Jazz Moon (33 page)

H
e refilled Norman's drink. “Sure am gonna miss you, Norm. Montmartre won't be the same.”

Norman was packing up and moving back to the States.

“Think you'll ever come back?” Ben said.

“Nah. Had a good run in France. No need to come back.”

It was early and dead at Café Valentin. One of two quiet periods that would bookend the June night. Glo and company hadn't done their thing yet.

“Ever think about home?” Norman said.

A picture of Katherine leapt into his head. An imagined picture.
Damn that Ruby Tate for not sending a photograph
. “All the time, Norm. All the time.”

“Think you'll ever go back?”

The picture lingered. Pigtail braids with ribbons. A pinafore (did colored girls wear pinafores?). A runny nose. Knees scraped during a playful fall. “Don't know.”

“That's probably 'cause you don't . . . well . . . you ain't got people no more. If you had people you loved, you'd think about going back. You'd have to, right?”

It bothered him, not having a photograph, trying to assemble a whole picture of his baby from imagined parts. And her name irritated him.
Katherine
was fine—it was actually beautiful, had to give Ruby credit for that—but Tate?

Katherine Tate. Kathy Tate. Kate Tate.

He loathed the staccato chilliness of each version.

Glo had warned him to forget her; trash the dreams; live for Paris, poetry, and Sebastien.

He dreamed the other night that he heard Katherine crying. The dream contained no visual, just the sound, and he woke up. Call. And response.

While Norman drank and babbled on about his return home, Ben tried a different name variation.

Now
, that
had the warmth of home, the youthful grace of a newborn poem.

Norman finished his drink, said his good-byes. Said he was sailing in a couple of days, probably wouldn't see Ben again before that. Probably wouldn't see Ben again ever.

The evening progressed as evenings at Café Valentin did. It got busy. Ben dashed about. Glo and company did their thing. Prostitutes. Dealers. After-midnight music. The place got slow, then slower, then closed. Ben said good-bye to Glo and went home.

Sebastien was still at work, wouldn't be home for a bit, but Ben didn't feel alone. Sebastien permeated the apartment. His paintings. His scent. The scent of his paints. All tangible. All things Ben could see, touch, smell, identify. They were real. They were immediate. Not imagined or fantasized or invented or wished for. He had them. They were his. Whenever he wanted them. He owned them.

Katherine. Katherine Charles
.

She existed, but was not much more than fantasy. She lived and breathed, but was more theory than reality. Katherine was a small piece of him. A small piece of his folks and Emma Jane and Li'l Jerry. Having her would be like having them. And having them would be wondrous. He missed them. Katherine was his only and final chance at having his family again. She was part of him, and separate. Like the moon was formed from and separate from earth, but still within earth's line of thought.

He had considered writing Ruby and asking for a photograph. Would he be disappointed if the cheeks and lips and eyes in the picture didn't match the perfection in the dream-impressions?

No. He wouldn't be.

Katherine may have been the moon, out there, separate, but Sebastien was his mirror-hemisphere, here, on earth. Ben knew his terrain, his euphoric cliffs and devastating valleys; had swum in his sweet, cold streams and been trapped in his ruthless deserts. Sebastien's terrain was Ben's now, too. He put his lips to it, kissed its ground, tasted the soil. It was home.

Katherine pulled him. But so did Sebastien. He loved her. He loved Sebastien just as endlessly. But this was where the difference lived between his daughter and his lover: His lover loved him back. Could he give up a lover who loved him back for a daughter who didn't?

No. He couldn't.

He would always have the moon, whether it was full or half or quarter-sliced. It would always be up there, in his line of thought. He would always love it.

“I
t is a very beautiful night. The sky so black. The stars. The night is like . . . like . . . diamonds scattered across a black velvet dress.”

“Oh. So poetic. I thought
I
was the poet here. You trying to take my job?”

“We can switch jobs, every now and then,
mon chaton
. Have you ever tried painting?”

“No. You wouldn't want me to. Not unless you want nothing but bad splotches on the canvas. That I can do. Have you ever tried writing poetry?”

“I think I just did.
Diamonds scattered across a black velvet dress
. A good start,
n'est pas?
”

“I hope it's just a start and not the end result. Diamonds scattered on a black dress?
Mon dieu
. . . It
is
a beautiful night, though.”

“Why do you like it here so much,
mon chaton?
This is your favorite place, I think.”

“
Oui
.
Il est
. I love it here. This view—doesn't it speak for itself? At heart I'll always be a kid from Dogwood, Georgia. To anybody in Dogwood, this would be the tip-top of the whole world. And guess who's here—little Ben Charles. No other Negro from Dogwood has ever been here or seen this. Likely they never will. But
I'm
sitting right here. And I'm . . . I'm not going anywhere.... What's your favorite place, Sebastien? I don't think you ever told me.”

“My old room. It was rundown and decrepit. But it was the first thing in my life that was mine, that I earned and paid for, that wasn't handed to me.”

