The Jazz Kid (20 page)

“
What do you think he might try to do to Pa?”

Tommy shrugged and finished off his sandwich. “I couldn't even guess.”

“But Pa didn't have anything to do with any of it.”

“It ain't no use telling me that,” Tommy said. “I already believe you.”

I sat there thinking. “What am I going to do, Tommy?”

“Well, like I said, hide out for a while. Go visit your people downstate for a few months. These things blow over. In a few months Herb'll have six other people he's suspicious of and will have forgotten all about you.”

“What about Pa?”

“That's something you got to decide for yourself, kid.”

“What a mess,” I said. “How did I manage to get myself so messed up, Tommy?”

He sat there thinking and licking the grease off his fingers for a while. Then he said, “Well, I'll tell you, kid, I done the same thing myself a few times. What it comes out of is thinking you just
got
to have a certain thing, no matter what. You won't let nothing stand in your way and you go barreling after it, without seeing how it might go wrong. It comes over you so hot it doesn't matter what you have to do to get it. Lie, cheat, steal—it all seems okay in your mind. Next thing you know you got a lion by the tail.”

“I never stole,” I said.

“Sure you did. You borrowed that seventy-five cents off your brother and never had no intention of paying it back.”

“I paid it back.” But I couldn't remember if I had or not.

“Now mind you,” Tommy said, “I ain't blaming you. I did all the same stuff myself. Worse. I stole the first decent cornet I ever owned.”

“You stole it?”

“Out of a pawnshop. It was in the window, new and shiny. I don't doubt but what it was stole in the first place. I was playing an old beat-up piece of tin I rented from school. Leaked like a sieve. You could hear the air coming out of the valves every time
you
blew it. St. Peter hisself couldn't of played it in tune. That cornet in the pawnshop window drove me crazy. I used to go around there every day, just to look at it. Just stand for a half an hour and look at it. One night I heaved a rock through the window, snatched the horn out of there and ran like the wind. Well, naturally the guy in the pawnshop knew in a minute who stole it. If I'd had any brains I'd of taken some other stuff, too, but when he saw it was only the cornet, he went around the neighborhood looking for me. I wasn't hard to find, for everybody knew who the damn kid was who kept them awake tootling that horn at all hours. The cops caught me at home red-handed. The judge said it was either reform school, or a hundred-dollar fine. That was the time Pa couldn't work because of his bad leg, and we needed the money I was making. Sis went out and got the hundred bucks. I don't know where she got it, and I never asked. And on top of it, I was back playing that leaky piece of tin all over again. That's the way it is when you get so stuck on something you can't see anything else—you ain't the only one who gets hurt.”

“So you think I did wrong right from the beginning?”

He shook his head. “I didn't say that. It ain't up to me to say if anybody's right or wrong. You got to settle that out for yourself.”

I hung my head down and sat there thinking. Outside horns honked faintly, and trucks ground down the street. Finally Tommy said, “I got to get some sleep, kid.”

G
ETTING MYSELF TO
admit that they were right and I was wrong was about the hardest thing I ever did. I didn't want to admit it—I hated having to do that, and for a long time I sat there in Tommy's chair while he snoozed in bed, thinking of all the arguments on my side of it. Why was it my fault that Herbie Aronowitz had got suspicious of Pa for no reason? Why was it my fault I fell in love with some kind of music Ma and Pa hated? Why should Pa have the say about how I lived my life—that I had to spend my days in the plumbing business and no choice left to me? What was right about that?

They were all good arguments. But they weren't good enough. It was the way Tommy said. I'd gone steaming off on my own without looking down the road to see what might come of it, and I'd got Pa in trouble. It didn't matter that I had a right to steam off on my own; what mattered was that Pa was in trouble for something I'd done. What was going to happen to my music? I didn't know; I'd have to worry about that later.

Had Herbie Aronowitz already gone looking for Pa? There was no telling. How much of a chance did I have of persuading Herb that Pa didn't have anything to do with it? No telling about that, either. But I'd got Pa into it, and it was up to me to get him out. Oh, that was a mighty scary idea, for there was no telling what Herbie might do to me, either. But I had to try.

The safest thing, I figured, was to go over to the Charleston a little before midnight. Normally I would have been there earlier, but I figured Herbie wouldn't know that. I'd walk in like everything was normal, and maybe it would be. Maybe Herbie would have cooled down a little and turned his mind to something else. But if he hadn't, by midnight the waiters would already be there. I figured Herbie wouldn't get rough with me with the waiters around.

I killed some time at a movie, but it didn't help much, for I couldn't concentrate
on
the picture. All I could think was, why me? How come it was me who had got into this mess? Why wasn't it happening to somebody else? I knew that what Tommy had said was right—I'd plunged ahead towards what I wanted, and ended up running off a cliff. Still, the words kept going through my head: Why me? Why wasn't it happening to somebody else?

At ten to twelve I left the movie theater and walked over to the Charleston, wishing I was going anywhere else. I just kept putting one foot in front of the next, and by and by I was there. For a minute I stood outside, hoping that something would happen to save me. But it didn't. I took a deep breath and went on in.

One of the waiters was sweeping the floor, and the other was in the kitchen washing glasses, for of course I hadn't been there to clean the place up that morning. The one sweeping gave me a look when I came in. “Where the hell was you?” he said.

Herbie Aronowitz was sitting at a table with a cashbox in front of him, counting money. When the waiter spoke, he looked up. “Well. The kid.”

“I'm sorry I let you down the last couple of nights, Mr. Aronowitz,” I said. “My Grampa's mighty sick and I went over to see him.”

“Yeah? Tommy tell you I wanted to see you?”

