by Larry Karp
She had to laugh. “How could I not? You’ve told me about him at least once every day. Why?”
“He answered the letter I wrote to him.” Alan slapped the envelope into her hand.
All the while Miriam read, the boy wiggled on the bench. Finally, she looked up, eyes shining behind thick lenses. “Alan…you ran all the way over here, just to show this to me?”
“My mother opened it.”
Miriam looked him questions.
“I came home and found it on the kitchen table. She’d opened it and read it, because she wanted to know who was writing me airmail letters from California. She didn’t approve of his grammar or his spelling.”
Miriam laughed.
Anger rose, bitter, into Alan’s throat. “I don’t think it’s so goddamn funny.”
She reached for his hand, seemed to think twice, but grabbed it anyway. “No, no, that’s not what I mean. It’s not funny that she opened your letter. I was laughing because your mother’s so worried about what you’re doing, she has to spy on you, and my parents couldn’t care less about what I do. But hey, what are we just sitting around for? Let’s go down to Selvin’s and get some of that music he’s talking about. Then, we’ll come back to my house, and you can play it for me.”
***
Alan ran a loving hand over the side of the lustrous piano in the Broaca parlor. Miriam felt a twinge. “You look absolutely moonstruck.”
“Yeah, I guess. But when I played ‘Maple Leaf’ for Slim the other night, that was the first time I’d ever touched the keyboard of a nine-foot Steinway. It hurt to be finished.”
“Well, you should hear my father.” Miriam cleared her throat. “‘That is a Steinway nine-foot concert grand. Style D. Mahogany, of course. I wouldn’t have anything less for the artists I bring here to play for my people.’”
“I’ve only seen them in concert halls,” Alan breathed. “Never in somebody’s house.”
Miriam gave him a little shove. “Go ahead. Play that ragtime we just bought. It’ll be a nice new experience for the piano, too.”
He worked his way through “Harlem Rag” and “Bowery Buck,” and was trying “Eli Green’s Cake Walk,” when Sally marched up to the piano bench. “I hate interruptin’ you,” the cook said to Alan, then turned to Miriam. “But I’m gonna serve dinner in five minutes, and you knows how your daddy is when it’s late.”
Alan started to gather his music, but Miriam grabbed his arm. “Wait, don’t go. I’ll ask my mother if it’s okay for you to stay for dinner. Then, afterward, you can play the rest.”
“I don’t know…”
The girl was halfway to the door. “Don’t worry, she’ll say yes. She won’t care.” Miriam pointed to the telephone on a little mahogany table beside a huge brass music stand. “Call your mother and tell her you’re having dinner here.” Then she was gone.
Sally looked at Alan, and guffawed. “I guess you’ learnin’ in a hurry, that girl don’t never take no for an answer. Go on, now, call up your mama. Then, come on down the hall there, second door on your left, that’s the dining room.”
“I’ll follow my nose,” Alan said, and started toward the phone.
Sally laughed again. “You all right, boy.”
As the cook walked away, Alan dialed his home number. When his mother answered, he said, “It’s me, Ma. I’m at Broacas’. I’m going to stay here for dinner.”
“No, you’re not,” Mrs. Chandler snapped. “What you’re going to do is come right home and have a little talk with your father.”
“Oh. Well, fine. Miriam and I are working on a project, it’s due tomorrow—”
“What kind of ‘project’ are you working on?”
“History. The teacher assigned boy-girl pairs to look at different kinds of art in different civilizations, and we’re doing music in early America. We went downtown to the library and got material, now we’re putting it together. If we don’t get it in on time, we both get automatic F’s, and if that’s what you want, I’ll be right home.”
He could have predicted the silence, waited just long enough, then said, “Look, Ma, they’re sitting down to eat now. It’d be impolite to keep them waiting.”
“All right.” His mother’s response was far short of full-hearted, but gained steam as she added, “Your father will be waiting for you.”
Alan smiled as he followed his nose down the hall. Maybe he should have felt ashamed of himself, lying like that, but he didn’t. He thought he’d done pretty darned well, coming up with a story that good on the spur of the moment.
