Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (16 page)

I sat down in a dark corner, stretched out my legs and sighed in complete boredom.

The terrace door opened again and a man reeled out of the noisome gaiety. He staggered to the railing and looked out over the city.

"Oh, my God," he said, running a palsied hand through his thin hair. He shook his head wearily and gazed at the light on top of the Empire State Building.

Then he turned with a groan and stumbled toward me. He tripped on my shoes and almost fell on his face.

"Uh-oh," he muttered, flopping into another chair. "You must excuse me, sir."

"Nothing," I said.

"May I beg your indulgence, sir?" he inquired.

I started to speak but he set out begging it immediately.

"Listen," he said, waving a fat finger. "Listen, I'm telling you a story that's impossible."

He bent forward in the dark and stared at me as best he could through martini-clouded eyes. Then he fell back on the chair, breathing steam whistles. He belched once.

"Listen now," he said. "Make no mistake. There are stranger things in heaven and earth and so on. You think I'm drunk. You're absolutely right. But why? You could never tell.

"My brother," he said, despairingly, "is no longer a man."

"End of story," I suggested.

"It all began a couple of months ago. He's publicity head for the Jenkins ad agency. Topnotch man.

"That is," he sobbed, "I mean to say . . . he was."

He mused quietly, "Topnotch man."

Out of his breast pocket he dragged a handkerchief and blew a trumpet call which made me writhe.

"They used to come to him," he recalled, "all of them. There he'd sit in his office with his hat on his head, his shiny shoes on the desk. Charlie! they'd scream, give us an idea. He'd turn his hat once around (called it his thinking cap) and say, Boys! Cut it this way. And out of his lips would pour the damnedest ideas you ever heard. What a man!"

At this point he goggled at the moon and blew his nose again.

"So?"

"What a man," he repeated. "Best in the business. Give him his hat-that was a gag, of course. We thought."

I sighed.

"He was a funny guy," said my narrator. "A funny guy."

"Ha," I said.

"He was a fashion plate. That's what he was. Suits had to be just right. Hats just right. Shoes, socks, everything custom made.

"Why, I remember once Charlie and his wife Miranda, the missus and me-we all drove out to the country. It was hot. I took off my suitcoat.

"But would he? No sir! Man isn't a man without his coat, says he.

"We went to this nice place with a stream and a grassy plot for sitting. It was awful hot. Miranda and my wife took off their shoes and waded in the water. I even joined them. But him! Ha!"

"Ha!"

"Not him," he said. "There I was, no shoes and socks, pants and shirt sleeves rolled up, wading like a kid. And up there, watching amused, was Charlie, still dressed to kill. We called him. Come on Charlie, off with the shoes!

"Oh, no. A man isn't a man without his shoes, he said. I couldn't even walk without them. This burned Miranda up. Half the time, she says, I don't know whether I'm married to a man or a wardrobe.

"That's the way he was," he sighed, "that's the way."

"End of story," I said.

"No," he said, his voice tingling; with horror I suppose.

"Now comes the terrible part," he said. "You know what I said about his clothes. Terrible fussy. Even his underwear had to be fitted."

"Mmm," I said.

"One day," he went on, his voice sinking to an awed murmur, "someone at the office took his hat for a gag.

"Charlie seemed to pretend he couldn't think. Hardly said a word. Just fumbled. Kept saying, hat, hat and staring out the window. I took him home.

"Miranda and I put him on the bed and while I was talking to her in the living room, we heard an awful thump. We ran into the bedroom.

"Charlie was crumpled up on the floor. We helped him up. His legs buckled under. What's wrong, we asked him. Shoes, shoes, he said. We sat him on the bed. He picked up his shoes. They fell out of his hands.

"Gloves, gloves, he said. We stared at him. Gloves! he shrieked. Miranda was scared.

She got him a pair and dropped them on his lap. He drew them on slowly and painfully. Then he bent over and put his shoes on.

"He got up and walked around the room as if he were testing his feet.

