Q: What’s the difference between a dead trombone player and a dead snake in the middle of a road?

A: The snake was on his way to a gig.

The door opened and a thin young man with a hairdo apparently inspired in color and shape by a sea urchin stood looking at Frank in open puzzlement. He swatted a few purple spikes away from his big blue eyes and finally saw me standing nearby. His face broke into an easy, charming smile.

“Irene!” He looked back at Frank. “Is this your cop?”

“No, Buzz,” I said, “that’s my husband.”

Buzz looked sheepish. “Oh, sorry. I’ve told Irene I’m not like that, and here I am, acting just exactly like that.”

“Like what?” Frank asked.

“I don’t mind that you’re a cop,” Buzz said proudly.

“That’s big of you,” Frank said, “I was worried you wouldn’t accept our help.”

Buzz, who is missing a sarcasm detection gene, just grinned and held out a hand. “Not at all, man, not at all. It’s really good of you to offer to take me to the gig. Guess Irene told you my car broke down. Come on in.”

Buzz’s purple hair was one of two splashes of color in his ensemble; his boots, pants and shirt were black, but a lime green guitar-still attached by a long cable to an amp-and matching strap stood out against this dark backdrop.

There was no question of finding a seat while we waited for Buzz to unhook his guitar and put it in a hard-shell case. The tiny apartment was nearly devoid of furniture. Two empty plastic milk crates and a couple of boards served as a long, low coffee table of sorts. Cluttered with the several abandoned coffee mugs and an empty bowl with a bent spoon in it, the table stood next to a small mattress heaped with twisted sheets and laundry. The mattress apparently served as both bed and couch.

There were two very elegant objects in room, however-a pair of Irish harps. The sun was setting in the windows behind them, and in the last light of day, they stood with stately grace, their fine wooden scrollwork lovingly polished to a high sheen.

“You play these?” Frank asked him in astonishment.

Without looking up from the guitar, which he was carefully wiping down with a cloth, Buzz said, “Didn’t you tell him, Irene?”

“I first met Buzz at an Irish music festival,” I said. “He doesn’t just play the harp.”

“Other instruments, too?” Frank asked.

“Sure,” Buzz said, looking back at us now. “I grew up in a musical family.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” I said. “He doesn’t just play it. He coaxes it to sing.”

“Sure and you’ve an Irish silver tongue now, haven’t ye, me beauty?” Buzz said with an exaggerated brogue.

“Prove my point, Buzz. Play something for us.”

He shook his head. “Haven’t touched them in months except to keep the dust off them,” he said. “That’s the past.” He patted the guitar case. “This is the future.” He laughed when he saw my look of disappointment. “My father feels the same way-but promise you won’t stop speaking to me like he has.”

“No, what you play is your choice.”

“Glad to know at least one person thinks so. Shall we go?”

“Need help carrying your equipment?” Frank offered. I was relieved to see him warming up a little.

“Oh, no, I’m just taking my ax, man.”

“Your ax?”

“My guitar. I never leave it at the club. My synthesizer, another amp and a bunch of other equipment are already at the club-I just leave those there. But not my Strat.”

Q: How do you get a guitar player to turn down?

A: Put sheet music in front of him.

On the way to Club 99, Buzz talked to Frank about his early years of performing with the Sullivan family band, recalling the friendship his father shared with my late mentor, O’Connor.

“O’Connor told me to come to this music festival,” I said. “There was a fifteen-year-old lad who could play the Irish harp better than anyone he’d ever met, and when he got to heaven, he expected no angel to play more sweetly.”

“Oh, I did all right,” he said shyly. “But my training wasn’t formal. She tell you that she helped me get into school, Frank?”

“No-”

“It was your own hard work that got you into that program,” I said.

“Naw, I couldn’t have done it without you. You talked that friend into teaching me how to sight read.” He turned to Frank. “Then she practically arm-wrestled one of the profs into giving me an audition.”

Frank smiled. “She hasn’t changed much.”

“Sorry, Buzz,” I said, “I thought it was what you wanted.”

“It was!” Buzz protested. “And I never could have gone to college without your help.”

“Nonsense. You got the grades on your own, and all the talent and practice time for the music was your own. But when your dad told me you dropped out at the beginning of this past semester, I just figured-”

“I loved school. I only left because I had this opportunity.”

“What opportunity?” Frank asked.

“The band you’re going to hear tonight,” he said proudly.

I was puzzled. “It’s still avant garde?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. I guess I never thought there was much money in avant garde.”

“Not here in the U.S. -locally, Club Ninety-nine is about the only place we can play regularly, and they don’t pay squat there. Our band is too outside for a lot of people.”

“Outside?” I asked.

“Yeah, it means-different. In a good way. You know, we push the envelope. Our music’s very original, but for people who want the Top Forty, we’re a tough listen. That’s the trouble with the music scene here in the States. But Mack-our bass player-came up with this great plan to get us heard over in Europe. We made a CD a few months ago, and it’s had a lot of airplay there. We just signed on for a big tour, and when it’s over, we’ve got a steady gig set up in a club in Amsterdam.”

“I had no idea all of this was happening for you, Buzz. Congrats.”

“Thanks. I’m so glad you’re finally going to get to hear us play-three weeks from now, we’ll be in Paris. Who knows when you’ll get a chance to hear us after that-Frank, it’s been awhile since Irene heard me play and-oh!” He pointed to the right. “Here’s the club. Park here at the curb. There’s not really any room at the back.”

He had pointed out a small, brown building that looked no different from any other neighborhood bar on the verge of ruin. A small marquee read, “Live Music. Wast Land. No Cover Charge Before 7 P.M.”

“Wast Land?” Frank asked. “Is that your band?”

“The Waste Land. The ‘e’ is missing. And the word ‘The.’”

“You named the band after the poem by T.S. Eliot?” Frank asked.

“You’ve read T.S. Eliot’s poetry?” Buzz asked in unfeigned disbelief.

“Yeah. I think it made me a more dangerous man.”

I rolled my eyes.

Buzz sat back against the seat and grinned. “Cool!”

Q: What band name on a marquee will always guarantee a crowd?

A: Free Beer

As we pushed open the padded vinyl door of Club 99, our nostrils were assailed by that special blended fragrance-a combination of stale cigarette smoke, old sweat, spilt beer and unmopped men’s room-that is the mark of the true dive. I was thinking of borrowing Frank’s cotton and sticking it in my nose.

Behind the bar, a thin old man with tattoo-covered arms and a cigarette dangling from his mouth was stocking the beer cooler, squinting as the cigarette’s smoke rose up into his own face. He nodded at Buzz, stared a moment at Frank, then went back to his work. We were ignored completely by the only other occupant, a red-faced man in a business suit who was gazing into a whiskey glass.

“I thought you said the band was meeting here at seven,” I said as we walked along the sticky floor toward the stage. I glanced at my watch. Seven on the dot.

“The others are always late,” Buzz said. He set up his guitar, then invited us into a small backstage room that was a little less smelly than the rest of the bar. It housed a dilapidated couch and a piano that bore the scars of drink rings and cigarette burns. The walls of the room were covered with a colorful mixture of graffiti, band publicity photos and handbills.