***
Miriam’s parents greeted Alan pleasantly enough, but with no apparent interest or enthusiasm. All through dinner, Dr. and Mrs. Broaca talked only to each other, as if Miriam and Alan weren’t there. They discussed the father’s trying day at his medical office, and the mother’s afternoon at someone named Georgia’s, where Mrs. Broaca and a bunch of women had played four hours-worth of mah jongg. Miriam’s mother accompanied her story with movements of her bracelet-clad arms. The incessant clatter drove Alan to imagine driving forks through the woman’s hands to pin them to the table.
Finally, over dessert, Dr. Broaca turned to Miriam. “What about General Motors today? Buy or sell?”
The girl coughed, grabbed her water glass, swallowed a mouthful. She wiped at her eyes with her napkin. “Dad…” She inclined her head toward Alan.
Dr. Broaca looked puzzled. “What?”
“I don’t think Alan’s interested in the stock market.”
“If he’s not, maybe he should be. Come on, Miriam. Buy or sell?”
“Neither one. It’s down three-eighths, that’s one and seven-eighths for the week. I think it’s going lower, and if it drops another point, I might buy a hundred shares.”
The doctor looked pleased. “Good thinking.” He beamed a smug smile at Alan. “So money management doesn’t interest you, eh?”
The boy shook his head. “Not really.”
“Miriam tells me you’re quite the little musician, you’re going to Julliard. Do you think you’ll be able to make a living as a musician?”
The pace of Alan’s speech was like that of someone walking across a meadow he knew had been mined. “Some people do. But I haven’t thought that much yet about making a living.”
“Hmm.” Dr. Broaca frowned; then his face relaxed. “Are your parents musical? There’s a great deal to show that musical abilities run in families. Probably it’s some kind of genetic trait.”
Like I’m a freak, Alan thought. “No, I seem to be the only one. My father’s a physics professor, and neither he or my mother plays an instrument.”
“Really!” The doctor’s eyebrows went up. “How on earth did you happen to discover your talent?”
Alan shrugged. “When I was little, I would hear a song on the radio, then I’d go to the piano and pick it out.”
“But you said your parents aren’t musical. How did there happen to be a piano there?”
“It’s my mother’s. Her father bought it for her when she was a girl, but she never got very far with her lessons. She kept the piano, though, because it looks good in the living room when she has company.”
Dr. Broaca took a moment to decide whether the boy was being deliberately impertinent. His jangle-armed wife filled the breach. “What kind of music was that I heard you playing in there before dinner?”
“Ragtime.”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Broaca simpered. “Irving Berlin, that sort of thing. I remember it from when I was younger than you.” She began to sing, not nearly in tune, “Come on and hear, come on and hear, Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”
Alan took care not to look at Miriam.
“Come on and hear, da-da! Come on and hear, da-da! Alexander’s Ragtime Band. Why on earth are you interested in that old stuff?”
“The same reason people are interested in old stuff by Beethoven and Mozart,” said Alan. “Because it’s great m
usic.”
Yes, Dr. Broaca, thought. He is being deliberately impertinent. “Now, wait just a minute,” the doctor intoned. “Are you trying to tell me you think this ragtime is in the same class as work by Beethoven and Mozart? Why, I don’t even know the names of the composers of that cheap stuff.”
Alan winced as Miriam kicked him sharply under the table. “Well, sir, I think it’s terrific,” he said in a tone much milder than he had been about to use. “The most famous of the composers was Scott Joplin.” Alan paused. It wouldn’t do to tell this turkey that a small town in Missouri was going to honor Joplin by hanging a plaque in a high school. “In fact, there’s going to be a big ceremony next week. They’re going to unveil a statue in the main part of a city, and also start work on a museum in his honor.”
The doctor’s lips twisted into a sneer; he cocked his head and regarded Alan as if the boy were a half-wit who needed to be humored, lest he explode into a tantrum. “Well, that’s very interesting. Just where is this big ceremony to be held?”
“Sedalia. Sedalia, Missouri. That’s where Joplin was living when he wrote ‘Maple Leaf Rag.’”
“Sedalia…Sedalia…” The doctor looked toward the ceiling, made a show of thinking hard. “Isn’t that right down the road from Podunk?”
