Joplin's Ghost

  Carlos pulled. This time, with coordinated effort, the piano slid forward, compelled. Carlos thought he heard a fleshy slapping sound as something writhed beneath his hands again, but his mind locked, never wavering: One…two…three. His world collapsed into numbers. One, two, three. The order never changed. Numbers were his prayer.

  Carlos and Phoenix repeated their exercise twenty-four times without resting, until they reached the elevators at the end of the hall. The piano plowed a wide wake on the carpet, but on the marble floor near the elevator, the piano moved as if it were weightless before coasting still. The chandelier in the hall cast delicate, dancing sparks on the piano’s leathery case.

  Phoenix pushed the DOWN button for the cargo elevator, and the button filled with promising light. I hope these elevators are working now, Carlos thought. The maintenance men who had helped the movers were long gone like everyone else. He didn’t want to know that, but he did. Gloria’s last-minute flight, the psychics’ exhaustion, the movers’ hurry to leave. Everyone had a reason for not being here tonight. Tonight was Phoenix’s alone, and his.

  “What’s your plan?” Carlos said, wiping perspiration from his face with his arm. His arms and back burned from the strain. He wished the movers had left their hand truck.

  Phoenix spoke through heaving breaths. “We get it into an elevator. We t-take it out of the building to the alley. I light it up.”

  “What are you planning to burn it with?”

  Phoenix reached into her pocket and brought out a lighter, then gave him three bottles. Nail polish remover, alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. Carlos frowned. “This isn’t enough, not to destroy it the way you want. This’ll only put it in a bad mood.”

  “What, then?”

  “Let me find a storeroom. Some kind of cleanser might work.”

  “OK, but hurry,” Phoenix said, and he saw her hug herself tight, swaddling herself.

  “What’s wrong?” Carlos said, but he knew when he touched her shoulder. Her skin was ice again, so cold that it had cooled the fabric of her gown. “Shit, Phoenix. When did this start?” He hugged her, wrapping his body against her in every place they could touch.

  “As s-soon as we got out of my room. This must be how it happened before, when I was d-dying.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, so her chattering teeth were from the cold, not fear. If she had to die, she wouldn’t mind. But he did. He minded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.

  She shrugged. “We’re already going as fast as we can. Get what you need.”

  “Forget it. We’ll use what we have,” he said, taking his place at the piano’s helm again, ready to help steer it onto the elevator when it arrived. “Always tell me when you’re sick, Phee.”

  Only the elevator’s ding made him realize he had almost called her Freddie.

  The elevator lurched down, in fits and starts. When Phoenix felt her mind drifting, the elevator slowed, then stopped, swinging from its cables. When she snapped to alertness again, reminding herself of her mission—We have to take this piano outside so I can burn it—the elevator whirred its descent. She might be weak, but the Rosenkranz was weaker, exiled. She hoped so, anyway. For her family’s sake. For Carlos’s sake.

  Second floor. First floor. Finally, the basement. The doors opened an inch and stopped.

  Carlos cursed and went to the doors, prying. He pulled at the doors with all his strength, groaning loudly, as if the building was burning above them. The Rosenkranz would love to take the building with it, where prized possessions were strewn everywhere; and the building next door, where families were sleeping. The Rosenkranz wanted blood on its keys again.

  We have to take this piano outside so I can burn it.

  Suddenly, the elevator doors gave, nearly stealing Carlos’s balance when they fell open. He shoved the piano forward to hold the doors open on one end, then he slipped out of the elevator. Phoenix wanted to leave the elevator, too, but she was too enamored of the feeling of the wall behind her, a support. She needed to rest. Maybe she could curl on the floor for a minute. No more than two.

  “Dios mio, you’re kidding me,” Carlos said, as soon as he stepped out and surveyed the basement. She hoped his voice was glad, but she couldn’t tell. All she could see was the stained concrete of the basement floor. They didn’t have time to start again or go somewhere else. Next time, the elevator would not obey her.

  “A fucking hand truck,” Carlos said. He vanished for a moment, then he produced a red dolly with working wheels that rattled across the floor while he pulled it. “Our lives just got easier, Phee. Hold on. We’re almost there.”

