Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes

by William Kennedy

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Nigger Dick Hawkins,” George said. “He could go in and out of anybody’s house on Van Woert Street, just like a white man.”

  “Nigger Dick on Van Woert Street, imagine that,” the bartender said.

  “Wonderful fella,” George said. “He’d do anything for me. They’d come around and tell me this and that and Dick’d say to them, ‘You leave this kid alone, he’s a friend of mine,’ and they’d never touch me. Looked a lot like you. Is your name Dick, by any chance?”

  “No, my name is George. Nigger George. I live on Van Woert Street. You ever heard of me?”

  “No, can’t say that I have and I live on Van Woert Street. Nigger Dick I know. Wonderful fella. Looks just like you. He’d do anything for me.”

  “You know what I’ll do for you?” the bartender asked.

  “No.”

  “I’ll get your change, you’ll finish your beer and then I’ll kick your ass the fuck out of this bar.”

  “Hey, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I don’t want your business, motherfucker.”

  “Are you crazy? You can’t use that language in public. There’s women in here.”

  Everybody in the bar was looking at George. Man wearing his shirt outside his pants, two women in straw hats. George tipped his hat to the women who were sitting at the bar, separated by one stool. That looks like Vivvie. George saw them all staring as if they expected something from him, so he picked up his beer and raised a toast: “I care not for riches or wealth of the best, I care not for finery grand. Just give me a lass who owns a good name and give me a willing hand.” He smiled and took a mouthful of his second beer. The woman in the yellow straw hat raised her glass to George and took a sip.

  “He’s all right, Roy,” she said to the bartender.

  “Sure he is,” Roy said.

  “No,” she said, “I know him a long time. He works in the court. He handles the grand juries.”

  George broke into song:“Good-bye, gang, I’m through.

  Old pals I can’t forget.

  I say good-bye to you, without the least regret.”

  “I know that song,” the woman said, and she sang along with George:“I’m through with all flirtations.

  There’ll be no more fascinations.

  There is one to whom I’m true.

  Good-bye boys, good-bye girls, good-bye gang, I’m through.”

  Behind the bar Roy turned up the volume on the news show. The woman came over to George at the bar.

  “George Quinn,” she said, “you’re still a rascal.”

  “George Josephus Jeremiah Randolph Franklin Aloysius Quinn,” he said. “A pleasure to see you, my dear. Will you kiss me now or will you wait?”

  “You’re a scream. The last time we were in a bar together was at Farnham’s. Do you remember?”

  “Farnham’s is a wonderful place. Right up to snuff.”

  “Oh, I know. I love the atmosphere. That wonderful dark wood.”

  “The atmosphere is wonderful. The wood.”

  “You mustn’t mind the bartender, George. He’s a sensitive boy, he doesn’t like that word you used.”

  “What word?”

  “Nigger.” She whispered it.

  “Nigger Dick, I knew him well.”

  “Yes, but you shouldn’t say his name like that anymore. Just call him Dick, and don’t say nigger.”

  “That’s his name. Nigger Dick. He was part of the Sheridan Avenue Gang. I knew every one of them. There was only one Nigger Dick.”

  “Just don’t say it anymore, okay? You understand? Don’t say it or he’ll throw you out. Roy can get very excited.”

  “Roy, who’s Roy?”

  “The bartender. He said his name was George, but it isn’t.”

  “Right. He’s not George, I’m George.”

  “You certainly are. George Quinn.”

  “That’s me. Will you be going dancing at Beauman’s this evening?”

  “You’re still thinking about Beauman’s.”

  “It’s right up to snuff. King Jazz’s orchestra. You can’t beat it. I don’t recall your name.”

  “Vivian, Vivian Sexton, George. You know me a hundred years.”

  George took off his hat and held it out to her. “It’s venerable to know you so long, Vivian,” he said.

  “You are such a gentleman,” she said.

  “I would be privileged to buy you a drink, Vivian. We could sit at that table over there. I’m on my way to the Club and I have to cash a check. The clock of life is wound but once and no man has the power to tell just where the hands will stop.”

  “That certainly is true, George, and it’s a very poetic thing to say. I’d be glad to have a drink with you.”

