He didn’t want the band. Most of them had followed Louis to New York, in a convoy from Chicago, on gas paid for by Lil. Fred Robinson, Zutty Singleton, Carroll Dickerson. It was actually Dickerson’s band, his name. There were no real stars out there yet. Louis was going to be the first.
Rockwell saw that and he didn’t want the rest.
—I did not send for your band, he said. —I sent for you.
There was work in Harlem. They wouldn’t go hungry; the nightclubs paid two thousand black men every night.
Rockwell was tone deaf. But he’d been a promoter for years and he looked for his tone in the tapping feet of other people. He couldn’t hear notes but he could feel a floor when it hopped. And that was what happened whenever he played Louis’s records; the feet of his friends and family tapped when that black guy played. He didn’t hear the others – Baby Dodds, Fatha Hynes, or Lil – and his kids didn’t talk about the others. It was Louis they smiled for – who was he? Where was he? When would they get to see him?
It was what he was good at: Rockwell knew what people were going to want. But the strength came with a weakness: he didn’t know why they were going to want it. He had the book but he couldn’t read.
—You know that one, Louie? he said one time, before a show. —All Coons Look Alike To Me?
—Mister Rockwell, I don’t believe I do.
He held out the trumpet.
—Want to play it for me?
—I can’t, said Rockwell. —It’s just, people like it. It’s been around for years.
New York was a cosmopolitan place but the black talent went in the back way.
But not tonight. Louis wasn’t having it.
We were outside the Audubon Theatre, in the Bronx. We were early. The doormen weren’t at the door yet.
—After me, said Louis.
He put his hand to the glass and pushed.
He was doing it his way but, all the time, he was listening to Rockwell. They both wanted the same thing. Stardom for Louis, and the sweet things that were coming with it.
—Stay away from the blues, Louis.
—What’s the difference between Rockwell and Joe Glaser? I asked Louis, one night.
—One in New York, the other in Chicago.
—Is that all?
—Mister Rockwell think he manage me soft. Mister Glaser would manage me hard. With me, O’Pops?
—No, I said.
—Fair ee-nuff.
—Stay away from the blues, Louis, said Rockwell. —There’s plenty of other Negroes doing that stuff. Go for the hits. They’ll go up to Harlem to see you but they’ll want to hear Tin Pan Alley. My kids are buying the fucking records. All the fucking kids are. It doesn’t matter where you are. Your records will go anywhere. It’s the future.
Louis listened.
—It’s the future.
Rockwell was a bollix and I never saw him read the letters or the programmes on his desk, but he was worth listening to. He walked through it all; he felt the signals. A man of the times.
He sat on the edge of his desk. This was a month after Louis went out to the jacks and let us at it. He thought he knew why I was there. He didn’t dismiss me, but he knew my place – he thought. (He was probably right; but I never really knew it.) He made the effort and succeeded: he talked only to the black man. He leaned out to Louis, but I was welcome to listen.
—We can’t sell records yesterday, he said. —Only fucking today and tomorrow. Goes without saying, but I have to keep reminding myself. But, the strange fucking thing in all that, Louie – the records have to be familiar. Fresh, but reliable. The past sells, in new fucking pants. With me, Louie?
—Listening.
—So, listen some more.
He stood up. Rockwell was lazy but always restless.
—Ever notice something about kids, Louie? he said. —It came as a shock to me. They don’t stay kids. They grow up. We all do, but it’s a kick in the fucking head when your own kids do it. You got kids, Smart?
—Yeah.
—Then you know what I’m fucking talking about.
I shrugged.
—The kids we got at the moment here.
He nodded at the office window.
—They’re coming up in a different fucking world. They got all they want. Automobiles, money. Phonographs. Fucking phonographs and records. Last year the people of this great nation spent seventy-five million bucks on phonographs and records. Kids do some of the buying. They do most of the fucking buying. Especially the fucking records. And they ain’t going to give up just because they hit twenty-five. They’re going to keep buying fucking records.
He sat on the desk again.
