Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes by Terry Southern Page A

him, through the clatter of service at the bar and the muttered talk nearby, as though he were wearing earphones wired to the piano. He heard subtleties he had missed before, intricate structures of sound, each supporting the next, first from one side, then from another, and all being skillfully laced together with a dreamlike fabric of comment and insinuation; the runs did not sound either vertical or horizontal, but circular ascensions, darting arabesques and figurines; and it was clear to Murray that the player was constructing something there on the stand . . . something splendid and grandiose, but perfectly scaled to fit inside this room, to sit, in fact, alongside the piano itself. It seemed, in the beginning, that what was being erected before him was a castle, a marvelous castle of sound . . . but then, with one dramatic minor—just as the master builder might at last reveal the nature of his edifice in adding a single stone—Murray saw it was not a castle being built, but a cathedral. “Yeah, man,” he said, nodding and smiling. A cathedral—and, at the same time, around it the builder was weaving a strange and beautiful tapestry, covering the entire structure. At first the image was too bizarre, but then Murray smiled again as he saw that the tapestry was, of course, being woven inside the cathedral, over its interior surface, only it was so rich and strong that it sometimes seemed to come right through the walls. And then Murray suddenly realized—and this was the greatest of all, because he was absolutely certain that only he and Buddy knew—that the fantastic tapestry was being woven, quite deliberately, face against the wall. And he laughed aloud at this, shaking his head, “Yeah, man,” the last magnificent irony, and Buddy looked up at the sound, and laughed too.
    After the set, Buddy came over and asked Murray if he wanted a drink. “Let’s take a table,” he said. “My old lady’s coming to catch the last set.”
    “Solid,” said Murray, so soft and without effort that none would have heard.
    They sat down at a table in the corner.
    “Man, that sure is fine gage,” Buddy said.
    Murray shrugged.
    “Glad you like it,” he said then, a tone with an edge of mock haughtiness, just faintly mimicking that used by Buddy when they had met; and they both laughed, and Buddy signaled the waiter.
    “I was wondering,” said Buddy after the waiter had left, “if you could put me onto some of that.”
    Murray yawned. “Why don’t you meet me tomorrow,” he said quietly. “I could take you over to the café and, you know, introduce you to the guy.”
    Buddy nodded, and smiled. “Solid,” he said.
    Buddy’s wife, Jackie, was a tall Negro girl, sort of lank, with great eyes, legs, and a lovely smile.
    “What we’d like to do,” she said, “is to make it here—you know, like live here—at least for a couple of years anyway.”
    “It’s the place for living all right,” said Murray.
    Murray was helpful in much more than introducing them to a good hash connection. Right away he found them a better and cheaper room, and nearer the Noir et Blanc. He showed Jackie how to shop in the quarter, where to get the best croissants, and what was the cheap wine to buy. He taught them some French and introduced them to the good inexpensive restaurants. He took them to see L’Âge d’Or at the Cinémathèque, to the catacombs, to the rib joint in Montmartre, to hear Marcel Raymond speak at the Sorbonne, to the Flea Market, to the Musée Guimet, Musée de l’Homme, to the evening exhibitions at the Louvre. . . . Sometimes Murray would have a girl with him, sometimes not; or on some Sundays when the weather was fine he would get someone with a car, or borrow it himself, and they would all drive out to the Bois de Boulogne and have a picnic, or to Versailles at night. Then again, on certain nights early, or when Buddy wasn’t playing, they might have dinner in Buddy and Jackie’s room, listening to