A House of Jazz

When it is quiet at night, I hear it again. A flash of sound streaks across my mind like a jet fighter tearing low out of nowhere and shooting past before I can spot it. Sometimes it takes the form of an aural detonation that freezes in twisted metal harmonies. Sometimes I see it, too. I am playing wah-wah on a sunburst Gibson 335 in a six-man group in Swansea or Akron. I can smell the stage and see the plaster trim of a theater ceiling lit red and green, with a polka-dot blanket of pale faces in the darkness below. Sometimes I step up, and it all goes wrong. I am alone with a mistake under a spotlight, replaying it over and over. Sometimes it goes better than it went, and I develop a fluency I never had at the time. Sometimes I play with my dead father. He also sounds better than he has for a while.