by Larry Karp
What he died of was syphilis, Cal thought, but the young man wasn’t about to argue the point, not while the barber was trimming furiously above his right eye.
“Nothing in any of the papers yesterday,” Brun shouted. “Not a word on the radio. It’s like Scott Joplin never lived. Greatest American composer ever. I was working on a book, gonna call it When Ragtime Was Young, and it’d have everything in it about Scott Joplin that people oughta know. But last year, this guy Rudi Blesh from outa New York, he went all around the country and talked to everybody, me included, then he took what the people said and made it up into a book. But it’s all fulla mistakes. I tried telling him he shouldn’t do it that way, you know, too many chickens spoil the broth, but he didn’t want to listen. Now I don’t know if my book is ever get published, and if it don’t, when I’m gone, there ain’t gonna be nobody to tell people about Scott Joplin and his music.”
Cal’s eyes bulged. He raised a hand under the apron. “Brun, put down that razor.”
The barber glanced at his hand, then hunched his shoulders and stared at Cal. “What d’you mean, put down the razor? How the hell am I supposed to get the edges clean.”
“Just use the scissors,” said Cal. “You’re waving that razor around like a sword.”
Brun couldn’t seem to decide what to do.
“Put it down.” Cal spoke gently. “Before you say one more word about Scott Joplin.”
Slowly, the old barber laid the razor on the shelf, picked up the scissors, and went back to work. “I’m trying everything,” a dull monotone. “I show young kids how to play the music right. I write articles about Joplin, they get published in important music magazines. I make phonograph records. I get interviewed by music professors and experts. I’m workin’ with Ethel Waters…you know who she is?”
“Yes, Brun. I know who Ethel Waters is. I’ve even heard her sing.”
“Well, then.” The wind picked up; Brun’s sails refilled. “I got Miss Waters interested in making a movie about Joplin’s life, but the people down there in Hollywood, they don’t want to let a colored woman say nothing but Yassir and Yas’m in a film, so I’m afraid that ain’t ever gonna happen. Christ, kid, I’m sixty-seven years old. How much longer do I—”
A howl from Cal broke off the barber’s speech. The young man reached from under the apron to grab the side of his head. “Jeez, Brun, can’t you sharpen those scissors once in a while? You’re pulling my hair out by the goddamn roots.”
The barber looked contrite. “Sorry. Sometimes I get myself carried away. But I ain’t givin’ up. People in Sedalia’re puttin’ on a big ceremony, couple of weeks from now. They’re gonna present a big bronze plaque to hang up in the colored high school there, saying how it was in Sedalia that Scott Joplin signed the contract with Mr. John Stark to publish ‘Maple Leaf Rag.’ I’m working along with them, gonna go out and play at the ceremony, but also, I think maybe I can talk Louis Armstrong into giving a scroll to Mrs. Joplin in New York, right at the same time as they present the plaque in Sedalia. And I want the radio people to broadcast the whole shebang over their network.”
Cal nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Brun read his thoughts. “I know, a plaque in a high school ain’t the same as a monument in front of the City Hall…or a museum, say. That’s really what they ought have in Sedalia, a museum. While I’m out there, I’m gonna see if I can’t get them cracking on setting one up for Mr. Joplin and ragtime. Hell, that town’s been on the edge of the grave since the Depression. Just think about the tourists who’d come in to see a museum, and hear ragtime music.”
A smile curved a corner of Cal’s lips. “So you’re going out to Missouri.”
If I can figure out how to get food for the Greyhound, Brun thought, and sighed. “I gotta.”
The old man pulled the apron away from Cal’s neck, then shook it with a quick downward flip of his wrists. A sharp crack, then a cloud of dark hair fluttered to the floor. Brun tore the tissue from Cal’s neck, held a mirror up to the back of the young man’s head. Cal cringed.
“Guess it ain’t one of my better jobs,” Brun mumbled. “Figure it’s on the house.”
Cal pushed a dollar bill into the barber’s hand. “It’s not the worst you’ve done. If you could only talk about something beside Scott Joplin and ragtime, at least while you’re cutting peoples’ hair.”
