The Jazz Palace (25 page)

At a table off to the corner Al Capone was seated. A birthday cake with pink frosting sparkled before him. Napoleon looked at him with sweat still streaming down his face. Was he supposed to beg for his life? He had no idea, but he would not beg. He would not grovel. He was a proud black man. Capone threw his hands up in the air at the sight of Napoleon. “Happy birthday, boss,” one of his men said. Napoleon was confused. Capone pulled back a chair and motioned for Napoleon to sit down. Slowly he came to understand that it was Al Capone's birthday, and he was the present.

Capone patted him on the back and asked what he wanted to drink. Napoleon shook his head. He wanted to be sober. He didn't want to forget what was happening to him on this night. And he wanted Maddy to believe him. “Ginger ale,” he said.

Capone looked at his men impatiently. “Ginger ale, the man said.” As the thugs scurried off like schoolboys in the face of a playground bully, Capone turned to his gift. “My boys,” he said, “they're always trying to make me happy.”

Napoleon nodded. A woman came by to offer him cigarettes, a flute of champagne. “Well, you deserve it, sir.”

Capone smiled as the ginger ale arrived. “Why didn't you let someone know you had a problem?”

Napoleon trembled. “What do you mean?”

“You know, that you wanted other gigs. Not just the Rooster.”

“I didn't know who to tell.”

“I like musicians.” Capone slapped Napoleon on the back, then reached his finger up to Napoleon's lips. He ran the finger over his own slashed cheek. “Hey look at us. We both got scars. Anyway it didn't have to be like this,” Capone said it as if they were lovers, and he was trying to make amends. “We could've worked something out. But it's over now. You can play wherever you want except on the
weekends. Friday and Saturday I want you at the Rooster.” Capone held out his hand, and Napoleon shook it. “Okay, so it's a deal.”

Napoleon nodded. He was going to cry. He wanted to collapse into this man's generous arms. Capone patted Napoleon on the back. “Just play a few for me, will you?” At the bandstand was a piano man and a drummer. They picked a few tunes that Capone loved. He swayed to “Moonbeam Melody.” And he tapped his fingers to “Mama's Pajamas,” a tune Napoleon wrote. Capone liked the beat and Napoleon kept it up until he thought his scar would split open.

Napoleon had no idea what time it was when Capone yawned. This was the cue to his men. They stood up, went to the doors. One helped him on with his coat. On his way out Capone patted Napoleon on the chest and stuffed some C-notes into his pockets. They put the bag over his head again and in the cool air of dawn drove him home.

In the late summer Hannah put up preserves. She had vats of sugary water boiling with peaches and cherries on the stove. She added vinegar to others filled with cucumbers and onions. Tomatoes for sauce. As she lined up her jars of pickled beets, sauerkraut, and green tomatoes, she wondered what was wrong with her eldest son.

He was altered. Different from whom he'd been. Hannah was the first to notice that something was wrong. She was a barometer for it. She'd always been this way. She sensed fevers before they came on. She could tell by the pallor of one of her boy's skin if a stomach virus was about to overtake him. Just before Ira came down with scarlet fever, Hannah had seen the lethargy in his bones. That day when Harold wandered off in the snow, the drifts were higher than he was, and he'd pleaded with his eyes not to go. Yet she had slipped the rope through their belt loops. She'd paused with each boy to make a sturdy knot. She relived that moment over in her mind.

Why couldn't she take it back? A mistake, an error of judgment. When the wind was strong across the prairie, for it was still a city filled with open spaces, or when the blizzards came down from the north across the lake, she had tied them so that they would stay together. But now she knew, as she had known since the day he had gone missing, that Harold should have been in the front, right behind Benny, and Ira should have been at the back.

It was logical. It made sense. He was the littlest boy, dangling out there alone. But she saw this only in retrospect. For the weeks until they found him Hannah was like a wild animal searching for her cub. She wandered the streets in just a shawl with a daguerreotype in hand, asking if anyone had seen this child. She flung herself onto snowdrifts and dug with her bare hands until they were frostbitten and raw.

Her vat of beets was boiling over. Juice bleeding onto the counter. It splattered against the walls. On her knees Hannah tried to scrub it out of the floor. The confusing smells of onions and strawberries, vinegar and beets, greeted Benny as he walked in the door with a flat parcel tucked under his arm.
Sweet and sour
, he said to himself, as he sniffed the air. He was searching for a phrase, a way to resolve his “Twilight Blue.” If a tune had an odor, it would smell like this. An apartment in the late afternoon when his mother was boiling preserves. A silence, if silence, and loneliness, can have a smell.

