Jazz Moon (14 page)

“H
ow could you?”

They sat side by side on the grandma-quilted bed. Ben was rigid—back straight, both feet flat on the floor, hands on his thighs, eyes staring ahead like an Egyptian statue. But Baby Back contorted himself toward him, his entire posture imploring him.

Over the next hours Baby Back screamed at him for his infidelity, denounced Angeline for her gall in getting pregnant, and raged at the mutilation of their Paris plans. Ben didn't defend himself. He couldn't. Nothing he could say could justify his actions. And he found the sole means of reversing the result unthinkable. Baby Back suggested it, then quickly backed off when confronted with Ben's ferocious refusal.

The screaming ended. A beastly quiet settled on The Oasis. They went to bed, but didn't sleep much. The odd absence of street noise intensified the quiet between them. Both lay awake. Ben feared his lover, so much that he kept his breathing shallow in an attempt to hide. It surprised him when Baby Back spoke.

“You didn't need her.”

Ben took a chance, reached over, touched him. “Forgive me?”

A request so trite, he regretted opening his mouth.

Baby Back didn't withdraw, didn't reciprocate either. “Even if I can, even if I do: What then?”

 

He went to Angeline's. On the way in, he saw the nameplate on Mrs. Harrisburg's door had been changed to
Jackman
. The landlord had rented out the place already.

“I didn't do this on purpose,” Angeline said.

“I didn't either.”

He'd been trying to rationalize a reason for why, how. The only answer was that God was farther away than anyone realized and the prayers they'd screamed as Angeline miscarried years ago were only now being heard.

“You tell
him?
” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And you're here for one last good-bye before you ship off?”

“I ain't going. I'm staying. And I'm moving back in.”

They negotiated an agreement: They would not divorce; they would raise their child together. But they would not share a bed. And he forbade her to ever ask about his life outside the apartment.

 

He slogged up Seventh Avenue. Forty-eight hours since The Revelation. They were scheduled to leave for France in four days. He heard the street musicians jamming as he approached the 131st Street corner. It sounded richer, though, than the usual amateur fare. A trumpet discharged a spectacular barrage of notes that skidded into the night. This cat couldn't be any street corner amateur. Ben pushed to the front of the crowd. The virtuoso was none other than Baby Back Johnston, soon-to-be star of the Paris jazz scene. He was in performance mode: eyes closed, knees bent, hands cradling his horn. His eyes opened and landed on Ben standing right at the front, then closed again like a slow-descending curtain.

The improv session ended. Baby Back approached him. “Let's walk.”

They headed north on Seventh. The pleasant June night forged a happy medium between May's spring coolness and the pulverizing heat that July would soon bring. They zigzagged around a group of hopscotching girls, passed a homeless husband and wife begging from a line of people at a food cart stationed at the curb. Ben wanted to give them some coins, but Baby Back moved quickly, with intent. Ben didn't want to get left behind.

“Here's what we're gonna do,” Baby Back said. “We'll go to Paris like we planned. I'll be working. You'll get a job. We'll send money to Angeline every month to take care of the kid for as long as we have to. Problem solved.”

Ben supposed it was easy to strategize other people's lives if the result didn't disrupt your own. “Problem solved, huh? And you still get to go to Paris.”

“
We
get to go to Paris.”

Ben explained his arrangement with Angeline and offered a compromise. “Go to Paris without me, do the gig, and then come home. We'll pick up where we left off.”

“No. I'm going forward. Without you if I have to.”

Ben stopped in front of a brownstone with a stoop-full of people, all fanning themselves vigorously, although it wasn't anywhere near warm enough for that. “You would do that? Go away and stay away and leave me here?”

“
I
wasn't unfaithful.
I
didn't fuck that woman.
I
didn't get her pregnant.
I
didn't get us into this mess!”

His volume reared so high, the people on the stoop stopped fanning and tuned in. Though awful to admit, Baby Back's solution would be easiest: Go to Paris as planned and let Angeline and his child exist as an amount to be accommodated in his budget each month.

“You're right,” Ben said. “I fucked up. But I ain't leaving Angeline to bear this on her own. I will be a father to my child. I want to be a lover to you, too. Go to Paris. Do the gig. Hell, keep going back. Make it a regular thing. But make this the home you come back to when you're done.”

