The Jazz Kid (15 page)

I clenched my fists. “Ma, he can't make me quit playing. He can't, he can't. I won't let him.”

She went back to ironing. “He can and he will. Poor Paulie. I would have thought you'd try to pass so you could keep on with your music. I don't understand why you didn't. Here was the one thing you knew you had to do, and you didn't bother with it. You have nobody to blame but yourself.”

“I tried, Ma, I spent all last spring trying. It didn't do any good.”

“Of course it did some good. You didn't get A's, but at least you passed and
could
go on with your music.”

I shook my head. “I didn't pass. Miss Hassler said she squeezed me through because you were such a nice lady.”

She looked at me again. “Did she really say that?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “Oh my. We do have a problem here, don't we, Paulie.”

“Ma, you got to make him let me keep my cornet.”

“Why should I, Paulie, if you didn't even try? If I had seen you were doing your best, and had come close, I might be willing to say something to your Pa. But you hardly did a lick of work all term. At least not when I was around to see it.”

I stood there, my fists clenched, feeling wild. “Ma, I didn't try because I knew it wouldn't do any good. I knew no matter what I did there wasn't a chance I'd pass. You got to make him understand, I'm not cut out for school, and a good job and rising up in the world. That isn't me. That's John. I'm not the same as John. I'm not the same as a lot of people.”

She shook her head. “Paulie, you're young. You don't have any experience in the world. You have to trust that we know what's best for you.”

“Look at Rory Flynn,” I said. “He's going to quit school and get working papers. A lot of kids are.”

“Paulie, the Flynns aren't like us. That's not a good example.”

“You got to beg him, Ma. Don't you see, music is the only thing I ever cared about in my whole life? Don't you see, nothing else matters to me?”

“I see that clear enough, Paulie. That's where the trouble lies. You got to learn there are more important things in life. Your schooling, your family, your future.” She lifted the iron so it wouldn't burn Pa's shirt and looked at me. “If only you'd really tried. Oh, I know you'd sit there in front of your book, pretending to study. But you didn't really try.”

“I wasn't pretending, Ma. I
was
trying. I just couldn't make myself do it.”

She shook her head. “I can't accept that, Paulie. People can always try.”

I
turned around, ran into our room and slammed the door. Then I flopped down on my bed and lay there with my hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling. Being as it was January the window was closed and it was already pretty dark. The lights were on in the flats across the way, and I could see Mr. Winterhalter sitting in his undershirt at his kitchen table, reading his newspaper, while Mrs. Winterhalter stirred something on the stove. Even with the window closed I could hear the faint sounds of auto horns and the rumbling of traffic. Everybody out there was happy, doing things, going places, and I was stuck.

What was the point in Pa taking away my cornet? I wasn't going to pass, no matter what. He'd put me in the plumbing business, and soon enough I'd run off and go into the music business anyway. Why not let me do it now? But I knew he wouldn't.

I was still lying there like that when I heard him and John come into the apartment. They were laughing about something. I sat up on the bed to listen. Then I jumped up, opened up my cornet case, took out the mouthpiece that Tommy gave me, slipped it into my pocket, closed the case, and lay back down on the bed again. Two minutes later the door opened and Pa came in. “All right, son, give it to me.”

I looked at him, but I went on lying on the bed with my hands behind my head. “It's over there. If you want it, go get it yourself.”

For a long moment he went on staring at me. Then he said, “Paulie, pick it up and bring it to me.”

“No,” I said. “If you want it, get it yourself.”

“Paulie, I'm warning you.”

“I'm not going to get it.”

He moved so fast I hardly saw him coming. The next thing I knew he hauled me off the bed and stood me upright. He smacked me across the face with his palm about as hard as he could. Then I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed, blood running out of my nose, across my mouth and onto my shirt. I put my hands over my face and started to cry. I didn't want them to hear, and I tried to hold my mouth shut with my hands. But the sobs kept busting out anyway. After a while I lay down on the bed with my face in
the
pillow to cut down on the sound. I was smearing blood from my nose on the pillow, but I didn't care. I didn't care about them, or having a decent home, a job, or a future. I didn't belong there anymore.

A
FTER A WHILE
I quit crying, got off the bed and had a look at myself in the mirror. There was blood all around my mouth and my nose was swollen. I wondered if it was broke. Could you play the cornet with a broken nose? I took a look across the room. My cornet case was gone. I took out my handkerchief and cleaned myself up as best I could. Then I went back and laid on the bed in the dark.

They left me alone. John did his homework on the kitchen table, where we ate, and they kept their voices down, in case I was asleep. But I wasn't asleep; I was lying there in the dark, thinking. It didn't seem like I had any choice. I had to run away.

It scared me to think about it. Had I ever been away from Ma and Pa? I thought back. I'd never been away from the family, not for a single night. Once in a while Ma or Pa might go off to visit some relative, but never both at once, unless they took me and John, like a couple of times we went downstate to see our uncle. Actually, it was kind of nice when Ma was away for the night, for Pa would take me and John out to a greasy spoon for supper, and let us choose whatever we wanted—hot pastrami sandwich, hot dogs, chocolate cake, anything.

One way or another I'd always been with my family. It was mighty scary to think of living somewhere without them. I reached in my pocket and felt my mouthpiece, for the comfort of it. Could I take it? Would I get homesick and come crawling home with my tail between my legs? That would be terrible. If I was scared, I'd just be scared. I'd have to stick it out.

