“If that’s true, you can bet your shit ain’t been mistaken for meatloaf. You may’ve been named for them hard knocks you’ve taken but that don’t call for no celebration. They ain’t even givin up watches for takin shit no more. But I’m a put in a good word for you, cause with all the time you got in they ought a give you Big Ben.”

My nerves had gotten raggedy at the root from listening to them run off at the mouth about what was best for me. They didn’t even notice when I left. As usual when the dorm began to get to me, I hightailed it for the music room, where Shoob-bee Doobbee would be playing records. I’d first met Shoobbee Doobbee coming out of the projection room after a movie. The room doubled as the place that beamed music to every dormitory and cellblock in the prison. I’d heard other inmates talk about this cat with a heavy jazz jones who supported his habit by shaking his head, tapping his feet, and tampering with the origins of famous jazz standards. The day I met him he was wearing a sun visor, a string of reed mouthpieces around his neck, and a drumstick strapped to his waist. When he spotted me, he came over and said, “Do you know what Miles once said to Coltrane after a recording session?”

“No, I don’t.”

“He said, ‘Man, how come you play so long?’ And Trane said, ‘It took that long for me to get it all out.’ I used to keep it all in and wound up knockkneed in a jive humble… Thanks to jazz my toes don’t knock no more. I cold-turkeyed to Bird doin ‘Now’s the Time,’ and hucklebucked out a the spell of heroin. So now I’m stone slewfooted, and I plan on keeping my feet turned out at ten to two and never let them turn back in to twenty after eight.”

When I walked into the projection room, Shoobbee Doobbee was leaning back in a swivel chair, deep in thought. A spotlight from the ceiling made a cone shape against the wall. Hundreds of album jackets checkered the walls. The side on the record player sounded like a Thelonious Monk tune.

“What’s happening, Shoob?”

“Monk!”

“Is that Straight, No Chaser?”

“All day… Listen to that statement… Bwah bwah dee daah, bwah bwah dee daah, bwah bwah dee daah, bwah bwah dee daah… Clear as a glass a water… What’s wrong, Ellington? You look like you got some botheration on you.”

“I’m all right. I just thought I’d come over here and get a change of pace from all the rap in the dorm.”

“I hear you! It’s a drag cause most folks never change channels… You ever notice that musicians never do much rappin? Like Miles. He never gets up off too much talk. Everybody and their mama got the ass when Miles started turnin back to audiences durin performances. The lames didn’t understand he was payin em a compliment by turnin his back. Miles was sayin, ‘You cool with me.’ Most a the time Miles never trusted nobody enough to give his back to nuthin but the wall.