Saving Charlie Parker: A Novel

By: Mike Steinel

“Jean… You’re gonna think I’m crazy.” He stopped, thinking about what his next sentence would be, then turned his head back to the window and spoke more softly: “I met Charlie Parker. I was with Bird. Dizzy was there, too. We were in Toronto, in a bar. There was a black and white TV. A boxing match. My head was bleeding.”

“Sounds like quite a dream,” Jean said calmly.

“It wasn’t a dream,” he snapped. “I was there for real… I think. This was different than a dream, somehow different.” His voice trailed off. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the matchbook that said: The Silver Rail – 133 Victoria Street – Toronto, CA. He stared at it.

“What’s that?” Jean asked.

“Nothing,” he said as he shoved it into the pocket of his hoodie.

Once at home, Jen began cleaning up the blood at the bottom of the staircase, and Michael gathered up the three books scattered on the floor. He sat on the bench in the foyer, opened one of the books, and turned to the picture in its middle. I t was a picture of Massey Hall. He took the matchbook from his pocket and stared at it.

In the midst of a world-wide pandemic, retired music professor, Michael Newman, falls down the stairs in the historic home he and his wife Jean are restoring in McAlester, Oklahoma. He is transported back to 1953 and awakens in a bar in Toronto on the night of what is billed as “The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever.” There he meets his hero, Charlie Parker, the revolutionary saxophonist who is credited as one of the great pioneers of modern jazz. Parker’s artistic life was brilliant but cut short at the age of 34 by his addiction to drugs and alcohol. With the help of astrophysicists from Oklahoma and Switzerland, it is determined that the Professor’s home has an Einstein-Rosen Bridge (a time wormhole). Using drugs, hypnosis, and meditation he attempts to travel back to various important moments in Charlie Parker’s life. Driven by the desire to save his hero, Michael’s transtemporal travel has mixed results.