The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (12 page)

Baby sat down with a thud, exhausted. The gentlemen from Mississippi brayed their pleasure. My, it was good to see that black boy all sweatin’ and perspirin’ that way. They clapped furiously, called for drinks, gobbled . . .

“And bring some for the darkies!”

Baby swallowed some of his drink. He looked at the beaten rim of the big drum, then at the sticks. He took out his pocketknife and scraped the rough, splintery places smooth. He glanced at Libby and ventured the kind of smile he felt and knew she did. He finished his drink. The gentlemen from Mississippi hung around the piano, getting drunker, shouting in one another’s faces. Nervously Libby lighted a cigarette. A college boy tried to make conversation with her while his honey-haired girl assumed an attitude of genuine concern.

“Can you play ‘Hot Lips’?” He was the real American Boy.

“Don’t know it,” Libby lied. She wished she didn’t.

“Can you play ‘Sugar Blues’?” Right back.

“Don’t know it.”

One of the Mississippi gentlemen, who had been hanging back, crowded up to the piano, making his move. He drained his drink and pushed closer to the piano so as to brush Libby’s left hand with the front of his trousers. Libby moved her hand, sounding a chord that Baby caught. The gentleman, grinning lewdly, tried to follow her hand up the keyboard.

“That’s all right,” he snickered. “Play lots of bass, honey.”

The first gentleman from Mississippi, drink in hand, stumbled over from the bar. He told Libby to play that “Ol’ Man River” song some more. Libby hesitated. Then she lit into it, improvising all around it, and it was a pleasure for Baby, but the first gentleman from Mississippi was not happy. He said if that was the best she could do she had better try singing. Libby sang only one chorus. The gentlemen from Mississippi, though they applauded, were not gratified. There was an air of petulance among them. They remembered another time they heard the song, but it was not clear now what had made it different and better. They saw Baby all right, but they did not remember that he was the one who had sung before, the good one that toted their bars, lifted their bales, and landed drunk in their jails. Something was wrong, but they saw no remedy. Each gentleman suspected the fault was personal, what with him drinking so heavy and all.

Dodo, behind the bar, had not enjoyed the song the last time, hating the coercion the white men worked on Libby and Baby, and feared his advantage was slipping away. In a minute he would be hating them to pieces again.

“Can you play ‘Tiger Rag’?” The American Boy was back.

“No.” Libby made a face and then managed to turn it into a smile for him. He held his drink up for the world to see on the night before the big game.

The honey-haired girl wrenched her face into a winning smile and hit the jackpot. “Can you play ‘St Louis Blues’?”

“How you want it?” Libby said. She put out her cigarette. “Blues, rhumba . . . what kind a way?”

“Oh, play it low down. The way
you people
play it.” So Libby would understand, she executed a ponderous wink, narrowed her eyes, and made them glitter wantonly behind the lashes. “
You
know,” she said.

Libby knew. She played “St Louis,” losing herself in it with Baby. She left the college boy and the honey-haired girl behind. She forgot she knew. She gazed at Baby with her eyes dreamy, unseeing, blind with the blue drum, her head nodding in that wonderful, graceful way. Baby saw his old tuxedo in the mirror, its body shimmying on the chair, and he was pleased. The drums, beating figures, rocked with a steady roll. They were playing “Little Rock Getaway” now, the fine, young-woman music.

And Libby was pleased, watching Baby. And then, somehow, he vanished for her into the blue drum. The sticks still danced at an oblique angle on the snare, but there were no hands to them and Libby could not see Baby on the chair. She could only feel him somewhere in the blue glow. Abandoning herself, she lost herself in the piano. Now, still without seeing him, she could feel him with a clarity and warmth beyond vision. Miniature bell notes, mostly blue, blossomed ecstatically, perished
affettuoso
, weaving themselves down into the dark beauty of the lower keys, because it was closer to the drum, and multiplied. They came back to “St Louis” again.

“Stop.” The first gentleman from Mississippi touched Libby on the arm. “When I do that to you, that means ‘Stop,’” he said. Libby chorded easily. “Some of the boys like to hear that ‘Ol’ Man River’ some more.” He straightened up, turning to the other gentlemen, his smile assuring them it would not be long now.

“Kick off,” Baby sighed.

But Libby broke into “St Louis” again. Baby, with a little whoop, came clambering after, his sticks slicing into the drum rim, a staccato “Dixieland.”

