Swan Song

by Tracey Ward

  Then I’m home, at the door of the Cotton Club and I can hear the familiar music of Duke and his boys wafting through the walls. My pulse slams out of control. I feel lightheaded from excitement. The world takes on a razor sharp fineness to it, almost making it grainy, and I’m acutely aware of every detail in every brick in the walls. This is it. This is when my dreams and life collide. This is when I take that next step toward my ultimate goal, toward Harlem, toward New York, toward the Big Time.

  My moment is finally now.

  “Adrian,” Rick calls when he sees me. He sounds surprised. That should be my first clue. “What are you doin’ here, darlin’?”

  I laugh, feeling light and giddy. “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m meeting Duke Ellington.”

  Rick grimaces, looking over his shoulder toward the closed door of the club. “We’re all full up, Aid.”

  “What?”

  “We’re full. At capacity.”

  “Since when?”

  “It’s a busy night,” he mutters, not meeting my eyes.

  I force another laugh, this one far less airy. “What? Is the Fire Marshal in there?”

  “Probably.”

  I feel myself begin to sink as though I’m falling into the pavement. As though the cement is quicksand and the sidewalk is swallowing me up.

  “You’re really not letting me in, are you, Rick?”

  He finally looks at me and his eyes are pleading. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  I take a sharp breath, feeling it sting my lungs. “Why not?”

  He shakes his head, looking up the street. “Come on.”

  “Who?” I ask sharply. “Who told you to keep me out?”

  “He just doesn’t wanna lose you,” Rick whispers, turning back to me.

  My blood is lava.

  “Tommy,” I say with venom.

  “Yeah. Tommy.”

  “He doesn’t want me to meet him,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “He doesn’t want to lose you to him. To New York. He knows you’re talented enough.” Rick says quietly, imploringly. “He loves you, Adrian.”

  “No!” I scream. Heads turn toward Rick and I. I try to rein it in. My hands are shaking with rage, my face burning with blood risen in fury to the surface. “That man doesn’t love anyone or anything. He’s probably in there right now with a whore on his lap, and he does this ‘cause he loves me?!”

  “Let me go get him. If you just talk to—“

  “Don’t, ‘cause I’ll kill him. I’ll do it here and now on the street in front of God and everyone, and the fucking Irish can throw me a fucking ticker tape parade for finally gettin’ it done!”

  I nearly run home. When I burst through the door to my dark, empty apartment I immediately strip off every article of clothing and jewelry on me. Everything that club ever bought me, gave me, paid me to smile in, move in, sing in. Every piece of them that they threw on top of me to mold me and make me theirs. To chain me to them forever.

  All of it gets tossed carelessly into a corner of the bedroom and I don’t care if it wrinkles, stains, or burns. I don’t care about anything. Not about the club, New York, Tommy – none of it. I head for the kitchen, stark naked and thundering around in the dark, and reach for the cupboard that holds Rosaline’s Christmas gift. The bottle of whiskey. I start to pull out a glass but think better of it. Or maybe worse. Either way, I uncap the bottle and pour the vile liquid straight down my throat. I’d cut open my arms and drop it into my veins if I thought it’d bring about oblivion fast enough. After one long pull from the bottle I know I can’t handle anymore. Crazy angry or no, I hate the stuff too much so I cap it and toss it back in the cupboard.

  I hear it knock against something, making a crinkle sound, and suddenly I remember the candies. The sweet and the sour. And the postcard. It’s in the living room tacked against the wall, writing side out. I take my candies and go to it now, pulling it gently down and running my fingers over the slightly raised writing. I trace them as though I’m writing them and I imagine watching him making these words. His long, sure fingers holding the pen and making the marks with a decisiveness most can only imagine. He’d have no doubts. There are no hesitations in the markings, no stops and goes. Nothing but fluid honesty.

