Joplin's Ghost

by Tananarive Due

  Scott hoped it was his doctor’s first and only lie.

  The man in a smart white Stetson exited the rear stage door with a swoop of his long coat, a sudden apparition beneath the lamplight. He was almost invisible as he swept past the congregation of young men and ladies sharing cigarettes in the alleyway against a brick wall, the women in heels so high they looked like they might topple. The man in the Stetson didn’t slow when they called praises after him. His wide brim hid his profile, but Scott knew Louis by his height and his walk, even if he was missing his swagger as he rounded the corner into the lamplight.

  Louis had billed himself at the theater as The Black Paderewski, after the Polish pianist and composer Ignace Paderewski, but the comparison hadn’t held. Louis’s fingers had fumbled at least twice during his rendition of Chopin’s “Polonaise in A major—Military,” and his crisp, extraordinary command of the keys was gone. The audience might not have noticed, but Scott had. Louis was still very good, but he did not play like Louis Chauvin. Scott feared otherwise, but he hoped Louis was only drunk. The performance had been hard to endure.

  Louis paused beside a poorly dressed black man plucking his guitar where the alley met the sidewalk. The player coaxed whimpers from his strings, harmonic sounds of hope and misery he’d brought from somewhere else times were harder. His chords slid between C, F and G, a tale of woe. Louis tossed a coin in the man’s hat and walked on.

  As Louis departed against the tide of night revelers on Beaumont, Scott nearly let him go. There would be no such thing as easy conversation tonight. The sight of Louis’s retreat in his Parisian-style coat and favorite hat was heartening, like a photograph from a Kodak box camera, one moment frozen the way it should be. This was how he wanted to remember the boy, not by his decline in the concert hall. How will Louis want to remember me?

  Scott followed Louis half a block. “You can play, lil’ man, but can you fight?” he called.

  Scott was sorry for his miserable attempt at humor as soon as he spoke, watching Louis’s body go to stone. In the old days, Louis would have whipped around with a razor ready if a stranger taunted him from behind. But Louis only stopped walking, his hands in his coat pockets, patiently awaiting his fate.

  “It’s just me, Louis,” Scott said, trotting beside him.

  Louis gave him a glare, but didn’t stand still long enough for Scott to get a good look at his face. “Fuck you, old man.”

  “How ’bout dinner?”

  “Ain’t hungry.” Louis kept walking.

  Scott hurried to catch up to him. “Where you headed, youngster?”

  “I got a yen,” Louis said. “Come if you want. If not, I’ll see you when I see you.”

  This was the same way Louis had been in Chicago last year, unrecognizable. Scott had moved to Chicago hoping to find other publishers so he wouldn’t have to settle for John Stark’s offers when he didn’t like them; but also because Louis, Sam Patterson and Arthur Marshall had all moved to the Windy City, heeding Chicago’s appetite for lively music and quality musicians. In Chicago, it had taken Scott a month to track Louis down. He and Sam Patterson had found their friend living in a small rented room in a South Side cathouse, clinging to his pipe. The madam who prepared Louis’s meals and tolerated his moods told them he hadn’t played a piano in two weeks. He don’t like the way his hands work, she’d whispered. But someone had apparently been helping Louis capture some of his themes on paper, because there had been scraps of sheet music tossed around his room, amid the clutter and filth.

  The themes were crudely drawn, but beautiful. One particular habañera had been so gently harmonic, full of Louis’s essence, that Scott asked to take it with him, if only to salvage it from the trash. Louis had been surly, but he’d agreed. Why don’t we go on down to the piano, then? Scott had said, practically leading him by the arm. They’d only spent an hour working out a few ideas, but they’d both seen the clear way to couple their music, a collaboration. And that had been the end of it. Louis was always hard to find, and he’d never sought Scott out since.

  But at least he was performing again.

  Today, Tom had tipped Scott off that Louis was in a high-class vaudeville company playing at the Douglass Theatorium at the corner of Beaumont and Lawton. Watching him play, Scott had hoped his friend was free from his poisonous despair. Apparently not.

