Oh, Play That Thing

—AND THEY PUT IT OVER WITH A WOW—

  Black bullets.

  —ALL OVER IRELAND—

  Coming straight at me.

  I saw Dora, in a corner of my eye. I saw her silent shout; the fury, terror.

  —YOU CAN SEE THE PEOPLE DANCE—

  I moved away from Dora. I made my way to the bandstand.

  —COS IRELAND’S GONE BLACK BOTTOM CRAZY—

  I saw Pink Carmine.

  Fuck him.

  —NOW-OW-OW—

  I’d been called.

  I walked behind him, through the hidden guts of the club, the place below the stage, like the innards of a cruise ship manned by black men and women, chefs, waiters, ironers, men stoking the furnace, through clouds of steam that were too big and wet for inside. Pink Carmine came as far as the furnace, sucking up to Armstrong all the way. Louis brought the business. They all wanted Louis.

  —Want a steak before you go, Louis?

  —Put it back on the cow, Gate. Had one before I got here.

  And we left him behind. We were with Louis. I made sure Dora was with me.

  —We’re fine.

  Someone pushed open the door in front of us; I watched the steam sail out and die. The cold air hit us and we were out in the alley. The door behind clunked shut.

  It was raining hard. Dora was furious and wouldn’t talk. We’d escaped; Armstrong had saved us. I tried to tell her that, but I let her go. I watched her break the light on the puddles as she went right through them. The music swallowed her heels, and I tumbled into the car beside Armstrong.

  —They got rain like that in Ireland, Pops?

  —No, I said. —It never rains in Ireland.

  —Yeah, he said. —I heard that. It all desert.

  He looked at me.

  —Which of us getting out again?

  —Why?

  —The crank.

  —Oh yeah.

  I opened the door and slid back out into the rain.

  —Get back in, Pops. Automobile’s old but ain’t that old. We can start her inside here.

  He had me rattled, but I got back in, and he got us started. The windows shook. The water charged down the windscreen.

  —No wipers, no?

  —Wipers was extra. You drive?

  —No, I said.

  —No now, no ever?

  —Ever.

  —Got to learn. Hold the wheel. That half the job.

  The rain came in on us and we nearly went over an Irish-looking cop who was stepping around a puddle, but by the end of that night, across and back across the city, in and out of the Loop, south, down State Street—

  —Stop when you see the cotton, Pops.

  I was driving the years-old Bearcat, Louis’s Pneumonia Special, and he was sitting where I’d been. I didn’t know where we were; I’d been lost for hours. The rain was still hammering down, and it was slightly drier under the roof than it was outside. To see where I was pointing the car, I had to stick my head out the window every couple of seconds.

  He spoke.

  —I describe the job, you tell me if it’s yours. Sound right?

  —Fire away.

  —You stay beside me. Day, night, time in between. That the job.

  —Is that it?

  —I explain more as we go along. Sound right?

  —Fair enough.

  —Fair ee-nuff.

  His hand was in front of me. I took, and shook it.

  —Bad smell in this automobile, he said when he took his hand back. —Ain’t me and it ain’t the automobile.

  —That leaves me.

  —’Less there’s someone we didn’t invite sitting right behind us.

  He was good at this; I looked behind.

  —Guess it’s you, he said. —Meat, Pops. You smell of the stockyards.

  —That’s where I work.

  —Work-ed. Can’t be having that smell, O’Pops. We the people who eat the meat. We don’t be smelling like it.

  —It can’t be the suit, I told him. —I never wear it to work.

  —It you, Pops.

  He looked at my feet on the pedals.

  —That right, he said. —Lift the right, slowly, slowly, good and holy. The boots, he said. —They have to go.

  —No, I said.

  We were somewhere near Back o’ the Yards; I wasn’t sure. We argued all the way.

  —It in the boots, he said. —That cow blood in the laces. Got to go.

  —I’ll get new laces.

  —Nay nay, he said. —Boots stink, Pops. Right and left. Right into the leather, the only part of the cow should be on your feet. We’ll buy you some nice shoes.

