Paris in May. D. Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ Can you play an instrument?” asked the stableman.

      “I’ve been taking piano lessons since I was seven years old, and I’m eleven now,” answered Ken with some pride.

      “Can you play European classical music? You know, people like Chopin, Stravinsky, and Debussy.”

      “I’ve played those and others,” answered Ken. “You’re just a stableman. How do you know those composers, and why do you ask me if I can play their music?”

      “You ever heard of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Fats Waller, Nat Cole, or Bud Powell?”

      “I never heard of those. You made them up, didn’t you?”

      “You ever heard of jazz? If not, boy, you’ve missed the great American piano players. If you want, someday I’ll show you what they can do and how they sound.”

      At that moment, another worker came calling for Kenneth to tell him he was wanted at home. The boy picked up the stick he was carrying and, without another word, ran across the meadow through the knee-high grasses and wildflowers in the direction of the Carle family house.

      One afternoon, while Bootsy was currycombing one of the horses, which had been ridden pretty hard by a visitor, Mr. Carle stopped the stableman to ask him about the conversation he had with his son Kenneth.

      “Kenneth tells me you and he were having a talk about music.”

      “Yeah, the boy told me he was good at math and liked puzzles. Those two things will carry him far,” said Bootsy in an effort to tilt the conversation in a direction away from music.

      “He is good at those things,” said Mr. Carle, “but he was very interested in why you’d asked him about music.”

      “I didn’t ask him. He asked me about a tune I was humming.” Jason Carle was an astute reader of men, and he knew instantly that Bootsy had tightened and become defensive.

      “Maybe. But there was something in the conversation about music that caught his attention. Something about American piano players. He’s asked me three times to find out what you were talking about. I know little about music except what my wife and son tell me. The only people he has to talk to are his teacher and his mother, who doesn’t play an instrument. So I’m here to find out about what you said to him and why he found it so interesting.”

      “Mr. Carle, I had no intention of getting into your family’s business and disturbing that boy of yours. I only wanted to talk to the boy. The last thing I wanted to do was upset him. I like my job working for you and I don’t want to lose it.”

      “I think you misunderstand, Bootsy. Talking about my son and his love of music is all I wanted. Are you willing to sit and have a chat with me?”

      Bootsy hung the curry brush back on the nail inside the barn and walked the horse back to its stall, all the while trying to still his thumping heart and relax and ready himself for a talk with the boss. He had been here before. Most black men worried about their jobs because of a minor infraction they didn’t know was an infraction. At the hardware store, he was let go by the owner who wanted to have a casual talk because he didn’t charge enough for a bag of feed when the price he charged was written on the bag, then again by a landscaper on account of not cutting down a tree he was told to cut down but the homeowner wanted to save. He never received payment for the work he had done. This kind of treatment was fairly common, but still he would have to go, hat in hand, looking for another job that would sustain him. He steeled himself as he returned from the barn, stood by the rail fence next to Mr. Carle, and waited for the hammer to fall.

      Mr. Carle looked at Bootsy and asked, “So what do you mean when you refer to an American piano player?”

      Bootsy thought for a moment that the question might have a double edge. Mr. Carle might be looking for a reason to assume that he was an uppity black man. In the political history of the area, that alone would have been justification enough to terminate Bootsy. Or it may be a real question in search of a genuine answer. So with some nervous hesitation, he chose the latter and answered honestly.

      “Okay, so an American piano player is an American who can play the piano, but that is not what I meant when I was talking to the boy. What I was talking about was a jazz piano player. A player who knows the music of America and can play it with a jazz feel. It is not European music played in that style. It is one hundred percent American. It is what some musicians call American classical music. It springs from the American experience and sounds like the American experience. How the music sounds is different. The scales are often different. In one common blues scale, for example, the third, fifth, and seventh are flat.”

      “You mean it’s played differently than serious music?” asked Mr. Carle.

      “First of all, people make a big mistake when they talk like that. Jazz is as serious and as complex as any other music. I think the only way you would understand is for you to listen and try to appreciate it.”

      Even though he had no real way of judging, what the boss heard first was his stableman talking intelligently about something that he, Mr. Carle, knew little about. It both surprised him and made him more curious about what else he didn’t know. It seemed that the essence of this man went beyond caring for horses and cleaning stables.

      “Do you play an instrument Bootsy?”

      “Yes. I started out playing guitar when I was a kid, and then I switched to the piano. I just play for myself now. I used to play for a living, but that was a long time ago.”

      “Did you play jazz?”

      “Yes. I played jazz and everything else.”

      “What do you mean by ‘everything else,’ Bootsy?”

      “Just that. After years of studying European classical music, I switched to jazz. So yes, I can play anything.”

      “That’s very interesting,” said Mr. Carle. “Who taught you to play the piano? What I mean is, where did you get the exposure?”

      “Mr. Joe Alfred lived down the road from me and gave me lessons. He was a great teacher and an expert musician. When I was in New York, I met a few people who remembered him.”

      Bootsy could tell that Mr. Carle did not believe a word he was saying. Mr. Carle himself began to think his stableman was outright lying and had a vague notion that the whole episode was somehow comic, maybe even sad. What it said about a man who could create such a fantasy out of thin air was beyond his ability to grasp. Nevertheless, he kept his conversational composure and continued to be polite to his stableman.

      “That’s great, Bootsy. It was nice talking to you. We like the job you’re doing out here. Keep up the excellent work.”

      “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, boss.”

      Bootsy turned and walked into the barn past the horse stalls. He showered, changed his clothes, and prepared to leave for home, where, at the end of this day, he would make himself dinner and, like every other day, would watch the news on TV. He would then sit at his beloved piano and work his talent on the things he could not yet play, always searching for the pieces that could help him maintain his technique and inspire his imagination.

      For reasons that eluded him, Mr. Carle was haunted by his conversation with Bootsy. It played in his mind repeatedly as he looked for the key that would СКАЧАТЬ