Tiger Rag

by Nicholas Christopher

  Then what did he do?

  Just sat quiet, like I wasn’t there anymore. Put on his jacket and give me another dollar and walked out.

  With the bag?

  Yeah, with the bag.

  Damn.

  Made two dollars off him. And now with your dollar, three. Anything else you want to know, Mister?

  Guideau returned to Mrs. Vance’s and found Orson in back eating bacon and eggs, drinking black coffee. He was annoyed that Guideau was interrupting his breakfast.

  You got a burr up your ass? Orson said.

  You know a man named Buck? He’s the one was with Philippa Friday night.

  I don’t know no Buck. And I already told you, I don’t know who she was with. There’s twenty girls and more here. The johns come and go.

  Young man, good-looking, wearing a green suit. Smokes cigars.

  Orson hesitated, stabbing a slice of bacon with his fork. Don’t know nobody like that. He looked up. What you want with him, anyway? He owe you money?

  Something like that.

  Well, I don’t know him. And he don’t owe me nothin’. He put the bacon in his mouth. And I’m ready for you to be on your way.

  Guideau spent an entire week searching for the cylinder. After a while, it wasn’t to pacify Zahn or get his job back, but out of pride. He was furious at the man who snatched the cylinder. And he was puzzled. Why would this man prefer an Edison cylinder with Bolden’s name on it to the enjoyment of Philippa’s charms? It made Guideau think he might be a musician, or someone who knew music, rather than an indiscriminate thief, who more likely would have gone to bed with the girl and then run off with the cylinder. But even if he happened to be a musician—a good many of whom patronized Mrs. Vance’s—what could he possibly hope to do with the cylinder? It was no secret that Bolden had never been recorded, and such a recording might be worth some money, but how could that benefit anyone but Bolden himself? Zahn would sic a lawyer on any music dealer tempted to bypass Bolden.

  Guideau had returned to the sporting house, and after greasing the palm of a more compliant Orson Vance and questioning some of the girls, he came up with three men, regulars, who might have been in Philippa’s room that night. Two Bucks, a housepainter and a bargeman, and one Bunk. Two of the girls said this Bunk liked to light a cigar before he took his pleasure and then finish it afterward. Guideau grew excited. He knew of only one Bunk around Storyville, and he was a musician.

  Bunk Johnson was an ambitious young cornet player who had auditioned unsuccessfully for the Bolden Band before landing a spot in Lorenzo Tio’s Triangle Band. None of the girls had actually seen Bunk Johnson enter or leave Philippa’s room, but one of them swore he had been at Mrs. Vance’s that night. Guideau thought it almost too ripe a coincidence that of all the johns, and more specifically all the musicians, who might have entered Mrs. Vance’s and asked for Philippa, it would be Bunk Johnson, a man with a mighty grudge against Bolden. It was the sort of ill-fated coincidence that Bolden himself, quoting his childhood preacher with mock solemnity, would describe as one of Fate’s dispensations.

  Guideau tracked down Johnson’s address, a rooming house on Vine Street. But the landlady said he was out. Try his brother’s pawnshop on Lafayette, she said. Raoul Johnson’s pawnshop specialized in musical instruments. Musicians congregated around the bench in front, drinking rye and trying out the wares. Freshly discharged after the war in Cuba, military band members had hocked dozens of trombones, cornets, and tubas with pawnbrokers like Raoul. The old man in a leather vest watching over the pawnshop said Raoul was gone for lunch and that Bunk could be found most afternoons at Moorhead’s Saloon. It ain’t no secret, he added, relighting his pipe.

  Moorhead’s was a low dark bar on Julia Street with a pair of stuffed herons in the window. The clientele were black and mulatto. Bunk Johnson was there all right, in a back booth, sharing a pitcher of beer with Frankie Dusen, the trombonist, and Lorenzo Staulz, a guitarist. Johnson was tall and well built. He had a wide forehead and square jaw and his eyes seemed fixed, as if he had to turn his head to shift his gaze even slightly. His shoulders bulged beneath his jacket, and even indoors, he didn’t like to remove his wide-brimmed hat. With no greeting or introduction, Guideau slid in beside Dusen and said, I know you took that cylinder, Bunk. I want it back.

