27th Street

Here’s a little excerpt from something I’ve been writing. Let’s call it a retirement project because by the time I’m finished it I’ll be retired, that’s how slow it’s going. I guess eventually it’s going to be a novel. I’ve learned that I write fiction much like I make paintings. I have to see the words, change the words, erase the words, rebuild, edit, snip, rewrite, rethink. Maybe I have a third of a novel typed up and another third floating around my ever so small brain, but I’m a stubborn guy and one of these days I’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m going in for another rewrite and who knows what will happen when I do that. It might be unrecognizable. I like this passage though, so I thought I’d throw it out here and let just this one snippet see the light of day. As for the rest of it, for now it’s nobody’s business but my own. There’s a bit of raw language here. I hope you can adjust.

This was the first anyone heard of Staash Duda’s newfound obsession with the polka. Not that he didn’t know polka because he did. I remember way back, when I was teaching little eleven year old Staashu accordion. Back then he liked to be called Stanley, but nobody’s called him that since he was a teenager. He was a natural from the start, a real natural. Even as a kid, he could handle the difficult moves. It was a joy to watch him learn a new song, master it and make it his own. I was still active in music back then and I was gigging and teaching and recording some too, and between all three, I was doing pretty good. Sometimes, I’d take off on the road for a couple months and my students they’d just have to wait. That was just the way it was. That was the deal, take it or leave it. I taught Staashu for five years and by the end, that boy had some chops, believe me.

Staashu’s polka days ended, at least the first time around, when he was sixteen and the city tore down the old St. Basil’s church. Staash bought the church organ from the wreckers for a couple hundred bucks. It was a Hammond C3. The C3 model was a tone-wheel draw-bar organ, complete with bass pedals. It was just about the same as its famous cousin the B3, except it was made for the Jesus market. It was a monster, but a beautiful monster if you know what I mean. Instead of just the four legs, this organ had what they called modesty panels, so you couldn’t see the player’s feet and legs. Staash did a strip-down job on it right away, trying to make it as light as possible.

By this time, Staashu was listening to Jimmy Smith and Brother Jack McDuff and even old Fats Waller records and was no longer interested in anything I had to teach him. He was invincible and immortal and he knew it all and polka was just some old shit from another time. That’s what happens with every generation though, isn’t it? The kids really know how to make you feel old.

One day I said to him, “Hey Staashu, you know I played with Jimmy Smith once.” I was messing with him because he thought he was already Mr. Hotshot organ player but it was true. Staashu thought I was all talk. “No fuckin’ way. Don’t give me your shit, Duane.”

“I shit you not, Staashu. I wasn’t in his band or nothing like that, but I sat in on piano one night for a couple songs.”

“Duane, Jesus, man. I know you were on the road a lot but don’t shit me with your lame-assed fuckin’ stories. If you were so damned good, why’d you quit?” The boy had a mouth on him.

That night I dug through some boxes and found the old black and white photo of me and Jimmy Smith. Jimmy was sitting at his stool and I was standing beside him with my hand on his shoulder. I was twenty-four years old and I was on top of the world and I had this big old grin on my face. At the bottom of the photo it was signed by Jimmy. “Duane, It was a great to play Back at the Chicken Shack with you. Your friend Jimmy Smith”. Those was some days. That photo had sat in a drawer for years. I slid it into an old drugstore frame and hung it on the wall by the kitchen table.

One day, Staash dropped by with a bowl of cabbage rolls, a little care package from his mother Beattie. When he walked in the kitchen he noticed the photo right away.
“Well, shit, Duane.”
“Tell Beattie I really appreciate the gwampki, Staashu.”
“OK Duane.” He nodded at the photo, “Hey listen, I’m sorry man for what I said.”
“It’s OK Staash. I wouldn’t have believed me either.”
“What was he like?”
“Jimmy?”
“Who you think I mean?”
“He was an alright guy, Staash. He heard me play with a little quartet I had going on for a while. I was mostly playing piano at that time. I call it my “jazz phase”. Anyways, I was at one of Jimmy’s gigs down in St. Louis and damned if he didn’t see me at a table and he remembered me. Imagine that, he remembered me and then he called me up on stage. I was terrified at first. I mean, it was goddamn Jimmy Smith. We did Summertime and then Back at the Chicken Shack and Staashu I swear to God Jimmy Smith gave me a solo on Chicken Shack.”
“Sheeit”
“You said it man, you said it.” Those was some days.