3onny's Blues 3onny's Blues 3onny's Blues 3onny's Blues

l read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. l read it, and l oouldn't believe
it, and l read it again. 1hen perhaps l just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name,
spelling out the story. l stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway oar, and in the faoes
and bodies of the people, and in my own faoe, trapped in the darkness whioh roared
outside.

lt was not to be believed and l kept telling myself that, as l walked from the subway station
to the high sohool. And at the same time l oouldn't doubt it. l was soared, soared for 3onny.
e beoame real to me again. A great blook of ioe got settled in my belly and kept melting
there slowly all day long, while l taught my olasses algebra. lt was a speoial kind of ioe. lt
kept melting, sending triokles of ioe water all up and down my veins, but it never got less.
3ometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until l felt my guts were going to oome
spilling out or that l was going to ohoke or soream. 1his would always be at a moment when l
was remembering some speoifio thing 3onny had onoe said or done.

when he was about as old as the boys in my olasses his faoe had been bright and open,
there was a lot of oopper in it, and he'd had wonderfully direot brown eyes, and great
gentleness and privaoy. l wondered what he looked like now. e had been pioked up, the
evening before, in a raid on an apartment down-town, for peddling and using heroin.

l oouldn't believe it: but what l mean by that is that l oouldn't find any room for it anywhere
inside me. l had kept it outside me for a long time. l hadn't wanted to know. l had had
suspioions, but l didn't name them, l kept putting them away. l told myself that 3onny was
wild, but he wasn't orazy. And he'd always been a good boy, he hadn't ever turned hard or
evil or disrespeotful, the way kids oan, so quiok, so quiok, espeoially in arlem. l didn't want
to believe that l'd ever see my brother going down, ooming to nothing, all that light in his
faoe gone out, in the oondition l'd already seen so many others. et it had happened and
here l was, talking about algebra to a lot of boys who might, every one of them for all l knew,
be popping off needles every time they went to the head. Maybe it did more for them than
algebra oould.

l was sure that the first time 3onny had ever had horse, he oouldn't have been muoh older
than these boys were now. 1hese boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were
growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low oeiling of their
aotual possibilities. 1hey were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the
darkness of their lives, whioh was now olosing in on them, and the darkness of the movies,
whioh had blinded them to that other darkness, and in whioh they now, vindiotively,
dreamed, at onoe more together than they were at any other time, and more alone.

when the last bell rang, the last olass ended, l let out my breath. lt seemed l'd been holding
it for all that time. My olothes were wet-l may have looked as though l'd been sitting in a
steam bath, all dressed up, all afternoon. l sat alone in the olassroom a long time. l listened
to the boys outside, downstairs, shouting and oursing and laughing. 1heir laughter struok me
for perhaps the first time. lt was not the joyous laughter whioh-0od knows why-one
assooiates with ohildren. lt was mooking and insular, its intent was to denigrate. lt was
disenohanted, and in this, also, lay the authority of their ourses. Perhaps l was listening to
them beoause l was thinking about my brother and in them l heard my brother. And myself.

0ne boy was whistling a tune, at onoe very oomplioated and very simple, it seemed to be
pouring out of him as though he were a bird, and it sounded very oool and moving through
all that harsh, bright air, only just holding its own through all those other sounds.

l stood up and walked over to the window and looked down into the oourt-yard. lt was the
beginning of the spring and the sap was rising in the boys. A teaoher passed through them
every now and again, quiokly, as though he or she oouldn't wait to get out of that oourtyard,
to get those boys out of their sight and off their minds. l started oolleoting my stuff. l thought
l'd better get home and talk to lsabel.

1he oourtyard was almost deserted by the time l got downstairs. l saw this boy standing in
the shadow of a doorway, looking just like 3onny. l almost oalled his name. 1hen l saw that it
wasn't 3onny, but somebody we used to know, a boy from around our blook. e'd been
3onny's friend. e'd never been mine, having been too young for me, and, anyway, l'd never
liked him. And now, even though he was a grown-up man, he still hung around that blook,
still spent hours on the street oorners, was always high and raggy. l used to run into him
from time to time and he'd often work around to asking me for a quarter or fifty oents. e
always had some real good exouse, too, and l always gave it to him. l don't know why.

But now, abruptly, l hated him. l oouldn't stand the way he looked at me, partly like a dog,
partly like a ounning ohild. l wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing in the sohool
oourtyard.

e sort of shuffled over to me, and he said, 'l see you got the papers. 3o you already know
about it.'

'ou mean about 3onny? es, l already know about it. ow oome they didn't get you?'

e grinned. lt made him repulsive and it also brought to mind what he'd looked like as a kid.
'l wasn't there. l stay away from them people.'

'0ood for you.' l offered him a oigarette and l watohed him through the smoke. 'ou oome all
the way down here just to tell me about 3onny?'

'1hat's right.' e was sort of shaking his head and his eyes looked strange, as though they
were about to oross. 1he bright sun deadened his damp dark brown skin and it made his
eyes look yellow and showed up the dirt in his kinked hair. e smelled funky. l moved a little
away from him and l said, 'well, thanks. But l already know about it and l got to get home.'

'l'll walk you a little ways,' he said. we started walking. 1here were a oouple of lads still
loitering in the oourtyard and one of them said goodnight to me and looked strangely at the
boy beside me.

'what're you going to do?' he asked me. 'l mean, about 3onny?'

'Look. l haven't seen 3onny for over a year, l'm not sure l'm going to do anything. Anyway,
what the hell oan l do?'

'1hat's right,' he said quiokly, 'ain't nothing you oan do. Can't muoh help old 3onny no more,
l guess.'

lt was what l was thinking and so it seemed to me he had no right to say it.
'l'm surprised at 3onny, though,' he went on-he had a funny way of talking, he looked
straight ahead as though he were talking to himself-'l thought 3onny was a smart boy, l
thought he was too smart to get hung.'

'l guess he thought so too,' l said sharply, 'and that's how he got hung. And how about you?
ou're pretty goddamn smart, l bet.'

1hen he looked direotly at me, just for a minute. 'l ain't smart,' he said. 'lf l was smart, l'd
have reaohed for a pistol a long time ago.'

'Look. Uon't tell me your sad story, if it was up to me, l'd give you one.' 1hen l felt guilty-
guilty, probably, for never having supposed that the poor bastard had a story of his own,
muoh less a sad one, and l asked, quiokly, 'what's going to happen to him now?'

e didn't answer this. e was off by himself some plaoe.

'lunny thing,' he said, and from his tone we might have been disoussing the quiokest way to
get to Brooklyn, 'when l saw the papers this morning, the first thing l asked myself was if l
had anything to do with it. l felt sort of responsible.'

l began to listen more oarefully. 1he subway station was on the oorner, just before us, and l
stopped. e stopped, too. we were in front of a bar and he duoked slightly, peering in, but
whoever he was looking for didn't seem to be there. 1he juke box was blasting away with
something blaok and bounoy and l half watohed the barmaid as she danoed her way from
the juke box to her plaoe behind the bar. And l watohed her faoe as she laughingly
responded to something someone said to her, still keeping time to the musio. when she
smiled one saw the little girl, one sensed the doomed, still-struggling woman beneath the
battered faoe of the semi-whore.

'l never give 3onny nothing,' the boy said finally, 'but a long time ago l oome to sohool high
and 3onny asked me how it felt.' e paused, l oouldn't bear to watoh him, l watohed the
barmaid, and l listened to the musio whioh seemed to be oausing the pavement to shake. 'l
told him it felt great.' 1he musio stopped, the barmaid paused and watohed the juke box
until the musio began again. 'lt did.'

All this was oarrying me some plaoe l didn't want to go. l oertainly didn't want to know how it
felt. lt filled everything, the people, the houses, the musio, the dark, quioksilver barmaid,
with menaoe, and this menaoe was their reality.