Tears spilled down each of the trumpeter's cheeks. “A home without you in it. That ain't no home.”

They went back and forth and around in circles, forcing their arguments, each campaigning to convince the other of his own superior reasoning. The poet and the trumpeter employed a creative arsenal of tactics: pressure, guilt, cajoling, hysteria, threats, sympathy, apology, insults, flattery. Sensing failure, they modified their words, refined their phrasing, finessed their inflections. But the essence of what each argued remained constant.

Neither could convince the other.

Ben decided to move back to Angeline's right away, that night. He packed his things as Baby Back beseeched him to reconsider.

“You're the one who won't budge,” Ben said. “Paris is more important to you than I am.”

“I
have
to go!”

Ben had been stuffing a book in a satchel, but now slung it against the wall, so hard it dented the plaster. “Why the hell is Paris so goddamn important? Why are you obsessed with it?”

Baby Back looked across the room at the photographs of his uncle. Tears launched out of his eyes. He felt his way to the bed like a blind man.

“B
aby Back. Baby. Please talk to me. Please tell me about him.”

 

Baby Back was fifteen when his pa's younger brother returned to Locke's Creek, South Carolina, after a sixteen-year absence. Uncle Roland had clowned on vaudeville stages, been a song-and-dance man in ritzy music halls and nightspots in Chicago, New York City, and even abroad. He had left Locke's Creek in overalls and returned in a tailored suit and spatted shoes—all the worse for wear after weeks of travel, first on a transatlantic ocean liner and then in sweltering Jim Crow railroad cars. He claimed he came back to be with his family, but Baby Back's pa sneered at Roland and his fashionable, crumpled clothes.

“What happened? You outta money? Ain't got no place else to go?”

“How about a welcome-home hug?” Roland said.

Baby Back's pa puffed on his pipe. “How 'bout you earn your keep? If you gone live here, you gone have to get your pretty hands pretty dirty.”

Next morning Uncle Roland went out to the fields with the rest of them. Baby Back, big for his age, gave him a shirt and pants, but didn't have a spare pair of shoes. Roland had to wear his own—a pair of wingtips, the most casual shoes he owned. The men laughed.

“Hey, Roland. That how they plow fields in New York?”

“Hell, this a farm, not no fancy party.”

Roland ignored them. Baby Back admired that he went out to the fields on his own terms. His uncle had class even while sweating in shabby clothes. His bearing distinguished him from everyone Baby Back knew.

Lunchtime the first day. Everyone ate outside, sitting or squatting in the fields. Roland secluded himself from the others. Sweat and dirt had already wrecked the wingtips. Baby Back joined him. Roland didn't acknowledge him, didn't speak. After five minutes, Baby Back said, “Tell me 'bout the places you been.”

A full minute passed without any response. Baby Back almost gave up and moved away. Then Roland said, “Chicago's cold. The wind slices you to ribbons. But it's a fun town. New York City is wild. They travel on trains underground. But, Baby, you haven't lived till you've seen Paris.”

“Where's that?” Baby Back asked, embarrassed that his knowledge of the world extended no farther than the next county.

“Across the ocean, in a country called France.”

“That where you was living? Before you came home?”

“Yes.”

“What you like about it?”

“The Champs Élysées. The music halls. The brasseries after hours. Baguettes in the morning. The Seine. Everything.”

Baby Back understood none of it. But he was hooked. “Tell me more.”

They became constant companions, working in the fields side by side and always together at lunch, although Roland didn't always speak.

Baby Back's bedroom—a tight space serving the dual purpose of sleeping quarters and storage room—was a tiny shed behind the family's shack. A second sleeping pallet was crammed in and Baby Back and his uncle became roommates. They slept each night with their backs to each other, Baby Back's spine taut with the effort of not touching his uncle—nearly impossible in that cooped-up space. At first they went to sleep right away, but before long Baby Back begged for stories about Paris and Roland obliged with tales that ran all night. When more at ease, Baby Back relaxed his back, allowed it to touch Roland's, lightly at first, but soon, without thinking, without realizing, without worrying about it, their backs cuddled densely against one another as they lay in that makeshift bedroom each night. Uncle Roland's back was strong, comfortable, comforting.

