The Ragtime Kid (9 page)

Saunders clapped Brun’s shoulder. “Now, I am just coming to see, we ain’t got us no manners, do we, young Mr. Campbell? You know me, and you just met Mr. Scott Joplin. And this here is Mr. Arthur Marshall and Mr. Scott Hayden.” Saunders pointed first at the dark young man in the ragged clothing, then at the lighter one. “They both fine piano players, even if they still be wet behind they ears. Mr. Joplin’s showin’ them how to play and write his kind of ragtime music.”

Envy such as Brun had never felt clutched at his throat and his temples. But he managed to smile and shake hands with each of those fortunate boys, and tell them he was pleased to know them. First Marshall’s face, then Hayden’s, told Brun how unaccustomed the colored boys were to exchanging social pleasantries with whites.

“And then this great philosopher here…” Saunders stuck a finger into the fat man’s belly, and wiggled it with fake malice. “This here’s Big Froggy. Plays Number One piano at Miss Nellie Hall’s, over to West Main…where they th’ow you out in the street if’n you try’n open up more’n one button at a time.”

Brun’s smile left Joplin as the only person in the room with a straight face. The composer pointed at the mussy white man. “This is Professor Julius Weiss, my teacher and my friend.” Joplin’s tone was one a person might use to introduce a king, or at the least, a duke. “Without Professor Weiss’ help, I would not ever have—”

Weiss waved his hand back and forth like he might’ve been chasing a pesky horsefly. “Nah, nah, nah, Scott. That is not true. A genius like yours would have succeeded with or without any help from me.”

“So what you say, then, Scott?” Saunders talking now. “You gonna take on this boy?”

Joplin stared at Brun, not a word. Impossible to know what was going on behind that mask of a face. Then he glanced up at Weiss, who turned a smile on him like the sun bursting out from behind a cloud.

“Boy lef’ his home and come all this way, just to take lessons from you,” growled Big Froggy. “How old was you, first time you go on the road?”

Joplin held up a hand to Froggy. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t take him on.” He fixed his eyes on Brun, eyes so black, deep and burning, that the boy struggled not to squirm. “You will have to work hard. Before and after you go to work at Mr. Stark’s, you’ll need to practice regularly…
religiously
. If I ever see you are less than serious, that will be the end of our association.”

“If I can learn how to play ragtime your way, and maybe write it… Mr. Joplin, I never even dreamed of writing it. But if I could do that, well, I think my life will be worth living.”

Brun surprised himself no end by that speech. He didn’t know he had words like that in him. Maybe Scott Joplin had a knack for pulling such out of people.

“What hours will you be at Mr. Stark’s?” Joplin asked.

“One in the afternoon ’til five, sir.”

Mutters rumbled through the group, but no particular words. Probably the first time anyone in that room had heard a white call a colored “sir.” But Brun would have sworn on anything holy that he was not trying to curry favor with Joplin. The word just came out. Whatever color the man was, his dignity was overwhelming.

Joplin didn’t seem to notice, just nodded and said, “All right, then. Morning is the best time for lessons. I’ll meet you here at eleven, Tuesdays and Fridays. My fee is a half-dollar per session, payable at the time.” He made a point of looking at the hole in the right knee of Brun’s trousers. “Is that agreeable?”

Brun barely managed a blubbery “Yes, sir.”

“Where will you practice?”

Now, there was something Brun hadn’t thought of. He’d need a piano, one that would not be in use, and where he’d have privacy to work out troubles without embarrassing himself. “Maybe Mr. Boutell would let me in his place mornings so I could play,” Brun said. “And Mr. Stark might let me stay in the store after hours.”

Scott Hayden spoke for the first time. “Where you stayin’?” His voice was soft as any girl’s.

“Got a room at the Y.”

Big Froggy burst out laughing. “Guess they wouldn’t be much inclined to let you play there.”

