CLUB LIMBO

Cole Stevens stepped down from the bus to the pavement. He stretched, arching his back. The journey took its toll, but he had arrived.

New Orleans. The birthplace of jazz and, apparently, the world's largest sauna.

Sure it's hot. This is a long way south of Queensboro Correctional.

Shaking his head, Cole stepped onto Canal Street. He paused a moment. The JW Marriott Hotel faced him on the other side of the street.

I've got a hundred bucks… Just a hundred? Won't go far.

No matter, he decided. The modern Marriott represented a New Orleans with little appeal, a holding cell for tourists. Cole wanted the French Colonial style, wrap-around balconies with the ornate wrought iron rails. Those belonged in the Crescent City. To the right of the hotel stood a café and a few shops with storefronts dating back to the late 19th century, more to Cole's mental image. But there, unavoidable, loomed the bland, contemporary Marriott.

This was not Cole's vision of New Orleans. It wouldn't do for him.

With flickering hope Cole thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a note his cell mate gave him on his release. The paper held an address and a name: Jasper Rochambeau. Piano player. Maybe, he hoped, Rochambeau would put him up until he established himself. Maybe Rochambeau could help him find a gig.

Cole scanned his surroundings. He drew in a deep, steamy breath. New Orleans, his dream destination, lay at his feet. A grim chuckle escaped him. An ex-con saxophone player with no saxophone in the Cradle of Jazz could expect little chance of establishing himself with any speed, if at all. Still, he thought, being here made for a start. He turned the note over. On the back his cell mate, Nick Berry, scrawled a rough map. According to the map, he stood on Canal Street between Chartres and Decatur Streets.

I go this way. Cole turned to his left and looked up from the drawing.

A streetcar bore down on him.

Cole froze. Someone yanked him backward. The streetcar lurched to a halt where he had been standing. Cole let out a whistle.

"Wow, thanks. Didn't even hear that thing comin.'"

A tall, gaunt man in a white linen suit stared down at Cole, his hand still resting on his shoulder. "They never do," the man said.

A relieved Cole stuck out his hand. "Cole Stevens. Thanks again, Mr…"

The man took his hand.

Cole swiped his forehead with the back of his free hand. "Uh… sure gets hot here," he said.

"Gets hotter than this," the stranger said as he pressed another piece of paper into Cole's palm. He then turned and merged into a rubbernecking throng.

Eyebrows scrunched, Cole watched the man go. He noted the onlookers. A dozen people stared at him, their expressions blank. No concern. No relief. Nothing. A queasy feeling grew in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm fine," he said to the spectators.

Silence. Unsettled, Cole took a step back.

A long, tense moment passed before the group drifted apart. They kept turning their faces back toward Cole, though.

Shaking his head clear, Cole read the rumpled partial handbill the stranger gave him.

"Club Limbo. No address. Hm."

Cole strode down Canal Street. He fought to focus on the road ahead of him. Canal Street's line of palm trees, upscale clubs and trendy shops hid much shadier dives just two blocks away. The palms could not shield him from sight, however. He still sensed stares on his back. Café la Lune lay ahead. Three men stood at the door, smoking cigarettes. No surprise. Nick Berry had told him smoking in restaurants and bars had been banned in 2006.

The trio turned their heads in Cole's direction. They gawked at him.

The musician's unease grew. This was not his vision of New Orleans. It wouldn't do for him.

After he rounded the corner of Chartres Street, Cole relaxed a bit. The route he now took deviated from Berry's directions. Steps could be retraced. But the incident on Canal had shaken him. An uncaring crowd frozen to inaction, their cold stares boring into him as if he'd done something wrong, the three smokers, the enigmatic man who pulled him to safety… and what of the streetcar? How could one sneak up on him like that? The whole unnerving episode made little sense to him.

I didn't do anything. Did the driver die or something? What, are they gonna send me back to Queensboro Correctional for jaywalking? "Correctional." There's a laugh.