  I flick on the radio, leaving the volume low. It’s music playing from somewhere else, somewhere far off, but the where doesn’t really matter to me. Where is irrelevant now because I’m here and he’s there, but we’re not that far apart. He’s whiskey on my lips, candy on my tongue, music in my ears, and this card tells me I’m in his too. So sweet and so sour. So close but so far.

  There’s nothing for you here.

  No one is where they want to be forever. We’re all shooting for something else. Something bigger.

  What are you shooting for?

  I stare out into the dark, my hand wrapped loosely around the card and the candy, but I don’t answer him. I don’t because I can’t and that scares me more than Alice in the bedroom, Tommy wrapped around me, and the gang war raging outside my door.

  So that’s where your life will play out? You’ll live and die on a stage—

  “No,” I whisper faintly. Decisively.

  I’m still standing there naked in the dark when midnight rolls in. When the year turns over and the clock resets. When we can start again, fresh and new, leaving the past behind us and saying goodnight to all the errors we made. To the fools we’ve been.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When I come back to work, Tommy is gone. He’s off somewhere dealing with a delivery or drop off or pick up, I don’t care. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, he’s safer there than he is anywhere near me. I could talk to Ralph about what he did, but Ralph has no interest in seeing me leave any more than Tommy does and just because his motives are monetary instead of territorial, it won’t change the outcome. I’d still be stuck.

  And that’s what I realized New Year’s night. I’m stuck. Trapped. Held hostage and stagnant by these walls, the men, and the music. I’ll never make it out. I’m no closer to my dream here than I was in that dive years ago when Ralph heard me sing, saw my pretty feathers, and knew he wanted to cage me. I thought I was climbing a ladder, but I never stopped to see the ceiling they built above me. Not until it was too late. Now the sun is gone, the lights are bright in my eyes, and I’ve been blind to so many things that I should have seen coming. I’ll never get to New York, not playing by their rules because the house is always going to win. The deck is stacked against me, it always was, and if I want a shot at the sky, I have to stop hoping I’ll earn my wings. I have to make it happen myself.

  I have to teach myself to fly.

  “Adrian?” Elisha calls quietly.

  I snap to, looking up at the stage where the girls wait for my direction. I don’t have any. I don’t even know what number they just did. “Yeah, it’s great. Take a break, alright?”

  They all look at each other unsure for a moment, but they disperse. I rub my hands over my face and groan, trying to pull myself together. When I take my hands down, Elisha is there, silently waiting.

  “Do you need something?” I ask, my voice sharper than I intended, pulled tight and strained by the stress.

  “I was wondering if you’re okay? You seem distracted.”

  I look up into her pretty young face and remember when I was that age. That pretty. That sweet, eager, and naïve.

  “Aces,” I say with a whiskey grin. “A little tired, but all aces. How about you? How are you doing? Do you still like it here?”

  Her face falls, a frown creasing her forehead. “It’s fine. The money is good. It really helps out at home.”

  “Are the boys being good to you?”

  “Yeah, they’re fine.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Not too good? They aren’t being overly friendly?”

  She chuckles lightly, shaking her head. “No, ma’am. Especially not with my daddy back.”

  I grin. “I imagine he keeps a
close eye on you.”

  “He does. When he can.” She shuffles on her feet, glancing at the bar where some of the boys are sitting and drinking. “Mickey’s been real nice,” she mutters.

  “Has he?”

  Elisha looks at me suddenly, realizing what she’s said. “Not like that. He’s been very proper.”

  “In what way then?”

  “Well, he…” She purses her lips, thinking. “He hel—“

  “You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”

  Elisha jumps as Hal comes bursting into the room, his words bouncing off the walls and closing in on us. On reflex I stand up, putting her a little behind me, my body between her and the men.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mickey asks from his place at the bar.

  “Reggie, pull out all the bottles. All the gin,” Hal calls out to the bartender. He turns to Mickey. “Damn Canadians pulled one over on us.”

  “What? When?”

