The Sound of Building Coffins Read online

  rebirthing

  Buddy stood in shock, rubbed at his lips, stared at the grounded cornet. Motionless, useless.

  Jack picked up the bruised horn from the ground and blew into it himself. The sound was low and deep; a soulless moan. Buddy didn’t intervene: only stood, momentarily lost, trembling, rubbing at his mouth, eyes full of tears, exhausted, beat.

  Down. Out.

  Morningstar blew hard into the cold air of the room, profoundly exhaling, emptying his lungs with a determined wheeze. Kissed his son on the mouth. Then:

  Sucking in.

  Pulling foul air from the boy’s chest. Typhus’ small fists beat at the skull of the man he knew as Father and sometimes Daddy.

  Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap.

  As bad air transferred from son to father, the hand of the father sank deeper into the chest of the son.

  Two brown eyes focused on the scene; drying, crystallizing. A mind became clear.

  Buddy Bolden snatched his horn from Doctor Jack. Drew in cold air once more, blew out hot with eyes shut tight. Blew hard. Loud.

  Troubled about my soul, Lord…

  Typhus crumpled in his father’s arms. Hands lifeless, knuckles brushing against the floor. Father Morningstar’s eyes became wide, enraged, black.

  Doctor Jack searched his soul for answers and found none.

  Beauregard Church reached into his worn leather bag, removed an old and dull-bladed knife that once belonged to his grandfather. Pearl handle with bits of glass polished to look like jewels. Cheap family heirloom. Good for nothing except maybe for luck. He leapt towards Morningstar and plunged the knife into the preacher’s back up to the handle, the dull blade tearing straight into, then past, his heart.

  Diphtheria screamed. Ran to her father as Buddy dropped his horn to intercept her, holding her fast. Whispered soft in her ear, feigning calm: “It’s over.” Held her tight, stroked her hair. “I think it’s over.”

  Beauregard stood up, leaving his cheap family heirloom in the preacher’s back. Picked up his leather bag full of lucky stuff and walked out of the house without word or expression, walked into the warm air of night. Walked down the steps. Kept walking. Didn’t come back.

  The dark red life of Noonday Morningstar spread across the floor of the Carolla house, bathing the soles of Anabella Carolla’s shoes and evenly soaking the uneven carpet. Anabella Carolla had seen none of it, nothing past the release of her son. Nothing else mattered. She simply held the baby to her breast and repeated over and over: “grazie, grazie, grazie, grazie…”

  Dominick Carolla was fast asleep in her arms. Breathing deeply and easily. Except for the grateful chant of his mother and the gentle sobs of Diphtheria Morningstar, the house was now silent, its temperature warming. Noonday Morningstar’s lifeless body lay atop his son’s. Father and son in a puddle of joined blood, swimming motionless.

  Jack pulled Beauregard’s heirloom free from Morningstar’s back. Dropped it to the sticky floor. Put a hand on the preacher’s shoulder, rolled him over and off of the nine-year-old. This would not be Typhus’ day to die. His father had sacrificed too much to allow it.

  Empty wrist: Noonday Morningstar’s right hand was nowhere to be seen.

  Covering Typhus’ naked chest was a large, bright pink welt. A fresh scar in the shape of a hand.

  Jack picked the boy up in his arms. Took him out of that place. Buddy and Diphtheria followed close behind. None of them spoke. Leaving as quietly as they had come.

  Marshall Trumbo stayed behind.

  He looked at the mother and child, so strangely reunited. Quiet and calm as if no demon had ever visited them.

  Chapter thirteen

  The Note Revisited

  The song resolved like all melodies, with a single note.

  A.

  But not A.

  *

  Things change with resolution; completely, irrevocably.

  From resolve to clarity, clarity to understanding, understanding to questions. And with questions of this kind comes a sort of salvation. But not salvation.

  E flat. Transition. A.

  Questions.

  The player stops.

