—Still at it, I said.
—It’s the thing.
I wanted to hug her; the man she’d fucked for nothing. I sat up. She noticed.
—See? she said. —It works. All I said was, It’s the thing. And you’re sitting up like a rabbit.
She crushed the cigarette into the ashtray.
—Say what they want to hear, do what they want to see. They love you for it.
She lit a new smoke.
—I been refining it.
—Ev-ery day.
She pulled on the cigarette, and let it go – three rings and, I swear, an arrow.
—Left that one far behind, she said.
The waitress was back, with two mugs.
—I told him to put fresh cream in your cakes.
—Good for you, sister. Right up to your chin.
The waitress scampered off.
The half-sister sat back. She put an elbow on the back-rest behind her, and I saw: she was wearing a waistcoat – a Yank vest – and, under it, braces. Wide Clarence Darrow suspenders, lavender.
—Ev-ery minute, she said. —Every hour and day and ev-ery fucking week. And none of the better and better bullsh.
The waitress was back.
—I’m good enough already. I cannot get any better.
The waitress slid the plate across to the half-sister.
The cakes were like two potatoes, huge and bursting. The cream was too white and piled four inches over the pastry. The half-sister ran a long finger across the cream and brought it to her mouth.
I wasn’t the only man watching.
She took her finger from her mouth.
—Delish, she said. —Thank you, sister.
She took her spoon and started shovelling the cream.
—See what I’m up to here?
—You’re eating two big cakes.
—Observant. But what I’m really doing, what’s that?
I thought about it.
—You still got that kinda cute look when you’re thinking, she said.
She was already down to the pastry. She’d done it without bending to the plate.
—So, got an answer for me?
—You’re delivering some sort of message.
—Everything’s a message. Your shoe rubbing my leg there. That’s a message I’m choosing to ignore. So, what’s the message? Give me the low-down.
She held the back of the spoon in front of her mouth and brought it down to the tip of her tongue.
—You’re trying to distract me, I said.
—Not, she said. —Licking the spoon is what I’m doing. But you’re right, only it ain’t you I’m trying to distract. And succeeding too.
—Another lesson.
She nodded.
Her eyes weren’t as big as they used to be. The eyes used to sit back, lie back and drag you with them – fuck me, fuck me. Now they were piercing things, boring right in, needling – fuck you – and still gorgeous.
—So?
—Because you can.
—More.
—You can eat those cakes if you want. They do you no bad. You can put away as much cream as you want and you’re still beautiful.
—That cream goes straight to my tits. Right?
—Probably.
—Straight. To. My.
—They see you stuffing your face and looking like that and they say, fuck that. If she can do it, so can I.
She nodded.
—That’s right.
—And the poor saps looking at you think that they might even start looking like you if they stuff their faces.
—And they will. The Divine Church of the Here and Now. Your name.
—I remember.
—Yes, you do. I added divine. Like it?
—Yeah.
—The Divine Church of the Here and Now. That’s little me. The high priestess. You should see me on Sundays.
—I’d like that.
—Get in line. Eat, drink, fuck. God loves it, you know.
—I like the sound of that religion.
—Yes, you do. But I’m not sure, at that. You were never happy. You were always restless.
—So were you.
—But I knew what I was doing.
She sat forward.
—And here. I am.
—The. Slow. Talking. It’s part of the package, is it?
—Drives them wild. Like. Sucking. A. Cock.
—I knew that was coming.
—It’s still good, though. Isn’t it?
—Yeah.
—I’ve got my own church. Can you believe that?
—Yeah.
—With a big cross on the spire. Electric. Big blue lights. It rotates. You can see for twenty miles.
—Where?
—Los Angeles, she said. —It’s the place, you know. And know what? The bird on the big blue cross? He’s smiling. Seats two thousand. Radio station, commissary. You can buy your very own little india-rubber me.
—Go ’way.
—Opening a college next year. Spreading the word. More priestesses. But not high. As me. Low. Priestesses.
—Fair. Enough. No priests?
—Nope.
—Why not?
—Did I hurt your feelings?
—No.
—Want to be a priest?
—No.
—Thought all you Irish guys wanted to be priests.
—Not me.
—You still Irish?
—I try not to be.
—Try harder. No, no priests. Know why?
—Why?
—Want to guess?
—I’ll skip this one.
—I did think about it. Even found a guy that was kinda the equivalent – like that word?
—Out of your mouth.
—Sweet. The equivalent of me. But guess what?
—He tried to take over.
She smiled.
—The dumb cluck never got that far. See, the problem is. The. Cock.
—What about it?
—Guys can be led by the cock but they cannot, just cannot lead with it. Agree?
I shrugged; I thought about it.
—There’s that look again, she said. —Kinda snarly puppy. Works for the other religions. The snarly puppy priest. Don’t do this, don’t do that and don’t do it like this. But in my church there is no place for Don’t. And guys don’t get it.
—Is it all women?
—You’re missing the point. Look.