  Johnson didn’t blink. Who the fuck are you?

  The man who left an Edison cylinder at Mrs. Vance’s sporting house.

  Johnson remained poker-faced. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Hey, get the hell out of here, Frankie Dusen said, and Guideau smelled something stronger than beer on his breath.

  My name is Myron Guideau. I work for Oscar Zahn. He recorded the Bolden cylinder.

  Staulz and Dusen exchanged glances.

  I know Zahn, Dusen said casually, sitting back.

  Yeah? Then you know he’d be unhappy someone took one of his cylinders.

  Bolden made a cylinder? Staulz said, affecting the same nonchalance.

  Guideau knew Bolden had once fired Staulz from the band. He ignored him and turned to Johnson. I want it back. No questions asked.

  I had enough of this shit, Johnson said, jumping up and reaching into his jacket.

  Suddenly they were all on their feet.

  You gonna pull a gun on me? Guideau said, wondering where he was coming by the courage—or madness—to challenge a man a head taller than him and twice as strong.

  I don’t like guns, Johnson said, flashing a knife.

  Put that away, Bunk, Staulz said, genuinely alarmed that the three of them, black men, were threatening a white man with a knife.

  Any man call me a thief, Johnson said, I’m gonna cut him.

  I didn’t say you were a thief, I said you took something.

  Dusen leaned close to Guideau. You better leave, Mister.

  Are you crazy? Staulz said to Johnson.

  I’m gonna cut him.

  You ain’t gonna do nothin’, Dusen said.

  Let me know where you want to return it to me, Guideau said, backing away from the booth, and I’ll be there.

  In hell, Johnson shouted after him. You’ll be in hell.

  Walking back down Julia Street, his hands shaking, Guideau knew he had found his man. He couldn’t prove it yet, but he knew. But what would Johnson do now? Why would he want to keep the cylinder? And why has it become a point of honor for me to win the respect of a man like Zahn, who doesn’t respect me in the first place? Maybe I am mad, like my uncle who failed at everything, but was convinced if he murdered the president he could become president. When they hanged him, he was sure the spectators loved him, that he was a hero. He ruined my father’s life, and my brothers’, dirt farmers who lost everything and had to leave Ohio. I ran away first, changed that one letter in my name which maybe I should’ve changed altogether, and here I am, tired of running. I’m no murderer, but up to now I’ve been a failure, like my uncle. Up to now. Because if that damn cylinder is so hot, I’ll keep it for myself.

  At Moorhead’s, Johnson banged the table and shouted to the bartender, Rye. Send the bottle.

  You know anything about this, Bunk? Dusen said.

  What?

  You do know, Staulz said.

  Johnson drained his beer. It’s my business.

  You took it, Dusen said.

  Johnson shrugged.

  Why?

  It was there for the taking.

  Shit, Staulz said.

  A waiter brought the rye and three tumblers. Johnson poured a shot and downed it.

  You know what’s on it? Dusen said.

  Johnson poured himself another and glared at Dusen. I’m gettin’ tired of your questions.

  Take it easy.

  You take it easy. Johnson practically inhaled the second shot. Yeah, I know what’s on it, Frankie. I listened to it down at Bailey’s music store on his Edison. Sounded like old “Number 2.”

  “Number 2”? Staulz said.

  Yeah. But with
a twist I ain’t never heard before.

  What kind of twist? Dusen said.

  He just took it somewhere else. He grimaced. Anybody could do it.

  Yeah? Dusen said skeptically.

  Staulz shook his head. Man, I don’t believe this.

  So what you gonna do with it? Dusen said.

  I’m gonna sell it, and put it out there.

  As your own? Staulz said.

  Why not?

  You can’t do that, Dusen said.

  Who’s gonna know?

  Come on.

  You gonna spill?

  Jesus.

  Are you gonna spill?

  Keep it down.

  Don’t tell me that. Who’s gonna know it’s not me on cornet?

  Who? Dusen rolled his eyes. How about anyone who’s heard Bolden play?

  Fuck you.

  Come on, Bunk, Staulz said.

