Dwight and his mother were going down the stairs of the house on Gates Avenue, he to school and she to work, and the horn man was coming up. He was a large man, with hooded eyes that made him look Asian, tan skin, a wrinkled blue suit, and dirty black-and-white shoes. He had a cheap canvas suitcase in one hand and the horn, in a scuffed black case, in the other. He was wheezing. “’Scuse me,” he said in an exhausted voice. “Where’s 4D at?” “Keep climbin’,” said Dwight’s mother. “It’s in the back, right over us.” She paused. “You lookin’ for Jimmy?” “He moved,” the horn man said. “Went south.” The man paused, as if gathering strength, and resumed the climb. That evening they were having dinner, Dwight and his mother and his two little sisters, and first they heard the man walking, his tread heavy on their ceiling, and then the sound of water running. And then, suddenly, abruptly, they heard music. The windows were open to the warm spring air, and first there was a series of incredibly quick notes, up and down the scale, glistening, running, and then a shift into a beautiful, clear, lyrical song—a complaint, a sigh, a lament.