  He is more sober now than he’s ever been in his life. His mind isn’t ready for the questions, but he listens to them intently. He doesn’t want to hear them; he needs to hear them. He reaches for his bottle of train yard-grade gin, holds it firmly, reels back and tosses it through an open window. Listens to the tinkle of shattered glass outside. Lays his horn on the pillow, his head next to the horn; it is inches from his eyes. His eyes are red and he feels tears building, but he does not let them through. His eyes look up at the warped, rainwater-stained ceiling as he strokes the horn protectively. He cannot sleep. He wants a drink and recalls the recent sound of shattered glass. Out the window.

  This time, he will remember the A.

  He knows he has seen the face of God.

  Questions. E flat. A. Clarity.

  Something is created, stillborn, then reborn; a broken promise on the mend.

  A rebirth in progress, it has all the time in the world. What once existed but left too soon has returned. An abortion swimming up from the river. New life. With time.

  Differently. Irrevocably.

  Buddy Bolden dreams with eyes wide open.

  Book Two

  Buddy Bolden and the Christ Kid

  1906

  Chapter fourteen

  Calisaya Blues

  Well, little miss, I do appreciate wisdom in the young. And that’s just what you done showed me tonight.

  Pretty little miss like you coming round to Doctor Jack asking about a cure, sure nuff. Not asking for a cure, but asking about a cure—the difference between the two being larger than you might expect. One question show caution—the other just quick and dumb. And I do appreciate you for it, little darlin’, indeedy I do.

  Most gals come around to Doctor Jack just hoping for a quick fix to what they view as an imminent crisis or a state of impendin’ personal doom. Figgerin’ a cure is a cure and don’t reckon much that a cure might turn out bad. But sometimes a cure can make things best for short and worst for long. So it truly is wise to ask about before asking for.

  I’ll answer your questions best as I can, little one, though, truthfully, my answers can’t possibly be right for no one but myself. No, my answers are for me, but maybe I can point you in the direction of your own. Then, once you decide, we can go on talking ’bout curin’ and such, if you still have a mind to.

  The cure is a thing called calisaya. Bark off a shrub that come here on a boat from South America. Can grow pretty good in New Orleans, too, if you get it down in good so the roots take hold. Just grind up the right amount then put that powder in a tea. Once that calisaya get inside ya, little girl? The cure is on.

  Sets your insides to contractin’. Might be some bleedin’ and might be some dyin’. Lungs’ll contract too, making it hard to breathe. Bladder too, making you wanna pee. Retina too, making it hard to see. Heart too, and that’s where the real danger be. But if you get past all that, then past is past, and that—for some—is the cure.

  But you didn’t just ask on the how. You asked on God, too. What God might think of all of this curin’ talk. Hmm.

  Well, hell, I don’t know what God thinks. But I do know this:

  God has occasion to talk to each of us directly at one time or another—and all along he be telling us the same thing, to be sure. We just listen different is all.

  Some folks turn away from God because he won’t answer a peep when they ask him questions through diligent and heartfelt praying and such. He quiet as a mouse, that ol’ God, when the prayers come out—almost like he ain’t there. Well, maybe, just maybe, that’s on accounta God waiting on us to answer a few of his own questions first. Bet you never even thought of that, eh? That’s all right, little sis, not many do.

  I see you scratching your head and I can’t says I blame you. But let me go on for just a bit and maybe it
’ll make more sense by the time I get through. If you got a few minutes, why dontcha take off your hat and have a little sitdown?

  Typhus? Be a good little fella and make a cup of tea for our pretty little company.

  I’d say coffee, sweetheart, but I don’t believe coffee to be good for a gal in the family way. In case you decide agen’ the cure, that is.

  So, I was talkin’. That’s right. Thank you, Typhus. Thank you.

  Try this one on for size, little sis:

  Try and think about God before he made the world. Before he made the saints and the angels and the puppies and the gators and the babies and the mothers. When all he had to mess with was planets and stars and moons made out of cold dirt and hellfire. Try to think of God as just a regular fella in that situation.

