Jazz Moon (19 page)

distance
&
color

T
he open-air taxi curled through the narrow, hilly streets of the Montmartre section of Paris, weaving around unexpected corners and through alleyways, as if maneuvering the corridors of a labyrinth. The brick streets made the ride bumpy. The place seemed deserted. A sleepy village. Only a few people out and about. A mother with two children in tow, a large basket hanging from her arm. A young man carrying a long loaf of bread that rested against his shoulder like a fishing pole. He whistled as he jaunted along.

They drove on. The sights of Montmartre blurred by. Houses with paint flaking off soiled stone walls. Front stoops strewn with liquor bottles and drunk, sprawled-out figures. A young woman with plump breasts and plumper hips on the stoop of one house, hair loose and falling about her, legs spread farther apart than a young lady's ought to be. The buxom woman took long drags off a cigarette. As the taxi neared her, she spread her legs wider, then blew a long seam of smoke at them as they passed her.

They told the driver they needed inexpensive accommodations and he dropped them at a three-story boardinghouse in rue Constance run by a woman somewhere between middle and old age. Madame Gautier wore painted-on eyebrows and too much rouge, her dark hair constrained into a tight, unyielding bun. She escorted them to a small room on the second floor. A washstand, wardrobe, bureau, a deep window seat. One double bed.

“We'll take it,” Baby Back said.

Madame Gautier raised one painted-on eyebrow. “Are
messieurs
sure they would not prefer
two
rooms?”

Ben noted the heavy French accent, the way the “r” rasped in the back of her throat.

“
Merci, madame,
” Ben said. “but we can only afford one. We'll manage fine here.”

The other eyebrow arched as she inspected them. “
Oui,
I am sure you will.”

Wordlessly they unpacked. Wordlessly they crisscrossed the little room, delivering items from their trunks to the wardrobe and bureau, ambling out of each other's way to avoid collision, to stave off contact. Ben retrieved the grandma quilt and tucked it onto the bed. He had thought The Oasis would receive a seamless transplant to Paris but, more and more, it seemed to have been tossed overboard during the passage to France.

The need to know brutalized him. He closed his eyes and gripped the bed to steady himself. But behind his closed eyes, he conjured the sick image of Baby Back and Clifford carousing with each other. “No,” he whispered, clasping the headboard as he wrestled suspicions built on evidence that was circumstantial at best: two men's brief absence, a directionless band, a love bite. “No,” he said again with a finality designed to will the suspicions away.

“You say something?” Baby Back asked.

Ben regrouped, walked over to his lover, opened his arms, and waited.

“Yes?” Baby Back said, terse and irritated.

Ben had wanted a hug, a kiss, sex. Anything. Something. But now he dropped his arms as Baby Back glowered at him.

“We're here,” Ben said. “This is our chance to be together. . . .”

He wanted him to finish it, but Baby Back gave him a soulless smile and walked back to the trunks. He lifted out the three framed photographs of Uncle Roland, balancing them like fragile porcelain figures, and placed them on top of the bureau. He preened them into the exact formation they had occupied in his Harlem room, then stepped back and acknowledged them as if paying homage to a saint.

“I'm here, Uncle Roland. I made it.”

Roland's phantom crowded out of the picture frames and into the room, squeezing Ben out.

 

“This is it? No way this is it.”

Baby Back paced the room, hurling disgusted looks everywhere. “There must be some mistake. This
can't
be the club.”

LeRoi Jasper tapped his walking stick on the parquet floor as Baby Back scowled around the room. “Mr. Johnston, there is no mistake. This
is
Chez LeRoi.”

In his velvet hat and flashy double-breasted suit with broad lapels, Mr. Jasper was as dapper now as the night they met him in Harlem, but his elegance hardly prevented Baby Back from whirling on him.

“There's only twelve tables in the whole damn club! This place would fit in my room back in Harlem.”

Ben looked around. The place
was
small. Bar on the right, kitchen on the left, and a cramped space with twelve tables in between. At the rear, a spiral staircase cascaded straight to the floor of a tiny stage.

“There's no shortage of musicians in Paris,” LeRoi Jasper said, “so if the size of this club is a problem for you, you are more than welcome to go back to the States.”

“The size of the club
is
a problem for me, so maybe I will board the next ship back.”

“Mr. Jasper, excuse us a minute,” Ben interjected. He gripped Baby Back's arm and pulled him aside bodily. “Calm down. This place may be small, but it's nice. Hell, it's
real
nice.”

He didn't lie. The bar was mahogany. White linen dressed each table. Crystal and shining china topped them off. Every now and then two colored kitchen helpers appeared, performing odd jobs beneath chandeliers made of prismatic sparks of glass.

