"Get the hell off the stage! No one wants to hear that coon sh*t jazz! It just sounds like a buncha noise! Play some white man's jazz!"

Sylvain shot up furiously from his drum set. His hands were clenched and knuckles whitened. He felt attacked and he was seething with rage. Every fiber of his being sought to lash out and beat the man senseless. He thought of nothing—no repercussions—but the urge to release his indignation. Immediately, he started towards the drunkard.
"What kind of segregated b.s. is that! If you don't like it then leave! We play what we want in this bar! Music's got no skin color, you brainless a*s!" he shouted vehemently.
Jack stepped in time to stop Sylvain from creating any further conflict. "hey, slow down! We don't want any more trouble than he's already causing us. Beating him won't help and you can't get through to a drunk like that. Suck it up and leave it alone."
For a moment, the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Sylvain scoffed and glared at the half-insensible man hunched over his drink. He stared for a second, growling, before turning around and walking out the door, slamming it as he exited.
Jack let a deep sigh and walked over to Roko at the piano.
"Roko...listen, do you think you can play that one song?" He bent over and whispered in his ear. Roko nodded.
"But what about Sylvain?"
"Let him be. He need to cool off anyways; it won't do us any good if he plays angry, you understand?"
Roko just nodded, again.
"Good, the people could use something slow to help ease the mood. You ready?"
Roko felt his fingers hover above the black-white keys, then press calmly into and move effortlessly like as if it was as natural as breathing. His fingers were gliding off it like water. Jack, picking up his trumpet, closed his eyes, placed his lips up against the mouthpiece, waited, and then blew quietly and steadily. Golden somber notes sung into the air. A soft brass melody backed by a subtle piano accompaniment. The trumpet was singing an airy song, a song fused with both melancholy and joy. Delicately, the trumpet silently died out, leaving the piano to pick up where it left off. It went on like this for a minute, a sleepy piano playing into the air, throwing shades of tranquility and calm into the audience. Roko's fingers were jumping from key to key and moving like waves across a tumultuous wave of music and thoughts.  But the best had yet to come. Letting the trumpet fall away from his lips, Jack opened his mouth and let free his silvery voice. It flowed out into the room, suffusing into every corner, echoing inside each person, leaving none unaffected. Each and every note reverberating in their heads with a different idea and mind of its own. Notes of every color traveled and mingled with emotions. Black, white, yellow, red, blue all mixed and blended together to become an indistinguishable line of rainbow polychrome. It was a raging fire of sound and melody; it was truly music at its finest: desegregated.
Jack was something to be admired in almost everyone's eyes. Trumpet player and vocalist. His playing was indisputably excellent, and his voice felt impossibly smooth and silky as he sang. Like honey and cream, it poured so slowly, but so soulfully out.
"Almost blue; almost doing things we used to do
There's a girl here and she's almost you
Almost all the things that you promised with your eyes I see in hers too
Now your eyes are red from crying
Almost blue; flirting with this disaster became me
It named me as the fool who only aimed to be
Almost blue; almost touching it will almost do
There's a part of me that's always true... always
All the things that you promised with your eyes I see in hers too
Now your eyes are red from crying
Almost you; almost me; almost blue...."
The music faded—they were done for the night. Roko peered up from the piano and saw the man from earlier, the drunk. He didn't have to look hard or scrutinize to see the man's drink was shaking. His right hand was clasped tightly around the glass cup. Under his chin, there were dark wet spots. Tears welled up in the drunk bastard's eyes and two tears trickled down the sides of his cheeks, dripping off his chin. He was crying.