Pausing in front of the mirror, Benny stared at his reflection. He examined his gray eyes set wide apart, his prominent nose, and thick lips. A Jew, but in the summers he was so dark he passed for black. He couldn't understand why he and Napoleon couldn't form their own band. Why couldn't they play together? It seemed only right. Straightening his tie, he adjusted his fedora.

He opened his parcel. Inside was a vinyl record. From the kitchen came the sound of dishes, water splashing in the sink. Benny wanted to surprise her. He put the record on the Victor talking machine, or Victrola, as it was called, and listened as “Night Owl Blues” filled the living room. He snapped his fingers and swayed to the beat.

Beneath the scratchy needle he heard his own playing come back at him. It was the first time he'd ever listened to himself. His sound was smooth and he could swing. Benny smiled, tapping out his own beat. Then Napoleon came in with his screeches and honks and Benny tapped until the end of the tune. Then he flipped the record and put the needle on his “State Street Shuffle.” Benny stopped moving. This was his own music. He had written this tune, composed it himself as he walked along State Street. Once this had been a sound inside of his head. Now it came churning from inside a record machine.

He picked the needle up, drawing a deep breath. “Ma,” he called. He waited. When she didn't come, he called again. “Hey, Ma. Come listen to this.”

Still she didn't come. Snapping his fingers he went into the kitchen where he found his mother, scrubbing stains from the wall. He slipped up behind her and leaning over, gave her a kiss. Hannah jumped in the air. “Oh my God,” she said, pressing her hand over her heart. “You startled me.”

“You didn't know I was home?”

“I didn't hear you come in.” She was breathing heavily.

“I didn't mean to scare you.” She always used to hear him even before he'd reached the landing.

“Come here, I want you to listen to something.”

“Benny, please, I've got work to do…”

“Come on.” Despite her protests, Benny coaxed his mother into the living room. “Here,” he said, “just sit.” Looking at his mother, her hands thrust into her apron pockets, he longed to see her smile. It seemed like a long time since she'd smiled. He decided to go with “Night Owl Blues.” He moved the needle to just the right place—at the start where Napoleon puts his trumpet to his lips and all these barnyard barks and squawks and oinks come rushing out, and for a moment he thought she would grin. Instead she leaped back. “What is that noise?”

“Ma, it's a record. Just listen. Here…” He took the record off and turned it over. “Try this.” And he put the needle to “State Street Shuffle.” She cocked her head as the piano began, quiet as a whisper. A lullaby took over, filling the room, and for a moment Benny could almost remember when he was a boy and she sang them to sleep with songs from the old country. Ancient melodies in Yiddish and Polish that her own mother had sung to her.

Benny could hear these same songs in his opening bars as his mother's eyes, so dark, brown-gray like mud puddles to splash in, welled up. Hannah looked at him as if she was remembering something, but it was so far away that it would take years to come back to her. Then his solo was over and the tune went away, and along with it that look on her face, and Napoleon came in, blaring and bleeping,
and that quiet moment was lost to the drums and the horn and Benny was all over the keys.

Hannah paused, seeming to linger while Benny tried to read her face. Wiping her hands on her apron, she was as opaque as she was dark. “I've told you before. Don't bring that Negro music into this house,” she said in a husky voice.

Benny laughed. “Negro music?” he said. “Ma, that's me.”

Hannah glared at him with her beady eyes. “That's not you. And I don't want to hear it ever again. Now turn it off.”

Benny did as he was told, and without a word Hannah went back into the kitchen. Benny stood alone in the living room. The scratchy sound of the Victrola died down. He stood in his hat and tie, ready to go out but not going anywhere, a young man, feeling old. Around him the furniture was tattered. A layer of dust coated the oak piano lid. In front of the mirror Benny straightened his tie once more, then went into the kitchen where he found Hannah at the sink.

She was back to rubbing the beet juice off the wall, and Benny took a cloth to help, but she pushed him away. “You're all dressed up,” she said. “You'll get yourself dirty.”

“Ma,” he said, “I'm going out now.” He wished she'd say something. That he looked nice. Or ask where he was going. Instead she kept at her scrubbing.

He bent forward to give his mother a kiss. “Is it going to come out?”

