Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle
I couldn’t help it; Victor was right behind my eyes.
—He was only your half-brother.
She shrugged again. She looked across at me.
—All of him got dead.
She noticed the change, chairs being dragged, short people standing, craning, the ripple across the velvet curtain.
—Here’s your hot nigger, I guess.
He shot up to the mike as the curtain was still moving.
—Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name’s Mister Armstrong. Seeing as we’re here, I might blow into this here instrument and see what come out.
It let go of a screech and hauled out the dead. He leaned back and held it, and held, and let it die, and let the silence, not a clink of glass, a squeak, carry through. He held the trumpet at his lips, and a shout came through the crowd, a cry; it ripped the air, and he took its note, and drums and trombone, piano, banjo crashed and rolled and the note rose and swooped and fell behind and raced ahead and he lifted the horn to the air as the last note still jumped across the heads and shoulders, out to late-night Harlem.
She stood and stared. She watched, she listened.
—So, she yelled. —Explain.
—What?
—Him. Me.
—He’s the silence on your records.
—Between the words?
—That’s it.
—They like him.
—Yeah.
—Too much?
—How d’you mean?
—Wake up, daddio. Whose records? His or mine?
—Yours.
—They like him.
—He’ll know what he’s to do.
—No room for me up there.
—You won’t be up there. I told you.
She kept looking at him.
—That’s a performance, I said. —An event. The record’s a product. Louis knows that. It’s different. He knows.
—He’s kinda wild.
She watched him striding, knees bent, to the trombone, inviting the solo, grinning. He stopped on the way, to polish his name on the bass drum.
—It’s the show, I said. —The records are different. He knows. I made sure she heard me.
—It was him that told me.
—I blew a gangster in this very room, she told him quietly, right into his ear. —Can you believe that?
—Sure can, he said. —He have a name?
—Yes, he did.
—I know him? he asked.
—Might do.
He was checking her out. He knew he’d be seeing more of her. I hadn’t told him, asked him, but he knew.
—Brought a tear to his eye, I’m sure.
—He didn’t complain.
—Gentleman.
He was ahead of her from the start. He got her measure real fast. She’d tried to unsettle him, to hold him by the langer, but her hand stayed empty. She didn’t know how come, but she knew. And she was angry.
This was Harlem, the black city within the city – surrounded. And Louis knew it before I did: Harlem was owned and parcelled by men like the lucky one she’d just been telling him about.
He grinned. He bowed.
She didn’t really know it – I don’t think she ever did – but she was talking dirt to the black man because she hated him. Up close to the man, the sweating black man she’d seen onstage, she let it slip; she stopped being Sister Flow, all that work and reinvention, because she wanted to see him caught; she wanted to see him dangle. Louis knew that: he’d always known. He’d grown up with it, and he had the ways to deal with it.
He didn’t tell me this. But his look, as he passed me and the half-sister, back out to the crowd – that look told me all.
I couldn’t apologise for something that hadn’t happened. He’d deny it, and I didn’t want to hear that.
—He’ll do, she said. —’Long as he ain’t too primitive.
—He won’t be.
—’Long as.
—He won’t be.
* * *
He grinned and slapped my shoulder, winked, and bowed. And pushed me away. I knew, but I couldn’t see it clearly yet. He’d done with me.
He held out his hand.
I took it. Felt his warmth, the hardness at the fingertips, years of work and practice. Black kid’s hand, grown to confidence, calm, greatness.
He held mine. Hard work, gun oil, leg splinters, frozen handlebars, the docks, the women, my father, Victor, my life was in that hand. Louis Armstrong held my hand, and I let go.
We both let go. It was a handshake, on a deal. Two friends shaking hands. But I felt it then, before I knew it. The loss. The end. The wave, goodbye. I wanted to grab again, but couldn’t. I couldn’t bend down, grab his arm, take his hand and clutch it. Pull him to my chest. Forgive me. We’ll start again, I’ll start again. I’ll know. I’ll know the next time. I’ll never make you be a nigger minstrel.
I let go of Louis’s hand and felt it, gone.
—When we do it, Pops?
—Wednesday.
—Bright and not too early?
It was never too early, or too late. Louis’s clock was all his own.
—Ten.
—Fair ee-nuff.
He turned and walked away.
He put the horn to his mouth, and spoke around it.
—Me here, then you, and back to me. Then we see.
She was lost, and angry. She’d seen what her mouth could do to serious men. She’d watched it happen, every Sunday. But she was lost in the hollow studio. It was hot, to keep the discs soft, and sweat the size of fingernails ran from Louis’s forehead, and hers – she went from dabbing to pulling it off her face with her hand. Hi-Tone Studios was a room high up in a block that was still wet at the corners. The Midtown traffic seeped through, and the half-sister’s words fell dead at her feet, beside her sweat. The heavy black cloth surrounded her, killed everything inside it. It was a coffin, hot and nailed, and now there was a black man telling her what to do.
They’d been there for hours, but nothing good was happening.
She kept her accounts, in her monogrammed book, F.G.M., red leather.
—More outs than ins today, she’d told me, after the third stop.
