Jazz Moon (25 page)

C
hez LeRoi was wild that night. Virus-wild. The band rampaged like it was on the warpath, slinging out songs with a velocity and volume that felt like the club would blow up. Everybody—patrons, waiters, Norman—
everybody
—was drinking or drunk or high or striving to be. Snooty patrons, normally quick to censure poor etiquette in others, ate steaks with their fingers and wiped them on tablecloths. Neckties loosened. Men exiled dinner jackets to the backs of chairs. Women kicked off high heels and tossed them into a pile near the bar. A woman over here sat with her legs loosed wide apart, torso tilted forward as she smoked a cigar, while one over there placed a hand on one hip as she gobbled champagne right from the bottle.

The
Chocolate Jubilee
troupe was there. A young bud took to the stage to teach a rich gentleman the Charleston, although he persisted in appropriating her waist as if a lesson in close waltzing better suited him. One half of the male couple slipped outside with a man in Denny's set while Denny herself luxuriated in the lap of the actor whose arm normally lived around the saucy girl. Said saucy girl was triangulated in a corner between Madeline and Charlotte—two stalwart members of Denny's set. The threesome snorted cocaine from a sterling-silver cigarette case. Madeline obsessed over the girl's soft brown arms while Charlotte probed her breasts.

Ben, drunk as everybody else, tripped and dropped a tray of langoustine, spilling them on the floor. He delivered them anyway to a table of
Chocolate Jubilee
women—some of the hardened survivors who observed the mischief in Chez LeRoi with much shaking of heads and clucking of tongues as they smoked cigarettes and tossed back double shots of bourbon.

“Here you go, ladies,” Ben said, placing the langoustine on the table. He noticed a minute speck of dirt on one of them. “Let me know what else I can get y'all.”

They ignored him, like uppity house niggers turning up their noses at a field slave. In the States he was their equal; here he was the help. His presence gifted them with the coveted opportunity to pretend they were white. Ben smiled, thinking they ought to thank him. If Glo had been there, they would have laughed about it.

En route to the kitchen, he saw Baby Back sitting at the bar, Clifford Treadwell all but in his lap. Baby Back touched Clifford's face with a languid air, fingered his knee without heat, without heart. His hands, always greedy on Ben, acted stingy on his new lover. But Clifford acted like a man in love. His touch was possessive. He stood in the gap between Baby Back's outspread knees and massaged the trumpeter's neck, kneading it with strokes that were firm, slow, significant. Clifford Treadwell had staked his claim and now buttressed it with menacing looks that he hurled around the room like bolts, taunting anyone to challenge him. A bolt struck Ben. The two contemplated each other, two adversaries who had warred over a prize, one now the victor. Baby Back stared emptily. A heartless hand fingered Clifford's waist.

He was no longer Ben's. The confirmation sent him fleeing into the kitchen.

“This pain ain't never going away, is it?” he said aloud.

The chef looked at him like he was crazy, then returned to seasoning a pot of bouillabaisse.

 

Later, the band swung notes into the crowd, then segued into a marchlike beat, as if a king was about to enter. Because a king was. A spotlight hit the top of the spiral staircase, lingered there, empty, and then Baby Back stepped into it. Chez LeRoi erupted as he tramped and vamped his way down. When he reached the stage, it erupted again as he moved into position. He turned his back to the crowd and wiggled his big backside in a bump-and-grind. Ben half expected him to strip. And then rapture exploded out of his horn as he slugged out one number after another. The crowd consumed them—
him
—like addicts. Ben watched, addicted like everyone else. His star of a former lover had never radiated more powerfully. His light eclipsed everything.

“Ben!” Denny shouted. “My glass is empty. I cannot continue to exist without more champagne.”

Ben fetched more.

“
Monsieur,
more champagne?” Ben asked her escort du jour.

This escort was an oddity. He hadn't rushed to light her cigarettes, laughed at her jokes, or paid transfixed attention to her. All night he had stared around the club, a cigarette between his fingers.

“
Monsieur?
” Ben said again. “
Encore du champagne?
”

The man returned to earth, searched for the person who had dragged him to attention, and found Ben. His gaze started at Ben's face, plummeted to his feet, and moseyed its way up to his face again.

“
Oui, s'il vous plaît,
” the escort said.

Ben poured.

“I am Sebastien.
Et vous?
”

“
Moi, c'est
Ben.”

Denny cleared her throat, inserted a cigarette between her lips, and waited.

“
Vous êtes de l'Amérique?
” Sebastien said.

“
Oui, monsieur,
” Ben said. “And, yes, I lived in Harlem.”