  The sign in the darkened picture window of the multistory building where Louis stopped advertised Cigars, Pipes and Tobacco! But apparently tobacco wasn’t the only substance sold within, Scott learned as he followed Louis to the alleyway entrance behind the sleeping storefront, beneath the building’s spiraling metal fire stairs. Louis knocked only once, and the door cracked open. Scott smelled opium, rich and sweet.

  A large white man’s squarish face peered out.

  “Curtain already, maestro?” the man said to Louis. “The show’s getting shorter.”

  “Not short enough,” Louis muttered. He gestured at Scott. “This here’s Joe.”

  “Must be a dozen Joes here. You all can start your own social club.” The man widened the doorway to allow them in, and Scott squeezed past his paunch.

  Inside, Louis knew his way past the maze of stacked crates and boxes lining the dimly lighted hallways, his pace quickening. Louis took off his coat and loosened his collar at the neck, so Scott followed his example, removing his jacket. His shirt was damp with perspiration. Without the cool breeze off the river, it was nothing but August inside. The cloying scent grew stronger, a thin haze above them.

  “Is this where you live now?” Scott said.

  “Would if they’d let me.” Louis followed eight brick steps down half a floor and found a wooden door, his destination. He pushed the door open, and Scott followed him inside.

  Scott knew plenty of men and women with a taste for opium or laudanum, but he’d never visited an opium den. Based on stories he’d heard from San Francisco, he expected to see rows of Chinamen reclined on pallets and silk pillows with hookahs between their lips. But there were no Chinamen in sight.

  The windowless room was long and narrow, the walls covered in an array of mismatched felt curtains in dark, meditative colors. The room suffered from uneven lighting, with candles burning on tables throughout. Parlor chairs, settees and pillows with colorful tassels stretched the length of the room. Nearest to the door, a middle-aged white man splayed across a settee whispered conversation with a younger woman nestled against him. Something in her demure bearing made Scott think she was his wife, not a mistress. As they passed, Scott heard their English accents.

  The room was otherwise occupied by men in gentlemanly attire spaced to create their own private retreats. Passing their tables, Scott saw absinthe glasses, burned spoons and pipes of a half dozen varieties. Scott heard some languid conversation, but no one made eye contact or greeted them, cocooned in their pilgrimages as they sat with eyes closed, or staring beyond the walls. A fraternity of escape, Scott thought. Many of the men were young, closer to Louis’s age, and they seemed undisturbed by the arrival of two Negroes. Laws separated the races by day, but by night people didn’t seem to mind each other.

  The winged chair farthest across the room, facing the door, was empty. Swathed by tall, potted plants, the empty chair reminded Scott of a throne, and sure enough, that was where Louis took his seat. A teenaged attendant came, and Louis wordlessly exchanged coins for a china dish with two small, tarry balls of opium. Louis wasted no time striking a match to light the water pipe on the table beside him. The ball of opium held the flame as it burned, almost a candle itself, and Scott heard water bubbling as Louis inhaled his favorite tonic from its hose. Scott’s nose smarted at the scent, like burnt berries.

  Satisfied, Louis lay back in his chair, eyes closed, hands folded across his stomach. Scott sat near Louis on the ottoman, his first chance to study his friend’s face, and his heart plunged.

  He had expected Louis to be thin, so that wasn’t a surprise. Louis had been fifteen pounds thinner in
Chicago last year, and the lost weight altered Louis’s face most, honing his jaw, erasing his youth. Now, in addition, Louis’s complexion was marred by splotches that resembled razor scars across his cheeks and chin, visible even through his stage powder. Someone with Louis’s vanity must loathe his shaving mirror, Scott thought.

  But there was no loathing in Louis’s expression now. Only dreamy peace.

  “Take a turn if you want,” Louis said.

  “Thanks all the same.” The smell of opium gave Scott a headache. “I’m surprised you bother with all this ceremony and don’t smoke at home like most people.”

  For the first time, Louis smiled, although his eyes stayed closed. “Some folks go to church…” He didn’t finish, and didn’t need to. Perhaps he’d skirted outright blasphemy.

  The woman laughed from the other side of the room, but she quickly smothered it. Bars and cathouses were tumultuous, full of music and revelry, but this opium den felt more like a chapel. No wonder Louis imagined he was in a church, Scott thought. Everyone here had come to worship silence.