  —No.

  He slipped one of his own off and held it in front of my face.

  —See? So sharp, they dangerous.

  —No.

  —Sharp as a wedding. Pops. The patent leather. See the pussy while you dancing.

  —It’ll keep till later.

  He laughed.

  —I like that.

  He put the shoe back on and knocked his head on the dash when I took the right he told me to. I couldn’t tell street from car lights; they looked the same through the wash that rolled down the window.

  —Now see here, he said. —Got myself a bump ’account of your stinky old sha-boots. Why you attached? They made from your grandmama’s hide or something?

  —They’ve come a long way with me, I told him. —Where are we?

  —Still Chicago, he said. —I start worrying we start driving through the corn.

  The boots had belonged to my wife’s dead uncle. They were all I had left of her. The wedding photograph was in New York, under Hettie’s bed, or gone. There was nothing else. I’d worn them the last time I spoke to her.

  (—Look for me!

  —I will!

  —Look for me!)

  —Here’s what, O’Pops. Keep the boots, we get you a nice pair of shoes. Wear the shoes, keep the boots for old times’ sake, over the fire, under the bed. Build a museum.

  —I’ll go halfway, I said.

  —Which half?

  He pulled the window open.

  —See why they call this place Back o’ the Yards. Man, it the back of my ass. Have your boot smell, too. So, which half?

  —I’ll keep the boots for old times’ sake.

  —You going to go barefoot?

  —New boots.

  —You a cripple?

  —No.

  —Polio done got into you since I saw you dancing couple hours ago?

  —No.

  I knew where I was now. Even with the rain adding an inch to the windshield, I knew the streets, the slopes, the darkness. I stopped on the road below Mrs Grobnik’s house, in seven inches of brown, roaring water, four feet under the sidewalk.

  I looked at him.

  —I don’t have to explain to you the difference between having a pair of boots and not having a pair of fuckin’ boots.

  —We going to swap the we-was-po’ stories?

  —No. I’m getting out of the car, into this fuckin’ weather. Am I better off with boots or shoes?

  —Boots.

  —If I have to leave town quickly and it might be a long time before I stop. Am I better off with boots or shoes?

  —Boots.

  —I get into a fight with a hard man. Boots or shoes?

  —Gun.

  —You get my point.

  —I bleeding.

  I opened the door and watched the water running past, halfway up the car wheels.

  —Need more than boots to keep your toes dry out there.

  —Back in a minute.

  —Why we here?

  —Your idea. To collect my things.

  —What things you got?

  —A toothbrush and a spare collar.

  —That it?

  —That’s all I’ll take with me.

  —Toothbrush belong to your grandmama too?

  —No.

  —Bristles made from a sweetheart’s cunt hairs?

/>   —Not all of them.

  —Got a sweet thing up that bank?

  —No.

  —Waste of time.

  —I’ll be back in a minute.

  —I be safe here?

  —I don’t know.

  —Might be gone when you get back.

  —Fair enough.

  —Oh, fair ee-nuff.

  I dropped slowly into the water and climbed the mud to the house.

  I heard him behind me.

  —That a good set of boots you got there, suh!

  —Mees-ter Smarhht! In?

  She stepped out of the dark, in front of her porch. She was soaking, half her normal size.

  —Yes, Mrs Grobnik.

  I got past her, into the house.

  —I hear auto-mobeee-le.

  —It’s not a night to be out, Mrs Grobnik.

  —I hear, I look.

  Up the stairs.

  —You are in auto-mobeee-le, Mees-ter Smarhht.

  I got to the door and tried to open it quietly.

  —Good-night, Mrs Grobnik.

  I shut the door. I listened. I heard her go down to the hall – I thought I did. I groped in the dark, found my spare collar, my toothbrush, my Listerine toothpaste – The Dentifrice of the Rich – I didn’t have to hide it; the lads in the room wouldn’t have known what to do with it, and it was too well squeezed to sell. My razor was in my inside pocket – there was nowhere else to keep it – and the shaving brush, brand new and stolen, was in there with it. My money was stitched into the mattress, but not my mattress.