“Damn, boy, what in creation should I talk about? I ain’t never had anything in my life come close to Scott Joplin and ragtime.”
Cal considered the words in his mind, then spoke them. “Brun, not to offend you, but Joplin is dead, and so is his music. R.I.P. You’ve got to move on in life.”
The barber cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. “How old’re you, kid?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Hmmm.” Brun seemed to think that settled the question. He started toward the cash register.
Cal wasn’t finished. “Yeah, I know I’m still young. But I’m not going to end up like those old guys, sitting all day at the train station, jawing about how much better everything was fifty years ago. Yesterday’s gone, Brun, tomorrow’s coming. There’s a reason I write science fiction, and when I’m seventy, or eighty, or however old I get to be, my eyes are still going to be on what’s ahead, not what’s already been.”
Brun slipped the dollar into the register, then slowly looked Cal up and down. Cal thought if the old man had long, floppy ears, he’d be the spitting image of the little beagle that lived down his block. “How’s your book doing?” Brun asked.
The mildness of the barber’s voice took Cal aback. “Oh…good enough, I guess. Selling better than my first.”
“What’s it called?”
“The Martian Hangover. Tell you what. I’ll bring you a copy, and I’ll sign it for you.”
Brun smiled weakly. “That’d be nice. Hey, you really do make enough to live off, writing those books?”
“Short stories, too. And articles, you know, for magazines. I just sold one to Science Fiction Quarterly. A thousand words, they paid me two hundred bucks.”
“Twenty cents a word? No fooling?”
“God’s truth.”
“Well, I guess I’m in the wrong business. All them words I shoot out in the air, if I just put ’em on paper, I’d be a millionaire ten times over.” Brun waved toward the door. “Better go on. You already lost ten bucks standing here, talking to me.”
Cal chuckled, then started for the door, but halfway there, turned around. “Brun don’t you ever take off that hat?”
The old man reached a hand to his gray fedora, as if to remind himself it was there. He loosed a hoarse laugh. “Hell, no. You think I want people to see what a lousy barber I go to?”
***
A continent away, in the living room of a solidly middle-class house in Hobart, New Jersey, Alan Chandler sat at a Steinway baby grand, playing “Maple Leaf Rag.” A week earlier, he’d pulled the piece from the Old Sheet Music rack at Mrs. Selvin’s Music House, along with one called “Crazy Bone Rag,” and another, “Magnetic Rag.” He’d also bought a handful of 78s, all of whose titles ended with the word, “rag.” Mrs. Selvin had looked surprised as she thumbed through the material on the counter. “Since when have you been interested in ragtime, Alan?” Her eyes glistened behind rimless glasses. “These were all so popular when I was a girl.”
“I listen to Oscar Brand, you know, the folksinger,” Alan said. “He’s on WNYC Sunday mornings, and yesterday, he played a bunch of tunes he said had been recorded a few years ago by an old barber, who lives in California. Mrs. Selvin, I just couldn’t keep my feet still! The man told Mr. Brand he was the only white pupil of a colored ragtime pianist named Scott Joplin. Did you ever hear of him?”
She nodded. “He was very famous for a while. He wrote the first big ragtime hit, the sheet you’ve got right here. ‘Maple Leaf Rag.’”
Alan’s eyes widened. He spread the sleeved 78s across the co
unter, then grabbed one and held it up to the shopkeeper. “See here? ‘Maple Leaf Rag,’ played by that barber, Brun Campbell. Oscar Brand played this same record on the radio, and I’ve never heard anything like it. I’ve got to learn it.”
Mrs. Selvin smiled. “It’s not an easy piece. For most people, I’d suggest one of the simplified folio arrangements, but I imagine you can handle the original. It will take some practice, though.”
“That doesn’t bother me. I don’t waste my time on simplified folios. Do you have anything else you think I’d like?”
The boy’s cheeks glowed. His chest heaved. Mrs. Selvin embarrassed herself with the thought that if she were seventeen again, she’d lock the door, take him in the back, and give him something he’d really like. She reached back into the window display, brought out a book. “You might enjoy this, dear. It was just published last year, and it will tell you all about ragtime music and Scott Joplin. In fact…let me see…yes, here. It’s even got a few pages about your barber.”
