Body and Soul (short story)

 was the second story in The Boulevard: Volume One.

Febuary 1955
Joe Barker stumbles down the street, drunk and depressed, frustrated with how his music had been ignored this past night in the club, how his last record had been a flop. A truck rushes in front of him as he's yanked back, but the trumpet in his hand ends up mangled. Standing over him is a man in a green zoot suit, pork-pie hat and a skull mask who introduces himself as Godparent Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles says that Joe should have died here tonight, but he's being offered a second chance, a gift from the loa, a chance to replace that timeline with a new trumpet that he offers to him.

The next day, Joe discusses the events with his bandmates before going onstage to perform. This time, when he plays, the entire room turns to watch him and ends with rapturous applause.

October 1955
A friend of Joe's, a pianist who was traveling to record with Miles Davis has had a car accident and died. Joe takes some time alone in a bar while the rest of his bandmates go to pay respects to the family. Mephistopheles appears and Joe vents about how he feels betrayed for the pianist leaving him for Miles. Mephistopheles suggests he could stop now, but Joe insists that he's going to make it to the top one way or another.

August 1957
A fight is started in a bar over Joe leaving his trumpet case on the floor. In the aftermath, since his band members are black they were thrown in jail where his drummer ends up dying.

September 1962
Mephistopheles asks Joe again if he wishes to stop, but Joe insists that he's happy with the situation, that the next album is going to catapult him to the annals of history.

December 1963
Joe and the one original remaining band member leave the funeral of the bass player from their band. As the snow falls around them they play a song to send him off in style before the sax player says he wants to get out of the music scene. He says that Joe should leave too, it's not healthy.

April 1965
Joe sets himself up with a new quintet and tries his best to get back into a rhythm. He ends up buying a drink for a fan of his, a woman named May.

July 1969
Three years since he's put the trumpet down and Mephistopheles hasn't shown up to reclaim his gift. May insists that the whole thing was a product of drugs and alcohol, and that there's no need to go back to that life, his biggest fans are her and their unborn child. But even still, he can't help but miss it.

January 1970
Joe tells May that his old record company wants him to go on a concert in order to promote his songs to a new generation. He insists that he'd rather be with her, waiting for the baby to come, but it's easy money. The two part on strained terms.

February 1970
The tour's going great. So well, in fact, that the record company has added another stop. Joe's frustrated, since he knows May won't be happy about this, and she's due to give birth in two weeks, but the young, gregarious, saxophone player in the band insists that it's nothing to worry about, it's just an extra four days.

Joe shows up two weeks later to May's parents' house to be told he's not welcome. He insists that he's sorry, he knows that she's mad, but there was nothing he could do. May's father breaks down and recounts how May went into labor three days ago and bled out screaming Joe's name, how Joe's son never took a breath.

He travels back to the club where he first played that night all those years ago. And he plays again.

Mephistopheles emerges from the audience, delighted, but insists that it's probably time to return the trumpet. Joe refuses, insisting that if he did it would just be passed off onto someone else. He dashes outside and throws it under and oncoming car. Mephistopheles is irritated - the trumpet was meaningless, just a normal instrument, but all of the energy it accumulated is gone now, and it will take some time to repair his relationship with the loa.

As a punishment, Mephistopheles ensures that Joe becomes a footnote in jazz history and occasionally in the boulevard you can hear the echoing notes of a trumpet flit out, never acknowledged, never celebrated.

Characters

 * Joe Barker
 * Mephistopheles
 * May Barker

Continuity
to be added