Jazz Moon (13 page)

“A
nd we'll need to get you new suits,” Mr. Kittredge said.

David-Nicholas kept his head bowed. “It's not necessary.”

“Nonsense. We can't send you off on a business trip without new suits. Can we, Benjamin?”

“Sure can't. Gotta have new suits.” He placed food in front of each man—grapefruit for Mr. Kittredge; bacon, eggs, and toast for David-Nicholas. “You're going away, Mr. David?” He couldn't help smiling, tried to hide it.

“He certainly is,” Kittredge said. “To attend to some of his family's business interests. We're going to Wanamaker's after lunch. I'm going to outfit him with a stunning wardrobe. All those magnates and company chiefs will know exactly who they're dealing with when they see you in your handsome clothes!” He trailed his finger along David-Nicholas's arm, stopping just before he reached the young man's hand. “You'll cut quite a figure. But you don't need new suits for that.”

Ben returned later to find Mr. Kittredge still ablaze about David-Nicholas's wardrobe. The young man listened, eyes downcast. He hadn't touched his breakfast.

“Geoffrey, I wish you wouldn't bother about the suits,” he said.

“Don't be absurd. It is imperative that you make a good impression.” Kittredge softened. “I'm so proud of you, Nicky.”

David-Nicholas grasped one of the older man's hands with both of his. The public display unnerved Ben. More so when David-Nicholas said, “Ben, you'll look after Geoffrey when I'm gone, won't you?”

 

The pianist was the only musician onstage when Ben arrived at Teddy's. He cut loose on a variation of a Scott Joplin rag, improvising embellishments, hands zigzagging over the keys as his body listed to the syncopated beat.

“Hey, swinger!”

“How you doing, Fanny? Where's Baby?”

She pointed. Baby Back sat in a corner of the quarter-full bar with a man in a suave double-breasted suit. A velvet hat lay in front of him on the table. His gold-tipped walking stick leaned against the table as he and Baby Back engaged in what looked like serious talk. Ben tensed as he observed the youngish man's lustrous brown skin with its reddish tint, his hair—partly straight, partly kinky—brushed back in crinkly waves.

Fanny slapped his arm. “It's nothing. You know Baby Back: always schmoozing.”

“This is Mr. Leroy Jasper,” Baby Back said when Ben walked over. “He owns a jazz club. In Paris.”

Baby Back lounged back in his chair, hands up and behind his head, poised, cocksure. As if the man had offered him a gig and the ink on the contract had already dried.

“I must correct you. It's Le
Roi,
” Mr. Jasper said. “Accent on the
second
syllable. And my club is called Chez LeRoi. Appropriate, no? It's the hottest club in Paris, if I do say so myself. And I do.”

LeRoi Jasper's speech bloomed with eloquent vowels and curt consonants. His dialect was a hybrid between Negro musicality and the formality of upper-class white speech. Ben thought if he listened with his eyes closed, he'd be unable to discern this man's race with certainty.

“Let's have drinks,” Jasper said. Without breaking eye contact with them, he lifted a smooth, diamond-ringed hand and snapped his fingers. “Waitress,” he said, without raising his volume.

LeRoi Jasper was genial and he demonstrated admirable patience with Baby Back's endless inquiries about Paris. His laughter, though low and conservative, trickled easily, and he was generous in offering them cigars and more drinks. But snobbishness offset his hospitality. He spoke
at
Fanny instead of
to
her. When Baby Back sought assurance that Negroes could make it in Paris, Jasper replied, “Yes. Provided they're not lazy.” And when Ben wondered if he'd seen Josephine Baker's show, Jasper looked at him like a child asking a silly question, then answered, “I don't go for that kind of thing.”

Baby Back sighed. “Paris. God almighty. I've wanted to go there since my uncle Roland told me about it when I was a kid.”

Ben was startled.
Uncle
Roland?

Baby Back elbowed him. “I'm trying to convince Mr. Jasper to hire me for his club.”

LeRoi Jasper sipped his drink like a bourgeois gentleman. “You're a talented musician, Mr. Johnston. I'll keep you in mind.”

