The Jazz Kid (14 page)

N
EW
Y
EAR
'
S
E
VE
came and we turned into 1924. By that time I was getting to be enough of a musician so Tommy didn't mind taking me around with him. The other musicians saw that I was his shadow and didn't think anything of it when I turned up with him. One afternoon when I was at his place he said he wanted to go out to the South Side to see Calvin Wilson about something, and I could come along for company if I wanted.

I wanted to go all right—I was game for anything to do with jazz. Besides I was curious. But the idea of going out to the Black Belt worried me. I don't know why it did, exactly. It wasn't likely anyone out there would jump on me. I guess it was just a different world—like going to a foreign country where you didn't know the ropes. But I sure wasn't going to say any of that to Tommy. “Where are we going to meet him?”

“He'll be on the Stroll this time of day.” So we took the streetcar on out there. As we rode along I noticed that there were fewer and fewer white people on the streetcar and more and more colored. By the time we got off, it was almost all colored. The streets were full of colored, too—a few whites mixed in, but mostly colored. I'd never been in the midst of colored people before, and it gave me a funny feeling. There was a strangeness to it: here were all these people dressed in normal clothes, and doing normal things—going into a barbershop to get a haircut, carrying a bag of groceries home, reading a newspaper at the trolley stop. Everything normal, except their skin was black. It felt strange, like looking up at the night sky and seeing orange stars and a purple moon.

But of course I didn't say anything to Tommy about it. He just walked off down the street like he was used to it, passed the rows of stores, taverns, wooden houses, some of them done up pretty nice, some of them shabby. And by and by we saw Calvin Wilson strolling along towards us. He was smoking a big cigar, wearing a derby hat and a black overcoat he let hang open so everyone could see his fancy plaid vest, which matched the lining of the overcoat. We came up to him. “Salutations of the day, Tommy and Little
Tommy.”
He reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat and hauled out a cigar. “Have a seegar, gentlemen?”

“Calvin,” Tommy said, “If I smoked one of them things I'd faint dead away.” I was curious to try one, but I knew those cigars cost a half a buck apiece, and I was afraid of wasting one.

Calvin held the cigar between his thumb and two fingers and looked at it as if he'd never seen it before. “Why Tommy, this here seegar's mild as mother's milk.”

“I bet,” Tommy said. “You could put it in a baby's mouth and he'd take to it like candy.”

Calvin put the cigar back in his mouth and puffed on it. Then he said, “What brings you gentlemen to the Stroll this fine day?”

“I figured it was time I furthered the kid's education. What's chances of getting him in to hear Oliver?”

Calvin Wilson closed his eyes, and tipped his head back, so that the cigar was pointing up at an angle. He puffed a few times, thinking. Then he untipped his head and took the cigar out of his mouth. “Might as well ask him.” He pointed at an angle down the street. “I seen him just now going into that chicken shack over there.”

I stared up at Calvin. “You mean I could meet King Oliver? The real King Oliver?”

Calvin smiled. “Couldn't be any realer, I expect. We'll stroll along and see.”

My heart was jumping. Would I have a story to tell Rory. Boy, would he envy me. But Calvin was in no rush to get anywhere. He just eased along, greeting everybody as they came along—nodding to this one, shaking hands with that one, stopping to chat with the other. And always polite as could be, asking about everyone's health, how were they feeling, was their ma doing okay, how was business, and such. I could see that he was kind of a star out there. Everybody knew who he was.

But slow as we went, in time we came abreast of the chicken shack just across the street. It wasn't anything but a rundown wooden building with a big window in the front. We crossed the street, and went on in. Tables covered with blue-checked oilcloth, a
counter
along the back with the stove and icebox behind it, bottles of catsup, blue sugarbowls, salt and pepper shakers on the tables. Being as it was still afternoon, there weren't more than four or five people in the place. And sitting at the far end, with his back to the wall, was a big man in a dark suit, eating. He had a big napkin tied around his neck, and a knife in one hand and fork in the other. Before him on the table was a chicken—a whole chicken—a yellow enameled coffee pot and a bowl—a serving bowl—of mashed potatoes.

