The opening statement of the theme by a full orchestra speaks of bad news, and the bass whispers, “Did you hear that?” The reeds and the wind instruments, backed up by the piano, loud the bass like it ain’t no big thing. “So what.” The bass is put out by the way everybody ganged up on him but takes it out on the keyboard, saying, “Hey, man, I just thought I’d pull your coat, but since you wanna get the ass I’m gonna sic Miles on you.” And Miles comes on out the side of his mouth with licks that say, “Let me tell you about yourself, sucker.” Miles’ tricky-lipping slurs pose as threats, but the piano is insistent on the comeback chord: “I don’t want to hear it. ‘So what.’” Miles shapes his rap into spitting fancy lipwork, but the piano player is right back on time with an answer: “You don’t understand…” “So what!” “Did you hear about…” “So what!” Miles feints and styles, then blows: “Well, later for you too, then, chump.” And you hear the brass knuckles rattling in his tone as the tenor man is all up in the face of the refrain, “So what!” His solo is a wolf ticket signifying behind the dozens, with a little of my father talking mean through teeth and biting down on his lower lip. The tenor man takes his solo out, murder-mouthing the “so what” piano chord. The bass line reenters the rap, giving a synopsis of the theme with fat plucks on the string. But the piano man ain’t impressed, saying, in so many words, “Yeah, I hear you, but ain’t nobody put their hands on me.” So the answer is still “So What,” with the ax men going along with the piano man’s chord… So what… So what… So what…

“You understand what I’m trying to say?”

“Yeah, I guess so. But that’s like saying nothing matters.”

“Nothing does.”

“Some things matter.”

“What are they?”

“What you do here matters.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Then why do you stay?”

“Because this is what I do best.”

“Then it matters.”

“No it doesn’t. My being here or not being here doesn’t change a thing. What I do could be good, bad, or indifferent. It still doesn’t make any difference.”

“But if it’s important to you, then that makes the difference.”

“Bullshit!”

“You’re wrong.”

“Shit. Do you think you changed anything by what you did? You’d a done better letting them kids kill each other. That kid that cut you probably feels he can get away with anything now.”

“But I didn’t do what I did for those kids. I did it for myself. And you know, that was the first time I can remember doing something where I wasn’t trying to prove something to somebody else?”

“And you damn near got yourself killed for your trouble.”