The Jazz Kid (4 page)

Naturally, I couldn't rest until I tried to play it myself. As soon as we got home that night I unpacked my cornet and tried to play jazz. I just couldn't do it. I didn't know where to begin. I sat there for a minute, holding my cornet in my lap, and thought about it. I remembered how there always seemed to be a song flickering around in what they were playing—a song that would pop out here and there and then disappear again. I figured the thing to do was to start with a song. I picked out “Maryland, My Maryland,” which I knew by heart. Nothing happened. I couldn't figure out how to put the jazz into it, and it came out plain old “Maryland, My Maryland,” no different than it ever was.

It was clear that I'd have to study that jazz somehow. But how? Who would teach me? Were there any phonograph records of it? We didn't have a phonograph. They were expensive, and considering that Pa was partial to music you couldn't hear, it wasn't likely that we'd get one in the near future. But there was a phonograph at Hull House, which they used for dancing classes, and Rory Flynn's ma had one. Rory said that when she got to drinking beer she'd put on her favorite songs, like “Danny Boy” and “That Old Irish Mother of Mine,” and cry, which cheered her up. So if I could get hold of a record with that kind of music on it, I had places where I could hear it.

Did Mr. Sylvester know anything about it? He might, I figured. I went to the next band practice early and asked him. “Did you ever hear any jazz?”

“Jazz? Sure.”

“
I wondered if I could learn to play it.” He frowned. “What do you want to mess with that stuff for? It's just nigger music. You'll ruin your lip.”

“How'd it ruin your lip?”

“It just does. I know a cornet player, fine player, who took up playing jazz and within six weeks he split his lip right on the bandstand, blood all over his dress shirt. You don't want to mess with that stuff.”

I wasn't sure I believed it. “I heard some guy playing a couple of days ago. His lip seemed okay.”

“He won't get away with it forever,” Mr. Sylvester said. “I'm telling you, Horvath, you'll ruin yourself.”

It was clear enough that I couldn't learn jazz from Mr. Sylvester. I had a feeling he didn't know much about it anyway. There had to be somebody around who could teach it to me, but who? The only ones I knew were those guys at the Society Cafe. Could I get that cornet player to give me lessons? I knew there was no point in asking Pa. He'd say it was nigger music, and I shouldn't have anything to do with it. Same with Ma. She wouldn't call it nigger music, because she wouldn't use words like that. She always called them colored people. But she wouldn't like the idea of me having a lot to do with them, whatever you called them. Nor would it do any good to say it wasn't just nigger music, for white people played it, too. They'd say a white man ought to be ashamed for lowering himself that way.

But I couldn't see it their way. How could anything that made me feel that good lower me? I figured there had to be a whole lot of people who agreed with me about jazz. Didn't that piano player say if I hadn't heard of jazz I must have been hiding in a closet? Didn't he say it was mighty hard to miss around Chicago? Ma and Pa were wrong about it, that's all there was to it.

The problem was, I'd finally found something I could take serious, and naturally it was something Ma and Pa wouldn't like. I should have known it would be that way. What I liked about jazz was that, even though it had planning to it, it was a different kind of planning. John and Pa wouldn't have seen the planning, but I did. And I
could
see that the time was going to come when I'd have to tell Pa I wasn't going into the plumbing business, I was going to be a musician. But I didn't have to worry about that yet.

For the moment my problem was getting back to the Society Cafe. I didn't see how I could sneak out of the house at midnight. That was too much of a risk.

Then it dawned on me that I didn't have to sneak out in the middle of the night. Didn't that cornet player say that sometimes they played until the sun came up? Maybe if I went over there first thing in the morning they'd still be playing. I knew I'd better do it soon, in case they stopped working there.

So the next morning I got up early, even before John was up. “My,” Ma said, stirring the oatmeal on the stove. “You're an early bird this morning, Paulie.”

“John was snoring.” That was true—he had the sniffles.

“Well, the oatmeal isn't quite ready.” There wasn't any use in trying to get out of there without breakfast—Ma wouldn't stand for it. So I danced around from one foot to the next until she served out my bowl. I shoved the oatmeal home, gobbled down my milk, and raced out of there.

The sun hadn't come up over the buildings yet, and the streets were empty and quiet—a milk wagon clip-clopping along, a newspaper truck rumbling by with a couple of kids hanging on to the back, ready to leap off with the papers. As soon as I was out of sight of our apartment, I started to run towards the Society Cafe. It was a good distance, about twenty blocks, and by the time I got there I was panting and sweating some. I stood at the corner to get myself calmed down for a minute; then I walked down the street to the place.

It looked worse by daylight than it had at night, for you could see how rusty the tin roof was, and how much paint had scaled off the clapboards. But none of that mattered to me, for I could hear coming faintly through the door the thump of the drums and the chime of a cornet. I went up the steps, feeling pretty nervous, and knocked. Nothing happened. I swallowed, and knocked again, louder. For a minute more nothing happened, and then a small panel in the door slid open. I could see one eye and part of a
nose.
“Whadya want, kid?”

“My pa sent me. We left a wrench here when we were fixing the pipes last week.”

“You Frankie Horvath's kid?”

“Yes.” I was surprised he knew Pa's name. Mostly people just called him the plumber. “I might have left it in the toilet. Or in the cellar.”

The panel slid closed. I stood there waiting, wondering if he had gone away for good. Time went along, and I was just about ready to give up, when the panel slid open again. “There ain't no wrench in the toilet.”

“It must be in the cellar, then.”

“Jesus,” he said.

“Pa'll kill me if I don't find it.”

“Okay,” he said. “Go on around back. I'll let you in.”

