transgressive Invitation (eBook)

John Campo (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
189 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-5269-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Bobby Turner Mystery #4 is an invitation to go to San Fransisco

Musician - writer- pro cyclists - luthier

Textauszug

Chapter Three

Carrol knocked on the bathroom door saying; “Bobby Dearest would you please get some milk for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

Without a word I grabbed my coat, keys, hat, and was down the stairs and out the door happy to feel the evenings stinging cold on my face. My heart rattled with the quickened stress as a reaction to the sub freezing temperature began to settled in my body. Blue Sky came running after me before I could get ten feet from the front door. She didn’t speak. Her little soft hand slipped into my jacket pocket and we walked through the quiet city on a cold crisp night.

My distress lingered like death sentence waiting for the governor to call. I was talking aimlessly about my lonely childhood and vivid imagination, babbling on about my imaginary friends that were partly shadow and partly hallucination as we walk through the darkened downtown streets. Blue Sky was feeling my warmth trying to read what was really going through my mind and not particularly listening to my words. An indecipherable sound came to her through my being. It was the unfamiliar music of someone else’s thoughts she reckoned it to be her guardian angel.

“Daddy take me to the club where you play.” She said stopping me in mid sentence. I looked at her rosy little face, warm steam that streamed from our faces on frozen air drifted between the two of us lightly in the windless atmosphere. “Sure I blustered!! I want to go on a binge of no social redeeming. I am tired of feeling guilty. Tired of taking care of business and being responsible in a futile attempt to be one step ahead of the competition. Music isn’t a race, and no one is listening anyway. The only thing people listen to is the squeaky wheel, the guitarist that plays with his toes or plays the fingerboard like a piano with all ten fingers, maybe with his teeth.” Blue Sky laughed knowing I was making a joke.

“What is wrong with just having a dream?” She said.

“Nothing my dear.” I answered

“You’re correct my little one, no one is going to banish me to stand in the corner to talk gibberish to the dust mites. I’m socially conscious. Why I even joined a political outreach program to save the gluttons. You are correct my dear, what is wrong with having a dream. What is wrong in just be good? Who cares if I feel like cow poop pounded with a 5 pound sledge through a tennis racket. I’m cool and that is the main thing, be cool at all cost even if you started with nothing and that is all in have now, nothing.”

“You have me Daddy!” She offered.

That was like the hand of the almighty come to touch my cheek and I hugged her. We walked down Bleecker street and finally stopping at a club, waddled into our seats and ordering a beer for me and a coke for Blue Sky.

The smell of liquor and the dinginess hung in the air as a compliment to the Christmas ornaments. There were the usual lonely and lost locals sitting at the bar, while the educated NYU freshman sat at the tables soaking up the atmosphere and talking loud. Their parents sent them to the big apple for an education and this was the place to get it. The classroom gave them the schematic but patronizing the catered environs around campus filled in the rest. At least they didn’t have to do homework on it but that might not be half bad if they did. There is no better curriculum than life, and learning how to make mistakes all on your own.

It was the start of the second set and the horns went up on stage waiting for the rhythm section.

A hulking big black figure ringed in the reflection of red from the lights behind the bar slowly lumbered over to our table. It brought on the definite conclusion regarding my mental condition that I was in a western bar and the local gunfighter had just challenged me to a gun fight. His image chaps, spurs, and two pearl handled guns jangling his way to me. I let my fantasy ride when words came from his mouth that sounded strangely familiar.

“For Christ sakes did you get grey.” He said and pulled up a chair inviting himself to our table

The skin over his cheeks had a brassy tone and there was a smoky gentle cheeriness in his bedroom eyes. His hair had sparkles in it and he wore a brightly colored print shirt. It hit me like a blast from yesteryear since the facts had changed but the persona didn’t.

“I’m sure you remember the best damn drummer you ever had Bobby!” He said in a big smile showing me the whole piano.

“Holy smoke Blue its Robert Lee Battle. Boy you are a sight, where the hell have you been? I called you a dozen times or more with no answer. I had work for you..”

“Hey man you know how it is out here I’ve been on the road with Don Pullman and for a year traveling around the world. So tell me who is this young lady here with you?” He asked looking at Blue Sky.

“Oh this my daughter Blue Sky.” I said and introduced Robert.

Robert reached out to shake her little hand.

“You can call me RL, your daddy does.”

“How are your children RL, all girls also?”

“All girls yes sir, all doing fine and grown now for the most part. I should get to see them soon now we are back in the states. It looks like we will be on a mid winter break for a month. Don is teaching piano at Princeton University for a semester. You know how it is; he says there is a thirteen year old in his class with a recording contract.”

“I know I saw him on TV last night with his dad. He sounds just like his dad. So the only difference is his age, that makes him a circus monkey side show.”

“Right, in two or three years they will work the kid to death and the novelty will wear off, the kid will realize this is a job not a video game and he will move on with his life as a stock broker for Solomon Brothers.” RL said.

“Or a career in cheap hamburgers or Coffee the only things left produced in this country outside of guns and ammo.”

“You got that right.”

“Damn it so good to see you.” I confessed.

“It’s good to see you too.” RL said with a hug.

“We had one hell of a time in Hong Kong didn’t we.” I said.

“You went to China?” Blue remarked.

“Yes Hong Kong, sweetheart, on a show that wound up in Japan.”

“RL and I were in a band playing a show for a month.” I said with a raised eyebrow and pointed pinky on my now warm beer glass.

“Did you tell her about the Golden Tiger incident Daddy?” RL joked trying to hide his face as he did.

“No he didn’t” I answered.

“What was the Golden Tiger incident?” Blue asked.

“Now look what you did hammerhead.”

“It is a long story honey.” RL explained wanting to save me the agony of telling my daughter about some embarrassing tragic love affair.

“I’ll tell you about it someday baby doll” I said reflectively sad and a little perturbed.

“Hey last summer I worked with a child prodigy bass player out of Tucson.” I said happy to have changed the subject even if it wasn’t a new one. Sometimes you just have to start talking to change the course of conversation by tossing out nonsense just to keep everyone on their toes.

“When I want to change the subject I just raise my voice louder than the rest of the room.” RL joked. But he not only joked he demonstrated.

“Your voice gets louder in increments until you are the loudest thing in the room!!!”

Everyone in the bar turned to look at us and suddenly the place went quiet.

“See it is easy!” RL chuckled, and the bar went back to its undercurrent.

“Look Bobby I have to go on now. Are you going to hang out?”

“I think so, we just were going out for a container of milk and Blue wanted to see a club I’ve played at so we wound up here.”

“Great, so why don’t you sit-in. I think the guitarist will let you use his guitar. Wait here and I’ll ask him” RL said and walked off into the shadowy void that was the stage area.

The guitar player was a hippy dude with a Gibson ES335. RL gave me the thumbs up sign and I sat and waited for the signal.

The band started with ‘Confirmation’ and everyone sounded good. The guitar player didn’t comp, a term musicians use for playing chords an abbreviation for Composition, but his solo had all the new scales the new crop are using these days and a well placed choked B string. Strangely his amp was thrown in a half sized shopping cart, like the ones the elderly use for walkers.

They went on to play ‘Bye Bye Black Bird’ and ‘Star Eyes.’

When I am sitting in a club and the bandleader calls a tune I know which is most of the time I can’t sit still; it just drives me crazy. That’s why I don’t go out much to Jazz haunts anymore. If the guitar player is bad it sucks, and if he is good, I’m jealous and it sucks more so I just avoid the experience. I don’t mind seeing good rock, country, or any other type of music except my own. It is a quirk of mine but I get more out...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.3.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-5269-8 / 9798350952698