The Three Ponamigos Ch. 1

The Three Ponamigos
Memoirs of a Jazzpony-turned-Teacher
Chapter One: On Growing up in Manehattan

Hiya. My name's Smoky. My given name's Smoky Blues, but I go by Smoky because everypony always thinks I'm Blues. You know, the other blues-slash-jazz pony. I don't see what the big deal is, anyway.  Everypony always seems so disappointed when they find out, y'know? It's like they think there can't be more than one bluespony around or somethin'.  

Now, listen, before you run off to go read some Rose Pappilone book, sit down and at least lemme tell ya one story. If ya don't like it, ya don't ever have to pick this up again. I'm gonna tell you about a little town called Ponyville, about my two best buds, a little bit about me, and I ain't sayin' no more in the preview, because you might just put this book down right now when you find out that we don't fight an Ursa Major with the power of friendship or some garbage like that. And I ain't sayin' we don't! Just keep readin', okay?

Okay, so. First, a little about me. Well, actually a lot. Ya gotta have the context of who I am to know about my friends Archie and Scraggly. I'm a unicorn, like you might guess looking at the cover. When I was born, I had a rare birth defect that could cause blindness and then death if it wasn't treated. That was how I got my name—one of the symptoms is cloudy eyes. I guess my parents just wanted to remind themselves how close they came to losin' me. I get a permanent reminder of it every time I use my magic—it's grey instead of brown, like my coat and mane.

I grew up in Manehattan, specifically 'round Sugar Cube Hill. No relation to Pinkie Pie's shop down in Ponyville. That was a great place for a young colt interested in music to grow up. Or it woulda been, had I been born earlier. By the time I was big enough to walk, a lot of the greats – Oats Waller, Duke Hoofington, to name a few-- they were all either buried or quick on their way. Well, with one notable exception: Raspy Reeds.

When I first met Raspy, he was a lot older than me and a lot more homeless than me. Now, being a little foal, I thought I'd just invite him to my house. Sugar Cube Hill is kind of a middle-to-upper-crust place, and I'd never seen a bum before. My ma was...upset, to say the least, but my dad, he was a huge fan of Raspy. See, Raspy used to lead this fantastic swing band called Raspy and the Caravan of Swing. If you're lucky, you can find some records of them. Nopony, except for maybe Blues, could work a sax like Raspy could. And dear old dad struck a deal with Raspy. He could stay in our guest room, provided that he taught me "music."

Now, if Raspy was a scam artist, he could have just messed around and not really taught me anything. I mean, saying that you should learn "music" is a bit like saying "you should learn math." Really? What kind of math? Calculus, long division, quantum physics? Luckily for me, Raspy was nothing if not true to his word. He started off teaching me from these thin little books—Approaching the Standards, they were called, and they were full of old jazz tunes like Canterlope Island and Billie's Pounce. We'd play em once, then take turns improvising solos. I wanted to learn the sax, like him, at first, but I broke a reed just by blowin' on it real soft. So he laughed and called in a favor with a friend of his, and got me a real nice trombone. He'd play along on his sax, and I ended up learning piano too on account of some of the 'bone parts being in treble clef.

Raspy was the reason I got my cutie mark. It's a blue trombone over a piano, with a circle of eighth notes surrounding it. The eighth notes and the blue represent the first song I successfully did a solo on, C Jam Blues. The eighth notes, are of course, the C blues scale. The piano's there because I learned to play it after the trombone. I'll never forget the day I got it, but I guess that goes without sayin'. I mean, it ain't exactly somethin' you forget about, you know? But anyways, Raspy had spent months gettin' band members together for a new band. We had a zebra drummer named Mana who was an absolute nut. He could make just about anypony laugh. Then there was Buzzy. That wasn't his real name, but Raspy knew him real good and they were pals. All in all, there was 14 of us, and we were fantastic. Raspy decided to name us Raspy Reeds and the Shooting Star Band, based on something Soto, a trumpet player, had said.

We lasted for years, and they were some of the best experiences of my life. But they say all good things gotta come to an end, and that they did.  I'd been spending less and less time with my parents, and when I did come home, she and my dad would...well, you could tell they weren't getting along. I had my suspicions confirmed when I came home late one night with Raspy.

"You're just living vivaciously, Sky," said my mother. "This is some kind of fantasy for you. Maybe you never grew up, and you're just using Smoky to do what you couldn't do." It always pissed me off when my mother said things like that, and I was about to head in the door—my parents didn't know me and Raspy were outside. But Raspy just said in his soft, gravelly voice, "Don't."

Raspy was the kind of pony that, when he talked, by gum, ponies listened. He didn't have to yell or shout or wave his hooves. He just had a presence—almost like one of those martial artists they talk about in the pulps, or some kinda musical version of one. We waited and listened.

"Our son already has his cutie mark, Baby. It's not like we can change that. What do you want me to do, ask him to stop doing what he loves? What, you want him shoveling dung? Scaring off vagrants from under the Overpass?" There was a lot of unnecessary venom in my father's voice, even though I agreed with him. Raspy, my role model, looked like a pony who just ruined something. He put a hoof on my shoulder, and didn't say nothin'.

"Scaring off vagrants? You mean vagrants like that...degenerate. We have no idea what that stallion is telling Smoky. He might even end up sharing the same fate. Is that what you want? For our son the musician to be out on the streets begging?" I was getting a first-hand taste of how my parents acted behind closed doors. I'd never seen 'em—well, heard 'em like this. I knew something was up, but it was really getting to me. How long had they been acting like that? I also knew something else. I couldn't let her talk about the greatest musician I'd ever known like he was street trash. He must of known what I was gonna do, because he said, "Son, don't do it." He sounded tired.