In bed that night, Ben tried to temper Baby Back's hopes from speeding too high too soon.

“He said he'd
keep you in mind
. Don't sound like no firm offer to me.”

“Just gotta work on him.”

A minute of quiet.

“Hey, Baby Back? You're taking me with you, right? If you go to Paris?”

Baby Back got on top of him. “
When
I go. And hell yeah you're coming with me.” He kissed his cheeks, his neck, began working his way down.

Ben was determined to ask the critical question before they became lost in intimacy where important matters had a tendency to die.

“Baby? Why didn't you tell me Roland was your uncle?”

Baby Back stopped kissing him. “You know I don't talk about him.”

“But I've told you everything. About Angeline, Willful.”

“That was your choice. I choose not to talk about Roland.”

Baby Back flipped off of Ben. He lay on his side, facing the opposite direction.

Ben sat up. “You told a stranger you met tonight that Roland was family. But you wouldn't tell
me?
”

The basement reading room at the Harlem Library was at capacity. Ben had begun his first poem shyly but then found his momentum with his second.

He was having fun by the time he started his final piece. Baby Back sat in the front row, cheering him on with a big, proud smile.

He stopped mid verse when Angeline walked in.

The audience mumbled its concern at the poet-gone-mute while Baby Back's disbelieving eyes pursued Angeline as she took a seat at the back. Ben concluded the piece and sat beside the podium with the other writers. The last poet read what seemed like a dozen pieces while Baby Back looked behind at Angeline, as if itching to confront her. While the poet droned, Ben schemed: As soon as the reading ended, he would hustle his lover out of there and handle his wife later.

He hadn't counted on a meet-and-greet.

The audience converged on the writers, blocking him from Baby Back. But the attention outdid his worries: To his surprise, Mr. Benjamin Marcus Charles was the hit of the evening. The audience fawned on him, sidelining the other poets. After several minutes of compliments and handshaking, Angeline emerged out of the morass. She attached herself to him and kissed him full on the mouth. A kiss so ardent, it dispersed the crowd.

Baby Back appeared.

“Mrs. Charles. Been a while. What you doing here?”

“Supporting my husband.”

“
I'm
here. You can go.”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“Yes. I would.”

“Stop it,” Ben said. “We're in public.”

Angeline cozied up to him, took her time straightening the knot in his tie. “Benny, let's go home. We need to talk.”

Baby Back cringed. Ben said nothing.

“Benny,” Angeline said. “Don't you think I still deserve a little something?”

Evelyn Harrisburg was camped on the stoop when they arrived.

“Well, well,” she said. “Look who's here. Together. Must be a full moon out tonight.”

She sat bent over at the waist. The walking stick shook in one hand; in the other she held a silver picture frame with a photograph of a couple on their wedding day. It looked fifty years old. Mrs. Harrisburg coughed. The sound was liquidy like phlegm.

Once in the apartment, Ben stepped no farther than the doorway.

“Can I fix you something?” Angeline asked. “I got oxtails. And there's greens. And rice.”

He shook his head
no
.

She took his hand and pulled him. He thought she was conveying him to the bedroom and dragged his feet, but she led him to the sofa instead.

“I really did come tonight to support you,” she said. “I wasn't trying to cause no trouble.”

But she had done just that. Right now, Baby Back was somewhere seething.

“Benny, I've been thinking about that train ride north. That smoky Jim Crow car. Remember?”

He did, of course, but was reluctant to feed this bit of nostalgia.

“You came out of nowhere. One minute I was pregnant and disgraced, the next I had you. I couldn't believe my luck. You had no obligation at all. You could have done whatever you wanted. I thought: This is a good man; a man I can always depend on.”

Was she compiling this list of his former virtues to compare and contrast them against his transgressions? He wanted to hide.

“I know I ain't the man you married no more,” he said.

“I thought if I was a good wife—”

“You
are
a good wife.”