“That makes sense. But I hope you like your new room a little better.”

“We should go somewhere. A vacation. You know what my first and only vacation was? The trip over here on the ocean liner. A whole week of nothing to do. I had never done that before. It didn't feel right.”

“Where would you like to go?”

“England. Italy. Maybe Germany.”

“I see. All of the countries that Baby Back visited during his tour.”

“Goddamn it, Sebastien. I don't believe you. Still jealous, after everything.”

“No. I am not jealous. I am realistic. You and that man—”

“There is no
me and that man
. There is only you and me. I can't believe . . . It looks like we still have a lot of work to do.”

“There will always be work to do,
mon chaton
. We are lovers and artists. The work never ends.”

“No, it doesn't. And it's never perfect.”

“And there is always something more that can be done.”

“Always something that can be improved.”

“Sebastien?”

“Yes?”

“I still want to go on a vacation. It doesn't have to be those countries. It can be anywhere. I just want to go somewhere. I'm so curious.”

“We will . . . I'm sorry. For being jealous. I know that Baby Back is . . . that you no longer love him. I know you love me. But sometimes. . . lately . . . it feels . . . when we are together, you are not . . . present. You are not
with
me. You and Baby Back share a bond. So I wondered . . .”

“Don't wonder. Don't.”

Quiet
.

“Where else would you like to visit,
mon chaton?
”

“Egypt, for the pyramids. Russia, to see what all this Bolshevik stuff is about. Japan and China, because they're just so far away. How about you?”

“You are going to kill me. Or accuse me of being a cliché Frenchman, like you did that first night at Café Valentin. I want to go to Harlem.”

“Ugh.”

“Because I love jazz and Negroes, yes, I admit it. And I want to see where you are from.”

“I'm from Dogwood, Georgia.”

“
D'accord
. Fine. Then I want to see it because you lived there. I want to see the place that fills and influences so much of your poetry. Ahhhh. You are not protesting now. Since my desire to see Harlem has to do with
you
.”

“Maybe we'll go one day. Maybe. I'd like you to see it. Yes. I've seen Paris. It's only fair that you should see Harlem. And I could . . . catch up with old acquaintances.”

“Do you keep in touch with anyone there?”

“No. Not really.”

“Not with Angeline?”

“No.”

“You are still angry at her.”

“No. Not anymore.”

Quiet
.

“Are you starting a new painting?”

“
Oui
. But not yet. I am finishing up that commission. It should be done in a day or two. Then I want to begin a new portrait of you.”

“I never . . . I never thanked you for the first one.”

“Ben, you do not have to thank me.”

“Yes, I do. It changed how I look at myself. How I see myself. Never thought I was much to look at till that portrait. Until you, I never thought I was much, period. So,
merci, mon cher
.”

He kisses Sebastien
.

“And you? New poems?”

“Always.”

“Oh. This new portrait of me. Nude?”

“Of course nude. Silly.”

Special thanks to my workshop colleagues and professors at City College of New York, where I did my Creative Writing MFA and where much of this book was workshopped. Feedback, tough love, and support from certain folks were especially helpful: Professor Salar Abdoh, Professor Linsey Abrams, Brian Brennan, Scott Cerreta, Dan Cicala, Jonathan Gabay, John Gregory, Regina Jamison, Lisa Ko, Sharae Allen Martin, Ben Nadler, Jennifer Sabin, Jordan Schauer, Emily Vient, Anna Voisard, and Justin P. Williams. Particular thanks to Professor Keith Gandal for teaching me about the “micro level” and for telling me what I didn't want to hear, which made me a better writer.

Thanks to my agent, Malaga Baldi, and also to my editor, John Scognamiglio, for believing in this book.

Thanks to Mama and Iris for always believing in me and to David Eye for his friendship and support.

A number of books were instrumental in researching and being able to write about the Harlem Renaissance and Jazz Age Paris:
When Harlem Was in Vogue,
by David Levering Lewis
; Paris Noir: African-Americans in the City of Light,
by Tyler Stovall;
Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s,
by Petrine Archer-Straw;
The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920–1930,
by Steven Watson;
A History of Homosexuality in Europe, Volume I,
by Florence Tamagne;
The Big Sea,
by Langston Hughes;
Harlem in Montmartre,
by William A. Shack;
The Sway of the Grand Saloon: A Social History of the North Atlantic,
by John Malcolm Brinnin;
Bricktop,
by Bricktop and James Haskins;
Josephine: The Josephine Baker Story,
by Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase;
Jazz Cleopatra: Josephine Baker in Her Time,
by Phyllis Rose;
Underneath a Harlem Moon: The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall,
by Iain Cameron Williams; and
The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader,
edited by David Levering Lewis.

 

Joe Okonkwo

 

 

 

The suggested questions and playlist are
included to enhance your group's reading
of Joe Okonkwo's
Jazz Moon
.