  Now then. I bet you thinking he was powerful lonely.

  He warn’t lonely, sister. No, ma’am, he didn’t know to be lonely. Before you can get lonely you have to miss someone, and if you’re all there is and ever was then you never get the chance to pine—or even to imagine the pining.

  But God’s a smart feller and had plenty of time to think about all kinds of things out there in the universe all by himself with nothing to do except making stars and moons and swirlin’ dirt. And I imagine somewhere down the line he mighta thought, “What if?” What if he weren’t the only one? What if he didn’t know all there was to know—as might be the case if there was another being he warn’t aware of with thoughts he couldn’t see. So God mighta considered the possibility of not knowing—and that possibility would be a foreign thing to someone like God, the only being ever was. And, to God Almighty Hizzownsweet Self, would such a possibility be a good thing or a bad thing, a right thing or a wrong thing? Which brings up another thing altogether.

  When a creature is so utterly alone in the universe, such a creature got no use for right and wrong, good and bad. If there’s only you and no one else, then there’s only what comes to mind—and if what comes to mind don’t affect no one but yourself, then right and wrong don’t exactly apply. So right and wrong never occurred to God just as wings never occur to catfish in a river.

  But when God got to thinking about the possibility of maybe not being so alone, then the idea of right and wrong logically sprung to mind—like the idea of wings might spring to the mind of a catfish plucked from the river and thrown up into the air. These earliest thoughts of morality didn’t digest easily, though—for God had no way of knowing what morality might mean except in theory. I suppose this notion might’ve seemed more interesting than stars and moons and swirlin’ dirt, so he hunkered down to business and threw some flesh and blood into the mix.

  Flesh and blood. That’d be us; you and me and that little baby in your womb and ever’one else to boot on this big green earth. Ever’one ever was or will be, too.

  And this thing that he put in our hearts might’ve been our very reason for being—the inner knowledge in each and every one of us about the difference between right and wrong. And the power to act on this knowledge in a meaningful way.

  Y’see, little sister, God ain’t a naturally moral being because he got no use for morality. It don’t apply to his personal situation. But questions do arise and answers do beckon.

  Now, being God might very well mean to know everything. But you must understand that even for God the knowing don’t come easy. So when a question come up that stumped his big ol’ God-brain, he set about finding an answer. And that’s where we come in. He invented morality and planted it in our breasts. And only through our actions could he ever hope to learn about that particular thing.

  Now, if this be so, then it’d be a maddening thing for the human race to reconcile such a notion in its collective heart and mind. But what I’m saying is this here. Might be this. Just might be.

  Typhus, boy, where’s that tea? Make mine special like always. Just a touch but don’t be stingy. And keep it clean for the little gal. Hard liquor ain’t good for a gal in the family way, I s’pect.

  Now, where was I going? That’s right. I was talkin’ might-bees. Might be this. Might be this, indeedy.

  Now, listen up and let your own self decide, little darlin’:

  Could be we’re here to answer God’s questions and not the other way around. Follow?

  God is learning from us, little sister. Giving us free will and waiting to see what we do with it. He don’t give us no details, because the tellin’ would taint the answers. He needs us to be straight up with him about this stuff. He don’t even come right out and admit to being there, don’t even supply us with proof-positive of his very existence. Just give us enough smarts to recognize the possibility, then let us ponder it out on our own. Folks call that sort of pondering “faith.” Nothing wrong with that because, truthfully, it don’t make a licka difference.

  The problem of morality is something that God is inclined to know about, but can only learn from creatures with a need for it. So we must oblige. We’ve got to do our very best to show God what’s right. Only a man can do right, little sis. Only a man can save. Jesus, little sister, was an earthly man. Could be Jesus was God’s way of testing out the waters.