  He ain’t that much better than me.

  He’s better than everyone, Dusen said, and you know it.

  You know how I feel about Bolden, Staulz said, but Frankie’s right.

  Fuck the both of you.

  You gonna make a fool of yourself, Dusen said, and cross a lot of people, not just Bolden. It could be big trouble for you.

  You calling me a fool?

  I’m saying it will be big trouble.

  From who?

  The music stores, the krewe …

  I don’t give a shit about them.

  Fuck it, Dusen said. Go ahead. Fuck yourself up.

  Bunk sat back, thinking hard. Maybe there’s something else, then.

  Like what?

  Like he give me jack to get it back.

  Staulz’s eyes widened. You want to squeeze Bolden?

  He’s got jack to spare.

  What about Zahn?

  Zahn is nothin’.

  Listen to me, Dusen said. Bolden’s got some rough boys owe him down on South Rampart. They could take you apart.

  They’re plenty rough, Staulz added. Louis Coe and the Ellis brothers.

  Fuck ’em. I can be plenty rough. Why you keep runnin’ me down? You fuckers not my friends.

  Bunk, this don’t work from any angle, Dusen said. Give it up.

  He’s right, Staulz said.

  Johnson stood up angrily and threw down some coins. I’ll give it up, all right. And that piece of shit Guideau with it. And the two of you can kiss my ass.

  He stormed out into the street. Dusen and Staulz watched through the window as he disappeared. Then Dusen poured them each a shot.

  He’s crazy, Dusen said.

  Staulz shook his head. I wouldn’t want to be that white boy.

  I wouldn’t want to be Bunk. If you hear what he does next, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

  It was called Skeleton’s Bend because dead bodies floating downriver never made it past the western bank. The water there was deep, and muddy right to the surface. The bodies, some newly drowned, others bloated, carried all the way from Cairo or Memphis, sank slowly as they turned the bend, and after they came to rest the fish picked them clean, leaving the skeletons suspended upright in the currents.

  Bunk Johnson was standing on that bank in a torn shirt and muddy boots. He had a pint bottle in his back pocket. He once knew two boys who dove to see the skeletons. One came up breathless, screaming that they were there, all right, dozens of them, dancing. The other boy’s body was never found.

  Far out on the river, the lanterns on the fishing boats flickered. At night, it was the walleyes and the yellow catfish that bit. Johnson used to go night fishing with his uncle, a roofer, who one morning came home to find his wife in bed with another man, shot them both, and was hanged two months later in the prison yard in Amesville.

  Johnson was sweating. The mist off the water was more like steam. Snakes slid in and out of the mangrove roots, bats swooped through the trees. He could hear his own voice, somewhere outside himself in the darkness. He was cursing that bitch Agnes he lived with, with her big ass and sweet lips, who ran off with his money and had better be hoping he didn’t find her. And that son of a bitch Guideau who would never bother him again. And, most of all, Bolden, with his mighty airs—King Bolden—who was no better than him, no matter what anyone said, and one day they would all know it.

  He took a final swig from the bottle and threw it into the river, then reached into his coat and took out the Edison cylinder and flung it as far as he could, so hard that he lost his balance and slid halfway down the riverbank. He heard a splash in the darkness as he sprawled out in the mud, laughing and cursing, telling himself that the only ones who would hear that music now were dead men. Let them dance to it.

  FLORENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA—DECEMBER 20, 1:30 P.M.

  Driving north on the interstate, as the hail turned to freezing rain and the temperature plummeted, Devon had mixed feelings about leaving Miami. Though she was jobless, behind in rent, shitlisted by the local narcs, it seemed like a bad move to embark on a road trip with her mother. Ruby might have a concrete destination, where professional business awaited her, but it still felt as if she was fuguing. And Devon was along for the ride. After years of estrangement and uneasy truces, of brief obligatory phone calls, Devon was listening to Ruby’s patter for hours on end. And this when, for the first time in memory, her mother frequently made little sense.

