Chapter 74

The problem with this Century is that you have no privacy. Computers now are all seeing and indispensable. If I turn Brian off for a bit of introspection, I loose everything else. Because Brian waits on me for all my needs, I have become useless at keeping myself alive. Brian is a humanoid without a body, but non the less a noticeable presence as he is the apartment. Which is why I take Zeno to a love hotel. I don’t want him taking notes.

I book the Italian suit, which is the whole of Florence. Zeno and me can walk the bustling streets hand in hand and window shop for jewelry and handbags before a romantic diner in a little Trattoria and finally bed. It is all illusion of course and heavy on the wallet, but hey, I don’t like being number 27 on anyone’s list. Part of the fantasy is that the waiters all fall in love with Zeno, even if she was the ugliest girl on the Ugly Planet, but as she isn’t, it is nothing more than she expects. Even the ass pinching feels genuine. Our room is set out as in a Roman Villa complete with sunken bath and handmaidens, and half a dozen hand men to turn on the women folk. We bathe and get fed grapes, until I dismiss the servants and get down the final event. By morning I am exhausted and in need of a Zoomer or two. Zeno sits at the side of the bath with her back to me filling in the score.

She turns her head and smiles.

‘Moving up’

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The US Nimitz is the size of a small planet. Me and Artie are somewhere in its vastness playing to a small room full of jazz enthusiasts. They are into Lester Young pre 1942 before he was seconded into the USA forces.

Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He came to prominence as a member of Count Basie's Orchestra. Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument, influencing such tenor greats as Stan Getz, Don Byaz and Jimmy Guiffre .In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, like Colman Hawkins, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies. He was known for his hip, introverted style, he invented or popularized much of the hipster jargon which came to be associated with jazz at the time.
Me and Artie get into the hep speak to set the atmosphere. Artie introduces the first number 
"Hi you cats I"m gonna slide my jib(1) and ask you to get hip (2)to the next track, it's a hummer(3), there won"t be no Armstrongs(4), but pay heed to the beat." 
He counts us in and we get straight into Sweet Georgia Brown, with Jo Jones on the skins it swings like a brother on a rope.

(1)Straight Talk

(2) wise to

(3) Good

(4) High notes

After “Blue and sentimental”, and “Jive at Five” we finish with “Oh Lady be good” featuring Lester Young’s seminal solo. The “Naughts” in the audience like this and show their appreciation by whistling us off stage. Art Tatum is so cool a piano man that he usually plays solo, but this is not real life. It is make believe. We may look like the jazz cats of old but we are prossed up with chips in our necks, and we can make the past happen in the present even though it never happened. But the ‘Naughts don’t know this, we make the performance so convincing that they think they are there. Job done. In the bar we are mobbed by cats who are dressed in 1930’s duds. Space suits hung up in the closet until the next shift. It is our job to take them to another place that they wish was reality, Arty and Buck playing Jo Jones, oblige, but I can’t get into the role as I have other things on my mind and use Art’s blindness to advantage. I ask to be guided to the piano in the corner and play some Bach while I think. Usually about this time either Doil or Victoria or both appear to put a spanner in the works. But no sign of either, as yet.
How time flies when I am at the piano. Before I know it, it is time for the second set. I am led to the stage by Artie, and we start into Sky Rocket, just to make the audience feel at home, then we play all Lester’s repertoire and finish with Lester Leaps In, with his recognizable riff used by all rock n rollers in the future. Still no sign of Doil or V. Maybe the Universe is saved without my input?