Death List For February by Shane Jones

February 4 –
Karen Carpenter listening to the doctor telling her that she’s on her death
bed. Karen Carpenter wanting to die
playing the drums. The doctor thinking
for a minute and saying he prefers a singing Karen Carpenter to a drumming one.
My arms, says Karen Carpenter, are thin as drumsticks. Karen Carpenter imagining attacking the
doctor with her arms.

February 12 -
Eubie Blake stole the drum beat from Karen Carpenter. He was at the hospital dressed as a clown,
playing jazz music for dying children. Eubie Blake heard Karen Carpenter playing a drum beat on a doctor’s
face. Eubie Blake was going to write a
hit song with that drum beat but Eubie Blake found himself in the same bed as
Karen Carpenter eight days later and he had forgotten what music was.

February 14 -
Lina Radke is a german track star. One
day she is running hurdles and the hurdles become Eubie Bank’s on dozens of
deathbeds. Hey, says Eubie Banks as Lina
Radke’s crotch sails over him, do you know a good drum beat? Lina Radke shouts something in German over
her shoulder and feels a slight turning in her chest.

February 22 –
Adrian Boult hated German runners and women. Lina Radke was a nightmare. On
his death bed, Lina Radke ran circles around him. The room was cold and everything was
silver. Jazz notes dripped from the
ceiling.

February 23 -
Herbert Howells was at the death bed of Adrian Boult eating crackers. I want you to know, said Herbert Howells,
that I have one day more to live than you. Herbett Howells spent the next hour whispering in the ear of Adrian
Boult all the things he was going to do before he died. He ended up just eating crackers all day.

February 25 -
Tennessee Williams was listening to the Carpenters and thinking how he prefered
Eubie Blake. He thought about his
afternoon jog with Lina Radke. He
imagined writing a play with two bickering english men called Herbert Howells
Vs. Adrian Boult but couldn’t get the ringing of speed drumming out of his
head.

February 27 -
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev spent the last night before his death looking up
at the stars but thinking how they weren’t as beautiful as a Tennesse Williams
play.

February 28 -
Winifred Atwell spent his last hours sitting at his piano. He had a drum beat by Karen Carpenter that he
couldn’t get out of his head and the ghost of Eubie Blake was sitting next to
him. Winifred Atwell runs his fingers
across the keys like the pumping legs of Lina Radke but then his fingers turn
into tiny Herbert Howells’s and Adrian Boult’s. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev threw a planet through the hospital walls. Tennesse Williams would have wrote a play
about all of this.

BIO:

Shane Jones does not live in anyone's pocket.  He lives in Albany.  He has a blog.