—That’s a false way of looking at it, I said. —A hit is a hit.
—Even so, she said.
—Come on, sister. You’ve got to speculate to accumulate.
—Listen to daddy, she said. —The guy who hides his boodle under that old broad’s mattress.
—How did you know that?
—Just know.
She was wrong – my money was close to my gut – but I couldn’t remember talking to her about Hettie. Maybe I had when we’d been on the lam together. But how did she know I’d gone back looking for it?
Sherman Booch, the talent boy from OKeh, was reminding us that he was there. His watch twirled slowly on its chain. I turned from his brown and yellow pinstripe but the watch ticked away at the back of my head.
—I want a sermon, Booch had said, in his office, two weeks before, —I’ll go to church. But, hey, now I remember. I’m Jewish, so I guess I won’t be going.
That was before she’d walked through the OKeh offices.
—Did Jesus die on the cross for your sins? I asked Booch as he watched her step into the elevator.
—Yes, he did, said Booch.
—And he did get up out of the dead three days later?
—Sooner, I’d say, said Booch.
But this wasn’t that Booch. This was the son, Sherman Jr.
The half-sister looked at Sherman Jr’s watch.
—You in a hurry, brother? she said.
—No, said Sherman Jr.
She terrified him.
—I’m just fine, he said. —It’s all part of the creative process.
—I’ll say.
—Let’s give it another go, I said.
—Ready when he is, she said.
Louis’s face gave nothing.
I went back behi
I never saw her happy.
But it happened.
Louis mugged for her; the studio was full of his teeth. He stood well back from his mike. He counted down, grabbed her eyes, brought the trumpet to his mouth and gave her three climbing notes. He bent the last one. He clicked his fingers, soundlessly, at her face. This time she watched, and followed.
—Dearly, belove, ed.
He bent another one.
—Oh, dearly, belove-ed.
She watched Louis.
—What does, God, have to, say. About. Love?
Those Dearly Beloved records were the big thing at the end of the decade. They were bought and kissed and smashed.
—Want to, know, the, answer?
They were robbed and swapped for more money than a box of them was worth.
—Want to?
We recorded all four that day in November 1929, and by Christmas the first of them was flying.
—Don’t, look, in the, good, book.
Florence Grattan-McKendrick became a big name, hated and secretly loved. Newspaper columns, magazine covers, nickel phonographs – she was everywhere that year-end. Stories tripped up stories. She’d recorded the things in the nip; she had her own harem, a big gaff full of husbands. She was Mata Hari’s daughter; she’d brought dead men back to life. Straw Sister Flows were lynched and burnt and cardboard Sisters were hidden under beds.
—Read it, dearly, belove, ed.
Louis was laughing; I could see his eyes.
The notes kept on at her.
—The good book’s a, good, book. But.
She was followed and met, everywhere she went. They caught her coming out of her hotel room, going into hospitals, on high roof ledges. Everywhere, she was the most wanted, the sensation, the soul and body of the age. Until she disappeared.
—It’s not where, to look.
The Wall Street thing was done and over by the time we went into Hi-Tone. I’d never had money in any kind of a bank and it was months since I’d read a newspaper. Black musicians were always a working night away from eviction. The Twenties were nearly over but everyone I knew still roared and swore and those that didn’t wanted to.
—About. Love.
Sister Flow was bang on time. She was the novelty at the end of the party. That first record, Don’t Look in the Good Book, was perfectly timed.
—He gave you, the. Body.
And no one ever knew.
—He gave you, the. Eyes.
Louis gave it the music.
—He gave you, the. Time and. The place.
He gave it the sex.
—He knew. What. He was. Doing.
She made it through the three long minutes and Louis made a record of it.
—He wants you, to. Look.
The Depression was at the gates by the time the second and other records were sent out.
—Look at, those. Legs.
She watched Louis’s fingers.
—He wants you, to.
And she’d suddenly become the soul and the body of a different place. She disappeared and came back but it did her no good.
—Look at, those, hips. He wants you, to.
God was raining locusts, scattering plague all over the land; factories were crumbling, soup kitchen lines were turning corners and the hock shop windows were full of instruments and dusty phonographs and records. They called it punishment, and took it, and waited for deliverance.
Waiting was the thing. Sackcloth was the thing.
—Put your, hands. On those, hips. He wants you, to.
But that was later.
She followed Louis’s fingers and no one ever knew. Those records were the final screams of the years they called the Age and then, like her, they disappeared. (Until that young one with the midriff and no surname found them in her granny’s attic and took them home and sang on top of them, coughed the words the half-sister didn’t use – take me, take me, baby, baby – and, seventy years after the half-sister recorded them, sixty years after she died, the half-sister had her second hit, and third, and fourth. New guys and dolls lay back and worked. And, all the time, it was Louis Armstrong who filled their hands and wet their fingers.)
And they didn’t know it. In 1929, it wasn’t the thing. A black man alone with a white woman, in a studio, yards apart – it just wasn’t the thing, anywhere. No one knew; no one was to know. Louis knew the rules. He even disguised himself and his notes; no one ever spotted him on those scandals. He told no one. And the half-sister told no one; it was one of the rules she wasn’t interested in breaking. And I told no one.
