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New Orleans, Louisiana…

Turk Chase ran his tongue over his sore, swollen bottom lip. A crack in the middle hinted at the taste of blood.

He swore quietly and muttered to himself as he packed his trumpet into its case.

“You better go easier next time, Turk. Gonna split that thing one day, playing hard like that.”

Injury had always been a fear of his, that he’d blast a high note and something would rupture. Blood up the side of his horn. Stitches in his mouth. Years before he could play again, like an athlete with a busted leg.

Fifty years he’d been blowing, man and boy. The fear still hadn’t gone. He licked his lip again.

A sequence of light beats worked a jazz pattern in his head as Turk bent over to close the latches on the case. And his drummer, Dave, tapped a drumstick on the case like he was hitting a high hat.

“Great set tonight. ”

In response, Turk lifted a thick, bent thumb. His voice was a growl. He’d copied the tone after listening to his grandma’s Satchmo albums when he was a boy in Hurtsboro, Alabama. He thought all jazz trumpeters talked like that. The voice had stuck with him ever since.

“Sure was.” His laughter sounded like a frog with a wheeze. “But every set’s great at Tommy Moore’s.”

He laughed again, and Dave joined in. His drummer waved good night with his drumsticks and hopped off the stage to land among the empty tables.

The last of the patrons were collecting their coats from the cloakroom. Marty, the bartender, was wiping down the counter one last time and preparing to set up for tomorrow.

Cassie, the pianist, emerged from the bathroom and waved at Turk. “See you tomorrow, big man. Same time, same tunes.”

Turk waved back. Maybe not the same tunes, though. He might just shake things up a little tomorrow. Less “’Round Midnight.” More Nat Adderley. That’d get the house moving.

He eased his ample weight off the stage and passed between the tables. Broken glass crunched under his feet. He thought he’d heard something crash during “Moanin’.” There was always someone who didn’t watch their elbows. Every club. Every night.

“Turk!”

Tommy Moore strode out of his office, arms wide. The club owner was a big guy with a shiny bald pate. No musical talent at all but a strong love of jazz. Tommy could name every swinger on every Blue Note album since Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis cut their first record.

Turk put down his case and met Tommy’s hug.

New Orleans needed men like him, men who could sell the seats, serve the drinks, and bring in the audiences so that guys like Big Turk and his band could swing every night.

Men like Tommy let Turk make a living doing what he loved.

Sure, he wished he made more money, but he was a jazz trumpeter, not a rock star or a country singer.

“ Gotta be grateful for what you got in this world ,” his grandma used to tell him, and she wasn’t wrong.

Turk picked up his case and retrieved his jacket.

The cloakroom attendant wished him a good night. Kylie, was it? Callie? He could never remember their names.

A cold rain was coming down outside, and his rideshare hadn’t arrived yet. He tightened his belt and sighed. It was almost one thirty.

Without the music to hold him up, the post-gig tiredness was creeping in. He wasn’t a young man anymore. He couldn’t go all night like when he was a teenager, full of hope and energy. All he wanted now was a hot bath and a good, long sleep. Half an hour, and he’d be home.

His phone told him the car was less than two minutes away.

He opened the door and peered down the road.

A couple of headlights shined through the rain shower.

He waited ’til the car was right outside before running through the rain.

At nearly two hundred thirty pounds, he wasn’t tiptoeing between any raindrops.

After confirming he was in the right car, Turk slid his trumpet case onto the back seat next to him, wiped the rain from the top of his head, and pulled his seat belt around his body. The car pulled away, windshield wipers swishing the dots of light on the glass.

“You a jazz player?”

The driver’s eyes filled the rearview mirror. Turk didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to sleep.

“That’s right.”

“That’s cool, man. I like jazz.” The driver watched the road, but when he stopped at a traffic light, he returned his gaze to the mirror. “You got a lot of fans? ”

Turk didn’t really want to answer that question. He got a few streams online every day, and plenty of people came back night after night to hear him and his band swing. He wasn’t sure he could call any of them fans, though.

“People like what I play. What can I say? People in this town have taste.” He laughed.

The driver laughed with him. “That’s good, man. It’s great that your life means something to people.”

Turk chuckled at the strange statement. But he was in New Orleans. The city was full of characters.

They drove on. The windshield wipers beat their pattern.

Turk closed his eyes, and the night in the club came back.

Light glinting off the brass of the horn.

Applause at the end of each number. The feeling that came with being lost in the music and knowing that the rest of the band was lost with him, a group of explorers adventuring together through a world of rhythm.

The car slowed. Too soon. Turk’s eyes fluttered open. Had he dozed off? The ride seemed like a half note—there and gone.

The driver’s door creaked open.

Turk blinked against the dim blur of rain on glass and reached for his trumpet case, easing out into the wet night. “Thanks, friend. Appreciate that.”

Except it wasn’t his street. No porch light. No mailbox. No rhythm to this place at all.

Rain drummed steady on the roof.

He turned to face the driver. “Hey, what the?—”

The fist came from nowhere, cracking across his face. Lights burst behind his eyes. Blood sprayed from his nose. He stumbled, tried to shake the dissonance loose.

“Sorry, man,” the driver said, stepping in close. “But you had a good life. You all but announced it.”

A blade caught the streetlight, flashed like a cymbal crash, and sliced clean across Turk’s throat before he could even lift a hand to stop it.

His case hit the asphalt first. He collapsed after it, face-first into the pooling rain. His bottom lip split open on impact.

As darkness closed in, he thought—not of the pain, not even of the man—but of the last note he played.

Blue.

Unfinished.

Hanging in the air like it still had something to say.

But it never would.