But the gorgeousness of the little club didn't move Baby Back. He kept on scowling like a sulky child offended at not receiving the exact gift he wanted.

LeRoi Jasper tapped his walking stick as Ben and Baby Back conferred.

“You want to blow this?” Ben said. “Your big chance?”

“Real big. Twelve tables.”

“Stop it! Stop being stupid. Giving up this gig would be the worst mistake of your fucking life.”

His forcefulness caught Baby Back's attention. He seemed flummoxed that his normally subservient lover had confronted him. He didn't say a word. Ben used his speechlessness as an opening to press him.

“You been driving me crazy talking about Paris ever since the night we first met. And now that you're here, you're gonna throw it all away? After all the hard work. Everything you've been through. Come on, Baby. Remember what you said on the ship: Chez LeRoi is just the beginning; ain't nothing gonna stop you. And now you're gonna stop
yourself?
”

Baby Back slumped, fidgeted with his cuffs.

Ben took a risk, dove in for the kill. “What would your uncle say if you gave up?”

It worked.

Baby Back's chest lifted. He reappraised Chez LeRoi, and then, as if it was his own idea, said, “You know what? I'd be crazy to pass up this chance. This place will do. For now.”

Triumph. Ben still had clout. Relief flew him upward on new wings. Until Baby Back said, “Clifford's connections will get me into bigger clubs,” and clipped his wings midflight.

“All right, Mr. Jasper,” Baby Back said. “You got yourself a trumpet player.” He strolled the club once more, this time like he owned it. “Guess there's worse things I could do than headline my own club show in Paris. I'd like to see the marquee: My name's on it, right?”

LeRoi Jasper's mouth opened, then shut, then opened again and hung there. “Mr. Johnston, I believe there's been yet another misunderstanding. You're
not
headlining. I never ever said a thing about you headlining. However, you
will
be leading the house band.”

Ben put a hand out to restrain him, but Baby Back slapped it away.

“You're telling me I came all the way here just to be a member of a band?”

“I hired you—
brought you here
—to be part of—
to lead
—the band backing my star attraction.”

“And who the hell is your star attraction? Who was I
brought here
to back up?”

Before Jasper could answer, a voice chimed out from above them.

“
Me
. You was brought here to back
me
up, sugar.”

All eyes catapulted to the top of the spiral staircase. A pair of pink high heels containing two brown feet materialized on the top step. Someone began a slow descent, clicking down the steps, regal-like.
Click. Click. Click
. A full-figured colored woman rounded the curves of the staircase and swerved into view wearing a sleeveless pink dress and pink cloche hat pulled down to her eyebrows.
Click. Click. Click
. She reached the stage and took in the three men with a colossal smile.

“Which one of you fools thought you was headlining?” She looked first at Baby Back, then Ben.

Neither answered.

“Has colored people back home gone deaf and dumb? Or is y'all just tired from the trip? You fools just got off the boat, I can see that.”

Her Southern, down-home accent evoked cotton fields and sugar cane and collard greens; banjos and spirituals and stifling nights on the front porch praying for a hint of breeze.

She laughed. “Y'all still ain't answered me. Which one of y'all thought you was headlining? Mr. Jasper, can
you
answer since these fools done got laryngitis?”

“I don't appreciate being called no fool,” Baby Back said. “'Specially by someone ain't even introduced herself yet.”

“Gloria Ida-Mae Eloise Henrietta Littleton Fairchild. Call me Glo. I sing. Now,
fool,
is you the one thought you was headlining? If so, you was sadly mistaken. Chez LeRoi's
my
place.” LeRoi Jasper cleared his throat. “Well,” Glo said, “it's Mr. Jasper's, but I'm the star of this show.” She stepped off the stage, advanced on Baby Back, got within a foot of him. “Hope you ain't got a problem with that.”

Baby Back advanced, closing the gap to six inches. “Actually, I got a big problem with that. See, I didn't cross a damn ocean to play backup.”

Glo narrowed the gap to three inches. Her colossal smile glittered. “Then take your nappy ass back across the damn ocean.”

“Take yours. Or is it too wide to fit on the damn ocean liner?”

“Son of a bitch! I'ma beat you to within a inch of your sorry-ass life!”

She meant it. She scratched and swiped and clawed at Baby Back, who scratched and swiped and clawed right back, with Ben trying to drag him away and LeRoi Jasper planting himself in the middle of the fray.

“Stop it! Right now or I'll fire you both,” he said. “Glo, I'll get that redheaded woman from the Grand Duc club in here to replace you in a heartbeat.”

Her fist stopped mid-swipe. Ben swiveled Baby Back into a chair while the kitchen helpers poked their heads out from the kitchen and giggled.

