So this evening’s encounter was bound to happen sooner or later, she said, especially in New York. But I must say I didn’t expect to see you here tonight, although you do always come to mind whenever the band is mentioned. So you were part of the content of my consciousness all day today, even so. And then all of a sudden there you were.
I just happened to get a glimpse of you in the wings, she said, because the drummer kept winking and flashing his sticks and brushes at someone in the wings during the warm-up number before the great charmer himself came striding out to direct the festivities from the piano. That’s when I called the maître d’ and gave him your name and told him where I wanted him to ask you to let him come back during the first intermission and take you to where an old friend from California would be waiting to say a brief hello for old times’ sake.
That was when I told her that I was getting ready to leave graduate school for a while to take a part-time teaching position at my old alma mater. And she said, Well, good for them. They appreciate their own product. That’s a good sign. A very good sign. This is good news that I must pass on to the marquis right away, so he’ll know where to find you on his next trip over here. Ever since he met you in person in the south of France he has been looking forward to seeing your part of the U.S.A. with you. So now that he will know where you are going to be, watch out.
So that was when I told her that I also had been asked to help Daddy Royal write his memoirs. And she said, Who else? You are precisely the one I would suggest that people with questions about him go to as I’m sure the marquis would agree. Indeed, the very first thing I’m going to do when I get back over to the Plaza would be to call the marquis and pass your news along to him. And by the way, when you get word on him heading back over here, be prepared for sessions about Norman Rockwell’s year-round Fourth of July paintings and images of the U.S.A. in Hollywood musicals.
Then as the band filed back on the stage for the second set, she said, But I must not intrude on your backstage errand any longer, especially in view of the fantastic project you’re involved in and that I’m certain that you’re going to bring off brilliantly. So says the authority of my muddy water daughter intuition.
We went through the old one for each routine again, then, and I said what I said about her recent movies. And then when I said, And of course you will tell Maurice and Esther that I asked about them, she said, But of course. And when I tell them that you’re heading back down to Alabama for a while and what you will be doing in addition to your part-time classroom schedule, they won’t even try to hide their satisfaction. To them, education is what you’re all about. Knowing what things are about and how they’re related to each other. How about that? Remember what we said about the magic keys? Well, they think of you as forging the skeleton key that opens up all sorts of treasures.
So there you have it, I said, stepping back through the entrance to the backstage passageway, fairy tales for the likes of me and you, but nuts and bolts for them without the likes of whom not!
Also before I left New York there had been a call from Gaynelle Whitlow, who had recently seen Joe States, who had told her about Miss Fine People and had given her my phone number to have somebody in her office to call me for her, and when whoever it was called and I answered there was a pause and the next voice was hers, saying, So the all-American schoolboy is, as the saying goes, by way of becoming the what shall we say?
And when I said, Journeyman, she said, That’s you, all right. Still on your way wherever it is you’re headed.
Then when I said, Hey, thanks again for rescuing me even before I needed to be rescued, she said, You know the old saying about an ounce of prevention. A smart boy like you I’m sure you know that first night was a setup. Joe and the man. I’m pretty sure old Joe would have brought you by on his own, but it was on the boss’s agenda, and he sent me a bouquet plus that was waiting for me when I got home that next morning—or was it still morning? So anyway, since you said you were definitely going back to school, I figured they had other plans for you other than just plucking on that bass fiddle.
And I said, Hey, that part was all news to me, too.
As I think about it now, she said then, as good as I thought you sounded in there with them that night in the Palladium and also with old Radio Red and on those other things you did with Eric Threadcraft I never really thought of you as an all-out, full-time musician. I said, Hey, he’s on it, all right, but there’s something else to this cat. So when you stayed in town and got yourself
