Lickety-Split

Morris Shapiro’s wife tapped lightly on the door before entering the bathroom where her husband was blowing warmup tones and melodic passages on his silver cornet. “A young girl's waiting in the living room and wants to speak to you.” When there was no immediate response, the elderly woman added, “She’s  rather peculiar looking.”

Morris depressed the spit key on the tuning slide and blew the moisture from the horn. “I don’t know any young girls, peculiar looking or otherwise.” He glanced at the music stand where the thirty-two Kopprash classical etudes were waiting his attention. He would begin with the less demanding melodic studies then move on to the technically advanced Brandt collection. “Peculiar in what way?”

“See for yourself.” His wife went off to retrieve the uninvited guest. A moment later a dark-haired woman in her early twenties was lingering in the doorway. She sported a garish gold nose ring and outlandishly huge set of hooped earrings. An elaborate tattoo snaked up her left arm from the wrist to the throat just below the chin. She wore a pair of skin-tight burgundy slacks with a tie-dyed T-shirt that showed her ample chest to good advantage. A fleshy creature but with a look of childish innocence, she was an infuriating contradiction in terms. 

“Your grandson, Eddy, plays bass in my band,” the girl said without bothering to introduce herself. “We’re recording a music demo later this week and just lost our lead trumpeter.”

Morris glanced suspiciously at the girl. “What happened to the trumpeter?”

“Sold a bag of amphetamines to an undercover cop.” After an awkward pause, the girl added, “I’m no Janis Joplin… Amy Weinberger. I don’t swill hard liquor or use drugs. What I need is a trumpeter to play backup in the horn section.” Entering the bathroom, she lowered the toilet seat and sat down.

“I’m old enough to be your grandfather.” When there was no immediate response, he added, “I spent forty years playing the wedding-bar mitzvah circuit and don’t do hard rock or heavy metal.”

“Eddy says,” she conveniently sidestepped the remark, “you're a decent horn player.” She handed him a manilla packet. Morris cracked the envelope open and stared at a scattering of handwritten music sheets. 

“You wrote this?”

“Wrote and arranged.”

Morris glanced at his Kopprash Studies, waiting patiently on the music stand. “What’s the style?"

“Mostly fusion… rhythm and blues, jazz, punk rock with a scattering of emo.”

“Emo?” Morris was losing his patience.

“Emo’s a genre of rock music that combines hardcore punk with confessional lyrics. The girl smiled, an utterly delicious expression of youthful exuberance.  It dates back to the mid-1980s with bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace.”

“Never heard of them,” Morris muttered. Raising his horn in the visitor’s face, he continued, “This is a cornet, not a trumpet. You lose all the brilliant harmonics with a deep, V-shaped mouthpiece.”

“The tune we’re recording’s a ballad,” she countered. Only now did she lean closer and pat Morris confidentially on the forearm. “My name’s Ruthy Cohen but I don’t use that moniker in public. The band’s called Lickety-Split and that’s what I go by.”

Morris was having trouble absorbing all the disparate information the ludicrous creature was tossing at him. “I’m seventy-five years old and haven’t done recording sessions since you were in diapers.”

“We need a fourth horn to round out the brass section, and I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” Ruthy Cohen, also known as Lickety-Split, rose from the toilet seat.  “When I arrived, you were playing a set of slurred passages that became oddly chromatic as the notes ascended the scale.”

Morris thought for a moment. “It’s a warm-up drill. Those were altered dominant sevenths.”

“Melodic minor scales based on the flatted second,” she shot back. 

Morris stared at the girl queerly. “Yes, a tri-tone substitution similar to a half-tone-whole-tone diminished seventh,” Morris clarified.

* * * * *

Once she was gone, Morris resumed his brass calisthenics. He spent ten minutes working through a series of long tones, broken arpeggios and slurred scales then turned his attention to the first few pages of the Kopprash Etudes. “You gonna play in her band?” Morris’ wife, Edna, resurfaced.

“Hell no!” Morris grumbled. “She calls herself Lickety-Split. Might as well go by Lunatic-Fringe.”

“Such a sweet, Jewish girl!”

“Just like all the other Jewish girls with nose rings, ten thousand tattoos and ridiculous earrings.”

“Did you at least look at the music?” 

Morris’ eyes scrunched precipitously close to one another. “How’d you know about the music?”

