The Jazz Kid (8 page)

Why did they have to be so against the only thing I ever really wanted? It made me feel hopeless. Wasn't there any way to convince them? “I only wanted to take lessons from him. Don't you want me to get better?”

“I don't want you playing that cheap jazz,” Ma said.

There just had to be something I could say to convince them. “Jazz is very big nowadays. If I got good enough I could make a lot of dough.”

That caught Pa's attention. “What kind of money you talking about?”

“The guys over at Hull House say this kid Benny Goodman makes a hundred dollars a week.”

“I don't believe it,” Pa said. “Who'd be crazy enough to pay a kid that kind of dough to play music?”

“That's what everybody over at Hull House says.” To be honest, it was hard for me to believe, too, but everybody said it.

Pa took the card out of his pocket and tapped it on his thumbnail. “How come you need lessons from this guy? You're already getting free lessons over at Hull House.”

Maybe I had a chance to convince Pa. “That's band music. You can't make any money from band music. You got to play for dances. That's where the big money is. That's what I got to learn.”

Pa tapped the card on his thumbnail again. “I don't know. I'm suspicious of it. It don't make any sense to me that you could make that kind of dough out of music.”

“Frank, I don't want any child of mine working in some low-class dive.”

“If I promised not to play in any dives? If I just played tea dances and excursion boats?”

“
I got to think about it, Paulie,” Pa said. He put the card back in his shirt pocket again. He was interested. Pa was always telling us how he had to drop out of school at twelve and go to work. He knew the value of a dollar. He wanted us to get our education, that was true; it was helpful in rising up in the world. But he said he'd never had much schooling and couldn't see where it had hurt him much. Pa wasn't as worried about low-class dives as Ma was; he'd come up rough.

But it wasn't anything I could count on. He might decide to let me take lessons from Tommy, but it was more likely he wouldn't. Ma was bound to be against it. She was pleased I'd stuck to my music, but there wasn't any hope that she'd let me go into jazz if she could help it.

Then Pa said he was tired and had to get up early. He took off his shirt, hung it over his chair, and began to wash up at the kitchen sink. Ma took down her sewing basket from the shelf and went out into the living room. I had just about one minute to slip that card out of Pa's shirt pocket, before he'd finish washing, and take the shirt into their bedroom with him. It was mighty scary to think of taking something out of Pa's pocket, even though I wasn't going to steal it, just look at it. I'd never done anything like it before.

But what else could I do? I might never get a chance like this again. I snatched the card out of Pa's shirt, took a look at it, and dropped it back into his pocket again. Then I went into our room and scribbled Tommy's address down on a piece of paper. For a minute I stood there looking down at that address. What would it be like to have parents who liked jazz, who would let me study with Tommy Hurd, and give me New Orleans Rhythm Kings records for my birthday? I figured I'd never know.

The next day I took my cornet and slipped out of the house while Ma was out shopping. It was a good long walk down to where Tommy Hurd lived. I went along as brisk as I could. I hoped people would notice me going along with the cornet. I hoped they were thinking, Look at that kid, a musician already at his age. He must be a genius. But maybe they weren't.

I found the address. It was a beat-up wooden rooming house on Twenty-fourth
Street,
three stories high, with a rickety porch across the front. I went up the steps to the porch. One of Tommy's cards was stuck to the doorjamb with a thumbtack. Penciled on it was
SECOND FLOOR
,
ROOM
4. I pushed the door open. Ahead of me was a flight of stairs. The carpet on them was worn right through to the wood in places. I went up. There wasn't much light up there, but there was enough to see the yellow stains on the wallpaper and the layer of dirt on the window down at the end of the hall. I found Tommy's door and stood in front of it, feeling nervous. Suppose he got sore at me for coming over there? Maybe he didn't really want some kid bothering him.

I knocked, kind of soft. Nothing happened. Maybe he wasn't at home. I gave him a little time and knocked again, this time louder. After a minute there came a scratchy voice. “Who's there?”

“It's me. Paulie Horvath.”

