The sound of a trumpet from the apartment next door signaled the arrival of a new neighbor, so I stood and listened until the music stopped, then I knocked on the screen door, saying, “My name’s Leon. I heard the music.”
“I’m Jerry,” he growled. “Come on in.”
“I love this thing,” he continued, as he laid his horn on the kitchen table. He told me that he and his then-wife Chase loved wailing trumpets so much that they spent their honeymoon in New Orleans listening to Al Hirt.
“He blew that horn so hard,” Jerry said, “that we could feel the wind on the front row.”
He paused, then smiled. “That dude had some lungs.”
“You play?” he asked.
“A little electric guitar,” I answered.
“I got four English classes to teach, and a novel to finish, but after supper I can always find time for music.”
“I’m a writer,” he said emphasizing the first word.
He did not plan to go further than his MFA in creative writing. No more graduate school for him. “Those Ph.D’s write about writing,” he said. “I just write.”
And so he did. No matter what, late in the evening, he got a bottle of bourbon, and headed for the spare bedroom. And that liquid inspiration carried him through — sometimes until 4 a.m. After that, he slept for three hours then headed back to the classroom at the university.
Jerry told me he was working on a novel, tentatively called “Geronimo.” Then he paused, and looked at me.
“They called me that in high school,” he said.
I was amazed at his candor; for he had the appearance of a full blooded Apache. Angular face, slick skin, straight hair, a bearing of gaunt self-assurance, and a guttural growl. Given the fact that his family album betrayed no American Indian blood, it became clear that “Geronimo” had not been bestowed as a compliment. Jerry simply wrote it into one.
He could not bear anyone he deemed a fake, and to him the greatest fakers were men of the cloth. Although I was not as vehement as Barry, I shared his disillusionment. As a child I had experienced glowing assurance that Jesus was real and He cared about me personally, but when that glow dimmed out within the hour, I assumed Jesus had dimmed out too.
But music brought consolation. He needed that; I needed that. So we tried playing trumpet and guitar, but after a few sessions we saw the combination was not right.
“I think I’ll buy a bass,” Jerry said one day. So he found a Paul McCartney-style Hofner, and proceeded to teach himself electric bass.
Within two weeks he could play “Yesterday” and “Our Day Will Come.” When his buddy Chuck wanted to join us on drums, our apartments became too small, so Chuck put the word out among the English Department faculty that we needed a rehearsal space.
“What instruments do you play?” Mrs. Barringer asked.
“Jerry plays electric bass,” Chuck said. “Smith plays electric guitar, and I play drums.” He paused. “Just mellow stuff,” he added as he played air percussion, making the shh-shh-shh sound of a brushed snare drum. “Easy listening stuff.”
“Then you could use our fellowship hall,” she smiled. “It’s right next door to the big church down below the hardware store.”
“The one with the high steeple?”
“That’s the one.”
“Don’t we need to check with the pastor?” Chuck asked.
“I’ll do that,” she said. “He’s my husband.” She paused. “Come play any time.”
“We gonna’ play at the First Baptist Church,” Jerry said, his narrow eyes glinting.
“Really?” I replied. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“It’s not the church, man. It’s just the fellowship hall.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But churches have preachers.”
“We’re not gonna’ see any preacher.”
So on Friday afternoon, Chuck and Jerry checked out the venue, then Chuck set up his drum kit: two toms, a snare, a bass drum and pedal, two cymbals, and his drummer’s throne. The next day, the two had almost reached the building when I got there.
I got the guitar and the amp and hurried to catch up.
“Hey guys,” I said.
“What’s up, man?” Chuck said.
“Yo,” Jerry said, carrying his instrument case in his right hand. “Let’s go for it.”
I heard other voices to my right, and looked to see a well-dressed man and woman getting out of a black Mercedes. The preacher met them with open arms, smiling broadly, then escorted them into the sanctuary.
As Chuck and Jerry reached the door of the fellowship hall, I realized that Jerry’s case was too narrow to contain a bass guitar. Then, as he entered the door, I saw a silver flask in his pocket.
“This is not good,” I thought.
We walked to the room at the end of the hall, where Chuck mounted the throne, then did a rim shot. I plugged in the amp, took out the guitar and played the first chord of “Yesterday.”
Jerry pulled out his horn, and blew a one-note Hirt, loud enough to be heard by the preacher and his guests next door.
“Let’s wail,” Jerry growled, then started into a tune, perhaps “St. Louis Blues,” down and dirty.
I hate to see….the evening sun go down… the trumpet said.
Hate to see that evening sun go down…
In the space at the end of the second line, I heard a voice coming toward us.
“Stop. Stop that. Stop. Stop,” the voice shouted, getting louder as it came toward us.
“You can’t play that stuff in here,” the preacher said.
By the time I snatched the amp cord from the wall, and cased my guitar, Chuck had forsaken the throne, and run past the preacher down the hall. I ran by him too, puffing as I carried the amplifier. I looked back to see Jerry, standing his ground, still playing. I did not see what happened next, so I can only imagine the interchange.
“What are you doing here?” the preacher demanded.
“Got the Saint Louis Blues,” Jerry answered with his horn.
“You need to leave now, young man,” the preacher said. “We can’t have that music in here.”
“And I’m blue as I can be,” the trumpet wailed.
“I’m calling the police,” the preacher shouted, then turned to find a phone.
“Just as blue blue blue as I can be,” Jerry played, walking after him, until the preacher disappeared inside a door.
I never found out who the preacher’s friends were, nor how they reacted to blues from the fellowship hall; I never knew how Chuck retrieved his drum kit, nor how Jerry made his exit or got his instrument case back.
Neither did I wait to do a post-game evaluation of the conflict; just put my stuff in the car and drove slowly home. I felt betrayed by Jerry’s bringing the trumpet, and embarrassed by his bringing liquor into a church building, and bewildered by his getting us run out of the fellowship hall.
I saw Jerry a few times before I moved away for graduate school, but never played music with him again. At long distance, I kept up with Jerry in magazines.
Over the next thirty years, Jerry became famous as a writer, and as troublemaker — once, soused, holding a gun on his students and making them listen to his trumpet playing. Chase was long gone, and he was with his third wife by the time his health gave out.
Staying with Jack Daniel’s, he had discarded many of his closest friends. Suffering from pneumonia, he checked into a hospital, where his vital signs became so poor that his doctors held no hope for his survival. But at the lowest ebb of his entire life, Jerry was granted a vision of Christ, but one in which the Lord never spoke but simply radiated.
So Jerry did, telling the Lord he had neglected Him, and later saying he was stunned that the one he had mocked had always cared so deeply for him.
After the vision, Jerry said he had become a Christian, still confused about God, but certain of Christ. He told anyone who would listen about the vision, and some of his finest books during the 10 years he lived before his voice went silent.
Learning about his vision was comforting to me, knowing that Jerry finally found the truth for which he was searching.
I did, too, but that’s another story.