Randy

The first thing I noticed about him was his hat. Then his Dave Harvey-ish beard, which I liked. Together they made him look pretty sharp and cool, even as he inexperiencedly flagged down the bus and labored to make it up the steps, sitting down hard in the row in front of me. He made a little talk with the bus driver, about living in the worst place in Pittsburgh to catch busses--right up Lebanon Road by the bus garage. I agreed internally, and appreciated the fact that someone else realized the irony of this situation. He was trying to find out about where to catch the 56C for another way home, but he wasn't getting much from the bus driver, a big white dude with flashy sunglasses who answered as if talking to himself up in his little bus driver seat. So I broke the stranger's silence and said that you could go down the first right off of Forbes to Second Avenue and catch the 56C there.

He turned around and we talked a bit about the busses. He'd been waiting out there since noon since he didn't know the bus schedule, and I mentioned the loss of the 12:45 bus back in the route cuts of '05. I don't remember how it came up, but pretty soon I learned that he had taught jazz at CMU for eleven years--quite a respectable profession and position. He stopped at one point, after we had entered for sure into conversation, and shook my hand. "I'm Randy, Randy Purcell. Nice to meet you." It was an unusually long handshake--he held on a while after I had stopped shaking.

As we wound down Carson Street in the midafternoon sunshine I was told that the man in front of me was a world-renowned jazz trombonist, that he became a stock broker (back then most people didn't know about taking care of both your left and right brain), and that teaching, playing four nights a week and being a broker had run him into the ground, so now he doesn't do s*** and he's a pretty boring guy. He was the first jazz person to become a member of the Duquense Club, which has consistently been voted the ritziest of the 6000 or so rich people's clubs in America. He lost a couple million in the stock crash of 2002, but he still goes there, and in fact he was just talking with Mrs. Dick, of the construction company, in the workout room there this afternoon. Then he began to talk about his rules for the kids he let play in his jazz band at CMU and how you have to dress as required and he made them follow ten rules and how this one kid showed up in red boots and he threatened to take him outside and kick his [behind]. I had to break off the conversation when we approached Holy Angels, so we shook hands and he said it was nice to meet me, and in the end it just comes down to a good handshake and a smile.

I walked slowly to my car and got in, quite bemused and wondering if anything he had told me was true. Mostly I thought about how he typified the self-centeredness of many old folks. Even as they eagerly seek to correct (or at least bemoan) the wrongs they see in so many others, they drown out all conversation and nearly ignore the one they are talking too. Such were my thoughts as I banked right onto Miller Rd. and saw Randy struggling to walk up our hill.

The part that amused me most and gave me several private smiles as I learned about his crazy good guitarist son on the way up the hill was that he said when I pulled over, "See? All that philosophy paid off--the good comes right back." Apparently getting a ride up the hill was the cosmic reparation for the instruction and "philosophy" he'd given me on the bus ride.

He directed me to his house on Shope, first on the left as you go up the steep little street. We sat in the driveway for a few minutes and he talked vehemently about his crazy **********er guitarist son who was voted best instrumentalist, period, at the Tenessee University where he just got his masters. Then we shook hands again, this one weaker and shorter, and a little cold to the touch, and I drove away as he walked up to the disheveled house.

I enjoyed telling Daniel about the crazy old guy I met, and speculating on whether any of what he said was true. It seemed almost too crazy to be true, riding a bus back from the Duquense Club to a empty-seeming house in West Mifflin, but nothing he told me sounded made up or inconsistent. So I let it ride, and ruminated on how it felt exactly like I'd been thrown into one of the short stories I've been reading in ENGLIT 0325.

Then it got downright fiction-like. I was walking out to the back of the van, parked in the garage, to get another armful of groceries, and wondered who Daniel was talking to. Sure enough, there in the street was Randy. I raised my arms wide and said "Wassup Randy!" like we were best buds, 'cause I knew him and Daniel didn't and that was cool, and he offered me five bucks to drive him to Applebee's. At this point I was up for anything, particularly because you never know how God will use you, so I said sure, and informed Mom that I met a guy on the bus and I'm giving him a ride to Applebee's. "What?"

First he talked about the trees "blown down by lightning" in his back yard. He'd asked his neighbors to take care of them and given one $100 and another who helped $50, and he asked me if I thought that was fair. To which I didn't have a good answer, but that didn't matter because he went on to talk about how they didn't want to take it but he said they could do whatever with it, it wasn't his anymore. "I'm blessed, yes, I've been blessed," for the third time since I'd met him.

Pretty quickly I busted out the question that would settle the veracity of his claims. "You mentioned CD's before. Could you give me any names of ones you've worked on? 'Cause I always enjoy music--jazz and even rock--when I have some background." As I was still finishing the question he started fishing a CD out of his pocket. He had apparently come prepared :-) He sold me his CD for five bucks, so we were squared away for the drive. It was a bunch of unofficial recordings of live performances of his over the years. As he told me about it and I looked in the booklet I realized, quietly and quite happily, that this guy was legit. I was indeed sitting next to a great jazz trombonist who taught at CMU and played and recorded with world-class artists and contributed to several gold and platinum records. The River City Brass Band has a lot of his former students in it.

My cell phone rang and he said something about my girlfriend calling and he didn't want to interfere with my business. But the flip phone had open and shut as I tried to get it off my belt, and it was Mike W calling, so I let it go. I put his CD in as we sat in rush hour traffic 700 feet and five minutes from Applebee's and he talked about his music with the greedy eagerness of old people full of experiences. He still likes music with the enthusiasm of youth. I prepared to tell him about Pure Boss, asking if he just liked jazz, or if he liked some rock too. To which he looked at me and said "Of course I like rock. I'm still alive, you know!" So I pulled Pure Boss's album out of the glovebox and showed it to him. He didn't buy it right then, but he liked that I was in a band.

As I coasted to the front of Applebee's he stuck out his hand, before I had stopped, and we shook again. He thanked me again and said he'd buy me a drink, but I probably don't drink. I said I don't mind a drink with the right friends, but I had to go anyway. He said it was nice to meet a nice young man as he closed the door, and then I tugged the clutch and pulled away.

http://flickr.com/search/?q=Randy+Purcell
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.asp?z=y&CTR=160965

Nope, I didn't make all this up, though I feel like it's read right from a story in "Interpreter of Maladies." How weird and surreal and way cool.

--Clear Ambassador