"Hat, he said and went to the closet. He stuck a hat on his head. And then-would you believe it?-he said, What the hell's the idea of taking me home? I've got work to do and I've got to fire the bastard who stole my hat. Back to the office he goes.

You believe that?" he asked.

"Why not?" I answered, wearily.

"Well," he said, "I guess you can figure the rest. Miranda tells me that day before I left: Is that why the bum is so quiet in bed? I have to stick a hat on him every night?

"I was embarrassed."

He paused and sighed.

"Things got bad after that," he went on. "Without a hat Charlie couldn't think. Without shoes he couldn't walk. Without gloves he couldn't move his fingers. Even in summer he wore gloves. Doctors gave up. A psychiatrist went on a vacation after Charlie visited him."

"Finish it up," I said. "I have to leave soon."

"There isn't much more," he said. "Things got worse and worse. Charlie had to hire a man to dress him. Miranda got sick of him and moved into the guest room. My brother was losing everything.

"Then came that morning . . ."

He shuddered.

"I went to see how he was. The door to his apartment was wide open. I went in fast. The place was like a tomb.

"I called for Charlie's valet. Not a sound. I went in the bedroom.

"There was Charlie lying on his bed still as a corpse, mumbling to himself. Without a word, I got a hat and stuck it on his head. Where's your man? I asked. Where's Miranda?

"He stared at me with trembling lips. Charlie, what is it? I asked.

"My suit, he said.

"What suit? I asked him. What are you talking about?

"My suit, he whimpered, it went to work this morning.

"I figured he was out of his mind.

"My gray pinstripe, he said hysterically. The one I wore yesterday. My valet screamed and I woke up. He was looking at the closet. I looked. My God!

"Right in front of the mirror, my underwear was assembling itself. One of my white shirts fluttered over the undershirt, the pants pulled up into a figure, a coat was thrown over the shirt, a tie was knotted. Socks and shoes went under the trousers. The coat arm reached up, took a hat off the closet shelf and stuck it in the air where the head would be if it had a head. Then the hat doffed itself once.

"Cut it this way, Charlie, a voice said and laughed like hell. The suit walked off. My valet ran off. Miranda's out.

"Charlie finished his story and I took his hat off so he could faint. I phoned for an ambulance."

The man shifted in his chair.

"That was last week," he said. "I've still got the shakes."

"That's it?" I asked.

"About it," he said. "They tell me Charlie is getting weaker. Still in the hospital. Sits there on his bed with his gray hat sagging over his ears mumbling to himself. Can't talk, even with his hat on."

He mopped some perspiration off his face.

"That's not the worst part," he said, sobbing. "They tell me that Miranda is . . ."

He gulped.

"Is going steady with the suit. Telling all her friends the damn thing has more sex appeal than Charlie ever had."

"No," I said.

"Yes," he said. "She's in there now. Came in a little while ago."

He sank back in silent meditation.

I got up and stretched. We exchanged a glance and he fainted dead away.

I paid no attention. I went in and got Miranda and we left.

I had the weight that night

I mean I had the blues and no one hides the blues away

You got to wash them out

Or you end up riding a slow drag to nowhere

You got to let them fly

I mean you got to

I play trumpet in this barrel house off Main Street

Never mind the name of it

It's like scumpteen other cellar drink dens

Where the downtown ofays bring their loot and jive talk

And listen to us try to blow out notes

As free and pure as we can never be

Like I told you, I was gully low that night

Brassing at the great White way

Lipping back a sass in jazz that Rone got off in words

And died for

Hitting at the jug and loaded Spiking gin and rage with shaking miseries I had no food in me and wanted none I broke myself to pieces in a hungry night

This white I'm getting off on showed at ten Collared him a table near the stand And sat there nursing at a glass of wine Just casing us

All the way into the late watch he was there He never budged or spoke a word But I could see that he was picking up On what was going down He got into my mouth, man He bothered me

At four I crawled down off the stand

And that was when this ofay stood and put his grabber on my arm

"May I speak to you?" he asked

The way I felt I took no shine

To pink hands wrinkling up my gabardine

"Broom off, stud," I let him know

"Please," he said, "I have to speak to you."