—They’ll want to hear the old songs. They’ll pine for the good old days, when their guts and dicks were hard and everything else was fucking soft, but they won’t want to admit that. That they’ve given in, that they’re getting old. The kids that are listening to you now, the ones that are going to start listening – and they fucking are, Louie – tomorrow and in 1930 and 1931 and 1930-fucking-2. Somewhere there, while they’re listening to you and dancing, they’re going to stop being kids and they’re going to get some kids of their own. And they’ll still want to listen to you. They’ll be feeling the fucking blues but they won’t want to fucking listen to the blues. You got five screaming kids, you want another one? No, you fucking do not. You’re broke, you need reminding? No. The last fucking thing you need. You want to hear the good old days on that phonograph that you’re paying for on the fucking instalment plan. But that’s not all. You want to hear it like it’s new. So you don’t feel old fucking listening to it. So it has to be fucking good. Know what’s going to sell, Louie? Timeless.
—Timeless?
—Fucking timeless.
He sang.
—WHEN YOU’RE SMILING—
That got me away from the window.
—WHEN YOU’RE SMILING—
Louis looked as upset as I’d ever seen him. Rockwell couldn’t hear himself.
—THE WHOLE WORLD—
Rita came through the parting door and walked to his desk. It looked rehearsed, but a good walk always did. She put a letter on the desk, to the right of Rockwell’s arse. He grabbed her hand.
—SMILES WITH – YOU-OU-OU— Timeless, Louie. It’ll always be fucking that.
He let go of Rita’s hand.
—Honey, he said. —What age are you again?
—Twenty-two, Mister Rockwell.
—Do you consider yourself a kid?
—No, Mister Rockwell.
—Married?
—Betrothed.
—Betrothed. Ain’t she got style, gentlemen?
We nodded.
—In fucking spades, said Rockwell.
Rita was edging away from the desk but she wasn’t unhappy with the attention.
—Got a phonograph, honey?
—Why, yes, Mister Rockwell. You bought it for me.
I watched her back, her neck below that red hair.
—I did?
—Yes, you did.
—Christmas.
—Birthday.
—Good present, either ways.
—Yes, Mister Rockwell; thank you.
—You use it much? You and the betrothed there?
—Yes, I do. We don’t. It’s in my bedroom.
—Taking it with you when you wed?
—Yes, Mister Rockwell.
—Reckon you’ll still have use for it?
—Oh, yes, Mister Rockwell.
—You get my point? Rockwell asked Louis, over Rita’s shoulder.
—Young lady has a phonograph, said Louis.
But he’d been listening.
She smiled at Louis, a little uncertainly, and at me. And out she went.
—That chippy’s your market, Louie, said Rockwell. —Never forget it.
The door swung back into place. All three of us looked at it.
—The average kid, getting older, said Rockwell. —She
’ll go see you tonight.
He was never finished.
—At the Audubon. She’ll go out to the fucking Bronx. That’s where she fucking lives, now that I think of it. But she’ll go, and she’ll love you. And she’ll fuck her betrothed to prove it. And they’ll get themselves married and move deeper into the fucking Bronx. And the fucking kids will start popping and she’ll stop going and maybe even stop fucking, although that’s hard to see.
He looked at the door, then back at Louis.
—And then what? he said.
—She’ll listen to the nice records.
—She’ll buy the nice fucking records. Just as long as you keep making them new and old. And fucking timeless.
He stood up. He picked up his hat.
—They’re the fucking future, Louie Armstrong. Records. And there’ll never be enough of them. More and more and fucking more of them. A million Louies in a million homes. The past, the present, and the fucking future.
He put on the derby. It wouldn’t quite take to his head. He didn’t notice or care.
—A concert? Fine. An earner, maybe. A big earner, maybe too. But done. Finito. A record? A good fucking record? A timeless fucking record? They’ll play it all their fucking lives and they’ll buy a new one every time they wear it out and their kids will do the same thing, and their fucking kids. They’ll hear it on that fucking radio and they’ll buy it, so they can play it when the radio don’t. They’ll be buying the records long after we’re dead and fucking buried, Louie. Just as long as they’re the fucking goods. I’ll leave you with that. See you tonight.
