as if we hadn’t had a good run at the Sal.You couldn’t sneeze at knowing where you were going to be every Tuesday through Thursday for two years. With weekend run-outs, weddings, trade shows, corporate receptions and the like, my finances had never looked rosier.
I’d been able to keep Sandra out of my hair about child support and had gotten to see a good deal of my daughter Kate. That had certainly made the aftershocks of the breakdown of my marriage much less severe on everyone involved than they might have been if I’d been on the road all the time.
Harry, the club’s owner, had begun dropping hints that if business didn’t pick up in a big way, he was going to be forced to shut the doors. Considering he was in his late seventies, that made sense, but he’d also been quoted as saying that the only way he’d ever give up his club was to be taken out feet first.
Weekends were still reasonably good, since he could book touring soloists to be backed up by all-star local pick-up groups, but it was our weekday nights that were killing him, and that meant the Ronald Felton Trio wasn’t pulling its weight.
What had been our Ronald’s brilliant solution? An open mike night. He also wanted to bring in promising local student soloists from programs like the one at Humber College, where he taught two days a week. He’d gleefully told Dom and me that we wouldn’t have to pay them, and they’d fill the place with all their friends.
Dom, his string bass swathed in its padded soft case, the fabric reminding me of a green quilted diaper, stepped onto the low bandstand and gently laid his baby down.
“Think this is going to work, Andy?” he asked.
“An open mike night for vocalists?” I yanked the strap on my trap case, pulling it tight, and shoved it behind the curtain at the back. “It’s only a step above karaoke, for Christ’s sake.”
“Should be good for a laugh, though.”
“The laugh is that Ronald is convinced this will work.”
Dom looked up with a grin splitting his face. “We both know he’s delusional.”
And so it began. That first night didn’t have too many disasters, mainly because our “delusional” pianist had salted the audience with a few capable friends, along with some of his Humber students who also sang.
The weeks went on, and as winter slowly began inching its way to spring, word spread – helped along nicely by a piece in the Toronto Star. More hopefuls than I would have imagined stepped onto the bandstand to strut their stuff. And surprisingly, more regular patrons began coming, too. I figured it was to witness the frequent train wrecks. Disasters always seem to draw a crowd.
The youthful soloists idea also worked pretty well, so I kept my mouth firmly shut. Harry began talking about wanting to be stuffed and laid out behind the bar when he eventually cashed in his chips.
Then Olivia walked in.
Outside, a February storm was blowing, hopefully one of the last gasps of a miserable three-month stretch of extreme cold and snow, but the Sal was still gratifyingly half filled.
Stepping through the door of the club, she looked like a street person. While I prefer to play with my eyes closed most of the time, floating with the groove I’m laying down, for some reason my eyes were immediately drawn to her.
Her brown hair was long, but badly cut, and her baggy clothes, toque and duffel coat looked as if they were straight out of a Salvation Army bin – which turned out to be the literal truth. The only spot of colour was a bright red scarf.
She wasn’t much over five feet, and soaking wet she would have weighed in at not much over a hundred pounds, but there was something about her. She was pretty in a conventional sense – nice lips, cute nose, sort of a heart-shaped face – but her dark eyes gazed right into my soul for a brief moment before she looked away.
I watched her find a perch on one of the tall stools lining the wall in a back corner, places set out for those who wander in alone to catch a set or two. She spent the evening nursing two soft drinks that she paid for from a fistful of small change.
Loraine, the waitress, gave Olivia dirty looks as the level of her drinks got very slowly lower. Tuesdays were generally not good nights for tips, and a couple of colas over the course of an entire evening would hardly pay the rent.
I don’t think anyone but me noticed the waif-like woman as she listened to us accompany hopefuls and drunks with equal equanimity, and even I didn’t catch Olivia as she slipped off her stool and out the door at the end of the evening.
That would never happen again.
I next came across her in a totally unexpected place on a Saturday afternoon a week or so later.
My elderly car was again in the shop, this time for a new transmission. Since I had missed visiting my daughter Kate the previous weekend because of an out-of-town gig, I’d decided to catch the train out to Oakville, where my ex-wife Sandra was living with her new guy in his three-thousand-plus-square-foot house.
Knowing that yet again that bastard Jeremy would look down his long nose at me, my mind was on other things, so I nearly knocked Olivia down as she panhandled for change in between the subway exit and the lower level entrance to Union Station. The Tim Hortons coffee cup in her hand went flying, the coins tinkling as they bounced all over the concrete. Immediately, two other street people appeared from nowhere, stooped and began snatching them up.
“Oh, damn! I’m sorry!” I said.
The poor girl looked as if she might start crying. It took me a moment to realize who she was. She just stared at me, then stooped to pick up her cup and two nickels and a dime that had fallen nearby.
Turning around, I saw the two interlopers scurrying off with their booty. No honour among thieves.
I pulled a handful of coins out of my pocket and dumped them in her cup. “It’s the least I can do.”
Big eyes looked at me, and a shy smile lit up her face. “Thanks.”
Feeling embarrassed, I hurried off with a muttered,“Well, take care,” and went in search of my train.
The whole way out to Oakville, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
She puzzled me. Had the girl wandered into the Sal simply to get warm? It had been a frighteningly cold night, but you didn’t often see street people in a jazz club – unless they were on the stage playing...
My daughter kept me busy all afternoon, first at a movie then at one of those indoor putting places. The cab fare to and from the big complex out on Winston Churchill Drive where both were located, along with the cost of lunch, movie and putting set me back more than what I made in one night at the Sal, but it was worth it. I’d missed Kate dreadfully since Sandra had taken up with Jeremy, and we’d had a great afternoon.
Eleven-year-old Kate had begun to remind me of my own mother, all dark, curly hair and a broad, pleasant face. She’d never be a beauty like own mom, but her sense of humour and fierce creativity would stand her in good stead. I’d gotten her interested in music, and she showed some talent on the piano. Sandra pushed her hard in school because Kate was very bright. I had no idea how she’d turn out, but I knew she’d be very good at everything she took up.
Whenever