  George placed his hat over his heart and he asked her, “Will you kiss me now or will you wait?” And Vivian kissed him on the cheek.

  Max Osborne, wearing a white guayabera, alone at the end of the bar, studied Roy and saw the father in the son, a much larger version, a laboring man’s arms and chest, a heavyweight, but the undeniable child of Cody: that same rigid backbone, same barrel of a chest, hands with their long fingers, skin a shade lighter than Cody’s, but no evidence in the son of Cody’s quiet talent for avoiding public conflict. This fellow had a talent for chastising the world. But he’s Cody’s boy. Like Max’s girl. Children of a new day.

  Max compared Roy with the four photos on the wall above the baby grand, blowups of the man and his icons: Fats who took Cody on as a protégé, and Billie—ah Billie, so unbelievably young, with the young Cody playing while she hits a note with eyes closed. Also—with the open back of a piano, trombone on the floor, light on a cymbal—the Duke, hunched at the keys so you couldn’t know it was him, but who else could it be? And then Bing, leaning on the piano and singing at Cody, telling him to shine. Bingety-bing-bing.

  “That photo of Sonny and Bing Crosby,” Max said to Roy. “You know anything about that picture?”

  Roy squinted for a tighter look at Max, then turned down the TV.

  “You know Sonny?”

  “Since the late thirties. You’re his boy.”

  “Boy. Do I know you?”

  “My name is Max. Do you?”

  “I heard of a Max. But the man’s not Sonny anymore.”

  “I know all about it. I thought it’d get your attention.”

  “How come you know so much?”

  “I could tell you a story about the night your father played and Bing sang. I was there. You run this place for your father?”

  “Not my line. What do you do, Max?”

  “That’s a personal question and I don’t usually answer personal questions on religious grounds, Roy, and I am a religious man. But I’ll answer you because you’re Sonny’s boy, Cody’s boy, and Cody is a genius, although who am I to say that? A musical moron, that’s who I am. But I have been a golf star, an actor on TV, I ran a newspaper in Cuba, I’m a retired spy, I taught literature in college, I’m producing a movie about Bing Crosby, who’s an old friend of mine, and that’s not a complete list. What’s your line?”

  “Goin’ to college and bustin’ my ass to do it. Who’d you spy on?”

  “The universe. You know who took that Bing photo?”

  “Cody knows.”

  “He does indeed. I took it. And where is Cody? He coming here?”

  “He’ll come by, but he won’t stay. He’s got a concert.”

  “Where?”

  “DeWitt ballroom. His Farewell Concert they’re calling it.”

  “Farewell to what?”

  “Cody’s sick.”

  “No. How sick?”

  “Walkin’-around sick. Lung cancer.”

  “Hey, no, no. Since when?”

  “He’s got some time, but not a whole lot. He can still play.”

  “Where do I get a ticket?”

  Roy went to the cash register and took a pack of tickets off the back bar. He put a ticke
t in front of Max.

  “Twenty bucks, dinner included. It’ll help pay some medical bills.”

  “I’ll take two,” and Max put a hundred-dollar bill on the bar.

  “Will you turn up that TV, Roy?” a woman at the bar said. “They’re talking about Bobby.” Roy raised the volume and a TV newsman said the vigil outside the Los Angeles hospital where Robert Kennedy lies, perhaps mortally wounded, is ongoing. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said today that there is no evidence of a conspiracy at this moment in the shooting.

  Roy gave Max a second ticket plus sixty bucks change and served the beer drinkers down the bar. “I met him when he campaigned here for senator,” Roy said. “He mighta made a good president.”

  “I knew him in L.A. when he was chasing Marilyn,” Max said. “Bing played golf with Jack.”

  “Bing and Jack, Bing and Sonny, Bobby and Marilyn. You know everybody. Anybody you don’t know?”

  “There’s these two guys in China.”

  “So who shot Bobby?”

  “I’d bet on the mob. The Teamsters hated him, Hoffa especially. But somebody’ll blame the Cubans. They always blame the Cubans. But they hated him too.”

  “I’ll bet you know Fidel, right?”

  “We’re pals. You like Fidel?”