Cole shrugged the random thoughts away, but felt no better. "Distance," he muttered to himself.

"Put distance between yourself and what's giving you grief"—advice given to him by Berry. A little sightseeing, the new arrival decided, might erase the unpleasantness. The fact remained the sax player had no sax to play. Not yet. Familiarizing himself with the city could only help.

The ex-con stepped into a crosswalk on Delamort Street. He stopped on the other side. Delamort. A check of his makeshift map raised an eyebrow. Delamort didn't appear anywhere. Then again, the map wasn't detailed. Cole ambled onto Delamort Street. After several steps and a peek down the narrow avenue, he hesitated. He saw no clubs, nor anything else of note, so he nearly turned away. But a sign a couple of blocks away caught his eye:

Pawn Shop.

The sign mesmerized him. He meandered in the sign's direction, then picked up his pace. Visions popped up in his head. His imagination took over. New Orleans. Jazz. Voodoo. Magic. This shop called to him, drew him in, contained everything he needed to make his start…

Stopping all of a sudden, Cole shook his head.

"Really, Stevens?" he said aloud.

The sojourning musician tugged at the shirt that now stuck to him. Sweat coated his entire body, the oppressive August heat and humidity working on him. The heat... and something more…

As he drew up to the pawn shop window, Cole took inventory of several items haphazardly displayed there. Two digital cameras shared a squat riser with an industrial KitchenAid mixer. But most everything else had to do with music. An expensive turntable and reel-to-reel tape recorder split two giant speakers. Three guitars, a pristine Stratocaster and two well-worn Gibsons, stood at attention on a rack. A battered amplifier squatted by itself to the side.

On a wall deep in the store, though, hung a tenor saxophone. Smiling, Cole strode into the shop.

A balding pawn broker sat on a tall wooden stool behind a glass counter. The man read a copy of the Times Picayune.

Cole blinked at the anachronism.

No one reads papers these days, not off-line. Not even in the pen.

The man glanced up. "'Lo," he drawled. "Help you?"

As he moseyed up to the counter, Cole held up his hand. He jerked a thumb in the sax's direction. "That in working condition?"

The man folded his paper, laid it on the counter and rose. He pulled the horn down from the wall. "Give her a go, Mr. Stevens."

Cole hesitated. His mouth hung open.

"Y'all are Silky Stevens, ain't ya?"

Squinting at the man, Cole took the sax. "How'd you—"

The shop owner pointed to a corner. He meandered to a rack of CD's, rummaged through a number of them and pulled one out. There on the cover Cole saw a twenty-year-old photo of himself.

"Silky Nights," the proprietor mused. "Hell of an album."

Cole inspected the sax's mouthpiece, then the rest of the horn. He blinked.

A Selmer Mark VI? With a four digit serial number? Who's so desperate they pawn an early Mark VI?

"Didn't know Silky Nights came in anything but vinyl," Cole said. "I'm surprised you know it."

The broker swept a hand across a shop filled with musical instruments and equipment and grinned. "I know my music. This here's Nawleans, my friend."

"Not exactly my vision of it so far," Cole murmured. With his excitement in check and a frown toward the saxophone, he feigned only mild interest in the rare horn. "You got a reed for this thing?"

"Brand new one." The man ducked back behind the counter and popped back up with a small cardboard sheath. He handed it to Cole.

"Haven't played in a while," Cole said as he fastened the reed to the mouthpiece.

"No horns in prison."

Cole's fixed gaze bored into the man. "No."

The shop owner stared back.

Something about the return stare unsettled Cole again. He tore his gaze from the man. "Let's give this a try."

Cole "Silky" Stevens blew a tentative, low note. A velvety sound filled the room, the voice of John Coltrane and other jazz greats. After a moment's pause, Cole closed his eyes and breathed the tone again, then wove it into the opening phrase of "Lush Life," an old blues standard. The melody soared and sank again, the notes expressing longing, loneliness and pain. He finished the tune, the sax groaning in plaintive resignation.

