The Musician - Jeffrey Benzing

He sat with a lonely trumpet wobble. The horn tipped toward the concrete with stale breath going through. His lips sputtered and a note would fall out – he’d jam a finger down and it turned blue, the note smearing over, a quiet bend like he played it wrong.

            The corner was there all day and he sat with it – crowd shrugging by in the morning, heels clicking, not hearing the time when they went off to run the world and keep coins for their coffee.

            He gave them Freddie Hubbard – the B-flat a little off, the C-note just a breath, but he put his mouth to the brass, lips puffed like a blister, 20 degrees blowing by with a whistle, and he hit the harmony, a clear note held out with his hand shaking, body propped on a crate, a Burger King cup set out with three dollars stuffed in. Pennies from Heaven.

His neighbors passed – some of them saw, some of them glanced down at the bedroll and the flannel shirt he balled up like a pillow.

Some saw a wall by the bank building, and they passed like he’d cut the bell off and blew the horn like a secret. He’d sit there and disappear, gut hollow, sun rising with a cold glint over the cityscape, concrete sprawled out with steel towers, hard-wired like beacons of glass and silicone.

            Then his breath got sure, notes stretching out, rising up, a sharp flare, then a falter, and it all fell down.

            At noon, he’d take his three dollars and he’d find potato chips and an apple like a shrunken baseball. He’d eat, sitting on his crate then he’d swab his horn out, blowing a morning’s worth of spit out, whistling slow, cleaning the empty stares, the shuffling past, the trouble and neglect.

            Then he’d throw the core in the street, chewed to the seeds, and he’d curl the chip bag, a quarter empty and set it with his bedroll.

            He took a long sigh and gave a blow. Against the wall he made a sound like a choir of angels, cheeks puffed for a congregation that won’t pass the plate. The notes came out sour, fluttering from a cracked lip, a snort like from Revelation. Like if he could get a drum, he’d make Jericho fall, let the bank spill out empty so there’s something to eat, and everyone that passes could see how he played and tore down a mess of lies and greed and cash stuffed to get fat later on and not share with anyone if there’s a hole in their gut.

            The bell shook, a hard attack, hand curled in a half fist and he thought what it would be if it toppled like that and he could sit and lord over the brick and take the riches and the things that got left behind and build them up so he could have his, and they could handle the scraps.

            He took a breath, a low rumble with the air settling low, lips tight with the bell lifted – a cold, deep breath – and he wouldn’t want it like that.

            The sun sank in the skyline, the wind settling with frozen rain, a hard spit of it, bouncing from the awning where he stayed dry. And his neighbors came home, faces sapped, arms frantic to put shelter up, something flimsy to keep their suit dry, cold jitters going by. The cars jammed with horns and discord, exhaust in grey clouds rising to cold slate.

            And he leaned on that crate, horn raised, playing a song for the A-train, rail cars crowded with a broken mood. The splatted, faltered notes clipped in the night, the breath of the city sucking noise and unease, letting the soul soak through like cardboard.

            And the streets cleared, the doors shut with damp shoes set by the coat rack, the hard sleet dropping down, with a dampened song sinking slow in the lamplight.

            And when his lip strained and he couldn’t play no more, he could sing – a low poet’s grumble laid on a bed of concrete, with the air of chimneys rising up in the night and breath falling out from an empty gut.