“Not the devil’s music, no way.” Saunders looked as amused as Froggy, but then his face went serious and he said, “Wait, now. Wait a minute. Mr. Robert Higdon…don’t him and his sister got a couple empty rooms in that house of his? And he sure got a piano. If you ask him, Scott, I bet he’d take in our boy as a lodger. He could practice there after supper, and mornings, when Mr. Higdon’s to work.”

“Don’t Mr. Higdon got his niece stayin’ there over the summer?” asked Arthur Marshall.

“What if he does?” Saunders looked like a kid who’d got the cookies out of the jar and the lid back on before his mother walked into the kitchen. “That’s not a bad-sized house. Oughta be enough rooms for four people without crowdin’ em. An’ anyway, I don’t expect the close company of a nice young lady would trouble our new friend very much, do you?”

Everyone looked away from Brun. Froggy cleared his throat. Not at all smart those days for a colored man to say anything even remotely complimentary to or about a white woman. Even Joplin wiggled a bit on the piano bench. Brun smiled hard, then said, “I don’t guess that would trouble me at all. And it’d be swell to have a piano right there.”

Joplin gave Saunders a short, stern look, then turned to face Brun. “I’ll talk with Mr. Higdon tomorrow, at his office. Then, I’ll stop at Mr. Stark’s to let you know what he says. In any event, I will expect you here Friday at eleven.” He paused, glanced at Professor Weiss, then went on. “There are some who say a white man can never play proper ragtime, but I don’t believe that. I hope that you and I can prove how wrong it is.”

“I won’t make you sorry, sir.”

“You don’t need to call me sir.” Joplin reached into his pocket, tugged, and came out with a red rubber ball, which he put into Brun’s hand. The boy looked him a question.

“This will help your technique,” Joplin said. “You can get one at Mr. Messerly’s General Store, over on Osage. Put it into your pocket, and whenever you’re just walking or sitting around, take it out and squeeze it, first with your right hand, then with your left. Then hold the ball between your hands and push them together. Start off easy, and squeeze harder and harder as you go. That will build the muscles in your forearms, hands and fingers. You’ve heard of Bernarr McFadden, haven’t you? The physical culture man?”

Brun nodded. “Well, sure. I guess everyone has.”

“He grew up here in Sedalia,” said Joplin. “And while he was back for a visit a couple of years ago, I went by and asked him whether he could give me some exercises that might improve my playing. I’ll admit, I did wonder when he told me to squeeze a rubber ball, but inside a month I could see a real difference in my piano work. So I recommend it to all my students.”

Hayden and Marshall looked at each other, grinned, then each pulled a rubber ball from his pocket and held it up for Brun to see.

Curious, Brun thought. Joplin was a good deal younger than Froggy, and not all that much older than Saunders, but he was without question the leader of that group.

Joplin put out a hand; Brun dropped the rubber ball into it. “I’m sorry, but I need to get back to work now,” Joplin said, and turned back to the piano. “I’ll see you Friday at eleven.” He was already hitting keys by the time Brun said, “I’ll be here.”

Chapter Five

Sedalia
Thursday, July 20,1899
Noontime

Next morning, Brun’s four wild days and nights finally caught up with him. When he opened his eyes, bright light filled his room, and when he peered out the window, he saw the sun was close to straight overhead. He hadn’t heard the courthouse bell, had slept straight through the rail yard whistle. The boy jumped out of bed, washed up, dressed in his new suit, and hurried up Ohio to the Boston Café, where the clock on the wall behind the counter told him he’d be late for work in thirty-five minutes. He took a seat, ordered a stack of pancakes and a cup of coffee, then picked up a newspaper someone had left on the counter, and commenced to read. On the first page, between an account of Admiral Dewey’s lawsuit asking pay for destroying the Spanish Fleet, and an editorial chastising the city’s merchants for not supporting an upcoming street fair, a short article caught the boy’s eye. A young woman had been found the morning before on Washington Avenue, apparently murdered by strangulation. There was no identification on her body, and no one in Sedalia had reported a missing person of that description. Chief of Police J. E. Love asked anyone with information about the woman to come forward.

