"There's a friend of mine sitting over there!" Milford shouted in Miss Alcott's ear.
"What?"
The music roared and wailed and hammered all around them, and Milford leaned his head closer to Miss Alcott's.
"I said there's a friend of mine sitting over there!"
"You have friends?"
"Well, only one really, and I suppose he's not much of a friend, but he's the only one I have.
Look, he's sitting with those friends of yours, what were their names, Emily and Harriet?"
Milford pointed with his finger.
"The other lady is Mistress Anne Bradstreet," said Miss Alcott. "What is this friend of yours doing with Emily and Harriet and Bradstreet?"
"I have no idea," said Milford.
He waved, and Addison in turn raised a finger in salute.
Miss Alcott also waved, and the three women waved back.
"This proves something," said Milford.
"And what is that?"
"It proves that all mankind is connected, that we are all one, brothers and sisters!"
"I don't see how your seeing your supposed friend proves that."
"No, but it does!"
"I think all it proves is that you have smoked that reefer of Jelly Roll's in its entirety, and you are about to burn your fingers with it."
Milford looked down at the tiny butt of a reefer he held between forefinger and thumb.
"Oh, yes," he said. "Ow."
He let the stub fall to the floor, littered as it was with innumerable other butts of cigarettes, reefers, cigars and cigarillos on a scuffed layer of sawdust.
The music had stopped, and the man at the piano spoke into a microphone.
"Thank you, ladies and gentleman, and now we gonna move on to the jammin' portion of tonight's festivities. I see Mr. Jelly Roll Morton out there. Get your ass up here, Jelly Roll!"
"What's happening?" said Milford.
"They're going to have what's called a 'jam session'," said Miss Alcott. "Various people get up with the band and sing and play. It's ever so much fun. Last week Fats Waller came up and tickled the ivories, and it was what I believe you young people call 'a gas'."
"I want to have a gas."
"Dear boy, what do you think you've been having?"
"If I may paraphrase that noted naval captain John Paul Jones, I feel I have not yet begun to have a gas."
Jelly Roll had gotten up from the table where he sat with Miss Blackbourne and Mr. Whitman and was approaching the little stage with the combo on it. Milford floated over and met him.
"Mr. Roll, I should like to jam with you, sir!"
"Sure, Mumfort," said Jelly Roll, "why not?"
"Milford actually, not Mumfort, but no matter."
"What axe do you play, Milfrey?"
"By axe I assume you mean musical instrument?"
"I do indeed, Milf."
"I play a little ukelele, and some rudimentary piano, provided I have sheet music and the tempo is slow."
"Well, uh, I don't think we got a ukelele on hand, and I was actually going to play the piano myself."
"I wonder if I could perhaps vocalize?"
"You sing?"
"I should like to attempt to sing."
"What you want to sing?"
"I want to sing from the heart and the soul, from the heart of my soul, from the soul of my heart, and from the soul and the heart of the whole universe."
"Okay, reet, that sounds cool, just come up on the bandstand with me and we'll work something out."
In a blur of moments Milford found himself on the little stage, standing in front of a microphone stand.
Jelly Roll sat at the piano, a fat reefer in his lips, and he had generously supplied Milford with one also, which Milford was now taking generous puffs from as Jelly Roll played notes like a rippling dark deep river behind him. The rest of the combo had "laid out" and were standing or sitting around with the rest of the crowd, drinking, smoking, chatting and laughing as great waves of smoke swirled and purled, obscuring the farther reaches of the barroom, although Milford could make out Miss Alcott now sitting with Addison and Emily and Mrs. Stowe and Mistress Bradstreet, and, at the other table, Miss Blackbourne and Mr. Whitman.
Milford spoke into the microphone, which was large and solid, like the chassis of a miniature First World War tank, and he heard his voice booming throughout the room:
Long have I been damned,
since that first sad morning
when I emerged from my mother's
womb, quite unwillingly,
howling in protest
and indignation,
long have I been steeped
in misery at having to face
another day trapped within
this pale pathetic body,
forced to get out of bed
all those grim mornings,
and go to school,
until finally, after being
sent down from Princeton
in disgrace for conduct
unbecoming, I was forced
to return to my mother's house,
because where else could I go,
refusing as I have always done
to "work" at anything
but my bad poetry –
and, yes, it's true, on my
trust fund I could afford to
get a modest flat on my own,
but why bother, when my old
bedroom is so comfortable,
and I can sleep as late as I like,
and our Irish maid Maria will
bring me tea and ginger snaps
upon request – indeed, sometimes
I wonder why I leave my room at all
except of course to go to the bathroom –
and I know you're wondering,
good people, what is he on about,
that sounds like a pretty good
set-up, and I suppose it is,
or would be to any normal person,
but I, alas, am not normal,
and persist in being miserable,
who knows why, I have even
thought so many times
of ending it all,
but I am a coward,
and so that's not going
to happen, but tonight,
tonight, dear people,
for the first time,
I got up on a dance floor
and felt the music surging
through my corporeal host
and also through my brain
and, yes, dare I say it,
my soul, and so now I
stand before you,
attempting to sing
although I cannot sing,
attempting to create poetry
although I lack talent,
attempting to live
although I don't know how,
and so, in summation, I shall
only say, quoting the title
of a favorite motion picture
of my strangely sad boyhood:
only angels have wings,
but still we must sing.
And so I sound
my final klaxon,
a pallid, weak,
and stupid Saxon.
Milford had finished, having said all he had to say, and more, which still wasn't much, he knew. He looked out at all the people who had been staring at him, many of them with mouths agape.
Jelly Roll must have sensed that Milford's "song" had finished, and so he rippled a series of decisive notes and struck a final resounding chord.
"Wow," said Jelly Roll, into his microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen, let's have a big hand for young Murphy. Take a bow, Murph."
A few people clapped, a few hooted, most of the people stared silently or muttered to their companions.
Over at her table, sitting with Miss Alcott, Mrs. Stowe, and Addison, Emily rose up in her seat and, raising her delicate fist in the air, shouted, "Woo hoo! Go, Murphy!"
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