  The dolly helped, but not as much as she had hoped. Even with the hand truck, the piano’s weight still needed two sets of arms. Phoenix’s bare feet were so cold, she could no longer feel them. Her fingers were nearly useless, claws like Scott’s. She was forgetting her skin.

  “Do you see that bay door over there? That’s where we’re going,” Carlos said. “I’ll figure out how to open it once we get there.”

  Phoenix didn’t see the bay door, in truth—the lights Carlos had turned on were too bright—but she heaved her shoulder against the piano, her head lolling with exhaustion. She didn’t need to see where she was going. She would get there, by and by.

  What’s your name? She couldn’t remember how to answer the question, until the scent of gasoline woke her up.

  “Carlos…” she began.

  “I smell it,” he said, grunting. “There are oil spots on the floor, so people park down here. There may not be any gas cans, but I’ll find something. Don’t worry. Let’s get to the alley. Hold on, Phee. We’re almost there.”

  While Carlos flipped on more lights and tried to find a way to control the aluminum bay door, Phoenix leaned against the piano, craving support. A splinter pierced her skin right above her elbow, but she barely felt it. Most of her body felt numb, and the rest was already in pain.

  Was that the sound of Sarge laughing, somewhere close to here?

  A clang and a loud whirring chased Sarge’s laughter away. Phoenix smelled humid air as the bay door slid open, letting in the night sky. Phoenix looked outside, and a large ramp was already in place, affixed to the wide doorway. She had known she was supposed to bring the piano here, but the affirmation felt good. A streetlamp made the alley golden.

  “Step back,” Carlos said.

  Carlos rearranged the hand truck so that he was behind the piano, and he pushed. The piano’s weight forced the Rosenkranz to slide down the ramp, ancient wheels growling across the surface. In an instant, the piano was at the center of the narrow alleyway, beneath the last rung of the fire escape. The closest thing to it was a Dumpster.

  Someone squeezed her shoulders from behind, saying something close to her ear, but she couldn’t make out his voice anymore. Her ears were failing her. Her lungs, too. When she breathed, sand sifted through her lungs and tried to climb into her throat. The pain was dazzling.

  Clipped before she could fly. Stories untold, sent back to the sky.

  She turned around to ask who she was, but he was gone. He had told her where he was going, but she had forgotten. Looking for gasoline? That might be it.

  But she couldn’t wait. She grabbed the first bottle she found in her pocket. It took her an eternity to unscrew the pink cap with such numb fingers, but she finally got it open, tossing liquid across the piano keys until the bottle was empty. Then, she shook the last droplets out on the piano as if she were seasoning a meal.

  Her hand trembling, she searched her pocket for the lighter next. She found it, using both hands to try to coax out a flame.

  “Wait,” a voice said, startling her. She expected to see Scott, but she didn’t quite recognize the face he was wearing. “If you want to burn it right, use this.”

  The scent from the unmarked clear jug was strong enough to make his point. With a wild swing, she emptied the jug’s contents across the piano’s case, dragging herself from one corner to the next,
making it glisten. She drenched the two candelabra last, filling their cups until they overflowed.

  You don’t even know your name. You’ve died a dozen times already. Somewhere, you were never born. A voice mocked her; not quite a whisper, and not quite human.

  And the voice was right: She didn’t know. She didn’t remember. But she didn’t have to.

  Her hands couldn’t negotiate the lighter—its operation baffled her, suddenly—so it fell while she grappled with it. She saw the glow of the pearl case as it skittered toward a sewer grill, but she was too tired to chase it. The man beside her swiped, rescuing it before the sewer swallowed it. The man created fire, it seemed, with a snap of his fingers.

  The tiny flame fascinated her. He gave it to her, careful to press her numb finger where it needed to be so the flame wouldn’t die.

  “Ashes to ashes,” he said.

  “Amen,” she finished, and lowered the flame to the middle C.

  The Rosenkranz became a ball of angry fire, its keys blackened and consumed by flames. The piano’s outrage shot fire into the sky, clawing for food, but there was nothing within its reach but asphalt and bricks. Even the Dumpster beside it refused to burn, protecting its trash.