  But the question of right and wrong that’s been put to us by God is sometimes a tricky one—because right and wrong don’t always wash as clean as black and white. All kinds of grays in the hearts of men, little sis. What feels right in the heart of one might feel wrong in the heart of another, and so forth and so on. But there are some exceptions that stay mostly constant. Some things stay mostly light—like loving. And some things stay mostly black—like killing.

  And since you come to talk about a cure, I guess that means we’re talking about both. The cure is the trickiest kind. Because the calisaya cure is surely killing—but it can be about loving, too.

  You’ve got to ask yourself a question, little missy—and try to find the answer in the deepest part of your soul.

  If a second life resides within your own body, a life that has no choice whether to live or die on its own, do you have the right to make such a decision by proxy? Is that second life close enough to your own life that you can treat it as your own? If that child is doomed to live a life of hurt, would it be truly right to keep that life from touching air and earth and water, never to draw a natural breath?

  It’s a question that only breeds more questions, for sure. After all, how can you know that the life of this child will not be a good one? How can a person know whether taking that life, before it’s even had a chance to show itself, might be a right thing or a wrong thing? Can the morality that God put in your heart even begin to decipher such a thing? Of course, this might smell like a question best put to God himself. And now we’re back to the beginning.

  Because if what I say is close to true, then we’re here to answer God’s questions and not the other way around. And even if I’m wrong, well, do you think that God could even answer a question like that?

  Hell, I don’t know. But I do know this:

  God ain’t tellin’.

  So the answering is left up to you, little sister. And when you make your answer then things do unfold, and then God might learn from the unfolding. And when God gets enough unfolding, then the unfolding might start to look like answers, and then, maybe, just maybe, from these answers he can make the next world a better one for every eternal soul that come back around.

  But there you are with that little second life in your belly right in the here and now and wondering about a cure. Not even thinking about this world or the next. Stuck in a situation and wanting to know what to do. Right now, this very minute. And so you have a decision to make about killing—and it ain’t a decision with an obvious answer, nothing purely black or white about it, child.

  The decision must be a hard one. And it must be answered very carefully. So you must draw on that thing that God gave you, the thing that God has never felt for himself; that thing about right and wrong. You must teach God from your own suffering. And you will suffer.

&nbs
p; You only get to decide how.

  So close your eyes and listen deep, little sister. Listen to the thump of that second life in your belly. Try to hear if it’s talking to you—and pay attention to what it has to say. And listen to your own heart, too. When you’ve pondered long enough, you come back here and see Doctor Jack again. If you’re still looking for a cure, then I will gladly oblige. And I’ll oblige just like so:

  Your tea will be just as sweet, but it will have a bitter aftertaste and that taste will be calisaya. Typhus will make your bed and you will lie on it. Then you will be sick, as I have explained. The second life will come out of you, and then it will die. There will be pain for you and for the little one, too. Typhus will take good care of that baby, bring him to the river for nightswimmin’. And I will do my best to ease your suffering. It will be your saddest day. And there will be more sad days to follow.

  If you go by that path, little sister, after listening to all the love in your heart, then you may take solace in knowing this one thing:

  All life is eternal because all souls are eternal. Even little lives taken by calisaya tea. Little lives like that stay with you always, and sometimes even visit you in ways you don’t expect. That’s because even little lives come from the will of God, and there is a mysterious joy in that fact. For God is learning about love from you, little sister. And he is eternally grateful for the lessons that you give. Through your pain you teach God right from wrong.

  It is never the other way around. Never has been and never will be. It’s the reason we are here on this earth, little sister. We are educating God.

  With a pain that he could never feel.

  Chapter fifteen

  Up From the Crib

  Six-dollar stockings and she went through them like kindling, but the right had been hard earned and so the small luxury brought her no shame. Pretty little whore pulled up a stocking nice and slow; not for worry of runs, just for savoring the slide of silk against skin. It had been a long road to the sweet life of whoring at Arlington Hall.