  Her own mother’s funeral had been just as Ruby promised: short and unceremonious. She and Devon sat alone in the first of six rows of folding chairs and viewed the body in its rosewood casket. Ruby had ordered three wreaths of white carnations, and their scent was overpowering. She insisted that she and Devon wear white, not black, and ordered dresses from Neiman Marcus, which a fitter brought to the house.

  For her mother Ruby had picked out a pale blue dress, blue kerchief, and white gloves with pearl buttons. She saw Devon staring at the gloves and whispered, “Arthritis made her hands like claws. She would want them covered.”

  Devon had only met Camille Broussard once, when she was thirteen. Ruby had broken with her long before that. She had come to Miami for a single day and stayed in a motel. She found Ruby’s office address in the phone book and sat in the waiting room until she arrived. It happened that Ruby had just picked up Devon at school, and Devon never forgot the expression on her mother’s face when she saw the sallow, red-haired woman in a gingham dress sitting there pensively: in a matter of seconds, it went from astonishment to anger. She calmly ordered Devon to go into her office. Assuming the old woman was a patient, Devon didn’t understand her reaction. Ten minutes later, Ruby joined her, looking pale and drawn herself, and sat down behind her desk.

  “That was my mother,” she said. “Your grandmother. I explained to you last year, when I thought you were old enough to understand, why I never saw her and never wanted you to see her.”

  “Because she abandoned you,” Devon said meekly.

  “She did worse than that. She all but encouraged me to abandon her. That was the kicker. She couldn’t wait to be rid of me. I promised myself I would never allow her near me or my family. And I won’t.”

  “She’s gone?”

  “She was never here.”

  Those words echoed in Devon’s ears again as she looked down on her grandmother’s body. She didn’t recognize her. The mortician had applied plenty of makeup, making her appear younger in death. Her wrinkles were gone, her white hair neatly coiffed.

  By email Ruby had placed the same obituary in the Miami Herald and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “That was her hometown,” she explained, then read the obituary aloud from her laptop:

  Camille Broussard, age 75, died December 11, 2010, at the Saint Francis of Assisi Hospice in Fort Lauderdale. She is survived by her daughter, Dr. Ruby Cardillo, and granddaughter, Devon Sheresky. “When ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout.”

  “What’s that quote?” Devon asked.

  “Book of Joshua, 6:5. Her favorite. After her conversion, she spouted it all the time.”


  “Because your father was a trumpeter?”

  “Who knows?”

  Devon didn’t know much about Ruby’s father except that he was a trumpeter. That had intrigued her, especially since her mother had no apparent musical talent and did not even listen to music very often. Devon wondered if her own musical inclinations had been passed down from her grandfather. His name was Valentine Owen, and according to Ruby, whose only source was her own mother, he claimed he was originally from New Jersey. That his father was a drummer. That his mother named him after Saint Valentine, patron saint of musicians. His father ran out on them. His mother took a job as cashier in the gift shop at the Dorset Hotel. They moved into a railroad flat in Hell’s Kitchen. Owen took up the trumpet and became good enough to make money as a sideman. He dropped out of school, and for a long time, he lived out of a suitcase. It all sounded tough and romantic to Devon, but Ruby felt otherwise. “He was a guy who always watched out for Number One, and the hell with everyone else. The details don’t matter.”

  Sitting before the casket, glancing sidelong at her mother, Devon couldn’t read her thoughts, nor even venture that they had anything to do with the present circumstances. A high window allowed a thin shaft of sunlight to penetrate the room. Ruby seemed to be observing the motes of dust tumbling within it. The windowpane was stained red and blue and the dust was colored accordingly. Her face looked relaxed. Only her eyes, intensely bright and unblinking, betrayed the fact that she was getting very little sleep. That and the blurring of her lip gloss in the heat.

  Befitting her profession, Ruby had always worn minimal makeup, but that, too, had changed of late: she took care each morning applying eyeliner and mascara, blow-drying her hair, and touching up her nails. “Devon, my grandmother used to say: worry about your brains first, your looks second. But you don’t have to be a bimbo to get dolled up. Of course, some bimbos don’t even bother. Take the new Mrs. Sheresky. No matter the occasion, she dresses as if she’s going to a yoga class. I used to see her waiting outside the courthouse wearing a tank top and running shoes.”