“She spent a good half hour jibber-jabbering with me while you were practicing.” Edna Shapiro placed her hands on her ample hips and her tone suddenly turned belligerent. “Well, did you or didn’t you?”

“Do what?”

“Look at the music.”

“Just barely but I got no intention of ever playing in her goofy garage band.”

His wife thumped the side of her cheek forcefully with a taut index finger. “She’s got a master's degree from Eastman School of Music. Went there on full scholarship. Composition and harmonic theory… that was her major.”

Morris' eyelids fluttered spastically and his mouth fell open. “Eastman’s in Rochester, New York. They’ve got one of the most prestigious music programs in the country.” He cracked the manilla envelope open a second time and removed several pages of handwritten music. A Minute passed. “Holy shit!” Morris tapped the topmost sheet halfway down. “The chords are multitonal and the bridge to the tune shifts from straight-ahead, walking bass into five-four time. You never see stuff like this in conventional music.”

“So, are you gonna join the band?”

“I dunno yet.” Morris hedged. “Still haven’t decided.” Another minute passed in total silence as he studied the handwritten music. “Okay, so maybe I’ll play in her stupid band,” he grumbled, “but just for one recording session. Nothing more!”

Edna kissed her husband on the grizzled cheek. “I knew you’d do the right thing.”

* * * * *

Saturday afternoon Morris’ grandson, Eddy, stopped by and the twosome drove off to the rehearsal. Five hours later they returned home. “Well,” his wife pressed, “aren’t you gonna say nothin’?”

“The rehearsal… It went okay.” He put the car keys on the kitchen table and slouched into a chair. As Morris explained it, there was a four-piece horn section plus three backup singers. “After a few musical mishaps we nailed the tune on the third take. Lickety-Split… she’s a stickler for details.” 

“What instrument did she play?”

“Lead guitar. There’s also a Puerto Rican on upright bass.”

“Is she any good?”

Morris wagged his balding head from side to side and chuckled spastically. “You want to know if Lickety’s got musical chops… can she negotiate the chords, hold her own?”

“It’s a simple enough question,” his wife replied. When it was clear that Morris’ over-taxed brain had wandered elsewhere and there would be no coherent reply, Edna ventured, “Does she at least have a decent voice?”

“Does she sing like an angel or croak like a frog?” The older man began pacing the kitchen floor gesticulating distractedly as though he was carrying on a monologue with an invisible confidant.  “Can Lickety sing down the pitch center of a note, bend tones, interpret a melody or is she just a schmaltzy schmoozer, another third-rate lounge lizard?” Her husband was clearly working himself into a frenzy for no apparent reason that Edna could fathom. 

“I don’t know if I’d put it quite like that but, yes, that’s what I was wondering.” Finally, giving up altogether, his wife pointed at a brown paper bag lying on the floor next to his cornet case and mumbled, “So, what’s in the bag?” 

Morris cracked his knuckles and his eyes brightened. “Yeah I was getting to that.” “So we listened to a playback of the final take, which was so impressive that the band held an impromptu meeting and decided that, along with the music, they want to include a video that could be uploaded to YouTube.”

“Cripes!” His wife gawked at Morris in mild disbelief. “You’re gonna become a celebrity, a regular movie star.”

“Yeah, but there’s a hitch.” He grinned self-consciously. “Lickety-Split says that, without a wardrobe makeover,  I’d stick out like a sore thumb… some addlebrained geezer with false teeth and a toupee.” Morris began pacing about the kitchen a second time. “A pathetic shlub… clumsy, stupid, awkward, oafish!”

“A wardrobe makeover?” his wife picked up the thread of his previous remark. “At your age there ain’t much left to refurbish.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Morris chimed in. “Lickety said the band’s always gotta project a unique aura… a mystique.” “Dwayne, this black guy with dreadlocks and a gold tooth who sings backup, is about my size and weight. He let me borrow some of the fancy-schmancy duds he  keeps in the back of his van and wears regularly when the band’s performing in public.”

Morris emptied the contents on the kitchen table. “Good grief!” Edna blurted. “You’re gonna wear these crazy things in public?” 

Morris nodded. “I gotta look the cool dude, not like some freakish anomaly.”

“Yeah, well in the meantime you might want to trim those bushy tufts of hair sprouting out of your nostrils,” Edna offered, “trade your bifocals for a pair of dark sunglasses and get rid of the orthopedic shoes.”