  “She’s a poet from London,” Louis said, his voice low. “Lots of writers come through. Symphony players. Bankers. Politicians. This is the best circle I’ve been welcome in yet.”

  When Louis leaned over for another turn with his pipe, Scott saw his hands tremble violently. This time, Louis had to struggle to keep his fingers steady long enough to light the match. Scott looked away. He tensed his own fingers and felt the razor tease his knuckle.

  “You all sure put on a show tonight,” Scott said.

  “We try.”

  Scott paused. “Your playing is still very good.”

  “Good enough.”

  “You heard the Rosebud’s closing soon?” Scott said. “That’s what Tom’s saying.”

  “I heard.” Louis’s face was all tranquility.

  “Sam’s off touring with Bill Spiller and them on vaudeville.”

  Louis didn’t respond to the news of Sam Patterson, a lifelong friend, except to grunt. Scott had so many things he’d planned to say to Louis, and now that they were talking, he couldn’t think of how to say even one. Good news, Louis. I saw my doctor today, and you’re not alone in your journey to Hell, youngster. Do you mind if I come along for the ride?

  “John Stark’s talking about moving to New York,” Scott said. “I’ve been thinking about it, too. They talk about New York’s like it’s the Promised Land, with Broadway and whatnot. And all the biggest publishers are there now. If I could just get some fire under me…”

  Louis remained in repose. He was more unreachable, and sinking.

  Scott opened his satchel and flipped through his papers for the score he’d written. Scott wasn’t sure if he should show Louis, if the music might provoke him somehow, but they would have to work out the business end if they were going to get it published.

  The rustling of papers got Louis’s attention. His eyes opened, unfocused.

  Scott gave him the pages. “You remember those themes I got from you in Chicago? And we sat and I tacked on a couple of my own? Well, I cleaned it up, and the result’s real good.”

  Louis pulled the pages close to his face. “Nigger, what the hell is a heliotrope?”

  So much for wondering if Louis would like the title of their collaboration. But Louis sounded more animated now than he had since the day they’d worked on it. Scott was glad he’d brought the music. He wished the room had a piano.

  “A heliotrope’s a flower that always blooms toward the sun.”

  Louis scanned the pages quickly, but the music symbols didn’t hold his interest long. Louis turned back to the title page, and Scott stood up to look at it over his friend’s shoulder:

  Heliotrope Banquet. By Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin.

  Louis stared at the title page a long time. Then, he gave the stack back in silence.

  Scott flipped to the third page and bent lower to point out passages, following the music with the tip of his index finger: “Yeah, see, where you end the da-da-da-daaaa-da-da section in the key of G, here’s where I go to C with de-da-de-da-de-daaaa…” Scott sang the melody line.

  Slowly, Louis nodded, first in approval, then keeping rhythm. He hears it, Scott thought.

  “…So, we start it off with that elegant, newfangled sound you’ve got, a whole new direction, then it comes full circle. I think it blends us just right.”

  Finally, Louis smiled. “That’s real good, Scotty. Yeah. I remember it now.”

  “I figure on sending it to Stark, see if he’ll pay what it’s worth for a change. If not, there’s other fish in the sea. Especially in New York.”

  “Louis Chauvin and Scott Joplin…” Louis murmured, closing his eyes. “How ’bout that?”

  Scott was so happy Louis liked the piece, he hated to ruin the mood with another word.

  “I heard that waltz, ‘Bethena,’” Louis said, his eyes still closed. “I never got around to sayin’ so, but I thought it was the best thing you ever did. You were telling the truth. That’s what I like about that man picking his guitar outside the Theatorium. Plain truth, that’s all. Music ain’t all about sitting up in a theater and clapping when it’s done. Sometimes you want to dance. Sometimes you want to cry.”

  Scott blinked, staring down at his shoes. For a while, he had forgotten to miss Freddie.

  “Sorry about that gal you married, old man,” Louis said. “Wish I’d met her.”

  Scott nodded. “Me, too.”

  “Hear you’ve been keepin’ busy, though. Not just in music.”

  Scott had courted indiscriminately since Freddie’s death, trying to fill the hole she’d made. Women felt like Scott’s tonic now, except their effects were temporary. None of them were like Freddie. No one was. “Leola wasn’t the match you thought she’d be,” Scott said. Leola was pleasant enough, and a very good singer, but she had wanted to marry him after only a few visits. He wasn’t ready for a new wife, he’d told her. She’d finally turned him away in search of a more likely prospect. “Can’t blame her, though,” Scott said.