Calvin Wilson took the cigar out of his mouth, and strolled along, as easy as ever. “King,” he said. “Salutations and joy of the day.”

King Oliver looked up from his chicken, and grunted. “How's it going, Calvin?”

I stood looking at him. His face was round, and there was something wrong with one of his eyes. I wondered if he was blind in it, or if it was just sort of funny. I looked at his lips. He'd been playing jazz for a long time, according to Tommy, and it didn't look like he was having any problems with them—no scars or red marks.

Calvin pointed the cigar back to us. “This here's Tommy Hurd. Cornet player. And that's Little Tommy. Cornet player also. Big fans of yours. When I said you was in here they wouldn't rest until they came to say hello. They own all your records, every last one of ‘em.” Which wasn't true: even Tommy didn't have them all.

Oliver looked at us for a minute. Then he wiped off his hands on the big napkin hanging down his front, and put out his right. Tommy shook it, and then so did I. It felt kind of funny being proud to shake hands with a colored person, but I was.

Tommy said, “I come into Lincoln Gardens pretty frequent to hear the band.”

Oliver looked at him. “Yeah, I thought I seen you somewheres before. You working?”

Tommy shrugged. “It comes and goes, King. Not too bad right now. Herbie Aronowitz has been using me. You know Herb?”

Oliver chuckled. “Yeah, I know Herb. He wanted me to go into one of them dives of his, but the money wasn't worth speaking of. He's a small-timer.” He sawed off
a
chunk of chicken breast.

Calvin looked at the ash on his cigar. “Wants to be big time,” he said. “I heard he was treading on peoples' toes.”

Tommy shrugged. “I don't see anything or hear anything of that. Take my money and go home.”

“Herb get himself treaded on one of these days,” Oliver said.

He steered the chunk of chicken into his mouth. I wanted to say something, so as not to be left out of the conversation, but I didn't know what to say. Finally I blurted out, “Mr. Oliver, those breaks on ‘Snake Rag'—did you write those out, or what?”

“Don't never write anything out. Them fellas are supposed to know what to do.”

I wanted to ask more but I decided I better not, so as not to look foolish. Then Calvin looked down at the cigar in his hand and said, “Little Tommy's mighty eager to come into the hall one night to hear the band, King.” He went on looking at the cigar.

Oliver dug his fork into the mashed potatoes, “Huummph,” he said. He took in a mouthful of potatoes.

Calvin put the cigar back in his mouth and puffed. “I didn't know how it would sit with you, King.”

Oliver put down his fork, reached for the coffee pot and filled his cup. “Them knee pants.” He put two big spoons of sugar into the coffee. “I don't know about them knee pants.”

“I could borrow long pants from my brother,” I said. I didn't know as I could, for John was six inches taller than me, but I reckoned I'd figure out something.

Oliver looked at Tommy. “He can play, this here kid?”

“He's gonna be good one of these days.”

Oliver picked up his fork and jabbed it back into the chicken.

“Okay, bring him in. But get him out of them knee pants.”

Then I noticed by the clock on the wall that it was already after five and I'd have to rush to make it home in time for supper. I wasn't supposed to be late, and there
were
always questions if I was. But I made it. And as I sat there putting catsup on my baked beans, I could only think of how strange it was to be sitting there, when I'd spent the afternoon in a world Ma and Pa and John didn't know anything about, and wouldn't believe if I told them.

F
INALLY THE END
of January came and report cards. As soon as I got mine I took a look at it, in hopes that Mr. Ward had taken mercy on me and passed me on something. But he didn't. I shoved the card back in the envelope, put it in my back pocket, and went over to Rory's, feeling rotten. We sat on his back porch, looking out at the clotheslines. “You pass
anything,
Paulie?”

“Nope. What about you?”

“I passed civics and history. Flunked the rest.”

“What're you going to do?”

“I'm fourteen. I can get working papers. I guess I'll quit school. Ma's friend Mabel says she can get me a job in the stockroom where she works. It's a good job—indoors, except when you got to make deliveries. What about you?

