On their way uptown—on the bus this time—he considered the future of his client. “Lizzie Turner? Cain’t go with a name like that. Gotta have something better than Turner. Every nigguh from North Carolina named Turner. Look. Mae West, Sophie Tucker, everybody change they name. Artie Flegenheimer, name Dutch Schultz. Lizzie Turner! Ladies and Gentlemen, Lizzie Turner! That don’t sound like nothin’. You need a good stage name. Somethin’ got a ring, somethin’ say Boom!”
“Bessie Smith. Bessie Smith ain’t no big name.”
“But Bessie uh Big Woman. She come on stage an open up and nobody care what her name is! You ain’t but fifteen pounds. You gotta hab sumpin up in front uh yuh. What your mama’s name?”
“Leave my mama outta this.”
Even though colored folks had started moving to uptown Manhattan just after the turn of the century, black Harlem, by the early twenties, was still a small, compact area, 130th to 140th Street between Fifth and Seventh. The famous 125th Street was still all white, the strip of Jewish merchants staying on despite their residential counterparts’ gradual departure. As the colored continued to crowd into the uptown zone, fondly known as “the campus,” the class of clubs followed an inverted pattern. Barron Wilkins for high society and Leroy’s for the middle class, Harry Pyles and Connie’s scaled down from 143rd. By the time you got to the lowest 130s, you hit the Black Bottom, literally—the Jungle, Basement, and the New Bucket of Blood—Coal Pit, the Airshaft, and Jonah’s. Twenty-four hours, Live! This is where Lizzie’s career was launched, a downstairs dive called the Turf Club. This was where Sparrow took her, where he had “connections.”
“Mayfield Turner, Mayfield Turner everybody! Just arrived from Chicago! Coming through!” Sparrow’s high, fast holler pierced through the crowd noise as he dragged Lizzie through the tight-packed line down the narrow steps. She fussed at him from behind, saying she hadn’t given him permission to change her name, the crowd pushing them against each other. “The rule, keep playin’! We’ll deal with that later.”
“No we’ll deal with it right now. My name is—”
“Lizzie!” he turned his head and hollered out. “Hey Lizzie, you here?!”
“What! Somebody call me?!” Random voices came from far back in the line outside the door.
“See, they two, three Lizzies already up in here. And ain’t none of ’em gettin’ in Big Ed’s tonight. Stick with me, kid. I know my business. Now act like you somebody.” Pouting, Lizzie quieted and followed him down the crowded narrow stairs to a steel door with a grated hatch. “Stretch Dakota Sparrow to see Big Ed. Escorting Miss Mayfield Turner.”
The bouncer at the door spoke gruffly through the grate, his one eye fixed on the couple. “You need to know the password plus have fiddy cent.”
Before Lizzie could open her mouth, he countered, “Be cool, I’ll handle this.” He turned back to the mean eye still staring at him through the tiny bars and said with great emphasis, “This is Mayfield Turner, here to audition for Big Ed.”
“Auditions Tuesday.”
“We ain’t talking bout Tuesday! Big Ed sent me to the train to pick her up. We here tonight!” he scammed. “This Mayfield Turner, just come from Chicago! Ask him didn’t he send me to pick somebody up from Chicago. Keep him waitin’ if you want to.”
Lizzie responded with a stance of self-importance and expectation of service that startled both agent and blocker. The bolt clanked and the fortress door swung open. Now, it was Sparrow who followed her. “Coming through!”
Big Ed sat in the back, a huge plate of food before him. His stomach bulged over and under the table. “Big Ed, Big Ed, here go your package from Chicago!”
“Get on outta here, Stretch.” He poked at Lizzie with his fork, a diamond stud on his pinky. “I sent you to pick up a trumpet playuh.”
“I am a trumpet playuh. Singer, dancer. Everything. I’m a virtuoso.”
“Ain’t gon find no virtue up in here. You wanna work the pussy, do it outside.”
“I’m tellin’ you, Ed,” Sparrow commenced his pitch again, close to the man’s ear in a stage whisper over the din of the club, “you gotta see her. If you don’t, you gon lose her to somebody else and you gon be cryin’ right in that spaghetti. She got the goods, I’m tellin’ you. If my life depended on it.”