“—then you wouldn't have those desires. If I was a good wife, you wouldn't choose to be that way. But I failed. I ain't a good enough wife or a good enough woman and I can't have children, so you've chosen to . . .” Tears spurted down her cheeks. “Benny, I want a divorce.”

Ben couldn't explain why he craved a man's kiss, a man's bed instead of hers. So he said nothing. He was sorry for her, yes, and guilty, too, because the happiness of gaining his freedom prevailed over anything he felt for her.

She removed the locket from her neck, placed it in his hand. Instinctively, he wiped her tears and hugged her. Then he kissed her cheek, keeping his lips there a long time.
One last kiss
. Angeline veered her lips onto his, lips both foreign and familiar.

The kiss was lasting longer than it should. Her smell was subtle, lacy. Different from Baby Back's musky smell of sweat and muscle, which he preferred. But that preference didn't stop him from delighting in his wife's scent one last time.

“This won't change nothing,” he whispered.

“I know.”

Ben rubbed his face against hers. Its smoothness struck him. He had become accustomed to Baby Back's stubbly skin. Skin that bruised you if you weren't careful. Skin that bit.

 

Having nothing to lose liberates. Gives you the bluster to do what you need to; puts an added swing in your thrust. Ben left knowing that he had finally and really satisfied her. A perverse pride heartened him as he walked to Baby Back's. He had bathed before leaving, telling Angeline that his nervousness during the reading had caused him to sweat a lot. But the truth was that he couldn't return to Baby Back awash in her scent.

He readied himself for an ugly reception, rehearsed his arguments in his head as he walked up the stairs to The Oasis. The door swung open just as he arrived on the landing.

“Start packing!” Baby Back said.

“Come again?”

A smile stretched across Baby Back's face till there was almost no face left. “I heard from LeRoi Jasper. We're going to Paris. And we ain't coming back no time soon.”

M
r. Kittredge held up a sealed envelope like a trophy as Ben poured his Earl Grey tea. “A letter from David-Nicholas. Just delivered.”

“Wonderful. When will he be back?”

Kittredge tore at the envelope. “Hopefully this will shed some light on that very subject, my dear Benjamin. Grapefruit, please. Make it a double.”

Ben returned to find Mr. Kittredge staring at the empty seat that David-Nicholas would have occupied. His knuckles sharpened as he strangled the letter in his hand.

“Mr. Kittredge? Sir, what's wrong?”

Kittredge winced as if in pain. His Adam's apple tottered up and down like he was choking. Ben was about to run for the hotel physician when Kittredge stammered through pale lips that trembled.

“His family wants him away from me. He won't be back.”

“Where is he?”

“Los Angeles. He's married.”

Mr. Kittredge tilted back his head, opened his throat, and released a fearless, smoldering wail. Tears splurged. He went prostrate on the table, face sunk in his outstretched arms while the gentlemen and ladies in The Pavilion's dining hall tried their sophisticated best to suppress their horror, their interest. The letter lay on the table. Ben spied a passage:
Geoffrey, please know how very much I love you.

Ben thought a moment, then sat in David-Nicholas's empty chair. He touched the back of Mr. Kittredge's neck, let his hand lilt there. Smooth skin, just the littlest bit flinty, its warmth good against his hand. He had never touched Mr. Kittredge before. Not even a handshake. As the Englishman cried and cried, Ben's hand slid down his warm white neck until it rested on the small of his back.

 

He hadn't cared if the ladies and gentlemen or his boss objected: He had only three more weeks in New York.

“Mr. Jasper sent two tickets for the boat,” Baby had said. “First class. One for me, one for my
girlfriend
.”

“What's he gonna say when you show up with
me?
”

“Nothing. I'll tell him I broke up with the girlfriend and brought my
cousin
along.”

“Baby, we're jumping across the ocean to a country full of nothing but white people.”

“I keep telling you: They
love
Negroes over there. You'll see. Trust me.”

Baby Back. His lover. His muse. Admirer. Critic. His antagonist. His protector. Defender. His savior.

His.