“That's better,” Jasper said. “There's no need to be uncivilized. This isn't some juke joint. Mr. Johnston, you go on tonight. The rest of the band will be here shortly for rehearsal. Gentlemen. Glo.”

He swept out of the club. Through the big front window, Ben saw him climb into a glossy-black two-seat convertible roadster with white-rimmed tires and gold spokes radiating out from the hubcaps. A woman sat in the passenger seat. A woman impeccably dressed, beautiful, and white. Ben froze. LeRoi Jasper kissed her full on the mouth, then he gunned the engine and careened down the street.

Ben remained at the window, paralyzed and gawking.

“All right, Peeping Tom,” Glo said. “You gonna get struck blind, you keep eyeballing them like that. I didn't catch your name, sugar.”

“Ben. Nice to meet you, ma'am.”

“
Ma'am?
Child, you better call me Glo or we gonna be fighting. I'm already fighting with that one.” She tossed her head at Baby Back, now inspecting the stage.

“Sure don't want that,” Ben said. “Good to know you, Glo.”

She stepped back, sized him up. One eyebrow soared, just like Madame Gautier's. “So. What
is
y'all? Friends? Roommates?”

Ben swallowed. “Cousins.”

“Mmm-hmm. Must be
kissing
cousins.”

With Baby Back working, Ben was on his own. He left Chez LeRoi, spied a street sign that said
RUE FONTAINE
.
Rue. That means street. Remember that.
He started north. Nervous. Scared. Head bowed a little. He wished he and Baby Back could explore their new world together.
New world. New home. I live in Paris. In a section called Montmartre. Montmartre is on the right bank of Paris. La rive droit means right bank
.
And rue means street.

Eleven a.m. and the sleepy village was waking up. No hordes scampering about like in Harlem at this time of day. But a housewife talked quietly with a man in a white apron in the doorway of a shop. The sign said
POISSONERIE
and the odor of fish frothed out from inside
. Poissonerie. Fish store? Yes. Poissonerie means fish store.
A bicyclist whooshed by.
Bicycle. La bicyclette.
A basket filled with those long loaves of French bread hung on the bike's handlebars.
Baguettes. We had them on the ship.
A man set up tables and chairs outside a café, each table adorned with a small vase containing a single flower.
Flower. La fleur?
He took his French-English dictionary from his pocket to confirm.
Oui. La fleur.

He kept north and landed on the Place Pigalle, a public square couched at the foot of a big hill. Street vendors hawked their wares. At outdoor cafés patrons sat in chairs that faced straight out toward the street rather than each other. Busy shopkeepers darted in and out of their stores as they set up their displays. An idle shopkeeper lazed outside a door with a sign that said TABAC, smoking a cigar while automobiles rattled by and buses rattled by and trucks with lumber rattled by and bicycle carts filled with flowers or food rattled by and people rattled by clothed in drab garments. Most buildings were rundown with crumbling pillars and plaster shedding off their exteriors. Above, women hung laundry on balcony railings or on lines strung from one balcony to the one across the way. The windows of many buildings were clotted with grime as thick as dough. Ben passed one window where it was so thick, someone had sketched a naughty picture of a nude woman with mammoth breasts and mischief in her dusty eyes. In the distance, smoke from factories blemished the sky with veils of soot. And the cars and the buses belched smoke from their tailpipes and the people walking up and down the brick streets smoked cigarettes and the kitchens of the cafés spouted out smoke and the bicycles whizzing by churned up dust and Ben wondered,
This is Paris? This rundown, ramshackle, grimy place?
Where was the glamorous, romantic city he'd read about? The Paris of the Uncle Roland fantasies and Baby Back's assurances?

 

He was hungry, but nervous about entering a café. He'd been treated with supreme courtesy aboard the
Bonaparte,
but what if that had been a floating fantasy different from the reality on land? He walked into a café that faced the Place Pigalle. It was empty except for two old ladies sipping coffee inside and a trio of men at a table outside. A waiter in a white shirt, black pants, and black bowtie approached him.

“
Bonjour, monsieur,
” the waiter said. He was young. A smile chirped on his face.

“
Bonjour,
” Ben said. “
Je voudrais
. . . eat . . . um . . .
si'l vous plaît
. . .
dejeuner
. . . please?” His tongue trampled all over itself, producing gibberish.

The waiter's chirping smile opened out into a laugh as he took Ben by the arm and led him to a table outdoors. “Welcome to Paris. This is your first time in France, I see.”

English. A relief.

A menu appeared followed by a glass of champagne that he hadn't even requested.

