Leroy woke to a mass of hair that smelled so sweet from love he took a minute to realize it was his own. His hands swept across the bed—still damp—and he stretched out, waiting for her limbs to stop his. It was the truth; she was gone. He had to laugh; how could he get mad. If someone had pulled him dead drunk from anywhere and made love like some flock of wild scarlet birds, he’d probably have left as quietly as possible, too. “But no,” he thought, “I wouldn’t have gone without a taste more . . . something for the morning.” Now that was good.

Cypress wasn’t at all like her sister, and Leroy tried to remember if she really had arched backward over the bed so her pussy was at the foot and her head on the floor. Was it true that one leg wrapped all round his chest and the other thigh touched the ceiling? Yes, yes. He rubbed himself where his body remembered such carrying on, and he looked over the bed, placing Cypress in his arms, between his legs, under his chin, all over his hair . . . and he smelled his locks one more time, before he decided she’d be his. That made him feel so good he did one hundred push-ups, chanted his mantra, showered, and composed three variations of a theme called “When You Get Back Where You Can’t Get Enough,” before he went to rehearse his band, if you could call it that.

Leading a band of five or six cats who were near starving or living with women who were near starving, or who found time to play music in between getting the money for their dope, was not what Leroy wanted to do. He wanted a music that was a force, and to have that he’d have to have a bunch of cats who were force, full and clear.

But where were they? Where were they . . . shit, what a stupid question. They were all over the place just like he’d been—from one conservatory to another, one “jazz” ensemble to the next . . . white bands, black bands, orchestras, orquestras, arkestras. Leroy shook his head, remembering how hard it had been for him to hear what he heard. White folks kept telling him those sounds are impossible: “you can’t do that to the piano” . . . “you can’t push a saxophone that way” . . . “you can’t; you can’t” . . . “You should work on your Bach . . . Your Bartók needs more subtlety . . . You are rushing the Shostakovich . . . There’s more to Prokofiev than you could imagine, my boy” . . . Every slight Leroy had endured in all those years piqued his skin. He thought he might be getting hives. They thought they were giving him credit when early Ellington and Henderson arrangements were offered as an elective for half a credit.

“Sheeit. My daddy grew up on that.”

The patronizing reply: “Well, of course, but did he understand it?”