THE PLOT. Tangle Eye Blues is the story of Lionel Gibson, a jazz trumpet player in a withering long-term relationship, who serendipitously encounters Crystal, the woman with whom he both shares a childhood connection to the old neighborhood and an instant mutual attraction. Before the affair has a chance to flourish, she disappears suddenly without a trace. Deemed missing by the authorities, Lionel moves on with his life. Ten months later, Lionel sees her mysterious apparition on a crowded subway platform, and he reinstates an obsessive and maddening quest to find her and seek answers to her abrupt disappearance.