As the young waitress set Brun’s food in front of him, he quickly snapped the paper closed. The girl flashed him that smile unmarried young women have always given attractive and apparently unattached young men, then said, “Sorry if I gave you a start. You must’ve been real interested in what you were reading there.”

“Nah, not really.” Brun fingered the outside of his trouser pocket. “Kinda daydreaming, I guess.”

The waitress’ smile broadened. “You’re new in town, aren’t you?”

Brun nodded. “Just got here a couple of days ago. I’m working at Stark and Son, music store on Fifth.”

“Sedalia’s a nice place to live.”

The girl was far from unattractive, probably about his own age, shiny black hair, blue eyes, nice clear skin, but right then, Brun wanted only for her to go away. He broke off a chunk of pancake with his fork, shoveled it into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, willed a smile. “Y’ got good pancakes in Sedalia.” Then, he picked up the paper in his left hand, and began to read, this time an article about a Negro man, Frank Embree, accused of outraging a young white girl, then escaping to Kansas, where the governor refused to extradite him without a guarantee he’d get a fair trial, and not be lynched.

The waitress’ smile faded. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Brun nodded to the girl’s back. He slipped a hand into his pocket. What was he going to do with that locket and money-clip? Go out of town after dark and bury them in the woods? That wouldn’t help anyone, himself included. How about sneaking off to another town and pawning the things there? But when? Between his job and piano practice, his available daytime hours were pretty well spoken for. Maybe best right now to sit tight until they either catch the killer or get interested in something else and forget about the dead woman. Then, Brun could do as he pleased.

That afternoon, business was slow, so Stark set Brun to learning the stock, which the boy found slow and tedious. Much more fun to play piano or wait on customers, but remembering Mr. Utley’s pig troughs was more than enough for the boy to set himself hard to his task.

Toward midafternoon, he was standing before the mandolins on the wall, reading the manufacturers’ hype and hustle papers, when he heard a woman’s voice behind him. “Excuse me, sir. Can you please help me?”

The words came on a wave of gardenia. Brun turned around and found himself face to face with a vision in blue cotton and lace. Not much over twenty, curly ash-blonde cascades down over her shoulders and a smile he imagined he might see in his dreams that night and for nights to come. Gray eyes soft as velvet, white teeth, and blooming cheeks. The young woman’s lipstick and face powder were applied with more enthusiasm than was customary those days, and she wore eye shadow, a daring advance. Brun thought of a ripe juicy apple, just ready to be bitten into.

“Well, hello,” the vision said. “I haven’t seen you here before…oh, I hope I haven’t made a mistake. You do work here, don’t you?”

“My second day,” Brun said, and looked around. Stark was inside his little office back of the counter, and Isaac was nowhere to be seen. Probably delivering an organ or a piano, or out on a break. The boy worked to keep his pleasant smile from stretching into an idiot’s grin. “What can I help you with, Miss?”

She pointed toward the racks of piano folios and lesson books. “I’m looking for
Wiley’s First Piano Studies
, it’s usually right up in the rack over there. I have two new students starting this afternoon.”

“We ran out,” Brun said, then, before the young woman could do more than look concerned, he added, “but we have new copies, still in the carton. I’ll get them for you.”

Brun considered that knowing the stock might actually be a good idea. The books had just come in that morning’s mail, and he had intended to put them on the shelf once he’d finished looking over the stringed instruments. He hustled up behind the counter, grabbed a couple of books from a carton on the floor, laid them on the glass between the girl and himself. She smiled, flicking the tip of her tongue between her teeth. Brun’s knees shook. “I’m so glad you have them,” she said. “Imagine, my new students and their mothers coming in for their first lessons, and the teacher doesn’t even have the lesson books. I think first impressions are so important, don’t you, Mr. …”

“Campbell. Brun Campbell. Oh yes, of course. First impressions are very important.”

Just as it occurred to him that he was shamelessly dogeyeing the girl, Brun realized John Stark stood beside him at the counter. “Good afternoon, Miss McAllister,” Stark said. “I trust you’re finding what you need.”