“It could . . . Okay, sistuh. Show me somethin’. You got five minutes foah the stripper come on.”
Big Ed watched indifferently as Sparrow chittered through the crowd like a gnat on some day-old food and handed out Lizzie’s sheet music to the band members lookin’ out the sides of their eyes. “Don’t she know no standards?” the sax player whined. “What this shit say?”
“It starts off,” Lizzie began.
“Why don’t you just sing it, sistuh—we’ll follow along.”
“Okayyyy,” Sparrow chimed and hopped on the small bandstand. He threw up his long angular hands and stooped to speak into the mike. “Ladies and Gentlemen!” The crowd ignored him. “Dukes and Ducheye! It is my great pleasure to introduce to you, straight from Chi-CAH-Go! Exclusive here, only at the Turf Club! The one and only Yamma Mama, Miss Mayfield Turner!”
As the combo struck up the first chorus, Sparrow extended his hand and Lizzie gingerly stepped into the light. There was barely enough room for the two of them on the bandstand, let alone for any dancin’. The bandleader softened, leaning in. “The chart’s pretty decent. We gotcha.”
Flashing a seductive smile, she belted as hard as she could.
“Miss Lizzie Mae had her a way
Of walkin’ down the street
That would make the sidewalk sizzle beneath her feet . . .
Yes, Lizzie Mae had her a way
Of walkin’ down the street
That could make a hungry fellah forget to eat . . .
When she stepped in the lane
All the necks would crane
Just to name
That funny way she had of wah-wah-wahl-kin’
Baby, when she hit the street
Lemme tell you it was somethin’ sweet
Made your heart just skip a beat,
When Miss Lizzie Mae hit the street,
When she what?
Strut, Miss Lizzie, strut!”
Moving the microphone to the side, she broke out of the song and signaled for the band to keep going while she approached various members of the audience and with seductive swats of her hips motioned for them to move their tables back. The drummer followed her lead with some rolls and a pop with each of her undulating combinations.
Picking up on his cue, she mimed a kewpie starlet, caught in a sudden shower, apparently oblivious to the attention she was drawing and the havoc that it caused. She noticed a few drops of rain and popped open an imaginary parasol and a gust of wind blowing it inside out. Protruding her behind in curious, provocative ways, rolling her hips with each imaginary blast of air, each strident trumpet blare, she tried to hold on to that errant umbrella, swivel-hip backbends round and round, a crazy top. Strutting backwards and in place, she made space where there was none and pranced right up to Big Ed’s table, shimmied off the drops of rain just enough for him to glimpse her pert and perfect cleavage, then spun around by the wind again, she shook her fanny at him like a duck.
The audience howled. The band got into the improv, talkin’ to each other through the licks. “Oh, you see her comin’ it’s bad news—But it’s bad news I can use—The kinda news you just can’t wait to get—Make the muscles in your eyeballs sweat! Aw, go Miss Lizzie! Shim sham shimmy! Say what? Strut, Miss Lizzie, strut!” A vibrant, crazy, chaotic rumble, they threw it to the velvet!”
Three yards of upholstery trim sewn onto her mother’s cut-down corset, spangles all shimmering, Lizzie launched into mad twirls, loose lunatic fringe going everywhere, a mad spider on the dance floor—every skin particle aquiver, closing with full split, scissor kick drop spin cross-legged bow to the floah, prostrate before Big Ed’s table. Just like the song said, the audienc
e was craning to see. Sparrow jostled around the floor picking up the coins folks had tossed her way. Lizzie attempted to quiet her breathing before she looked up at Big Ed, who stuffed a greasy dollar in her bra.
“Two fifty a night. Tips, sixty-forty split with the house. House get sixty.” Ed gestured to his bouncer with his fork to relieve Sparrow of his bounty.
“Say, that ain’t fair. She brought down the coin.”
“So write your commissioner. Listen, kid,” he turned to Lizzie, “you come up here to go to school, I’ma give you the tuition.”
“When do I start?”
“Fifteen minutes. You come up here to sing, you sing.”
“What’d I tell you, Ed,” Sparrow interjected, “Dakota Sparrow? Eye for talent?”
“Get this ponce outta here.”
