‘Closer,’ Carla whispered.
Red, yellow, red, yellow.
She hiked up her dress and spread her legs.
Jerome saw how the neon light made the enormous patch of hair glisten.
‘Feel it,’ Carla said. She took his hand and moved it to her crotch. The hairs there felt wiry and hard and warm. Red, yellow, red, yellow, red, yellow. She shoved him down, onto his knees, and pushed his head between her blue-black thighs. He gagged, smelling a pungent, rancid odor that reminded him of fish. He felt her strong hands on his neck, pulling him closer. ‘Go on,’ she panted. Go on what? He saw thick, swollen lips, wrinkled pieces of purple skin and flesh. ‘Mouth open,’ she commanded. He opened his mouth, his tongue touched those lips, they were wet and slimy and hot. He tasted the bitter sizzling smell, salty and soft in his mouth. From this close, it wasn’t as bad.
Carla arched her back and stretched her body, pushed her groin deeper into Jerome’s face, clamping his head between her thighs. He could hardly breathe. All he saw was blackness. ‘Higher,’ he heard her say, ‘higher.’ His tongue glided between her lips, from top to bottom, from bottom to top. And again. He felt the blood pound in his temples. His head was empty. His body was on fire. He swallowed her slime, kept on licking. Carla’s thighs began to quiver. He pulled his head back and looked up. She smiled at him and shoved him backward. He fell on his ass.
‘That’s enough,’ she said.
Jerome tried to stand up, but was so lightheaded he was afraid he’d fall right back over. The bright flashing lights hurt his eyes.
Carla hopped off the low wall and pulled her dress back down. She stuck out her hand. ‘You okay?’ she asked.
He nodded and stood up. His throat was shut tight; he couldn’t make a sound. He walked over to his kit and picked it up.
‘You get yourself home now, Geronimo,’ Carla said.
‘Geronimo,’ it echoed in his head. His head was full of her smell and her taste. He took a deep breath, felt the crisp, cold night air burn in his lungs.
‘And you don’t have to tell nobody,’ she said.
Nobody, he said to himself. He started walking, passing the garbage cans and the half-rotten wooden chairs that stood in front of Roxy’s year-round as he left the parking lot. The music accompanied him. The sultry, songlike sound of the saxophone. The muted thud of the bass rhythms. He picked up his pace. He was as light as a feather. He broke into a run. He saw the moon hanging low over Howard Street, coloring the sky silvery and blue. The moon followed him, ran along with him. He ran as hard as he could, and did not look back once.
-
NEW YORK CITY, SEPTEMBER 2001
Bill Laswell, producer
And so I play I play I play walking to their smiles
Pain uptempo
Sensitivity open to the four winds
I want you to feel this thing I feel when fingers touching strings
This strange thing that kisses my lips
Whispers in my ears
‘Eddie Hazel was a terrific guitarist, very influential, a member of the Funkadelic family. It’s a tragic story. Eddie struggled for years with drugs and alcohol. We were supposed to record an album with him. I had helped him get a recording contract and some money; he tried to get clean. He really was on the up and up. Then I had to go to Japan for a few concerts. I postponed the recordings a month. That was in the fall of ’92.
I got a call in Tokyo. Bad news. Eddie was dead. Overdose. I was too late. I went back to New York. In the studio I listened to Eddie’s material. It was so beautiful. Maybe we should record a tribute to him with all the people he worked with. Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Pharoah Sanders, Bernie Worrell, Sly Stone.
Umar was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at the time, in the space upstairs from my studio, together with DXT and a couple of other musicians. He was making a comeback. Umar was fascinated by Eddie. I think they had a lot in common. One night we listened to one of Eddie’s numbers together, a ballad. Right away Umar was on it, he dug into the music. Into Eddie’s raucous high licks. I saw it happen: he was totally immersed. Umar is a true musician, even though he can’t play a note. His father played trumpet. Music has nothing to do with technique. Absolutely nothing. Being a trumpeter has nothing to do with the trumpet. It’s all about the experience of creating. Sometimes you have to wring yourself inside out before something raw and honest emerges. That makes you vulnerable, you become a threat. To create something nobody else does, that’s not mainstream. That takes pain, frustration. Drugs can help sometimes. Drugs are cheap.
Umar was gutted when the music stopped. He went upstairs and wrote a poem. “Sacred to the Pain”, he called it. We recorded it the next day, over the music. Umar’s voice was so strong. He’s got a flawless instinct for phrasing, what note to linger on and when to repeat a word. When his voice has to go up, and then up some more. He learned it from Miles and Coltrane. From his father. That searching for the right tone. The recording was perfect in a single take.
Bootsy and George were in the studio that afternoon, and a few other boys from the neighborhood. When the music finished, it was dead quiet. I turned around and saw that not a single one of them had dry eyes, not even George Clinton. Clinton! When you can achieve that with words and music—that’s gotta mean something, right?’
Embraces all that I am
This thing called love
Love with no one to receive it
Love with no one to understand it
Love with no one to care for it
Musical discontent in a trance
Eyes rolling back into my head …
Needs something no not that
My head needs something no not that
-
AKRON, OHIO, 1953
Grandma Elizabeth
He woke up to the vague sound of voices in the distance. An unintelligible gray murmur that went from high and fast to low and deep and slow. He slipped out of bed, opened the bedroom door, and crept to the landing.
‘It’s his own fault,’ Jerome heard his grandmother say in her high, rasping voice. ‘The fool.’ He held his arm in front of his face against the bright hallway light. In the downstairs hall, under the large copper hanging lamp, Grandpa Willy, Mama, and Grandma Elizabeth stood in a small circle. Only now did he notice how much bigger his grandmother was than his mother.
‘How can you talk like that?’ his grandfather said.
Jerome hid behind the banister and peered downstairs.
‘How can I talk like that? He never should have come back from Detroit. I’m telling you, he only brings trouble with him. And then I get to look after his brood.’
Jerome did not know who Grandma was talking about, but her words were threatening and ugly. He looked at his mother. Her hands were in her apron pockets, one foot scuffing the wooden floor. She didn’t take part in the discussion.
Grandma glared at Grandpa. ‘He’s no good,’ she said.
‘He’s your son.’
‘Not anymore.’
‘And what about the children?’
‘They can stay till their father’s free and then they can all get the hell out of my house. Understand?’
He tiptoed back to the bedroom. His arm accidentally brushed against