The Magic Keys

that back when he filled me in on “the character of the cast of characters in this man’s lineup” was that it was something more than education, and not a matter of birth and family background and how much money you could live on or get to back you up. All of that might give you some clout of one kind or another. But class don’t need clout. Class is its own clout, young fellow, and it’s pretty much the same with hustle. Because you see the thing of it is that class and hustle don’t really go together. It’s a matter of being on the ball, on the money, on the minute without coming on like an eager beaver. Man, what I’m talking about is also being able to miss the cue, miss the mark, and still hold your own and not lose anybody’s respect and faith in you. In school you’ve been thinking mostly in terms of passing or failing, but out here, in the everyday here and now, it’s also very much a matter of whether you can also lose or fail and still have people betting on you on the next go-round.

Which reminds me that it was also during those initiation sessions he used to continue between naps as the bus zoomed on and on through the open country that he began telling about what he told me about the big con, which was his word for the confidence games that certain hustlers play. There were two main kinds of con artists or slickers, he said. Most people knew about the first kind. Now that somich is an acknowledged criminal and a cold pro. And when he takes risks, the odds are always in his favor, no blind bets, no coin flipping. The deck is always stacked. But now there is also that other kind of con man. Now this somich begins by conning himself into believing that he can con everybody else. All he’s got to do is get up enough nerve to give it a try with a straight face. He’s like a gate-crasher. In fact, he really is a gate-crasher and a self-effacing flatterer at the same time, and I mean to the point of begging and groveling. And the thing about a somich like that is that he really forgets that he’s conned himself. That he’s a lying phony. Because once he gets his lie started he gets so deep into it that he believes it himself. Which is why he can get all tangled up in contradictions. A cold-blooded somich never forgets he’s lying. This cat just might.

Along with all of the bus sessions out on the open road during those first months, there had also been all of those backstage tips, and after-hours and off-day rounds of pop calls, introductions, and briefings for future personal as well as professional reference. Not to mention all of the ongoing fill-in data not only on each section, but also on each sideman’s approach to every tune in the book for the current tour. There was also Old Pro’s preliminary technical breakdowns, but once the number was kicked off onstage, he (Joe States), being the mule skinner, was no less responsible for locking things in as the Bossman wanted than the Bossman Himself. You know that old jive about his nose itching and me sneezing, well, you better believe it, Schoolboy, because when I sneeze from now on, you poot—not just by the numbers, my man, but by my numbers.

Ever so often when he was passing on another personal background clue for somebody’s part on a tricky passage, he would wink and say, Of course you already know what every last one of these cats in this lineup is about speaking in just musical terms. But what we don’t ever let any newcomer to this outfit forget is that we don’t just play music in this man’s band, we play life. L-I-F-E, as in flesh and blood. And me and you and old Spodeody and the man make the difference between metronome time and pulse. Like I told you. Metronome time is mathematics, Schoolboy. Pulse is soul. Talking about the rhythm and tempo of life as the folks came to know it and live it in down-home U.S. of A. Talking about stuff them other folks at first thought was just some more old countrified stuff like talking flat because you cain’t spell and articulate and cain’t write!

As we came back outside the restaurant and headed along the sidewalk to Sixth Avenue that autumn afternoon in New York, he said, So, now tell me how things are going with them fine people you’re camping with, my man. And when I gave him the old OK fingers crossed sign, he said, The unanimous impression back on the old Greyhound is that she just might have what it takes to make a real man out of our schoolboy. Not that any of us think you don’t know what you’re doing. Man, we’re just backing your solo like jamming on a tune you called. Because we figure it’ll do you good to hear some amen corner backup every now and then. Especially coming from that bunch of thugs we got in that crew.

Then as we clasped shoulders and stepped back before he turned to head up along Sixth Avenue to Forty-eighth Street, he raised his hands as if about to whisper a last word in the italics of the ride cymbal and said, Daddy Royal, homeboy. Remember Daddy Royal. He’s there for you, homeboy. Get to him fast. Get to him fast. Express time, Schoolboy.

IV

On my way up Fifth Avenue from the library to the Gotham Book Mart at 41 West 47th Street about a week and a half after the band had hit the road out of New York that mostly bright blue and mildly breezy autumn, I overtook somebody I had not seen since my freshman year in college. I had not really gotten