“Ain’t no sech a thing as a colored band leader for a white act. Colored act need a white man. Ain’t no white act need a colored one.” Osceola had stopped to examine the front page. He looked at the masthead and spelled out, “Chi-ca-go . . . Defender.”
“Say so right there. A symphony of one hundred instruments, including eleven pianos.”
Ossie sucked his teeth. “Sullivan’s a drunk and a liar. Ain’t no nigguh got eleven pianos,” but he flipped the page and saw that it was true. A full picture spread of a colored band graced the center pages of the smuggled Chicago daily. “Vernon and Irene Castle and Conductor James Europe.” Ossie studied the pictures—Jim Europe standing between the Castles, standing with his horn section, standing next to the King of England! James Reese Europe, in fine black tails, a colored man named after a continent!
Osceola immediately saw the possibilities. The Victrola players had been selling for a decade, but still people were suspicious. The old stride player, Mr. Jocelyn, so prideful when Osceola would carry his hat and instrument case, was scared of this new sound. “Who gon come hear us, if they kin take the band home? Who gon wanna hear us play if they done heard the song over and over?” But Ossie could see now that the music could go anywhere, it was going everywhere, and colored musicians were riding first class. It was one thing to hear a coin slot phonograph in a penny arcade, it was another to have a full orchestra sittin’ up in your parlor. White folks dancing with a colored band? That was nothing new. White folks paying a colored band leader, both of em standin’ on stage together? That was something else!
Lizzie tried to match her steps to the foot patterns diagramed in the paper. “Most of the decent bands not even comin’ south no more. Far south as I’m goin is Baltimo they say. St. Louis in a pinch. Only ones come down hyeah is them tired old minstrel shows. Black Patti comin’ to town next week. She a hundred years old. Come on. Let’s walk like rich folk. No mo’ Cake Walk. We doin’ the Castle.”
Osceola squinted in the half-light of the room. Lizzie approached and stood beside him. He could feel her breath on his neck. The article said that both Vernon Castle and Jim Europe had set aside their careers to support the war effort, Castle becoming an airman with the Royal Canadians and Europe becoming an officer with Harlem’s 369th Infantry and leader of its military band.
Ossie studied the band picture in disbelief. In the last row of musicians, he recognized Herbie Wright, standing proud with his drumsticks, his bass drum emblazoned boldly THE PERCUSSION TWINS. Jim Europe had innovated again, amplifying his sound with two trap drummers, who only by coincidence had the same last name. Europe took a cue from Kittyhawk and dubbed them The Wright Brothers. Ossie was more than familiar with one of them. Herbie Wright was from Crook School, just like him! Herbie had taken lessons from Mr. Mikell and withstood his advances just like him. And just like him, Herbie had run off and gotten his start in Deke’s street band. Even now Ossie could hear their marching rhythms and the sound of coins dropping into Deke’s bowler hat. But Herbie had a temper, and when he tried on his own to collect on the band’s popularity, Deke disabused him of that notion, pummeling him every time the boy attempted to stand back up. Dispossessed of all but his hide, Herbie left Charleston for good. Next thing Ossie sees, Herbie is being called one half of the Percussion Twins, sittin’ in with the legendary Clef Club Band of James Reese Europe, drum set flanked by grand pianos.
Europe’s matte ebony visage dominated the page. Suited up in perfectly cut formal black tails, he stood before a massive ensemble of banjos, reeds, fiddles, and brass—trumpets and tubas, trombones and horns curled around themselves with serpentine splendor. In the center of it all a black man, his almond-shaped eyes, piercing through his rimless round glasses, baton in hand, lookin’ like Moses! Herbie Wright had not only resurfaced, he was resurrected, playin’ in what had to be the grandest band in the world!
“Castle Walk. This dance don’t look like nothin’,” Lizzie complained. “Gimme a rag or somethin’ jukin’.”
Osceola barely heard her. He couldn’t believe it. Orange Street, same as me! Callin’ theyselves Percussion Twins. Bet I kin outplay the both of em put together. Me and Lizzie like twins. Got talent and each other, just like them. We would run them off the bandstand. Cain’t b’lieve, Herbie got out, got away, and wound up on the cover of the newspapuh! While he could easily read notes on a piece of sheet music, he struggled silently with the words on the page.