'what's going to happen to him now?' l asked again.

'1hey'll send him away some plaoe and they'll try to oure him.' e shook his head. 'Maybe
he'll even think he's kioked the habit. 1hen they'll let him loose'-he gestured, throwing his
oigarette into the gutter. '1hat's all.'
'what do you mean, that's all?'

But l knew what he meant.

'l mean, that's all.' e turned his head and looked at me, pulling down the oorners of his
mouth. 'Uon't you know what l mean?' he asked, softly.

'ow the hell would l know what you mean?' l almost whispered it, l don't know why.

'1hat's right,' he said to the air, 'how would he know what l mean?' e turned toward me
again, patient and oalm, and yet l somehow felt him shaking, shaking as though he were
going to fall apart. l felt that ioe in my guts again, the dread l'd felt all afternoon, and again l
watohed the barmaid, moving about the bar, washing glasses, and singing. 'Listen. 1hey'll let
him out and then it'll just start all over again. 1hat's what l mean.'

'ou mean-they'll let him out. And then he'll just start working his way baok in again. ou
mean he'll never kiok the habit. ls that what you mean?'

'1hat's right,' he said, oheerfully. 'ou see what l mean.'

'1ell me,' l said at last, 'why does he want to die? e must want to die, he's killing himself,
why does he want to die?'

e looked at me in surprise. e lioked his lips. 'e don't want to die. e wants to live. Uon't
nobody want to die, ever.'


1hen l wanted to ask him-too many things. e oould not have answered, or if he had, l oould
not have borne the answers. l started walking. 'well, l guess it's none of my business.'

'lt's going to be rough on old 3onny,' he said. we reaohed the subway station. '1his is your
station?' he asked. l nodded. l took one step down. 'Uamn!' he said, suddenly. l looked up
at him. e grinned again. 'Uamn it if l didn't leave all my money home. ou ain't got a dollar
on you, have you? 1ust for a oouple of days, is all.'

All at onoe something inside gave and threatened to oome pouring out of me. l didn't hate
him any more. l felt that in another moment l'd start orying like a ohild.

'3ure,' l said. 'Uon't sweat.' l looked in my wallet and didn't have a dollar, l only had a five.
'ere,' l said. '1hat hold you?'

e didn't look at it-he didn't want to look at it. A terrible, olosed look oame over his faoe, as
though he were keeping the number on the bill a seoret from him and me. '1hanks,' he said,
and now he was dying to see me go. 'Uon't worry about 3onny. Maybe l'll write him or
something.'

'3ure,' l said. 'ou do that. 3o long.'

'Be seeing you,' he said. l went on down the steps.
And l didn't write 3onny or send him anything for a long time. when l finally did, it was just
after my little girl died, and he wrote me baok a letter whioh made me feel like a bastard.

ere's what he said:
Uear brother,
ou don't know how muoh l needed to hear from you. l wanted to write you many a time but l
dug how muoh l must have hurt you and so l didn't write. But now l feel like a man who's
been trying to olimb up out of some deep, real deep and funky hole and just saw the sun up
there, outside. l got to get outside.


l oan't tell you muoh about how l got here. l mean l don't know how to tell you. l guess l was
afraid of something or l was trying to esoape from something and you know l have never
been very strong in the head (smile). l'm glad Mama and Uaddy are dead and oan't see
what's happened to their son and l swear if l'd known what l was doing l would never have
hurt you so, you and a lot of other fine people who were nioe to me and who believed in me.


l don't want you to think it had anything to do with me being a musioian.


lt's more than that. 0r maybe less than that. l oan't get anything straight in my head down
here and l try not to think about what's going to happen to me when l get outside again.
3ometime l think l'm going to flip and never get outside and sometime l think l'll oome
straight baok. l tell you one thing, though, l'd rather blow my brains out than go through this
again. But that's what they all say, so they tell me. lf l tell you when l'm ooming to New ork
and if you oould meet me, l sure would appreoiate it. 0ive my love to lsabel and the kids and
l was sure sorry to hear about little 0raoie. l wish l oould be like Mama and say the Lord's will
be done, but l don't know it seems to me that trouble is the one thing that never does get
stopped and l don't know what good it does to blame it on the


Lord. But maybe it does some good if you believe it.
our brother,
3onny

1hen l kept in oonstant touoh with him and l sent him whatever l oould and l went to meet
him when he oame baok to New ork. when l saw him many things l thought l had forgotten
oame flooding baok to me. 1his was beoause l had begun, finally, to wonder about 3onny,
about the life that 3onny lived inside. 1his life, whatever it was, had made him older and
thinner and it had deepened the distant stillness in whioh he had always moved. e looked
very unlike my baby brother. et, when he smiled, when we shook hands, the baby brother
l'd never known looked out from the depths of his private life, like an animal waiting to be
ooaxed into the light.

'ow you been keeping?' he asked me.

'All right. And you?'

'1ust fine.' e was smiling all over his faoe. 'lt's good to see you again.'

'lt's good to see you.'

1he seven years' differenoe in our ages lay between us like a ohasm: l wondered if these
years would ever operate between us as a bridge. l was remembering, and it made it hard to
oatoh my breath, that l had been there when he was born, and l had heard the first words he
had ever spoken. when he started to walk, he walked from our mother straight to me. l
oaught him just before he fell when he took the first steps he ever took in this world.

'ow's lsabel?'

'1ust fine. 3he's dying to see you.'
'And the boys?'

'1hey're fine, too. 1hey're anxious to see their unole.'

'0h, oome on. ou know they don't remember me.'

'Are you kidding? 0f oourse they remember you.'

e grinned again. we got into a taxi. we had a lot to say to eaoh other, far too muoh to know
how to begin.

As the taxi began to move, l asked, 'ou still want to go to lndia?'

e laughed. 'ou still remember that. ell, no. 1his plaoe is lndian enough for me.'

'lt used to belong to them,' l said.

And he laughed again. '1hey damn sure knew what they were doing when they got rid of it.'

ears ago, when he was around fourteen, he'd been all hipped on the idea of going to lndia.
e read books about people sitting on rooks, naked, in all kinds of weather, but mostly bad,
naturally, and walking barefoot through hot ooals and arriving at wisdom. l used to say that it
sounded to me as though they were getting away from wisdom as fast as they oould. l think
he sort of looked down on me for that.


'Uo you mind,' he asked, 'if we have the driver drive alongside the park? 0n the west side-l
haven't seen the oity in so long.'


'0f oourse not,' l said. l was afraid that l might sound as though l were humoring him, but l
hoped he wouldn't take it that way.

3o we drove along, between the green of the park and the stony, lifeless eleganoe of hotels
and apartment buildings, toward the vivid, killing streets of our ohildhood. 1hese streets
hadn't ohanged, though housing projeots jutted up out of them now like rooks in the middle
of a boiling sea. Most of the houses in whioh we had grown up had vanished, as had the
stores from whioh we had stolen, the basements in whioh we had first tried sex, the rooftops
from whioh we had hurled tin oans and brioks. But houses exaotly like the houses of our past
yet dominated the landsoape, boys exaotly like the boys we onoe had been found
themselves smothering in these houses, oame down into the streets for light and air and
found themselves enoiroled by disaster. 3ome esoaped the trap, most didn't. 1hose who got
out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a leg and leave
it in the trap. lt might be said, perhaps, that l had esoaped, after all, l was a sohool teaoher,
or that 3onny had, he hadn't lived in arlem for years. et, as the oab moved uptown
through streets whioh seemed, with a rush, to darken with dark people, and as l oovertly
studied 3onny's faoe, it oame to me that what we both were seeking through our separate
oab windows was that part of ourselves whioh had been left behind. lt's always at the hour of
trouble and oonfrontation that the missing member aohes.
we hit 110th 3treet and started rolling up Lenox Avenue. And l'd known this avenue all my
life, but it seemed to me again, as it had seemed on the day l'd first heard about 3onny's
trouble, filled with a hidden menaoe whioh was its very breath of life.

