Mophead
Nikko
yanked the handle, rolling the soft case over the curb in a hurry to reach the
Treme Street exit gates before they were locked down at dark. The beat of music
surprised him when he entered the lighted wrought iron archway to Louis
Armstrong Park. He had forgotten this is the first week of Thursday’s Jazz in the Park series. Ignoring the festival activity
in the park, he watched his own dejected footsteps, schlepping his instrument along the meandering
path to the lagoon.
His
shoulders slumped, his head drooped, burdened by the ineffectual hours spent
caressing Gertrude. Maybe I’ll try you with gut strings. Perfecting the slap and pull method from the
forties might get me recognized. Gertrude, I wish, I wish I could master you.
He carried on many one-sided conversations with the bass fiddle, confident he
had christened her with a name befitting the large, low-pitched bowed string
instrument.
Since
his eyes were focused on the ground, the scuffed toes of laced white Victorian
boots caught his attention before he looked up to see a slender woman of
indeterminate age with caramel skin planted in front of him. He stepped
sideways to bypass her. She mimicked his move, blocking his path.
He
shook his mop of curly hair, peeved that his shortcut might turn into a long trek
back to N. Rampart Street. With a flick of
his hand as if shooing a fly, Nikko motioned for her to get out of his
way. “Jeez. Find a tourist why don’t
you?”
He wasn’t
in a mood to humor the fortune teller. Or was she supposed to be a pirate? Black
flounce skirt over striped leggings and a scarf with bangles said gypsy. The
sequined eye patch implied buccaneer. She treaded the edges of weird, even for the
pageant of New Orleans’ every day streets.
She
clapped her hands and stomped her right foot pivoting herself in a circular
motion. The bangles jingled when she jerked her head. Dance complete, her good eye stared at him
with little emotion. “Bad wishing makes bad getting,” she said.
Unsure
which startled him more - her knowing that he was wishing or her voice – like
honey on a bruise, he pulled Gertrude upright beside him, waiting to hear what
else the gypsy would say. Nothing. Her eye strayed from him down and to the
right where a dented gallon paint can sat, seeded with money. He dug into his jean pocket with an audible
sigh, begrudging the coins she expected as a tip.
Was his desire to be a celebrated
bass player a wasted wish? Hard to imagine what he could get better than that.
Bad wishing
stuck in his head. He dwelled on it, twiddling the phrase during his walk home.
Nikko’s grandma had named him after one of her flowers, the Nikko Blue. One
summer when he was nine, she lamented how her prized hydrangeas were pink instead
of blue like Aunt Beryl’s – something about the soil. When she had observed, in
front of his friends, how his mop of light ginger curls deepened in color as
the seasons progressed, similar to her mophead blooms, he railed out, “What
kind of name is Nikko? I wish I was called anything but that.” His friends
answered with a tease, calling him Mophead. The nickname stuck.
New
lyrics danced unbidden into his head.
The
next morning he resolved to be careful about cruising down the alleyway of
wishing.
###
A
week later he lugged Gertrude through the park. Street performers vied with
each other for attention and tips. Nikko smiled at the memory of the gypsy, wondering
if she would be working the crowd again. Usually deserted at this time, the
park teemed with locals and tourists attending the weekly music series. The
city would keep the gates open later tonight, so he lingered at the brass band
sculpture, contemplating a more wonderful life. Wouldn’t it be amazing to play in Alicia Keys’ backup group or get booked
for a six day run at the Blue Note in Manhattan?
He encountered
her at the bridge, dressed in the same costume, waving a toy wand topped with a
patchy glittered star. Gypsy. Pirate.
Fairy. Some part of him believed she
inspired the birth of his new song Mophead
Blues.
Wanting
to hear her voice again, he asked, “What advice do you have for me, fairy?”
The
wand tapped his shoulder shedding gold sparkles on his shirt. No emotion on her
face, but maybe there was a hint of gleam in her eye. She said, “Do not
overlook the ordinary for the wondrous.” Her voice cocooned him, like worn red
flannel.
