It's Sunday morning in Key West, 1984. Henry and his Cuban wife Lucia are sitting at a wicker table on the front porch eating breakfast.
As they munch Pop-Tarts, which she calls Tartas-Pop, he feels ornery and says to her,
why are you staring at me? She replies,
was I staring?
The telephone rings and Lucia tells him,
don’t answer it, it's your brother Dwayne calling for money.
He picks up the handset, listening as Dwayne says,
Hello, Henry? Mandy and I are in dire straights, we’ve run out of possibilities, you're our last hope, could you lend me a grand?
Two weeks earlier he had wired Dwayne Lukowski 1500 dollars. Speaking with a Chinese accent he says,
Fu King Chinese, we deliver, you like a chop suey, egg roll? Dwayne hangs up and Lucia says,
It was Dwayne, right?
Yes, dear.
Henry lights a joint, takes a hit, passing it to her saying,
Dwayne calls every other week asking for money. I can't support him? He's hopeless, let’s change our number. Lucia reminds him,
darling, don’t shut him out of your life, he’s your only brother, next time he calls tell him your editors owe you money or something. Let’s go to Dog Beach with the Chihuahuas and get silly drunk on Rum Cocos,
Yeah, OK, I'll keep the lines open. Let's go to the beach.
Showering together the lovers lather each other's body with luxury soap, delighting in the sensuality, getting chicken skin, then rinsing off under a stream of brisk water.
After drying off, they are back in the bedroom sitting on the bed naked. Luca wraps her legs around Henry from behind and massages patchouli oil into his long hair, then weaving in a single braid.
She gets out of bed, looks in the mirror, styling her long brass-colored hair with jell, Henry who's watching says,
hair full of snakes, Aphrodite.
Lucia opens her dresser and takes out a coral-colored thong, slipping on the top, then the skimpy bottom, and wrapping herself in a purple sarong. He wears cut-offs and a ripped t-shirt.
Outside, she lugs her large Gucci bag to the edge of the driveway, waiting for Henry to back his 73 Malibu Wagon out of their termite-eaten wooden garage. Midway down the drive, he stops the car and she gets in with the Chihuahuas.
Twenty minutes later they're at Dog Beach, Henry parks the station wagon on a street bordering the beach. The parking meters are covered with fitted canvas bags that read,
FREE
PARKING
They get out of the car—Lucia walks with her bag draped on one shoulder and the Chis follow. At the entrance to Dog Beach, she rents two beach chairs and a couple large umbrellas from Siesta Joe’s. Joe follows her, schlepping the beach gear to her favorite spot in the sand.
Henry's in Louie's Backyard, standing at the bar, where Louie the bartender says,
What'll know? It's the infamous Henry Lucowski, the Don of Key West literati. How about the usual?
OK, Louie,
Henry, If you were stranded on a desert island with one book, a play script, what would it be?
That’s easy, The Night of the Iguana.
Not, Death of a Salesman, or Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?
They're both great, but Iguana's at the top of my list, and Sam Shepard's play True West gets an honorable mention because—it's a runaway bull in a tea shop of a play that ends in total mayhem.
Louie places two plastic buckets of Rum Cocos on the bar, each one with a large straw protruding from the cover.
Henry pays, nods to Louie, then lifts the buckets by the bails off the bar. With one in each hand, he carries the drinks across the road to Dog Beach.
Walking the beach, he finds Lucia who’s sitting upright in her beach chair savoring the algae-rich scent coming off Key Chanel and watching the Chis run in the sand chasing one another.
He hands her a bucket of booze, which she holds with both hands, mouthing the straw and taking a long pull. Then, she grabs a joint and a Bic lighter from her Gucci bag, lighting the joint, taking a hit, and passing it to Henry asking,
what took so long?
Oh, Louie has a Masters's Degree in Modern American Literature and he loves to talk shop.
Then, the lovers feel something coming on—
Their (Hindu) spirit bodies levitated meters into the air, hovering, as they peer down at their (Hindu) short bodies positioned in the rented beach chairs.
—minutes feel like an eternity (for Henry and Lucia.)
Stunned she says,
darling, something magical happened, what was it? He answers dryly,
cosmic consciousness, we had an out-of-body experience. She giggles saying,
whatever it was, wow bebé! Be a doll, go to Louie's for Rum Cocos.
Henry walks across the road to Louie’s Backyard, going inside and standing in front of the bar again. Louie wonders,
have you seen the movie version of The Night of Iguana?
Sure, I have it on CD. Let me tell you, Louie, the plot's weaved so intricately that I see a new twist in the scheme of things whenever I watch it.
Like what?
OK, here's one, The Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon's nervous breakdown in the last scene was a catharsis that purged the last of his demons. Consequently, Shannon and Maxine Faulk live happily ever after at the helm of The Casa Verde Hotel.
Happily ever after, the finale of every Hollywood film for the last century. Give me a break Henry.