The first gentleman frowned, touching Libby’s arm, “Remember what that means? Means ‘Ol’ Man River,’” he said calmly, as though correcting a slight error. “Toot sweet. Know what that means? That’s French. Means right now.” No harm done, however. Just that his friends here, a bunch of boys from down South, were dying to hear that song again—up to him to see that they got satisfaction—knew there would be no trouble about it.

“We’ll play it for you later on,” Libby said quickly. “We got some other requests besides yours. How many you got now, Baby?”

Baby held up eight fingers, very prompt.

“Coming up,” he said.

The first gentleman was undecided. “Well . . .” he drawled. Libby began a popular song. The first gentleman faced his friends. His eyes more or less met theirs and found no agreement. The boys looked kind of impatient, like a bunch of boys out for a little fun and not doing so well. He turned to Libby again.

“We just gotta have that ‘Ol’ Man River’ some more. Boys all got their hearts set on it,” he said. “Right away! Toot sweet! Toot—away!” There he’d gone and made a joke, and the boys all laughed and repeated it to each other. Libby played on, as though she had not heard. The first gentleman took hold of her arm. She gazed steadily up into his bleary eyes.

“Not now. Later.”

“No, you don’t. You gotta play it right now. For a bunch of boys from down South. They all got a hankerin’ to hear that ‘Ol’ Man River’ some more.”

“So you best play it,” another gentleman said, leaning down hard on the old upright piano. “On account of I’m gonna take and give ear. We kinda like how that old song sounds up North. Whatcha all need. The drummer will sing,” he said, and looked at Baby. Baby looked back, unsmiling.

Libby chorded lightly, waiting for the gentlemen from Mississippi to get tired. They could not see how it was with her and Baby—never.

“You ain’t gonna play?”

Baby’s eyes strained hard in their sockets.

“We ain’t comin’,” Libby said.

Baby’s eyes relaxed and he knew the worst part was over. They felt the same way about it. They had made up their minds. The rest was easy. Baby was even a little glad it had happened. A feeling was growing within him that he had wanted to do this for a long time—for years and years, in a hundred different places he had played.

Secretly majestic, Baby sat at his drums, the goal of countless uplifted eyes—beseeching him. For it seemed that hordes of white people were far below him, making their little commotions and noises, asking favors of him, like Lord, please bring the rain, or Lord, please take it away. Lord Baby. Waves of warm exhilaration washed into him, endearing him to himself. No, he smiled, I am sorry, no favors today. Yes, Lord, they all said, if that’s the way it is, so be it.

But somebody objected. The manager’s voice barked, far below, scarcely audible to Baby in his new eminence. “. . . honoring requests,” he heard, and “. . . trouble with the local,” and “. . . wanting to get a sweet-swing trio in this place a long time now.” And the manager, strangely small, an excited, pale pygmy, explaining to the gentlemen from Mississippi, also small, how it was, “That’s all I can do in the circumstances,” and them saying, “Well, I guess so; well, I guess so all right; don’t pay to pamper ’em, to give ’em an inch.”

Baby noticed Libby had got up from the piano and put on her coat, the long dress hanging out at the bottom, red.

“I won’t change,” she said, and handed Baby the canvas cover for the snare drum.

“Huh?” Baby said foggily. He set about taking his traps apart. Dodo, not wearing his white service coat, came over to help.

“You don’t have to,” Baby said.

Chief, freezing outside in his long, fancy maroon coat, opened the door for them. “You all through, Baby?”

“Yeah, Chief. You told that right.”

They walked down the street toward the car line. Baby, going first, plowed a path for Libby and Dodo in the snow. Window sills, parked cars, and trees were padded with it. The wind was dead and buried. Baby bore the big drum on his shoulder and felt the sticks pressing tight and upright in his vest pockets, two on each side. Libby had her purse and street clothes rolled up under her arm. Dodo carried the snare drum.

Softly as snow, Libby laughed, “That’s all I can do in the circumstances,” she said.

“I got your old circumstances,” Baby said.

Then they were silent, tramping in the snow.

