Passenger(35)

I rifle through the pictures like a dealer shuffling cards. They are taken here, at The Neighborhood, and are of many young women, quite visibly inebriated, in various stages of undress. Some blow drunken kisses at the camera; others look about ready to pass out, one hand propped against a wall for support while their other hand yanks up the front of their blouse.

Leaning over to Clarence, I say, “What exactly am I getting myself into?”

Clarence winks and slurps his beer.

“Good stuff, eh?” Timmy Donlon wants to know, nodding toward the stack of photos I’ve set back down on the bar. “Course, that’s the weekends. You’ll be here during the week to start. If, you know, the guys dig you.”

“They’ll dig him,” Clarence promises.

Again I ask Clarence what the hell is going on.

“You got no patience, Mozart.”

As if on cue, two black men in trench coats and corduroys drip through a bowing doorframe toward the rear of the bar and saddle up behind Clarence Wilcox like a pair of bodyguards. Their faces are emotionless, their demeanor equally unenthused. Clarence, however, acts excited to see them. As they embrace, I get the feeling they are old friends.

“This is Dougie and Maxwell Devine,” Clarence introduces.

I say, “Hello.”

Both Dougie and Maxwell execute a synchronized jerk of their chin in my direction.

Clarence says, “He’s the bad mother I told you ’bout.”

“Yeah?” Maxwell Devine utters.

“Let’s put you underwater,” says Dougie Devine, looking straight at me with bored, tired eyes. “See how long you hold your breath.”

They’re two members of the Devine Trio. I learn this as they usher me onto the sagging bandstand and situate me behind the piano. Maxwell slinks behind the sad-looking drum kit while Dougie seems to summon an acoustic upright bass from the air. Without anything more than a slight nod in my direction, Maxwell counts off a beat and both he and Dougie break into a cool jazz run. It’s immediately recognizable as “Pedal Point Blues,” with Dougie Devine’s bass descending the staccato notes, his face as expressionless as his brother’s. I listen to only a single measure before I pick up the bass-line with the deep keys of the moldy piano. And despite the condition of the instrument (and despite the fact it sits at a slouch, its left side sunk a few inches into the floorboards), it sounds crisp and alive. A few bars in and my right hand hammers out the melody while my left continues the downward walk of the bass-line. The Devine brothers play like a single instrument, almost machinelike in their efficiency, taking each turn as sharp as a sports car but with the luxury and style of a limousine. A drum-roll signals a spontaneous dive into an off-signature beat, something brand new, but I hang with them. I do not recognize the number but I improvise, my fingers knowing where to fall, my right foot beating out the four/three time signature on the sustain pedal.

After we finish, the Devine brothers drip off the stage without saying a word. Still seated behind the piano, I try to formulate a reason behind all this. I catch Clarence’s eyes across the bar. He smiles and gives me two enthusiastic thumbs up. Behind the bar, Timmy Donlon watches me like someone waiting for his horse to come in, all expectant and somewhat inebriated.

“The hell was that?” I say to Clarence on the ride home.

“You’re a slink, my man. You’re a devil-dog.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“You’re a wind chime, baby. A wind chime.”

But he doesn’t have to say anything more: I’ve got a job.





*





I continue my odyssey well into the next week—the trek through the city following a serpentine bus route. This path of paths. This way of grief. Nothing jars my memory. Water and electric bills show up at my door. They are addressed to resident and they are all marked overdue. Despite being hired as the pianist for the Devine Trio, where we play Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at The Neighborhood in Fell’s Point, I still don’t have the money to pay these bills.

“Welcome to The Neighborhood,” says Maxwell Devine, clapping me on the shoulder the next night at the bar.

My addition to the Devine Trio allows them to maintain their moniker. I am Johnny Devine’s replacement, Maxwell and Dougie’s youngest brother who died last month in an automobile accident, and the remaining brothers eerily refer to me as Johnny Two, or J.T. for short, much to my discomfort. The brothers are difficult to relate to and even harder to befriend. They remain stoic and unimpressed, even during performances, and it is typical of them to slink off with young women after a set where, in one of the upstairs apartments, they do what they do. I envision lush carpets and disco balls hanging from the ceiling, clouds of incense hovering over the writhing black bodies of the brothers as they wrestle each conquest to complete undress.

Our third performance together—that Thursday—Dougie Devine, somewhat intrigued by the breadth of my repertoire, makes the comment, “Ain’t a tune our boy J.T. don’t know, apparently. He’s like a f*cking Wurlitzer.”

“Nice set, Wurlitzer,” intones Maxwell from behind the drums, and just like that I am no longer Johnny Two.

I become part of The Neighborhood in seemingly no time. There is a familial atmosphere about the place, however dysfunctional (or possibly because of the dysfunction), and it is something I am lacking in real life, so I adhere to it. Timmy Donlon is the quintessential father figure, a looming figurehead behind the stretch of pitted bar, arms folded, broad, smiling face appreciative but critical at the same time. He is generous with dispersing drinks, even to paying customers who have ceased being paying customers, and he is only a bad influence—a poor father figure—after he’s had one too many himself. There is Tate Jennings, a bird-chested, slender-faced man in his early thirties who buses the tables and washes the dishes and, despite his glaring homosexuality, is determined to sleep with the attractive young waitress, Olivia Sorenson, who pays him little mind. Olivia has something of an old-time movie star quality about her, like someone born in the wrong century, and her beauty—from what I am able to comprehend of beauty—seems universal. And, of course, there are the brothers, the trio—Dougie, Maxwell, and myself. Out of nowhere, it is good to be a part of such a thing.