She picked up some cream-wet pastry and put her head back. She lowered the pastry, and let it go.
—Know why I did that?
—Same as before. The message.
—But there are two messages. The dolls say, she can do it, then I can do it. The guys say, boy oh boy, would I ever like to fuck that doll over there. The dolls want to look like me, the guys want to run their hands over me. I got them by their cocks.
—Do you ride them all every Sunday?
She laughed big.
—I told you. Get in line. But see? You’re already there, ain’t you? Waiting your turn. Willing to hand over big boodle to jump the line. Right?
I shrugged.
—I understand, she said.
She laughed again.
—Guys like it, she said. —The big laugh. Dolls think it’s crude and unladylike. But guys think, fuck ladylike and let me at that mouth. And then the dolls start laughing.
We heard a woman’s laugh from the other side of the diner.
—See? Dolls join, to be like little me. Guys join, to fuck little me. And the dolls and the guys end up fucking each other because I tell them it’s jim-dandy. It’s Sweet Afton but much bigger. Fuck, eat, shit on the rug, do whatsoever you want. Don’t put it off. Your cock might not go with you into the afterlife. Or the afterlife might not be all that great. It might not even be there. And here’s one I’m working on: this might be the afterlife. But I don’t know how far I can go with that one. Might work in Los Angeles but I ain’t too ho
t-sure about here. So, anyway, I tell them, my congregation. Spend that dollar, scratch that itch, eat that donut. Because the Lord wants you to. He insists on it.
—Sound man.
—I’ll say. He put us here to live it to the hilt. You think the Lord’s going to congratulate me if I don’t fuck you even though I want to?
—Let’s go.
—It’s a what-if. Will he congratulate me?
—I don’t believe in God.
—Will. He?
—Probably not.
—That’s probably right. Want to know if I do want to?
—So, I said. —Your church is in Los Angeles.
—Right. You have to go west to get there but Los Angeles ain’t really west.
—Okay.
—It’s the place.
—Why here?
—Me?
—Yeah.
—I want to make records.
—Sing?
—No. Talk.
—Sermons.
—Kinda.
—Why can’t you do it over there?
—Reasons.
—Let me do it.
—What?
—Do it for you. Make the records.
—I don’t think so.
—Go on.
—I don’t think—
—Go on.
She looked hard at me.
—That’s the daddy I used to know.
He hadn’t played the cornet in years. He’d changed over to the trumpet because the cornet looked so small beside other trumpets. The sound was better but the look was the thing that swung it. And the trumpet was never more than a stretch away. He never gave up; he never really rested. He practised during the intermissions. He bent notes; he worked on silences – he forced himself to stop and count. He stood in a corner; I watched him listen.
—I like that, he said.
—What?
—The let-them-wait, he said. —The extra second.
He battled players at clubs and rent parties. He battled men he’d never met. Word went out; there was no keeping up, no matching him. The records proved it, then the radio. He got better, and bigger. And bigger, and more surrounded.
—Louis!
—Pops!
—Hey, Louis!
Rockwell, the hipsters, the hard men, the noises and celebrities, the other players, the women. He sat at his typewriter, alone in a dressing room packed with noise and giddy tension. The Wall Street Crash was weeks-old news but it hadn’t been heard yet in Harlem; if heard, it hadn’t been felt.
—No coloured man ever jumped out a window cos his pockets went empty on him. Wouldn’t be room on the sidewalk.
White money still came uptown, seven nights a week. Diamonds still glittered; there were shoulders worth rubbing. It was business as usual and much of it was done in Louis’s dressing room. It was part of the package: come down, say Hi to Louis. He used to keep the dressing room empty for the minutes after a show.
—Rest the pipes, love the lips.
Now, he couldn’t do it. His corner was smaller, and still he practised, his back to the gang. Or he wrote, typed his letters, to his sister, to Alpha, Lil, to old friends home in New Orleans. Trumpet, bottle, typewriter, side by side on the card table he brought everywhere. The shoes off, the hanky sometimes across his head, white towel around his neck; he’d tap. I saw it: the performer would drop slowly from his face, and the man was alone. And all I could do was watch.
He’d concentrate on his typing, tap away the desolation, the loneliness; he’d beat it away at the typewriter. Mezzrow’s gage was never enough. When the fingers poked his shoulder or pressed, or more diffident fingers were held back and words went over the shoulder instead, Louis pulled the mask back up; it was on before he turned.
—Someone to meet you, Louis.
He was waiting for them, beaming.
—Obliged you come to hear me, Pops.
He didn’t have to stand up. A handshake, a laugh. That was the deal. He could turn back then, to the typewriter or the trumpet. He’d put it to his lips, hold it just short of the skin, play it all in his head. It was where he’d go.
I was there, near, most nights. I walked with him, I hailed the cabs; I cut a way through the crowds outside his door – a black man couldn’t do that. He still looked for me, still mugged and checked my collar for dirt. But the distance was there now, and we both knew it. But I couldn’t say goodbye, and neither could he.