“Why, yes, Mr. Stark, thank you.” Miss McAllister pointed at the books. “Your new young man has been so very helpful. Do you play, Mr. Campbell?”

Before Brun could do more than clear his throat, Stark said, “Brun is a fine pianist. You’ll have to come back some time when he’s not quite so busy, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to play for you. But right now, I have him working the inventory.”

Clear enough to Brun. A polite, “Pleased to meet you, Miss McAllister,” and the boy was on his way back to the strings. Stark rang up the sale.

A few minutes later, Brun once again found Stark at his side. “You did fine, Brun, but I think a bit of caution around Miss McAllister would be in order. She came to town last fall, moved into a little house out on East Sixth, and set up as a piano teacher for children. Nobody really knows where she came from, except that she’d been a circus performer. Not the most respectable life for a young woman.”

“Maybe she was orphaned,” Brun said. “Or her father was a drunk and the family had no money. I’ve known such back home, sir, and sometimes there was not any respectable work a girl could do so as not to starve.”

The earnestness on Brun’s face took Stark back forty years. “Well, yes, that may be,” he said softly. “Perhaps I should have more sympathy. But her behavior isn’t…well, what you might hope. She’s had any number of beaux, and there have been fights over her affections, one quite a serious affair where a young man suffered a bad injury to his head. And aside from giving piano lessons, she’s involved herself in a business venture with a particularly disagreeable man. Had I not come out when I did, I expect she’d have had you talking for a good while, and then suggested she might like to get to know you better. That would, of course, be your business, though on your own time. But I’d suggest you keep your eyes open and your wits about you.”

Brun remembered the story about the fox and the sour grapes. He thanked his boss, who then went back to his office, leaving Brun to his work and his thoughts.

A little before three, Stark sent Brun out to the bank to make a deposit. When the boy returned, he was surprised to see his boss and Isaac in the office, heavy in conversation with Scott Joplin. As soon as the men saw him, they came out, Stark and Isaac smiling, Joplin’s face as serious as ever. But by now, Brun had decided that was not something to be concerned about.

He was right. Joplin told Brun he’d been to see Mr. Robert Higdon, and Mr. Higdon was willing to take the newcomer as a boarder, with permission to use his piano for practice. “Mr. Higdon expects to see you at his office after you’re done working this afternoon,” Joplin said. “Katy Building. 223 South Ohio.”

“I’m sure you’ll be comfortable there,” Stark said. “Bob Higdon’s a fine young man, very congenial and smart as a whip. He just opened his own law office. Last year he clerked for Bud Hastain, and Bud can’t say enough good about him.

Isaac smiled. “Be one sight better than the Y.”

Joplin nodded, placed his black bowler onto his head, and started to walk out. But Stark called him back. “Brun played me a tune of yours yesterday—‘Maple Leaf Rag’?”

“Yes…that’s my music.”

“Would you play it for me?” Stark gestured Joplin toward the piano. “I’d like to hear it again.”

Without a word, Joplin sat, put his fingers to the keys, and played “Maple Leaf Rag.” Brun looked from his boss to his teacher, and back again. Stark stared like a man in a trance. When Joplin finished, the shopkeeper blinked, then smiled. “That’s one glorious piece of music. Thank you.”

You couldn’t have told from Joplin’s face that he’d received a supreme compliment. “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” was all he said; then he was out the doorway.

Isaac shook his head. “That Scott Joplin, he sure be one serious boy.”

Stark said, “What he must hear inside his head, none of us will ever know.” Brun would’ve sworn his boss sounded envious.

***

At five o’clock, Brun left the music store, walked to the corner, then up Ohio. At Fourth Street, a bunch of small boys crowded around the little red and yellow popcorn and peanut wagon. The squat vendor yanked at a string, whereupon a shrill whistle sent the boys into a frenzy of shrieking and clutching at their ears. Brun smiled, but felt a little sad.