So. This was a Paris café. A
real
one. In the midst of dust and traffic and street noise, unlike the apparently idealized version on the
Bonaparte
. Ben worried that other aspects of Legendary Paris may also be idealized, romanticized, untrue. He sipped champagne, scanned the Place Pigalle. His eyes fell on the building with the red windmill on its roof. He'd seen it earlier. It was called Moulin Rouge. A theater or nightclub of some kind. Placards out front advertised risqué extravaganzas featuring a superabundance of sparsely clad women. Ben fantasized that Moulin Rouge produced similar fare with sparsely clad
men
.

“
Monsieur,
” the waiter said. “Those gentlemen ask that you join them.” He pointed to the trio of men. They were smiling and waving him over. The waiter transferred Ben's champagne to the trio's table before he could protest.

“
Bonjour,
” he said as he joined them. “
Moi, c'est
Ben.”

They besieged him with French, unaware at first that he spoke none. He couldn't keep up. It was as if his hours of practice, the interminable lists of vocabulary words, his drilling of verb tenses, meant nothing. But, as the men spoke, tiny epiphanies glinted as Ben recognized a word here, caught a phrase there.

“
Êtes-vous un Américain ou un Africain?
” they said, then repeated it five times and slowed it down considerably before he understood.

“The United States,” he said. “
Je suis de l'États-Unis
.”

“
Ah! Un Américain!
”

He had made himself understood. A small, priceless victory.

The next hour was spent with the trio feeding Ben fragments of French and all four smoking cigarettes and laughing and guzzling tankards of beer. They were manual laborers as evidenced by the ruddy sunburn overlaying their tawny skins, their giant hands with lines on the palms etched as deeply as trails. Their rolled-up shirtsleeves revealed muscular forearms. The hair there grew dense and thick.

“Ben,
êtes-vous marié?
”

Ben looked it up in his dictionary.
Are you married?

The most stolidly built of the trio had asked. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, spears of hair piercing out. His mustache was a line of fur spanning his upper lip and then snaking slightly down either side of his mouth.

“
Oui,
” Ben said. “
Non
.
Oui
. Well . . .”

Ben had never kissed a man with a mustache. Just for fun, he mused how the fur would feel as it scraped his lips and tongue.

 

Montmartre north of the Place Pigalle was hilly. The streets inclined and declined so steeply, that when Ben reached the top of a hill and looked down, he thought he'd get vertigo. Shabby homes, storefronts, boardinghouses, and cheap hotels nuzzled close together along the narrow streets. People went about their day, toting groceries, pushing wheelbarrows, sweeping the sidewalks in front of homes. Many smiled and said
bonjour
as Ben passed. Twice he saw Negro men, at a distance. Each time, the men waved and Ben waved back and it seemed the men might approach. But Ben would bow his head and swing onto another street. Most of the Negroes in Paris were musicians. He was embarrassed to admit he was merely the “cousin” of one.

He climbed a hill, turned onto rue Constance, and returned to the boardinghouse. He found Baby Back in bed. Nude, on his back, one arm behind his head. A sheet covered him from the waist down, a half-inch patch of pubic hair just visible, his dark skin in luminous opposition to the dove-white sheets. His eyes were closed, but Ben didn't know if he slept. He removed his shoes quietly, then his jacket and tie, and prepared to glide into the bed.

“Undress before you get in,” Baby Back said without opening his eyes.

Ben obeyed and then fastened himself to him.

“Well,” Baby Back said.

“Well.”

“Paris.”

“Paris.”

At only four words and six syllables, it was among their few conversations in days. Ben now moved to parlay those syllables into a lessening of the distance between them. A distance that sometimes flooded them all at once, other times trickled in like an insidious leak until they found themselves floundering in a foot of standing water.

“We've been mean to each other, Baby Back.”

“I know.”

The water receded a little. Ben pressed on.

“I ain't asking you for no apology. But I've given you mine. Over and over. I can keep saying I'm sorry, and I can keep meaning it, but if you ain't gonna forgive me . . .”

Baby Back rolled on top of him, smoothly, as if executing a willowy dance move. His dick unfurled against him. A dollop of moisture splashed onto Ben's stomach before bleeding down his side.

“Mr. Poet, you've fucked up a lot. But I really love you and I do forgive you.”

Now Ben really resented this thing called
distance
. Because closing it required giving in, conceding to the arrogance of the stronger lover. The stronger lover never conceded. That was the obligation of the weaker, the one desperate and scrambling like a goose to rebuild the ravaged nest.

Baby Back began grinding on him. A slow friction. “We're in Paris. This is our chance to be together. . . .”

“In a place that wants us.”

Baby Back's mouth found Ben's neck, first teasing it with his tongue, then taking a fold of skin in his teeth and discharging a sustained bite. A delicious pain, but it made Ben think of Clifford Treadwell.