Eugene

"I'll play it, and I'll tell you what it is later." This is what Miles said while they were in the studio recording "If I Were a Bell" for the album, Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet.
While I was growing up, we did a lot of that in our family...go about our lives, laying it all down like an improvisation...never quite sure what it was until it was out there. It was all about the moment...all about now, and we'd give it a name later.
Sure, it was exciting, but excitement could be packaged up wirh changes charged with pain, anger, and freefall....like the falling in a dream where it's all about wondering when you'll hit the cement....
Falstaff Brewery was on Tulane Avenue, not far from the New Orleans Parish Prison.
On top of the brewery was a tower of letters that spelled out "Falstaff"...and on top of that a globe.
At night this whole thing would light up, giving people for blocks around a weather forecast. The red letters spelling out Falstaff would go from the top downwards...or from the botton up. The direction of the next day's temperature was all there. And the big lit globe on top let everyone know if the next day would be rain (red), or clear (green).
And it was faily accurate....one of the most useful advertisements ever. There were times when it would have been nice to have something like this for me, just a tiny, quick peek at where the whole jam was going.
That's maybe what a good drummer or bass player does for a band....bar by bar, phrase by phrase, things are rock solid.
I remember the last time I saw my father, Eugene. I was taking the Tulane trolly to meet my mother at the Winn Dixie when she got off of work, and it was just getting dark.
The plan was for the two of us to put in a grocery order together... As I passed, I looked at the Falstaff brewery, at its advertisement...but it told me nothing about what was about to go down.
I usually took forever to pick out a box of cereal because I was always checking out what came inside the box...what toy...what little gadget. It drove my mother crazy....
Finally, we were at the car stop, each carrying a bag of food. It was dark, Carrolton Avenue full of traffic and noise. And then out of nowhere, my father.
The three of us hadn't lived togerher for months....it went like that.
A fight where people got hit and things got broken and all sorts of things were said....bad things. And then my father would't be around...just mom and I. And then we would be back together again for a while.
Changes, like key changes in a song....but these changes were never smooth.
Well, here he was tonight, drunk...smashed...and smelly.
First he was trying to apologize for the last time around...how it would be good for the boy (me), but mom just kept asking him to leave... And then the apologies ended, and out came the anger and rage....
Alone...the traffic just kept going by... and I kept praying that the trolly would hurry.
I didn't know what to do except plead with him to stop...
He got mad....reached out, tore at the bags we were holding...groceries all over the street....there was my cereal. Then he started hitting my mother....
When I tried to pull at him, my mother begged me to stay out of his way....and Eugene pushed me off.
He got enough of it and stormed away. And my mother and I got down on the ground trying to salvage what we could of our grocery order....the bags were gone.
That was all of Eugene...never saw him again.
Two years later, my Uncle Cliff told me my father had died at Charity Hospital. He had been staying around Lafayette Square when they brought him in...pneumonia, I think.

"I'll play it, and I'll tell you what it is later."

I stilll don't know.