

Hobo-witch

Pete the barkeep

Mrs. Irani

Waiter

Butler

Ardashir Irani

by Devon Code

June 19, 1981

Dear
Down Beat
,

I am an aspiring jazz vocalist writing out of dismay at Dean Glasner's piece on Eleanora Sinclair in last month's issue. Glasner's assertion that the little acclaim enjoyed (
in absentia
) by Ms. Sinclair is due primarily to her untimely disappearance only betrays his utter ignorance of vocal jazz. The suggestion that she orchestrated her own disappearance as an elaborate publicity stunt is a joke of exceptionally poor taste, an insult to both Ms. Sinclair and her devout and discerning fans, many of whom consider her one of the greatest vocalists of her era. It is nothing less than unthinkably absurd that anyone who loved to perform as much as Eleanora Sinclair would willfully abandon public life. Dean Glasner should stick to writing about the bop and post-bop he gets off on, and leave Sinclair fans in peace.

Alice Alderson
New York, NY

July 7, 1981

Dear
Down Beat
,

I couldn't agree more with Alice Alderson's defence of Eleanora Sinclair. Too often, as in Glasner's piece, Ms. Sinclair is dismissed as a second rate performer. Indeed, the editors of
Down Beat
are, in part, historically responsible for confining her to this subsidiary status. Since Earl Ehlrich's brief piece of speculation was published immediately following her disappearance in 1950,
Down Beat
has all but ignored the legacy of Ms. Sinclair's music. Even Ehrlich's piece supposedly (I have never been able to track down this particular issue–it is exceptionally hard to find) focuses more on the circumstances of her disappearance, rather than on her merits as a distinctive, arguably great jazz vocalist.

I applaud Ms. Alderson for her criticism of Glasner, and would like to extend this criticism to the
Down Beat
establishment on the whole for your inexplicable bias against Eleanora Sinclair, who should be remembered as an artist, rather than just as a mysterious, tragic figure.

p.s. Any
Down Beat
readers who happen to live in the Fredericton/Oromocto, NB area would be well-advised to tune into CHSR 97.9 FM every Thursday at 10 pm for
Two Drink Minimum
. Those of you who recognize that the show borrows its name from Sinclair's signature song (originally by Art Beazley–though Eleanora really made it her own) will require no further introduction.

Roy MacArthur
Fredericton, New Brunswick

July 26, 1981

Dear Roy,

We have finally had a chance to take a look at the piece you submitted back in February on Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines. Unfortunately, it's not the sort of thing we're looking for right now. F.Y.I., we usually don't consider unsolicited work from unknown, unpublished critics.

Also, we won't be running your response to Ms. Alderson's letter. However, as a personal favour, from one Beiderbecke enthusiast to another, I can forward a copy of your letter to her, though I can't guarantee she'll respond. All the best with your radio show.

Yours,
Allan Brookes
Asst. Editor,
Down Beat Magazine

***

Five months after
Down Beat
publishes Alice Alderson's letter, Roy stands in a service station parking lot on the outskirts of Fredericton, duffel bag in one hand, Greyhound bus ticket gripped firmly in the other. Roy is not about to let a conviction for possession of marijuana deter him from attempting to cross the border. He's since kicked the habit and it seems unfair that such a trivial offence should keep him from accepting Alice's invitation. Roy's major concern is the handful of listeners who tune in regularly to
Two Drink Minimum
, and the punker-angst rock to which they will be subjected during his absence. That week, between customers at the record store, Roy had spent hours meticulously selecting tracks and scripting between-song anecdotes for next Thursday's show. But in addition to covering his shifts while he was away, Roy's co-worker, Andy, agreed to sit in as host of
Two Drink Minimum
only on the condition that he be permitted to play whatever records he wanted.

On Thursday afternoon Roy strolls down East Houston Street, arm in arm with Alice Alderson. Three days earlier, he had cleared the border without a hitch. US Customs did not run a background check, nor did they bother to locate and confiscate the flask of rye
in the inside pocket of his overcoat. Roy has forgotten what day of the week it is. He is not sure if he is in love. He knows only that he is profoundly elated to be in the company of the young woman at his side, and that he is overwhelmed. Roy is not used to big cities, and he is not used to Alice. Their first few days together had been awkward at times, but they had also turned out better than Roy had expected. Though Alice proved the confident, opinionated young woman of her letters, Roy knew that in person he could never live up to the dashing persona of his radio broadcasts which, at Alice's request, he had tape-recorded and sent to her. Alice was not entirely disappointed with the young man she had met, but neither was she swept off her feet. Roy knew this. He also knew that his reticence was nothing a few swigs from his flask couldn't remedy. Alice liked it when he did this, not only because it helped him loosen up, but because it was a stylish thing for a young man to do.

Though Alice had ample opportunity to become acquainted with Roy's voice, he is still growing accustomed to hers. They had spoken only once before meeting, and Alice had steadfastly refused to sing over the phone. When Roy requested that she send him a recording of herself, she complained that she'd never had the opportunity to be professionally recorded. Which is why, on the morning after Roy's arrival, as they sat drinking coffee in Alice's tiny Williamsburg apartment, there was an anxious smile on her lips as she pushed the
Village Voice
across the kitchen table and pointed out the advertisement she had circled.

Jazz Vocalists Wanted. Silhouette Studios seeks undiscovered talent to
audition/record. $20 fee payable at time of session.
Serious inquiries only.

It is now the afternoon of the audition and they stand beneath an overcast sky in front of an East Houston Street newsstand that looks like any other in the city. The proprietor is half a foot shorter than Roy and on his head is a grey watch cap. A cigarillo protrudes his lips. His small, covered stand is stocked with the usual assortment of newspapers, magazines, candy bars and confections. It is only upon closer inspection that Roy notices many of the papers are yellowed
around the edges, and some of the celebrities on the magazine covers have died. All the periodicals in fact, are out of date. There are brittle copies of the
Times
from the late sixties, issues of
Esquire
and
Playboy
from the seventies.

“You brought a friend this time,” says the man, nodding at Alice. He speaks with a slight accent, which Roy cannot place. Alice reaches for something tucked behind a row of
National Geographic
s, and when the May 1950 issue of
Down Beat
is revealed, he knows why she has brought him here.

The newsman takes the cigarillo from his lips. “This one is very rare, very hard to find.” His brings his left hand to his mouth, covering his lips from Alice's view, as if to conspire with Roy. “For you, only twenty dollars,” he whispers. “Make a nice gift for the lady.”