Lizzie intuited his struggle and to distract him improvised a lyric while bumping her hips.
“Told my mama I was sick, that I got the croup,
Snuck out of the back to join a colored Jass troupe,
But Mama put her foot down and this is what she say,
I don’t care if you got pneumonia, you gwine to school today!
I hollahed right back at huh and this is what I say,
You wanna catch up wid me, Mama, let me school you my way!
You wanna lay some learnin’ on me but it ain’t no use,
Less it’s some fast jukin’ Jass or a barrelhouse Blues!”
Tapping out the melody with a buck and time step, Lizzie slid into a skating scotch step to a crossover double tap to a broken leg and her old man’s dance with one leg short and a dip and a wobble.
Their plan was to get in a little olio, the variety sketches that came after the comedy sets in most traveling shows, and, by way of entertainment, earn a ticket out of Charleston and make their way to New York.
In the wee hours of the morning the following week, Lizzie and Ossie approached the private railcar, the traveling troupe ’most packed up after their last set. A bright orange stripe of dawn had just cracked the night sky.
“Say, we’re here to see Black Patti.”
“Sister Sissieretta ain’t, isn’t seeing anyone.”
“She seein’ us! “Mah daddy and Black Patti was like this.” Lizzie held her two fingers tight together. “Mah daddy come to see Black Patti. Turnt the show out! I’m Tommy Winrow’s daughter.”
“Who?”
“Tom Winrow, the cornet playuh!”
“Never heard of him.”
“Yeah? So who are you?” Lizzie snapped.
“Please, mistuh,” Osceola interjected, “she’s just excited is all. We really got somethin’. I play the piano, she sing and dance.”
The headliner Black Patti stepped out of the shadows and walked toward the couple. She was a giant woman, an earth goddess bedecked with sequined splendor of the sun and moon, one on each breast, a crest of waves atop her head, her chiseled brown face regal if worn. Osceola stepped forward to meet her and bowed. “We have created an act in your honor, Miss Sissieretta, and we would like to show it to you.”
“What is it you do?”
“She sing and I uh . . . I uh, uh . . .”
“It’s a song and dance. Uh olio, brand-new, never been seen,” chirped Lizzie.
Intrigued by the earnestness of the young man’s large languid eyes and the contours of his youthful body, the songstress turned to him, the sun of her left breast blotting out Lizzie’s presence. “New song?”
“Yessum.”
“You wrote it?”
“Yessum. Well I—mostly uh some . . .”
“Lemme hear it.” Osceola moved swiftly and sat down at the upright piano. As Lizzie started shaking her shoulders in preparation, surveying the railcar to determine how much room she had for her moves, Sissieretta followed Ossie to the piano bench and sat beside him. “Lemme hear you sing it.”
“Well, I just play. Lizzie Mae do the sangin’, song part.”
“I like to hear the composer sing the song,” Sissieretta purred. “Tells me if it’s true.”
Lizzie didn’t like the way this was going at all. She was not accustomed to some woman showing that kind of attention to her friend and partner, let alone a legend!
Osceola felt his heart racing. His face was flushed. A room full of people and he was fine, but with a giant goddess l
ooming over him and the band members standing round, the hint of tobacco smoke, alcohol, and reefer clinging to the air, he panicked, couldn’t move. When he played at cuttin’ contests at Pilar’s, he always lasted to the final round, but sitting there so close beside Black Patti he felt his whole body quivering like a puddle in a rain shower. His hands trembled. Dismissing him with a soft grunt, Sissieretta shifted her weight and turned indifferently toward Lizzie. “Lemme see yo’ dance, then.”
“Me and my partner come as a duet,” Lizzie snapped. “Didn’t come for no solo.” With bold long steps, she marched toward Ossie, grabbed him by the elbow, and dragged him down the car and out the train door. Laughter followed them, jabbing at their ribs, Lizzie’s fingernails digging into Ossie’s arm.
Only when they were down the street and out of sight of the railyard did she let go of his elbow. “Osceola Turner, what wrong wid you? Yuh know you play bettern that.”
“Oh leave me alone. I juss froze up.”
“Just froze up?! Shit. North Pole ain’t that cold.”