Call me blowtop, call me Uncle Tom Man, you're not far wrong Maybe my brain was nowhere But I sat down with Mister Pink and told him-lay his racket

"You've lost someone," he said.

It hit me like a belly chord

"What do you know about it, white man?"

I felt that hating pick up tempo in my guts again

"I don't know anything about it," he replied

"I only know you've lost someone

"You've told it to me with your horn a hundred times."

I felt evil crawling in my belly

"Let's get this straight," I said

"Don't hype me, man; don't give me stuff "

"Listen to me then," he said "Jazz isn't only music "It's a language too "A language born of protest

"Torn in bloody ragtime from the womb of anger and despair "A secret tongue with which the legions of abused "Cry out their misery and their troubled hates.

"This language has a million dialects and accents

"It may be a tone of bittersweetness whispered in a brass-lined throat

"Or rush of frenzy screaming out of reed mouths

"Or hammering at strings in vibrant piano hearts

"Or pulsing, savage, under taut-drawn hides "In dark-peaked stridencies it can reveal the aching core of sorrow

"Or cry out the new millennium

"Its voices are without number

"Its forms beyond statistic

"It is, in very fact, an endless tonal revolution

"The pleading furies of the damned

"Against the cruelty of their damnation

"I know this language, friend," he said.

"What about my-?" I began and cut off quick "Your-what, friend?" he inquired "Someone near to you; I know that much

"Not a woman though; your trumpet wasn't grieving for a woman loss "Someone in your family; your father maybe "Or your brother."

I gave him words that tiger-prowled behind my teeth "You're hanging over trouble, man "Don't break the thread "Give it to me straight."

So Mister Pink leaned in and laid it down "I have a sound machine," he said "Which can convert the forms of jazz "Into the sympathies which made them "If, into my machine, I play a sorrowing blues "From out the speaker comes the human sentiment "Which felt those blues

"And fashioned them into the secret tongue of jazz."

He dug the same old question stashed behind my eyes

"How do I know you've lost someone?" he asked

"I've heard so many blues and stomps and strutting jazzes

"Changed, in my machine, to sounds of anger, hopelessness and joy

"That I can understand the language now

"The story that you told was not a new one

"Did you think you were inviolate behind your tapestry of woven brass?"

"Don't hype me, man," I said

I let my fingers rigor mortis on his arm

He didn't ruffle up a hair

"If you don't believe me, come and see," he said

"Listen to my machine

"Play your trumpet into it

"You'll see that everything I've said is true."

I felt shivers like a walking bass inside my skin "Well, will you come?" he asked.

Rain was pressing drum rolls on the roof As Mister Pink turned tires onto Main Street

I sat dummied in his coupe My sacked-up trumpet on my lap Listening while he rolled off words Like Stacy runnings on a tinkle box "Consider your top artists in the genre "Armstrong, Bechet, Waller, Hines

"Goodman, Mezzrow, Spanier, dozens more both male and female "Jews and Negroes all and why?

"Why are the greatest jazz interpreters

"Those who live beneath the constant gravity of prejudice?

"I think because the scaldings of external bias

"Focus all their vehemence and suffering

"To a hot, explosive core

"And, from this nucleus of restriction

"Comes all manner of fissions, violent and slow

"Breaking loose in brief expression

"Of the tortures underneath

"Crying for deliverance in the unbreakable code of jazz."

He smiled. "Unbreakable till now," he said.

"Rip bop doesn't do it

"Jump and mop-mop only cloud the issue

"They're like jellied coatings over true response

"Only the authentic jazz can break the pinions of repression "Liberate the heart-deep mournings "Unbind the passions, give freedom to the longing essence "You understand?" he asked.

"I understand," I said, knowing why I came.

Inside the room, he flipped the light on, shut the door

Walked across the room and slid away a cloth that covered his machine

"Come here," he said

I suspicioned him of hyping me but good

His jazz machine was just a jungleful of scraggy tubes and wheels

And scumpteen wires boogity-boogity