Shackling Water Read online

  Well, said Latif, we all got some lover and some pimp in us. Jazz might deny the pimp, but hip hop denies the lover. To me, that's a much heavier omission.

  I'ma have to marinate on that, said Spliff, but I do know I'd rather hang with cats frontin like they worse off than they are than mufuckers frontin like they better.

  Fair enough. To be continued. Guhnight.

  Easy.

  Latif went upstairs, strangely comforted by Spliff's sentrylike presence on the block, and hung his new handmirror from a nail in the cracked plaster wall at perfect eyelevel. The thin sneering upper lip of Alexander Hamilton, pierced by the same nail, jutted disapprovingly from Sonny Burma's crucified tenspot toward the sax resting in the corner. Latif fell asleep wondering what was more chauvinist: the stylized, sanitized pimpery of telegenic rappers or the women of Albert Murray's jazz fiction—starlets and European socialites who dug jazz without a hint of patronization, validated by black musicians as sisters of Sarah Vaughn: women who were accommodating, beautiful, and cosmopolitan, who expected nothing but some good black dick and the occasional pithy statement about music, art, or life.

  Latif woke up exhausted, and for the first time since moving to New York he passed the day without playing. Instead, he sat in bed and stared out at the block with a new sense of kinship. Brothers down there didn't seem as mundane as they had the week before, squatting on the stoops and propped casually against the brickwalls with one leg cocked parallel to Earth. With quick reflexes they eyechecked everyone who passed by: squinted with understated menace at strangers, greeted friends and neighbors with benign style, scanned the landscape for police.

  By the time the sun waned and Latif stood outside Dutchman's, buttoning and unbuttoning his jacket in the night breeze, his calisthenics and calculations were complete and his curves ironed hastily into sharp crooked creases. He waited for Say Brother to arrive, resisting the last-second urge to rehearse what he would say as he had done with Sonny Burma. It was better not to have a gameplan; listen and react, let form follow simply from boom stimuli.

  I had a feeling I'd be seeing you again, Say Brother laughed, stepping deliberate from the airconditioned cushioned comfort of a gypsy cab and smoothgliding to Latif's side with a tobaccobreathed exhale. Here in the objectivity of outdoors, he cut an eccentric figure: nimbletoed and keg-shaped in a bowler hat and doublebreasted suit, smoothing his mustache with the same hand that clutched his cigar. Latif wondered how he'd gotten away with smoking one of those things in a cab.

  You were waiting for me out here, weren't you brother?

  Yeah. Teef nodded groundward. I was.

  Ha ha! I told you that shit was good, Say Brother crowed, merryfaced and drawing out told like a jackleg preacher.

  Yeah, it was good, mumbled Latif into his beltbuckle. He counted off a tiny grace note pause then swung up face to face, eyes hard, and deadpan smacked the next words flat at Say Bro's florid mug: It put ten bucks in my pocket when I sold it.

  The dealer paused to shift brain gears and Teef played on, breath coming easy, loose and cool. Say Bro, as rhythm section, had dropped out just like Teef hoped he would, and the silence was Latif's to soar on. Say Brother was a pro and he would come back playing time, so the key was not to turn the tune around. Get your shit off, but don't mess with the tempo.

  I want to work for you, said Teef. I know this place and I can work it every night, hard. I'll double your money. I learn fast. I'm smart and motivated.

  Say Brother said nothing, stared level and ignored the intro cue. The silence fucked Teef up; he'd only thought to play a quick volley in fear of getting cut off, and now instead he looked lost and ridiculous, floating in dead air. He'd thrown a wild salespitch. Say Brother let a vaporous silence swirl up thick around their shoulders, holding Latif's eyes steady tensed, and when he finally spoke his tone was bloodless, stripped of music. What, if anything, do you know about this game, son?

  Don't get high on your own supply.

  Don't get high on your own supply. Probably heard it on some rap song, but you got that right. He stroked his chin with thumb and finger, waving the cigar at Teef as he did so. How many winters you got under your belt, anyway? Say Brother's eyes flickered up and down Latif's length and he filled the air between them with a slow billow of smoke. You tall as all hell, but you look like you ain't been out your mama's house more than a couple years. You got that neophyte shine to you. You nineteen or twenty, maybe blackjack twentyone, and you sure ain from New York, are you?

