Me and Mrs. Jones

Song of the Day 08/23/2022

Me and Mrs. Jones by Billy Paul

While at NYU, I lived in a high-ceilinged loft on Canal Street that I couldn’t afford. I received the contract for the apartment from a friend of a family friend that inherited many, many lofts on Canal Street but did not want to deal with managing the upkeep, paying the various expenses that would convert them into something one could call inhabitable. So the loft was large, but pretty decrepit. As a student, I had enough time to fix it up, and the perfect disposition to not care about all of the loose ends (electrical errors, cracked windows, plumbing issues). Still, the price was too high for me. I decided to begin Airbnb’ing it, either leaving town or sleeping on friends’ couches for a week or so per month. Sometimes I would Airbnb the unit as a shared apartment, and just sleep on my couch while the paying guest crashed in the bedroom; you can’t say I lacked resourcefulness—I had resilient determination to not work, regularly taking jobs as a waiter or at a coffee shop, quitting after a day or two. ‘It took too much time away from my studies,’ was the excuse. The whole Airbnb scheme was preferable, and I got to meet some pretty interesting people from all over the world. One of them was Michael Barkley, a factory worker and jazz singer from Detroit. 

Michael booked my apartment for two nights, Wednesday-Friday. I had a friend who worked at an art gallery up the street that had a small room in the back that was half storage closet/half greenroom for visiting artists. It also had a couch that pulled out, a bathroom with a sink, and was a few blocks away from the NYU gym, which had showers; perfect. The gallery was in one of those multi-week transition periods between openings, so would be empty. It all panned out well. When checking Michael in, I couldn’t help but notice his saxophone. I asked him what he was doing in town. He explained that his wife had died a month ago and that he came to New York to perform a concert at a jazz club in tribute to his late wife. Well, not a full concert, just one song, along with an existing quartet based in Brooklyn that he’d known for quite some time. At first, it didn’t make full sense to me. I wanted to know more. And Michael, who looked tired, didn’t seem like he wanted to continue chatting. I was curious, though. It sounded interesting. He sighed, and answered my next question, which was something like: ‘I’m sorry for your loss—so what’s this band? Where are you guys playing? That’s really cool.’ I had very little social awareness at that period of my life. Anyway, Michael clarified. The band, who were all good friends of Michael's, played at a jazz bar every Thursday, kind of as a hobby. Michael came to visit them to get out of Detroit, to hang out in New York for a few days, to gain some respite from his period of mourning. They asked if he wanted to sing a song, and Michael said, without a doubt: Yes. 

'What song?’ I asked. 

‘Me and Mrs. Jones.’ Michael responded.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Billy Paul. Great. Didn’t he pass away recently?’ 

‘He did.’ Michael responded. 

‘So it’s a tribute to Billy Paul as well?’ 

‘No. It’ll be in tribute to my late wife.’ 

‘Right. Of course.’ 

‘Who, by coincidence, died on the same day as Billy Paul.’ Michael added.

‘Wow,’ I said again, like a moron. ‘That all makes sense now.’ 

‘And you want to hear something else that’s pretty crazy?’ Michael asked. My stupidity was beginning to warm him up a bit. 

‘Sure.’ 

‘Her maiden name is—’

‘Jones!’ I blurted out.

‘That’s right.’ He said. 

‘She’s also Mrs. Jones.’ 

‘Correct again.’ 

‘Wow.’ 

I don’t remember for sure, but I think he ushered me out of the door of my own apartment, which was fair. He was paying for it after all. And I charged quite a bit for that squalid, romantic shit-hole. Unless he had a source of wealth I didn’t know of, I assumed he must have saved up for this trip for quite some time, which really made me feel quite terrible, profiting off a man squandering his savings to travel to New York to perform a song at a bar in the loving memory of his dead wife, all so I could pay rent, have money for alcohol, a few things here and there. True, at the end of the day I wasn’t really profiting, pocketing money for anything luxurious; it still didn’t feel quite right.

