Like Dizzy Gillespie's Cheeks

Twenty-one

I've never been a big fan of obituaries. As a matter of fact, I usually skip them on the way to the weather forecast, which is located on the back page of the "Metro Chicago" section of the Tribune.

As a kid, I remember feeling anxious and uncomfortable when seeing cemeteries and hearing about death. I'd actually get a lurching sensation in pit of my stomach, and a light-headed, spinning sensation took over my life form. Even now, when I pass cemeteries, I look the other way, which at times poses a problem in traffic.

Needless to say, attempting to read Ben's obituary took a lot of effort.

About two blocks away from my flat, I pulled the folded-up metro section out of my coat pocket. I couldn't read Ben's obituary right away, so I scanned the page and was drawn to this picture of a black man striking a Yul Bryner King and I pose, dressed in a suit with one of his legs outfitted in a modified piratelike peg leg. The guy was Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates, a one-legged tap dancer who apparently became famous.

The obit talked about how Peg Leg lost his leg at age twelve in a cottonseed-gin mill accident. Peg Leg started dancing seven years before the accident and wouldn't let the loss of a leg stop him from continuing. His uncle whittled him a wooden leg, and the dancing continued.

His success exceeded everyone's expectations but his own. He danced with all the big bands of the '30s: Dorsey, Ellington, Calloway, Basie, Armstrong. He danced a command performance for Britain's royalty, appeared twenty-one times on the Ed Sullivan Show, and performed frequently for the disabled.

Reading about Peg Leg inspired me. I enjoyed reading an obituary. How odd. I guess it felt more like a mini biography. I got to know Peg Leg. Felt sad I never had to opportunity to meet him. At the same time, I wondered if by chance, in all his travels, Ben ever had the opportunity to cross his path.

I honored Peg Leg with a moment of silence and moved on to find Ben's obit, which turned out to be very short and very to the point. The words "loving," "devoted," and "cherished" were nowhere to be found. Only the relationship to his daughter Lisa, and the date and time of the wake and burial were noted.

Although the pitiful obituary read more like a funeral notice, Kate wrote a small, six-paragraph piece about Ben (with no help from me), about his music and performance history, which appeared a day earlier.

As I marched along the snowy walk leading up to my flat, I thought back to the funeral. Statistically, I wondered how many people attend funerals out of obligation, and how many people attend because it sounds good at work and they get a little time off. Although there were only about twenty people, most of his contemporaries were dead, so the funeral, like his obituary, was short and not too eventful.

Lisa asked a couple days earlier if I'd do the eulogy. My first reaction was no. I figured I'd hyperventilate, have an anxiety attack, and pass out on top of Ben's casket. Of course, due to the force of the fall, I'd suffer a nosebleed. I finally got a hold of myself, and thought I'd be insulting her if I turned her down. Besides, I felt bad, having already denied her first request of cooperating with Kate.

So I said yes. But instead of preparing a long, drawn-out speech, I brought a cassette tape with a recording of me playing a tune written by Milt Jackson, called "Bags' Groove," which was Ben's favorite—put the boom box on the coffin, said, "Ben, you'll always be alive in the music," and then played the song.

As the song played, I scanned the people scattered about—Lisa with her son, Ezra, who probably got to leave school for this; Clara, who actually had a tear or two for Ben; a priest who knew Ben as well as the thirteen other people who read the piece about him in the Tribune days earlier, and a couple people from Andy's. I thought about how pathetically insignificant one's life gets boiled down to in the end. You die, a notice is posted, a burial is planned, an estate is settled, and all that's left of you is a headstone or an empty urn.

It made me think of life as one big insignificant joke. All the verses of inspiration—trite sayings about living for the day, and today being the first day of the rest of my life, and to be all I can be, and a moment once passed is forever gone—swirled through my mind, making me nauseous in thought. It wasn't until then that I landed on the thought bearing the meaning of it all. My meaning. The big meaning. The "What am I doing here?" meaning. The who and why and where of it all that left me with the big cemetery spin. The one that leaves me light-headed and gets my existential shorts in a big huge bundle.

I shook my head hard to relieve the intense moment, let out an involuntary yelp, and took a deep breath. I was now ready to move on.

My answering machine indicated three messages. I usually like to guess who's called before I listen to the messages, but today I was just too spent to guess, so I pushed the button and went to the kitchen for a beer.

The rewind seemed to last forever. (Probably a message in there somewhere from Liz). The beer tasted good. The messages began.

"Sammy, hey, it's ... yeah, just a minute ... sorry it's really busy at work. Anyway, did I say it was Liz? Like you don't recognize my voice. Anyway, I'm all screwed up. When is Ben's funeral and ... shit, it's today isn't it? That's probably where you are. Damn it, why didn't you tell me?—I'll be right with you ... Oh, fuck ... I gotta go ... call me." The beep sounded.

"Hey, butt-munch. Got some bad news. We don't need you for those other two events I told you about. The board is convinced some Harry Connick Jr. CDs will suffice. Naturally, I fought for a cancellation fee, and even induced the rumor that Connick was gay, but that only worked against me ... sorry buddy." Max was always looking out for me. The beep sounded.

Dead air caught my attention. I could hear some background noise but couldn't make it out. Then a voice came on. "Hi, Sam? It's Kate. I hate talking to these things." A slow rumble of excitement cruised through my body. "Anyway, I just wanted to apologize if it appeared that I didn't care about what you were saying when I was walking away from you earlier. I was just eager to get to work ... This is pretty lame, I know. Oh God, just forget I called. Sorry."

Forget she called? How was I going to forget her soft, warmhearted voice, which was attached so eloquently to her sensational lips and face, which, I finally realized, had all worked their way into my heart? I'm not sure how or when, or why, but she's there. Crooked smile and all.