The phone rings. Part 2.

continued from 01.27 

 The phone rings. 

Roz came back out of the kitchen. “You need to sit down,” she said to me - and Nils. “I do, too,” she said. We sat. Roz sat on the couch, and I sat next to her. And Nils sat in one of the two chairs.

     Axel and Bel came out with wine and cheese and crackers. And served them. And Axel sat down in the other chair.

Bel said, “Thanks for coming. I should have done this long ago, but . . . ,” she paused, “I didn’t.

     “What we’re going to listen to is an album called Live at Otter Crest by Gene Harris, who was born in my hometown, Benton Harbor, Michigan, and died where Axel once lived - and Nils - in Boise, Idaho. John Heard is on bass, and Jimmie Smith is on drums. And on side one are ‘Sweet Lorraine,’ ‘My Foolish Heart,’ and ‘A Little Blues There.’

     Then she switched on the turntable and put the needle down, and it hissed; then “Sweet Lorraine.” She handed the album cover to Roz as she crossed in front of her to sit by me. Roz looked at the album, which was both a plain and an electric blue with just words on it; then she handed it to me. So we passed it around while we listened.

There was kind of slender sweetness about “Sweet Lorraine” and “My Foolish Heart,” but the “Blues” pounds and plucks and pounds some more, and you can hear the audience drawn shuffling to the edge of their seats to hear what the bass and drums are saying.

     “On the B-side," Bel announced the songs as she stood up. There was “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which begins with a bit of direct indirection, and “Shiny Stockings,” blocking out the chords, and “Cute.”

     The only movement in our audience was then, when she got up and turned the record over.

At the end, Axel said, “Wow,” as Bel stood again and made a purposely awkward curtsey. Then, she took the record off the turntable. Nils handed her the dustjacket, and she laid the record and the jacket on top of some books on a shelf beside the turntable.

     I took a second sip of wine, so I’d had two more than I’m supposed to.

And that was it pretty much it, I think. Roz started to say something, and Bel said, “No,” there wasn’t much to do. We left right after and walked home.

That was Friday night. Saturday mid-morning the phone rang again. Roz went to get it. She was gone awhile, and she didn’t bring anything back.

     “Who was on the phone?” she asked as she had Wednesday night.

     “It was either the Secretary of State of Nebraska,” I said.

     “About my transcript,” she interrupted.

     “Yes,” I said, “or it was Bel Monk.”

     “Spell it.”

     I shook my head. “What did she want?” I asked.

     “To know if you were all right,” Roz said.

     “I was,” I said, "as far as I know. Was I?”*

one more chapter in this episode

01.29.18

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 * “Subjunctive,” Roz said. “Indirect discourse.”