  “I respect him. He beat the system, did the time, fought the fight. He’s been good to blacks from this country. I like it that he rattles the cages of politicians in this country.”

  “You do any time lately, Roy?”

  Roy stared at him.

  “I know a few things about you. You’re a political animal.”

  “I’m political. I’m no animal.”

  “Bad word choice. I apologize. Radical, that’s closer to it, isn’t it, you and the other Brothers? A maverick among mavericks, isn’t that so?”

  “The Brothers say what needs sayin’.”

  “Tell ’em what’s on your mind. Admirable.”

  “What’s on your mind, Max? What is this quiz you got goin’?”

  “I hear things, Roy. I hear the Brothers got the Albany cops on their backs, and the Mayor too. That’s a heavy load, the cops and the Mayor.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Max Osborne. Your father played piano for my ex-wife in Havana. Esme Suárez.”

  “Esme. She’s Gloria’s mother.”

  “Bingo. Gloria. My little girl.”

  Renata was squirming on a metal bench in a corner of the empty day room when the orderly arrived with Gloria. Renata embraced her niece.

  “She’s packed but she doesn’t want to go,” the orderly said.

  “Is that true, mi amorcita?” Renata asked.

  Gloria shook her head no, then nodded yes. She was dressed to leave, white blouse, black slacks, heels, her beautiful yellow hair brushed into a familiar, casual fall. She looked like herself except for her violet eyes, which were wide with alien bewilderment.

  “You want to stay here?”

  Gloria shook her head no.

  “Everybody here thinks it’s all right for you to leave. Will you come home with me?”

  Gloria shook her head no.

  “You are not talking?”

  Gloria shook her head no.

  “You are so afraid.”

  They sat on the bench and faced each other. Gloria hugged herself, keeping a grip, Renata decided, on the forces that had put her here. She had driven into the Quinn driveway but couldn’t get out of her car for an hour. Renata found her and coaxed her into the house, but she wouldn’t speak about what was wrong. She hid under the bed covers for a day and a half without eating, silent until she slapped and smashed a window in the bathroom, slashing her hand. She took George Quinn’s straight razor out of a bureau drawer and sat on the floor. Daniel heard the crash and found her holding the open razor, trying to decide where to cut herself for more serious bloodletting. After eight days in the psychiatric ward she did not seem improved to Renata; but there was no money to keep her here even one more day. It was out of the question to call Esme, who would lose her mind with worry, so Renata called Max to ask for money for her three overdue mortgage payments and didn’t mention Gloria.

  “I’ll be down the hall,” the orderly said to Renata, and he went out.

  A flat-nosed little man in a black sweatsuit came into the day room. He had been walking rapidly up and down the hallway when Renata arrived. He looked at both women, then spoke to Gloria. “I’m the leading Garden player on this planet. I’m the universal linchpin. All the scum played sex games so the plants would poison the dogs. Garden wants you to send your phone numbers right now.”

  Gloria reached out to the man and took his small, gnarled hand. He pulled his hand away and scurried out of the room.

  “You don’t belong here,” Renata said. “Sometimes you can live next to death without dying, but you should get out of here.”

  Gloria said nothing.

  “There is a reason to come home. Your father is in Albany.”

  Gloria sat upright.

  “Perhaps he knows you are here,” Renata said, “but I don’t know how. We talked last week but he said nothing about coming to Albany. Will you see him?”

  Gloria almost nodded yes.

  “And tonight is Cody’s concert, probably his last one. You must see him play, even one song. He’d love it. Have you been in touch with Roy?”

  Gloria shook her head.

  “Has Alex been here?”

  Gloria shook her head violently, turned her face away.

  “It is very silly to be upset because I mention him. People know about it, mi amor. Daniel’s editor asked him what he knew about you and Alex and Roy. You are no longer a secret. Hiding in here changes nothing. You have to talk about what happened. Whatever it was, it isn’t worth your death. You survived it. You will survive better if you tell me about it.”

  Gloria said nothing.

