NEW FICTION

(image c/o forgotten ny)

I met Dizzy Gillespie once. No joke, it was really him. Who could mistake him for anyone else? The charming smile, French beret, puffy cheeks and yes…the famous trumpet. My friend Freddie and I had wandered into the Village Gate on Bleecker Street one night. I was an underaged teenager and thrilled to be in a jazz club at 1am, even if it was just around the corner from my college dorm.

 A hostess led us to a little table and asked resentfully (the place was empty and obviously she wanted out of there) what we’d have to drink. We ordered a round (a beer and a coke) and then poor Freddie nearly plotzed when he saw Dizzy standing by the piano, trumpet at the ready.   

I had always been a fan of old music and old movies, so I, too, recognized Dizzy immediately. In fact, it wasn’t my first such celebrity sighting: just a few months earlier, I had been in Los Angeles for the first time, staying at a friend’s parents’ house. One night they hosted us at Spago, a restaurant so famous that even I had heard of it. Once we were seated, I began scanning the room for famous faces. Right away, I spotted one and gleefully stage whispered to the table: “Look! There’s Louis Jourdan!” My friend’s dad was impressed. Why? because I was 18 and it was 1986 and Louis Jourdan’s last big movie, Gigi (I know, cringe), had come out in 1958. Had I seen Molly Ringwald and Judd Hirsch making out in the corner, I couldn’t have been more excited.

So there we were: a coke, a beer and… Dizzy Gillespie! 

I don’t have words to describe the music. Actually, Dizzy was wrapping up this unofficial gig in an empty club and so this magical moment was already almost over. We asked if we could speak to him, and when Freddie explained that he was a professional saxophonist, Dizzy graciously chatted about the business with him for a few minutes. He then kindly turned to me and said, “You look a little bit kind of familiar.” He asked me a couple of questions and when he heard I was Turkish, he said, “Oh, yeah that’s it. I remember…in Constantinople….” His voice trailed off and his eyes fluttered to the ceiling. 

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just followed him up to the ceiling, gazing at the something I could only guess at.

Filiz Turhan is a writer and community college English professor, living on the North Shore of Long Island. Her work has appeared in The Sonora Review, The Threepenny Review, The North American Review, Litbreak.com, and elsewhere. She likes cats.