“Then Harlem was extremely lucky.”

Ben knew better than to feel flattered. He was aware that Sebastien had barely looked at Denny all evening, directing his attention instead to the
Chocolate Jubilee
men. His eyes had been stuck to them. Sebastien's flirtation made Ben feel second best. He was insulted. But it didn't matter: He had no desire to play with Denny's toys.

She cleared her throat again, still waiting for a light.

Sebastien touched Ben's arm. “It was very nice meeting you.
Excusez-moi, s'il vous plaît
. I have neglected Baroness Deneuve.”

He smiled at Ben. He struck a match.

Ben went to the bar to collect champagne for some
Chocolate Jubilee
people—a clutch of fresh buds whom he had watched grow up. He'd eavesdropped as their voices became progressively raspier and grown alarmed (though by no means surprised) at the cheerful venom that sparked off their now quicker-witted tongues.

“Hey, Norm. Bottle of champagne when you get a chance.”

Norman, in the midst of mixing a drink, nodded.

“I bet a certain girl singer's sitting home right now, sopping up champagne. To ease the pain. Or gin, more likely.”

Clifford. He sat with hands folded on the bar like a schoolboy, a snifter of brandy in front of him. Ben had been too preoccupied to notice him.

“Norman!” Clifford said.

The bartender placed Ben's champagne on the bar. “Yes, Mr. Treadwell?”

The staff was now required to address Baby Back and Clifford as
Mr. Johnston
and
Mr. Treadwell
.

“I think the show's really good tonight,” Clifford said. “With Glo gone, there's a lot less trash on our stage. You agree, don't you, Norman?”

Norman looked from Clifford to Ben.

“Norman,” Clifford said, “I asked you a question. Don't you agree that, without Glo, there's a lot less trash on our stage?”

Sweat pimpled the bartender's forehead. “Yes, Mr. Treadwell. I agree.”

Caught between his job and Ben, he chose the job. Ben couldn't blame him. What he
could
do was take that champagne to the fresh buds. But he stayed put. His hatred tacked his feet to the spot. He viewed Clifford in profile, taking in the treasured light skin; the gray eyes; the nose, smaller, pudgier, much less elegant than he'd noticed before. But it was the grin—mean and self-satisfied—that turned his stomach. This was indeed Baby Back's new lover. The king's consort who had engineered his ascent and now powered his reign. The force that Ben never came close to being.

“I'm glad I got her fired,” Clifford said.

“
You
got her fired?” Ben said.

“Norman. Refill.” Clifford didn't speak again until the bartender refilled his snifter. Ben waited. “I went to LeRoi, told him, ‘Fire Glo or Baby Back quits.'” He looked at Ben dead-on. “No one's going to miss her. No one's going to miss that fat, black drunk.”

He reached for his snifter, but Ben was quicker. He grabbed it and sloshed the brandy in Clifford's face, then yanked him off his stool by the lapels of his jacket. The shock paralyzed Clifford's legs and they caved under him as Ben wrenched him away from the bar.

“Ben! Ben! No!” Norman shouted as he hurried from behind the bar, but in loud, crazy Chez LeRoi, the fight blended in with the rest of the hijinks and no one else noticed.

He held Clifford by the throat with one hand, squeezing tight as his enemy tried to dislodge his grip. Ben pulled back his free arm, knuckled his fist, took a moment to look Clifford in the eyes, and then socked him a grand punch that leveled him. But Clifford picked himself up and charged at his opponent with a wildness that Ben hadn't thought him capable of.

And now the denizens of Chez LeRoi
did
notice as the two battled. Norman tried to pry them apart, but Clifford shoved him hard and he crashed headfirst into a table, then lay unmoving. Everyone else stayed on the sidelines, some shouting at them to stop, others egging them on, no one intervening. A few climbed onto tables for a better view as Clifford grabbed Ben by the throat with both hands and began to strangle him. At last, someone intervened. Baby Back flung Clifford to the floor, seized the wheezing, coughing Ben in his arms, and held him. He caressed his neck and back. He wouldn't let go.

“What the hell's going on here?”

LeRoi Jasper stood at the entrance in a black wool coat with a fur-lined collar, a white woman wearing chinchilla at his side. Ben pulled away from Baby Back and surveyed the havoc. Norman was sitting up with a bloody gash on the side of his head, the contents of the table he had crashed into scattered about the floor.

“Vance! Get Norman in the office,” Mr. Jasper said. “Kyle, you cover the bar. Baby Back, Clifford, Ben—into the kitchen.” He flicked on his charm and addressed his customers. “
Mes chers amis,
I apologize for what has happened here this evening. Please forgive us. You know at Chez LeRoi we care only for your entertainment and your comfort. Two bottles of champagne for each table—on the house!” To the band: “You guys onstage, play something. Anything. Now!”