"How much for the horn?" he asked.

The shop owner, dreamy eyed, shook his head. "I should pay you for that performance."

"Seriously, how much." Cole reached into his pocket and retrieved his hundred dollars to buy the multi-thousand dollar sax. Along with the bills came the two pieces of paper. He examined the scraps, the one with Rochambeau's address and the one the stranger at the streetcar stop gave him. The stranger's note piqued his curiosity. "Club Limbo. You know it?"

The owner craned his neck to read the handbill. "Sure. Club's at 616 Delamort." The man jerked his chin to his left. "Down that way, not too far. That's the place for you."

Cole's brow arched. "They'll let me play there?"

The man swatted at the air in front of him with a broad smile. "I'd bet they'll insist. They make no judgments there. Silky Stevens… yeah, they'll want you to blow. Take the horn. Been hangin' up there too long anyhow."

Cole cocked his head. He stuffed the cash back into his pocket, lest the shop owner came to his senses and charged him for the rare saxophone. He held his hand out to the pawn broker. "Thanks for this."

The man didn't take Cole's hand, but stared at him instead. "Don't thank me. That sax'll be like a part of you. You'll see, the more you play."

"Yeah. We'll see. Case come with it?"

"Sure," the merchant said, reaching under the counter for the instrument's carrying case.

Cole laid the sax in the beat-up trunk in silence. Once the horn was secure, he nodded at the pawn broker, who stared back in return. Anticipation tightened the musician's stomach as he left the store.

Not my old sax, but an early Selmer Mark VI? Heck of an upgrade. If they let me play… Dang!

Delamort Street garnered little attention from the sweating musician. Bland, bare-faced structures gave the road the aura of a side alley. He happened upon a joint across the way called the Folly. The doorman, or bouncer, smiled at him, and they waved to each other. Tempted to try the Folly, Cole nonetheless continued on. Another lounge lay in his path. Another smiling greeting, another pass—something drove him to Club Limbo. At least these bouncers on Delamort gave him welcome.

Club Limbo appeared at length, one of his favored balconied buildings with the ornate balustrades. Cole chuckled. The style felt ironically discordant among the dull storefronts that led up to it. He grinned and shook his head.

Club Limbo was his vision of New Orleans.

When he opened the weathered wooden door, an unexpected aroma reached Cole's nose: smoke. Cigar and cigarette fumes lingered. He sniffed the surface of a tapestry that hung on a lobby wall. Stale smoke. The odor saturated the burgundy carpet beneath his feet as well. Restrictions against indoor smoking in public places meant Club Limbo disregarded authority. Local law, it seemed, held little sway here. The owners hadn't stopped patrons from indulging, and the place hadn't even been aired out in ages.

Cole stood in the lobby near the door. No one appeared. He took in his milieu. A long hall, its cream walls stained a dull yellow, led to another door. The carpeting bore the dark gray wear of countless feet.

The tapestry, an artwork that depicted torment, stole his attention. Three men sat hunched in anguish. A woman writhed in the twisting grasp of a giant, demonic serpent. Dyed in dusky hues, the sufferers endured their punishments amidst orange flames. The image mesmerized Cole. The snake-sheathed woman especially stirred something in him. Arms raised and bent either in self defense or surrender, head thrown back and aside, an expression somewhere between agony and ecstasy, she reminded him of a bustier version of the girl who sent him to prison.

Cole tore his eyes from the woman. After a couple of hesitant steps down the hall, he heard signs of life. The action waited beyond the far door. He grasped the handle and pulled it open.

The murky club astonished him. A heavy bank of smoke settled among the tables. Unable to distinguish the distant reaches of the room, Cole put it down to the thick atmosphere. He faced the bandstand in the near corner. The combo on the raised stage played a meandering, melancholic tune. This unrecognizable, discordant, disheveled jazz number fostered an unease in him. He stepped inside nevertheless, and scanned the audience. The haze hindered his view.

"Quite a crowd," a man in a tuxedo said as he approached Cole.