  Watching the spectacle of shooting flames, the veil across her memories faded. She couldn’t pin down her name yet, but she remembered what she must do. Tonight, she would rest in the arms of the man her soul had loved since before she was born, reunited.

  In a few hours, she would bury her father.

  Tomorrow, she had music to write.

  Don’t wanna die for a while—

  I think I’ll fly for a while.

  PHOENIX

  “Gotta Fly”

  FINALE

  Soon

  “Test, test, test—one two, one two.”

  The microphone was hot, so it squealed under Phoenix’s breath. La’Keitha strummed a charging minor-seventh chord on her Fender, and her impatient feedback fed the screeching. Jabari and Devon covered their ears. When the sound guy went red in the face, racing to adjust the levels as if Phoenix would have him beheaded, she smiled at him: No big deal, man. Andres scraped his gourd-shaped guido, working out rhythms in his head, burning off his nerves. Andres rarely spoke a word before a show, keeping his head bowed, hiding his face behind his sheet of limp brown hair. Phoenix wondered how a man so shy could make his living on the stage.

  With two hours before showtime, the tables were still empty, but there were already two dozen people at the Scott Joplin House, clumped inconspicuously in the back, against the wood-paneled wall of the recreated Rosebud Bar. Every time Phoenix looked up, another person or two had appeared, silent arrivals. Gloria hadn’t wanted to open the doors yet, but Phoenix didn’t care who sat in on the sound check. Besides, the people inside were either press or had friends who worked here, so what could she do? It didn’t cost her anything to let them watch.

  Gloria came behind her to give her a gloom report. “Some of them have cameras, Phee.”

  “It’s just music,” Phoenix said. “It belongs to them already.”

  “Hey, not my part, sister,” Jabari muttered. “My part belongs to my landlord.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a phone, a pencil eraser, a shoelace, whatever—if I see anyone shooting video with anything, they’re out.” Gloria sounded more like Sarge all the time. That helped, some days. Other days, nothing helped except knowing where he was. Laughter and light.

  “Do what you gotta do, cuz. Make yourself happy.” The chords to “Gotta Fly,” the first song on the set list, were playing in Phoenix’s head. She was far away from her cousin’s turmoil.

  “Don’t kick out any fine ones, Glo,” Jabari said.

  Instead of answering, Gloria gave Jabari the finger before she left the stage, a heartfelt stab. Gloria was a fool if she couldn’t see how much Jabari liked her, Phoenix thought, and he was a fool if he didn’t tell her soon. Their stubbornness wasn’t cute anymore. Philadelphia had been insufferable, with the games those two kept playing.

  “Good luck at the Grammys, Phoenix!” a man called from the back, and the watchers erupted into unrestrained applause. They weren’t press, then; they were fans. Or, maybe both.

  Phoenix felt a ripple through the band. They had just gotten their heads together since last week’s nomination announcement, and she hoped their minds wouldn’t scatter again. The band had endured oblivion, but she wasn’t sure they could weather what was coming now. Jabari gave a cocky grin, flinging his long dreadlocks over his shoulder while he fingered a quick bass line to “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays, and Devon revved up his turntables, scratching a lead-in to a bomb bass-and-cowbell beat that had the younger watchers swaying before Devon pulled his white fedora over his eyes and stepped away from his instrument, always a tease.

  “We won’t need luck. We’re the soon-to-be Grammy-winning Phoenix & Fire,” La’Keitha said, one arm raised in a fist that reminded Phoenix of Sarges. “Luck is for posers. I just feel bad for the lip-synch posse about to get shamed.”

  “Everybody needs luck, so thanks,” Phoenix said into her mike, loud enough to talk over La’Keitha. The last thing they needed was a self-worship service before a show, even if La’Keitha’s guitar was as good as its hype. “It’s good to be playing together again, and we’re humbled someone hears us.”

  Phoenix & Fire. The New Fire didn’t sound right anymore, although T.’s raps and Devon’s turntable wizardry as MC Matrix made them sound newer than ever. The planet’s most powerful element needed no qualifier. Besides, you couldn’t go back. Nothing stayed the same.

  A woman’s voice called out. “You seen any ghosts lately, Phoenix?”