  Latif glossed the intimidation he felt. From Boston, man, Roxbury. I'm nineteen, he said, declining to claim an extra year. Say Brother seemed like the type of cat who'd be happier to be right than impressed to be fooled. But I been paying dues since way back when. Latif, he said, extending his hand and hoping Say Bro wouldn't press him on his nonexistent resume. You nail everyone like that or am I just a sore thumb up in here?

  I nail everyone like that, Say Brother assured, shaking it. His hand was small but his grip tight. I'm an excellent judge of character, horses, and most especially women, but let me not get into all of that. I tell you what, neophyte, you got a nice vibe going on. Shit, you might be a natural—I hit you with a freebie and you turn right around and flip it. We'll see if you take a shine to the game. Not here, though. I'll put you on deliveries; that way you'll get to see the city.

  I'm sorry, Latif interrupted. I appreciate that, sir, but I gotta be at Dutchman's. I'll do deliveries too and whatever else, but this is the spot for me. I'm a musician.

  Say Brother snorted and rocked back on his heels. Ash jumped from his cigar to the ground. A musician. I'm not looking to hire no musicians, phyte. I'm hiring a runner. If you a musician then go play some shit, go ask The Horn for a goddamn gig. Matterfact, wait here. He brushed past Latif and shuffled down the steps, raising the back of his hand. I'll go ask him for you. He disappeared into the darkness of the not-yet-open club, door slamming behind him. Latif suppressed the young fool urge to run away; the only thing that stopped him was uncertainty over whether he had been dismissed. It would be his worst misstep yet to leave if Say Bro wasn't done with him, so Latif stood and listened to his belly gurgle apprehension. He felt like a soldier on night watch, left with only his own lonesome thoughts and the imagined rustlings of enemies. Although he'd never smoked, Latif felt the acute desire for a cigarette. He was still decoding the sensation when Say Brother and Sonny Burma popped out of the building.

  This the cat, Sonny, Say Bro rasped, one hand draped over the pianist's shoulder and the other one outstretched and pointing. This the new musician I got for you. I couldn't find The Horn so I brought my man Sonny up here to judge your musicianship potential. Well, whadda you think, Sonny, you gon give his ass a job? Say Brother laughed and his whole body shook. He toyed with motherfuckers any time he had the power to: as a prelude to acceptance, a cruel elongation of dismissal, or simply for sport. Say was a cool cat if he respected you, scrupulous and funny as fuck. Thick veins of compassion marbled his professional ruthlessness, but if Say Bro judged you a punk, too weak to navigate a man's world, you'd never get a chance to prove him wrong. He'd break on you any time you crossed paths, hoping you'd give him an excuse to beat that ass.

  Do you believe the nerve of this cat? he asked Sonny. I'm offering his outtatown behind a job and he tells me no, he'll only work for me here cause he's a musician! I told him I'm not hiring no musicians!

  Sonny Burma turned to face Say Brother, sliding from underneath his arm until Say's palm rested on Burma's shoulder. Oh, I think you are, said Burma. This here's my man Teef from Roxbury, Massachusetts, and I want him well looked after. This brother is one hell of a horn player and I want him hanging here where I can chart his progress. You dig?

  Say Brother looked from Burma's raised eyebrow to Latif's slowly unfurling forehead. Is that right? he said, wide smile spreading. You telling me this skinny-ass nigga got game? He chomped down on his cigar, hip enough to dig the unexpected and savvy enough to relis
h the opportunity to do Sonny a solid.

  Game like all get out, said Sonny. He winked at Latif, then turned to Say Brother before Latif could wink back. Flipped yours around on you, ain he? Say Bro flicked his head in an acknowledging sidenod. This here's the man you need taking some weight, Sonny went on, businesslike. You got a lotta longtime customers in here who ain't been so well taken care of since you started expanding your clientele. I was looking for you just last night and couldn't find you. Had to go elsewhere. Ain't that right, Teef? Burma reached up to shake his hand.

  There you go, Latif responded, grinning.

