Half-Blood Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘Brother, I really got to get on with my day.’
    Chip nodded, but continued to sit. His expression was unreadable as he stared at me. ‘I guess you ain’t ready for it. I mean, I guess it’s a lot all at once. But, hell, Sidney . Think about it. After the Falk Festival, you and me, we could rent a car and drive on over to Stettin. Since we’ll already be in Europe anyway. Or we take the train, if it ain’t too long.’
    I felt sick. The way he kept this up, it was making my nerves radiate. ‘And how is it that of everyone on earth, you’re the only one who knows about this? Hiero alive? Poland ? You sure you ain’t going senile, brother?’ I wondered suddenly if there wasn’t something really wrong with him. See, five years ago Chip spent some time ‘resting’. He wasn’t just tired. Some dame found him in his PJs and slippers sitting in the Paris metro at four in the morning. He didn’t say a word for three months, then come on out of the hospital perfectly normal, walking back into his life. I know, I know. We getting old.
    ‘Chip,’ I said.
    Chip lit right up, as if he been waiting for me to really engage with him. ‘I got a letter, Sid, I never told you about it. Was maybe three months ago. I’d just got back from my Italy–Greece tour, I was tired as all hell, and there it was, just this plain brown envelope, this plain brown paper. Well, I opened it, and damn if it wasn’t from him, something like ten sentences long, but definitely from him, and it ain’t said much, just that he’d just heard all about the festival and would we visit him. Terribly spooky. It was enough to make your toenails grow backwards.’
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    ‘Then a second one come two days ago, saying basically the same thing. And then I remembered I hadn’t told you about the first one.’
    ‘Letters,’ I said.
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘What makes you think they’re from him?’
    Chip glanced up at me, looking suddenly old.
    ‘Your cigarillo,’ I said.
    He blinked and looked at where it was burning down between his fingers. He crushed it out in the ashtray.
    ‘Someone’s playing a joke on you, Chip. Or else you cracked again.’
    ‘I ain’t cracked, Sid.’
    ‘Uh-huh. And where is these letters?’
    Chip scowled. ‘I knew you’d ask that. Truth is, brother, I got so upset I ate them. Tore them up and ate them. Out of pure nerves.’
    I said nothing.
    ‘I’m kidding,’ he said uneasily. ‘Jesus, Sid, come on. The letters, they at home. In a stack of invitations asking me to play the world over.’
    ‘You didn’t think to bring them?’
    He give me a nervous smile. ‘Well, them invitations wasn’t for you, brother.’
    ‘You think this is funny?’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘No it ain’t.’
    I frowned. ‘You know what I think?’ But I didn’t finish. Seeing him there I felt something like despair and just couldn’t go on with it. I picked his glass up off the floor, went in, set it on the kitchen counter. Then walking on down the front hall, I tugged his coat from the hook, and stood there holding it out for him. The fabric like butter to the touch.
    He rose up slow from his chair, wheezing at the effort. Coming over to me, he gathered up the coat with what I suppose he thought was dignity. ‘I guess you got a lot of packing to do,’ he said. ‘I guess I’ll let you get on with it.’
    ‘I guess you will,’ I said.
    ‘You been married how many times?’ he muttered.
    I said nothing. I opened the door for him.
    He went out into the mouldy stairwell – with its glaring red emergency exits, its carpets so worn now nothing but dirt held them together – and just stood there, as if waiting for something more. ‘See you on the plane?’ he said.
    It seemed almost sad. I closed the door in his face.
    Chip goddamn Jones. Holy hell, could he beat the life out them drums. Even back in Weimar, even as a kid, the man was made for greatness. And onstage beside him, playing my upright with all the fire I