“Don’t be messin’ with me, Lizzie. Doan be messin’ wid me.”
“I don’t know why I bother messin’ witchu at tall. I sneak out the house and for what? We ain’t neber gon git nowhere talkin’ ’bout ‘just froze up.’ A block of ice could just froze up. Snowstorm just froze up. Eskimo in uh igloo just froze up. Dead body got rigor mortis just froze up. How is a musician what wrote a song talkin’ ’bout just froze up? What the people poze to do, imagine how it sound?”
“Oh shut up and leave me alone.”
“Then there be two of us ‘just froze up.’ ”
“One of these days yo’ mouf gonna get you in a lotta trouble.”
“Least it open when I want it to.”
“She warnt interested in yo’ singin’ no way.”
“Now he got something to say!”
He turned and left without speaking another word.
Through a wall of mirrors, Deke could scan the whole floor from the entrance to the bandstand. They were angled so he could even see the balcony ringing the saloon floor. He tracked all of the business like a musical score, the intricate weaving of human enterprise. Respectable vice. No crimps or dips. No snake juice. Only the devious and perverse. Only in this world could a black man assume some measure of equality—the underground that connected Pilar’s to the wharf. South Carolina being a dry state since 1916 had produced in Charleston a healthy enclave for sin and abundant opportunity for ambition. Be it the white action on Beresford and Clifford Street or Pilar’s Palace of Pleasure, Deke was the man to see.
Pilar’s had three doors—one for the girls, one for white men, and one for colored. Sailors, scuffs, dock boys, clerks, stevedores, ruffians. Gentlemen who preferred the darker pleasures, he escorted to Pilar’s—pillars of society he could break into twigs. He had paid his dues. Occasionally he had to clean up a mess—a slit throat, stabbing, suicide—but usually the whiskey was free and easy flowin’, camphor and cocaine and cunt abundant and a fair fightin’ game good for five bucks a purse. Deke was a large man with a quiet, still demeanor. Music kept him easy, his coolness serene.
He liked to keep things organized. Cards in the back: rotating games of poker, faro, gin, and blackjack, old-timers like Winrow playin’ coon. Bringin’ in his homemade wine like it was an offering from God. “Made up for you just right. Persimmon beer, corn liquor. Scuppernong! Tommy Winrow’s wine divine!” Deke remembered Win’s laugh the most, loud with joy he didn’t deserve havin’. Lookin’ like a Sambo in a pichuh show. Deke wanted to wipe that grin off his face, but he couldn’t put it out his mind. Lost his laugh, went lookin’ for it in a slug of cough syrup. Rapture. Smack, thunder, hell dust, nose drops. Even now, years later, Deke couldn’t get the sound out his ear. The hollow laughter would beckon from a corner, or in the notes of an itinerant horn player’s casual tune. Even after Deke had squelched him, played him, beat him, distilled him down to emptiness, Win was still laughin’. Haunted, even now, in the face of that girl.
Traveling the back roads through Hell Hole Swamp, Deke would store local moonshine and bootleg labeled liquor at Hiram’s Barbershop, but he steered clear of the stuff himself. Anything that altered his attention. The whores had tried to feed him sweet water as a kid, a little whiskey mixed in with sugar water. He had turned his head even then. Prize for the best picker, soldier’s haze, double shot for a good hand. He saw too many people swallowed. Either by the spirits or by the smoke. Snow, juice, death. Even Tommy Winrow. Tricked out by his own hand. “Made up for you, Deke, just right.” How’d that happen?
Deke always liked to keep his mind sharp, calculating. He had a system: pickpocket—broken fingers; card cheat—gouge out an eye. If someone beat up one of the girls, he broke their nose and jaw. Confidence? Busted kneecaps. He carried three guns, one in his pocket, one behind his back, one in his sock garter, a shiv up his sleeve. Blackjack, brass knuckles, didn’t need those. Reputation was enough.
Trade: opium from Chinamen, cocaine in packets from Sully, whiskey up the backwoods routes. Girls always in from somewhere.
Pilar was older now, her bloated hands tippin’ her cough syrup brown-laced with heroin to her sunken lips, toenails curved around, couldn’t fit in her red-topped boots. He stood to inherit, thought to expand, any day now. Then the war came. MPs everywhere, the girls gettin’ surly, cuttin’ deals on their own, up-country crackers struttin’ their arrogance, banning fraternization, crimping his trade.