“I don't know,” I said. “I'm scared to go home. When they see this report card that'll be the end of my cornet. Knowing Pa, he won't ever let me touch it again. He's dead set against me being a musician anyway. He's looking for an excuse to stop me, so I can spend the rest of my life in the plumbing business.”

“What's so bad about that? I'd take it in a shot. I'd be glad to learn a trade.”

“So would I, if it wasn't for that damn music. Sometimes I wish it hadn't got to me the way it did. Sometimes I wish it'd go away and leave me alone.”

“Well, then why don't you forget about it for a while? Buckle down to your schoolwork, and come back to music when you get yourself straightened out.”

I shook my head, feeling miserable. “I don't know if I can, Rory. I tried it last year. I struggled with it every night for three months and I would have flunked anyway if Miss Hassler hadn't squeezed me through for Ma's sake. There's something wrong with
my
head, Rory. Hard as I try, I just can't seem to keep my mind on square roots and prepositions. I used to sit there in our room for two or three hours trying to stick stuff like that in my head, but my mind would keep wandering off, no matter what I tried.”

“When'll you be fourteen?”

“In a couple of months. But it doesn't matter, for if I drop out of school Pa'll want to make a plumber out of me.”

“Most fellas would love to get in on something like that,” he said, “Instead of shoveling guts in the stockyards or carrying a hod of bricks up and down a ladder all day long. There's more interest to it.”

“John's always telling me that. He's all set to go into business with Pa. He says it's a great opportunity. Business is real good and if it keeps up Pa'll have two or three crews working for him. John says once we get the business built up we'll put on suits every morning and sit around an office all day talking on the telephone instead of threading pipe in some cold cellar.” I let out a big sigh. “But I don't care. I got the music hooked into me and can't do anything about it.”

“I'm glad I ain't in your fix, Paulie. Ma can hardly wait till I start working and bring in some money. I figure having a job ain't going to be as easy as going to school, especially since I never did much of the work anyway. But it'll be nice to have a little change to jingle in my pocket. I'll have some fun for myself. First thing I'm gonna do after I get a job is find myself a little girlfriend. That's the ticket, Paulie—a nice girl to take out dancing on Saturday night and drink some beer with.”

That was the difference between me and Rory— between our families, I guess. We thought different. Pa was always planning something—planning how to build the business up, planning me and John's lives for us, planning for the time when he'd have three crews working for him and could put on a suit in the morning. Same for me. I was planning, too, but it had nothing to do with putting a suit on. Rory and his ma were different: they weren't planners. Pa'd say it might be easier in the short run, but it wouldn't do them any good in the long run. “Rory, sometimes I wished my folks were more like your ma.”

He
gave me a funny look. “Why?”

“You know—more easygoing. Take things as they come.”

“That's pretty funny,” Rory said. “I always wished she was more like
your
ma. Nice furniture, carpet on the floor, regular supper every night instead of going down to the delicatessen for fried-egg sandwiches and a bottle of pop. Ma's okay, but if I got myself a little girlfriend, how could I bring her home with Ma sitting around in her old nightie, drinking beer out of the bottle?”

I didn't feel much like laughing right then, but it tickled me, anyway, and I smiled. “I got an idea, Rory. You go on back to my place with this report card and see how you like it. They got a carpet on the floor and you'll get a good supper. But I wouldn't guess what you'll get along with it.”

There wasn't any point in stalling it; I might as well go home and take my medicine. I figured I better tell Ma first. Maybe she could break the news to Pa gently. I said good-bye to Rory and went home, dragging my feet along step by step. Ma was in the kitchen, the ironing board up, pressing Pa's shirts. I stood there looking at her for a minute. Then I took the report card out of my back pocket and held it out to her.

She gave me a steady look. “How bad is it, Paulie?”

“I flunked everything. I knew I would.”

She shook her head and went back to pushing the wrinkles out of Pa's shirt with the iron. “I figured it was going to be something like that.” She looked up at me again. “You know what it means, don't you?”