by Larry Karp
“But I—”
“But you didn’t. You obviously spoke to Mr. Joplin, because every detail of that affair is down on paper here. Who else did you speak to?”
“Mrs. Stark, that’s the only other one. I couldn’t just run out of town without letting her and Mr. Joplin know.”
“Your promise to me to the contrary. Now, would you like to know Mr. Joplin’s evaluation of you as a pianist.”
Across the circle, Tom Ireland held his breath. All that woman needed were nails, a hammer, and a couple of sticks of wood.
Luella opened the journal to a page with a paper marker, and began to read. “I’m sorry to see the boy leave town. I can’t help admiring his enthusiasm and hard work. But he’ll never be a great, or even a good, classical ragtime pianist or composer. He plays the right notes, but not in the right way, and it isn’t as I first thought, that he lacks a proper ear. It’s deeper than that, a matter of soul. His is an unfettered nature, and the same impulses that led to his forced and immediate departure cause him to play my music the way he does. But how many whites are eager or even willing to play my music at all? I’m grateful to the boy, and I wish him well.”
Luella closed the journal with a smack, then looked at Brun, shoulders slumped, tears coursing down both cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “But do you want that material available for anyone and everyone to read?”
Ireland ground his teeth. “You didn’t need to do that, Mrs. Rohrbaugh. There’s more in there that’s a whole lot worse.”
“Whatever it is, it’s history.” Blesh struggled to keep his voice even. “A personal view of ragtime through Scott Joplin’s eyes would be invaluable for scholars and musicians. It must be published.”
Luella gave him a cold stare, then turned back to Brun. “That boy over there paid a good deal of money for this book. Alan, where did you get all that money?”
Alan started to speak, but paused as he saw the looks coming his way from Ireland, Green, and Isaac. Green smiled. “Good thing the fat man took off.”
Alan coughed. “I got it from a friend’s father.”
Luella pulled herself to full height, tightened her lips. “He gave it to you?”
Alan shook his head.
“You stole it, then.”
“Well…not exactly.”
“But close enough.” Luella waggled the journal in Brun’s direction. “You told me you brought money to pay for this. Give that money to Alan. And Alan, you will take it back home, confess your crime to your friend’s father, and return his money. You have a long life ahead of you, and take my word, you do not want to live it under a cloud.”
Brun unbuttoned his shirt, pulled the purse free, placed it into Alan’s shaky hand. “Hang it ‘round your neck and under your shirt,” a monotone. “Don’t let anybody see it, understand?”
Alan nodded, then ducked his head into the loop of the strap and pushed the little purse down, out of sight.
Brun turned to Luella. “Okay? Now, I’ve paid for it.” He held out a hand.
Blesh bounded up to Luella. “You can’t give that book to a man who makes a habit of playing fast and loose with historical truth. He’d have people believe there was a great procession of carriages at Scott Joplin’s funeral, with the titles of Joplin’s rags on banners hung from the sides of the carriages. He made that up out of whole cloth. Joplin had a very humble funeral, and was buried in an unmarked grave.”
“Well, the way I told it, that’s what Mr. Joplin deserved,” Brun howled. “That’s how it should’ve been.”
Luella gave the combatants equal doses of visual scorn. “Brun, you’ve just given your money to someone who had no right to offer you the journal in the first place. I’d say that invalidates your claim. As for you, Mr. Blesh, what Mr. Ireland said is right. So much in this book would bring shame to so many people. My Uncle Bob Higdon’s whole family, and mine, would be horrified. So would Mr. and Mrs. Stark’s children and grandchildren. And for heaven’s sake, both Brun and Isaac were involved in the blood bath here that August. What might happen to them if this information gets out?”
Blesh couldn’t contain himself. “It’s history, for heaven’s sake.”
“Well, I say it’s dirty laundry,” Luella snapped. “People do not have the right to stick their noses into the private business of others, and wallow in it like pigs in mud.”