“Who?”

“Paulie Horvath. You gave Pa your card for me. The plumber.”

For a moment there wasn't any sound. Then he said, “Oh, yeah. Come on in.”

I pushed the door open and looked in. Tommy was in bed with the blanket up to his chin. His room was a worse mess than mine. His clothes were flopped over a chair, not even hung there, but just heaved there. A phonograph sat on the floor, with a lot of records scattered around it in little stacks. On the bureau was another stack of records, his beat-up wallet, a couple of crumpled dollar bills and a half-empty glass of whiskey with a cigarette butt floating in it. A cornet case stood on one end by the bureau, and next to it another cornet case, open, with a cornet lying across it, cup mute in the bell. There were no pictures on the wall, no calendar, nothing.

“What the hell time is it?”

“It must be around four,” I said. I wanted in the worst way to get a look at those records. They had to be jazz.

He grunted, like he wasn't used to the idea of it being four. Then he said, “You got any dough?”

“No,” I said. “I never have any dough.” I wondered if I could get him to play
some
of those records for me.

“Take a buck off the bureau and get me some coffee and a piece of custard pie. There's a greasy spoon around the corner on Twenty-third Street. Meanwhile I'll see if I can get some blood moving in my head.”

The way he talked to me gave me a good feeling. It was like we were the same age and were doing something together. I went around the corner to the greasy spoon, got the pie and coffee, and came back to his room. By now he'd got pants and a shirt on, and was sitting on the bed yawning and putting on his socks. His yellow hair stuck up all around like hay. “Put the stuff on the chair,” he said. There was room there now, for he'd taken his clothes off it.

“Do you always eat custard pie for breakfast?”

“Yeah. Sometimes peach pie. But I had a liking for custard pie since I was a kid. This here stuff ain't nothing like my sis used to make, but I can choke it down.”

“Did your sis always cook at your house?”

“My old lady died when I was nine. Sis had to take over for her, even though she wasn't but twelve herself.” He took a swallow of coffee, picked up the pie with both hands and bit off the point. “You always got to eat the end of a piece of pie first.”

“Why? I never heard of that.”

“Bad luck if you don't.” He took another swallow of coffee and another bite of pie. “That's more like it,” he said. “We didn't get off work till eight this morning and then Phil wanted to go eat some Chink food. I didn't get to bed till ten.”

“I shouldn't have woke you up so early.”

“Naw, it's okay. I got things to do anyway.” He took another bite of pie and washed it down with coffee. “What kind of a horn you got there? Lemme see it.”

I opened the case, and handed him the cornet. He looked at the engraving on the bell. “Hmmm,” he said. “Stratton. That baby's been around awhile. Where'd you get it?”

“From Hull House. I rent it.” It made me feel kind of proud to be talking about horns with him.

He
worked the valves. “Hand me my mouthpiece.”

I didn't dare take the mouthpiece out of his horn myself, for fear I'd break something, so I brought the whole horn over to him. He put his mouthpiece in my Stratton and blew a few notes. It amazed me how easy the notes spilled out, like he hardly put any effort into it at all. “Hmmm,” he said again. “You cleaned it out recent?”

It never occurred to me you ought to clean your horn. How come Mr. Sylvester never said anything about it? “Not for a while.”

“You got to clean out a horn regular.”

“I heard of different ways of cleaning your horn,” I said. “What's your way?”

“I never heard of any but one way, soap and warm water. You got a little brush for the crooks?”

“Maybe I can get one.” I didn't see how I could unless I stole it.

“Just make sure you wipe the water off good afterwards or it'll leave spots. Although in the case of this horn I don't know as it matters too much.” He shook his head. “You oughtta put new corks in the valves to cut down on the leaks. Of course it ain't your horn.” He finished off the pie and coffee and sat there licking his fingers to get the last taste of custard. Then he said, “How come you got interested in jazz?”

“From hearing you that time we were fixing the pipes down there in the cellar of that joint. I got so excited by it I could hardly sleep that night.”

