Free Live Free

ladies an’ gents, an’ all you just plain folks out there too, if you will but be so very kind as to give me an’ my boys a chance to grab a drink while all them chicks back there are gettin’ undressed up for your pleasure, why we’ll be back practically ’fore you know we’re gone. Why don’t you just have another drink your own self?”

There was laughter and a little applause. The sax player grinned, switched off the mike, walked over to Barnes’s table and sat down. “You Mr. Barnes?”

Barnes nodded and held out his hand. “Call me Ozzie.”

The sax player shook it solemnly. “You call me Binko, ‘cause that’s my name. Last name. Won’t tell you my first one ’cause it’s one of them Fauntleroy things, you know? Don’t nobody use it. Just call me Binko. Ozzie, now that’s a cool name. Make me think on all them flyin’ monkeys an’ that stuff. You see The Wiz? ”

“On TV.”

“Should have seen it on the big screen, man. I went in about seven an’ come out after midnight. Seen the last show an’ ate three buckets of popcorn. I figured you was Barnes, Ozzie, ’cause they say look for this handsome, real sharp dude with a mustache. What it is, they ain’t no announcer for our little do tonight. That eye don’t hardly show, so since you got experience in this line of work, would you do it?”

“Binko, do you happen to know a girl called Robin Valor?”

“Course. Everybody here know Robin. Just a minute ago she was sittin’ with you, an’ you’re smokin‘one of her cigars this second. Robin got the bitchin’est cigars I ever saw any woman to have, white or black, an’ I’ll tell you true, man, whenever I get the chance, why I hit her up. She don’t mind. She’s real nice about givin’ out one.”

Barnes took one of the aluminum cylinders from Robin’s purse and handed it to Binko. “She put you up to this,” he said.

“Her, man? No, not me. Robin’s ’bout as sharp as a chick ever gets, but I don’t take no orders from her. Buck told me. Every night, Buck lay down the bread for my little combo, so he call the shots.”

“I didn’t see anybody talking to you.”

“Hey, what’s the matter, man? You think we out to get you? We just want you to fill in. They slip me a note— maybe you didn’t notice I had this long rest there while ol’ Sunky went to town on his vibes? I hang up my ax an’ step over to one side an’ kind of turn my back, an’ that’s when I read it. You goin’ to do it? Or you just want to sit here like some royal-ass high an’ mighty clown an’ make faces at me while I tries to lead my combo an’ announce both?”

“I’ll do it,” Barnes told him. “I’d just like to know what Robin’s up to.”

For a moment, a mask seemed to fall over the sax man’s face, or perhaps one fell away. The easy, affable smile vanished, and it seemed to Barnes that it was the face of another man altogether, a man he did not wish to meet again. Then the smile returned, broader than ever, white teeth flashing in the dimness. “That’s my man! You my man!” A kitchen match scratched at the bottom of the table, and Binko rotated Robin Valor’s cigar in the flame, puffing with care and obvious enjoyment, then extinguishing the match with a delicately launched breath of smoke. “Now you ain’t goin’ to find it’s much of a chore at all. When we come back, you get up there an’ tell the folks a couple jokes. You know some jokes? You know how to tell them?”

“Yes, I know some jokes.”

“That’s fine. They shouldn’t be too blue—you know what I mean? Or some of these motherfuckers will walk out. But they shouldn’t be Sunday School jokes neither. You know what I mean about that?”

Barnes nodded.

“You are my man. Then you tell them how the Dixie Dukes—that’s us—goin’ to play ’Basin Street.’ An’ you get yourself off the stage an’ let us do it, but you don’t come back to this table here. You go off that way—” Binko pointed, “an’ while you’re waitin’ off to one side, the next act goin’ to tell you how to introduce her. Got it? Now here come my drummer and ol’ Sunky already, so get yourself set.”

Under a spotlight, Barnes said, “Good evening and welcome to the Flying Carpet. If you’ve just arrived in our fair city, we’re glad to see you. If you’re going, well, we’re sorry to see you go, but glad you stopped here first. Do you know we’ve got direct service to China now? Just ask for Dragin’ Home Airlines.”

No one laughed. As far as he could see, no one was paying the slightest attention. He tried to flick his cigar the way Groucho used to. “Tough, huh? If you think you’re tough, wait till you get the chicken over Denver.

“Did you hear about the cabin attendant and the handsome pilot? This pilot was really good looking and made terrific money, so the stew was thrilled to death when she brought him his drink up in the cockpit—”

There were a few scattered chuckles.

“Don’t laugh, you’re flying with him. She brought his drink and he asked her to marry him. Naturally she said yes. Then he said, ‘Since we’re going to be man and wife, I want you to do so-and-so right now.’ Well, her mother had always told her never do so-and-so. You know what I mean? This isn’t the one where you wait till the kids are in bed—this is the one where you wait till they’ve gone to camp. And so she was so embarrassed she ran out of the cockpit and clear back to the tail section—airplanes have great names for places—and she was back there trying to get hold of herself—the pilot had hold of himself already—and she saw Father Rooney sitting in an aisle seat reading his breviary. So she asked him about it, even though she got as red as a cherry—I love this story—when she had to tell him what the pilot wanted her to do. And he said, ‘Niver! Tell that limb of Satan you’d sooner die! Me dauther, you must leave this vile occupation and niver see the pervert agin!’ Well, that was pretty serious, quitting her job, and besides the pilot was a very good-looking guy and made a lot of money, so she went up the aisle a little farther, and there sat Brother Philbert saying his rosary. The stew told him all about the pilot, but he just jumped up and went back to ask Father Rooney. So she went up the aisle a little farther, and there sat Sister Mary Elephant grading papers. So she told her about it—she was starting to enjoy telling it by now—and Sister Mary Elephant fainted.

“So she went farther up, nearly to the front of the plane, and there was Cardinal Cogan himself, with his hands folded, looking out the window and smiling a little. So she told him. And he said, ‘Bless you, my child, not till after you’re married, and may you both be happy.’ So she said, ‘That’s wonderful, your Archship’—he was a St. Louis Cardinal—‘but why is it that you can say that when Father Rooney told me to quit my job and Sister Mary Elephant fainted and Brother Philbert and so on and so forth?’ And the cardinal said, ‘My child, what do those three know about sophisticated sex? They’re all flying tourist.’”