Have Coolth

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ONCE UPON A WHEN, DERRY MAYLOR had been cool. But that was past, and now there were long, thin dark spaces when he walked. Even the night was quiet for him; no sounds of the boo-dowin his head. He had taken to squareness, and wore his collar turned up.

How does a man blow his coolth?

It takes a combo of many littles. Like the chick with the eyes so green and so razor-slim the little kids ask her like, “Are you Chinese?” It takes the loss of all your bread and the loss of all your steam and most of all, the loss of your virility.

Get creamed once by a badass chick, and you’ve had it. Derry Maylor had had the course. Now came the times when the drums were quiet, and the horns didn’t blow, and the faint cha-tah of the sticks could not be heard. Rose had been her name, and Rose was her name, but Rose wasn’t right.

Try Bitch.

Which is the worst of all, man, when you blow piano that’s more than piano, and the chick takes your blood and your liver and wraps them up for 59¢ a pound — (any buyers?) — then you got to stay away from the lofts where the men are blowing and the smoke is warm and thick; then you got to stay away from the Sweet Lucy and the good Guatemalan shit and the honk and spike and the speed and the Good Book because when you come down off them, you got the blues so bad more worse you want to puke. Then you got to stay away from it all, like the piano, because the piano has been Mama and Poppa and home and life and all of it so nice. But what you got now?

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