“I don't know.” She looked at him with tired eyes. Then she went back to the stains that were red and stubborn as blood.

That night at the Jazz Palace Benny sat in for a set or two. Opal was waiting for him as he slipped out the door. She didn't resist as he led her into the alley. It was a blustery night as they walked down Ashland to the laundry above which he rented his room. In the entryway she kissed him, then laughed., and he kissed her back twice as hard. Laughing again, she wiped her mouth with her hand. “Are you trying to hurt me?” she said, egging him on. His grip was almost too tight as he led her up the stairs. This was what she brought out in him and in any man who came near her.

Opal enjoyed driving men wild with her yellow hair, her tinsel
laughter, and unpredictable ways. She could have two. Or four. Each one could fill another part of the void, plug up the emptiness inside of her. The more men, she reasoned, the better the chance of being satisfied by one. But this wasn't the case. The more she had the more she needed. And the hungrier she grew. Sex was a curiosity like some shoplifted item—a comb or lipstick—that she wanted to fondle and steal but in the end would matter very little. As Benny pressed his lips hard against hers, she kissed him back. As he fumbled with her skirt and blouse, she fumbled with his buckles and zipper. He clasped her breasts and she moaned in his arms. She was good at pretending. It was one of her many secrets. Still, when he was finished, she asked for more.

T
he green-felt pool table at Local 10 was full of rips and tears, but it was good enough to pass the time until they got a gig. Benny and Moe had become members of the all-white American Federation of Musicians, and they began hanging out at the union office, shooting pool. They were playing pockets. “Hey, Benny,” Moe said, “put a draw on that ball.” Moe lined up a shot for him. “Drop the cue down.” Benny hit it low and square, and the crack and crash of the ball as it went into the pocket was deeply satisfying.

Benny was also hanging out at Local 10 because he needed to stay away from his room above the laundry. Opal had begun showing up without warning, and it was making him nervous. At first he was enjoying himself, but then it didn't seem right. She'd arrive in the late afternoon or early morning when he was still asleep and he'd let her in. She'd show up after a set or before a gig and he didn't send her away. He knew he should, but he couldn't turn his back on her rosy nipples, and the longing he felt between her legs. She wanted something he couldn't give her and didn't even have, and that made him afraid to open his door.

“Hey, you guys,” the union secretary said, “I've got a job for you.” Benny hoped it was at a place like the Friar's Inn, even though the New Orleans Rhythm Kings had a longstanding gig there.
Maybe someone was sick. Maybe they had to fill in. Instead they were told to report to the Mirabeau for a vaudeville act. Still, it was work and they were happy to have it. When they arrived, the theater was packed, and the manager told them that they were to perform in blackface in a little revue entitled
Plantation Blues
, and they had to be on in fifteen minutes. They were rushed into a dressing room where they smeared on a concoction of burnt cork and water that made their skin feel tight and drawn and were rushed onto a stage set of cotton bushels with blackface singers sitting on them in overalls and calico, pitchforks in hand.

For the first five minutes they played the arrangements that were in front of them. Then Benny looked at Moe, his face coated black. “I can't do this,” Benny said.

“Neither can I,” Moe replied.

“Let's jazz it up,” Benny said. They improvised on the chords, taking off in whatever direction they pleased. The singers stared at them perplexed, then not knowing what else to do, clapped along. The audience joined in. Everyone loved it, except the manager who fired them at intermission. They washed the blackface from their skin and headed back to the union office. They were playing pool when the secretary told them that Freddie Giltman was looking for musicians who were willing to travel in an old jalopy around the Midwest. Benny shook his head. “I'm going to start a combo of my own.”

He put the word out, and before long he had assembled the Benny Lehrman Quartet, which consisted of himself and a drummer who could barely grow a mustache and a string bass player who lugged his battered bass everywhere he went and Moe on the slide trombone. Benny pulled together musicians who liked to improvise and solo, nothing fancy, just good, reliable players. It wasn't elaborate, but they got work in smoky basements, in the back rooms of speakeasies and in private dining rooms. Benny wanted to add a trumpet but couldn't find anyone he liked, and Napoleon's union wouldn't let him play with them. On weekends the quartet played the Cumberland Dance Hall and the Western Gardens, coming up with
their own renditions of “Ain't We Got Fun” and “Ma, He's Makin' Eyes at Me.” By the time they were winding down with “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland,” they had girls hanging from the bandstand.