“Something else,” said Ireland. “All that talk toward the end of the journal about Irving Berlin swindling Scott out of a musical drama, and trying to frame him for murder? Joplin was a very sick man by then, and I’m sorry to say it, but I can’t believe it really did happen. What do you think Berlin will say and do when he sees that in the papers?”
Blesh ran fingers through his hair. “Documents can be sealed for as long as anyone they might affect is still alive.”
Luella gave him a long look down her nose. “Mr. Blesh, would you really agree to have this journal kept sealed for years and years?”
Blesh came right back. “We could publish excerpts. Some of the things people told me for They All Played Ragtime, I marked ‘Do not publish this.’ And I didn’t.”
Luella looked as if she’d suddenly picked up on an unpleasant odor. “After what happened very recently in your publisher’s office, can you really be so sure no one else will get hold of those notes, and betray the trust your interviewees had in you?”
“Oh, nonsense. Mrs. Rohrbaugh, if everyone had your exquisite sense of social squeamishness, historical research would be in dire straits.”
“Humph!” Luella turned to Alan. “I’m not going to ask what happened to you between yesterday and today, but I wonder how you’d feel if you were to pick up a book one day, and there your story would be, for everyone to read. Would you be willing to relinquish your privacy to satisfy the curiosity of people who aren’t satisfied to attend to their own business?”
Alan studied his shoes.
The corner of Blesh’s mouth started to twitch. “Let me try to talk some reason to you people. How many of you have read this book?”
“I have,” said Ireland.
Isaac nodded. “Yup.”
Alan raised a hand.
“And I,” said Luella. “And the girl, Eileen.”
“Well, then.” Blesh held out both hands, palms up, and slapped the most reasonable smile he could manage onto his face. “When more than one person knows a secret, it’s no longer a secret.”
“Well, I’m not going to say anything to anyone,” said Luella. And neither is Eileen, I’ve made certain of that. Are you going to tattle, Alan?”
He shook his head. “About what?”
Ireland laughed out loud. “Nobody’ll get anything from me, either. How about you, Isaac?”
“My lips is sealed.”
Brun cleared his throat, looked sidewise at Luella. “Guess I ain’t the only liar in this bunch.”
Luella scanned the room. “Good. It’s settled, then.” She tucked the journal under her arm, and reached for her pocketbook.
Blesh lunged toward the journal, but in one motion, Luella grabbed it with both hands and twisted away. Blesh barreled past her, slammed into the table. The historian rubbed his hip, glared at Luella.
She pressed the journal to her chest, and set her jaw. “Thank you, Mr. Blesh. I admit to having had some doubt, but now you’ve resolved it.” She stepped directly in front of the wood stove and launched an underhand pitch.
Brun saw it coming. Off-balance, he grabbed at the journal, but flames roared up, engulfing the dry paper. Brun loosed a bellow of pain, then pulled away, clutching his wrist and shaking his hand fiercely.
Ireland ran to his side. “Lonzo,” he shouted. “Go get some ice outa the icebox. I’ll get the liniment.”
Luella took Brun’s arm. “That’s a nasty burn. I’m going to get him to a doctor.”
“Let’s first put on ice and liniment,” Ireland called over his shoulder. “Then
we can both take him by Dr. Stauffacher’s.” He rolled his eyes. “Where he goes, I go, remember?”
“That’ll also give us some time to think what we gonna tell the doc, why a man stuck his hand inside a wood stove,” said Green.
Blesh stared into the fire. “You’ve burned a major historical document.”
“Nah.” Green favored him with a sneer. “From what I hear, it wasn’t nothing more’n a li’l gossip. And you never did see it with your own eyes, so you can’t say different.”
Luella passed Brun’s hand to Ireland, who began to apply liniment. Brun winced.
“If that music is as good as you all seem to think,” Luella said. “It will survive with or without the revelation of embarrassing personal secrets.” Her eyes challenged Blesh to argue the point.
The historian sagged onto a chair. He rubbed his eyes, then looked up at Luella. “All right. The game’s over, and I’ve lost.” Spoken so softly, everyone leaned in his direction. Isaac cupped a hand to his ear. “I still believe my goals were reasonable and honest, but if my zeal offended you, Mrs. Rohrbaugh, I apologize.”