For all the tuxedo-clad, slick-haired impresarios the twenties would come to be known for, black music was still the backdoor mistress and the shake-dancing, snake-hipped, pastie-taped, spangled, two-dollar whore, not the wife. But tonight Lizzie Mae Mayfield Turner didn’t care.
Six nights, fifteen dollars a week plus tips! Even with the house split, it was more than she had ever made. In the funk-filled dressing room with just enough space for her to sit, Lizzie fastened tee-strapped, sequined tap shoes over fishnet stockings, sat up, and gazed in the mirror, framed by feathered G-strings, sweat-stained bras, and cardboard-backed tiaras. Much pleased with herself, she fantasized entertaining the skins of privilege—lords, ladies, starlets, gigolos, gangsters, and aldermen—band leaders, bootleggers, and bag men—prophets, pigfoot hawkers, and professional partiers who came to gawk at the busboys, elevator operators, and sailors—the maids, errand boys, messengers, and bellhops who frequented the Turf Club.
“When the ritzy places all closed down/ The dukes and duchesses comin’ uptown/ To see and hear the world-renowned—Mayfield Turner!” she sang to herself. The set was little more than a floor show bordello with a strictly no-touch policy. It was Lizzie Mae’s letter of introduction. She threw her legs up, pointed her toes, wound her arms round the backs of her knees, and held the position in a perfect pike. Bronze legs bedecked with silver slippers, a tight crown of sequined mesh above her brow, rhinestone arm bracelet and all her teeth!
After the gig, she was starvin’! Her appetite would later become notorious. Sparrow took two of the quarters she had earned in the showering gold of bandstand tips and introduced her to another Harlem tradition. “Rent Party! Rent Party!” Although colored folk considered Harlem a world unto itself, it was one they didn’t, for the most part, own. The Mecca of the colored world was a rental property but the prices were twice what they were in the rest of Manhattan, so Harlemites invented a way to compensate. “Rent Party! Rent Party!” Folks were fanning themselves on the stoop and steps up to the five-flight walk-up.
At four in the morning, the joint was so torrid, the floor wax had melted. A Damballah line-dance of revelers slid across the wood grains—raisin’ Cain, the roof, and the dead. Folks expected to get their money’s worth, especially if it cost a quarter, a sum hard to come by for elevator operators, stevedores, Daughters of the Nile, and daughters of joy. “Let your Pap drink the whiskey, let your Mama drink the wine/ But you come to Florrie’s, baby, and do the Georgia grind/ If sweet mama is runnin’ wild and you lost your honeybun/ Come along and linger where the night is always young.” Dancing on the table, skirt hiked up past her garters, Lizzie let loose her victory dance while a trio jammed in the corner, the sax player sittin’ in the window, steady mopping his brow.
She sashayed into the next room to a hambone session of spoons, scat, and taps. Booze in the bathtub, collards n wings in the kitchen, making out on the toilet, throwin’ up in the corner and, “Do you got some good food with some spice in it?” It was a jump, shout and strut, grindin’, good foot good time. Harlem, which by day walked proud, was shameless in the wee hours of the morning. Imagine the wildest party you ever went to, and a little bit of it was there. Imagine Storyville, Beale Street, Central Avenue, and the Strand—brewed and bottled up, corked, and slapped with a fancy label. Pop!—Bubblin’ Brown Sugar!
“Come on, Charleston, I need to git you home.” Woozy himself, still sipping from his flask, Sparrow attempted to steer Lizzie down the steps.
“I cain’t. My feet won’t move.”
“It’s the reefuhs.”
“The who?”
“Come on. There we go.”
“How I’ma get to work tomorrow, muh feet won’t move?”
“It is tomorrow. It was tomorrow yestiddy.”
She got back to Elma’s at seven in the morning. The sun was bright, the first wave of regular Joes already headed out to work. Midnight shift just coming home. Hands in his pockets, his head lowered in thought, Raymond strolled up the street in her direction. “Ray,” she shouted, “I got me a job.” Her arms extended, she leaned on her toes and hugged him, bracing her weight on his chest.
He bent away from her Tabasco, tub gin breath. “Doin’ what?”
“Mayfield Turner, the Original Yamma Mama!” She swung away from Ray, steadying herself with one arm over his shoulder. “Stretch, this my brother-in-law. Raymond,” she said very formally. “This my agent, Dakota Sparrow.” She closed one eye and pointed to the open one. “Eye for talent.”