“I haven't seen Tommy for a couple of days. I was over at my Grampa's. They don't think he'll last.”

“Oh yeah?” Herbie said. “Well give your ma my condolences.”

“Grampa hasn't died yet.”

He looked back at the cashbox. “Give ‘em to her anyway.” He started counting money again, laying it out in neat piles of bills. I headed for the kitchen to get a mop. “Hold up a minute, kid,” Herbie said. “I wanna talk to you. Go out back and wait for me.”

For a couple of seconds I thought of making a dash for the front door, but of course that wasn't the point of the whole thing. So I turned, went out into the furnace room, shut the door behind me, and sat down on the cot. Sweat was dripping out of my armpits and rolling in cold drops down my side, and my stomach was like ice. I just went
on
sitting there. By and by I heard a scale run down the piano. In a couple of minutes a bass drum thumped: the drummer was tightening the skin and testing the sound. Finally there came that old familiar warm-up phrase on the cornet, the one I first heard in that cold cellar—was it really two years ago? And in a moment they were playing “Whispering,” a tune Tommy liked to open with, for it was easy and a hit with people.

Then the door to the furnace room opened. Herbie came in. He'd been waiting until the music started so as to cover sounds from the furnace room. He shut the door behind him, and stood there in that same blue suit, no tie, looking at me. There was no expression on his face; he just stared. Then he said, “C'mere, kid.” I stood up off the cot and took a couple of steps toward him, still far enough away so he couldn't reach me.

“Kid, you're getting too big for your britches. You and your pa.”

Out in the club the piano was soloing. “Pa didn't have anything to do with it. Honest. I made up that whole story about the wrench myself, so I could get in to hear the band. I wanted Tommy to give me lessons.”

He shook his head. “I don't want to hear nothing about no lessons. What's your game, kid?” He squinted at me. “What're you and your pa up to?”

“Honest, we don't have any game.” I was sweating everywhere I could sweat, skin getting soaked. How could I make him believe me? “It's the truth. I made up that whole story about the wrench myself. Pa didn't know anything about it. When he found out he belted me.”

Suddenly he lunged forward and grabbed me by the shirtfront with his big hand. “Don't give me none of that. You tell me what your game is, or I'll beat the living Jesus out of you. What was you doing climbing out of that window the other morning?”

“Honest—” I started to say it wasn't me. Then I realized he'd know I was lying and wouldn't believe anything I said. “I was scared. I didn't want to hear anything that wasn't my business.”

He had his hand cocked back to whack me, but he realized I was probably telling the truth, and held up. For a minute he didn't say anything, but stood there with his fist cocked. He blinked a couple of times. “What was it you thought you heard?”

I
looked up into his face. “Angelo Silva said his arm was broken.”

Herbie lowered his fist. “Naw,” he said. “Angelo and me is old pals. I wouldn't of let nobody lay a finger on him. You don't believe a story like that, do you, kid?”

I shook my head as hard as I could. “No, sir. If you said it wasn't true I wouldn't believe it.”

He went on holding me by the shirt. “That's right, kid. Angelo took sick. He'll be laid up for a while. He asked me as a favor to look after the club for him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But there's something I still don't get. What kind of a game is Frankie Horvath playing?” He raised his fist. “Has he got big ideas or something?”

The sweat was soaking into my clothes. Now, out in the club, Tommy was taking his solo. “Honest, it's all a mistake. Pa doesn't know anything about it. He doesn't even know I've been working here. He doesn't know where I am.”

“You just told me you was visiting your Grampa.” He opened his hand to slap me.

“That was a lie,” I said. “I was too scared to come in.” I didn't want to bring Tommy into it. “I've been sleeping at the railroad station.”

He shook his head. “You tell a lot of lies, don't you kid.”

“I swear this is the truth. Pa doesn't know where I am.”

He stood there looking at me, with his palm raised. In the club the band was playing the final chorus of “Whispering.” He shook his head again. “Kid, I guess I got to beat it out of you.”

“Please,” I said. “It's the truth.” The band played a tag, and the music stopped. So did Herbie's hand. He scowled, and turned his head to look at the door. But instead of music, there was a knock. “Who the hell's that?”

“It's me, Herbie. Tommy.”

“What'd you want? Go play another tune.”

“Herbie, there's a fella here to see you.”

“I don't want to see nobody. Tell him to come back later.”

There
was a little silence. “I figured you'd want to know. He says he's the kid's pa.” Then the door opened, and Pa came in. “Hello, Herb,” he said.

It was an almighty shock seeing Pa come through the door like that. I stood there feeling confused, my feelings coming and going so fast I couldn't catch hold of them—ashamed for him having to get me out of trouble after I'd run off, relieved that I'd been saved from being smacked around, worried about what would happen to him. How was he going to explain to Herbie that we weren't up to anything.

“Pa—”

“Shut the door, Frankie,” Herb said.

Pa jerked his head at me. “Herb, you don't have to start knocking a kid around. You want to talk to somebody, you can talk to me.”

Herbie let go of my shirtfront. “Yeah, that's right, Frankie. I can talk to you.”

“Paulie,” Pa said. “You go on home. Your ma's waiting for you.”

There wasn't anything I wanted more than to go home. But I didn't want to leave Pa in trouble.

“Pa, I never—”

“Paulie, I said go home.”

I slipped past them and out into the club. Tommy was on the stand, blowing water out of his spit valve. I gave him a little wave. Then I dashed through the club and headed for home. So it was over for now. I'd have to admit I was wrong, and say I was sorry—no way around that. And I was sorry, too, the way things worked out. But I wasn't going to admit I was wrong about my music. Wrong about steaming off on my own and getting Pa into trouble. But not wrong about my music—I'd never admit I was wrong about that.