—Stick with me, Smoked.
—Yeah.
And I did.
And I became one of the fingers. I tapped his shoulder.
—Sorry; Louis?
He turned; I saw the face build up.
—Smoked?
He smiled but the eyes were surprised, wary – why was I doing this?
—There’s someone I’d like you to meet, I said.
It was there, the smile, the face. And he stood up, slowly, like an older man. He grinned, held out the big hand, grinned a bigger one than mine. He pushed out his chest, to give us his room, to bring us in. He did it for me, and I knew I shouldn’t have done it – but too late.
—My, oh my, he said.
He held her hand. He looked her up, and slowly down; he did what he could get away with.
—Who are you and where you from?
—I’m God’s doll on earth, she told him. —And, brother, where I’m from is not the question. It’s where I’m going and if you are going there with me.
—They let black gentlemans walk beside white ladies where you going?
She leaned closer to Louis. She whispered; I heard her.
—You walk behind me, Brother Lou-is, you get to watch my ass, all the way to glory.
I was running ahead, impressing myself.
We were still in the diner.
—Sister Flo.
She nodded.
—It’s good, I said. —But you should spell it f-l-o-w.
—I already do spell it f-l-o, fucking, w. Have done since 1927 and I thought of it all by myself.
I shrugged.
—We’re on the same track.
—Maybe so.
She matched my shrug.
—But I’m way ahead of you.
—I’ll catch up, I said.
—I doubt.
She shook her head, slowly, left to right, but stopped on the way back.
—Why?
—I know the business, I told her.
—So does Rockwell.
—I know Rockwell.
—And?
—I know more than Rockwell.
—And this guy Einstein knows more than both of yis – you; I don’t say yis no more. But I ain’t looking to Einstein to make my records. And I still say ain’t.
—Listen, I said. —Your slow-talk routine.
—It’s the thing.
—But you can’t do it on record.
—Why not?
—You don’t have the time. You’ve three minutes, a bit more.
—I can say a whole lot of—
—Shut up a minute, I said. —The time’s not the real problem. There’s the silence between the words.
—Guys like it.
—When they’re looking at you. Silence doesn’t work on records. It’s hissing, scratches. There’s nothing sexy about it.
She thought about it. She ran a finger across the plate.
—I can make it sexy.
—No.
—Bet I can.
—No.
—So?
—Rockwell hasn’t a fuckin’ clue. It’d be a fuckin’ disaster. Onstage it would be different.
She was listening.
—They’d be looking at you, waiting for the next word. Louis does it all the time.
—Who’s Louis?
—Louis Armstrong.
—Oh yare?
—Yeah.
—I’ve heard of him.
—I’ll take you to see him. I’ll introduce you. Louis takes the trumpet away f
rom his mouth and he lets the band go on without him. And the crowd goes wild.
—Been there.
—Yeah, but there’s a difference. Louis has the band. The silence is full and beautiful. You, alone, the words can be as sexy as you want them but the gaps between them won’t be. Not unless you’re there. Do you have a phonograph?
—Phonographs.
—You know when you put down the needle? You know the sound. Before the music. That crackle, you know it. That’s your silence, missis, and you don’t want it.
There was silence now. And it was fine. It was my silence, no hiss, there because I wanted it there. I was ahead of her now.
—So, she said. —Daddy.
—Yeah?
—The Rockwell bird doesn’t know this stuff?
—Not at all. Not his field. He’s an agent. You don’t need an agent.
—Yare.
—You’re your own fuckin’ agent.
—He is a tad moron-faced at that.
—He’s alright.
—Alright ain’t the thing. I’m listening to you.
—Atta girl. Sit back.
—Back as far as I can go, daddy.
She’d worked clubs since she was thirteen. She’d been up to Harlem, but she hadn’t paid much heed. She knew jazz, the word, but nothing more. She sat while we waited. She took it in and danced when I said she might want to.
She shrugged.
It was a surprise.
—D’you not like dancing?
I’d never been out with her, in the old days. I’d watched her climb out her window but I hadn’t followed.
—Ain’t here to like, she said.
She had her map; she moved when and where. She shook and kicked and fell back to my arms, but she looked first – she checked. Her beauty drew the gawks, but she was no dancer. And that was grand because neither was I, unless I was dancing with one, like Dora. I was happy to stroll back to our table. I’d seen the kid, the little girl, the struggle to her current brutal dollness. I saw the child on the edge of the school yard, watching the play that would never make much sense.
I knew her.
—Did I ever tell you about my brother, Victor?
—A real-life sob story, daddio.
She was back, herself again. Hard as fuckin’ nails, soft as she needed to be; familiar and fuckin’ magnificent.
She sat down.
—I ever tell you about my brother and the dumb cluck from the Emerald Isle that might or might not have got him killed?
I sat, got down to her eyes.
—It wasn’t me.
—Yare.
She shrugged. The whole place shrugged.