Drumsticks Read Free Page A

place in my life.
    So much for voodoo. So much for Perry Mason.
    I had the doll propped up in my saxophone case, so that she could oversee and bless those bills raining into the case as the public showed its grateful appreciation for my playing. Ha. The previous day’s take had been mediocre. Today’s was downright lousy.
    I was blowing in the Times Square station, where any number of musicians I knew from the scene told me they’d been cleaning up as of late. The pickings were supposed to be ripe in Times Square now, owing in great part to the Disneyfication of the area. Hordes of out-of-towners roamed there freely, taking the subways by day and night, no longer afraid of being held up, raped, carjacked, and so on. Little by little, New York is getting rehabilitated as a tourist mecca—that is, becoming a shopping mall, where the real Americans can feel at home.
    Like all dyed-in-the-wool Manhattanites, I found the so-called clean-up of 42nd Street distasteful. What with the pimps, the porn movie houses, the touts for the live sex shows, the drugs, the parasites that hung around the Port Authority terminal, and all the rest of that scuzz, the old 42nd Street had been no picnic. But it was preferable to this version of Wonderland where everybody was buying inflatable Little Mermaids and queuing up for The Lion King .
    I had had it with the Deuce, as they were calling Times Square in the seventies. I threw in the towel: packed up and rode up to street level on the spanking new escalator.
    I’d locked Mama Lou inside the case with a cruel little laugh, hoping she’d suffocate in there.
    I walked east, stopping at the main library on Fifth Avenue. I slipped into Bryant Park and crunched around on a few dead leaves, sat down on one of the benches for fifteen minutes or so. Then I went back out onto the pavement to try my luck playing again. Once more I propped up old Mama Lou, my supposed lucky charm.
    I got a couple of bucks from some student types, a fiver from a European couple, and assorted coins from the sainted New York types who seem to give money automatically to anybody who asks for it.
    After a couple of hours I headed downtown on foot, thinking evil thoughts about the corn-fed tourists in their K Mart jeans; the mayor and his fucking gated-community mind-set; lite jazz; turn-off notices; autumn in New York; my bloody karma; and, especially, Mama Lou.
    I needed to stop off for groceries. Given the current budget, spaghetti sounded delicious. In the supermarket I walked past the lamb chops and straight to the pasta aisle.
    At home, I looked at the Jack Daniel’s bottle but didn’t go for it. Instead I kicked out of my shoes and opened a beer. While I made supper, I listened to a Lady Day/Lester tape I’ve always been fond of, going over to the machine a couple of times to replay “This Year’s Kisses.”
    My tough guy pose had pretty much dissolved, helped along by that titanic crying fit the other day. I was beginning to feel a little more like myself, kind of human. But I was still broke and I was still sad.
    No rush to hear my phone messages. What was the point? I had little desire to talk to anyone. Unless it was Aubrey, I did not plan to return the call. But, just before turning in, I did press the message button and listen.
    The voice, a woman’s, was vaguely familiar. Not until she said something about a $350 check did I recognize the voice to be that of the secretary at the travel magazine where I work periodically, translating articles from French into English. Apparently, through some computer mix-up, they had the wrong address for me. They had been sending me the same check, and getting it back in the mail, for weeks.
    Money! At last, a piece of good luck.
    I sent up a little prayer of thanks and a silent apology to Justin. If he had such great faith in the silly doll, then I guess I could give her a little credit, too.
    Actually, Mama Lou was not the first