  Say Bro looked from one to the other, did the math, and laughed. Well well well. Ain't that some shit?

  Ain't it? said Sonny.

  Sure is, said Teef. When do I start?

  WALKING IN RHYTHM |

  MANDATES | SONNY BURMA

  Teef hardly had to do a thing. He made no leering solicitations; there was no garish hustling. To approach a cat out of the blue was dangerous and inefficient. Say Brother himself did it only on such sparse occasions as his impeccable instincts recommended brashness. I shouldn't do it, but what can I say. Sometimes I get a sense about these things, he told Latif.

  You were wrong about me, Teef said, wanting to tease him.

  Wrong is you're a cop. I wasn't wrong. I could tell you were from out of town, and it's always good to talk to outtatowners. Not tourists, mind you, I don't give a good goddamn bout tourists: outtatowners. But don't you worry about that. Just keep cool and don't do shit; the word will get around just fine.

  It seemed to Latif that what got around just fine was Sonny Burma, and that the word moved mostly where and when he did. The shrewdness of hitching your business to the social butterfly with the biggest wingspan in the room dawned quickly on Latif; Say Brother didn't miss much. I got you this gig, Sonny told Latif, smirking, and if you fuck it up I'll have to hear about it for the next ten years, so listen close. Sonny expected a little hook-up now and then, a product royalty on sales made, but that was no big deal. Say Brother knew Burma well enough to build in the expense. A small arrangement among friends.

  With the bond of benefaction between them, Sonny was a different cat; Latif looked back on what he'd taken as a snub that first night between sets and wondered if he had imagined it. Perhaps that second favor had etched him into Burma's good graces, or perhaps Sonny was simply hungry to mentor someone, somehow; whatever the reason, Latif found himself snug under Burma's wing, nestled closer than dictated by duty.

  Sonny made all the introductions the first night and even seemed to get a kick out of showing off how many people he knew. Burma strolled from the tables to the corner Teef had claimed, chatting and laughing back across his shoulder as he led one cat after another over to Latif. Latif, this is my man Larry Calvin; L.C., Latif James-Pearson. I think y'all tenor players might have some business to discuss, and Sonny smiled, clapped his homeboy on the shoulder, and was gone, only to return minutes later with another client. Latif's web of associations spun out from Sonny, and by the fourth night he knew everyone he had to. They came to him. They brought their friends.

  A week earlier Latif would never have imagined how much business went down in here. Cats flowed in and out around the static oblivious tourists, chatting and copping and checking out a tune, then bouncing. He was the quiet nucleus of all of this activity, and despite his professional detachment, his low profile, the way he stayed serious and studious and made clear that his ears were on the band even while making moves, cats chattered at Latif on the regular. They didn't seem to notice his reticence, the way he slipped away within seconds to listen to Van Horn. Every customer wants to be friends with his dealer, Say Brother had warned him. It was true. The handful of musicians who were clients treated Latif with so much familial camaraderie that everybody else in Dutchman's wide circle of insiders did too. It felt a little bit good, Latif had to admit; if nothing else it eased him into comfort with what he was doing.

  The first few transactions had revulsed Latif, made him shudder with small loathing as he placed the product in the eager palm and slid the payment in his pocket, but soon he made himself forget what he was selling. It was easy to forget. These were welldressed men who laughed hearty prizefighter laughs, whose powerful hands gripped his firmly when they met, whose girlfriends were fly and flirty. He never saw a single needle, never heard the drug discussed. These cats had too much class for that. These were musicians, not degenerates. They held snifters and highball glasses with casual assurity, bought him drinks now and again, invited him to come and check out their upcoming gigs. They discussed macrobiotic diets, new age books and saxophone reeds, told tour stories and asked after friends.

  At their treatment of him and his easy slide into the life, Latif felt the embrace of a secret relief familiar from his youth. It was the relief of ducking a trial, and it was mingled, as always, with a splash of letdown: disappointment that he had once again made the team without being forced to try out. As he fraternized with the musicians like a colleague, cool but graceful in accepting their fellowship, Latif was again aware of his own strangeness, the lack of a résumé he'd been afraid Say Brother would intuit, his unspoken exemption from certain rituals of passage.