The song Me and Mrs. Jones, written by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Cary Gilbert for Billy Paul to sing, is about an extramarital affair between a man and his lover. As stated in the lyrics, the two lovers meet every day at the same cafe, at 6:30 (I assume PM), where they ‘hold hands and talk,’ which may or may not be a metaphor for fucking. The song’s drama consists of the lovers’ quandary: ‘we got a thing going on, we both know that it’s wrong, but it’s much too strong, to let it go now.’ Aside from the whole Jones surname and dying on the same day as Billy Paul coincidence, one can’t deny that this is an odd song to sing in a man’s tribute to his late wife. Could it be that Michael didn’t give me the full story? That there was one more level of coincidence he didn’t want to disclose? Or, perhaps, the whole backstory was made up. He was just coming to New York to sing Me and Mrs. Jones with some friends of his, not even really out of a tribute to the death of Billy Paul. No. No tribute at all. Just singing for the pleasure of singing. Instead of studying, or living a life of my own, these were the things I spent my time wondering about, in the back of that cold, empty gallery in New York City at the end of May 2016. 

So a day goes by, and I text Michael, not having any sensibility to leave this poor man alone. ‘Hey, hope your stay is going well. Would be awesome to come to listen to you sing tonight if you’d like.’ 

An hour goes by, then another. 

I check my phone, no response. OK. I’ll leave it at that. But then, of course, a text comes in two minutes later with just the address of the bar, deep in Bedford-Stuyvesant. 

There are about 20-25 people there when I arrive. This amount packs the room. It’s crowded, intimate. A band of four is playing acoustic jazz. Next to the small stage, Michael sits with his saxophone. I don’t go up and say hi, but I wave from far away. He waves back, nodding simultaneously. I point to my drink, mouthing—do you want one? He shakes his head, no. 

The band calls him on stage, saying they have a little treat for everyone. The projector behind the band switches from the bar’s logo to a photo of a black woman in her late 60s, with the caption: For you, my one and only Mrs. Jones. OK, none of it was made up, a terrible feeling shoots up my spine for even having the thought. And the performance, it’s beautiful. I swear, he sings it better than Billy Paul even did. And when it ends, he begins weeping, crying, hiccuping, his chest convulsing. He buries his head deep into his friend’s shoulder. The band consoles him. The crowd is captivated. It is touching, truly. I don’t go up to him after the performance. No, he wouldn’t like that. I instead subway home to the back of the gallery, I close the door to the small room, and I cry for several hours, knowing very well I won’t witness something quite like that ever again. I cry that a man could love his wife so much, I cry that nature is so cruel to have taken her away from him, I cry about the memory of the remarkable experience I witnessed even more than for the situation itself. I cried, continuously, for several hours, and then I went to sleep. 

The next day, I meet him at the apartment to check him out. 

‘That was an incredible performance last night.’ I said. 

‘Yeah, was all right.’ He responded casually. 

‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ I say back. ‘I can’t imagine being married to someone, loving them, having them taken away from me. At least, I suppose, you’re able to sing. You have a brilliant form to express your grief.’ 

‘Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, man. It’s true.’ He said, pausing for a few moments. ‘She actually wasn’t my wife, though. My wife is alive, in Detroit with my kids.’ 

‘Oh.’ I said. And I pause too, deciding not to pry or ask any more questions. 

But I can’t help myself. 

‘So who was she?’ 

‘Rebecca Jones. She was based here in New York. We’ve had a side thing going on for a while, now. She got cancer and died out of the blue.’ 

‘Wow.’ 

‘Yeah.’ 

‘I’m sorry again for your loss.’ 

‘Is what it is. Been trying to end it for a while anyway.’ 

Those words did stick with me: Been trying to end it for a while anyway, as if her cancer and sudden death were a sense of fortuitous luck, a horribly tragic yet perfect way out of a dismal, endless affair. And those tears from the previous night? Tears of joy, maybe. Tears of relief, definitely. His home life, his married life, that could continue—finally in peace. 

And then he left a few moments later, and he came back 5 minutes afterward because he forgot his saxophone, which he held tightly but didn’t end up using the night I went to see him perform. And after that, he was gone for good, back to his life, the one in Detroit.