We stood there a minute, then followed. Rita was busy as I passed.
He’d listened, and the music changed.
—OH – TWO BY TWO—
THEY GO MARCHING THROUGH.
—What’s going on? I asked Louis.
Louis put salve on his bottom lip; it was savage, raw, like something that was never going to heal. I’d just heard him play and sing. He was sitting in a corner, beside his typewriter.
—What’s what goin’ on, O’Pops?
—Sweethearts On Parade? I asked.
—Ain’t what you do, Pops, said Louis. —The way that you do it.
He wiped the mute and watched its shine.
—Still doing my own thing.
And he was.
—I like it.
And he did. He liked the songs that Rockwell wanted him to record. He’d always liked them. The changes came before Rockwell explained them. Louis was there before him.
The mute was new. I hadn’t seen him use one before; I hadn’t been there when he’d bought it, if he bought it. He wiped it some more.
We were in the Audubon dressing room, under the stage. It was months since we’d been deep inside a club. He was fuelling up on the reefer I’d got him earlier, from a chap called Milton Mezzrow, who called himself the Mezz.
—The Reefer King, the Philosopher, the Mezz, the White Mayor of Harlem, the Link between the Races, the Man about Town, the Man that Hipped the World.
The man was an eejit.
I’d met him in an alley off Seventh Avenue, near the stage entrance to the Lafayette. Connie’s Inn was near, and the Bandbox and the Cotton Club, and all the other clubs that mattered.
—How much? I asked Mezzrow.
—For you?
—No.
—For who?
I’d been told to tell him.
—Louis Armstrong.
He grinned.
—For Pops, man, they come cheap. Anything for the man.
—Ain’t met him, Louis said now, in the dressing room. —Was told. Jewish boy desperate to be a brother, throw the gage at you for the chance to say he know a black player. Plays a bit himself, was told.
He stopped talking as he took in the smoke, and held. He was quiet now – he was getting quieter – but he grinned when he looked up and saw Zutty Singleton looking in at us. Looking in at Louis. And at me.
—Mister Arm-strong.
—Mister Single-ton.
—This here the place for the music, sir?
—This here that place.
He stepped in. He was older than Louis, and elegant, no effort. The black suit, like Louis’s, had seen a lot of nights; it was worn to the wrong type of shininess, but it hung just right. The drumsticks in the breast pockets looked right too. He looked at me.
—Watcha know, Face?
I nodded.
—This here boy Irish? he asked Louis.
—Yes, sir. One of those Irish boys from Ireland.
—From Ireland genuine? Not like most of them Irishes, never been nearer to Ireland than Coney Island?
He was smiling, and he hid his head in his shoulders. He didn’t like me.
I left the dressing room. I was tired of being the white boy. It was only starting to seep in: my purpose was my whiteness, and my willingness to walk it beside Louis. It was often a pleasure, but it was none of my doing. It was the age of ballyhoo but I was saying nothing. I knew what I was doing, and I’d known it from the start – You’re the white man puts his hand on that white man’s shoulder – but maybe I wanted my own trumpet.
This was Duke Ellington’s gig – Get out of the way; the Duke’s coming – but Ellington couldn’t make the first show; he was stuck in Washington. Rockwell had wanted it that way, or others did – I never knew.
(—You’ve no stake in the country, man. Never had, never will.
I sat before Jack Dalton, the man who’d recruited me, as he confirmed what had taken me years to know.
—We needed trouble-makers and very soon now we’ll have to be rid of them. And that, Henry, is all you are or ever were. A trouble-maker. The best in the business, mind.
I looked at the piece of paper on the desk in front of me. My name on it, my death sentence.)
It was different this time. Louis hadn’t fooled me, or promised me anything. He’d sung to me, like Jack had – The pride of all Gaels, was young Henry Smart – but the song had been real, not just a couple of words and notes. He’d sung the song from start to end. Cos Ireland’s Gone Black Bottom Crazy Now-ow-ow. And I had decided to join.