At the corner they waited in a store entrance for a south-bound streetcar. Libby raised a foot now and then, shuddering with cold. Dead still, Dodo breathed down inside the collar of his overcoat, retarding his breath, frowning at the little smoke trickling out, as though it were the only thing left in the world to remind him he was alive. Baby talked of taking a cab and finally did go out into the street to hail one approaching. It slowed up, pulled over to the curb, hesitated . . . and lurched away, with Baby’s hand reaching for the door. Baby watched the cab speed down the snowy street, following it for a few steps, speechless. There was nothing to do. Without looking, he saw Libby and Dodo shivering in the store entrance. They had seen the cab come and go. They had not moved an inch. They waited unfooled, as before, for the Big Red.

“What’s wrong with you, Baby?” Libby called out. A tiny moment of silence, and she was laughing, gradually louder, mellow octaves of it, mounting, pluming . . .

Like her piano, it seemed to Baby—that fine, young-woman laughter.

“Why you laugh so much, woman?” he inquired plaintively from the street. Then he moved to join them, a few steps only, dallying at the curb to temper the abruptness of his retreat. Like her piano on “Little Rock”—that fine, young-woman laughter.

THAT SUMMER WHEN Father Eudex got back from saying Mass at the orphanage in the morning, he would park Monsignor’s car, which was long and black and new like a politician’s, and sit down in the cool of the porch to read his office. If Monsignor was not already standing in the door, he would immediately appear there, seeing that his car had safely returned, and inquire:

“Did you have any trouble with her?”

Father Eudex knew too well the question meant, Did you mistreat my car?

“No trouble, Monsignor.”

“Good,” Monsignor said, with imperfect faith in his curate, who was not a car owner. For a moment Monsignor stood framed in the screen door, fumbling his watch fob as for a full-length portrait, and then he was suddenly not there.

“Monsignor,” Father Eudex said, rising nervously, “I’ve got a chance to pick up a car.”

At the door Monsignor slid into his frame again. His face expressed what was for him intense interest.

“Yes? Go on.”

“I don’t want to have to use yours every morning.”

“It’s all right.”

“And there are other times.” Father Eudex decided not to be maudlin and mention sick calls, nor be entirely honest and admit he was tired of busses and bumming rides from parishioners. “And now I’ve got a chance to get one—cheap.”

Monsignor, smiling, came alert at
cheap
.

“New?”

“No, I wouldn’t say it’s new.”

Monsignor was openly suspicious now. “What kind?”

“It’s a Ford.”

“And not new?”

“Not new, Monsignor—but in good condition. It was owned by a retired farmer and had good care.”

Monsignor sniffed. He
knew
cars. “V-Eight, Father?”

“No,” Father Eudex confessed. “It’s a Model A.”

Monsignor chuckled as though this were indeed the damnedest thing he had ever heard.

“But in very good condition, Monsignor.”

“You said that.”

“Yes. And I could take it apart if anything went wrong. My uncle had one.”

“No doubt.” Monsignor uttered a laugh at Father Eudex’s rural origins. Then he delivered the final word, long delayed out of amusement. “It wouldn’t be prudent, Father. After all, this isn’t a country parish. You know the class of people we get here.”

Monsignor put on his Panama hat. Then, apparently mistaking the obstinacy in his curate’s face for plain ignorance, he shed a little more light. “People watch a priest, Father.
Damnant quod non intelligunt
. It would never do. You’ll have to watch your tendencies.”

Monsignor’s eyes tripped and fell hard on the morning paper lying on the swing where he had finished it.

“Another flattering piece about that crazy fellow . . . There’s a man who might have gone places if it weren’t for his mouth! A bishop doesn’t have to get mixed up in all that stuff!”

Monsignor, as Father Eudex knew, meant unions, strikes, race riots—all that stuff.

“A parishioner was saying to me only yesterday it’s getting so you can’t tell the Catholics from the Communists, with the priests as bad as any. Yes, and this fellow is the worst. He reminds me of that bishop a few years back—at least he called himself a bishop, a Protestant—that was advocating companionate marriages. It’s not that bad, maybe, but if you listened to some of them you’d think that Catholicity and capitalism were incompatible!”

“The Holy Father—”

“The Holy Father’s in Europe, Father. Mr Memmers lives in this parish. I’m his priest. What can I tell him?”

“Is it Mr Memmers of the First National, Monsignor?”

“It is, Father. And there’s damned little cheer I can give a man like Memmers. Catholics, priests, and laity alike—yes, and princes of the Church, all talking atheistic communism!”