Louie, Tennesee Williams was gay, fragile, and sentimental. Frank Merlo was the love of his life and they lived together for 20 years.
Williams ending Iguana with Maxine and Shannon surrendering and living out their lives together was Tennessee's projection of what he wanted for himself and his lover, Frank Merlo.
Yeah, that'd work. The drinks are gratis, my freind.
Henry thanks Louie and walks out of the bar with the buckets of goo in hand, heavy on the rum, and mixed with a particular soda imported from Cuba made from distilled coca leaves.
Later, around 8 PM, after an out-of-body experience, and three buckets of Rum Cocos each, the lovers watch the Sun descend into the Gulf of Mexico.
The sunset is an example of God's handy work at its most majestic. Where, He makes it appear the Sun's going down, leaving the Earths' western hemisphere, as it bids adieu to Earthlings for the night.
After the sunset, Henry and Lucia walk to the parked Malibu Wagon, and the Chis follow. Lucia opens the tailgate, tosses her Gucci bag in and Che y Mia follow, jumping acrobatically into the trunk.
Twenty minutes later their home after a nerve-racking drive— the pups bark throughout the ride at anything that moves— people walking on the sidewalk, blackbirds probing for food, falling leaves, what have you.
Henry stops in front of the termite eaten garage, nervous it will collapse on his car if he parks it inside, wondering when the City of Key West will condemn the garage, pondering tearing it down and having a treated aluminum carport built in its place, knowing his white-bread neighbors will complain about the ugly carport, and dreading the red tape of it all.
Inside the bungalow, he goes to his study as Lucia makes a b-line to the living room sofa, passing out face down.
Sitting at his desk he rolls a joint, lighting it and taking a deep drag. Then, turning on and dialing his Grundig radio to WDNA, Miami jazz.
The sounds of Chet Baker singing Almost Blue flow languidly from the radio speaker. Chet's voice is sweet with a wan androgynous quality.
As for Baker's trumpet work, he plays in a relaxed style relying more on composition and arrangement than freestyle improvisation. This, the blueprint of West Coast Jazz.
The following morning Henry wakes at 8 AM, showers, braids his long hair, putting on shorts, a tank top, and jungle combat boots. He's on a mission.
On the way out he stops by his study, placing a few legal pads, a box of number 3 pencils, a pencil sharpener, and an eraser into a reusable bag, a relic from the sixties that reads,
WHOLE EARTH CATALOG
Outside he straddles his Vespa scooter, kick starts it and tucks the bag into his shorts.
In fifteen minutes he’s at Key West Library— a single-story, Spanish Colonial building, wrapped in lush greenery, radiating a cozy academic vibe.
He parks his scooter on the sidewalk and goes into the library. He'll research the Chet Baker bit by reading over back issues of jazz magazines, such as— Downbeat, Offbeat, OnBeat, Jazzman, and Black Music.
Sitting at a large wooden table he browses through a pile of cherry-picked magazines, all of them with stories on Chet Baker.
Soon he's off and running, scribbling a biographical commentary on the junky jazzman in longhand with a number 3 pencil on page one of a yellow legal pad.
As Henry works it dawns on him that he's plagiarizing and enjoying it to boot. Some paragraphs are ripped off word for word, and in others, he alters the wording attempting to disguise the plagiarizing. Although, most of the bit is 100% Lucowski.
Artists of all genres are rip-offs, taking what they like— and often reveling in the naughtiness of it.
To their credit, jazzmen are upfront about ripping off stanzas of music. Sometimes because they're lost while playing or to add color to what they are playing.
You can hear quotes from Take the A Train, Mary had a Little Lamb, Blue Sky, All of Me, Rhapsody in Blues, King Cotton, Moon River, Reveille, improvisers quote what they want.
Henry justifies plagiarizing bits of the Chet Baker story by telling himself what he's doing is no different than what jazzmen do—playing cliches.
An Improvised Life
Chesney Henry Baker was born in Yale, Oklahoma on December 23, 1929. That would make him a Snake on the Chinese Zodiac— Snakes are calm on the surface, intense and passionate. Snake people are usually good-looking and sometimes have martial problems because they are fickle.
Both his parents were musicians, his father, Chesney Sr., was a gifted professional guitarist who was on his way to the top, but his star fell out of the sky when the Great Depression hit America in 1929.
Consequently, Chesny Sr. moved his family to Glendale, California, where he and his wife, Vera, worked in the Saffron James Perfume Factory. A perfume company that pioneered using poppies to stew scents.
Years later, Chet wondered if Chesny Sr. and Vera coming home night after night reeking of poppy perfume might have led him down the path of junk-hood.
Anyway, Chesny Sr. bought him a trombone when he was eleven, but the large horn was too cumbersome for Chet to play and hold, so his dad replaced the trombone with a trumpet.