Baby Back was curious about his uncle. Roland talked about the shows he'd performed in, the places he'd been, but said nothing about
who
he'd been with. All the men Baby Back knew bragged about the women they'd had or aspired to have. He winced each time he was asked which girl he thought the prettiest, what he would do with her, to her, if given the chance. Dodging the questions would be suspect, so he told lies pumped high with creativity and armed with bravado. He didn't dare tell the truth: that he wanted nothing to do with girls; that the prettiest girl had nothing on a nice-looking boy; that he had messed with boys a few times and loved it.

His uncle never talked about women, but women in Locke's Creek tittered about the handsome Roland.

“He the marrying-est man in these here parts. Wish he'd marry
me
.”

“Good-looking man like that: You know he'd make some beautiful children.”

“He's so handsome, don't matter that he don't never say nothin'.”

They threw themselves at him endlessly. He didn't return their flirtations or care. Long before his return, Baby Back had heard the gossip that his uncle was
funny;
that Roland, too, had messed with boys when he was Baby Back's age; that sixteen years ago he up and joined a minstrel show that toured through Locke's Creek because there were men in the troupe who liked to lie with men.

One night, Baby Back's gnawing curiosity prompted him to ask, “Uncle Roland? You ever been in love?”

Roland said nothing for the longest. Baby Back thought he'd fallen asleep or into one of his quiet spells. Then, at last, “Yes, Baby. I've been in love. I'm still in love.”

“Somebody in Paris?”

“Yes. Loving. Tender. Beautiful. Young. Maybe too young. For
me,
at least. Loved me. Touched my body and it opened right up.” Another quiet spell then, “Dead. My love . . . Dead.”

“That why you left Paris?”

The only answer was the heaving of his uncle's back against his as Roland wept.

 

Uncle and nephew. Inseparable. Baby Back was the only person Roland talked to. Baby Back became protective of him. When folks pestered him about his quietness, Baby Back fended them off. If someone teased him about his wingtips or his washed-up career, Baby Back interceded. Anyone making a sly crack about men in minstrel shows risked a bashing from Baby Back.

Folks watched the pair's closeness and whispered.

One day Roland opened his trunk, removed two items, and gave both to his nephew. A book entitled
The World's Best Negro Poetry:
“Negroes need poems more than anyone else in this world. Never forget that, Baby.” And a trumpet from his vaudeville days: “Your ticket out. Learn to play this and you may get to Paris one day. Or at least away from
here
.”

“I can't play no trumpet, Uncle Roland. I ain't got no music in me.”

But he wrapped his hands around the polished brass, kissed his lips into the mouthpiece, pushed down on the valves, and fell irretrievably in love. Baby Back played the trumpet and felt his knees sink. Baby Back played the trumpet and never wanted to come up for air.

They did their lessons at night, though dizzy with exhaustion after a long day toiling in the sun. Roland taught with urgency, pushed him as if time was running out. Baby Back didn't understand, but he didn't mind. He loved having his uncle all to himself.

That monopoly ended the day they went to town for supplies.

The crackers liked their niggers humble, so they kept their heads down as they walked through Locke's Creek, Roland limping along in his butchered wingtips. They Uncle-Tommed as required and bought what they needed. On the return trip home, they ran into Edwin Gracely, son of the richest family in town.

Edwin Gracely was
funny
. The rumors were prolific. Locke's Creek fumed in a perpetual state of scandal.

“You know he goes to New Orleans, with that French Quarter and all that nigger voodoo.”

“He buys men in the Quarter.”

“And right here at home, too. Naomi Eldridge—down at the hotel—she swears it. Says he brings 'em in from outta town. Rents a room for a night or a weekend. Checks in in broad daylight. Checks out the same way. That's nerve.”

“That's
money
. The Gracelys is too goddamn powerful. Can't touch 'em.”

Gracely leaned against the rail of a short bridge that led across a shallow creek. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, exposing a downy meadow of hair on his slim body.

“You the nigger used to sing and dance in Paris?” he said.

“Yessuh,” Roland said. He and Baby Back kept going, heads bowed.

