Eighteen. The Detour
That was how the autumn began. Classes were only a distraction from long unbroken tides of blues, honky-tonk and soul from twilight to sunrise. I spent every waking moment in the station, a stack of records by my side, slowly making my way through the archives.
The rate of college attendance would be so much higher if everyone was just honest about it and told kids: anything that you’ve ever wanted, you can do in college. There is nothing quite like sitting in a room with several thousand records and knowing you have nothing to do for months.
The station was a sanctuary where time stood still, where New York still swelled with the brass of big bands and jumped to tumbling bop drums and mumbled cool in Coltrane’s sax. It was the one place I could go to get away from the noise – a sacred space where the world all made sense. You could hold masterpieces in your hands. It was forgotten by everyone except the kids. And so the lingering sounds of songs from long ago continued to drift out over the airwaves, carried aloft on the winds like whispers from a better time.
My thumbs ran across the frayed and torn covers and I smelled the history of the place, the sweet lingering scent of students, lovers and jazz men who had stood here before me and held the record with the same affectionate longing.
At the heart of the station were four long dusty hallways lined with endless shelves. The worn covers numbered in the thousands, all red, blue black green white frayed yellow and dusty pine, sweet chocolate brown, sometimes half discolored by mold. I stood before them gazing at the decades of promise, unknown heroes beckoning me forwards like whispers on the wind. The air was impossibly still, temperature controlled to the finest degree. There were no windows, lest the hot sun of the new century steam in and the sad truth of what had become of the city be revealed to the ancient greats.
In the light glimmered a renewed sense of purpose. I was to explore the covers, study the faces and the names, play sweet and foreign notes over the thick summer air, as if falling into the world for the first time. I gazed at the thousands of highlights from decades of promise. I couldn’t believe I was the only one there. Somewhere in the abyss there lay the secret to where we had all gone wrong.
First I fell in love with Cab Calloway, especially a version of Minnie the Moocher he played on February 2, 1942. Maybe Bessie could stay in a chord and reinvent the melody, but Billie moved around the beat. But most of all, Louis Daniel Satchelmouth Armstrong – the Chaucer of music! Man, hearing Louis play was magic. Listening to Up the Lazy River you could feel it – it was as if the melody wandered away, then winked at you and sauntered on back. It sounded slow but it’s going fast.
I trained myself up for greatness by seeking out everything Louis ever loved, just like Billie. I took a liking to Verdia and Rinoletto, and whooped over King Oliver and Buck Johnson and slid around the station to Lester Young. Pete and I sang along with Count Basie and agreed that the first Tiger Rag to be recorded by the Dixieland Jazz Band was the best. Most of all I wanted to love something so much nothing else mattered, like Louis did his horn.
During the slow slide into December New York grows into a cold and domineering place. Winter emerges from behind the cracks and corners of rainy drizzle days and winds cut sharp through the alleys. It’s all lumbering near, and we know we’re going to have to bundle up hard for a long slow losing fight, with enormous scarves round the necks muffling mouths before descending into the dank subways.
But if you know where to look, there is magic. Grand black and gray wool coats billow outwards and sweep over the white sheet streets. Snow falls and umbrella pop fast from leather gloved hands. The avenues turn into beautiful seas of rushing white milk with black circles spinning in silent rhythms on the surface. Little golden lights wrap tight around the campus trees.
And Pete and I listened to everything. We listened to Eric Dolphy and the avant garde of Albert Ayler. Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane and the later works of Cecil Taylor. We went to Tijuana with Mingus and danced with the Pharaoh. We rocked round with their dynasties and got it in our soul. We moved like Charlie Parker – the most beautiful Bird in the sky.
Outside blank faces passed with complete indifference, but we found kinship in other ways. In the station time stopped – we played Billie for days. We found old stars who had accepted their life on the fringe, as if that was the way it had always been, and paid the door fees to hear them play again.
When we weren’t at the station we were listening to each other’s shows. It was like we were all at the same party, but just had to walk a really long way to get to the record player. No matter where we were, we were all in something together.
One night on the way uptown I found a man with fabulous dreadlocks in the subway beating the life out of an African drum. His rhythm felt like fire and I suddenly wanted to bang on a drum more than I cared about saving my life. Before the 1 came hurtling through the tunnel we shook hands and became friends.
Back at the flat a message was scrawled across the bathroom mirror in furious blue crayon: HAS ANYONE SEEN MR. TORTY?
“Oh no,” I breathed.
“Flat meeting.” Sera banged on Pete’s door. “Wake up. We need to devise a strategy.”
“For what?” The door moaned.
Sera fiddled with the radio dial until the white noise melted into the drawling tones of the President.
“We’re fighting the terrorists… all around the world,” the cracked voice declared. “Striking them in foreign lands before they can attack us here at home.”
Sera clicked the radio off. “Sometimes I think terrorist is the only word that guy knows.”
Pete shuffled out holding his head. “This had better be good.”
Sera leaned on the table, flashing her teeth. “There’s a protest next weekend in D.C.”
“What are they protesting now?”
Sera stared. “Everything,” she drawled, as if it were obvious. “Pete, there’s a WAR going on!”
Through half-open eyes Pete warily watched Sera remove a glittering marijuana leaf off the wall. “Then shouldn’t the posters you bring say something about the war?”
Sera chose to ignore him. “Growing up we were told America was a great success. We were told this is the luckiest time to be alive. The country had never been better. That’s what the papers said. But for the last fifty years the American economy has been based on a military-industrial complex. It’s all a big broken mess.
“The fantasy of prosperity we had been living in since childhood has vanished. Our government has failed us. The war is a lie. We are living in continual fear. Gone are the dreams of a home, a job or money. Everything is blowing up. Lies are coming out all over the place. Enron is only the first – the rest will fall in its wake.” Sera looked steadily around. “We just need one event to take hold of all the deep, pent-up discontent. And it will take off.”
“Why does there need to be an event?” Pete mused. “Isn’t the best way to stage a revolution is from the inside, in a suit?”
“If we stay silent, do you know what they are going to say, when they talk about us? ‘Here lies the generation that did nothing’.” Sera was beside herself. “We’ve got to do something.”
Pete was barely paying attention. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“Says you.” Her eyes flashed. “Columbia made headlines when students hijacked the administration buildings.”
“Yeah. In the Sixties.”
“Those people are still here. They just need a leader.” Sera held a hand to her ear. “Do you hear that?” Her lips curled into a smile. “The revolution is coming.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Thundering down the road," he replied.
Sera glanced furtively about the room and realized that she was all alone. “We’ll see. I’ll take care of this,” she insisted. “Leave everything to me.”
We told her she was nuts. She swore she could pull it off. Then exams came and we all went home for our trimmings and cele
brations and forgot all about it.
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