Mophead

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.

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