"Hm, yeah. Who's playing?"

"We don't have a house band," the man said. "In fact, most of the folks in the club take turns."

Cole raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, don't look so surprised." The man pointed at Cole's sax case. "Looks like you came to play yourself."

"Can I?"

The man's lips curled into a slow smile that exposed perfect, sparkling teeth. "Silky Stevens? Wait here."

The man—the doorman, Cole guessed—sauntered up to the bandstand. The trumpet player detached himself from the band, bent down and spoke with the doorman. Both men turned to him.

A shiver ran up Cole's spine. People's knowledge of him here in New Orleans, where he'd never played before, gratified him. But these two men's stares unnerved him.

After a few moments, the trumpet player straightened and held up his hand. The combo stopped playing.

"Everybody," the man called to the crowd, "welcome Silky Stevens to the stage!"

Silence hung as heavy as the tobacco miasma.

The trumpet player beckoned to Cole. "C'mon, son. You belong as much as anyone else here."

Cole laid the sax case on the edge of the bandstand and pulled the horn from it. Three steps led up to the band. His feet suddenly leaden, he shuffled toward the trumpeter, who held out his hand.

"Harrison Tate," the man said.

Cole squinted. "I know you…"

Tate pointed at each member of the combo. "Timmy Marlowe at the drum kit. JB Griffin, 'Griffs,' on bass. That's Commodore Dansby torturing the ivories."

"Hey now," Dansby called.

His head tilted and his brow furrowed, Cole waved. Every name rang some distant bell. "I ever jam with any of you guys?"

Marlowe tapped his bass drum pedal, producing a soft thump. "Don't think so," he said.

"Let's blow," Tate said. He raised his horn to his lips.

"What are we playing?" Cole asked.

Tate chuckled. "What we been playing."

After a sidelong glance at the other musicians Cole whispered in Tate's ear. "I don't know this one."

"Don't worry. You'll dial in to our vibe pretty quick. Just remember C major, B flat minor."

A head scratcher, two very different keys, but just two? When do we change?

Marlowe kicked the band off. Slow brush strokes tickled his snare drum, bumpbump-A-dum. Griffin added an almost beginner-like, basic bass line in the key of C. He ignored the drum, though, and followed his own tempo. Commodore Dansby laid down a gentle C chord. Tate played next. His trumpet phrase disregarded everything. Suddenly, Cole recognized the shift from C to B flat minor.

Tate glanced at Cole, who shrugged.

Well, here goes.

Cole put his sax to his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut and played what he wanted to play within the constraints of the two keys, as the others did. He noted the key changes, but the shifts made no sense to him.

Stopping for a moment, Cole opened his eyes. A check of the club-goers sitting at their tables gave him pause. They sent mixed signals to him. Though they nodded approval, their expressions told of profound boredom. He scanned the tables themselves. Each one had lit cigarettes or cigars in ash trays on them. And each one in front had instrument cases tucked underneath.

They're all musicians.

Cole turned toward his band mates. Their names seemed familiar. Why? Perhaps, he thought, they played in some small venues where he performed before his incarceration. The wheels spun as he played. Focusing on Commodore Dansby, the piano player, the sax man's brow furrowed.

Commodore Dansby…

The fog lifted a bit from Cole's memory. Marlowe, Griffin, Dansby. He never played with any of them, but ran into each of them at one time or another. Dansby and Griffin jammed for a while with a so-so sextet at the Three Brothers Club in Jersey City, one of Cole's old haunts. He recalled thinking they deserved better. Marlowe, he remembered, sat in for a band's regular drummer at the Stray Cats Lounge on Long Island. The ensemble opened for Cole after his album's release, before his imprisonment…

I wasn't alone in the system, was I?

Though they'd been housed in different prisons, they all stayed for a stretch at a gray bar hotel. Tate did, too.

