The Saxophone Lessons – Part 2: First Gig

Andre played his first gig on a Thursday night.

It was the open jam at a small bar on Frenchmen Street, a low-ceilinged room, hot and dim and crowded, with a sticky floor, a piano against the wall and a trumpet player warming up in the corner. The air smelled of beer and fried food and cigar smoke from the street. Andre stood at the side of the stage with his saxophone round his neck and his stomach churning.

"I can't," he said.

"You can," said Jonah.

"I'll squeak."

"Good. It'll prove you're alive."

They walked on together. Jonah took the piano. The bass and drums fell in behind. Andre stepped up to the microphone, breathed from his stomach, and began.

The blues rolled out, slow and low, warm as molasses. Halfway through his solo, he hit a wrong note, a bright, sour flat, and his heart lurched. But Jonah, at the piano, caught it, bent his own phrase to meet it, and suddenly the wrong note was the right one: a crooked, aching turn that made the whole room sigh.

When he finished, the bar erupted.

Afterwards, they sat on Andre's balcony, long after midnight, with a bottle of cold beer. The French Quarter murmured below. A distant brass band played something slow. The air was warm and thick with jasmine and rain.

"That wrong note," said Andre.

"The best one of the night."

"It was a mistake."

"It was a choice," said Jonah, "the moment you didn't stop."

Andre laughed, shakily. He turned. In the light of the street lamp, Jonah's face was soft and attentive, his dark eyes sleepy with affection.

"Can I ask you something?" said Andre.

"Yes."

"May I kiss you? I think I'd like to make something with no mistakes."

"Yes," said Jonah, very softly. "And if you say stop, you must play me a ballad."

"That would be a very long ballad."

"I have all night."

Andre kissed him, slow and unhurried, a hand rising to the grey-cropped hair. Jonah kissed him back with a deep, patient sweetness, tasting of beer and rain. The brass band swelled in the distance, then faded. The jasmine breathed in the dark.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" asked Jonah.

"Green," said Andre. "Very green."

They play together on Thursdays. Andre still hits wrong notes. Jonah says that is why people come back.

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