Muskrat Ramble

 Muskrat Ramble                               

 
Axel Sundstrøm is an odd combination, both socially awkward and very good with people. This is typical:

    
He invited me for “an evening of music” last night. He had a number of recordings of The Dukes of Dixieland and other New Orleans jazz stuff, and he wanted me and another friend to hear one – a woman of about our age, an artist, Belle Manque. I’ve seen her work, small, damp abstracts that give the sense of landscapes lost at sea. She’s a pleasant, brave woman.

     Before she’d arrived, I asked Axel if he’d had time, or inclination, to read that day’s post. (See here.) He said that he had, that he had enjoyed it. “Interesting,” he said, but bullshit, of course. I asked him what he meant. “Bullshit,” he said again, “a self-explanatory category, I’d have thought. Subcategory: theological bullshit.”

At this point, the old doorbell began gargling then choked, more like a switch had been turned than a buzzer pressed. Belle with a small package in hand, a painting about 5 x 8 inches in the grays and browns and mottled greens and cloudy blues she liked to work with, pushing them one into the other into the other. I thought at first, “A gift”; but it wasn’t, rather something Axel had asked her to do for him.

     She had also brought a bottle of wine. She shrugged off her coat and hung it on the clothes tree beside the door; and she and Axel disappeared into the kitchen with the wine. They came back with a tray with glasses and bread and cheese. We sat around a low table: I was on the couch next to the Sunday paper, Axel slouched in a low, uncomfortable looking chair, and Belle quivered on a large cushion from another chair on the floor.  

     He began pouring the wine. “Did you forget the music?” she asked. She took the bottle, resumed pouring. He went to his turntable and put on The Dukes of Dixieland, At the Jazz Band Hall, 1954: “At The Jazz Band Hall”; “Beale Street Blues”; “Muskrat Ramble”; “Blue Prelude”; “That's A-Plenty”; “Original Dixieland One-Step”; “Panama”; “Wolverine Blues”; “Fidgety Feet”; “Tin Roof Blues”; “Tiger Rag”; and “When The Saints Come Marching In.” We listened from one end to the other, sipping our wine, nibbling at the bread and cheese but no conversation.

     When the last Saint had joined the Number, Axel got up and turned the machine off. “That was very nice,” Belle said, jumping up. “I like Dixieland. Thank you.” They shook hands. I stood up. I shook her hand; she took her wine glass into the kitchen. I heard water running. Pulling on her coat without pausing, she waved and went out the door Axel held open for her.

He showed me the painting. I nodded.

     “Do you like it?” he asked.

     “I think so,” I said. “It’s little.”

     “Yes. She makes little things,” he said.

I decided to press him about his verdict on yesterday’s sermon, or on my take of it: What made this particular bullshit smell the way it did?

     “You know, I shouldn’t have said that,” Axel said. “Nobody understands the grace of God, but if you’re preaching, you’ve got to pretend to. I do it, too.”

We decided to listen to “Beale Street Blues” again and “Muskrat Ramble,” then “Tin Roof Blues” and “Tiger Rag” and “The Saints.”

02.01.16