Once in the kitchen, Clifford wasted no time. “He attacked me. Get rid of him. Now, LeRoi.”

“Ben, is that true?”

Panic froze in Ben's chest. But when he looked at Clifford—face bleeding, lower lip swelling, and yet holding himself with the imperious air of the privileged—it thawed. “Hell yeah. I attacked the bastard. And I'd do it again.”

“You're fired.”

He should have expected it, but it blindsided him. He couldn't let it happen. Far more significant than the loss of a good job, being fired meant that Clifford Treadwell had won.

“Baby Back,” Ben said, “you can stop this. You're the only one who can.”

From the dining room came the band's rendition of an up-tempo number. In the quiet kitchen, Clifford seemed to dare Baby Back to defy him, Mr. Jasper looked nervous, and Ben maintained a stern eye on his former lover. All three awaited the trumpeter's decision.

“Good luck, Ben,” Baby Back said.

As he left the kitchen, he did something Ben had never ever seen him do—he hung his head like a man with no confidence. A moment later, his horn slowed, slowed, slowed that up-tempo tune down to something like a funeral dirge.

H
e dreamed of arms. Arms confident and possessing, encircling him in a defensive grip, draped around him with snug familiarity, as if part of his own body, as if they knew him.

He began to wake and fought it. He wanted to stay in those arms. As he ascended out of sleep and into the morning, the maelstrom of last night played in his head. He gloated over the triumph of Baby Back tossing Clifford to the floor. It made him smile. He felt so good. And then, eyes still shut, he yawned and stretched. The yawn triggered pain in his throat and jaw. The stretch made his abdomen hurt.

Then he remembered.

He sat up, shaken by his new circumstances: unemployed in a city with its share of unemployed people. Parisians loved Negroes, but job-hunting Negroes held an advantage only if they could sing or dance or play an instrument. But he didn't have to panic yet: He had hoarded his generous tips from Chez LeRoi's wealthy patrons and still had most of the money Mr. Kittredge gave him. The exchange rate favored those blessed with American money: A single dollar netted nearly fifty francs.

He wanted to write. He closed his eyes, tried to will a poem into existence. When that didn't work, he looked at his typewriter as if a muse would spring from the keys. None did. So he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and some reefer. Sedated, the dream of arms reclaimed him.

 

He should have known Glo's Christmas tree decorations would be pink. Pink bulbs. Pink ribbons. Pink electric lights. Ben and Glo attached the ornaments with the enthusiasm of mourners.

“Ain't we a sight?” Glo said. “We got about as much Christmas spirit as we got jobs.”

“You know, I was thinking.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Maybe you could go back to singing at Mon Club.”

“Fuck you, Benjy.” She poured them coffee, spiked it with gin. “Yeah, that's what I need: to see you shaking your thing in them shadows.”

They placed the last ornament, then stepped back to review their work. It was a parody of Christmas with its overload of cheap pink baubles. They lit some reefer. Snow fell outside, making the gray day grayer.

“You going to Mon Club tonight?” Glo asked.

“Girl, I ain't got no job, remember? I can't be spending money at Mon Club.”

“But the urinals is free, ain't they? Mmm-hmm.”

She got him. Got him so bad, he didn't attempt a response.

He was inhaling a helping of reefer when she blurted out, “Hey, Benjy. Why? Why the urinals and Mon Club and all that? I mean, do whatever the fuck you want, sugar—Glo ain't judging. But wouldn't you rather be in love?”

Glo's cute curiosity allowed him to forgive her intrusiveness. He reclined on the sofa, head lounging against the pink cushions. He dragged on the reefer, then looked out the window and watched the snow as it evolved from flurries into something that might accumulate.

Love.

You could have love, or you could have pleasure, and rarely did the two commingle. Love was difficult. Pleasure was not. And Ben's pursuits in the shadows had unloosed a coldhearted desire for it. Pleasure had to be mined where it was found. It couldn't be bypassed. You had to pursue it, take it, relish it, bite hard on each morsel and glean every sliver of paradise. Pleasure was instant, achievable. And when you had your fill or you got bored or it wasn't fun anymore, you could just walk away. In that way, it was a lot like love.

He used to retreat to his writing to find pleasure. But as he sought refuge more and more in the shadows, his poetry receded. The more he went to the urinals, the less he seemed able to write. Or was it that the less he was able to write, the more time he spent in the urinals? All he knew was that the loss of his poetry was like a precious child gone missing.