  Phoenix couldn’t miss Gloria’s I-told-you-so gaze from the bar counter. Maybe it wasn’t a great idea to have a crowd at sound-check, if they were bold enough to start asking questions.

  “No ghosts,” Phoenix said, trying not to sound weary. Ghost questions had been unavoidable on her solo tour, but this was an old conversation. She wasn’t interested in being the poster girl for every ghostbuster and psychic wannabe. That wasn’t her fight. Everyone would learn what they needed to know before long.

  “There are no ghosts here,” Van Milton spoke up, “but there is a fine museum next door.”

  Phoenix hadn’t seen Milton come in, and the sight of him made her smile. She unhooked her Liberation and left it on the stand so she could walk up to Milton and give him a hug. Milton reminded her of her father, if Sarge’s life had been more gentle. “See? You didn’t believe me. Told you we’d come,” Phoenix said, rubbing his bald scalp.

  “Seeing is believing. Phoenix, we’re honored. It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing.” The curator waved to a white man across the room, beckoning. “You remember Ed Berlin.”

  Edward A. Berlin was a pleasant-featured man with glasses and a full head of graying hair that always looked slightly windswept. Phoenix hadn’t seen Scott Joplin’s biographer in at least a year, maybe more. His last contact had been an impassioned e-mail begging her not to use Scott Joplin’s name on her Joplin’s Ghost CD if the pieces were not authentic Joplin. Phoenix had given up on convincing her most vocal skeptic, so she was surprised to see him now.

  “Hell must be frozen over somewhere,” Phoenix said, shaking Berlin’s hand.

  The scholar looked sheepish. “We’ve had disagreements, but I can appreciate a wonderful composer. I’m on a research trip, and Van said your band was here. I didn’t want to miss it.”

  “No ragtime today, though,” she warned him. “This is Phoenix & Fire.”

  Berlin looked offended. “I hope you don’t think rags are all I listen to. I’m a little more well rounded than that.”

  “My fault,” Phoenix said. “Seriously, thanks for coming. It means a lot.”

  “No, you mean a lot, Phoenix,” Berlin said, his reserve melting. “I’m very impressed with your Scott Joplin Adopt-a-Piano program. What a brilliant way to keep Scott Joplin alive.”
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  “That’s not just me. You can thank G-Ronn for that.”

  Phoenix and Ronn didn’t see each other much nowadays—hardly at all since Sarge’s funeral, except for occasional brushes backstage when their paths crossed—but when she’d called to ask if Ronn would donate money to help her launch a program to put pianos and electric keyboards in the homes of inner-city schoolchildren who wanted to learn how to play, he donated a million dollars. Between Ronn’s involvement and the proceeds from Rising and the off-Broadway and CD versions of Joplin’s Ghost, the program was a pet charity, always in the news. Her mother was promising to step in as head of the board of directors, so Phoenix figured any kid under the sun who wanted a piano would be able to have one soon.

  “Don’t let her be modest,” Van said. “Phoenix is the spirit behind it.”

  Berlin put his hand on Milton’s shoulder. “Van, what were you telling me about those schoolchildren here in St. Louis?”

  “Cutting contests,” Milton said, grinning. “Little seventh graders competing after school, playing Joplin. I’m trying to put together a regional contest here this spring. We’re finding some talented young people, and they take to the piano like ducks to water.”

  “They’ve always been there,” Phoenix said.

  Berlin chuckled. “It shouldn’t surprise me, because I know ragtime’s roots, but I never thought I’d see this interest in the music again. I thought times were too different,” Berlin said, then he sighed, studying her eyes. An argument was on the way, she thought. Berlin lowered his voice. “Now Phoenix, as much as I admire ‘Lenox Avenue Rag’ and Symphony No. 1, you’ll never convince me that’s authentic Scott Joplin music on your CD. Sorry.”

  Phoenix shrugged. “Can’t convince everybody,” she said. She knew, and her family knew, and that was plenty. That was enough.

  “But it’s top-flight ragtime, and I congratulate you,” Berlin said. “Even if I don’t think you channeled him, I do think Scott Joplin is watching all this and smiling somewhere.”