He
did
trust him. Loved him, too. He often recalled their first night together, the fresh and bouncing seed that was planted as Baby Back sent jazz rocketing on the 131st Street corner. The seed had erupted into a fully grown tree, mostly flowery and fragrant, but just as often top-heavy and unwieldy. This was a love that Ben would not, could not live without, even with its juggernaut of complexity. He would go anywhere with Baby Back. Scared as he was, he couldn't imagine not. And he
was
scared. Because even after several years in New York, he still occasionally looked in the mirror or caught an inadvertent glance of himself in a shop window and saw the same dumb hick who'd migrated from the backward backwoods of Georgia. How would Paris—the cosmopolitan capital of the world—receive him? How would
he
receive Paris?

Preemptive action was best, so he went to the 135th Street Library and staggered back loaded down with every book he could find on Paris and France and French history. But his fright notched up at the thought of language. When he and Angeline first came to New York, other Negroes savaged them for their countrified English. Now he would have to start over with a new language. He bought a French/English dictionary, a book on French grammar, and began teaching himself the basics.
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq
.

Baby Back balked when Ben entreated him to learn as well.

“I speak the language of jazz,” he said as he adjusted his tie in the mirror, readying himself for Teddy's.

“That's killer. Till you gotta ask for directions.”

Baby Back admired himself in the mirror. “Hey. You tell Angeline we're leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“She wished me luck. Fixed me a last dinner of pork chops, greens, and black-eyed peas. Then we took a walk to Striver's Row. We used to do that when we first came up here. Go to Striver's Row and look at the fancy houses; dream of living there one day.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Baby Back thumbed through some sheet music. He didn't appreciate Ben's excursions down the highway of Angeline memories.

He had informed Mr. Kittredge, too. The past few days, his favorite guest had been despondent. Face unshaved. Clothes wrinkled. His pristinely sculpted hair in disarray. Instead of dry toast or grapefruit, he now gorged himself on multiple helpings of eggs and bacon. When Ben gave him the news, Mr. Kittredge looked him up and down, slow-like.

“It seems both of my lovely young men are deserting me.”

 

The band at Teddy's took a break between sets, but the banjo player remained onstage, playing and singing a down-home country blues.

Ben and Baby Back talked and laughed and drank. Fanny, with hardly any customers, stood by, joining them in their fun.

“He's been learning French,” Baby Back said. “He'll be my interpreter, 'cause I ain't gonna bother.”

“How do you say ‘I want another whiskey'?” Fanny asked.

“Um . . .
Je voudrais
. . . another whiskey . . .
s'il vous plaît
. That last part means
please
.”

They smoked reefer and listened to the banjo player.

Baby Back touched Ben's arm, nodded toward the entrance. Angeline. She hurried over, looking scared.

“What you need, Mrs. Charles?” Baby Back said. “Oh, wait. You ain't Mrs. Charles no more. Least not for much longer.”

Angeline banged her fists on the table. The impact upset Baby Back's teacup and sent it careening into his lap as she screamed, “Fuck you!”

The banjo player stopped singing. The few people in Teddy's looked over. Fanny slinked away. Baby Back stood, his pants and jacket stained with whiskey. He moved toward Angeline, but Ben inserted himself between them.

“Go outside,” he said to her. “I'll be out in a minute.”

When she was gone he rounded on Baby Back. “Don't you ever talk to her like that. Don't you ever disrespect her.” He barged out.

He took her in his arms right away, a vestige of their happily married days, their I'll-always-protect-you days.

“Mrs. Harrisburg died,” she said. “Thought you'd want to know. The landlord came over yesterday because she hadn't paid the rent. Knocked on her door. No answer, so he let himself in—you know how he is. And he found her. Looks like she died in her sleep.”

“Can't honestly say I'm sad to see her go.”

He was unsure of the appropriateness of his comment until Angeline said, “Yeah. I hated that bitch.”

They laughed. But tears filled her eyes, tears that couldn't possibly be for Evelyn Harrisburg.

“Angeline. What is it?”

She closed her eyes. Tears stole from beneath the lids. “Benny . . . I'm pregnant.”