Whoah! How did she know he was
envisioning something more extraordinary than the mundanity of his current
life?
Rattled, he asked, “Is that all you’ve got to
say?”
No
response. The gypsy sat down next to her paint can, her thin face void of
expression. She wasn’t very good at this
gypsy stuff. Most buskers went for
the over dramatic presentation.
“What’s
your name?” he asked.
She
shook her head, languidly, in the universal signal no.
“Ok.
How about I just call you the Queen of one-line wisdom?”
A
fleeting smile. And yes, definitely a glint in her eye.
Nikko
dropped a dollar into her paint can and trudged on, dragging his fiddle behind
him. Her advice inhabited his head long after he arrived home, to his half of a
shotgun house in Treme.
What
had he overlooked? He resolved to reconsider all the ordinary in his life. But
in the meantime, he itched to scribble the lyrics for a new composition, The Wonder of Ordinary.
###
Should I consider going to New York
with Louie? Louie ragged on and on about his new theatre job, using every
wile to convince Nikko he could achieve his dream if only he’d go with him. But, he had a decent gig at the club here and
the owner was pretty chill about allowing him to test the songs he wrote. Torn, Nikko debated with himself – stay or go
- rolling his instrument up St. Ann on the third Thursday.
All
week long, his imagination roiled. Wondering what quirk of wisdom the one-eyed
lady would impart had driven him to pen a song about it. Flushed with expectation
when he spotted her at the bridge, he needed to hear her voice again. Same
costume, except today frayed blue gossamer wings sagged over her flounce skirt.
Gypsy. Pirate. Fairy. Butterfly? Strangest gimmicks for a fortune teller he’d
ever seen.
Nikko
parked his fiddle and sang, “Butterfly, butterfly, what say you here?”
As
if reciting the first two lines of a stanza, she responded, her voice a silky
saxophone, “Catch at the shadow and you shall lose the substance.” She curtsied
and then pranced silently around her paint can.
Nikko
bowed in reflex to the Queen’s curtsy. Catch
at shadows? That settled it. Louie would have to go to the Big Apple
without him. He tipped her five dollars and hurried away, impatient to capture
the tune humming in his head.
###
Thursday
evening of the following week, eager to share his excitement with the Queen he
ran along the twisted pathway towards the bridge, unencumbered by Gertrude. Last
night, an agent offered him a major songwriting contract. Said he’d been
watching Nikko for a while, impressed with the depth of Nikko’s talent as a
songwriter during the past month. The agent believed Shadows and Substance had platinum potential with the right artist.
My new prospects are totally due to the Queen’s
wisdom.
No guardian
awaited him at the bridge. Deflated by the
absence of his Euterpe, he traced his steps back to a grassy knoll where an old
man picked out the Itsy Bitsy Spider,
one string at a time, on his battered guitar. Anxious to find the spirit which
thrust him into prolific creativity, Nikko asked, “Have you seen the fortune
teller?”
The
man repeated the plucking pattern of the children’s rhyme. “Don’t know no
fortune teller.”
“She’s
been here every Thursday for the past three weeks,” he insisted.
The
old man shrugged.
Desperate
to find his muse, Nikko explained, “She has a patch on one eye and the sweetest
peanut butter voice you’ll ever listen to.”
The
weathered man looked up at Nikko with rheumy eyes. “You mean Glory. Yeah, she
usually sleep over on dat bench higher up the hill.” He chuckled, “But she
ain’t no fortune teller. All dat gal talks about are da morals of dem stories.”
Morals? An
irrepressible hiccup, Nikko retorted, scorn biting his speech, “You don’t know
what you’re talking about, Old Man.”
The
old man plucked hard on his bass string heralding his announcement, “Der she
is.”
Nikko
swiveled on his heel. Glory stood silently, a shimmer of a smile brushed her
face. No butterfly wings or magic wand today.
She hugged a tattered green book, its spine held together by duct tape –
Aesop’s Fables.
###