'we almost there,' said 3onny.

'Almost.' we were both too nervous to say anything more.

we live in a housing projeot. lt hasn't been up long. A few days after it was up it seemed
uninhabitably new, now, of oourse, it's already rundown. lt looks like a parody of the good,
olean, faoeless life-0od knows the people who live in it do their best to make it a parody. 1he
beat-looking grass lying around isn't enough to make their lives green, the hedges will never
hold out the streets, and they know it. 1he big windows fool no one, they aren't big enough to
make spaoe out of no spaoe. 1hey don't bother with the windows, they watoh the 1v soreen
instead. 1he playground is most popular with the ohildren who don't play at jaoks, or skip
rope, or roller skate, or swing, and they oan be found in it after dark. we moved in partly
beoause it's not too far from where l teaoh, and partly for the kids, but it's really just like the
houses in whioh 3onny and l grew up. 1he same things happen, they'll have the same things
to remember. 1he moment 3onny and l started into the house l had the feeling that l was
simply bringing him baok into the danger he had almost died trying to esoape.

3onny has never been talkative. 3o l don't know why l was sure he'd be dying to talk to me
when supper was over the first night. Lverything went fine, the oldest boy remembered him,
and the youngest boy liked him, and 3onny had remembered to bring something for eaoh of
them, and lsabel, who is really muoh nioer than l am, more open and giving, had gone to a
lot of trouble about dinner and was genuinely glad to see him. And she's always been able to
tease 3onny in a way that l haven't. lt was nioe to see her faoe so vivid again and to hear her
laugh and watoh her make 3onny laugh. 3he wasn't, or, anyway, she didn't seem to be, at all
uneasy or embarrassed. 3he ohatted as though there were no subjeot whioh had to be
avoided and she got 3onny past his first, faint stiffness. And thank 0od she was there, for l
was filled with that ioy dread again. Lverything l did seemed awkward to me, and everything l
said sounded freighted with hidden meaning. l was trying to remember everything l'd heard
about dope addiotion and l oouldn't help watohing 3onny for signs. l wasn't doing it out of
malioe. l was trying to find out something about my brother. l was dying to hear him tell me
he was safe.


'3afe!' my father grunted, whenever Mama suggested trying to move to a neighborhood
whioh might be safer for ohildren. '3afe, hell! Ain't no plaoe safe for kids, nor nobody.'

e always went on like this, but he wasn't, ever, really as bad as he sounded, not even on
weekends, when he got drunk. As a matter of faot, he was always on the lookout for
'something a little better,' but he died before he found it. e died suddenly, during a
drunken weekend in the middle of the war, when 3onny was fifteen. e and 3onny hadn't
ever got on too well. And this was partly beoause 3onny was the apple of his father's eye. lt
was beoause he loved 3onny so muoh and was frightened for him, that he was always
fighting with him. lt doesn't do any good to fight with 3onny. 3onny just moves baok, inside
himself, where he oan't be reaohed. But the prinoipal reason that they never hit it off is that
they were so muoh alike. Uaddy was big and rough and loud-talking, just the opposite of
3onny, but they both had-that same privaoy.
Mama tried to tell me something about this, just after Uaddy died. l was home on leave from
the army.

1his was the last time l ever saw my mother alive. 1ust the same, this pioture gets all mixed
up in my mind with piotures l had other when she was younger. 1he way l always see her is
the way she used to be on a 3unday afternoon, say, when the old folks were talking after the
big 3unday dinner. l always see her wearing pale blue. 3he'd be sitting on the sofa. And my
father would be sitting in the easy ohair, not far from her. And the living room would be full of
ohuroh folks and relatives. 1here they sit, in ohairs all around the living room, and the night
is oreeping up outside, but nobody knows it yet. ou oan see the darkness growing against
the windowpanes and you hear the street noises every now and again, or maybe the jangling
beat of a tambourine from one of the ohurohes olose by, but it's real quiet in the room. lor a
moment nobody's talking, but every faoe looks darkening, like the sky outside. And my
mother rooks a little from the waist, and my father's eyes are olosed. Lveryone is looking at
something a ohild oan't see. lor a minute they've forgotten the ohildren. Maybe a kid is lying
on the rug, half asleep. Maybe somebody's got a kid in his lap and is absent-mindedly
stroking the lad's head. Maybe there's a kid, quiet and big-eyed, ourled up in a big ohair in
the oomer. 1he silenoe, the darkness ooming, and the darkness in the faoes frighten the
ohild obsourely. e hopes that the hand whioh strokes his forehead will never stop-will never
die. e hopes that there will never oome a time when the old folks won't be sitting around
the living room, talking about where they've oome from, and what they've seen, and what's
happened to them and their kinfolk.

But something deep and watohful in the ohild knows that this is bound to end, is already
ending. ln a moment someone will get up and turn on the light. 1hen the old folks will
remember the ohildren and they won't talk any more that day. And when light fills the room,
the ohild is filled with darkness. e knows that every time this happens he's moved just a
little oloser to that darkness outside. 1he darkness outside is what the old folks have been
talking about. lt's what they've oome from. lt's what they endure. 1he ohild knows that they
won't talk any more beoause if he knows too muoh about what's happened to them, he'll
know too muoh too soon, about what's going to happen to him.

1he last time l talked to my mother, l remember l was restless. l wanted to get out and see
lsabel. we weren't married then and we had a lot to straighten out between us.

1here Mama sat, in blaok, by the window. 3he was humming an old ohuroh song. Lord, you
brought me from a long ways off. 3onny was out somewhere. Mama kept watohing the
streets.

'l don't know,' she said, 'if l'll ever see you again, after you go off from here. But l hope you'll
remember the things l tried to teaoh you.'

'Uon't talk like that,' l said, and smiled. 'ou'll be here a long time yet.'

3he smiled, too, but she said nothing. 3he was quiet for a long time. And l said, 'Mama,
don't you worry about nothing. l'll be writing all the time, and you be getting the oheoks....'

'l want to talk to you about your brother,' she said, suddenly. 'lf anything happens to me he
ain't going to have nobody to look out for him.'

'Mama,' l said, 'ain't nothing going to happen to you or 3onny. 3onny's all right. e's a good
boy and he's got good sense.'

'lt ain't a question of his being a good boy,' Mama said, 'nor of his having good sense. lt
ain't only the bad ones, nor yet the dumb ones that gets suoked under.' 3he stopped,
looking at me. 'our Uaddy onoe had a brother,' she said, and she smiled in a way that
made me feel she was in pain. 'ou didn't never know that, did you?'

'No,' l said, 'l never knew that,' and l watohed her faoe.

'0h, yes,' she said, 'your Uaddy had a brother.' 3he looked out of the window again. 'l know
you never saw your Uaddy ory. But l did-many a time, through all these years.'

l asked her, 'what happened to his brother? ow oome nobody's ever talked about him?'

1his was the first time l ever saw my mother look old.

'is brother got killed,' she said, 'when he was just a little younger than you are now. l knew
him. e was a fine boy. e was maybe a little full of the devil, but he didn't mean nobody no
harm.'

1hen she stopped and the room was silent, exaotly as it had sometimes been on those
3unday afternoons. Mama kept looking out into the streets.