  “Women ain’t got no more hold on me, and I’m glad. Right here is all the lovin’ I need.”

  Scott gazed around the room again, and he realized suddenly that it did not resemble a chapel at all: It felt more like a crypt, with its flickering light and still, silent bodies.

  “How you doing, youngster?” Scott whispered finally, the words he’d avoided.

  “You got ears, don’t you? My sweet lady’s leaving me. Looks like I can’t trust her neither, in the end.” To Louis, the piano was a living thing, an appendage, almost. Scott loved his pianos, too, but not like Louis. “But she won’t get away that easy. They say Paderewski played until his keys were bloody, show after show. She ain’t gonna buck me without a fight.”

  The memory of his doctor’s face made Scott feel a boulder lodge in his stomach. This is the time to tell him, he thought. Until he told someone, his own ringing brain would never accept his doctor’s words. He opened his mouth, waiting for the courage to face it.

  “I’ll tell you something I wouldn’t say to nobody else in this world, Scotty,” Louis said before Scott could speak. “I’m glad it was me got it instead of you. I mean it.”

  Scott’s mouth closed. He didn’t know if he could open it again.

  Louis went on: “I got aches and pains and ailments, sores, headaches, seeing things that ain’t there, but I wouldn’t give a shit about all that if I had my hands. I wouldn’t wish it on nobody. ’Specially you, ’cause you don’t just play music, you write it for keeps,” Louis said, and for the first time emotion climbed into his voice, parting the haze.

  “You go on and sell our music to old man Stark, so maybe a person or two will realize there’s a professor named Louis Chauvin, and he could play the shit out of a piano. You go on to New York and be the real Black Paderewski. Naw, hell—Paderewski’s gonna wish he was you. When you’re up there facing the sun, I figger I’ll be there with you one way or ano
ther.”

  Scott thought he saw tears in Louis’s eyes, but the dew was gone when Louis blinked. Scott’s chin shook. He didn’t know where his grief for Louis ended and his own began.

  “We’ve had a good visit, old man, but I’m gonna have to ask you to find your own way out,” Louis said. “I don’t plan on doing much in the way of talking in a minute or so.”

  “I understand,” Scott said.

  Scott lingered, gazing at Louis the way a painter would: Beneath the slant of his Stetson, Louis’s curls were limp with sweat, his hollowed face scarred, and he was barely propped in the oversized chair, as if he were boneless. He was a scarecrow in a radiant white dress shirt with a theatrical ruffled collar, black tuxedo trousers, and shoes shiny enough to talk back to the candles.

  Louis would always be a showman. Always.

  The last time Scott Joplin saw Louis Chauvin, he was a terrible and beautiful sight.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Phoenix closed her eyes, feeling her seat vibrate as the 747 achieved takeoff speed, racing for flight. She reached beside her for Carlos’s hand, and he clasped it tightly in his lap. In all her years on the road, she realized, she’d never had a lover travel beside her. She’d had band-mates, Gloria or Sarge, yes, but never a lover. Smelling the just-enough whisper of Carlos’s cologne, Phoenix realized she had become one of the people she used to envy on airplanes. She and Ronn had never traveled alone as a couple, never side by side.

  Carlos’s hand felt so good, Phoenix forgot her fear of takeoffs. The loud shudders, groans and whines of machinery and wheels beneath her didn’t make her heart race. Besides, I have a friend in a high place now. Scott will keep me safe.

  Scott still came to her at night—not always with music, but with memories. Five times now, she’d relived the memory of Scott’s last night of lovemaking with Freddie, when she’d been sick. Phoenix didn’t feel the sensations as keenly as she had the first time, with Carlos’s human hands doing a ghost’s work, but each time she awoke, she had trouble catching her breath because Freddie’s pneumonia touched her in her sleep. Two nights ago, Phoenix had awakened with tears drying across her face, whispering I love you, Scott until Carlos shook her awake. Freddie’s love for Scott burned strongest when Phoenix’s dreams were fresh, inseparable from her heart.