"Listen to this." My friend Oscar put a record ourntable a down the needle with care. The 45 popped and hissed; then the melody line rose, followed by the four-part doo-wop, "Earth Angel" by The Penguins ee" by The Crows, and hed sit ba the edge of the bed, close his eyes, and pull apart those different harmonies, first singing tenor and so on through the bass. Or hed put on a new jazz riff by Miles or maybe Dave Brubed pick out the terpoint, cog his ear to the nearly inaudible piano underh the horns. All through high school wed spend hours in his room, idly listening to his vast eclectic record colle, analyzing and arguing over the more subtle points of the positions. Oscar Loves passion for music put my ambitions to shame. In high school, he was niamed "The White Negro," as he was so alien from the rest of the crowd, so cool, so in his head all the time. Oscar was su outsider, he made me feel normal by parison. And even though he was a year ahead of me, he weled me into his life. My father thought Oscar wilder than Brando, but my mother saw beh the facade and loved him like a son. He was the first person I approached about f a band.
Oscar stuck with me from its beginning as The Henry Day Five through every version: The Henry Day Four, The Four Horsemen, Henry and the Daylights, The Daydreamers, and lastly, simply Henry Day. Unfortunately, we could not keep the same group together for more than a few months at a time: Our first drummer dropped out of high school and enlisted in the MarineCorps; our best guitarist moved away when his father was transferred to Davenport, Iowa. Most of the guys quit because they couldnt cut it as musis. Only Oscar and his clari persisted. We stayed together for two reasons: one, he could play a mean li any horn, particularly his beloved stick; two, he was old enough to drive and had his own car—a pristine 54 red and white Bel Air. We played everything from high school dao weddings and the occasional night at a club. Discriminating by ear and not by any preceived notion of cool, we could play any kind of music for any crowd.
After a jazz performance where we particularly killed the crowd, Oscar drove us home, radio blaring, the boys in a great mood. He dropped off the others, and late that summer night we parked in front of my parents house. Moths danced crazily in the headlights, and the rhythmic cricket song underscored the silehe stars and a half-moon dotted the languid sky. We got out and sat on the hood of the Bel Air, looking out into the darkness, not wanting the night to end.
"Man, we were gas," he said. "We slayed them. Did you see that guy when we did Hey Now, like he never heard a sound like that before?"
"Im bout worn-out, man."
"Oh, you were so cool, so cool."
"Youre not bad yourself." I hitched myself farther up on the car to stop skidding off the hood. My feet did not quite reach the ground, so I swung them in time to a tune in my head. Oscar removed the cigarette he had stashed behind his ear, and with a snap from his lighter he lit it, and into the night sky he blew sms, eae breaking its predecessor.
"Whered you learn to play, Day? I mean, youre still a kid. Only fifteen, right?"
"Practice, man, practice."
He quit looking at the stars and turo face me. "You practice all you want. Practice dont give you soul."
"Ive been taking lessons for the past few years. Iy. With a guy named Martin who used to play with the Phil. The class