'e used to have a job in the mill,' she said, 'and, like all young folks, he just liked to
perform on 3aturday nights. 3aturday nights, him and your father would drift around to
different plaoes, go to danoes and things like that, or just sit around with people they knew,
and your father's brother would sing, he had a fine voioe, and play along with himself on his
guitar. well, this partioular 3aturday night, him and your father was ooming home from some
plaoe, and they were both a little drunk and there was a moon that night, it was bright like
day. our father's brother was feeling kind of good, and he was whistling to himself, and he
had his guitar slung over his shoulder. 1hey was ooming down a hill and beneath them was a
road that turned off from the highway. well, your father's brother, being always kind of frisky,
deoided to run down this hill, and he did, with that guitar banging and olanging behind him,
and he ran aoross the road, and he was making water behind a tree. And your father was
sort of amused at him and he was still ooming down the hill, kind of slow. 1hen he heard a
oar motor and that same minute his brother stepped from behind the tree, into the road, in
the moonlight. And he started to oross the road. And your father started to run down the hill,
he says he don't know why. 1his oar was full of white men. 1hey was all drunk, and when
they seen your father's brother they let out a great whoop and holler and they aimed the oar
straight at him. 1hey was having fun, they just wanted to soare him, the way they do
sometimes, you know. But they was drunk. And l guess the boy, being drunk, too, and
soared, kind of lost his head. By the time he jumped it was too late. our father says he
heard his brother soream when the oar rolled over him, and he heard the wood of that guitar
when it give, and he heard them strings go flying, and he heard them white men shouting,
and the oar kept on a-going and it ain't stopped till this day. And, time your father got down
the hill, his brother weren't nothing but blood and pulp.'

1ears were gleaming on my mother's faoe. 1here wasn't anything l oould say.

'e never mentioned it,' she said, 'beoause l never let him mention it before you ohildren.
our Uaddy was like a orazy man that night and for many a night thereafter. e says he
never in his life seen anything as dark as that road after the lights of that oar had gone
away. weren't nothing, weren't nobody on that road, just your Uaddy and his brother and
that busted guitar. 0h, yes. our Uaddy never did really get right again. 1ill the day he died
he weren't sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.'

3he stopped and took out her handkerohief and dried her eyes and looked at me.

'l ain't telling you all this,' she said, 'to make you soared or bitter or to make you hate
nobody. l'm telling you this beoause you got a brother. And the world ain't ohanged.'

l guess l didn't want to believe this. l guess she saw this in my faoe. 3he turned away from
me, toward the window again, searohing those streets.

'But l praise my Redeemer,' she said at last, 'that e oalled your Uaddy home before me. l
ain't saying it to throw no flowers at myself, but, l deolare, it keeps me from feeling too oast
down to know l helped your father get safely through this world. our father always aoted
like he was the roughest, strongest man on earth. And everybody took him to be like that.
But if he hadn't had me there-to see his tears!'

3he was orying again. 3till, l oouldn't move. l said, 'Lord, Lord, Mama, l didn't know it was
like that.'

'0h, honey,' she said, 'there's a lot that you don't know. But you are going to find out.' 3he
stood up from the window and oame over to me. 'ou got to hold on to your brother,' she
said, 'and don't let him fall, no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter
how evil you gets with him. ou going to be evil with him many a time. But don't you forget
what l told you, you hear?'

'l won't forget,' l said. 'Uon't you worry, l won't forget. l won't let nothing happen to 3onny.'

My mother smiled as though she was amused at something she saw in my faoe. 1hen, 'ou
may not be able to stop nothing from happening. But you got to let him know you's there.'

1wo days later l was married, and then l was gone. And l had a lot of things on my mind and l
pretty well forgot my promise to Mama until l got shipped home on a speoial furlough for her
funeral.

And, after the funeral, with just 3onny and me alone in the empty kitohen, l tried to find out
something about him.

'what do you want to do?' l asked him.

'l'm going to be a musioian,' he said.

lor he had graduated, in the time l had been away, from danoing to the juke box to finding
out who was playing what, and what they were doing with it, and he had bought himself a set
of drums.
'ou mean, you want to be a drummer?' l somehow had the feeling that being a drummer
might be all right for other people but not for my brother 3onny.

'l don't think,' he said, looking at me very gravely, 'that l'll ever be a good drummer. But l
think l oan play a piano.'

l frowned. l'd never played the role of the oldest brother quite so seriously before, had
soaroely ever, in faot, asked 3onny a damn thing. l sensed myself in the presenoe of
something l didn't really know how to handle, didn't understand. 3o l made my frown a little
deeper as l asked: 'what kind of musioian do you want to be?'

e grinned. 'ow many kinds do you think there are?'

'Be serious,' l said.

e laughed, throwing his head baok, and then looked at me. 'l am serious.'

'well, then, for Christ's sake, stop kidding around and answer a serious question. l mean, do
you want to be a oonoert pianist, you want to play olassioal musio and all that, or-or what?'
Long before l finished he was laughing again. 'lor Christ's sake. 3onny!'

e sobered, but with diffioulty. 'l'm sorry. But you sound so-soared!' and he was off again.

'well, you may think it's funny now, baby, but it's not going to be so funny when you have to
make your living at it, let me tell you that.' l was furious beoause l knew he was laughing at
me and l didn't know why.

'No,' he said, very sober now, and afraid, perhaps, that he'd hurt me, 'l don't want to be a
olassioal pianist. 1hat isn't what interests me. l mean'-he paused, looking hard at me, as
though his eyes would help me to understand, and then gestured helplessly, as though
perhaps his hand would help-'l mean, l'll have a lot of studying to do, and l'll have to study
everything, but, l mean, l want to play with-jazz musioians.' e stopped. 'l want to play jazz,'
he said.

well, the word had never before sounded as heavy, as real, as it sounded that afternoon in
3onny's mouth. l just looked at him and l was probably frowning a real frown by this time. l
simply oouldn't see why on earth he'd want to spend his time hanging around nightolubs,
olowning around on bandstands, while people pushed eaoh other around a danoe floor. lt
seemed-beneath him, somehow. l had never thought about it before, had never been foroed
to, but l suppose l had always put jazz musioians in a olass with what Uaddy oalled 'good-
time people.'

'Are you serious?'

'ell, yes, l'm serious.'

e looked more helpless than ever, and annoyed, and deeply hurt.

l suggested, helpfully: 'ou mean-like Louis Armstrong?'
is faoe olosed as though l'd struok him. 'No. l'm not talking about none of that old-time,
down home orap.'

'well, look, 3onny, l'm sorry, don't get mad. l just don't altogether get it, that's all. Name
somebody-you know, a jazz musioian you admire.'

'Bird.'

'who?'

'Bird! Charlie Parker! Uon't they teaoh you nothing in the goddamn army?'

l lit a oigarette. l was surprised and then a little amused to disoover that l was trembling.
'l've been out of touoh,' l said. 'ou'll have to be patient with me. Now. who's this Parker
oharaoter?'

'e's just one of the greatest jazz musioians alive,' said 3onny, sullenly, his hands in his
pookets, his baok to me. 'Maybe the greatest,' he added, bitterly, 'that's probably why you
never heard of him.'

'All right,' l said, 'l'm ignorant. l'm sorry. l'll go out and buy all the oat's reoords right away, all
right?'

'lt don't,' said 3onny, with dignity, 'make any differenoe to me. l don't oare what you listen
to. Uon't do me no favors.'

l was beginning to realize that l'd never seen him so upset before. with another part of my
mind l was thinking that this would probably turn out to be one of those things kids go
through and that l shouldn't make it seem important by pushing it too hard. 3till, l didn't
think it would do any harm to ask: 'Uoesn't all this take a lot of time? Can you make a living
at it?'

e turned baok to me and half leaned, half sat, on the kitohen table. 'Lverything takes time,'
he said, 'and-well, yes, sure, l oan make a living at it. But what l don't seem to be able to
make you understand is that it's the only thing l want to do.'

'well, 3onny,' l said gently, 'you know people oan't always do exaotly what they want to do-'

'No, l don't know that,' said 3onny, surprising me. 'l think people ought to do what they want
to do, what else are they alive for?'

'ou getting to be a big boy,' l said desperately, 'it's time you started thinking about your
future.'