“Naw,” he said, “I ain't that good. You ought to hear those New Orleans guys, like King Oliver out at Lincoln Gardens or Paul Mares with the Rhythm Kings. I ain't nothing compared to them.”

“The New Orleans Rhythm Kings? I got one of their records. Is that who the cornet player is?” It kind of gave me a thrill that he was called Paul, too.

“Yeah. Paul Mares. He's one of those New Orleans guys. They're the best. You can't beat ‘em. Which record you got?”

“‘Oriental' and ‘Farewell Blues.' I've been trying to copy it off the record.”

“Oh yeah?” he said. He handed me my horn. “Go ahead. Play it. Let's hear what you sound like.”

I
took the horn, feeling as nervous as could be. It was one thing to sit there in Hull House with a cup mute in and bang away. It was another to play it for a real musician. The trouble was that I couldn't really get the feeling into it that Mares got—or Tommy got. That bounce, that sparkly feeling. I could play the notes right, most of them anyway, but not the feeling. But I was determined to try. I blew a couple of scales to warm up, and then I started off. About two bars in I hit a clam. I flashed hot. That made me hit another clam, and I stopped, feeling embarrassed and sore at myself.

“Take it easy,” he said. “Don't take it so fast. Just play it nice and easy.”

It never occurred to me that I didn't have to play it as fast as the Rhythm Kings did. “You mean play it slower?”

“Take it where it's comfortable for you. You ain't Paul Mares yet.”

So I started off a little slower, and by the time I got through the first few bars I knew I could do it if I didn't lose my concentration. So I banged away at it, right on through to the end of the second chorus. I quit playing and looked at him, waggling the valves and feeling mighty nervous.

“I'll be damned,” he said softly. “I'll be go to hell.” He gave me a look. “How old did you say you was?”

Well, now I was glad as could be that Mr. Sylvester had put me through the mill the way he did. “Thirteen,” I said.

“Thirteen? Jesus.” He picked up his horn. “Gimme a B-flat.” I hit the note and he tuned to it. Then he said, “You're banging the beat right on the head too much. It ain't no march. You don't want to hit the beat right on the head. Listen.” He lifted up the cornet and played the first eight bars of ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.' “Now that's the way Sousa plays it—hits the beats right on the head. To play jazz you got to hit the notes off the beat. Like this.”

He started playing it again with the jazz in it. Now the music had that lightness to it, like it was dancing, leaping up and down. There was glory in it.

He stopped. “See what I mean? You got to get over hitting the beat right on the head.”

I
didn't really get it. I could
hear
the difference all right, it was plain as day to me. But I couldn't hear what he was doing that made the difference. “How do you know where the beat is if you don't play on it?”

“That's what you got a rhythm section for. Tap your foot, whatever. Listen,” He tapped a slow tempo with his foot, and played along. Once again there was the floating feeling to it. He stopped. “See, it's more in between the beats”

“Like syncopation?”

“That's what a lot of them writers say in the magazines, but it ain't. Them writers don't know nothing about it. Who the hell told them they could explain jazz to everybody when most of ‘em don't know the difference between a tuning fork and a basketball? It ain't just syncopation. You got to take the beats by surprise—get in there a little quicker than they expect or wait until it's just about too late and then jump in.”

I shook my head. “I don't see how you can figure all that out when the notes are flying by you so fast.”

He laughed. “Hell, kid, you can't
think
about it. You got to feel it. You got to let it happen of its own accord.”

“What if you can't feel it?”

“You will. You stick to it and one day it'll come to you and you won't ever have to think about it again.” He opened the spit valve and shook a little water out. “All right, come on, we'll try ‘Farewell Blues' once and then I got to go see my girl so she don't get salty with me. You take the lead. Just play it like you did before.” He stomped four beats and off we went. Well, I tell you, I never felt anything like that in my life. I played it the way I'd learned it, and he played along with me, circling around me, weaving through my line, up and down and around. I couldn't believe it was me; I couldn't believe it was me playing jazz.