A Drop of Patience

by William Melvin Kelley

  1

  HE SAT UP on the hard seat, his back aching, his legs cramped, his feet asleep. A moment before, the rattling rumble of the train had deepened and he knew it was almost in the station. He fingered his instrument case, amazed, as he was from time to time, that the ability to produce noises from a twisted metal tube encrusted with smooth buttons could actually bring him this far. He had just left Inez Cunningham.

  He had stayed with her for three years. That was enough. After the excitement of New York, of one hundred dollars a week, of one thousand people in an audience, after the excitement of all this had faded, he had been surprised to discover he was not satisfied. He did not think he was getting enough opportunity to play and improve. In the back of his mind he still dreamed of having his own group, perhaps even a big band. Although in the beginning he had learned a great deal from Inez, he thought now he had learned all she could teach him. But still he had not left her immediately; that would have been foolish. He waited, and finally he was told that Jack O’Gee, leader of one of the two or three good bands in the country, had said he wished there was someone like Ludlow Washington in his orchestra. Ludlow sent O’Gee a telegram asking if he would equal the salary Inez was giving him. O’Gee, answering the same day, said he would, and told Ludlow to join the band in Chicago.

  Somewhere west of Buffalo, just as the train broke from a roaring tunnel, he had begun to wonder whether it had been a smart thing to leave Inez. After all, he had never expected more than a living from music and Inez had given him that. Besides, she offered security; she would be popular and working for the next twenty years. Bands were another thing. Sometimes there was a great deal of work and then, a year later, night clubs and dance halls would be hiring nothing but small groups. He wondered why he had not thought of all this before, realizing vaguely that in the last three years his entire attitude toward music had changed.

  He had been to Chicago several times in the past three years and so without difficulty made the trip from the station to the Southside hotel where the O’Gee orchestra was staying.

  His room, like a hundred others he had lived in, was three paces wide and four long, a bed taking most of the room, with a dresser, and a chair in one corner. There were towels on the arm of the chair.

  A bellboy, reeking of sweat and hair pomade, had carried his bag to the room. Ludlow’s fingers were already on the small locks when there was a knock at the door.

  “Hello, man. Welcome to Chicago.”

  Ludlow swung the door wide and stepped out of the way, smiling. “What you doing in Chicago, Hardie?”

  “I been with O’Gee four months. I made it, man. How about me!” Hardie’s excited voice crossed the room. “And now you here too.”

  Ludlow nodded. “How far’m I from the chair?”

  “Further left. You look older, man. I guess it the clothes; you don’t dress like no farm boy no more.”

  “Don’t kid me. I look older because I’m tired as hell. I been playing with Inez from nine to three, and been jamming from three to seven or eight. But man, you should hear the stuff.”

  “I did.” Hardie was sitting on the bed. “On one of the records you made with Inez. You played a pretty eight bars. You two was so sweet together! I don’t understand how you coulda left her. You two sounded like lovers.” Hardie’s voice turned sly. “Say, you weren’t doing the dirty thing, was you?”

  Ludlow smiled. “No, man, nothing like that.” If anything, Inez had mothered him, but mostly, if they were not practicing or performing, they did not even meet. Their relationship was built only around music. “I left because of them God damn little eight-bar solos. They wasn’t enough. To play something good, or hear it, you got to have eight choruses. That’s why I quit her. She’d sing, then here I come with my eight bars. I just get an idea going and she back again. That’s why I had to quit and come to O’Gee.”

  Hardie was timid. “Them eight bars was pretty anyways….Remember that time back with Rodney when we played that old ballad and you did them things to it and Rodney bawled you out? Them eight bars was just like that.”

  Ludlow had completely forgotten that other time. He had always thought that he had improved to where he was now.

  Hardie continued: “All the guys in the band really excited about you coming. Some can even play your solos note for note. I can do that.” He was quite proud. “Some guys even writing them down to find out what chords you making.”

  “They really do that?”

  “Sure, man. I heard guys say you doing things ain’t never been done before, guys who seen you in sessions with Norman Spencer.”

  What Hardie said silenced them both. Ludlow was embarrassed and did not know what to reply. He had realized his playing was different, but he had thought that was simply because he was better than most. He had known too that he was tired of what music sounded like—heavy and loud—and so at sessions he had suggested to the other men how they might play a certain song. But he had never thought of this as a new style; he was simply trying to get a sound to the music that he liked.

  Finally Ludlow could no longer endure the silence and flung out a question. “Well, how Rodney when you left?” He got up and walked to the bed, began to unpack.

  Hardie moved to the chair. “Same old stuff. I was getting tired myself, but I never thought I’d get a better thing, until O’Gee come down to play a dance and heard me and asked me to take his second chair.” He paused, cleared his throat. “Etta-Sue come in a couple times….”

  Ludlow realized Hardie had brought this up because he felt it his duty. If Ludlow did not want to talk about Etta-Sue, he did not have to pick up the thread. “What’d she want?” He tried to make his voice cold. He had found his handkerchiefs.

  “Wanted to know where you was.”