—Do it and, a. Dore, Him.
Voices of Joy and Uplift. OKVJ 001. Don’t Look in the Good Book. They couldn’t press them fast enough. It was sent out everywhere. Boxed and dropped onto trucks and cars, it went national before engines were kicked to life. Railway porters took them to New Orleans and Memphis, and out west, all cities in between. Her church wasn’t big enough any more. Her big blue cross was suddenly undersized, and more blue crosses were plugged in, with silver cross-legged men smiling down from them.
Louis packed up the trumpet. He lowered it, like a baby, into the case.
The trumpet never got mentioned.
He waved and left.
She had a shrug for every answer. I never saw the same one twice. And, for a while, I got my 10 per cent; all her shrugs were varieties of Yes. I told her to go up to the altar in red. I remembered Missis Oblong. (The bed groaned and now I could see her. A head made huge by hair that was plenty for six or seven women, and a red gown that showed off white shoulders, and all of her was massive.
—You’re Missis Oblong, I said.
—Am I?
—Yeah.
—Good.) And I remembered Steady and his tin of red paint.
We rented a room downtown, on Houston, a bare old place like a parish hall. The musicians’ union owned but didn’t use it. They were sitting on it, waiting for the call from the city or realtors. For those in the know, the Depression had already pitched its tent on the island, but the air was still full of the buzz of construction. We drove past the Empire State site, on our way to the hall. It was three, four storeys higher than when I’d last passed, its girders black and climbing up and further up. The union’s hall was just minding the spot.
We spent fat money on red drapes and thousands of red roses.
—Like walking into a cunt, she said.
—That’s the idea.
—Yare, but I never had to pay for my own puss before.
—It’s money well spent.
—You keep saying. Not your money.
—Not my profit either, I said.
—Not your loss, she said. —What’s 10 per cent of nothing?
I had two fine girls at the door, to hand out the prayer sheets. The girls wore black suits, trousers, red braces, fedoras. And six more girls for the collection trays. I’d designed the trays myself, a long stick and a tight net of generous mesh; small coins dropped to the floor.
—Good touch, she said.
The altar was big and cardboard.
—Easier to transport, I said.
—Makes sense.
Under the lights, behind the red-draped half-sister, it would look marble and ready for sacrifice.
Midnight was our time and, by ten, the traffic outside was stopped and going nowhere. There were thousands out there, pushing to get nearer the closed doors. They were quietly pouring in from all directions, out of the ground, out of windows. We could hear vendors and cop whistles. She looked out from a window on the second floor.
She was pleased.
—We could have done it without the drapes, she said. —Or your broads in the little-me costumes.
—Think big, I s
We were shoulder to shoulder. My choice, but she didn’t move away.
—You have them here. Now you want to convert them.
—I ain’t enough?
—You want them to come back.
—I ain’t enough?
—But you’ll be up there, in front of the altar.
—Be better on the altar.
—Yeah, but you’d go right through the cardboard.
—Continue.
—So, you’re up there and the young ones are down there, near.
—Little me’s.
—You said it.
The doors were opened and, seconds later, they were off the hinges and going back over the heads of the thousands. The seats were full, standing room was gone in seconds more. The stairs were packed, to the first floor, and the second. Wood cracked, but they kept quietly coming.
The half-sister moved to a room on the fourth floor. Down in the hall, I nodded and the fine girls started working the collection nets. Hands went to pockets. Folding money came out, went in. I watched. Some of the usual lads did the expected; they helped themselves as the nets went past. I did nothing, said nothing. And the fine girls helped themselves too. I saw them, let it go; I wanted them back, involved, giddy and greedy.
—There she is!
The weak and the faint were passed back over heads, back out to the street. I saw them turn off Houston, on their backs, floating over the crowds that kept coming, crawling at us.
—There she is!
The trays were full, and emptied, filling again before the girls had fully stretched their arms.
—There she is!
The odd shout, the odd eejit, but it was very strangely quiet. The trays kept filling. It worked: they were in a church and stayed respectful. More bodies, more money. More cash would produce her. I leaned against a wall and felt it grumble. The place was being shoved right off the street.
They kept coming. There were no doors now to bar them. The second storey filled, the halls, long empty rooms. Quietly, almost silently, filling the building, patiently, reverently, up the next staircase. Men and women.
I went past, and ahead of them. I walked the banister, no bother, hands ahead of me on the rail. No one complained; no one tried to follow. I was a priest, they saw that. A man in big black. I knew what I was doing.
Permission.
It was bigger than we could have guessed, the pulling power of that record. It was stronger than lit-up crosses, than the churches, the biggest, the highest and widest. The half-sister’s record proved it to us that night. And the radio – that was next on our list, and more powerful. Our own radio station, and stations – ours. The airwaves. They’d hear her. She’d float over the nation. Geography wouldn’t slow her down. They’d look up and see her. They’d all hear at once. Rockwell understood it, and Louis did. The records and the radio, our salvation army. They’d hear, together, the folks at home, all homes, the folks on the stairs who might not see her: they’d hear.