  “Since you won’t speak I will tell you a story. You know everybody in it—your mother, Max, Cody and me. I was in school in Havana with las monjitas. Your mother was not getting work on Broadway because they wanted her only as a Latina and there were no Latina parts. She was beautiful, her English was perfect, her singing voice still rich, and she wanted to keep on with her career. So she came back to where she began, the nightclubs of Havana. There were more clubs than ever and more customers, so many Americanos and she was Esme Suárez, the Broadway star. The hottest clubs wanted her, Tropicana, Sans Souci, Montmartre, you know all this. She would work some weeks, then stop working, but she would always go to the clubs for dinner. Max did not like clubs the way Esme liked them, so she took me as her chaperone and we would see Chevalier and Cugat and Beny Moré and Dietrich, so many. The managers would bring the stars to our table and everybody adored your mother. So spirited, qué viva, qué alegre! Now I am going to tell you something. Sometimes men would take my hand and ask me to dance, but your mother would say, ‘Look but do not touch.’ She was thirty-two and I was sixteen, a nightclub virgin. You were a virgin when you asked me for lessons in the sexual life. They were for Alex, no?”

  Gloria closed her eyes on the question.

  “Of course they were. But your virginity is of no importance, nor is mine. One night at the Club Montmartre Max came to our table with a black musician, Cody, the first time I met him. He was from New York but he wanted to leave it and Max got him work at Night and Day, an American piano bar in old Havana. Max and Cody were friends since Cody was with Billie Holiday. He was the first to play for Billie and the newspaper said they were going to marry, but it ended. Billie loved Cody but she was a crazy person who worked very hard to destroy herself. Cody would never hurt her and she seemed to go with men who did hurt her. Many women are like this. Not me. If they hurt me I will do everything to hurt them. But that is not what I’m telling you. This night we had dinner and Cody talked very much with me, a sweet man who would never hurt anybody, shy almost, handsome, and your mother’s age. I liked him very much and I knew I
could fall in love with him if I was older. I was almost in love with him while we talked but I did not know much about love yet. I felt it without knowing what it meant. But Max saw it in my face before my sister saw it. I was also in love with Max. I was in love with all men who liked me because I did not yet know about love. Max, and you know this, is a womanizer. Everybody knows this. He womanized with me when I was fourteen but he did not touch me. Never. We would laugh and he would talk about movie stars in love and tell me I would soon be a movie star and should know everything about love. Max loved many women. He had favorites, like your mother, but he went to the woman who was in front of his eyes. This night I am talking about he saw Cody touch my arm. Cody was telling me about his sad life, that his wife had left him and taken their son and he could not see the boy. It was years after this before he got his son back, and his son, of course, is Roy. He was telling me about Roy, that he was two years younger than I and that I would like him. I was listening very hard and I was sad for Cody. He touched my arm and when he did I touched his hand. Max was watching us and he said, ‘Get your fucking nigger hands off her.’ Cody could not believe it. I could not believe it. Cody said to him, ‘Sure, boss, sure,’ and got up and left the club. Max had never used such words in front of me. I went to the baño and cried for Cody and when I came out Max was gone. The next day your mother went to a lawyer to divorce him.”

  Gloria leaned close. “Because of what he said to Cody?”

  “No, mi amor, because he was obsessed.”

  “With Cody?”

  “With me.”

  Gloria had known Alex Fitzgibbon since before she could remember. He had flown to Havana in the late 1940s to carouse in winter and see his old Yale buddy who was a resident expert in Cuban carousal, Max Osborne. Max brought Alex home to meet Esme and Gloria, and even when Esme and Max separated in 1953 for the first time, Alex kept the social connection.

  Batista had made his coup against Prío in 1952 and he and the mob were thriving from the casinos, the brothels, the tourists. Castro was in jail for leading the assault on the Moncada barracks in Santiago in 1953, and Batista’s repression of rebels was vast and deadly. Esme, working steadily in nightclubs, kept Gloria, now seven, in the care of a nana, but grew fearful of violent politics. Max was political, but who knew on which side? Death came easily to such men and their families from the madness abroad in Cuba, in which the vengeful punished the innocent as readily as they punished their enemies. And if Esme would not herself leave Havana (she believed she’d never leave it again) she could protect Gloria. And so Esme decided to put her in the hands of the same Catholic nuns who had educated Renata and herself in convent schools in Cuba and Manhattan.