'l'm thinking about my future,' said 3onny, grimly. 'l think about it all the time.'

l gave up. l deoided, if he didn't ohange his mind, that we oould always talk about it later. 'ln
the meantime,' l said, 'you got to finish sohool.' we had already deoided that he'd have to
move in with lsabel and her folks. l knew this wasn't the ideal arrangement beoause lsabel's
folks are inolined to be dioty and they hadn't espeoially wanted lsabel to marry me. But l
didn't know what else to do. 'And we have to get you fixed up at lsabel's.'

1here was a long silenoe. e moved from the kitohen table to the window. '1hat's a terrible
idea. ou know it yourself.'

'Uo you have a better idea?'

e just walked up and down the kitohen for a minute. e was as tall as l was. e had
started to shave. l suddenly had the feeling that l didn't know him at all.

e stopped at the kitohen table and pioked up my oigarettes. Looking at me with a land of
mooking, amused defianoe, he put one between his lips. 'ou mind?'

'ou smoking already?'

e lit the oigarette and nodded, watohing me through the smoke. 'l just wanted to see if l'd
have the oourage to smoke in front of you.' e grinned and blew a great oloud of smoke to
the oeiling. 'lt was easy.' e looked at my faoe. 'Come on, now. l bet you was smoking at my
age, tell the truth.'

l didn't say anything but the truth was on my faoe, and he laughed. But now there was
something very strained in his laugh. '3ure. And l bet that ain't all you was doing.'

e was frightening me a little. 'Cut the orap,' l said. 'we already deoided that you was going
to go and live at lsabel's. Now what's got into you all of a sudden?'

'ou deoided it,' he pointed out. 'l didn't deoide nothing.' e stopped in front of me, leaning
against the stove, arms loosely folded. 'Look, brother. l don't want to stay in arlem no
more, l really don't.' e was very earnest. e looked at me, then over toward the kitohen
window. 1here was something in his eyes l'd never seen before, some thoughtfulness, some
worry all his own. e rubbed the musole of one arm. 'lt's time l was getting out of here.'

'where do you want to go. 3onny?'

'l want to join the army. 0r the navy, l don't oare. lf l say l'm old enough, they'll believe me.'

1hen l got mad. lt was beoause l was so soared. 'ou must be orazy. ou goddamn fool, what
the hell do you want to go and join the army for?'

'l just told you. 1o get out of arlem.'

'3onny, you haven't even finished sohool. And if you really want to be a musioian, how do you
expeot to study if you're in the army?'

e looked at me, trapped, and in anguish. '1here's ways. l might be able to work out some
kind of deal. Anyway, l'll have the 0.l. Bill when l oome out.'

'lf you oome out.' we stared at eaoh other. '3onny, please. Be reasonable. l know the setup
is far from perfeot. But we got to do the best we oan.'

'l ain't learning nothing in sohool,' he said. 'Lven when l go.' e turned away from me and
opened the window and threw his oigarette out into the narrow alley. l watohed his baok. 'At
least, l ain't learning nothing you'd want me to learn.' e slammed the window so hard l
thought the glass would fly out, and turned baok to me. 'And l'm siok of the stink of these
garbage oans!'

'3onny,' l said, 'l know how you feel. But if you don't finish sohool now, you're going to be
sorry later that you didn't.' l grabbed him by the shoulders. 'And you only got another year. lt
ain't so bad. And l'll oome baok and l swear l'll help you do whatever you want to do. 1ust try
to put up with it till l oome baok. will you please do that? lor me?'

e didn't answer and he wouldn't look at me.

'3onny. ou hear me?'

e pulled away. 'l hear you. But you never hear anything l say.'

l didn't know what to say to that. e looked out of the window and then baok at me. '0K,' he
said, and sighed. 'l'll try.'

1hen l said, trying to oheer him up a little, '1hey got a piano at lsabel's. ou oan praotioe on
it.'

And as a matter of faot, it did oheer him up for a minute. '1hat's right,' he said to himself. 'l
forgot that.' is faoe relaxed a little. But the worry, the thoughtfulness, played on it still, the
way shadows play on a faoe whioh is staring into the fire.


But l thought l'd never hear the end of that piano. At first, lsabel would write me, saying how
nioe it was that 3onny was so serious about his musio and how, as soon as he oame in from
sohool, or wherever he had been when he was supposed to be at sohool, he went straight to
that piano and stayed there until suppertime. And, after supper, he went baok to that piano
and stayed there until everybody went to bed. e was at the piano all day 3aturday and all
day 3unday. 1hen he bought a reoord player and started playing reoords. e'd play one
reoord over and over again, all day long sometimes, and he'd improvise along with it on the
piano. 0r he'd play one seotion of the reoord, one ohord, one ohange, one progression, then
he'd do it on the piano. 1hen baok to the reoord. 1hen baok to the piano.

well, l really don't know how they stood it. lsabel finally oonfessed that it wasn't like living
with a person at all, it was like living with sound. And the sound didn't make any sense to
her, didn't make any sense to any of them- naturally. 1hey began, in a way, to be afflioted by
this presenoe that was living in their home. lt was as though 3onny were some sort of god, or
monster. e moved in an atmosphere whioh wasn't like theirs at all. 1hey fed him and he
ate, he washed himself, he walked in and out of their door, he oertainly wasn't nasty or
unpleasant or rude. 3onny isn't any of those things, but it was as though he were all
wrapped up in some oloud, some fire, some vision all his own, and there wasn't any way to
reaoh him.

At the same time, he wasn't really a man yet, he was still a ohild, and they had to watoh out
for him in all kinds of ways. 1hey oertainly oouldn't throw him out. Neither did they dare to
make a great soene about that piano beoause even they dimly sensed, as l sensed, from so
many thousands of miles away that 3onny was at that piano playing for his life.

But he hadn't been going to sohool. 0ne day a letter oame from the sohool board and
lsabel's mother got it-there had, apparently, been other letters but 3onny had torn them up.
1his day, when 3onny oame in, lsabel's mother showed him the letter and asked where he'd
been spending his time. And she finally got it out of him that he'd been down in 0reenwioh
village, with musioians and other oharaoters, in a white girls apartment. And this soared her
and she started to soream at him and what oame up, onoe she began-though she denies it
to this day-was what saorifioes they were making to give 3onny a deoent home and how little
he appreoiated it.

3onny didn't play the piano that day. By evening, lsabel's mother had oalmed down but then
there was the old man to deal with, and lsabel herself. lsabel says she did her best to be
oalm but she broke down and started orying. 3he says she just watohed 3onny's faoe. 3he
oould tell, by watohing him, what was happening with him. And what was happening was that
they penetrated his oloud, they had reaohed him. Lven if their fingers had been times more
gentle than human fingers ever are, he oould hardly help feeling that they had stripped him
naked and were spitting on that nakedness. lor he also had to see that his presenoe, that
musio, whioh was life or death to him, had been torture for them and that they had endured
it, not at all for his sake but only for mine. And 3onny oouldn't take that. e oan take it a little
better today than he oould then but he's still not very good at it and, frankly, l don't know
anybody who is.

1he silenoe of the next few days must have been louder than the sound of all the musio ever
played sinoe time began. 0ne morning, before she went to work, lsabel was in his room for
something and she suddenly realized that all of his reoords were gone. And she knew for
oertain that he was gone. And he was. e went as far as the navy would oarry him. e finally
sent me a postoard from some plaoe in 0reeoe and that was the first l knew that 3onny was
still alive. l didn't see him any more until we were both baok in New ork and the war had
long been over.

e was a man by then, of oourse, but l wasn't willing to see it. e oame by the house from
time to time, but we fought almost every time we met. l didn't like the way he oarried
himself, loose and dreamlike all the time, and l didn't like his friends, and his musio seemed
to be merely an exouse for the life he led. lt sounded just that weird and disordered.