  —Hop it.

  I shoved the big kid off the mattress, hoisted it and found my needlework. (The needle was stuck in the window frame, outside.)

  —Hey!

  —Sorry, son, but I’m in a hurry.

  —Hey!

  —Shut up, for fuck sake. You’ll have it back in a minute.

  The kid only rented eight hours’ worth of mattress a day. A huge, hard-drinking Lithuanian slept on it all day, after nights of cracking heads and mugging poor stiffs who wandered his way in the dark. It was the safest mattress in Back o’ the Yards. He’d been minding two hundred and twelve dollars for me. I had it now, and I slipped it into the pocket I’d stitched inside my trousers, behind the right-side pocket.

  I was packed.

  I gave the big kid a dime when he came jumping at me. The other six lads were awake now, hitting out at each other. I held him back by the scruff of his long underwear and put the coin in his mouth. He knew the taste and stopped struggling.

  —Spend it wisely, son, and sorry for waking you.

  I made it over legs and heads, over to the door. I opened, and closed it.

  —Meester Smarhht.

  —I’m off out again, Mrs Grobnik.

  —Out!

  She grabbed my leg.

  —In! Niy-ice girl, for you.

  I opened the door and threw her in. As I hit the front door I could hear her sorting out the lads.

  —Dow-wwn! Slee-eep!

  He watched me slide down the slope, into the shallow river that was the road. The rain had stopped and the water level had already dropped. I got into the car. It was full of a smoke I didn’t know.

  —What’s the brand?

  —The brand. Yeah, yeah. My bones are at me. Pops. I’m tired of the ocean. Give her the gas.

  I dumped the brush, paste and collar on his lap and got the car going.

  —Left foot down on that nice pedal, Pops. Your toe up off the throttle. That the one. Make her sing.

  There were stones under the mud, so the wheels dug in, and we moved without too much protest from the engine.

  —Where to?

  —Back to.

  —Where?

  —Where we was.

  It was a street off the northern end of State Street and, by the time we got back there, I’d been driving all my life and Louis had my collar on back to front.

  —Come on, Pops. Follow Father Armstrong.

  We walked up, side by side. He was a small man – wide but small. To the big front door, and the doorman, white. I guessed what was happening, why I was there, and I held the door for Louis.

  —Don’t overdo it, Pops, he said when we got into the lift.

  There was a black kid at the controls. We could talk in front of him.

  —What d’you mean? I said.

  —We together, that the tale. I hold the door, you hold the door. I drive, you drive. You not my manservant. I certainly not your boy; nay nay. You with me?

  I wasn’t, but I would be.

  I sat in a warm room with carpets on the walls while Louis went into another room. I heard the bedsprings cheering him on and smelt the smoke that had filled the car. And I heard a little voice.

  —It tight like this, Louie.

  (The next time I heard that voice, it wasn’t the real thing at all, but me, copying the woman I never saw and heard just once.)

  Louis came out of the room, putting on his jacket, my toothbrush standing up in the breast pocket, and he marched to the apartment door.

  —Well well, Pops, he said as we waited for the lift – the elevator – to come up and collect us. —Enjoying yourself?

  —Yeah.

  —I believe you are. I have a old lady and a sweetheart that ain’t my old lady and that nice chick back there ain’t neither of them. And it weren’t her pad and it weren’t her own bed.

  We stepped into the elevator.

  —But it certainly her pussy and it purred like a Cadillac. Ah, yes. Lucked up there, Pops. She’s one swell order of pork chops.

  The elevator creaked and dropped.

  —On the white folks’ bed too; hey hey.

  He winked at the black kid and slipped him a folding one. We went past the doorman. Louis stopped and let me go first.

  —Time for home, he said.

  —Where’s home?

  —Don’t know yet, O’Pops.

  He held the note forever. The red light went on over the studio door, to tell him and the other men that recording time was running out. But they kept it up, continued to play. And they did it again. Three minutes and sixteen seconds, once and twice, three times.

