THE CODA
Victoria Moten
James Gregory Turner’s avant-garde jazz period was ushered in by a
series of upsets in his late 40s. By then he was recently divorced, damn near bankrupt, and was giving up smoking several times a month. Doctor’s orders. But his music just came to him like it was always there in his bones. For years he played it straight. But there was a lot of crooked in him, and he bent whatever wasn’t already broken by stretching his long fingers over the ivory keys. A cure for what ached.
Jimmy moved to Nebraska wanting a vacant space to purge the
chaotic noise from his cramped mind. It was a place where he could
drink his liquor and play the keys all day. No obligations, no pressure to stay in the pocket or empty his. This was a labor that he hadn’t endured before, but he pressed his blistered hands against every contraction to deliver the harmonies that rang out from his Rhodes. Before, his music mingled with the sounds of the city as a young man, but now they clashed. He had met his expiration date with the metropolis. His tastes—bitter. His style—rotten. The decay was evident. Removal imminent.
As a young man, Jimmy wanted to make his barely literate parents
proud. So he shook his thick accent and used the king’s English better than the king. Respectable. He became suit and tie, 9 to 5, ordinary, standard. He played this role well. Jimmy was never in love with the task but was good at it. Figured that was the way out.
Jimmy’s folks got by on the little they did know but raised him to
read the fine print, and that he did. He could read anybody like a book. Read the room, know what to say. What to do. He was intuitive that way. He talked his way into the jazz clubs, women’s bedrooms, and folk’s wallets. And somehow he still received a standing ovation after his staccato encounters, fooling with their time, hearts, and money. He realized that he could play better by ear than he ever could following the sheet music.
Renie joined the ensemble in his mid-thirties. She wasn’t paying Jimmy no mind, but he lied his way into her life anyway. The woman had range. When she sang, her voice cascaded over the note like a jellyfish dancing in the deep sea. She had a voice that could follow whatever melody spilled out of his fingertips. They were, for a long time, the perfect duet. Fourteen years of her life, long. The union brought him harmony, balance, so Jimmy made promises he couldn’t possibly keep. He was no accompanist. Never wanted to play house; band offered him steady work, but he was only interested in touring. He left her alone for weeks. Bailing this freight buoyed him as he reached the next octave of his career. A little heartbreak goes a long way. It was feeding him. His muse, depression. Renie, broken.
After he lost Renie, he lost everything else. She made off with his money, leaving him with only a pack of cigarettes and his Rhodes. So he hopped on the uptown train and just kept riding. No destination in mind. He never intended to roam the frontier, but that’s where he found himself. No parts to play. No people to please. Free from the voyeurs of the city, he let his hair turn grey. His beard—long. Mustache—bushy. He looked like a madman sitting at his piano in that empty shack that trembled against the weight of his latest score. Keeping time to the metronome of cicadas. There was so little of it left—for him.
And up he stayed, all that night, punching holes in the prairie sky. Knowing that by dawn, finally free of interruptions, he will have finished his work.