“Oh, I remember that song.” Mrs. Broaca raised both hands. “You know it, Marty.” She began to hum a melody, accompanying herself with her bracelets. To Alan’s ear, it sounded nothing like “Maple Leaf Rag,” nor, for that matter, like any tune he’d ever heard. Dr. Broaca’s upper lip curled.
For once, Alan felt himself in sympathy with his host. “It’s going to make musical history,” the boy said. “One of Scott Joplin’s pupils who lives in California now will be there, playing piano and giving a speech. I’d sure like to be able to go.”
“Do you intend to be a ragtime piano player when you grow up?” Dr. Broaca, still humoring the half-wit.
“That sounds pretty good to me,” Alan said.
The doctor ended the conversation with a dismissive laugh. “I suppose it would be all right, so long as you’re not terribly fond of eating.”
***
After dinner, as Alan worked through the final passages of “Bohemia,” by Joseph Lamb, Miriam sighed. “That’s so beautiful. I’m sorry we don’t have any more.”
“We can stop at Selvin’s on the way home from school tomorrow,” Alan said. “I saw more pieces by Lamb in the rack.”
Miriam clapped her hands. “Mr. Campbell said in his letter that Mr. Lamb lives in Brooklyn. Maybe you could get him to give you lessons. Maybe he could even teach you to write ragtime.”
Alan nodded. “Yeah, I guess. But what I’d really like to do is what I said to your father. I wish I could go out to Sedalia next week, find Mr. Campbell, listen to him play, and get him to give me some tips. He learned from Scott Joplin, so if he gave me lessons, it’d be almost like learning straight from Joplin.” The boy sighed. “If I could get that journal from Mrs. Joplin and give it to Mr. Campbell, I bet he’d give me all the lessons I want.”
Miriam’s forehead creased; her eyebrows moved closer together. “Alan, the way you talk sometimes. I mean, telling my father that they’re going to put up a statue and start a museum? Isn’t that only what Mr. Campbell said they ought to do?” She extended a hand. “Let me see the letter.”
She pulled the folded paper from his shirt pocket, then while her eyes worked their way down the page, the boy said, “I didn’t want him to make fun of Scott Joplin. Or me, either.”
“He did anyway,” Miriam mumbled. “‘Sedalia, Sedalia, right down the road from Podunk.’” She lowered the letter. “Alan, you can’t begin to put your hands on five thousand dollars, so why do you even think about getting that journal and taking it to Mr. Campbell? Are you going to go break into Mrs. Joplin’s house and steal it?”
“No, of course not. But Miriam, don’t you ever wish you could do something great? Even if you know you’ll never really do it, just dreaming about it is better than putting it out of your head altogether.”
Miriam thought he looked like one of those little boys in a Charles Dickens novel, standing ragged and starving outside a bakery window, nose to the glass. Without thinking, she threw her arms around him. For a moment, he sat quietly, then pulled back just far enough to look into her eyes. “I’m glad you came into the music room last week,” he said. “I’m glad I met you. I like being able to talk to you about…things.”
She started to cry.
Alan stiffened. “What’s the matter? What did I say?”
She snuffled. “Nothing bad. I’m happy you feel like that.”
He nodded as if he understood, then sighed. “I guess I better get on home, and face my old man’s music. But I’ll see you tomorrow, at lunch, won’t I? In the piano room?”
She wiped a sleeve across her face. “Sure.”
“And tell you what. After school, let’s go get more music at Selvin’s, then come back here and I’ll play it for you.”
“I’d love that.”
She looked as if she’d never need another thing from life to be happy. Alan smiled, gathered up the sheet music, then walked out of the room and into the hall. Down to the left, he saw Slim walking noiselessly toward the kitchen, and wondered whether the big man had been eavesdropping. The boy shrugged. So what if he was?
Chapter Eleven
Thursday, April 12
Mid-afternoon
Brun, at his barber-shop piano, wound up “Ginger Snap Rag” with a flourish, then jumped as he heard applause.
“Didn’t know you had an audience, eh?” someone said. “What’s that tune called, anyway? I don’t think I ever heard it.”