  It was a privilege Latif had carried since childhood. The other kids had read between the lines on his forehead, glimpsed something in the taut way he held his hands even before he played any music, something that marked him as different. He was still their neighbor, playmate, homeboy, but with the wisdom of children they made small acknowledgements that his destiny was different.

  A jazz nigga in a hip hop world. Latif could never decide if they treated him more like a younger brother, not ready for the grit of things, or like an older one, above such foolishness as they engaged in. He was accorded slightly more respect and less inclusion, and he was never expected to fight. When the crew began smoking herb in seventh grade they assumed he would abstain, and Latif's first step into the smokers' cipher a year later was a gala event. Anytime he jumped feet first into the mix was celebrated, whether a brew-and-weedsmoke latenight with the crew or the six straight rainbow jumpers he once drained to win a pickup game at Marshall Courts. There weren't as many stories about Latif as there were about Shane or Rook or White Boy Mike, but the ones there were they told more often. At least when Latif was around.

  It was a role, this part-time membership, that had bothered him before he understood it, when he was young and just wanted to come in off the outskirts and be down like other guys. He could never make himself do it, though—take the steps he knew were necessary to feel real inclusion, to meet the crew's definition of true manhood. He couldn't sacrifice the hangout time or force himself to drink enough to act a fool. He skated on the margins of acceptance because being fully down meant committing to too many things he couldn't, too many ideas and activities better kept at arm's length.

  A little later on Latif was grateful to his crew for understanding him so well, for not trying to make him something he was not, and the anxieties of his younger years faded but never washed away. Sometimes, although he tried to banish the thought from his mind as both self-aggrandizing and depressing, Latif felt that they saw him as the only one of them who had a chance to make it in the world. First Shane and then others had started calling him T.T., for Talented Tenth. It was a name he tried to hate, but couldn't.

  By high school, most of the stories about Latif involved the girls he'd been with. Sex trumped drinking and fighting in importance and Latif gained by the shift, not the first cat on the block to bag a chick but the one who most consistently had action going on. The crew didn't pretend to understand what pleasure Latif derived from female company besides the obvious; the party line was that women were only good for one thing. But Latif found he could rap to girls about his music and they would listen as he seldom felt he had the right to ask his crew to. The crew said only What's up with the horn? or How's the music going, bruh?, questions asked not out of interest but r
espect. Latif, unwilling to take up space, answered It's cool, it's cool, I'm tryna do my thing, and talk flowed on.

  Not so with his girls. The knowledge that passion and talent were attractive dawned gradually on Latif, but it was not something upon which he chose to trade. It was gratifying just to talk about the music, to unpack his struggles and ideas. He could do it with Wessel, but Wessel offered answers and advice, posed questions. With Wessel he was self-conscious in the presence of an expert; with some of the girls he knew Latif could simply speak until he caught himself saying something useful, and feel the heat of admiration warm him as he spoke. There were seduction techniques embedded in Latif's discourse; he noted and cataloged them, but he felt somehow that he would sully the music if he used his status as a player to get drawers.

  There was more to the strangeness of himself, beyond status and women and the early curfews that kept Latif in his bedroom playing, listening, or reading when other cats were out of doors finding opportunity and trouble. Latif had a sense of timing that eluded sensible explanation; music's elastic relationship with the clock seemed to carry over into his life. He managed not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with such frequency that Shane, the namesmith, and then others, began calling him Lucky T.T. and Rabbitsfoot and asking him to wave his hand over their heads in blessing before they went to cop some weed or shoplift beers from the bodega.

  Even now, when he ebbed into sleep, Latif often thought back on the day five years ago when he and two of his boys had gone to Cambridge to hang out and go shopping. He had lingered in a clothing store, trying on some pants, while Shane and Jay Fox walked back out and down the block. When he emerged from the shop ten minutes later, new light-green khakis folded crisply in a drawstring plastic bag, the cats were gone. He waited outside the store, searched the block and didn't find them, and finally went to the train station and saw the aftermath of what had happened: the blood and the medics and the clump of mumbling bundled onlookers, arms crossed and breath visible as they whispered, shook their heads, and stared.