Excerpt From My Novel...

We rip away from Jackson Square me all moody and disoriented after my talk with Alice. While Susan instead, probably prophesied on palm great things like white picket fences and little ones and a dog, has become balloon elated all perky there seeing New Orleans streets with such wide-eyed enthusiasm I almost forget the strange little conversation I'd had just minutes earlier. All doom and gloom questions of lovelorn and lost me.

We find a dark restaurant where windows glare openly in contrast to the outside world of passersby's and life bright fighting against the inside décor. It's a dive dirty wall joint of scribbling and stains entrenched there for all time. The waiter softly suggests the etouffee or shrimp gumbo. We order something I don't quite remember - me instead concentrating on the Dixieland jam from speakers overhead, trying not to be so blue and coming to terms rather with Alice's last words, taking them to heart and mind.

"So you don't seem too pleased since we left the Square," Susan says, taking a deep swig of Abita brew from tap, "Didn't like your tarot reading?"

"No, it was fine!" I say, "But have you ever wondered about the grand scheme? Of the fable of boy meets girl? That somewhere in all the billions inhabiting our planet that the perfect mate exists just waiting to be come upon like fate?"

"You're talking about relationships? True love?" she asks. I nod to her, some small twinge hoping maybe this is her of all the hers sitting right before me but knowing better and now visibly slumping in my chair.

"There's no such thing," says Susan. "Love is something you work for. It's work! There's no magic to it. Sure, attraction at first. Lust. But love develops only for those willing to make an effort toward creating it."

"But what about love at first sight? The fireworks and longing looks and perfect abandon?"

"People can click. But instant love? That's not necessarily a recipe I want to have. Love makes us stupid. It takes away reason, responsibility, logic."

"Yes! That's what makes it so wonderful!" I say.

"You're crazy. But sweet. Did the tarot tell you your perfect mate doesn't exist?"

"Not in so many words. She said when it happens, it happens."

"And you paid for that? I could have told you as much. I've had a few significant others in my time, and not one of those relationships have led me to believe that some Prince Charming exists who will one day come out of nowhere to sweep me off my feet. Men are dogs. Dogs need training."

"Wow. You've been hurt, haven't you?"

"No. God, what a typical response. I'm just being realistic. My fairy tale beliefs died a long time ago."

"I'm not saying I've had much luck in that department myself, by any means," I say, "but I still have hope."

"Good for you. Hope springs eternal. Love will find a way. Let's eat."

So we sit sipping our gumbo now as I wonder how someone as bright like white sheets billowing in a Hyde Park, Austin springtime backyard could come across so fallen. Wounded Susan with her child-like awe cut to old age in milliseconds of time. We sit quietly for the rest of meal, relegated to familiar small talk absenteeism conversations, until it's near three o'clock and we have to leave or miss Ryan in front of the gospel tent.

I am the first to admit I'm probably the fool for all my desperate hopes of romantic bliss. What should I care that I've reverted to form? I have learned and unlearned enough to fill volumes, and not always the same regurgitation, but vital lessons come and gone never to return again. It's my human nature surfacing always which brings me down.

Anyway, I'm keen to hurry and get to Jazz Fest, as Wynton Marsalis is home again, and those sweet sounds emanating from his high horn will be a welcome retreat from this dreary scene. We find Ryan easily enough - passed out with sunglasses and sky blue Highlights T-shirt on sprawled lifelessly on a patch of soft green grass. Those godlike voices are singing praise from the huge tent behind us there where choirs from around the world have gathered for hot sweaty, paper fan and Hallelujah performances. We drag him up, Susan and I each with an arm, and lead him through the huge masses, sixty thousand in all, to the Jazz tent right across the way where a crowd is already congregating.

"Beer?" I ask Ryan, who, I swear from behind those dark lenses, glares right at me.

"No, thank you. I'm going to stick with water for a while."

"I'd love a light beer. Whatever they've got," says Susan, who runs inside to find a spot near the stage for all of us, Ryan in tow.

It takes me some time to find them again, as I wasn't expecting them to be front row center stage, but there they are, and our view is more than fine once I've settled in on the floor next to them.

"I was just telling Susan how awesome that XT stuff you gave me was," says Ryan.

"Yeah? It worked, huh?"

"I'm a new man," he says, head nodding and all grins, and now Ryan is pumped - ready for Wynton to take the stage, a feeling infecting us all. It might be hard to imagine what Classical Jazz sounds like, but that's as close a description as any to what I've come to discover about Wynton's music. He adheres so passionately to the traditions of jazz and the technical mechanics of blue chords and bar blues, that you might consider him not just a conductor and composer, but genius and saint, every bit as significant as Mozart.

So when he takes the stage, I'm caught up in my own personal frenzy of adoration. He of thin almost lanky cocksure composure in neat summer suit commands our attention, horn in hand, the perfect image of the modern African American demanding respect by will and skill alone. The set starts quietly forcing the entire room to sit on seat edge - a magical moment dependent entirely on the next, and soon the music builds. Musicians low in voice singing, murmuring almost, so that I can almost make the tune out but quite can't.

"No way," whispers Ryan while tugging on my shirt, the light of recognition and awe in his eyes. "No way can he be playing this."

"What? What's he playing?" asks Susan.

"You know this?" I say.

"I can't believe he's playing the Trane! This is Coltrane, man! A Love Supreme!"

Sure enough, the voices coalesce into a chant of, "A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme," before the bass line surfaces in softly behind the rest, and now I recognize John Coltrane's seminal song from the album of the same name. A Love Supreme was Trane's offering to God, in praise of God. He recorded the tune in 1964 at the famed Van Gelder studios, and not a more moving, deeply inspirational jazz prayer has there ever existed than this-Trane's crazy tenor dancing all across the darkly rich chords there. All praise to God!

The fact that Marsalis feels confident enough to cover this song, of all songs, here is immense, and reaffirms my respect for him not only as musician, but fellow lover of jazz. It is the perfect homage to all that is great about the genre, and everything within me swells with sweet emotion. There is a heaven on earth today.

Just maybe, yes, I think that Marsalis' eyes have met my wide eyed own, seeming to say, I know, my son, I know you get it, too, before blowing the house down in extended heartfelt trumpet solo. The song lasts for a full twenty minutes, maybe more, but reverberates within me long after it's finished. The rest of the set is fantastic, of course, but I can't feel anything. I can no longer get my arms around the full force of jamming perfection being displayed before me. Vaguely I notice Ryan going with the beat of the music beside me, Susan swaying happily just behind him. The energy of the crowd rolls above me, beyond me, way too far away from me, when suddenly I notice everyone is on their feet, and just like that it's over.

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