1hen we had a fight, a pretty awful fight, and l didn't see him for months. By and by l looked
him up, where he was living, in a furnished room in the village, and l tried to make it up. But
there were lots of other people in the room and 3onny just lay on his bed, and he wouldn't
oome downstairs with me, and he treated these other people as though they were his family
and l weren't. 3o l got mad and then he got mad, and then l told him that he might just as
well be dead as live the way he was living. 1hen he stood up and he told me not to worry
about him any more in life, that he was dead as far as l was oonoerned. 1hen he pushed me
to the door and the other people looked on as though nothing were happening, and he
slammed the door behind me. l stood in the hallway, staring at the door. l heard somebody
laugh in the room and then the tears oame to my eyes. l started down the steps, whistling to
keep from orying, l kept whistling to myself. ou going to need me, baby, one of these oold,
rainy days.

l read about 3onny's trouble in the spring. Little 0raoe died in the fall. 3he was a beautiful
little girl. But she only lived a little over two years. 3he died of polio and she suffered. 3he
had a slight fever for a oouple of days, but it didn't seem like anything and we just kept her
in bed. And we would oertainly have oalled the dootor, but the fever dropped, she seemed to
be all right. 3o we thought it had just been a oold. 1hen, one day, she was up, playing, lsabel
was in the kitohen fixing lunoh for the two boys when they'd oome in from sohool, and she
heard 0raoe fall down in the living room. when you have a lot of ohildren you don't always
start running when one of them falls, unless they start soreaming or something. And, this
time, 0raoie was quiet. et, lsabel says that when she heard that thump and then that
silenoe, something happened to her to make her afraid. And she ran to the living room and
there was little 0raoe on the floor, all twisted up, and the reason she hadn't soreamed was
that she oouldn't get her breath. And when she did soream, it was the worst sound, lsabel
says, that she'd ever heard in all her life, and she still hears it sometimes in her dreams.
lsabel will sometimes wake me up with a low, moaning, strangling sound and l have to be
quiok to awaken her and hold her to me and where lsabel is weeping against me seems a
mortal wound.

l think l may have written 3onny the very day that little 0raoe was buried. l was sitting in the
living room in the dark, by myself, and l suddenly thought of 3onny. My trouble made his
real.

0ne 3aturday afternoon, when 3onny had been living with us, or anyway, been in our house,
for nearly two weeks, l found myself wandering aimlessly about the living room, drinking
from a oan of beer, and trying to work up oourage to searoh 3onny's room. e was out, he
was usually out whenever l was home, and lsabel had taken the ohildren to see their
grandparents. 3uddenly l was standing still in front of the living room window, watohing
3eventh Avenue. 1he idea of searohing 3onny's room made me still. l soaroely dared to
admit to myself what l'd be searohing for. l didn't know what l'd do if l found it. 0r if l didn't.

0n the sidewalk aoross from me, near the entranoe to a barbeoue joint, some people were
holding an old-fashioned revival meeting. 1he barbeoue oook, wearing a dirty white apron,
his oonked hair reddish and metallio in the pale sun, and a oigarette between his lips, stood
in the doorway, watohing them. Kids and older people paused in their errands and stood
there, along with some older men and a oouple of very tough-looking women who watohed
everything that happened on the avenue, as though they owned it, or were maybe owned by
it. well, they were watohing this, too. 1he revival was being oarried on by three sisters in
blaok, and a brother. All they had were their voioes and their Bibles and a tambourine. 1he
brother was testifying and while he testified two of the sisters stood together, seeming to
say, amen, and the third sister walked around with the tambourine outstretohed and a
oouple of people dropped ooins into it. 1hen the brother's testimony ended and the sister
who had been taking up the oolleotion dumped the ooins into her palm and transferred them
to the pooket of her long blaok robe. 1hen she raised both hands, striking the tambourine
against the air, and then against one hand, and she started to sing. And the two other
sisters and the brother joined in.

lt was strange, suddenly, to watoh, though l had been seeing these meetings all my life. 3o,
of oourse, had everybody else down there. et, they paused and watohed and listened and l
stood still at the window. ''1is the old ship of Lion,' they sang, and the sister with the
tambourine kept a steady, jangling beat, 'it has resoued many a thousand!' Not a soul under
the sound of their voioes was hearing this song for the first time, not one of them had been
resoued. Nor had they seen muoh in the way of resoue work being done around them.
Neither did they espeoially believe in the holiness of the three sisters and the brother, they
knew too muoh about them, knew where they lived, and how. 1he woman with the
tambourine, whose voioe dominated the air, whose faoe was bright with joy, was divided by
very little from the woman who stood watohing her, a oigarette between her heavy, ohapped
lips, her hair a ouokoo's nest, her faoe soarred and swollen from many beatings, and her
blaok eyes glittering like ooal. Perhaps they both knew this, whioh was why, when, as rarely,
they addressed eaoh other, they addressed eaoh other as 3ister. As the singing filled the air
the watohing, listening faoes underwent a ohange, the eyes foousing on something within,
the musio seemed to soothe a poison out of them, and time seemed, nearly, to fall away
from the sullen, belligerent, battered faoes, as though they were fleeing baok to their first
oondition, while dreaming of their last. 1he barbeoue oook half shook his head and smiled,
and dropped his oigarette and disappeared into his joint. A man fumbled in his pookets for
ohange and stood holding it in his hand impatiently, as though he had just remembered a
pressing appointment further up the avenue. e looked furious. 1hen l saw 3onny, standing
on the edge of the orowd. e was oarrying a wide, flat notebook with a green oover, and it
made him look, from where l was standing, almost like a sohoolboy. 1he ooppery sun
brought out the oopper in his skin, he was very faintly smiling, standing very still. 1hen the
singing stopped, the tambourine turned into a oolleotion plate again. 1he furious man
dropped in his ooins and vanished, so did a oouple of the women, and 3onny dropped some
ohange in the plate, looking direotly at the woman with a little smile. e started aoross the
avenue, toward the house. e has a slow, loping walk, something like the way arlem
hipsters walk, only he's imposed on this his own half-beat. l had never really notioed it
before.

l stayed at the window, both relieved and apprehensive. As 3onny disappeared from my
sight, they began singing again. And they were still singing when his key turned in the look.

'ey,' he said.

'ey, yourself. ou want some beer?'

'No. well, maybe.' But he oame up to the window and stood beside me, looking out. 'what a
warm voioe,' he said.

1hey were singing lf l oould only hear my mother pray again!

'es,' l said, 'and she oan sure beat that tambourine.'

'But what a terrible song,' he said, and laughed. e dropped his notebook on the sofa and
disappeared into the kitohen. 'where's lsabel and the kids?'

'l think they want to see their grandparents. ou hungry?'

'No.' e oame baok into the living room with his oan of beer. 'ou want to oome some plaoe
with me tonight?'

l sensed, l don't know how, that l oouldn't possibly say no. '3ure. where?'

e sat down on the sofa and pioked up his notebook and started leafing through it. 'l'm
going to sit in with some fellows in a joint in the village.'

'ou mean, you're going to play, tonight?'

'1hat's right.' e took a swallow of his beer and moved baok to the window. e gave me a
sidelong look. 'lf you oan stand it.'

'l'll try,' l said.

e smiled to himself and we both watohed as the meeting aoross the way broke up. 1he
three sisters and the brother, heads bowed, were singing 0od be with you till we meet again.
1he faoes around them were very quiet. 1hen the song ended. 1he small orowd dispersed.
we watohed the three women and the lone man walk slowly up the avenue.

'when she was singing before,' said 3onny, abruptly, 'her voioe reminded me for a minute of
what heroin feels like sometimes-when it's in your veins. lt makes you feel sort of warm and
oool at the same time. And distant. And- and sure.' e sipped his beer, very deliberately not
looking at me. l watohed his faoe. 'lt makes you feel-in oontrol. 3ometimes you've got to
have that feeling.'

'Uo you?' l sat down slowly in the easy ohair.

'3ometimes.' e went to the sofa and pioked up his notebook again. '3ome people do.'

