In my Prospect Avenue ‘hood, there is a fine old house formerly owned by a wealthy purveyor of hops. Maybe he got into too much beer, but his baronial place is now a gathering place for people seeking to kick drugs and booze. The unfortunates fortunate to have a place to join in sobriety stream in daily, and in the summertime sit on the sheltered front porch. Friday and Saturday nights are particularly busy.
Last night, a Friday, someone with a sax treated the ‘hood to a session focused on practicing scales. Up and down, down and up, around and under. I couldn’t see the musician from floor 17, but I didn’t need to see the perpetrator, as the notes wafted upward and through my open window on the building’s west face.
Dang, but I hope he learns to riff a genuine tune before long. Initially, there was something soothing about the notes, but as midnight neared, the romance of it all began to wear thin. “The nerve, it’s almost midnight!” But he blew on and on until I gave up the ghost and fled to my futon. My era was the era of Big Bands and the sax player was always a fave, but the drummer came in second.
On Sunday mornings I tune in Dewey at Frontier Radio. He’s the guy who takes me back to the days when women were women and men were men and saxophones were golden extensions of magic wands. For example, if the sax man would step off the podium and ask me to dance, well, wouldn’t that be grand?
In my grounded life, I did experience a drummer leaving his kit, and strolling over to my table at the infamous Bulldog room (below the long defunct Frenchy’s bordello/eatery) on the East Side. These were the days of hot pants and long hair and expectations. I had the hot pants (red!), the go-go boots (white plastic), and the hair (also red), and, well, I loved to frug and make a fool of myself. So I danced with the drummer boy under the revolving lights. Our bodies never touched, and that was a good thing as my hot pants were pure wool, the result being that I soon began steaming like a ’60s clam, boiling in the heat of the night. Not a pretty sight, but the boy with the kit was polite. He returned to his kit, mission accomplished.
During another foray at Victor’s, a night on the town showing a couple from Peru what Milwaukee had to offer, a gorgeous guy in uniform came to my table and asked me to dance. “I’m shipping off to Vietnam,” he whispered. “Will you write to me?” I didn’t.
And each time I drive by Victor’s, I think of him and that night and the fear in his young eyes. Dumb and married with three kids, I hadn’t a clue about what he faced. Vietnam was something that I watched on color television….