I skipped down the alley to the cellar door, and waited some more. Finally the door opened. It was the same big guy, only this time he wasn't wearing an overcoat, just a dark suit, and a white shirt buttoned up at the neck, no tie. Now I could hear the music more clear, for the trapdoor was up: piano, drums, banjo, cornet, and saxophone. The big man jerked his head towards the cellar. “Help yourself,” he said. “Slam that door good when you go out.” He went back up the cellar stairs, grunting through the hole in the floor and let the trapdoor slam shut.

Now what? I was happy enough just to listen to the music, and if I had the time I could have sat down there in the damp, stinky cellar all day and listened. But I had to get to school soon. I stood there for a few minutes, so as to make it seem like I was looking around for the wrench. Then I climbed up the cellar stairs and knocked on the trapdoor.

Nothing happened. I went back down the cellar stairs, found a half a brick lying on the dirt floor, went back up the stairs, and pounded on the trapdoor with the brick. Suddenly the trapdoor flung up. The big guy in the dark suit was staring down at me. “What the hell do you want now?”

“
The wrench isn't down here. I figure it must be up there somewhere.”

“Naw, it ain't up here. I told you, I looked in the toilet.”

“Maybe I left it someplace else. Pa's going to be awful sore if I don't find it.”

“It ain't like Frankie Horvath to leave tools laying around.”

It sounded like he knew Pa pretty well, which surprised me. I thought he'd be just a plumber to him. “It was my fault. That's why he made me come find it myself.”

He jerked his head in the general direction of the barroom. “I'll give you five minutes. Then I'm gonna run you the hell out of here.”

I climbed up out of the cellar and stood up behind the bar, looking across the room to the band. There was hardly anybody in the joint—one couple dancing, another couple sitting at a table, and three men and a woman at another table, laughing. For a minute I stood there, just listening to the music, trying to figure out how they got that rocking feeling, that bounce or whatever you called it. I noticed that they had a different pianist from the one that was there before—a white guy.

I didn't have much time. I started to go around the bar, when suddenly the music stopped without any warning. In the kind of music we played at Hull House—marches, overtures, medleys of folk songs—you could tell when the end was coming. But this stuff didn't give you any warning; it just stopped.

The fellas in the band stood there by the piano for a minute. Then the cornet player laid his horn on top of the piano, and strolled towards the door with the saxophone player.

I slipped back down the cellar stairs, raced out of the cellar, slammed the door tight and ran around to the street. The two musicians were standing on the sidewalk in front of the place, shivering a little in the cold morning air. It was around seven-thirty, and every once in a while they blinked, like they weren't used to daylight. I stood a few feet away, looking at them, and trying to figure out what to say to them. Finally the cornetist noticed me. “Hello, kid,” he said. “What the hell are you doing around here this time of day?”

“I came over to hear you play.”

He
cocked his head sideways. “You the kid with the plumber?”

“Yeah, that was me.”

The saxophone wasn't paying any attention to me.

“Tommy, we got to do something about that damn banjo player. He plays like he was driving nails. He can't swing a lick.”

Under my breath I said, “Tommy” just to try it out.

“He's all right,” Tommy said. “He's doing the best he can.”

“That's the trouble,” the saxophone said. “If he wasn't doing the best he could we could improve him. But as it is, we can't.”

“He thinks he's doing all right,” Tommy said. “I haven't got the heart to say nothing to him.”

I would have liked to have stood there awhile, just listening to them talk. It was like they had a secret club that maybe I could get into. But they were bound to go back inside pretty soon. I walked closer. “Could I ask you something?”

The saxophone put on a kind of disgusted look, but Tommy said, “Sure, kid.”

“I play cornet in the Hull House band. How could I learn to play like you do?”

“You're at Hull House? Benny Goodman came out of there. And Art Hodes. How long you been at Hull House?”

I heard of both of those guys. Benny Goodman was supposed to be some kind of genius. He wasn't more than a couple of years older than me, but already he was playing professionally and making a pile of dough. Art Hodes was a piano player. He was older and played in a dance band they had at Hull House called the Marionettes. “I started there in the summer,” I said.

“That's the first you played cornet?”

I didn't want to seem like too much of a beginner. “I studied piano for a while, too.”

“It's plain to see the kid's a boy genius,” the saxophone said. He flapped his arms to warm up. “We better go in, Tommy, before Herbie has kittens.”

“We got a couple of minutes,” Tommy said. “We played six sets already. What
does
Herbie want, for God's sake?”

“Listen,” I said quickly, looking at Tommy. “I wonder if you could give me lessons.” I didn't have any idea how I would pay him.

Tommy laughed. “That ain't exactly my line. I don't know how I do it myself. You got to get a feeling for it.”

“Come on, Tommy, let's go in,” the saxophone said. “I'm freezing out here.”

“Maybe you could just show me stuff.”

“He told you no once,” the saxophone said. “Come on, Tommy.”

“You're real eager, ain't you, kid. What's your name?”

“Paulie Horvath. My Pa's Frankie Horvath.”

He reached into his hip pocket, took out a worn-out wallet, and poked around inside of it. “Here,” he said finally. He handed me a dirty card that had been bent in half at least once and straightened out. “You might catch me at home around five or six sometime. We got to go back on.”

They turned and went on back up the steps to the Society Cafe. I stood there looking at the card in my hand:

T
OMMY
H
URD AND HIS
J
OYMAKERS
. M
USIC FOR
A
LL
O
CCASIONS
.

It felt like somebody had given me a key to a room where there was a store of gold and jewels, if only I could get to that door. Tommy's address was out in the near South Side somewhere. It'd be a hike to get down there, but I could walk it.