A sign in a window at the Katy Building announced that Mr. Robert Higdon took general law cases and lent money at five percent. Brun opened the door, looked around inside, then walked in. Higdon’s waiting room was empty, the air warm and close. A faint scent of violets around the small secretary’s desk next to an inner door told him the secretary had left not all that long before. Brun knocked at the inner door, no answer. A moment’s hesitation, then he turned the knob and pulled the door open just enough to peer inside and see the room was empty. He shut the door, walked back across the waiting room, settled into a homey brown sofa opposite the desk, and rested his head back against the cushion. Next he knew, he heard, “Mr. Campbell, I presume.”

Brun scrambled to his feet before he was full-awake, and blinked up into Robert Higdon’s face. The lawyer was about thirty, a good six feet tall, with a broad face and wide-set brown eyes. His ears stuck out like jug handles, and the lines of his full lips were soft, just a trace of a smile at the right corner. He wore a neat, well-tailored three-piece light worsted suit, with a red and green plaid bow tie set around a crisp white collar. Mr. Higdon didn’t buy clothes on the cheap.

“I apologize for keeping you, Mr. Campbell. I was called out unexpectedly.”

“That’s all right, sir. I suspect the lawyer business can be unpredictable. And please, if you’d like, call me Brun.”

“Good. I’ll do that.” Higdon draped an arm over the boy’s shoulders. “Come on inside, and let’s get better acquainted.”

They sat and talked for about half an hour, mostly Higdon asking questions about Brun, and Brun replying, mostly with the truth, and when not, close enough to do. All in all, the boy’s answers seemed to satisfy Mr. Higdon, who agreed that Brun could lodge and take meals in his home, and practice on the new Steinway grand in his living room, so long as that practice didn’t take place too late at night or too early in the morning. Terms would be a sawbuck a month. Higdon laughed at the look that came over Brun’s face. “Aren’t those terms satisfactory to you, Brun?”

“Well, no—I mean, yes. I’m sorry, sir, I guess I’m just surprised. They’re way more generous than I’d ever thought.

“I don’t think you’d make a very good business negotiator.”

“I’m sure that’s the truth, Mr. Higdon. I hope I’m a lot better on the piano than I’d be in a business office.”

Higdon’s grin went wry. “Well, touché, Brun, and fair enough. I play piano myself, though with far more enthusiasm than skill. But I do love music. I get to most of the shows at Wood’s Opera House, and the dances Saturday nights in the hall at Second and Ohio, above the St. Louis Clothing Store. You might enjoy those yourself. Scott Joplin provides the music—that’s where I got to know him. The fact that he’s willing to have you as a piano student means a lot. And Mr. Stark told me that as well as he could tell in a day, he was favorably impressed with your abilities and thought you were of sound character. If both Scott Joplin and John Stark are willing to take a chance on you, so will I.”

“Well, Mr. Higdon, I sure am grateful for that.”

Higdon pulled a gold pocket watch from behind his vest, flipped it open, frowned. “I think we’d better be heading home. My sister gets annoyed when I’m late for dinner. You can pick up your things at the Y later, if that’s all right.”

More than all right with Brun, who’d had nothing to eat since his pancake breakfast. He kept time with Higdon down Ohio, then west onto Sixth, and along to a two-story white frame house, recently painted, with a wide wraparound porch and well-tended flower gardens in front. Higdon pointed. “That’s it. Will it do, do you think?”

“It looks more than ample, Mr. Higdon.”

Higdon laughed. “Good. I hoped you wouldn’t be disappointed. Come on inside and meet the ladies. They’re expecting you.”

They walked under a bower so thick with morning glories Brun couldn’t see but a bit of the trellis, then up a short path, onto the porch, and inside. From somewhere out back, Brun heard a pretty two-part soprano harmony on “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” Higdon called a hello, and like they’d been waiting for the summons, the music stopped mid-phrase and two young women hustled through the doorway. The lawyer kissed the older on the cheek, then the younger, and then made introductions. “Mr. Brun Campbell, my sister Belle Higdon and my niece Luella Sheldon. Louie.”