Joplin's Ghost (38 page)

The relief that swamped Scott exposed the maw in him he’d held at bay, and he doubled over in his chair, gasping. “Thank you, Doctor,” he whispered, tears spilling from his eyes. “
Thank
you, dear Jesus, dear Lord.”

He could not have lived knowing he had hurt Freddie. It was hard enough to think she might be alive if he had left her with her parents during that tour, if she had never been with him to catch her fatal cold. But to have cursed her through the act of making love, when he had only sought to give her bliss, to imprint his heart upon her soul? Precious reprieve!
Then I had no hand in killing either of my girls, my Freddie or my baby. Dear God, only by chance…

Scott heard Dr. Wiley’s chair slide across his wooden floor, and hurried footsteps as the doctor came to him. “Are you faint? Do you need salts?”

Scott shook his head. “I’m sorry. A moment,” he said, and the doctor backed away to give Scott time to summon his masculinity and straighten himself in his seat.

“Anything I tell you today is with the highest discretion. No one will hear any hint of this visit from my lips,” Dr. Wiley said. “You have my word.”

Scott clenched his hands into fists, and the razors between his knuckles stabbed him. All this time, he’d lived under the foolish hope that grief alone had caused his body so much havoc. When he hadn’t liked the sound of his piano, he’d given his hands rest for a day or two, and sometimes he sounded fine after that. He’d even begun using an arthritis tonic advertised in the
Palladium
. This doctor must think he was a fool! And wasn’t he?

Scott stared down at the royal purple Persian rug beneath his feet, his black shoes lined up in a V at the heel, perfectly still.

“I’m a musician. I play piano,” Scott said. “What about my hands?”

Dr. Wiley almost hid the wobble in his words. “I don’t know, Mr. Joplin,” he said.

Scott hoped it was his doctor’s first and only lie.

T
he man in a smart white Stetson exited the rear stage door with a swoop of his long coat, a sudden apparition beneath the lamplight. He was almost invisible as he swept past the congregation of young men and ladies sharing cigarettes in the alleyway against a brick wall, the women in heels so high they looked like they might topple. The man in the Stetson didn’t slow when they called praises after him. His wide brim hid his profile, but Scott knew Louis by his height and his walk, even if he was missing his swagger as he rounded the corner into the lamplight.

Louis had billed himself at the theater as
The Black Paderewski,
after the Polish pianist and composer Ignace Paderewski, but the comparison hadn’t held. Louis’s fingers had fumbled at least twice during his rendition of Chopin’s “Polonaise in A major—Military,” and his crisp, extraordinary command of the keys was gone. The audience might not have noticed, but Scott had. Louis was still very good, but he did not play like Louis Chauvin. Scott feared otherwise, but he hoped Louis was only drunk. The performance had been hard to endure.

Louis paused beside a poorly dressed black man plucking his guitar where the alley met the sidewalk. The player coaxed whimpers from his strings, harmonic sounds of hope and misery he’d brought from somewhere else times were harder. His chords slid between C, F and G, a tale of woe. Louis tossed a coin in the man’s hat and walked on.

As Louis departed against the tide of night revelers on Beaumont, Scott nearly let him go. There would be no such thing as easy conversation tonight. The sight of Louis’s retreat in his Parisian-style coat and favorite hat was heartening, like a photograph from a Kodak box camera, one moment frozen the way it should be. This was how he wanted to remember the boy, not by his decline in the concert hall.
How will Louis want to remember me?

Scott followed Louis half a block. “You can play, lil’ man, but can you
fight
?” he called.

Scott was sorry for his miserable attempt at humor as soon as he spoke, watching Louis’s body go to stone. In the old days, Louis would have whipped around with a razor ready if a stranger taunted him from behind. But Louis only stopped walking, his hands in his coat pockets, patiently awaiting his fate.

“It’s just me, Louis,” Scott said, trotting beside him.

Louis gave him a glare, but didn’t stand still long enough for Scott to get a good look at his face. “Fuck you, old man.”