“Benjy? You ain't answered me.”

“Sure, I'd rather be in love. But the urinals is closer. And free.”

 

Weeks later, he had inquired at every club, restaurant, and shop, and exhausted every job prospect in Montmartre. Then he checked around the Louvre and along the Champs Élysées; crossed the Seine and searched in Montparnasse, St. Germaine, and the dimly lit cafés of the Latin Quarter. Nothing. It depressed him. On his way home from his inquiries one day, the depression converted to anger and the anger escalated into something that needed venting. He sat at his typewriter as soon as he arrived in his room in rue Condorcet.

Good words, the right words, wouldn't come. Shapes of poems formed in his head, and then cheated him. A mound of crumpled paper accumulated on the floor.

“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!”

He tore the latest attempt from the typewriter, looked at the sorry excuse for a poem, and then kicked the chair so hard it thudded to the floor. He picked an empty whiskey bottle out of the trash and smashed it against the door. He had lifted up the typewriter to hurl it against the wall when someone banged on the door.

“Ben? What's going on in there? Ben! Open up! Open this goddamn door!”

The voice was resonant, concerned, familiar. Baby Back's. Ben tiptoed over the broken glass and opened the door. The trumpeter stood on the other side, big and handsome and looking younger, as if living his dream agreed with him.

He pushed past Ben, almost got snagged on the broken glass.

“What the hell? You by yourself? I thought you was getting beat up. I was ready to bust somebody's head in.”

Ben buried himself in Baby Back's arms before he could stop himself. He inhaled his scent, as familiar as his own. Then he remembered that Baby Back belonged to Clifford and he broke away.

“You're in here breaking shit, throwing heaps of paper on the floor,” Baby Back said. “And unemployed to boot.” He winked. “You sure is lost without me, ain't you?”

That devilish smile. That evil, gleeful wit. Ben felt their pull. He almost retraced his steps back to his former lover's arms.

“What you doing here?” he asked. “How'd you know where I lived?”

“When you're Baby Back Johnston, it ain't hard getting information.” He winked again. “When you're Baby Back Johnston, it ain't hard getting whatever you want.”

That plush baritone. That seductive arrogance.

“Maybe I should try that sometime,” Ben said. “Being Baby Back Johnston.”

“You should.” He looked around the room. “You wouldn't be living in this dump.”

Ben ditched himself on the bed and laughed. Baby Back laughed and ditched himself there, too. He wore a fantastic suit and a pair of two-toned wingtips—dark black and shameless red. Ben lay back on the bed, both feet on the floor. Baby Back did, too, but was careful not to wrinkle his suit.

“I may not have a place to live at all—dump or otherwise—since your Cliffy got me fired and I can't find no job.”

Baby Back sat up quick. “Don't do that. Don't try that shit. You know you hit him first.”

Ben fretted that he'd leave, but he lay back down.

Quiet.

“You ever think we'd be in bed together again?” Baby Back said.

“You call this
in bed?
We got all our clothes on and our feet on the floor.”

Baby Back removed his shoes and jacket, then laid down fully. Ben did the same. They lay side by side, facing up, not touching.

“The job hunt ain't going so good, huh?” Baby Back said. “Should've kept your fist to yourself.”

Ben's turn to sit up quick. “Is that why you're here? To rub it in?”

“You used to like it when I rubbed it in.”

Ben lay back down. “Does Cliffy know you're here? Why
are
you here?”

He closed his eyes. Something tickled his foot.

“I'm sorry I didn't stop LeRoi from firing you,” Baby Back said.

Ben wanted to climb up to
Sacré-Cœur
and shout
Hallelujah!
The first time Mr. Baby Back Johnston had
ever
apologized to him, and with humility at that. Then he recalled Baby Back's conniving, and everything he did to Glo, and the humility seemed a sham. He wanted to be in bed with the man he first met in Harlem. Then he remembered that he was.

“But the big reason I'm here . . .” Baby Back said.

“Finally.”

Baby Back kicked him. “I know a guy owns a jazz club. Needs a waiter. Job's yours if you want it.”

“I definitely want it. Thank you.”

“Café Valentin on rue Frochot. You start tomorrow. Ask for Monsieur Rameau.”

“
Rue
Frochot?
Monsieur
Rameau? Baby Back, you spoke French! I guess I
was
a good influence on you.”

Baby Back yawned. “You sure as hell was. Is. Mr. Charles. Mr. Poet.”

The room was quiet until the big man began to snore. Ben let the sound lull him. He didn't know he was smiling as his eyelids drifted down, down, down, down.

When he woke up, Baby Back was gone.