Sparrow, still delighted with his discovery, glowed, “You shoulda seen her, blood.” He shook his handkerchief fat with coins. “Look. She toah up the joint. Big Ed started jiggling. Broke the table! Got an audition with Tolbert ’n Cobbs. Do you know what that means? Ten percent, ten percent, ten percent.” He looped around the lightpost in a jagged Kikuyu style.
Lizzie giggled and sat warily on the stoop. “Sparrow think I’ma be a star. Gon sell my songs . . . He think I got talent.”
“For both your sakes, I hope he’s right.”
The trio was startled by the sound of the security grate flying up behind them.
“Mornin’, Mr. Jolly!”
Drunk as he still was, Sparrow was wary. The eye for talent had an eye for deception, too. Raymond’s hands, he noted, never left his pockets.
18
Lizzie’s break at the Turf Club deluded her about the realities of making it in New York. She thought to move up quickly from the grinding late-night schedule at Big Ed’s, to advance in classiness and pay she didn’t have to share. She got her first move up in street numbers, from 133rd to 141st with a gig as a background dancer in a new floor show at Rhone’s, featuring Queen Opal Roberts, the talk of Harlem for her incredible record sales and her signature number, “Jazz Baby.” Remembering how her sassiness turned off Black Patti, at the first rehearsal Lizzie took the opportunity to approach the notoriously temperamental star. “Miss Roberts, Your Majesty, I just want to say I am so honored to be working with you.”
Although she was much better at improvisation than set patterns, Lizzie concentrated to learn the routine and picked it up faster than the other two dancers. She had it set after the first take, but saved her energy for the run-through with the star. Midway through the set, Miss Roberts sent a message backstage, “Tell the bitch I said turn it down seventy-five percent.” In the third day, Lizzie lost the other twenty-five and was replaced.
“Fired from a show ain’t even opened yet. That’s great! That’s just great!” Sparrow grumbled, his jagged gestures emphasizing his dismay. He kept her spirits up, though, preparing her for an audition with the colored songwriting producers Tolbert and Cobbs. In the wake of the groundbreaking Broadway success of Shuffle Along by the rival quartet of Miller, Lyles, Sissle, and Blake, the duo Tolbert & Cobbs were thinking to make their own colored splash on the Great White Way. “The show called for fifty showgirls and live ponies,” Sparrow told her as they entered the audition hall. “Surely you can manage not to upstage a horse.”
Lizzie got her period the fateful day of callbacks. She knew her friend from down south’s penchant for rendering no pain, then swinging back with a vengeance when
she least expected. After sitting in a backstage hallway with a hot water bottle and slugging down a borrowed swig of modine, the cramps were still bad, sucking all of her thoughts and energy toward the pain. She balled her fist and determined to persevere.
She didn’t make the cut of the “Shimmy Town Strut.” She forgot the lyrics and sang scat, when it was not yet popular. More regrettably than that, she got the toss less for talent than her uncommon look—“Too short! And that hair,” Cobbs scowled, “what color is that?”
The girl beside her scoffed out the side of her mouth, “Marhiney red looks to me. Put some bleach in your bathwater, baby. Get rid of some of them freckles. At least tone ’em down some. Lord!”
Lizzie blessed her back, “You honky-tonk, country-ass cunt!” and flew at the woman, grabbing a head full of hair as they tumbled off the stage. Sparrow jumped from his seat in the back of the theater and ran to pull her off in the first of his experiences with her explosive temper. His hand over her mouth, he strong-armed her around the waist, her legs kicking and arms flailing as she grunted every expletive she could conjure, waving the chorine’s torn-off tap pants as a victory flag.
“What the fuck is buggin’ you?”
“I got cramps, shit!”
“That still ain’t no reason to go bananas!”
“If they didn’t like my dancin’ I can see it. If they didn’t like my singin’, well all right. But somebody say somethin’ bout my color, I’ll kick they ass.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“ ‘What color is that? What color is that?!’ I’ll show him what color, I’ll knock that muthuhfuckuh black and blue! I don’t care who he is!”
Some Sing, Some Cry Page 38