But I ignored him and practically bucked the door down. My parents were stunned and my mother looked ashamed. Maybe because her son had heard her, or maybe just because it was -such- a faux pas to have your secrets laid bare in high society. I didn't care. "How dare you. That stallion is not only my best friend and a better teacher than anypony could ask for, but he's the best musician in this city, maybe even Equestria. You have no right to talk about him like that."

I'm sure you can guess what happened next. She said she only wanted what was best for me, I said no she didn't, she was just tryin' to control me. Same old stuff from all the soaps. She laid it bare. Told dad that it was either her or Raspy. He picked her, and that meant giving Raspy the horseshoe. He looked like he more or less expected it, until I said that I was going with him. Raspy (and my parents) did everything they could to try and dissuade me from it, but I was young and I knew everything. I quit speaking to them, I never returned their letters. But I did read them.

I got one from my dad a few years after that night. He told me that ma had just left in the middle of the night. He looked all over for her; she didn't even leave a note or nothing. Maybe she felt bad about what happened. I don't know. I really didn't know how it made me feel, especially the end of the letter. It was a pretty unremarkable thing, a thing that's at the end of a lotta stuff these days.  It's a thing we tell other ponies sometimes without even thinkin' about it. You know what I mean? It was, "I love you."
I wrote him back. I didn't say much, just that I was sorry. I made sure to say I loved him, too. Looking back, I shoulda written the guy a freaking novel for all the manure I made him deal with. But he wrote back anyway. "Not as sorry as I am, son." I noticed the return address was different this time.

I got word a day later from Our Mare of Everlasting Kindness Hospital that my father had passed away in his sleep. The cause of death was just natural causes. He waited for me. I just put the letter down on my desk and just stood there staring at it. Raspy was standing in the doorway, not saying nothing, but at the same time, saying all he needed to say. He was like that. He came up to me real gentle-like and just said, "C'mere, boy."

I practically ran to him and I did somethin' that not a lotta stallions readily admit to doin'. I hugged the old guy with the force of a small train and bawled my eyes out. I had acted like a stupid idiot and lost the two ponies that'd love me no matter what I did, and my apology was a crappy letter. I wasn't even stallion enough to go and visit my dad on his deathbed, and despite how much of an ass I'd been, he loved me too much to tell me he was on his way out.

At least I'd told him something. I hadn't said anything to my mother, wherever she was. I couldn't imagine what might have happened to her. All the ads and tourist pamphlets talk about how cultured and sophisticated Manehattan is, but you simply don't go around certain neighborhoods at night. And that was assuming she was still in Manehattan. Raspy must have known what I was thinking. "You won't find her if she doesn't wanna be found, kid. It ain't your fault anyway...it's mine." That statement said more about Raspy than I ever can.

Over the years, me, Raspy, and the Shooting Stars went all around Manehattan and Equestria playing gigs. I never forgot about my parents, but having the band as a surrogate family helped a lot. I became a "wonderful musician" according to Raspy. He said I reminded him a bit of Tommy Horsey, an old trombonist. And not to brag, but I manage to play a mean piano, too, though I'm better on my horn and prefer it like that. I'd love to shower you with stories about all the great times we had. Heh, maybe I could if I wasn't afraid you'd go do something else. Maybe I could tell you about the time Mana got chased out of an Appleoosa bar for throwing a spitball at Buzzy and hitting a buffalo instead. Or the time that After Hours, our tenor player, got kicked off the stage—by Raspy--for being an "Elevator Player," just making random garbage up but not playing the ink. Or how about that time that Raspy said, "wear black," and me and Scruff, the lead trumpet, showed up in bright pink?

Raspy was getting older and older, though, and he was able to do less stuff. The good times were about to stop rolling. Eventually, he passed the reins over to me, and I hate to say it, but eventually, he passed away himself. I didn't really know what to do. I was sadder than I'd ever been, and the guys in the band felt it, too. Even Mana was quieter than normal. I just sort of booked as randomly, at places a jazz band like us had no business being at. Gradually, everpony just sort of lost interest and left. It got harder and harder to book shows, now that we were starting to break up. I don't mean to brag when I say it, but even I was one of the main draws for the shows, and I was having trouble booking a dwindling, once-famous band whose once-faithful (and who could blame them?) members were moving on to greener pastures.

A year or two later, and I found myself in a no-name town called Ponyville with the saved up money from all my gigs, and my inheritance. I can't explain to you in words, how it feels to know that your money means nothing. I wasn't rich, but I sure wouldn't go hungry. Not physically, anyway. At that point I would have thrown all of those bits into Celestia's sun to get the band and the good times back. I thought about just lying down in a ditch somewhere and letting the rain carry me off. But then I remembered a little Oats Waller ditty that my dad used to sing to me. Raspy would even play the piano part sometimes, after he moved in.

Don't let it bother you
When things go wrong
If you're glum just hum a tune
And some good luck will come along!

Don't let it bother you
If now and then
You may stumble, never grumble
Just count from one to ten!

A from is a smile upside down
So turn that frown upside down
And smile and sing,
Ooh! La la la!

Don't let it bother you
When skies are gray
Learn to grin and take it on the chin,
and everything will be okay!
-Oats Waller, "Don't Let it Bother You"

I walked down to the town hall to see about living arrangements and a job.