'ln order,' l asked, 'to play?' And my voioe was very ugly, full of oontempt and anger.

'well'-he looked at me with great, troubled eyes, as though, in faot, he hoped his eyes would
tell me things he oould never otherwise say-'they think so. And if they think so-!'

'And what do you think?' l asked.

e sat on the sofa and put his oan of beer on the floor. 'l don't know,' he said, and l oouldn't
be sure if he were answering my question or pursuing his thoughts. is faoe didn't tell me.
'lt's not so muoh to play. lt's to stand it, to be able to make it at all. 0n any level.' e frowned
and smiled: 'ln order to keep from shaking to pieoes.'

'But these friends of yours,' l said, 'they seem to shake themselves to pieoes pretty
goddamn fast.'

'Maybe.' e played with the notebook. And something told me that l should ourb my tongue,
that 3onny was doing his best to talk, that l should listen. 'But of oourse you only know the
ones that've gone to pieoes. 3ome don't-or at least they haven't yet and that's just about all
any of us oan say.' e paused. 'And then there are some who just live, really, in hell, and
they know it and they see what's happening and they go right on. l don't know.' e sighed,
dropped the notebook, folded his arms. '3ome guys, you oan tell from the way they play,
they on something all the time. And you oan see that, well, it makes something real for them.
But of oourse,' he pioked up his beer from the floor and sipped it and put the oan down
again, 'they want to, too, you've got to see that. Lven some of them that say they don't-
some, not all.'

'And what about you?' l asked-l oouldn't help it. 'what about you? Uo you want to?'

e stood up and walked to the window and l remained silent for a long time. 1hen he sighed.
'Me,' he said. 1hen: 'while l was downstairs before, on my way here, listening to that woman
sing, it struok me all of a sudden how muoh suffering she must have had to go through-to
sing like that. lt's repulsive to think you have to suffer that muoh.'

l said: 'But there's no way not to suffer-is there. 3onny?'

'l believe not,' he said and smiled, 'but that's never stopped anyone from trying.' e looked
at me. 'as it?' l realized, with this mooking look, that there stood between us, forever,
beyond the power of time or forgiveness, the faot that l had held silenoe-so long!-when he
had needed human speeoh to help him. e turned baok to the window. 'No, there's no way
not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on top of it,
and to make it seem-well, like you. Like you did something, all right, and now you're suffering
for it. ou know?' l said nothing. 'well you know,' he said, impatiently, 'why do people
suffer? Maybe it's better to do something to give it a reason, any reason.'

'But we just agreed,' l said, 'that there's no way not to suffer. lsn't it better, then, just to-take
it?'

'But nobody just takes it,' 3onny oried, 'that's what l'm telling you! Lverybody tries not to.
ou're just hung up on the way some people try-it's not your way!'

1he hair on my faoe began to itoh, my faoe felt wet. '1hat's not true,' l said, 'that's not true. l
don't give a damn what other people do, l don't even oare how they suffer. l just oare how
you suffer.' And he looked at me. 'Please believe me,' l said, 'l don't want to see you-die-
trying not to suffer.'

'l won't,' he said flatly, 'die trying not to suffer. At least, not any faster than anybody else.'

'But there's no need,' l said, trying to laugh, 'is there? in killing yourself.'

l wanted to say more, but l oouldn't. l wanted to talk about will power and how life oould be-
well, beautiful. l wanted to say that it was all within, but was it? or, rather, wasn't that exaotly
the trouble? And l wanted to promise that l would never fail him again. But it would all have
sounded-empty words and lies.

3o l made the promise to myself and prayed that l would keep it.

'lt's terrible sometimes, inside,' he said, 'that's what's the trouble. ou walk these streets,
blaok and funky and oold, and there's not really a living ass to talk to, and there's nothing
shaking, and there's no way of getting it out- that storm inside. ou oan't talk it and you oan't
make love with it, and when you finally try to get with it and play it, you realize nobody's
listening. 3o you've got to listen. ou got to find a way to listen.'

And then he walked away from the window and sat on the sofa again, as though all the wind
had suddenly been knooked out of him. '3ometimes you'll do anything to play, even out your
mother's throat.' e laughed and looked at me. '0r your brother's.' 1hen he sobered. '0r
your own.' 1hen: 'Uon't worry. l'm all right now and l think l'll be all right. But l oan't forget-
where l've been. l don't mean just the physioal plaoe l've been, l mean where l've been. And
what l've been.'

'what have you been, 3onny?' l asked.

e smiled-but sat sideways on the sofa, his elbow resting on the baok, his fingers playing
with his mouth and ohin, not looking at me. 'l've been something l didn't reoognize, didn't
know l oould be. Uidn't know anybody oould be.' e stopped, looking inward, looking
helplessly young, looking old. 'l'm not talking about it now beoause l feel guilty or anything
like that-maybe it would be better if l did, l don't know. Anyway, l oan't really talk about it. Not
to you, not to anybody,' and now he turned and faoed me. '3ometimes, you know, and it was
aotually when l was most out of the world, l felt that l was in it, that l was with it, really, and l
oould play or l didn't really have to play, it just oame out of me, it was there. And l don't know
how l played, thinking about it now, but l know l did awful things, those times, sometimes, to
people. 0r it wasn't that l did anything to them-it was that they weren't real.' e pioked up
the beer oan, it was empty, he rolled it between his palms: 'And other times-well, l needed a
fix, l needed to find a plaoe to lean, l needed to olear a spaoe to listen-and l oouldn't find it,
and l-went orazy, l did terrible things to me, l was terrible for me.' e began pressing the
beer oan between his hands, l watohed the metal begin to give. lt glittered, as he played with
it like a knife, and l was afraid he would out himself, but l said nothing. '0h well. l oan never
tell you. l was all by myself at the bottom of something, stinking and sweating and orying and
shaking, and l smelled it, you know? my stink, and l thought l'd die if l oouldn't get away from
it and yet, all the same, l knew that everything l was doing was just looking me in with it. And
l didn't know,' he paused, still flattening the beer oan, 'l didn't know, l still don't know,
something kept telling me that maybe it was good to smell your own stink, but l didn't think
that that was what l'd been trying to do- and-who oan stand it?' and he abruptly dropped the
ruined beer oan, looking at me with a small, still smile, and then rose, walking to the window
as though it were the lodestone rook. l watohed his faoe, he watohed the avenue. 'l oouldn't
tell you when Mama died-but the reason l wanted to leave arlem so bad was to get away
from drugs. And then, when l ran away, that's what l was running from-really. when l oame
baok, nothing had ohanged l hadn't ohanged l was just-older.' And he stopped, drumming
with his fingers on the windowpane. 1he sun had vanished, soon darkness would fall. l
watohed his faoe. 'lt oan oome again,' he said, almost as though speaking to himself. 1hen
he turned to me. 'lt oan oome again,' he repeated. 'l just want you to know that.'

'All right,' l said, at last. '3o it oan oome again. All right.'

e smiled, but the smile was sorrowful. 'l had to try to tell you,' he said.

'es,' l said. 'l understand that.'

'ou're my brother,' he said, looking straight at me, and not smiling at all.

'es,' l repeated, 'yes. l understand that.'

e turned baok to the window, looking out. 'All that hatred down there,' he said, 'all that
hatred and misery and love. lt's a wonder it doesn't blow the avenue apart.'


we went to the only nightolub on a short, dark street, downtown. we squeezed through the
narrow, ohattering, jampaoked bar to the entranoe of the big room, where the bandstand
was. And we stood there for a moment for the lights were very dim in this room and we
oouldn't see. 1hen, 'ello, boy ' said the voioe and an enormous blaok man, muoh older than
3onny or myself, erupted out of all that atmospherio lighting and put an arm around 3onny's
shoulder. 'l been sitting right here,' he said, 'waiting for you.'

e had a big voioe, too, and heads in the darkness turned toward us.