I got off the bed, went softly to our bureau, opened my drawer and hauled out the money I had hidden under my shirts. I took it over to the window where some light was coming in, and counted it. Forty-seven dollars. That was a lot of money. But it wouldn't last forever. I'd have to lay out something for a cornet. I probably could get one for fifteen bucks in a pawnshop if I took it without a case. That'd leave me just over thirty bucks. If I was careful I could stretch that out for two, maybe even three weeks.
Time
enough to get some kind of a job. You could always get a job as a newsboy, although it hardly paid enough to live on. But I wouldn't need much, a place to lay my head somewhere at night and my meals. I could eat pretty cheap—doughnut and coffee for breakfast, cheese sandwich and soda pop for lunch, a plate of beans or hash and a couple of pieces of bread for dinner—maybe a dollar a day for food.

Meanwhile, I'd get some playing jobs going. I'd be able to take jobs at night, now. That'd make a big difference. And without anything else to worry about I could get in four hours a day practice, easy. Go around with Tommy to where his band was playing and learn the new tunes. Sit in where I could. Why not? It was how Tommy got started in music.

The big question was whether I had the guts to do it. I wasn't sure I did. There was only one way to find out. I put the money back under my shirts and lay down on my bed to think about how scary it would be to run away. I can tell you, just thinking about it made me pretty nervous.

After a while the door opened a crack, and there was Ma in the ray of light coming in from the living room. She peered in at me for a minute to see if I was awake. When she saw I was, she opened the door all the way and came in. “I brought you something to eat, Paulie.” She put a glass of milk and a plate with a sandwich on it on the table.

“You don't have to feel sorry for me,” I said.

She could see me in the light from the door, but her back was to the light and I couldn't see her. “Poor Paulie,” she said.

“Don't call me that,” I said.

She didn't say anything. Then she said, “There's no use in taking that attitude, Paulie. You brought it on yourself.” She turned and walked to the door. Then she turned back. “Eat something. You'll feel better.”

I didn't say anything. I waited until she closed the door before I started gobbling down the sandwich and the milk. Then I put on my pajamas, went to bed, and fell asleep right away.

We
had two days off because it was the end of the term. I don't know when Pa took my cornet back to Hull House, but it must have been right away, for the first chance I got I took a look in Ma and Pa's room and didn't see it anywhere. He never said anything about it to me. I figured he told Mr. Sylvester the truth—I had to quit music until I got my grades up. I don't guess it was the first time Mr. Sylvester heard that.

Pa let me sit home for a day with an ice pack on my nose to get the swelling down, but the next day he took me off with him and John on a job. I had to earn my keep around there, he said, and if I wasn't going to do my schoolwork, I could start learning the business. It didn't matter to me. So far as I was concerned I was finished with school, finished with the plumbing business. It was only a matter of time. I didn't have much to say to Pa, either—just did what he told me and kept my mouth shut. Once he told me it was no use to sulk, I'd made my bed and had to lie in it. I didn't answer but went on with what I was doing.

I reckoned I'd better wait to run away until school started up again for the second term. That way I could take off in the morning, and they wouldn't miss me until suppertime. I had to figure a way to get some clothes out of the house. Clothes were mighty expensive, and I wouldn't have any money to spare for them. I just hoped I wouldn't grow too much over the next while. Especially my feet: shoes cost a fortune, Ma always said.

On Monday, when school started up again, I went over to Rory's. It was too cold to sit outside, so we sat in his kitchen looking at the calendar for July 1921, which had a picture of the Great Chicago Fire on it. “I made up my mind,” I said. “I'm going to run away.”

“Oh yeah?” Rory said. “You better wait till your nose unswells. People will think you got some disease.”

“It's going down. I don't want to wait too long because I'll lose my lip.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Well, you can always go back home.”

“
No. No I can't. Pa isn't going to let me play no matter what. Sooner or later he'd put me in the plumbing business working ten hours a day every day but Sunday. How would I ever practice? How would I keep my lip up, how would I learn new tunes? I couldn't play tea dances because I'd be down in some freezing-cold cellar threading pipe. I have to run off sooner or later. It might as well be now.”

“Maybe there's other things besides music, Paulie,” Rory said.

“No,” I said. “There isn't. Not for me, there isn't.”

“It might be better if you waited till you was older. Sixteen, seventeen,” Rory said. “They couldn't say much about it if you was seventeen.”

“No,” I said. “You have to practice every day to keep your lip. I can't take the chance.”

“What's your ma going to say?”

I didn't like thinking about it. She'd backed me up when Pa wanted me to quit the first time, and here I was, running away on her. “I can't help it,” I said. “If only she could see I wasn't cut out for school, or threading pipes, or a nice home. What do I care about having a nice home?”

Rory shook his head. “I wouldn't have minded,” he said. “Well, if you need a place to sleep, you can come here. I got a couple of extra blankets. You can sleep in the easy chair.”

“Yeah, thanks. But this is the first place they'll look. They're bound to come over and ask you if you saw me.”

“Where are you going? Tommy's?”

“I guess so. To start with anyway. Maybe his landlady has a room to rent.”

Monday turned over into Tuesday and Tuesday into Wednesday, and there I was, still living at home, still going to school. I couldn't go on like that. Either I had to give up on running away and quit music, or leave. But I was having trouble working up the guts to do it. It was scary, all right.

Wednesday night when Ma said she was going over to see Grampa on Thursday morning, I knew my chance had come. Well, that was it—no choice anymore. Either I
did
it this time or I could forget about it. So on Thursday morning, instead of going off to school, I rambled around the block and then slipped down the alley across the street from our building. There was a row of garbage cans here, and a heap of old boards and bricks nobody got around to cleaning up. I squatted down behind the garbage cans where I could see our front stoop. It was pretty uncomfortable, and after a while my legs began to cramp up. I shifted around to kneel, which eased the cramping, but then my knees began to get sore from the dirt and stones. Running away was more of a pain than I figured on. I crouched up again to give my knees a break. Then I saw Ma come down the stoop, carrying a bag of stuff for Grampa.