Alan took the book from her with a move that could have been considered rude, if his enthusiasm were not taken into account. “They All Played Ragtime.” He ran a finger down the table of contents, then laid the book on top of the pile of sheet music. “Great, Mrs. Selvin, thanks. I can’t wait to read it.”
But first things first. He was home in record time, into the living room, onto the piano bench. In one motion, he threw the sheet music for “Maple Leaf Rag” up on the rack, drew a huge breath, and hit the keys.
It took only a couple of minutes for him to decide Mrs. Selvin had been right on the money. This was as tough a piece of music as he’d ever tried to play. His right hand kept tripping over his left. But the tune had him by the throat. He played “Maple Leaf Rag” all that afternoon, and every afternoon the rest of the week.
Now, after six days of practice, he’d gotten a decent handle on it. He stretched his arms, took it from the top. Through the A strain, into the B, back to the A, yeah. He ignored the sweat dripping from his forehead onto the keys as he swung into the C strain.
“Alan! For the love of God, can’t you play anything but that silly tune? You’re driving me crazy.”
He muffed a G-chord, struggled to recover.
“Alan, I’m talking to you.”
The boy let his hands flop to his lap, and stared up into his mother’s face.
“Don’t you give me that look.”
“Damn it, Ma. I was finally getting it right, and you made me blow it.”
“Out the window is where I’d like to blow it. And don’t you swear at me or give me backtalk. You’ve spent a whole week playing that one tune, over and over again, until I could just scream. Mr. Bletter wasn’t happy with your lesson last Friday, and I’m not surprised. I don’t think you spent fifteen minutes the whole week long practicing real music.”
“This is real music. Mr. Bletter couldn’t even play it when I showed it to him. He looked like his fingers were all knotted up.”
“Mr. Bletter wouldn’t waste his time trying to play that. He’s a classical pianist, the best teacher in Hobart. He says you have God-given talent, and if you’d only apply yourself…”
Her mouth kept moving, but her words had drifted into white noise. Alan turned back to the piano, set his fingers to the keys, played the first chord of the C strain. But then, a smack to his cheek nearly sent him to the floor. “Don’t you dare ignore me when I’m talking to you. Just who do you think you are?”
He locked eyes with his mother, said nothing.
Her lips were bloodless. “Mister, you are getting too big for your britches. I don’t suppose you’ve done your homework, have you?”
On the verge of telling her he didn’t have any, an idea came to him. “I’ve just got to write a little history report.”
Mrs. Chandler looked at her watch, then at her son. “It’s past four o’clock. You are not going to play this garbage all afternoon, then stay up till all hours to practice your piano lesson and do your homework. One week of that monkey business was more than enough. Now, put away that sheet music, and get to work.”
Alan snatched “Maple Leaf Rag” off the piano rack, then marched past his mother, out of the living room, and up the stairs. “Like talking to a wall,” Mrs. Chandler shouted. “Seventeen years old, and he doesn’t have the sense he was born with. Lord only knows what’s going to become of him when I’m not—”
The slam of his bedroom door cut off the rest of the speech. Only five months to go, less than half a year. Then he’d be at Juilliard, out of this place, and she could talk to all the goddamn walls she pleased.
He flung the sheet music onto the foot of his bed, then sat at his desk, pulled a sheet of paper and two air-mail envelopes from cubbyholes, grabbed a pen, and began to write:
Dear Mr. Campbell,
I heard about you last Sunday on Oscar Brand’s radio program on WNYC in New York. He played some of the tunes that a man named Spiller recorded of you at the piano, and I have never heard anything like that in my life. I play piano myself, mostly classical, but I went down to the music store last week, and got some sheet music and records of the old-time rags, and I’ve been trying to learn to play them. My mother hates it, but I don’t care.
I read about you in THEY ALL PLAYED RAGTIME, by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis. Also, Oscar Brand played some comments by you. I think it’s very impressive that you were just a little younger than me when you went to Sedalia to study with Scott Joplin, and you’re the only white pupil Scott Joplin ever had, and except for Scott Joplin, no one has ever played ragtime as well as you.