  “With the shipment after Halloween. All the stink we made about the bourbon and the trade off they gave us?”

  “Yeah, the gin they gave up for free as repayment. What about it?”

  Reggie produces three bottles of gin, lining them up on the bar. Hal snags the one he’s looking for and pulls the cap. He gives it a sniff but comes away frowning.

  “It don’t smell no different,” he grumbles.

  “Different than what?”

  He slams the bottle down on the bar, causing some of the liquid to geyser out the top. “Than shit that kills ya!”

  “What are you talking about? Speak English,” Mickey demands.

  The hairs on my arms stand up straight and I take several steps toward the bar, eager to hear this.

  “I just got a call from Tommy. He heard some stories from Duke and his boys about people in New York getting’ sick in some of the clubs, sick like some people have been ‘round here. Some people ended up in the hospital. Two died. They traced it back to the booze. Bathtub gin brewed all wrong. They found out it came from some Canadians. Fake shit mixed in with the good stuff. Ralph sent Tommy to New York to ask around, find out which Canadians it came from. You’ll never guess who.”

  Mickey’s face is dark, angry. “The Tremblays.”

  “All sixes.”

  “What are the symptoms?” I ask Hal.

  He looks at me in surprise, then glances around the room. We’re all watching him intently. “You all don’t need to hear this. Get back to work.”

  “What are the symptoms, Hal?” I demand, taking a step toward him instead of back as the other women do. “We’ve been drinking this trash. We need to know.”

  He looks to Mickey who shrugs and looks away. Finally he turns back to me with a sigh.

  “Dizziness. Headache.”

  “Confusion? Vomiting?” I ask hotly.

  He nods. “And blindness.”

  I hear gasps all around the room and I know I just got a head count on who’s been drinking the gin.

  “It’s what killed Alice,” I whisper.

  Hal nods again. “Yeah, Tommy thinks so.”

  “Why though? Why didn’t more of us get sick?”

  “We’ve been watering it down,” Reggie says quietly. His face is white as a sheet, his eyes downcast. “No one has been drinking it straight. Tommy wanted it to last, to turn a profit, so when people asked for it they got it watered down. Except for…”

  “Except for Alice,” I say quietly, getting it.

  He nods, looking up at me with pained, wet eyes. “I had just started. I didn’t know. No one had told me to water down the gin yet. When Alice asked for it straight up, I gave it to her. Then even after Tommy said to water it down, she still wanted it… she was insistent and I—“ He takes a shuddering breath. “I killed her, didn’t I?”

  “No. The Tremblays killed her,” Mickey says darkly. He looks to Hal. “Is Tommy takin’ care of this? When is it happening?”

  “Not yet. He’s coming back tonight, but first he’s meetin’ up with someone. The New York gangs have got a stake in this too. They’ve got a lot of sick and two dead. They’re just as angry, if not angrier so they’re sending one of their own to help out.”

  “Who?”

  Hal grins slightly, but it’s not pleasant. It’s dark and vengeful. What joy would look like if it knew how to be evil. “Fuckin’ Birdy.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It’s nearly show time and I still haven’t seen Tommy. I’m not surprised that I haven’t seen Drew because that’s the thing about him – he’s a ghost. It’s his job not to be seen, and unless he wants me to, I know I won’t. It’ll be like he was never here. Not that first night, not on Halloween, and certainly not now. He’ll be a memory I’ll always wonder about, eventually believing it was a dream I tried to make real.

  I’m glad Tommy isn’t there because it means I’m allowed to get ready in my dressing room alone. I know what I’m supposed to wear, but when I look at the green dress hanging in the corner covered in sequins that reflect the light, shimmering like a snake’s skin, I don’t touch it. I don’t want to go near it. Instead, I wear a modest black dress from the back of the closet. The one Ralph bought for me to attend funerals in.

  He bought it only two years ago and I’ve worn it six times.

