The Talking Drum

by Lisa Braxton

  Omar glanced at Kofi. The child’s eyes were glazed over as he slammed his palm against his little drum, his movements robotic. Omar then realized that he had been playing the same rhythm for much too long. The girls were a beat behind, executing their steps lazily. Omar changed the beat, slowed down the tempo.

  He looked back at the stranger in the last row. Now a familiar figure walked in and took the chair next to him—Hideki. What was he doing here? The Fierce Warriors had a couple of shows scheduled in Harlem after the opening of the The Talking Drum. And then, he’d assumed they’d take a break. What was Hideki doing back in town?

  Omar was more curious now. He wouldn’t be able to have a decent rehearsal until he found out why they were there. He gave the drum a series of quick volleys. Then he raised his hands in the air, the signal that the rhythm was done.

  The children skipped off the stage—a little too happy to take a break, Omar thought— and scrambled into the room where Marie-Claude had prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Before Omar could loosen the strap that held his djembe around his waist, Hideki and the man had gotten up from their chairs and were approaching the stage.

  “I want to apologize to you, man,” Hideki said, stepping onto the stage. He stuck his hand out to Omar. Omar stared at it as if it were a snake.

  “Man, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Hideki continued. “Things didn’t go right last month. It’s been heavy on my mind, know what I’m saying?”

  “What do you want?” Omar asked, recovering from his shock.

  Hideki let his hand drop to his side. “You were right. If not for you, I would never have gotten into drumming. I’ll never forget what you did for me,” he paused. “And what happened with Natalie, that’s in the past.”

  “I can think of no words to say right now.”

  “I understand. I want to start over with a clean slate. That’s why I invited Steve to come with me.” Hideki gestured toward his companion.

  Steve handed Omar a business card that read The Burton Talent Agency. “I run the outfit,” Steve said. He had a scratchy voice, as if he’d swallowed sandpaper.

  “So what business shall you have with me?” Omar asked.

  “Steve’s my agent,” Hideki said.

  Omar couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was surprising enough that Hideki wanted to see him again, but it boggled his mind that Hideki was introducing his agent. Omar pulled out a couple of folding chairs from backstage and invited the two to sit.

  Steve leaned back in his chair and crossed one stubby leg over the other. “Hideki has been telling me what a talented musician you are. And from observing you here today I can see that that’s true. Your career has not gotten the attention that I think it deserves. You haven’t been focused. You need someone to manage you.”

  “Steve got us our first recording contract,” Hideki added, “not long after you left Howard. He’s been our manager ever since.”

  “Do you have a demo tape, something, maybe a reel-to-reel, a cassette of your work?” Steve asked. “I’d like to share what you’ve got with my associates to get a full evaluation.”

  Omar tried to remember what he had. Khadim had made some recordings, but if Omar asked for them his friend would figure out that he was stepping out behind his back. “I have not recorded in a while,” he said finally.

  Hideki looked at Steve. “Can we get studio time?”

  Steve pulled out a monthly calendar from the breast pocket of his blazer and flipped through it. He made a notation with a ballpoint pen. “We should be able to get you in the studio.”

  “There’s a studio down at the harbor, not far from here, actually,” Hideki explained to Omar. “It used to be a bottle-capping factory; it’s a brick building, big billboard on top of it advertising Samsonite Luggage. It’s not far from Fisherman’s Wharf. We’re due to be back in Connecticut tomorrow for some meetings, but we can stay another day.”

  “Bring your drums around in the morning and I’ll record you. Nine o’clock,” Steve said. “If I like what I hear, if you think you’d be interested in representation, then we can talk about an agreement.”

  Omar thought he was in a dream. He tried not to sound overexcited. “How much do you charge for this representation?”

  “I get a twenty-five percent cut.”

  “That much?”

  Steve cocked his head to the side. “Think about it. You can be the drummer of Bellport, or sign a recording contract and make a name for yourself. Don’t let a few dollars make you miss this opportunity.”

  “I know you’re wondering why I’m doing this,” Hideki said. “I’ll be straight with you. I’m doing this for selfish reasons. I’ve been thinking about becoming a producer, grooming my own acts. I help you, and maybe one day you’ll be in a position to help me. We both win.”

  After discussing more details on their agreement, Steve and Hideki shook hands with him and grabbed sandwiches from Marie-Claude on their way out. When rehearsal ended and the kids had left, she stood in the classroom doorway, one hand on her hip, smirking as Omar walked passed.

  “You tell your uncle this is nothing personal. I have to do what’s best for me.”

  Omar turned around. “I am not your messenger. You can walk to Le Baobab and tell him yourself.”

  “So you think you’re going to get to the big time, don’t you?” she shouted as he walked away. “I hope you break a leg.”

  He didn’t turn around to acknowledge what she’d said. He didn’t want to give her that satisfaction and let the door slam behind him.

  CHAPTER 26

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE my girl here might single handedly bring down an arsonist,” said Della.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” replied Sydney. “It’s going take a whole lot more than pictures to solve this case.”