“How ’bout dinner?”

“Ain’t hungry.” Louis kept walking.

Scott hurried to catch up to him. “Where you headed, youngster?”

“I got a yen,” Louis said. “Come if you want. If not, I’ll see you when I see you.”

This was the same way Louis had been in Chicago last year, unrecognizable. Scott had moved to Chicago hoping to find other publishers so he wouldn’t have to settle for John Stark’s offers when he didn’t like them; but also because Louis, Sam Patterson and Arthur Marshall had all moved to the Windy City, heeding Chicago’s appetite for lively music and quality musicians. In Chicago, it had taken Scott a month to track Louis down. He and Sam Patterson had found their friend living in a small rented room in a South Side cathouse, clinging to his pipe. The madam who prepared Louis’s meals and tolerated his moods told them he hadn’t played a piano in two weeks.
He don’t like the way his hands work,
she’d whispered. But someone had apparently been helping Louis capture some of his themes on paper, because there had been scraps of sheet music tossed around his room, amid the clutter and filth.

The themes were crudely drawn, but beautiful. One particular habañera had been so gently harmonic, full of Louis’s essence, that Scott asked to take it with him, if only to salvage it from the trash. Louis had been surly, but he’d agreed.
Why don’t we go on down to the piano, then?
Scott had said, practically leading him by the arm. They’d only spent an hour working out a few ideas, but they’d both seen the clear way to couple their music, a collaboration. And that had been the end of it. Louis was always hard to find, and he’d never sought Scott out since.

But at least he was performing again.

Today, Tom had tipped Scott off that Louis was in a high-class vaudeville company playing at the Douglass Theatorium at the corner of Beaumont and Lawton. Watching him play, Scott had hoped his friend was free from his poisonous despair. Apparently not.

The sign in the darkened picture window of the multistory building where Louis stopped advertised
Cigars, Pipes and Tobacco!
But apparently tobacco wasn’t the only substance sold within, Scott learned as he followed Louis to the alleyway entrance behind the sleeping storefront, beneath the building’s spiraling metal fire stairs. Louis knocked only once, and the door cracked open. Scott smelled opium, rich and sweet.

A large white man’s squarish face peered out.

“Curtain already, maestro?” the man said to Louis. “The show’s getting shorter.”

“Not short enough,” Louis muttered. He gestured at Scott. “This here’s Joe.”

“Must be a dozen Joes here. You all can start your own social club.” The man widened the doorway to allow them in, and Scott squeezed past his paunch.

Inside, Louis knew his way past the maze of stacked crates and boxes lining the dimly lighted hallways, his pace quickening. Louis took off his coat and loosened his collar at the neck, so Scott followed his example, removing his jacket. His shirt was damp with perspiration. Without the cool breeze off the river, it was nothing but August inside. The cloying scent grew stronger, a thin haze above them.

“Is this where you live now?” Scott said.

“Would if they’d let me.” Louis followed eight brick steps down half a floor and found a wooden door, his destination. He pushed the door open, and Scott followed him inside.

Scott knew plenty of men and women with a taste for opium or laudanum, but he’d never visited an opium den. Based on stories he’d heard from San Francisco, he expected to see rows of Chinamen reclined on pallets and silk pillows with hookahs between their lips. But there were no Chinamen in sight.

The windowless room was long and narrow, the walls covered in an array of mismatched felt curtains in dark, meditative colors. The room suffered from uneven lighting, with candles burning on tables throughout. Parlor chairs, settees and pillows with colorful tassels stretched the length of the room. Nearest to the door, a middle-aged white man splayed across a settee whispered conversation with a younger woman nestled against him. Something in her demure bearing made Scott think she was his wife, not a mistress. As they passed, Scott heard their English accents.