  It’s more muted than anything I’ve ever worn on the stage of the Cotton Club, but it’s simple and comfortable. It’ll be easier to sing in than the confining, skintight gowns Tommy puts me in. I leave my hair down, only apply the barest hint of makeup, leave every stone of jewelry in the box on the vanity, and when I look in the mirror, I see me. The doe eyed girl fresh off the bus from Iowa with a clean slate and no shackles on her wrists. She can’t stay, she’ll never make it in this place, but tonight I don’t care. Tonight I’m taking back my life as much as I’m able. I’m taking it back until they take it from me for good.

  When it’s time, I step onto that stage and I take it like it’s mine. Like I’m a conqueror marching into a new land and claiming it for God and country. The natives look at me anxiously, their eyes frightened by the foreign sight of me in my strange dress, embers in my eyes, and a snap in my step that leaves flags of my fathers in the ground with each strike of my heel. There’s a hush in the air as I take the center of the stage, a black diamond in the onyx sky, shining with force and flint and the devil’s dark fire.

  I don’t wait for the band. I never told them what to play. I don’t cue the girls to come prancing out, kicking their legs in the air, shaking their asses for the audience to leer at. I’m not sharing this land. I stand like a statue, breathe life into my lungs, and sing low and husky the way I used to. The way I did the night Ralph found me standing in the near dark of a broken down joint with one light on my face, my clothes soft and simple, and my voice the only instrument in the room because it was all I had and it was all I needed.

  I sing a song I’ve never sung here before. One from Harlem, one I’m not allowed to sing. One I’m told Chicago never wanted to hear, but we’re not in Chicago tonight. This ain’t Cicero. It’s not the Cotton Club or the Capone’s house. This is mine. This stage and the air and the beat of my heart are mine, all mine, and I give them everything I’ve got because if I give it, they can’t take it. By giving it, I reclaim it.

  I’m the bird you can’t cage. The note you can’t reach. The woman you can’t forget.

  I see him in the crowd. I see him because he wants me to. He’s out in the open in the lights by the door, leaning against the frame and watching me steadily. He doesn’t move, I’m not sure he’s breathing, but I know he’s real. He’s dark and dangerous and so fucking animal instinct terrifying that I can’t look away. I sing my song to him. I touch the microphone stand with my fingertips, but I’m touching him. His arms, his chest, his hips. I let my lips brush across the microphone – across his cheek.

  He’s breathing now. His chest is moving, heavy and slow because he knows. Because he’s thought about it too. So aware, so close.

  I�
�m so alive in his eyes as I slip back inside myself. The notes that leave my mouth are my mantle. They’re my new veneer, my new mask, the game I’ll play by my own rules with everything at stake. I’ll play it with the bravery of a girl who has lost everything and has nothing left but this song. This moment. This man.

  The song ends, as does my reign, but it was enough. It was me, all Addy and a myriad of other names no one knows. Not even him.

  I leave the stage, washed away by the thunderous applause that usher me back through the curtains past confused faces and worried glances.

  As soon as I pass through the heavy velvet, a hand grabs my arm and yanks me to the side. I don’t fight or call out because I’m not surprised. I let Tommy toss me into the hallway, bouncing me against the wall roughly, and then there he stands – the golden god staring down at me with unbridled rage.

  “You wanna tell me what the hell that was about?” he demands.

  I meet his fire with ice, keeping my face and heartbeat calm. “I sang a song.”

  “Not the one you were told to.”

  “My choice was better.”

  He steps into me, forcing me back against the wall. I don’t flinch. “You don’t make choices. You follow orders, you got me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This was stupid, Adrian.”

  “So was keeping me locked out of New Year’s.”

  He laughs in my face. “Is that what this is about? You gotta be joking.” He continues to chuckle, running his hand over his mouth. “Okay. Okay. Let’s hear it. What do you need to say to me, doll?”

  “Nothing. I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Did you already say it with that performance up there? Are you done getting even? Did you get it out of your system?”