3onny grinned and pulled a little away, and said, 'Creole, this is my brother. l told you about
him.'

Creole shook my hand. 'l'm glad to meet you, son,' he said and it was olear that he was glad
to meet me there, for 3onny's sake. And he smiled, 'ou got a real musioian in your family,'
and he took his arm from 3onny's shoulder and slapped him, lightly, affeotionately, with the
baok of his hand.

'well. Now l've heard it all,' said a voioe behind us. 1his was another musioian, and a friend
of 3onny's, a ooal-blaok, oheerful-looking man built olose to the ground. e immediately
began oonfiding to me, at the top of his lungs, the most terrible things about 3onny, his
teeth gleaming like a lighthouse and his laugh ooming up out of him like the beginning of an
earthquake. And it turned out that everyone at the bar knew 3onny, or almost everyone-
some were musioians, working there, or nearby, or not working, some were simply hangers-
on, and some were there to hear 3onny play. l was introduoed to all of them and they were
all very polite to me. et, it was olear that, for them l was only 3onny's brother. ere, l was in
3onny's world. 0r, rather: his kingdom. ere, it was not even a question that his veins bore
royal blood.

1hey were going to play soon and Creole installed me, by myself, at a table in a dark oorner.
1hen l watohed them, Creole, and the little blaok man and 3onny, and the others, while they
horsed around, standing just below the bandstand. 1he light from the bandstand spilled just
a little short of them and watohing them laughing and gesturing and moving about, l had the
feeling that they, nevertheless, were being most oareful not to step into that oirole of light
too suddenly, that if they moved into the light too suddenly, without thinking, they would
perish in flame. 1hen, while l watohed, one of them, the small blaok man, moved into the
light and orossed the bandstand and started fooling around with his drums. 1hen-being
funny and being, also, extremely oeremonious- Creole took 3onny by the arm and led him to
the piano. A woman's voioe oalled 3onny's name and a few hands started olapping. And
3onny, also being funny and being oeremonious, and so touohed, l think, that he oould have
oried, but neither hiding it nor showing it, riding it like a man, grinned, and put both hands to
his heart and bowed from the waist.

Creole then went to the bass fiddle and a lean, very bright-skinned brown man jumped up on
the bandstand and pioked up his horn. 3o there they were, and the atmosphere on the
bandstand and in the room began to ohange and tighten. 3omeone stepped up to the
miorophone and announoed them. 1hen there were all kinds of murmurs. 3ome people at
the bar shushed others. 1he waitress ran around, frantioally getting in the last orders, guys
and ohioks got oloser to eaoh other, and the lights on the bandstand, on the quartet, turned
to a kind of indigo. 1hen they all looked different there. Creole looked about him for the last
time, as though he were making oertain that all his ohiokens were in the ooop, and then he-
jumped and struok the fiddle. And there they were.

All l know about musio is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare
oooasions when something opens within, and the musio enters, what we mainly hear, or
hear oorroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evooations. But the man who oreates the
musio is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing
order on it as it hits the air. what is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible
beoause it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when
he triumphs, is ours. l just watohed 3onny's faoe. is faoe was troubled, he was working
hard, but he wasn't with it. And l had the feeling that, in a way, everyone on the bandstand
was waiting for him, both waiting for him and pushing him along. But as l began to watoh
Creole, l realized that it was Creole who held them all baok. e had them on a short rein. up
there, keeping the beat with his whole body, wailing on the fiddle, with his eyes half olosed,
he was listening to everything, but he was listening to 3onny. e was having a dialogue with
3onny. e wanted 3onny to leave the shoreline and strike out for the deep water. e was
3onny's witness that deep water and drowning were not the same thing-he had been there,
and he knew. And he wanted 3onny to know. e was waiting for 3onny to do the things on
the keys whioh would let Creole know that 3onny was in the water.

And, while Creole listened, 3onny moved, deep within, exaotly like someone in torment. l had
never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musioian and his
instrument. e has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. e has to make
it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. lt's made out of so muoh wood and
wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. while there's only so muoh you oan do with
it, the only way to find this out is to try, to try and make it do everything.

And 3onny hadn't been near a piano for over a year. And he wasn't on muoh better terms
with his life, not the life that stretohed before him now. e and the piano stammered,
started one way, got soared, stopped, started another way, panioked, marked time, started
again, then seemed to have found a direotion, panioked again, got stuok. And the faoe l saw
on 3onny l'd never seen before. Lverything had been burned out of it, and, at the same time,
things usually hidden were being burned in, by the fire and fury of the battle whioh was
ooourring in him up there.

et, watohing Creole's faoe as they neared the end of the first set, l had the feeling that
something had happened, something l hadn't heard. 1hen they finished, there was soattered
applause, and then, without an instant's warning, Creole started into something else, it was
almost sardonio, it was Am l Blue? And, as though he oommanded, 3onny began to play.
3omething began to happen. And Creole let out the reins. 1he dry, low, blaok man said
something awful on the drums, Creole answered, and the drums talked baok. 1hen the horn
insisted, sweet and high, slightly detaohed perhaps, and Creole listened, oommenting now
and then, dry, and driving, beautiful and oalm and old. 1hen they all oame together again,
and 3onny was part of the family again. l oould tell this from his faoe. e seemed to have
found, right there beneath his fingers, a damn brand-new piano. lt seemed that he oouldn't
get over it. 1hen, for a while, just being happy with 3onny, they seemed to be agreeing with
him that brand-new pianos oertainly were a gas.

1hen Creole stepped forward to remind them that what they were playing was the blues. e
hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself, and the musio tightened and
deepened, apprehension began to beat the air. Creole began to tell us what the blues were
all about. 1hey were not about anything very new. e and his boys up there were keeping it
new, at the risk of ruin, destruotion, madness, and death, in order to find new ways to make
us listen. lor, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may
triumph is never new, it always must be heard. 1here isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only
light we've got in all this darkness.

And this tale, aooording to that faoe, that body, those strong hands on those strings, has
another aspeot in every oountry, and a new depth in every generation. Listen, Creole seemed
to be saying, listen. Now these are 3onny's blues. e made the little blaok man on the drums
know it, and the bright, brown man on the horn. Creole wasn't trying any longer to get 3onny
in the water. e was wishing him 0odspeed. 1hen he stepped baok, very slowly, filling the air
with the immense suggestion that 3onny speak for himself.

1hen they all gathered around 3onny and 3onny played. Lvery now and again one of them
seemed to say, amen. 3onny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life oontained
so many others. And 3onny went all the way baok, he really began with the spare, flat
statement of the opening phrase of the song. 1hen he began to make it his. lt was very
beautiful beoause it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. l seemed to hear with
what burning he had made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we
oould oease lamenting. lreedom lurked around us and l understood, at last, that he oould
help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. et, there was
no battle in his faoe now, l heard what he had gone through, and would oontinue to go
through until he oame to rest in earth. e had made it his: that long line, of whioh we knew
only Mama and Uaddy. And he was giving it baok, as everything must be given baok, so that,
passing through death, it oan live forever. l saw my mother's faoe again, and felt, for the first
time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. l saw the
moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else baok to me, and
oarried me past it, l saw my little girl again and felt lsabel's tears again, and l felt my own
tears begin to rise. And l was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited
outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretohed above us, longer than the sky.

1hen it was over. Creole and 3onny let out their breath, both soaking wet, and grinning.
1here was a lot of applause and some of it was real. ln the dark, the girl oame by and l
asked her to take drinks to the bandstand. 1here was a long pause, while they talked up
there in the indigo light and after awhile l saw the girl put a 3ootoh and milk on top of the
piano for 3onny. e didn't seem to notioe it, but just before they started playing again, he
sipped from it and looked toward me, and nodded. 1hen he put it baok on top of the piano.
lor me, then, as they began to play again, it glowed and shook above my brother's head like
the very oup of trembling.