CHAPTER THREE 7 DECEMBER 1941
CHAPTER
THREE
Lee didn’t play memorized songs or practiced chord progressions. He played moods and feelings and life, letting the instrument speak his truth. As he watched Cora, his music shifted, a little slower, a little deeper. Saturday couldn’t come fast enough.
When she went inside, he played for a few more minutes, picking up the pace and ending his impromptu set to Patsy’s enthusiastic clapping. Jasper nudged his shoulder, taking back his horn. ‘Man, oh, man. I can’t believe you’re gonna give all that up for baseball.’
‘Who says I am?’
Jasper made a face that was all eye-roll. ‘Your contract with the Eagles, for starters.’
‘What contract?’ Lee said. ‘Those jokers are so loose, they won’t commit to me past the next game.
’ He said it light, like it was nothing, but it frustrated him, this game-to-game uncertainty.
No contracts, no sick leave, no security at all.
‘I figure I might as well keep the music going. Play the clubs when I can. What do they care, as long as I perform on the field?’
Jasper swung his arm around Lee’s neck in a playful chokehold. ‘Good to hear we won’t completely lose you to those meatheads.’
‘Jasper, get off that man before you choke him for real,’ Patsy said, sidling up to the two of them.
‘So what if I do? You’re a nurse. You can patch him up again.’ He pulled harder on Lee, making him lose his footing and tumble to the ground, taking Jasper down with him, laughing.
‘If you break my neck, I won’t play baseball or music,’ Lee said, shoving Jasper off.
There was a breath of time, barely a moment as they lay there, when Lee sensed the disquiet in Jasper that came every now and then.
It made him feel like his friend was living in a different key from everyone else.
‘You okay?’ Lee said, sitting up, watching Jasper rub his face.
‘Yeah. Fine,’ he said, wide grin back in place, and the moment was gone.
Leaning against the back door, Betty Hammond called, ‘Did Brother Drew teach you to play like that?’
Drew was not Brother Drew. He didn’t care much for their church or their titles. Instead, he chose the title ‘Uncle’ for himself when he chose Lee, building family where there was none.
‘Uncle Drew gave me his old trumpet when I moved in with him,’ he said. ‘He thought it might keep me busy.’ And off the streets away from my old crowd, he didn’t add.
‘How come you play the saxophone so well?’ Patsy asked.
Lee glanced at Jasper, who knew the whole story. ‘He bought me one as a present,’ he said, not adding that the gift was to celebrate the end of Lee’s probation sentence.
‘He’s a good man, that Drew Brooks,’ Mrs Hammond said, and Lee heard the part she didn’t say, good to have taken in a delinquent, given him a chance, set him on a path other than prison.
‘That he is.’
From the other side of the ditch, a neighbor waved his arms and shouted over the talking and laughing.
‘What’s he saying?’ Jasper said.
‘Don’t mind him,’ said Patsy, turning her back to the man. ‘Five cents says he’s come out to complain. That old man can’t stand anybody having a good time.’
‘They bombed us,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘We’re getting blown up.’
Lee cocked his head and frowned. ‘Say, what?’
‘Did he say “bomb”?’ Jasper said.
‘Turn on the radio,’ the old neighbor shouted, and Delores Pearce rushed inside, hollering, ‘Where’s your radio, Teen?’
Lee hurried in behind her and found Cora at the sink, looking confused by the sudden excitement. He stood beside her and slipped his hand around hers.
Cora shifted to block their clasped hands from view. ‘What’s going on?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. Someone said there’s a bomb.’
The cook-out crowd jostled for space in the too-crowded living room as the radio wheezed and warmed to life. Then the somber voice of the broadcaster filled the room. The more he talked the quieter they fell until they were still as the grave.
‘Preliminary reports confirm significant damage and casualties after severe bombing,’ the voice explained.
‘President Roosevelt has called an emergency session of Congress. All naval and military activities on the principal island of Oahu have been affected. We repeat, the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.’