Summary

It is three o’clock in the morning, and Clyde “Crazy Legs” Alston, is sitting in at the Grand Eastern jazz club with a group of American soldiers. Clyde is an American pianist who plays small gigs around Bangkok that are organized by a promoter named Bobby Blue Eyes. Clyde has little passion for his work—the crowds at the club are thankless, and more interested in their conversations than his playing. He wants to be the “headliner” so he can “play his own songs and none of the standards some Joe Dope might request” (22). Recently, Bobby has not arranged any respectable gigs for Clyde.

Clyde does not know the soldiers, but he drinks with them and tells them stories. Clyde guesses the men are stationed at one of the American military camps in Thailand or that they are on break from the fighting...