  “Don’t be modest, dear,” admonished Inez in a soft voice. “Any clues they get that’ll put them one step closer to finding out who’s burning down Petite Africa will help a lot of us sleep easier.”

  The three women stood in the rear of The Talking Drum lecture hall, behind the crowd of seventy-five guests listening to an evening lecture by Amiri Baraka. A dramatist, novelist, and poet, he was reading an essay called “The Legacy of Malcolm X and the Coming of the Black Nation.”

  A few days after Sydney had handed over to the arson squad her photos from the fire scene on Hancock Avenue, Max had told her that her photos had indeed provided clues to the investigation. Her crowd shots had caught an onlooker in the background who seemed out of place. Max said his source told him that the onlooker was someone who normally wasn’t in Petite Africa.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a chair?” Sydney asked Inez.

  “I’m doing just fine, dear.” The older woman was leaning hard on her cane. “You know, he was LeRoi, not Amiri, when Willie and I used to have dinners with him and his first wife in The Village. LeRoi Jones.”

  “Must have been some dinners,” said Della, “rubbing elbows with all of them intellectuals.” She smiled broadly, then stopped abruptly, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “It was,” replied Inez, her nose tilted slightly upward. “He and Hettie had their own press, publishing all the hip poets and writers—Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac—Hettie and LeRoi were always writing or editing something or putting on a play.”

  “Wish we could get him here at the library,” said Della.

  Inez shook her head. “Oh no! LeRoi’s on a tight schedule. He’s much too busy.”

  Sydney pulled her camera from around her neck and tucked it back into her camera bag. She felt confident that Max would be pleased with her shots of Baraka. He had said he would use at least one photo with the profile he wanted her to write for Inner City Voice.

  Sydney turned to Inez. “I want to thank you and Willie for arranging this.”

  “
Willie did most of it,” Inez acknowledged, smiling, “calling folks we used to know back then to find out how to get in touch with LeRoi.”

  Baraka was mesmerizing. He stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the room as he continued his reading, the audience transfixed and nodding as he spoke.

  As Omar strolled back toward The Commonwealth Arms, the anger he felt toward Hideki began to dissolve. He stopped at Le Baobab and called the number on the business card Steve had given him. Burton Talent Agency was legit. His secretary confirmed that Steve was scheduled to be in Bellport through tomorrow afternoon.

  If the session went well and Steve signed him to a recording contract, there was a chance he’d get gigs all over the country and maybe overseas. He’d be able to spread the true African culture across the world with his drums, as his father had predicted. Omar decided he would put away his dreams of playing in Duke Ellington’s orchestra. If things worked out, he’d do well without the famed musician.

  A strong wind coming off Bellport Harbor made his boubou flap against his legs. He blinked to keep his eyes from tearing and held onto his kufi cap to keep it from blowing down Clermont Street. He chided himself for not wearing a light coat over his boubou. It was mid-November. The air was crisp.

  He turned onto King Street. The Commonwealth Arms came into sight. When he got to the building, the wind forced the building’s front door to slam behind him. He paused in the lobby a moment to catch his breath. The building seemed different, almost alien, as if he had stepped into a building that closely resembled his, but was in another location altogether. He felt the same way when he climbed the stairs and entered the apartment. Looking around, nothing was out of place. Then he realized what it was: warm air. The heat was on. The maintenance people must have been working on it. It was late enough in the fall that the heat was needed. It was a comfort knowing that it was working. He took off his cap and placed it on the shelf of the front closet. Now that Natalie was gone, it was almost empty, except for a couple of his jackets and a winter coat.

  The refrigerator motor came on, gurgled for a while, and then let out a low hum. He opened the door and removed a quart jug of ginger juice, poured himself a glass, and then reached into a cabinet above the sink for the bottle of Jack Daniels he bought after his night at Jake’s Tavern.

  As he drank, he made thiou boulletes, a dish of seasoned fish with spices cooked in stewed tomatoes. As he put the spices away he came across the first jar of Hallima’s potion in the back of the cabinet over the stove. Still angry, he imagined hurling the herbs in her face. She was selling products that were useless. He unscrewed the jar and poured most of the contents into the frying pan, thinking they would add some flavor to the dish.

  After his meal he showered and then went into the drum room to survey his inventory. He knew he wanted to bring his father’s djembe with him to the recording session, a couple of ashkikos, and one sabar. He might take a dundun.

  Later, Omar settled into bed, feeling slightly woozy from the alcohol. Within minutes his body warmed the sheets. He felt an erection coming on. It must be the love potion, he thought, which Natalie seemed immune to. He fell into a hard sleep and awakened at the feel of the mattress giving slightly and a warm, familiar body easing close to him. It was Natalie.

  “Do you think he’ll give me an autograph?” Della held up a dog-eared copy of Amiri Baraka’s The Dutchman she had gotten from a sale at the library. “Some writers don’t like to sign old copies of their books.”

  “LeRoi’s not like that, dear,” Inez sniffed. “Trust me. He’d be happy to sign it.”