Alan walked slowly across the room to the piano, sat on the bench, began to play “Maple Leaf Rag.” He thought of his benefactors, Samson Curd and Tom Ireland. He thought of Brun Campbell, braggart, liar, prophet, slipping nitro pills under his tongue to keep himself alive to spread the gospel of Scott Joplin. He thought of Mrs. Rohrbaugh, forgiving a sick old man, but still needing to punish a fifteen-year-old boy. He thought of pretty Eileen Klein, her silly mother, and her vile father. He thought of horse-faced Miriam Broaca, eyes beaming pride and adoration as she pushed five thousand red-hot dollars into his hand. He thought of Jerry Barton, savior, betrayer, murder victim. He thought of Alan Chandler, murderer, hero, pianist, and caught a glimpse of his life to come, a Gordian tangle of joy and sorrow.
He lifted his hands from the keyboard to silence. Every face in the room was turned his way. Finally, Green loosed a low whistle. “Boy’s a piana-playin’ fool.”
Ireland let go of Brun’s hand, then, without taking his eyes off Alan, screwed the cap back onto the tube of liniment. “Mother of God. How did you ever learn to play like that?”
Alan couldn’t speak.
“If I closed my eyes, I could’ve been listening to Scott Joplin, back in his good days,” Ireland said. “There were plenty of players more showy than him, but Scott had a way, it made you stop whatever you might be up to, and think, how on earth did he do that? It wasn’t something you heard with your ears. You felt it, in your heart.
Luella took Brun by the elbow. “We ought to get him to the doctor.” She pulled, but his feet seemed glued to the floor, his eyes fixed on Alan. That hand must hurt like the very deuce, she thought, but the old man’s face looked serene as any angel’s.
Epilogue
Friday, April 20
Afternoon
Alan sat next to Miriam in a booth all the way in the back of Sweetie’s, a chocolate soda on the table between them. “You really did tell your father?” the boy asked. “What happened then?”
Miriam snorted. “I told him straight-out it was me who stole the money so you could buy the journal and go to Sedalia, and that he needed to apologize to Slim and give him back his job. He just looked at me for a minute, and then he laughed. Laughed. He said he knew I was just trying to get the blame off Slim, and hell would freeze before he’d tell ‘that colored thief’ he was sorry, or hire him back. He just laughed me off, me and five thousand dollars. Can you imagine that?”
Alan drew at the straw. Her indignation made her look comical, but he didn’t dare crack up. Her old man must have made her feel like some kind of unfortunate accident that had developed out of a pinhole in a rubber.
Miriam narrowed her eyes. “You look different from last week.”
“Different? How?”
“I’m not sure. Kind of…older. More serious.”
Alan saw the ax descend, rise, fall again. He shrugged. “Maybe I’m just a little tired.”
He’s faking me, Miriam thought, but decided not to go any further along that conversational road, at least not right then. “I feel bad for Mr. Campbell,” she said. “He must’ve been so upset, going all the way out there, and seeing that old woman throw the journal in the fire. And getting his hand burned…” She made a face. “Ow!”
“No kidding, ow. And it was awful how he had to sit in front of everyone and listen to what Mr. Joplin wrote about him in the journal. While we were waiting for our trains the next day, I made sure to tell him how much I learned from the piano lesson he gave me, and that made him look a lot happier. He put his arm around me, and said, ‘Kid, any time you want to come out to California, I’ll give you all the lessons you want, free.’ And then he gave me this.”
The boy pulled a silver coin from his pocket, put it into Miriam’s hand. She flipped it over. “Wow. 1897.”
“Yeah. Mr. Campbell said Scott Joplin gave it to him for a good-luck piece.”
She returned the coin as if it were a sacred object, then rested her hand on his. “I’m glad, Alan. I’m glad you got that lesson, I’m glad it made Mr. Campbell feel better, I’m glad I took my stupid father’s money so it all could happen.”
