Jerry showed up at my door wheezing; soaking wet, carrying only his Selmer tenor sax and a small shoulder bag. A Viking on his way to a jazz gig. He had become so large from kicking booze that I first thought the tenor was a smaller alto sax. The remorse in the eyes was still the same. He had a thin beard and crew-cut, so his face looked sadder than ever and he could have easily been mistaken for Zoot Simms. He only wanted to stay a few days.

"Joey, Joey. Are you ivey-divey, little brother?" (Ivey-divey was Lester Young jazz talk for "good").

"I now have the most be-oo-tiful woman. We're cleaning houses in La Jolla. But her daughter hates me. She's a fuckin' cock-a-roach, man! All she does is watch TV and yell at me! That's why I'm here. Really hurt my feelings. Like your fucked-up little brother. Is Manny here?"

He stopped and looked at me, his face wincing with rage. "You're fuckin' brother got me so mad! He really hurt me, Joey, dammit! He said that I could never see him again until I paid him some 50 or so dollars or other. Why does he say those things?"

This was rhetorical. Jerry was raging against another injustice which he always managed to collect. He paced my apartment, railing against my brother who was actually the one who had brought Jerry to us about ten years ago. Jerry was part of Manny's ongoing collection of the forgotten and possessed.

"Can I just stay a week or so, Joey, my sweet brother. I'll clean the house and teach you the horn." I knew I couldn't refuse. If I did, he would end up in a Bowery flophouse or public shelter, get robbed, probably beaten and would end up back here anyway.

"If you have a hundred dollars or so we can get you a nice cheap Conn," he said, his eyes widening. "They sound so sweet. I love those little horns. I always saw you behind a sax, Joey, 'cause you have it. You have that beauty and you know old Bean and Prez and Bird." These were respectively, Ben Webster, Lester Young and Charlie Parker.

He was suddenly seized with another thought. I was sure it was about my brother.

"Your fuckin' little brother said that I didn't know as much about Bird a he did! That hurt me so much! I live Bird, Joey. You know that."

When he unpacked his sax I was glad. This is why people can't say "No" to Jerry. This big white bear throws all his misery and neediness into his horn. "I'm going to teach you to blow, Joey. That's the deal. We'll go up to Saul's tomorrow and pick you out a nice little alto."

Saul Fromkin was sax-smith to the stars; an aging Jewish hipster with a gray goatee and thick glasses. He was as shocked to see Jerry walk into his second floor shop as he would have been to see Bird himself.

"Jerry Keller! Jesus Christ!"

Jerry's face brightened as this was more than an appropriate greeting.

"I have no money and I can't clean your horn for free," Saul warned him. "Where have you been, you crazy bastard?"

Jerry turned to me and opened his arms above his head like a tour guide.

"This is the temple, Joey. This is Saul's house of magic and ivey-divey." Saul laughed.

"You're still a fuckin' crazy bastard, Jerry. Where have you been?" Jerry answered in a waterfall of words about his girl Renee, being on the wagon, and how he was so happy to be "free of the demon".

But Saul didn't buy a word of it. Jerry was preaching for his own salvation, which never came. We all knew this. And we all knew that one day Jerry would probably be found frozen, starved or killed. He was too much for anyone and that is why he needed so many people.

"Have you seen Dexter?", Jerry asked, concerned. This was Dexter Gordon, the great tenor player who Jerry had toured with in Scandinavia for three years.

"Nah," Saul said, not wanting to talk about it. "He's been very, very sick, Jerry. He's still away in some joint in the country. His wife comes in sometimes for work on his horn, so he's still playing. But he's been out of it. And she really won’t let anybody talk to him. She’s sealed him from the world."

Jerry put his hand to his open mouth. Even though Dexter was his best friend, Jerry had been banned by the wife many years ago.

"Oh Saul. Don't tell me he's gonna die. Please, please...."

Saul rolled his eyes behind the thick lenses. "He's not gonna die, for chrissakes. He's gonna be OK. But he's a burn-out. Just another crazy bastard who fucked his life up like you, you crazy fat bastard."

Jerry showed me the other saxes hung on the walls, laying on tables, waiting to be worked on: Sonny Fortune, Benny Carter, Sonny Rollins. He picked out a no-name alto hanging from the wall. I played a few notes and Saul asked me to stop, peering over the top of this glasses. "You sure you wanna do this?"

"He's got it Saul, I'm telling you," Jerry said, defending me. "He's Manny's brother. You remember, the cock-a-roach."

Saul thought for a moment then laughed. "Oh, Jesus Christ, that crazy little bastard? I'll give you a discount on the cleaning. Shit, that’s your brother?"

That night Jerry showed me how to wet the reed and blow a few things. He taught me how to stuff a cotton bandanna into the bell of the horn whenever I packed it up.

"The cloth and the sax live together," he told me. "They become friends and fall in love. Don't lose the cloth or your horn will get lonely."

In the dark of my apartment, I watched as he closed his eyes and swung with the playing: "Body and Soul", "Out of Nowhere", "But Beautiful".

We would go down to the vast basement of my apartment building, and get in the old storeroom, stand tightly together facing the brick corner, and play unison duets. He taught me to wear a hat when I played for better acoustics, and to close my eyes, "So you look like it's happening inside you," he said.