During high school, Chet's life revolved around music and his only friends were other musicians. He played in the Glendale High band, orchestra, assorted combos, and studied music theory.
In 1946 Chet enlisted in the army, happy to miss World War II because he was nonviolent and too busy playing to go to war.
By the early fifties, towards the end of his military career, he was in the Presidio Army Band in San Francisco, playing in the band during the day, and going out to do jazz gigs in clubs at night. Then, racing back to the barracks to blow reveille at 6 AM.
A few months after being discharged from the army, Chet received a telegram from Dick Bock, CEO of World Pacific Records, saying Charlie Parker was having an audition for a trumpet player at the Tiffany Club in East Hollywood, LA.
Every trumpet player in LA was there, but the audition was rigged from the start— causing one to wonder why Bird didn't simply hire Chet instead of staging a phony audition—inconveniencing every trumpet player in LA.
Anyway, the first player Bird called to the stage was Chet. After the quartet finished playing a few numbers, Charlie Parker announced that the audition was over and Chet was hired on the spot.
Baker was twenty-two years old and would go on to tour with the legendary Charlie Bird Parker.
Chet then teamed up with Gerry Mulligan and played in a piano-less quartet, one of a few LA-based bands that invented the West Coast jazz movement as they went along.
Some years after his initial success with Bird and Mulligan, Chet formed his own quartet, touring Europe. When he returns to the US he says,
When I came home, I started using drugs. I got busted several times, went to the federal hospital in Lexington, (Kentucky)—then I got busted in New York and did four months on Riker’s Island, and I decided to leave the United States for a while.
In July 1959 Chet flew to Italy, thinking the European drug scene would be more laid back and forming a quartet with local musicians. He would find out the Italian authorities were just as tough on drugs as their American counterparts.
Only a few weeks into his stay he gets busted for junk, sentenced to 17 months in an Italian jail.
When he gets out of the joint he goes to Milan, playing in Italy’s premier jazz club, Olympia, living in a small room and not using much. In his own words,
A waiter and a bartender put a sign outside: CHET BAKER CLUB. Olympia was very elegant—plush, upholstered chairs, wall-to-wall carpeting, columns in the middle of the room, beautiful little bandstand, velvet drapes on the walls, the lighting was beautiful and it seated about 80 people comfortably.
Chet played there for a few months, then going to Munich, to play a concert, and again in his words,
I went to play a concert in Munich and I had trouble there. Nothing happened, but there was a lot of publicity in the newspapers, and when I got back to the Italian border, they wouldn’t let me in. I had signed a contract with RCA Italiana and I lost that. And they tied a lot of my money up—about 3,000,000 lira
Failing to obtain a re-entry visa at the Italian border, he goes to Paris, where he played at the Blue Note Club for three months.
While in Paris he received an offer to be in a film with Susan Hayward, Stolen Hours, playing himself, so he goes to England. Later commenting on the project,
The movie was originally supposed to be called Summer Flight, but I think they changed the name to Stolen Hours or something. Susan Hayward, in the story, is ill, and she’s going to die, and she throws a big party, which most of the story is around. I’m the leader of the band at the party. I did a lot of the soundtrack for the movie, and I believe the opening shot is a close-up right on the bell of my horn.
Back in Paris again, he played in a club called Chat Qui Peche for eight months. Eventually, he received an offer to play at the Blue Note Club in Berlin, and get this— he played in the Berlin club for one night and got busted, leading to a forty-day hiatus in a German hospital, then being deported, this time back to the USA. It’s March 3, 1964.
Throughout the late sixties, Chet played and recorded, all the time struggling through life with a 500-pound guerilla on his back— junk.
Chet, Art Pepper, Keith Richards, and Ray Charles enjoyed using for the most part— being junked pushed their playing and creativity through the roof. But, they all loathed being dogged by the cops.
From 1978 until his death, Baker lived and played in Europe, only returning to the US once a year for a couple of performances.
In 1983, Chet played with Elvis Costello on Costello's song Shipbuilding, from the Punch the Clock album.
On May 13, 1988, Chet Baker's dead body was found on the pavement outside his Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam. He was junked and had fallen out the second-floor window of his room.
Cocaine and heroin were found in his room and an autopsy revealed both were present in his body. The Amsterdam authorities ruled his death an accident.
There’s a plaque outside Hotel Prins Hendrik, which memorializes him. Baker is buried in California, at Inglewood Park Cemetery.
Later at home, Henry edits and types the finished story, An Improvised Life, then faxing it to a number of underground rags across America.
One morning while eating Pop-Tarts with Lucia in the kitchen the phone rings. He picks up the headset, and a guy with a frog in his throat says,
Lucowski, this is Art Skank, editor of the LA Free Press,
Art, what ya think of my bit on Chet Baker?
Frankly, it's awful, it has the flavor of an obituary, and worst of all it's plagiarised. I called to tell you to never, ever, send me another story.
Art Skank hangs up.