“Speaking of which…” Alan tapped at his chest. “I’m going to give the money back to your father. I’ll tell him it was actually me who took it.”
The girl pounded a fist on the table top; the soda glass did a little dance. “No, you won’t. You won’t say a word to him about it. You’ll give it to me.” The girl extended a hand.
“But—”
“Give it here, Alan. Now. I’m not kidding.”
He paused just a moment, then pulled the strap clear of his neck, worked the little purse up from under his shirt, slid it across the table to Miriam. She opened it, glanced inside, then shoved it into her pocketbook and locked the clasp.
“What are you going to do?”
Crafty smile. “You told your parents you wouldn’t run away again, right?”
He shrugged. “Fastest way to get them off my back. But what’s that got to do with—”
“Bet you didn’t promise, though.”
He laughed. “No. I didn’t promise.”
“So you might…you are going to go off again. To California, to take more lessons from Mr. Campbell. Aren’t you?”
He took her hand between his. “Mr. Blesh gave me Joe Lamb’s address in Brooklyn, and said I should go in and see what I can learn from him. I will do that, and then, yes, maybe I’ll go out to California. Maybe I’ll stop in Sedalia on the way, and get Mr. Ireland and Mr. Stark to tell me more stories about what it was like there when Scott Joplin was just getting started.” And see how Mr. Curd and his family are doing, he thought. “Then I’ll go play ragtime every place I can. I’m going to write it, too. I’ll make records.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe some day, I can get a museum built for Scott Joplin.”
“Well, next time you go away, I want to go with you.” Miriam held up her free hand, silence. “Oh, Alan, I love you so much, maybe as much as you love ragtime music. I know you’re not going to be my boyfriend, but—”
“But I am your friend,” Alan said. And I am a boy.”
That started a flood which she didn’t even try to hold back. “Alan, don’t talk like that, it hurts. When I think about you being off God knows where, and I’m stuck here with my rat of a father and idiot mother, I just want to die.” Her face brightened, sunlight bursting from behind gray clouds. “I’m not just going to tag along, either. I’ll be your manager.”
“You’ll be what?”
“Your manager. That’s why I wanted you to give me my father’s money. I’m going to take it to New York, to a stock broker.”
He laughed, just couldn’t hold it back. “I don’t think you can do that. Won’t you have to get your father’s signature, and then he really will find out…”
His voice faded as he sa
w her smile turn sly. “I’ve already got my father’s signature. The day after he laughed me off, I went in and picked up all the forms for a minor to set up an account. I told my father I wanted to invest the money I’ve made working summers. He didn’t even look at the papers, just scrawled out his name, and told me to tell the broker to buy IBM.” She patted the purse. “Now I’m going to put the five thousand dollars into the account. My father’ll never know a thing, and by the time we’re ready to use the money, we’ll have even more than five thousand. How much more depends on how much time you’re going to give me.”
“But there’s a lot more to being a manager than buying and selling stocks. Do you really think—”
“I managed you all the way out to Sedalia to meet Mr. Campbell, didn’t I? And I negotiated a minor’s stock market agreement with my father. We’d be a great team, Alan. You won’t have to think about anything but the music, and I’ll take care of everything else. I’ll make sure you don’t have to wash dishes for a meal, or sleep under railroad overpasses. I’ll find you good places to play your music and record it, and I’ll make sure nobody takes advantage of you on a contract.” Her face hardened. “But if you ever run off without me, I’ll find you, I swear, and when I do, you won’t like what happens. That’s a promise. And I keep my promises.”
Alan nodded. “All right.”
“We’ve got a deal?”
“Guess so.”
“That’s not good enough. Promise.”
“Promise.”
***
As quickly as he opened his front door, Cal’s eyes went to the white bandage. “Brun, what happened to you?”
“I got burned.”
Impishness covered the young man’s face. “Maybe some day you’ll learn not to stick your hand where it doesn’t belong. How bad is it?”
“Doc said I’ll be playing again in about a month. That’ll give me a chance to finish up those articles I’ve been working on, and maybe my book too. You want to hear all about it?”