  The women abruptly stopped their conversation at the sounds of sirens. They turned their heads toward the picture window as a fire truck went roaring past, then another. “That truck is going in the direction of Petite Africa,” Della said. “I hope that arsonist isn’t at it again.”

  “That would be just awful,” Inez said.

  “Maybe it’s a false alarm,” added Sydney. “Let’s hope so.”

  Once Baraka was finished, Lawrence refreshed the writer’s glass of water, and Malachi stacked copies of his book, Raise Race Rays Raize: Essays Since 1965, on the table for him to autograph. Customers lined up in an orderly fashion in the parlor as Malachi rang up sales and Lawrence passed the author each book to sign.

  “I think I could use that chair right about now,” Inez said, grimacing.

  “Sure,” Sydney replied, letting Inez lead the way to the reading room. “I’ll go upstairs and make us some tea.”

  Della held Sydney back to let Inez walk ahead of them. “You think she’s okay?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” said Sydney. “She’s getting around more slowly than usual. Her clothes are hanging off her. I wonder if she’s eating.”

  Della shook her head. “The poor woman. She don’t need to get any thinner. She’s a skeleton as it is.”

  “She’s been complaining of headaches. I wonder if that’s affecting her appetite.”

  Malachi approached and asked Della to excuse them. He watched Della until she was out of earshot.

  “Something wrong?” asked Sydney.

  “We have to talk to Lawrence,” he answered quietly.

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “He’s up to something. While the reading was going on, he kept slipping out the back door.”

  “Maybe he just wanted to get some air.”

  “Five times?”

  “Well, that’s a lot of air. What do you think it is?”

  Malachi looked around to make sure none of the customers was listening. “I’ve been checking around here. Some things are missing, some of the encyclopedia volumes, a few of the more expensive books.”

  “I knew you shouldn’t have bought those.”

  He gave her a sharp look. “We’ll talk about that later. Anyway, unfortunately, I think Lawrence has gone back to his old ways. I’m going to go out back to see if I can find anything. Lawrence will be on the register until I come back in.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, having him on the register?”

  “He’s usually on the register off and on for these events, so I don’t want him to suspect that we’re watching.”

  Sydney prepared tea upstairs and then carried the teapot and cups downstairs to the reading room on a tray.

  “Coming here to Liberty Hill has done so much for my peace of mind,” Inez told Della as Sydney walked in. “After my stroke I worried because we were living in the suburbs, way down in Southern Connecticut. It’s nice having the best hospitals close by and having Sydney and Malachi right upstairs in case I need them.” She placed her hand on Della’s wrist, leaned close to her, and spoke in a whisper. “A couple of years ago I fell in the house. Willie was out somewhere. I was on the floor for hours.”

  “That’s just terrible,” Della said, recoiling at the image.

  “If you need us just call out to us,” Sydney said as she set the tray on a reading table. “We should be able to hear you through the dumbwaiter.”

  “The dumbwaiter?” Della asked, letting out a laugh. “Are you kidding?”

  “You’d be surprised at how well sound travels through that thing,” Sydney replied.

  “That is truly a comfort,” said Inez.

  As Sydney poured the tea, Inez slowly went over to a bookshelf and pulled out a package in tissue paper. She handed it to Sydney. “I left it in here before we went down the hall to hear LeRoi.”

  “You didn’t have to get me anything,” Sydney demurred.

  “Just open it, dear. Consider it an early Christmas gift.”

  Sydney undid the ribbon and carefully tugged at the tissue paper, revealing a leather-bound blank journal with an outline of the African continent embossed on the front. Sydney was overwhelmed. “It’s beautiful.” She ran her hands over the leather and stitching along the spine.r />
  “Ain’t that something,” Della exclaimed. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Willie and I got that on our travels to Kenya a while back before I got sick. We were both teaching there. Those were some good kids in that village, real attentive, eager to learn.”

  Sydney opened the journal. It was inscribed with an African proverb: If you wish to move mountains tomorrow, you must start by lifting stones today.

  “I like that,” Sydney said.

  “Words to live by, dear,” Inez said as she set her tea cup down.

  Sydney handed Della the journal for her to take a look at it.

  “You can write down your thoughts in the journal,” Inez added.

  “Thank you so much.” Sydney gave Inez a peck on the cheek. She felt fortunate that she and Malachi had rented to the Taylors. It made her uncomfortable when she thought how much she had resisted letting them have the apartment. She flipped through the lined, blank pages. “I wonder what I’ll write about.”

  “You can start off about your adventures living in Liberty Hill,” Della said.

  “It has been an adventure,” agreed Sydney. “College was an adventure, but nothing like coming here.”

  Inez’s eyes brightened. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of stories to fill the journal.” She picked her purse off the table and unzipped it.

  “Here, dear.” She handed Sydney a thin envelope. “This check will cover the next three months’ rent.”

  “You don’t have to pay ahead.”

  “I insist,” Inez stated, settling back in her chair. “Willie and I will be on the road, traveling again soon.”