The room was otherwise occupied by men in gentlemanly attire spaced to create their own private retreats. Passing their tables, Scott saw absinthe glasses, burned spoons and pipes of a half dozen varieties. Scott heard some languid conversation, but no one made eye contact or greeted them, cocooned in their pilgrimages as they sat with eyes closed, or staring beyond the walls.
A fraternity of escape,
Scott thought. Many of the men were young, closer to Louis’s age, and they seemed undisturbed by the arrival of two Negroes. Laws separated the races by day, but by night people didn’t seem to mind each other.

The winged chair farthest across the room, facing the door, was empty. Swathed by tall, potted plants, the empty chair reminded Scott of a throne, and sure enough, that was where Louis took his seat. A teenaged attendant came, and Louis wordlessly exchanged coins for a china dish with two small, tarry balls of opium. Louis wasted no time striking a match to light the water pipe on the table beside him. The ball of opium held the flame as it burned, almost a candle itself, and Scott heard water bubbling as Louis inhaled his favorite tonic from its hose. Scott’s nose smarted at the scent, like burnt berries.

Satisfied, Louis lay back in his chair, eyes closed, hands folded across his stomach. Scott sat near Louis on the ottoman, his first chance to study his friend’s face, and his heart plunged.

He had expected Louis to be thin, so that wasn’t a surprise. Louis had been fifteen pounds thinner in Chicago last year, and the lost weight altered Louis’s face most, honing his jaw, erasing his youth. Now, in addition, Louis’s complexion was marred by splotches that resembled razor scars across his cheeks and chin, visible even through his stage powder.
Someone with Louis’s vanity must loathe his shaving mirror,
Scott thought.

But there was no loathing in Louis’s expression now. Only dreamy peace.

“Take a turn if you want,” Louis said.

“Thanks all the same.” The smell of opium gave Scott a headache. “I’m surprised you bother with all this ceremony and don’t smoke at home like most people.”

For the first time, Louis smiled, although his eyes stayed closed. “Some folks go to church…” He didn’t finish, and didn’t need to. Perhaps he’d skirted outright blasphemy.

The woman laughed from the other side of the room, but she quickly smothered it. Bars and cathouses were tumultuous, full of music and revelry, but this opium den felt more like a chapel. No wonder Louis imagined he was in a church, Scott thought. Everyone here had come to worship silence.

“She’s a poet from London,” Louis said, his voice low. “Lots of writers come through. Symphony players. Bankers. Politicians. This is the best circle I’ve been welcome in yet.”

When Louis leaned over for another turn with his pipe, Scott saw his hands tremble violently. This time, Louis had to struggle to keep his fingers steady long enough to light the match. Scott looked away. He tensed his own fingers and felt the razor tease his knuckle.

“You all sure put on a show tonight,” Scott said.

“We try.”

Scott paused. “Your playing is still very good.”

“Good enough.”

“You heard the Rosebud’s closing soon?” Scott said. “That’s what Tom’s saying.”

“I heard.” Louis’s face was all tranquility.

“Sam’s off touring with Bill Spiller and them on vaudeville.”

Louis didn’t respond to the news of Sam Patterson, a lifelong friend, except to grunt. Scott had so many things he’d planned to say to Louis, and now that they were talking, he couldn’t think of how to say even one.
Good news, Louis. I saw my doctor today, and you’re not alone in your journey to Hell, youngster. Do you mind if I come along for the ride?

“John Stark’s talking about moving to New York,” Scott said. “I’ve been thinking about it, too. They talk about New York’s like it’s the Promised Land, with Broadway and whatnot. And all the biggest publishers are there now. If I could just get some fire under me…”

Louis remained in repose. He was more unreachable, and sinking.

Scott opened his satchel and flipped through his papers for the score he’d written. Scott wasn’t sure if he should show Louis, if the music might provoke him somehow, but they would have to work out the business end if they were going to get it published.

The rustling of papers got Louis’s attention. His eyes opened, unfocused.

Scott gave him the pages. “You remember those themes I got from you in Chicago? And we sat and I tacked on a couple of my own? Well, I cleaned it up, and the result’s real good.”