Ossie’s face was still hot when he got back to Pilar’s. He headed for the backstair pantry where Pilar often let him sack out during the day. The old madame puffed on her cigar. Her weathered hands still graceful, her nails still pink, she cupped her mouth and hollered toward the back, “Deke? Got company.” Ossie pulled back the pantry curtain. His meager belongings were scattered about. Deke’s hulking frame huddled over the loose floorboard under which Ossie had concealed his stash. Ossie charged at his brother and whipped him around only to be confronted with a pearl-handled pistol at his cheek, the trigger pulled back.
“Better sleep with it from now on,” Ossie spat.
“I always do,” Deke chuckled, and slowly let the trigger ease, releasing him. Deke casually tucked the pistol back up his sleeve. “Hold out on me again and see what happen.” In the silence, Ossie felt a trickle of urine run down his leg. The cigar box where he had secreted his and Lizzie’s hard-won earnings was dashed, broken and emptied.
“That money belong to me and Lizzie. You ain’t got no right to it.”
“I got a right to anything you got, little brother. I brought you into this world, I’ll take you out.”
Ossie bolted out the door and ran.
“Come back here! Get back here, you lil nigguh!”
Ossie hid in an empty freight train all that day and night. He grabbed the truss rods of a livestock car and hoisted himself up. Retreating to the corner, he crumbled to the floor. How’m I gonna tell Lizzie? He beat his hat to his knee in fury and curled himself into a fetus, not even noticing when the train started up. The earthen smell and the swaying movement of the car finally lulled him to sleep.
He bolted awake just as the moving shadow of a train patrolman rushed him. The club came crashing down. He crouched and instinctively stuffed his hands in his armpits to protect his fingers. Better his head and back, he thought, than his hands.
He wound up in the Spartanburg County lockup, three hundred miles into the piney woods, cracker country. The cell next to his was occupied by a crew of colored soldiers. Five of ’em. Uniforms pressed, hair slicked, mustaches clipped. One of them was standing leisurely, taking a drag off a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Hey, I told you nigguhs, no smoking in hyeah!” The soldier coolly looked at the red-faced white guard, dropped the cigarette, and stepped on it. “Y’all coons bettuh loyn, this ain’t New Yawk.”
The soldier let out a smooth trail of smoke. “No kiddin’. We don’t want no sparks in Spartanburg.”
As soon as the iron jail door clanked shut and the men were alone, Osceola jumped up and held on to the bars. “Y’all real soljahs? Never seen colored ones befoah. Charleston full of ’em, but no colored to speak of. Just a couple of messengers and sech.”
A chubby dark one seated on a cot replied, “Last time I looked we was colored.”
A reddish-brown soldier with small black eyes paced in a circle and nervously slicked down his hair. He spoke with a staccato accent Osceola could not place. “I dint sign up to be no soljah. I juss play bassoon, okay?” he protested. “I sign up to be inna inna inna band. Five hundred dollah a month, that’s what he say, that’s what Jimmy told me. I sign up to be inna band, not no army. I don’t wanna be no soljah. I play bassoon!”
“You a bassoon-playin’ muthafuckin’ soljah now, Romero,” the fat one teased. “Ain’t you heard? We got a war to fight.”
“With who, a newspaper boy?”
“Shut the fuck up, both of you.” A thin, wide-eyed caramel man grabbed the bars and shouted at the empty hallway. “Hey! We want to speak to the colonel! We have our rights!”
“You know they lynch nigguhs down here for mess like this,” blurted the fat one. He leaned back, his hands folded over his round stomach as if in prayer. He closed his eyes while speaking. “In Houston, the colored troops and the locals got into it, and afterward, sixteen of the nigguhs was hanged.”
“I ain’t no nigguh. I’m Puerto Rican.”
“Well ’scuse me for breathin’, mon señor.”
“That’ll do, guys,” cautioned the one with the cigarette. He stood apart from the rest and moved slowly as if on his own time. The older man met Ossie’s gaze. “Where you from, kid?”
“Charleston, thereabouts. Jumped a freight.” Ossie chuckled wearily, bashfully. “Jumped the wrong train.”