“Stop walkin'. A white man's talkin' to you.”

They did. Baby Back prayed this would end quickly; that Edwin Gracely would hurry up and humiliate them, have his fun, and let them get on home. But when he spoke again, Baby Back was shocked to hear not taunts, but tenderness, and something that sounded like pleading.

“My ol' man sent me to Paris one summer,” Gracely said, eyes set on Roland. “I had a good time. I wasn't lonely there. You know what I'm talkin' about. Don't you?”

Roland unbowed his head, looked Edwin Gracely square in the eye. He started walking, Baby Back at his side. When they reached the other side of the creek, Roland stopped, looked back.

Next day, Baby Back and Roland looked up from their work. Edwin Gracely stood on the crest of a small hill, watching.

Later, Roland bathed. It wasn't his usual night. He dusted his wingtips. He limped up the road.

Over the next weeks, the mood on the farm and in town darkened. Folks didn't whisper or tease anymore. They shot Roland and Baby Back hateful looks. Baby Back sensed something terrible was about to happen, was already happening.

One night after Roland bathed and left, Baby Back overheard his folks.

“The crackers ain't gone stand for it,” his pa said. “'Specially now that Mr. Edwin doin' that depraved shit with a nigger.”

“We don't know what that man doin' or who he doin' it with,” Ma said. “Could all be lies. And I ain't never believed them rumors 'bout your brother.”

“You mean you don't want to.”

“Tell me you believe that about Roland. Tell me you believe that about your son.”

Ma fought, but Pa made the final decision, as was his duty and his right.

“Roland gotta go,” he said.

“You gone kick your own brother out?”

“Woman, we ain't got no damn choice.”

Baby Back waited up for Roland.

“They gone send you away,” Baby Back said. “I don't want you to go. Least not without me.”

“You can't go with me.”

“Why? I'm doin' good with the trumpet. We could go to Paris. Work in the music halls.”

“Getting to Paris—getting anywhere—is impossible. We have no money.”

Uncle and nephew perspired in the muggy shed. Baby Back took charge. He had to. Enemies were closing in and Roland was too tired and too weak to fight them. But Baby Back was tough. He was resilient. So he switched places with Roland, became the adult, and schemed their way to a solution.

“Mr. Edwin. Get the money from him,” he commanded. “Go to him tomorrow.”

Roland was unfazed by the switch. He welcomed it. Uncle obeyed nephew. “I will. I don't need to go back to Paris. But I need to get you out of here. This is no place for a boy like you. For people like us.”

They didn't have a chance to execute their plan.

Next morning a lynch mob ambushed the shack. They pulled Roland from the house and dragged him to a field. Baby Back and his parents followed, screaming, crying, begging. A horde of whites in Sunday finery had gathered. Women in flowery bonnets. Men in starched shirts. Children in knickers and pinafores and carrying dolls. The horde laughed and cheered like revelers at a carnival. Only the souvenir booth was missing.

“Friends and neighbors, this nigger's a degenerate and he's 'bout to learn what good Christian white folks do to degenerate niggers,” the head cracker proclaimed, performing for his audience. An ebullient master of ceremonies. “This here Roland Johnston's been corruptin' young men all over town.”

His ma tried to stop him, but Baby Back marched right up to the man.

“Liar! Mr. Edwin the one been doing the corruptin'. If you gone kill my uncle, kill him, too.”

The day was all cloudless sky and August sun, but Baby Back saw nothing but black when the cracker flattened him with a single punch.

His pa crouched next to him and hissed, “Shut your goddamn mouth, boy. They'll kill you, too.”

The mob piled on Roland. He collapsed in on himself on the ground, tried to shelter his face and eyes. They hauled him to his feet, confined his arms behind his back, buffeted him with fists. He retaliated with kicks and spit and curses and they hammered him to the ground again and clubbed him, each assailant wielding his favorite weapon. Bat. Brick. Chain. Knife. Foot. Every weapon turned slick with blood. They battered his head with rifle butts. Baby Back heard the crunch of skull with each blow. They hacked his chest with boards spiked with protruding nails, slashed his face, his genitals. They beat him to something less than a pulp, something less than human while men held guns on the family and forced them to watch.