Blood Brother

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“Well?” I asked.

“I was sittin’ in Washington Square an hour back when footsteps come at my bench. A fellow axed me how my sense of humor was. I said funny’s different to different folks. He said he was prankin’ a friend and he’d give me fifty dollars to help. I poked my cane his way and said to git on wit’ his sly bidness somewhere else.”

“What happened next?”

“He sat down next to me. I grabbed tight to my money pocket. But he said, ‘Do you hear inside the shadows, sir?’ I said, ‘What you talking about?’ He said, ‘Can you hear the music in the corner restaurant?’ The joint was a block down and the jazz-band music was under the sounds of cars, trucks, people yellin’ on the street, but sure, I could hear it. Next, he said, ‘What you hear best?’ I said it was the clar’net, but if I listened real hard I could separate out the bass notes on the piano.”

“Most people wouldn’t have heard anything but street sounds,” I said, my heart beginning to pound.

“Yep, the music was deep under things. Then the man told what he was hearing, and damn if he wasn’t hearing ever’thing I could. It come to me that maybe he was blind, too.”

Cold prickles danced across my spine. “He wasn’t blind, was he, Mr Parks?”

“Nope, though he was sure tuned up scary high for someone ain’t never had to live in the dark.”

“Did he frighten you?”

Mr Parks frowned, like doing a puzzle in his head. “He had a strange feeling pouring off him, like he had to do a job so important the need was pushing from his skin like heat. That’s as close as I can get with words. Did I feel like he wanted to hurt me? No. But something underneath his voice said I wouldn’t ever want him mad at me.”

“What did you do?”

“Once I could feel he didn’t mean no harm, I got interested in how high he was tuned. We started listening and smelling and talking about how much there was to hear and taste and smell, stuff most people never knew was going on, though it’s right there in their ears and noses and mouths. After we talked a bit I decided to come here to pass on his words. I thought maybe they were important in a way I couldn’t know.”

“What exactly did the man say, Mr Parks?” I asked.

The frown again. Trying to get it just right, Parks spoke slowly. “‘Tell Mr Ryder to consider George Bernard Shaw’s thoughts on sanity in the US.’”

I closed my eyes, suspicions confirmed: I heard Jeremy’s precise diction echoed in the old man’s words. Waltz was staring at me. His silent lips formed the question, Ridgecliff?