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On August 20th, 1953, Charlie Parker (Bird) sent a Western Union Money Order to his wife Chan from St Louis, Missouri, with the following message: HOLD ON TIGHT AND BE GOOD AND CALL ME There is a chain of such telegrams stretching from June, 1952, to October, 1954, and they form a narrative of sorts, snapshots of time, place, and–to the extent that it’s reasonable to infer–the state of Bird’s marriage. All these messages accompanied money orders that Bird sent Chan from the road to support their family. Bird was making an attempt at financial responsibility, a concept foreign to him in every way, the idea being to send Chan a portion of his income immediately, before the rest vanished into thin air. To say money burned a hole through Bird’s pocket is inaccurate, because it never made it as far as his pocket in the first place. Biographers assume the majority of it went to drugs, but this certainly isn’t a documented fact. The day he sent the first money order, Bird made an extraor