  His heart was beating wildly. He had been away from New Marsails three years now, but from time to time he still thought of Etta-Sue. He did not want to go back to her or want her to come to him. But, lying alone some nights, he remembered strange things, not just the steady love-making. It had not been at all steady after she became pregnant. He remembered, rather, things like walking home from Boone’s in the rain, undressing and crawling into bed beside her, feeling her throbbing with heat.

  Hardie continued, “She didn’t say nothing. I mean, about—you know what I mean….I even seen the kid a couple times.”

  Ludlow opened a dresser drawer and dropped in his five shirts. “What she look like?”

  “Well, you know, she a baby. Got this dark red hair, not light like Etta-Sue’s, but—she look like you. She light like her mama, but she look like you, and I’d say she planning to be big as a fire engine.” Hardie, in telling this, had enough enthusiasm for the both of them. “Well, anyway, I seen Etta-Sue just before I left and she say—I don’t like telling you this, man—she say she going to Alabama for a divorce.”

  Ludlow’s stomach growled. “You know a place we can get some good down-home food?”

  “Sure.” Hardie was sad. “Hey, Ludlow, I’m sorry.”

  “Then after while we’ll come back and you can play me the book.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Suddenly Hardie had shaken his mood. “But I want you to meet someone first.”

  In the lobby Hardie stopped, told Ludlow to wait, and went off to the desk. He was back in a moment. “Okay. We’ll get that food in a second.” He was nervous, probably having seen Ludlow shift impatiently from one foot to the other.

  High heels, a loosely swinging step, came across the marble floor and stopped near them. Hardie squeezed his elbow. “Baby, this the great Ludlow Washington.” Hardie’s voice was closer now. “Ludlow, this my wife, Juanita.”

  “Jesus, Hardie, what you go and do that for?” He smiled. “Hello, Juanita. He ain’t giving you too much trouble, is he?”

  “Should say so.” Her voice was reedy. He had never liked lisps, b
ut liked hers, which flooded her S’s. She was a little taller than Hardie.

  “Sounds all right. Where you find her?”

  “Right here, first night on the job.” It meant a great deal to Hardie that Ludlow should approve of her. “We been married three months.”

  “I hope you get all the luck I didn’t.”

  Hardie coughed, obviously moved. “Let’s get you fed.”

  They went into the street, passing the smell of chicken and ribs which came from open stores, passing mock arguments and whooping laughter, passing groups of children chanting songs to the smack of a rope on pavement. Finally Hardie led him into a small store smelling of grease, dust, and good food. There was a jukebox and Inez was singing.

  They slid into a booth, ordered food and beer. Ludlow’s fingers searched a scar in the wooden seat. He listened to his own solo, attempting in vain to find this new style of music Hardie had been talking about.

  “You wrung that song dry!” There was the pop of a kiss. “She likes your playing too, don’t you, baby.”

  “Hardie says you married too, and got a baby.”

  Hardie sighed, but said nothing.

  “I ain’t married no more, sweetie. But don’t feel bad about it.”

  “Why’d you break up?”

  Hardie sighed again. “Baby, don’t—”

  “It all right, Hardie. I don’t know, sweetie. I think it was I wanted to go to New York and she didn’t.”

  “And she didn’t end up coming with you?”

  Hardie was getting angry. “Juanita, for Christ’s sake, let him—”

  “Hold it, man. No, sweetie, she didn’t want to leave down home.”

  “Stupid!” Under the table, her heel clicked once, sharp and hard.

  “New York ain’t all that much.” Women always wanted to go to New York.

  “I ain’t talking about New York.” She leaned across the table. “What I mean is, you may want your husband not to go, and may try to talk him out of going, but when the chips go down, you pack your hot comb and you go with him. That’s all. You don’t never let no man wander off nowheres by himself.”

  Ludlow held back a smile. “What if he want to go to Alaska and play for the Eskimos?”

  “Then you pack your hot comb and your woollies and you tag right along.” She was serious.

  Ludlow took out a cigarette, put it into his mouth, struck a match and, feeling the heat on his face, drew smoke into his lungs. “Hardie? You don’t never got to look behind you to know who’s there.”

  “Yeah.” He was still angry about Juanita’s lack of tact.

  The beer came, and Hardie said he wanted to make a toast. “Here’s hoping you get something nice for yourself, Ludlow.”

  Ludlow nodded, raised his glass; the beer, cold and bitter, started down, expanding. “I’ll drink to that, man.”

  2

  LUDLOW HAD KNOWN Norman Spencer for seven years now, through his three years with Inez and the following four with Jack O’Gee. He had met the old pianist within a week of his first arrival in New York. Inez Cunningham, although she had told Ludlow she would probably regret it, had introduced them. Spencer was very small for a grown man; his voice started just at Ludlow’s chest, was high, breathy, and surprisingly Northern-sounding for a man who had been born and raised in the South. Spencer did not talk at all about himself, and, even after seven years, Ludlow had never found out where the pianist lived, whether or not he was married, had any children, or even what he did until he came to work at eight o’clock. The four things Ludlow did know about Spencer were that he smoked cigars, was thirty years older than Ludlow, that he had come from the South, and that he refused to leave Harlem.

