The Past Recedes

Chapter 28

"Wow, that's awesome. Most kids I know hate jazz, John mentioned your grandpa liked Charlie Parker. Flea turned me onto jazz, he lent me some stuff by Coltrane and Miles Davis and some of the more avant-garde stuff too. It's been good for my playing to listen to jazz, it helped me to write different kinds of stuff for guitar and piano. I'm also getting into the jazz guitarists like Django and Pat Metheny. If you listen different music, it's better in terms of composing", he said.

Nika only nodded as she was busy concentrating on the music. While it was mostly saxophone, it sounded quite different from the bebop her grandfather liked. Unlike Charlie Parker and other bebop artists, Coleman's saxophone wasn't all melodic or pretty in any way, but harsh and dissonant and completely improvised. "I started with bebop and moved onto cool jazz and then Coltrane, then I got into free jazz", said Josh.

"I'm trying to listen", she said primly.

Josh just laughed and made a mental note to tell John later. He stopped the car in front of an apartment building and several minutes later Bob came out with a boy her age. "Coleman, sweet. Nika, this is my son Elijah. Eli, this is John's daughter Nika", said Bob.

Nika fought to control her rising terror as Elijah sat next to her in the backseat. "Hey, you just met your dad? I only met my dad last year", he said. Elijah was tall and thin for his age with longish dirty-blond hair and his father's pale blue eyes which peered out from behind black-rimmed glasses.

"Yes, I didn't know I had a father until last month. I lived in Palm Springs with my mother and grandparents", she replied.

"I'm from Palm Springs, what a coincidence. My family lived in a trailer, though", said Bob.

"Oh, Mom said the people in the trailer park were gross", said Nika matter-of-factly.

"Uh, she was raised by posh British people", said Josh.

"Oh, but we were posh until Dad's business went under and we ended up living in a trailer park", said Bob.

Nika hung her head and felt bad for what her mother had said. She hoped John wouldn't become poor and lose his lovely house with all his guitars and albums. The traffic going towards the Pacific was busy as usual as the Volvo made its slow, steady way towards the beaches. "So where do you go to school? I go to Woodrow Wilson", said Elijah.

"I was home-schooled", she replied.

"Cool, school sucks and it's boring. We have a couple of retards in our class and the teacher has to deal with them all the time", said Elijah.

"Eli, that's not nice. They're mentally handicapped", Bob chided.

"Whatever. School is boring and it's too easy, I get A's and keep my mouth shut", said Elijah.

"I was the same way, school was stupid and pointless. I got A's without trying but my school didn't have a gifted class so I was bored out of my mind. If I didn't drop out in high school, I would've gone postal", said Josh.

"Why didn't you just stick it out? Mom would have spanked me", said Nika.

"Whoa, that's crazy. It was for my mental health, I was bored and learned nothing new. I wanted to be a full-time musician and I was wasting my time in school being bored. I learned more from reading books and touring than I did in school. Maybe one day I'll get my GED and go to college to study art or something", said Josh.

They finally arrived at Venice Beach and Josh carefully parked the Volvo and put money in the meter. "I hate feeding the meter, but I don't want to get towed", he explained.

Nika could hear the pounding of the surf and smell the sea air as she followed them towards the beach. The beach was crowded with all sorts of humanity this hot July day: families of every ethnicity with kids in tow, surfers, hippies, punks, sunbathers, and gay couples distinguished by men in Speedos. "LA is a real melting pot, the people watching is great", said Bob.

Nika sat down on the beach towel and watched as Bob and Elijah took off their shirts. Her eyes went wide when she saw the odd marks and scar tissue on the older man's arms, wondering if he had gotten burned in a fire. "Bob did a lot of drugs, those are from drugs", Josh explained.

"Wow, that's awful!", she exclaimed.

"I know, Bob told me enough stories about drugs that I don't want to try them. I smoked pot once and it made me drowsy and I did cocaine once and it made feel paranoid and gave me a headache. So drugs and I don't mix, I don't even like alcohol", said Josh ruefully.

"Why don't you go swimming?", she asked.

"Hah, nobody wants to see my skinny pasty self. I'll make girls run screaming in terror", laughed Josh.

Nika cocked her head to the side and watched him. Josh wore his usual black sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt under a black t-shirt, his brown hair hidden under a blue Dodgers baseball cap. The dark clothes made his pale skin look nearly-chalk white, looking incongruous with his big skinny feet in sandals. "You're not ugly", she said.

Josh giggled and blushed. "Thanks, Nika. But I'd rather have a pretty woman tell me that", he laughed.

"I've never seen the Pacific Ocean before, since Palm Springs is in the desert. I've seen the Irish Sea since my mother's family is from Manchester. And the North Sea, Uncle Ian and Aunt Olivia live in Yorkshire", she said.

"Awesome, but the water must be freezing. I don't swim anyways, not even as a kid", said Josh.

Nika was focused on watching the people on the beach and the waves pounding the sand. It was a typical hot sunny day in southern California and many people were swimming or just sunning themselves on the crowded beach. Far in the distance were swimmers and people on boogie boards while paddling, the surf better at other beaches. She wondered why people liked the beach so much since there didn't appear to be much to do except swim and sunbathe, and that was boring.

Nika watched and felt slightly envious when Josh took out a book from his bag and started reading. She thought how she should have brought a book with her and adjusted the big straw hat atop her head. "Oh, I got another book", he said as he took out another paperback.

"Master and Margarita", she said allowed.

"Yeah, it's a crazy book. Satan comes to post-revolutionary Russia and causes all sorts of havoc", said Josh.

Nika frowned when she saw the cover, which appeared to show a fat naked woman riding a pig through the sky. She shrugged and opened the book as she began to read.

Bob and Elijah came back to the towel and the older man raised an eyebrow when he saw what Nika was reading. "Josh, are you sure that's a good idea?", he asked.

"John lets her read Murakami, she's an advanced reader. I was the same way, my parents let me read what I wanted as long as it wasn't porn", he joked.

Nika reluctantly put down the book and went back to the car with the group. "You can borrow the book if you want, I have a ton of books at home", said Josh.

"Really? Thank you, Josh", she said.

"Uh, you're welcome. I have so many books at home, and I've read it before many times", said Josh.

"I didn't read stuff like that growing up, when I was in high school I read Bukowski and the Beat guys like Kerouac", said Bob.

"I read whatever the teacher tells me", said Elijah.

Josh carefully watched that no one got sand in the car. "Yeah, it's because your car is brand new. Your old truck was a piece of junk", teased Bob.

"Yeah, I didn't care how dirty that one got but this is a brand new one", laughed Josh.