NEW YORK -- A bead of sweat was dripping down Jon's forehead, from his thick, sprayed hair toward his makeup- covered cheekbone. He tried to ignore it and hold his microphone straight, but man, it was hot, damn hot. The heat seemed to burst from the subway grates and the exhaust pipes of buses that rolled past Madison Square Garden, past rows of blue-uniformed riot police, hundreds of them, just waiting, leaning on their blue barricades, wiping sweat from their foreheads. It was June 14, almost summer, the latest day in hockey history, and the fever was all over 33rd Street.
Somebody's gotta pay. That was the last angry yell when they locked the doors at Joe Louis Arena, and that was the echo in the air Friday afternoon, on a quiet street in Birmingham, as Bryan Murray stood beyond the hedges of his front lawn, a few steps off the deck, talking about why he'd just had his head cut off."I haven't even told my daughter yet," he said, looking down the street toward a group of children riding bicycles. He turned at the sound of TV satellite trucks pulling up to his driveway, one, two, three. "I guess when she sees those, she'll know something's up."
He almost always has a cigarette in his mouth, if not that, a sucking candy, and he walks around the room blowing smoke or making tongue-clucking sounds and listening, always listening, because that is what a good teacher does. Listens. Now and then, he'll interrupt with a correction, or write something down, maybe show you how to play it. He makes it seem simple, and when you get frustrated, he'll blow a cloud of smoke, grin and say, "Relax. It takes two or three weeks to become a jazz musician."
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