I can’t figure out why some of the tunes that have Rag or Ragtime in the title, like DAT DRAGGY RAG, and THE RAGTIME VIOLIN, and YIDDLE ON YOUR FIDDLE PLAY SOME RAGTIME don’t sound anything like what Scott Joplin wrote.
I’ve played your record of MAPLE LEAF RAG probably a hundred times, now, and I’ve learned a lot by listening to it. I’m hoping you can give me some advice about how to play ragtime right. Anything you can tell me, I will really appreciate. I’m enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope for your convenience.
Sincerely,
Alan Chandler
The boy read the page slowly, then reached to the floor to pull a record from the turntable of an old wooden phonograph. Copying from the yellow label at the center of the record, he addressed his piece of mail:
Mr. Brun Campbell
c/o Brun Recording Co.
711 Venice Blvd.
Venice, California
He wrote his own name and address on the second envelope, folded it into the letter, checked his watch. Twenty minutes to five, better hurry. He charged out of his room, down the stairs, through the front hall, to the back door. As he passed the kitchen, he called, “Gotta go to the library, Ma, and check out something for my history paper.” Before she could reply, he was outside, to the garage, onto his bike and away, pedaling to the post office, where he bought two six-cent air-mail stamps, put one onto each envelope, then sealed the outer envelope and dropped it into the slot.
***
About the time Alan wheeled his bike back into the garage, Elliot Radcliffe glanced out his office window. Through the early spring twilight, he could just barely make out the Hudson River. Most of the neighboring skyscrapers were dark, their occupants by now at home or in a nice, congenial bar, enjoying a stiff martini. The editor tried to sneak a peek at his wrist, but his visitor caught him. “Oh, come on, now, Ellie, I’m not going to make you all that late for dinner. Just give me a few minutes.”
Radcliffe started to object, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When Rudi Blesh got into one of his fits of enthusiasm, he could drive a man nuts. With his retreating hairline, and that sly smile coming out of the precisely-trimmed Van Dyke beard, Blesh put Radcliffe in mind of his Uncle Lou, who always used to hold out his hands, fists closed, and tell little Ellie to pick the hand holding candy. And every time, every single goddamn
time, Ellie would tap the wrong hand. The editor blinked. “Rudi, it’s late, and I’m tired. Not everyone has your six-o’-clock fervor.”
“That’s all right. I have enough for both of us. Listen. I’ve been after Mrs. Joplin for almost two years, and she’s finally agreed to let me consider Joplin’s personal journal for publication.” Blesh held up a professorial index finger; Radcliffe’s gut cramped. “And then, there’s the matter of that basement of hers, full of manuscripts she’s been sitting on since Joplin died. Ellie, for God’s sake, think about it. Hundreds of unpublished, unknown Joplin manuscripts. If she and we can get together on the journal, all that music might come next. I don’t want to sound callous, but the woman’s eighty years old, and not in the best of health. She’s also gotten a little flighty. I’d hate to have her change her mind.”
Radcliffe rested his elbows on his desk, then lowered his chin into his hands. “Rudi, slow down. Please? I know what this means to you, but try to see it from my point of view. Publishing that journal would be chancy at best. People aren’t going to flock to read the memoirs of an unknown composer.”
“They will if your publicity staff does its job. A first-hand retrospective account of the critical initial creative period of an American composing genius? I’ll write a commentary to go with it, and that book will become a standard. A work for the ages.”
Radcliffe’s colon went back into spasm. Blesh’s drive and determination were standards for the ages. The man was an expert on jazz, modern art, silent movies, interior design. He’d hosted a syndicated radio show, run a high-class record company. You don’t get that kind of C.V. by being laid-back and patient. And what Rudi promised, he delivered. Some of the people at Knopf had frowned pretty hard at his proposal for what became They All Played Ragtime, but out he’d gone, he and Harriet Janis, all over the country, and in less than a year and a half had put together…what? A standard, a work for the ages.