But I hadn’t joined anything. I was in because of what I wasn’t. I wasn’t black, I wasn’t a player or an agent or a manager or a shark or a friend of Al Capone’s. I wasn’t the things that the dangerous white men were. So I was useful – just as long as I wasn’t anything. Just Louis Armstrong’s white man.
I left them downstairs and strolled the edge of the dance floor, behind pillars and the little potted palm trees that bordered every club dance floor. I was looking for Rockwell. I was looking for Rita. The house band, seven sad men in suits that had seen much more action than Singleton’s, were squeezed into the pit and backing a good-looking girl called Letha Hunter as she tore through Sweet Georgia Brown. She was giving it her lonely best. Her face grew more desperate, the mouth got bigger and wouldn’t shut. There was no sign yet of Rockwell, and no sign of Rita. It was early, not yet midnight. The tables were full, the floor half empty. They’d all come to hear the Duke Ellington Orchestra but, for one show only, they were going to get Louis Armstrong. The walls were black, paintings of black faces and instruments, but the dancers and diners were all white.
I looked at the boredom and tension, looked for class in the dance, saw none. I hadn’t danced in a long time, and I wasn’t going to now. The girl up on the stand managed to get to the last notes of Sweet Georgia Brown; the boys in the pit had given up before her. And then it happened.
I hadn’t seen it. Louis and the other men had come onstage while Letha Hunter did her best. And now, before she gave in to temptation and ran, she was standing in front of the greatest band in the world. And, suddenly, she knew it. And so did everyone else, including the poor fuckers in the pit. Most of them crept out and went home, left their instruments dead on the floor. Only two of the braver ones stayed put to see history. And now I wanted to dance and there was Rita, over there, and there was
Letha Hunter, and there was every woman in the house, now and coming in.
—GEE, BUT IT’S TOUGH TO BE BROKE, KID—
It rolled.
—IT’S NOT A JOKE, KID, IT’S A CURSE—
The words came from where she’d had them stored but they were quickly becoming her own.
—I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT—
LOVE—
The song was hers.
—BAY-BEE—
She wasn’t complaining, not with that gang behind her. She was boasting, promising, showing off. Every woman there was, now that there was real music in the house, and real men playing it, the real woman singing it.
—THAT’S THE ONLY THING I’VE PLENTY
OF—
BAY-BEE—
Louis was using the mute. He was riding her slowly, and she knew it. She looked, to watch him, and looked back.
—DREAM A WHILE—
SCHEME A—
WHILE—
She gasped the words, in total control. Fucking the man who was fucking her. Fucking every man in the place – I could feel her breath and fingers; I could feel her tongue on my neck.
—WE’RE SURE TO FIND—
HAPP-I-NESS—
The band crawled on, down on their wicked knees.
—AND I GUESS—
She knew they were there.
—ALL THOSE THINGS YOU’VE ALWAYS—
PINED—
FOR—
Her hands went onto her hips.
—GEE—
And stayed there.
—I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU LOOKING SWE-ELL—
BAY-BEE—
And there was Rita. Done up for the night. Bodies away, behind one of the palm trees. I could only see her head but I knew she was swaying.
—DIAMOND BRACELETS WOOLWORTH DOESN’T SELL—
I made the move.
—BAY-BEE—
I made my way to Rita.
—I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING—
The way before me was clear.
—BUT—
She knew I was there. She knew –
—LOVE.
And I’d forgotten about the betrothed. He was a big lad, a few inches shy of me. And wide. Stuck in the good suit, because he had to be. The collar was biting his neck, killing the poor cunt slowly. He looked as happy as a strangled man could look, and she liked his hand on her shoulder.
The music stopped and I walked the rest of the way. I nodded to Rita. She nodded back, and nodded at the stand. I looked, and saw Letha Hunter. She was wrapped in the folds of the electric blue hangings. Applause sent ripples across the curtain; her head, face emerged and she stepped forward, the satin still clinging to her shoulders. There were shrieks in the noise, and groans. I looked at Rita. She looked back, and I put that look behind my ear, for later.