Let's see. Marlowe trafficked heroin, but sold some to an undercover cop. Griffin killed a hooker in an alley during a break between sets at the Brothers. Guess he didn't get his full value. And Dansby…

"Put in the can for the same thing you did," Tate said in Cole's ear, startling him. "Him and me both."

"Huh?"

"You were lookin' at Commodore Dansby. Convicted for sex with a minor, and so was I. You too."

"She said she was eighteen," Cole argued.

Tate nodded. "Sure. And you didn't guess she was just a couple years younger."

"No. Honest."

"Uh-huh. Least I got the sand to admit I just like 'em that young."

"What the hell kind of club is this?"

"The kind where guys like us are welcome."

No response came from Cole's open mouth. He felt misunderstood. The girl he'd had sex with looked borderline age-wise and maneuvered awkwardly in the back seat of his car. She swore she was eighteen however, and Cole believed her, wanted to believe her.

Twenty years in Queensboro… did my time. So did these guys. Hey, wait a minute…

Cole squinted through the smoke at Dansby. He remembered hearing that Dansby had been killed in prison by other prisoners. He shifted his gaze to Marlowe, who had been shot to death during a drug deal gone wrong. He turned slowly to Tate.

"So, how'd you die?"

Tate smiled. "Some daddies don't like their little girl's bein' touched."

The weight of Cole's circumstance fell on him. He heard the band's discordant music, sized up his surroundings and slumped. "Jesus," he said in a flat voice.

"He ain't here. He ain't coming here, neither."

Cole stared at Tate. After a moment the sax player clenched his jaws, raised his horn to his mouth and blasted out a defiant F sharp, which changed the C chord. A deafening screech burst from the back of the room.

Stopping to wipe a trickle of blood from his ear, Tate faced Cole. "C and B flat minor," he said.

"How about this?" The saxophonist blared a lively solo "When the Saints Come Marching In."

Another howl, the shriek of a thousand enraged banshees, assaulted their ears. Cole soldiered on, playing until the song's end. Then he turned again to Tate.

"At least I have the sand to admit when I'm wrong."

With a salute to the shrieking crowd, Cole exited the auditorium. Clutching his sax he hustled down the hall. He stopped at the tapestry, took in the sight of the woman, and bit his lip. Was this passion or pain? And what of the girl, his Lolita, the one this woman's pose reminded him of? She had wanted it, hadn't she?

What does it matter? I'm sorry, and that's all that matters.

Cole sprang to the front door and tore it open. His face fell.

Tate stood before him, his arm outstretched, his trumpet pointed at the stage.

Disoriented, Cole turned and ran back. He yanked the door open only to be faced by Tate again.

"But… Let me out Harrison. Please."

Tate shook his head slowly. "Can't do that."

Cole reached into his pocket and pulled out his money. "Here. I've got a hundred bucks."

Tate howled with laughter.

"I don't belong here. I'm sorry for what I did."

"Too late for apologies," Tate said. "Should'a taken care of that long before getting yourself mashed by that streetcar. Like I said. You belong as much as anyone else here."

"I was told you don't judge."

"We don't," Tate said. "Judgment's already been passed." He ambled up to the stage and addressed the ghastly audience. "Alright y'all, welcome Silky Stevens back. And let's have Jasper Rochambeau come on up here and give the Commodore a break.

Cole winced.

Rochambeau? Guess I will be staying with him.

Jasper Rochambeau shambled up to the combo but stopped next to Cole. He sized the saxophonist up. "Welcome," he said. He took a seat at the piano and began to play his chords.

Raising the sax to his mouth again Cole added his own slow, meaningless sounds to the rambling dissonance. Would the never-ending playing of this tuneless tune be more agonizing than listening to it? He shook his head. He would have all of eternity to decide.

Griffin chortled as he strummed his bass. "Hey y'all. What was the last thing that ran through Silky Stevens' head?"

"The Number 47 Canal Streetcar," Marlowe shouted.

Chuckling bitterly into his horn, Cole allowed a tear to trickle down his face.

This was not his vision of hell. But it would have to do.