  Ludlow was never sure that he and Spencer were friends, though he knew the pianist respected his musicianship. Ludlow finally decided he was Norman Spencer’s pupil. Thinking back to what his master in the Home had told him—that everyone had a master until he died—Ludlow decided that if he could choose his master, it would certainly be Norman Spencer.

  Whenever he was in New York, Ludlow would end the evening at the bar where Spencer worked, listening to, and most times playing with, the pianist. Each time they played together Ludlow found something new in the pianist’s music, something which gave him enough ideas to last a month. Ludlow did not copy Norman Spencer. It was rather that the pianist made him think.

  They had just finished a number, and while the audience, composed mostly of musicians, applauded, Ludlow rested his elbow on top of the upright piano and asked Spencer what he wanted to play next.

  “A cigar.” The piano top slammed down. Spencer came around to Ludlow’s side and took his elbow.

  They left the low stage and sat at a table. In a moment a waitress stood beside them. Ludlow ordered drinks, his nostrils already taking in gusts of the pianist’s cigar smoke. Before meeting Spencer, Ludlow had always associated cigars with the Warden. But he had outgrown that, and now, even smoked them himself.

  “Mister Spencer, I want to ask you something.”

  “About what?”

  “About you.” He usually did not ask the pianist questions; rather he would make a statement and hope the older man would comment.

  Spencer puffed his cigar. The cash register belled and slid open.

  Ludlow had been on tour with O’Gee the past three months. He had been thinking about his question all during the trip. “Listen, Mister Spencer, I been playing since I was sixteen, and up until now I always thought I was playing for money. Now I think maybe I ain’t been playing for money at all. But if I ain’t doing it for money, then why the hell am I doing it?” He stopped. “What I want to know is, why are you playing music, Mister Spencer?”

  The pianist sucked on his cigar ten or more times. Then he scratched the stubble of his face. “Don’t know nothing else.”

  Ludlow was familiar with that answer. “I used to say that too, Mister Spencer.” The waitress returned with their drinks. “But that ain’t enough. I mean, we could learn something else, even you, old as you are, even me, blind and all.” He was getting excited.

  The pianist was quiet for a long while and just when Ludlow was convinced he had refused to talk, he started: “Some folks around think we artists, like classical musicians. Maybe we are.”

  Ludlow did not understand the connection. His dismay must have crossed his face.

  “Ludlow, there only two reasons why people do things—because they want to and because they got to. The only time you can do something good is when you want to. Now maybe sometimes you can want to do something so bad that after a while it’s like you got to. But now instead of being made to do it by someone else, you making yourself do it, and then maybe you an artist. Okay, now take you. You could be playing like everybody else and then instead of being in O’Gee’s band, he’d be in yours. For some reason you don’t play like no one else. But ain’t nobody forcing you to be different. So maybe you better forget about money because if you really cared about it, you’d be playing the way that makes the most money.”

  Ludlow was more confused than ever. “Then why do I play?”

  “Hell, boy, I don’t know. Ask your mama!”

  They sat silently for a few moments, until Ludlow was torn from his thoughts by a high-pitched laugh. Spencer gave his arm a hard poke. “White folks! Shit!”

  “White folks?” No white person had ever entered this place in the seven years Ludlow had been coming here.

  “Bringing their frantic selves uptown.”

  “What they doing?”

  “Looking around, is all, waiting for something to happen.” The pianist mimicked a white person: “Oh, niggers are so exciting, always raping and killing each other!”

  Ludlow could not hold back a short laugh. “How many are they?”

  “Three couples. Three pasty-faced men and three high
-class chippies with their titties hanging out.” He turned back to Ludlow. “You know, I ain’t been out of Harlem in fifteen years. What for I want to go downtown and watch them dying in the streets. I’ll stay up here where people ain’t kidding themselves. They pushed us all together up here, but they still won’t leave us alone. They got the idea they missing something, so they dress up and come here to see. I don’t show them nothing.” One of the white women was still laughing shrilly; she was drunk. “Oh, here come old pasty-faced Charlie now.”

  The table jumped. “Are you…Ludlow Washington?” The man was drunk too, trying very hard not to sound it.

  “Sure. What you want?” Ludlow tilted his head up toward the man’s voice.

  “I’ve seen you…playing…lots of times. With Inez Cunningham. And with Jack O’Gee too and…with Inez Cunningham. Did I already say that?” He giggled. “Anyway…we’re having a party later on tonight…and we’d like to you—you to come if you want to. You don’t have to play if you don’t want to…but you can if you want to. Do you want to?…come?” The man gave him an address downtown. Ludlow had him repeat it, memorizing it, though he was not certain he would actually go.

  “This is Norman Spencer. You heard of him?”

  “Sure! Sure—God!…I heard of him. God! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Spencer. I have every one of your records, every one, even the ones on cylinders. I have them even.”

  Norman Spencer did not use his own voice. “You got all my records, boss? You do me an honor. Thank you, boss. Thank you very much—boss.”

  “God, Mister Spencer, I should thank you for making them.” He was sincere. Ludlow felt a touch sorry for him.