  I stood in a corner, away from the band. I thought I’d fall over trying to keep Louis’s endless note up there. Earl Hines sat at, in, the piano. Louis’s trumpet soared and looped, and Hines’ piano took it by the hand and brought it to the end and, as that end arrived, the world was moving again and I was able to breathe.

  They stood and sat in a rough row, Fred Robinson, Mancy Cara, Jimmy Strong, Zutty Singleton – trombone, lazy banjo, clarinet, drums and bottles. There were three bottles, emptied to varied emptinesses, the contents still warm and inside Zutty. Missis Searcy’s tea-stained gin. Robinson sat on the top rung of a ladder, to free his sound from the floor. Cara’s shoes were at the door, well away from Cara – his feet on the studio floor were too heavy with them on, so he was sitting there now, tapping out a slow, barefoot rhythm.

  —Can’t afford no socks and eats, eh Mancy?

  —No. Forgot them, is all.

  Zutty Singleton sat at the drums and bottles, his tapping feet on top of a pillow; his drums were on a platform made of piled rugs, a big Mohawk rug the top one, put there to kill the vibrations. And then there was Louis, placed further back from the others – two more steps and he was out the studio door – because of the power of his noise. And they all sent the West End Blues into a horn as tall and as wide as a small man. The six men who that hot day – the 28th of June, 1928 – made up Louis’s Hot Five.

  —Why five?

  —I goes without saying, said Louis.

  It was true and getting truer. Louis Armstrong went without saying. The World’s Greatest Trumpeter, star of the Hot Fives and Sevens records that were taking the hearts and feet of the world – Snappy Dance Hits on Okeh Records by Exclusive Okeh Colored Artists. (Was Piano Annie playing them yet?) The first black man to talk on the radio, the sound that made America qu
iver, the smile that made America feel tolerant, the nigger in a tux, the man who discovered music every new time he put the horn to his lip, the growl that scared no one, the clown, the actor, the singer, the music – Louis Armstrong was twenty-seven, a year older than me.

  And I was watching him, listening to him invent the best music yet.

  West End Blues was over. The third, and final, take. That was the way it was; they had three takes, and the best of the three went out into the world.

  The studio was like all the prison cells I’d been in, but worse; I missed the damp of Kilmainham and Dublin Castle. The heat was bad, but it was the sound that made this place a torture. The soundproofing was sawdust in the walls, and heavy, solid, black drapes. The room was dead. The men couldn’t hear each other’s instruments. They shouted to be heard in a space as big as an orange crate. I could feel my feet when I’d walked in but I couldn’t hear a step.

  But the music of the last three takes still filled the air; each speck was a clear note. And there was the dangerous aroma of the shuzzit Louis had insisted the men all smoke before they got down to recording.

  There’d been none for me.

  —We need you keen, O’Pops.

  —I’m not fussed.

  —Fair ee-nuff.

  It was over. Zutty tapped his cymbals – bottles and cymbals; drums weren’t properly heard in those early studios – and that was beautiful that.

  They smiled and stretched, said nothing, waited.

  The door to my left opened – there was no one behind the double-paned partition now; the engineer’s bald head was gone – and a man in a very loose suit looked in at us.

  —That was great, guys, he said. —The third take sent me. It’s the one.

  —I don’t think so, Mister Wickemeyer, said Louis.

  —Sounded fine to me, Pops, said Wickemeyer.

  —I’d like another take, said Louis. —Fine can always be better.

  —Come on now, Pops—

  —You heard the man.

  That was me talking and it was the first thing I’d said since I’d come in and taken my corner.

  Wickemeyer looked at me. So did the other men; they didn’t know me. (They never would.)

  —Who are you?

  There was no aggression in the voice, or the pale face. He didn’t wait for me to answer.

  —You with Louis?

  —That right, said Louis.

  —I’m with Mister Armstrong, I said. —He’d like another take and I’m inclined to agree with him.

  Wickemeyer took a watch from his waistcoat pocket.