The barber turned, and found himself facing a well-fed middle-aged Negro in a dark blue suit. The man’s brown eyes blinked rapidly; a purse-string mouth smiled as if pleasantries had come under rationing. “I call it ‘Ginger Snap Rag,’” Brun said. “Reason you ain’t ever heard it is because I never did publish it. Just play it for my own enjoyment.”
The little man permitted the smile to ratchet up a notch. “Nice piece of ragtime. You wrote it, did you? Sounds like a genuine colored rag.”
Brun could scarcely contain himself. “Ain’t many people your age these days know ragtime from chicken fricassee. Nowadays, it’s all jazz.”
The Negro laughed. “Well, Mr. Campbell, when most of a man’s clients are older colored folks, he gets to know some things he otherwise wouldn’t.” The man extended a hand. “I’m Sam Pepper.”
Brun gripped the hand. “Somehow, I don’t guess you’re here for a haircut.”
“You guess right.” Pepper set a battered black-leather briefcase onto the counter, then took a business card from his pocket, and gave it to the barber. Brun squinted, read, “Samuel J. Pepper, Attorney-at-Law.”
“I was Roscoe Spanner’s lawyer,” Pepper said. “I need to talk to you. I went to your house, but no one was there. And you don’t have a telephone.”
“I won’t have one of those blasted things,” said Brun. “Always ringing, ringing, breaking up your dinner or whatever you’re doing, and never mind the expense. I’ve got along fine without one a lot of years now.”
“People got along without inside plumbing, too,” said Pepper. “But never mind. Here’s the situation. Mr. Spanner named you his sole beneficiary.”
Brun stared like an ox at the stubby lawyer.
“Apparently, he had no living relatives,” Pepper added.
Brun’s answer was a mumble. “Not so far as I know, and I’ve known him for a long while. Never got married, never had kids, no sisters or brothers I ever met.”
“Well, what he’s left you isn’t exactly a fortune,” Pepper said. “But it’s not to be sneezed at either. Basically, it comes down to his house and the contents of a savings account. The house is valued at about thirty-eight hundred, and the savings account has just over twenty-six hundred in it. N
ice little nest egg…Mr. Campbell?”
“What?”
“You feeling all right? Maybe you ought to sit down.”
Brun waved off the man’s concern. “Nah, I’m fine. Just thinking, is all. That comes out to what, about sixty-four hundred?”
“That’s how I figure it, yes. You sound disappointed.”
“No, no. You got that wrong. Like I said, I was thinking. Mr. Pepper, how soon can I get the money?”
Pepper’s close-mouthed smile broadened even further. “I’ve heard that line once or twice, Mr. Campbell. It shouldn’t take too long. We need to jump through the usual hoops, you know. Dot all i’s, cross the t’s. Shouldn’t take more than a month—”
“A month? Damn!” Brun punched his right fist into his left palm. “I need…Mr. Pepper, is there some way I can get an advance on that dough?”
Pepper took Brun’s measure. “You’ve got some sort of pressing need?”
“You could say that. Look, you know about ragtime, you must know who was Scott Joplin, right?”
“Of course I know who Scott Joplin was. Why?”
“Well, here’s the thing. Next week, in Sedalia, that’s in Missoura, they’re having a ceremony in honor of Mr. Joplin.” Brun tried to slow himself down, but his speech only accelerated. “I’ve got the chance to get his personal journal of how he first created ragtime, and I think if I can take it to Sedalia, I can get the people there to think for real about starting a Scott Joplin museum—”
“Where is this journal now?”
“His missus’ got it. In New York.”
Pepper nodded. “That does sound interesting. Maybe I can help. How much do you need?”
Brun braced himself. “Five K.”
Pepper’s jaw fell. The lawyer gaped at Brun. “Five thousand? Whew. I was thinking I might be able to lend you, say a few hundred. But five thousand?” He shook his head.
“Now, wait, wait just a minute.” Brun’s tongue went into overdrive. “I wasn’t thinking about you giving me anything outa your own pocket, but looky here. You’re saying I’m in line to collect something like sixty-four hundred inside of a month, right?”