When I played something good or stumbled accidentally on the familiar, his face would go slack and he would point to me like a criminal in a line-up and say, "That's 'Ornithology', man! Did you know that? That's goddam Bird, Joey! I told you. You have got it!"

He spent hours talking about Bean, Bird and Prez and touring with Dexter drunk and on drugs.

"Dexter had a good woman who rescued him," he said. "I'm only getting that now so I'm on my way. You watch me. I'm going to be so free!" And he believed it. "Blow me a C# scale, Joey."

After awhile he would spiral downward and talk about his first wife, 7 months pregnant when he knocked her across the living room and how two months later she gave birth to an underweight, brain-damaged daughter.

"I love that little girl, Joey," he said with tears in his eyes. "But they won't let me see her." It was the only thing that made him stop talking.

One afternoon I came home and found him laying on my bed. He was smoking a cigarette in that funny way he did when he was high, holding it from underneath like a Nazi general. He was very quiet, then sprang off the bed apologizing for cleaning my desk, which I had asked him not to do. I smelled beer on his breath and I saw how crazy he was.

He made me spaghetti that night and I told him that he had to find a new place to stay. He apologized again for cleaning my desk and for taking so much from people. He knew that people found something wrong with him, but he was going to change. He always pleaded with other people to change him. He could never do it alone.

He continued the search for Dexter. But Mrs. Dexter kept answering the phone and chasing him away.

"You see, Joey. You're all abandoning me. All of you. You won't give me a chance." This was part of the plea. Jerry threatened his friends by begging them to stop him from doing things to himself.

He was coming to the bar where I worked almost every night for beer. We had an agreement. I would let him have one or two, no charge of course, but never anymore and he knew enough not to ask.

He had managed to track down an old girlfriend April, now a friend of mine from the neighborhood. She had become a studio backup singer. He never got over April.

"This woman, Joey...." and he would close his eyes and for a moment re-live their entire sex life. He drew in his breath and let it out with a loud sigh. "She was the magic lady. The tunes she played on my heart....an angel." Then he would play "I Remember April," a slow sorry song about a love that never gets a chance, and yet never dies. He always cried a little after playing it. "I wanted to give that to her so badly and she wouldn't let me," he said as he wept.

April could see how crazy and unhappy Jerry was but was more afraid of refusing him, as we all were. She knew that he was too fragile. A four year old in the body of a line-backer.

They sat at a corner table. He was telling her about not drinking anymore and his life in La Jolla and the abominable teenage daughter. He came back to the bar for a third beer. I was surprised because we had done so well up until now. I shook my head. Jerry was so easy to treat like a child. But he didn't even put up a fight. He turned from the bar and was out the door. Not just like someone leaving, but like someone saying good by. April flew our after him and tried to get him to come back. He was raging at her on the street. He bolted across Ninth Ave. and was gone.

April and I talked a little. She understood and thought that what I had done was very loving, but maybe too abrupt. I told I has lost my patience with Jerry drunk. She promised to call tomorrow and left laughing at what a lunatic we had on our hands.

I walked into my apartment about 4am that night. The place was too quiet. On my bed was my new sax laid out over the bandanna with the neck-strap very carefully placed, almost like a casket. One of Jerry's trail marks; a hieroglyph that only had meaning for the two parties. The note he left said not to worry, he had to move on anyway and for me to keep blowing what was beautiful. I looked around the apartment, which was cleaner than it had ever been. I worried if he had done anything to himself. Where would he stay? I was sure there was somebody else out there in Jerry's underworld who could take the next shift.

I went to my draw to put away my tips, usually $100 or more. It never occurred to me that he knew about this, but the draw was empty. A weekend's work, $300, gone.

I had remembered Jerry telling me about some janitor job interview he had set up at eight that morning. I struggled to remember where. I went to my telephone pad. "Prince and Mercer, Monday AM" was scrawled in Jerry's large script.

I walked around the neighborhood until 7:30 planning every sort of violence I knew. He finally appeared, haggard and high. When he saw me he put up his arms, backing away from me, as if I had was the one pointing a gun.

"Joey, please, please. You hurt me so much. Why did you do that? I gave you the magic and you did that. Please. I had to." And then I was screaming. Screaming like I hadn't screamed since I was a little boy. He pulled his pockets inside out to show me that he didn't have the money. I frisked him and then felt stupid.

"You see? I spent it all," he said gleefully. "I went up to Harlem and shot junk and screwed the most beautiful island girl you ever saw. What were you gonna do with it--buy a new stereo? Put it in the bank? I know what to do with the money, man!"

We both stood nose to nose on the corner of Prince & Mercer, shrieking and crying on the deserted street. "You live like a pig!" he screamed. "I can't believe what a mess your place was when I got there! You don't have a life! You're as dead as your brother says you are!" He cried and twisted his body, stamping on the sidewalk, then started to cry.

"I promise, you'll get it back. I'll pay back every cent. Take my clothes, man. Please, Joey, I'm sorry."

We stopped from exhaustion. I waited around with him to see if he got the job, but he was too wound up. The superintendent hired a short Hispanic kid. I told Jerry not to come back until he had the money.

Two years later I found him sitting in my lobby. I just told him "No," I couldn't do it anymore. He didn't even speak. I left him there and that was the last time we ever saw each other.

I hear about him sometimes through April or Saul. They say he's the same: trying to borrow money; finding a place to crash. But now everyone I know has turned him away.

Copyright 1996 Joe Gilford. All rights reserved.