Free Soul Siren by Aisha Duquesne Page A

doorstep the very next day, he told her he was busy.
    “You’re not busy, you’re just reading.”
    “Exactly. I’m busy reading.”
    “That’s busy for you?”
    “It is at the moment. I’m also drinking.”
    “You got a real heavy load there,” she said.
    “I’m drinking Scotch, neat.”
    She stopped by his jazz club again. She fed him another composition. He used it the same way. Again, she was refused at his door. When she gave him her first try at “Late Night Promises” out of desperation, he called her at her studio apartment and, without a hello, asked, “I see you’ve decided to do some work. Get your ass over here.”
    He was not only her new music teacher. Erica calls Morgan her Professor of Coping. He told her where she could buy sheet music for less, where to go for the best fruit down in Chinatown, where to find meat for curried mutton. He took her on a tour of Harlem music spots like Minton’s Playhouse and Smalls’ Paradise. He was her guide to New Yorkers’ quirky social behaviour. When she asked why everyone instantly apologised after bumping into you on the subway or on the street, he explained, “Paranoia as inspiration for good manners. No one knows what anyone’s gonna do anymore. You might get shot. And the goddamn crazy thing is—it works!”
    People who knew Morgan say he loosened up around Erica. Even they wondered if something wasn’t sparking between the two, despite the difference in age. He liked to go downtown and play chess at the outdoor tables near Washington Square so they could take in the street performers. As he covered his eyes, knowing people could be heartless in their reactions, Erica sang “Late Night Promises” a capella and got five bucks in coins in Morgan’s borrowed cap. She was more delighted with the applause than the spare change. She tagged along when he spent hours at the sprawling, endless Strand bookshop. They talked. They talked music. And they mostly talked about what kind of career Erica would have, because Morgan was beginning to believe. He did, however, have his reservations.
    “Pop music by definition is ephemeral, disposable,” he argued. “Listen: what is this?” And he began to hum a few bars of something.
    “ ‘Round Midnight,’ ” she said promptly. “So what?”
    “So that lasts. It’s delicately constructed, and it’ll stand the test of time. And it’s
good
music.” To reinforce his point, he started humming Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
    “I can’t believe you cop an attitude like this!” she laughed. “They’re still melodic, they’re still popular. And there are classics that were pop tunes first! When you got started in music and heard ‘Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,’ did you think people would still love it later?”
    “Hey, watch it,” he growled. “Yes, I was around, but I am not
that
old. And I’m not saying one kind of music’s superior to another. I listen to all kinds of shit. Look, Erica…” He stopped in the park, and she recognised he was being serious. “It’s just that I don’t think they’re going to
let
you be the kind of artist you want to be,” he said gently.
    “Oh, come on—”
    “No, you come on,” he said, and he dug into his coat pocket and pulled out her scribbled lyrics to “And You Think That Makes It All Right?,” her blistering attack on proposed compensation for descendants of slaves. She had wanted his opinion. “You think you can say the stuff you want to say?”
    “You know my Dad didn’t only listen to Duke Ellington and Miles Davis,” said Erica. “We also played Bob Marley in the house.”
    “I like Bob Marley, too—”
    “They got artists doing political songs all the time,” said Erica.
    “No, artists
say
a few things that can almost be called political,” he corrected her. “They’re forgotten ’cause they go into newspapers or magazines. Tossed out the next day or in a week. People hang on to CDs. And their songs are the tamest shit compared