Clayton Byrd Goes Underground

by Rita Williams-Garcia

  Train Ear shouted at the people on the train,

  “EVERY RIDER, CLAP YOUR HANDS—YOU HEARD ME—

  TRAIN RIDERS, CLAP YOUR HANDS!—

  I KNOW YOU HEARD ME—

  TRAIN RIDERS, CLAP YOUR HANDS!”

  But the people on the train read their newspapers, continued their conversations, or stared out into the dark tunnel.

  Only the twins and the boy with the white cap clapped their hands. Yet before he knew it, Clayton’s foot tapped to the hip-hop beat, a simple rhythm with the clap on the first and third beat. It was easy to fall in.

  The grunting twin, “Beat Box,” was close. So close, Clayton caught his spit a few times as he beatboxed. Clayton liked the sounds and didn’t mind the spit. He could almost feel the vibrations of the grunts that thumped and strummed like a bass. He liked the grunting that belched deep from Boom Box’s gut like a tom-tom. He followed how the boy clicked his tongue like a snare, and timed his crisp hisses like sticks on brass hi-hats.

  Clayton liked the sounds and the beats, but he missed chords. He missed the melody.

  Without thinking twice, Clayton took his harp from his pocket, found a spot, and came in with the beat, but not on top of the beat.

  Boom Box said, “Oh, wow!” But Beat Box turned to Clayton. Nodded at him, without breaking the rhythm. He’d say something through his self-made bass, drums, and crisp hi-hats, and Clayton spoke back with his harp. Beat Box would start a phrase, and Clayton would jump into the phrase with an answer. Then they began to talk. Really talk. How Clayton missed that. Needed that.

  Beat Box lowered his volume but kept the beat. He nodded to Clayton, who didn’t have to be told he was being waved in for a solo. Twelve bars.

  A few hands applauded.

  SHOW YOUR LOVE

  “Check it,” Beat Box said to Clayton. “Step with us. Like this.” He, Boom Box, and the older kid with the fuzzy white Kangol cap stepped to the left, then slid-hopped and stepped to the right.

  “Get up,” Boom Box told him.

  Clayton got out of his seat and went to the end of their line. He bobbed first, the way he did when he kept the groove with the Bluesmen. The beat was simple enough, but he didn’t try the slide-hopping. Instead, he came in with his left foot, bobbed, then the right foot. The slide-hopping in between would work itself out eventually.

  Now that there was rhythm and music, Train Ear began the show. They were on the longest ride between stations. It was plenty enough time to put on a show.

  Train Ear ran down the aisle and swung himself around the pole. His legs whirligigged like blades, then they clamped around the pole, and he held up his hands to suspend himself like Spiderman. He grabbed the pole, lifted his feet up over his head, against the pole, and climbed down using his hands, until his palms were flat on the ground. With knees bent and both feet still above his head, Train Ear “hand-walked” backward and then forward, his sneakers just missing the faces and newspapers of a few riders. The train jerked and he kicked a woman’s book out of her hands. She picked her book up and continued to read, never once looking up.

  Those who looked on did so with mild fear, disgust, or boredom. No one was as impressed as Clayton. He had seen guys dancing on the train or on the street before, but he was never this close—and had never been in it.

  For most of the riders, it was one dance exhibition too many.

  “Show your love!” shouted the teen with the fuzzy white cap. “Show your love!” he said as he ran up and down the aisle with his cap out. Riders mostly looked away, kept their noses in books and newspapers. A few looked stiffly into the boy’s almost pleading face and just said, “No.”

  There was no love for Train Ear.

  As he stepped back with the line, the teen trying to collect money walked, or rolled, to the center of the car. To Clayton, it looked like he rolled, because his feet seemed to not leave the train floor. Everything about him was fluid. He didn’t jump out at the people, like Train Ear did. Instead, he kept himself to a small space, but seemed to make big, amazing things happen, like jump roping over his own arm. It was as if he had no skeleton at all.

  “Man! Did you see that?” Clayton said. “He’s got bones like jelly!”

  Beat Box knocked Clayton in the shoulder the way Clayton would have knocked Omar. “It’s showtime. Blow.”

  Clayton kept blowing and drawing in breath on his blues harp to the beat, but wondered what Omar was doing. If Omar looked for him during gym or in the lunchroom or if he’d try to hold a seat for him on the bus. His thoughts of Omar and school popped in and then out.

  “Jelly Bones” craned his neck like an Egyptian robot: his feet went left, arms in s’s, snaking left and right. He collapsed down to the ground, and wound his body upward like a cobra.

  Clayton caught on quickly and blew the snake-charmer tune. The lady who had dropped her book tried not to smile. But her toe tapped.

  Train Ear shouted, “Let’s hear it for my man!” The boys all hooted. And a few hands actually clapped.

  This time, when Jelly Bones walked the aisle with his fuzzy white cap, a few riders dropped in a dollar bill here and there, and some coins.

  Boom Box leapfrogged over his twin, jumping to the dance spot.

  Something had changed.

  Clayton felt it without looking to see what it was. It felt familiar. He knew exactly what it was. The love. Not the all-out love the people in the park had for Cool Papa Byrd and the Bluesmen. No one was going to shout “Do that dance, boy!” like they shouted “Play that thang!” to Cool Papa and the Bluesmen. But some of the annoyed, frightened, or unaffected faces now wore thin smiles.

  Clayton enjoyed playing to the beat. Or between the beats. He kept his ears open to answer Beat Box, and he kept his eyes on Boom Box, to give him notes to dance on.

  This dance was different. It wasn’t just steps and moves. Boom Box was telling a story. First, he ran a bunch of steps in place. With the jerking of the train, it seemed like he was running a race, his arms pumping, his knees hitting his chest, the train chugging. He looked over his right shoulder and then his left shoulder, like he was being chased. Then he ran in slow motion. He twisted his lips and bugged out his eyes in a mask of fear. He threw both hands up in the air, and stopped, like someone had shouted, “FREEZE!” But his motions went back to running a race, a million steps in place. And his chest went pop-lock, pop and lock, pop! And he fell to the ground. He crawled, reaching out to the pointed heel of one sitting lady, and mimed the word Help. Then he rolled onto his back, two legs up, then down. He was stiff and laid out.

  The boys marched around his laid-out body—with Clayton lagging behind, not sure what to do. On “one,” they bent down. On “two,” they grabbed the “dead” dancer and hoisted him up. Then they walked a slow, stiff march, like he was in a coffin and they were his pallbearers.

  Clayton played the death march. The one he heard on cartoons and at the end of old video games. But he kept the one and three hip-hop beat on the tune. Jelly Bones took off his fuzzy white cap out of respect for “the departed.” They marched slowly down the narrow train aisle, Jelly Bones holding out his cap to anyone who cared to throw in coins or a dollar.

  And then a man stuck a five-dollar bill at Clayton.

  Clayton almost stopped. He nodded to the man and took the five, letting his eyes smile, since his mouth was engaged in blowing and drawing. He passed the five to Train Ear, marched behind the others, and kept playing.

  BEAT BOYS

  The train pulled into the next station. Just as the train came to a complete stop, Train Ear shouted, “Beats out!” The “dead” boy came to life, ran and grabbed the boom box, and they began to crowd and push out of the opening train doors. Except for Clayton, who’d gone back to his seat.

  As the people rushed in, Train Ear stuck his head inside the car and yelled, “YO!” to Clayton.

  Clayton didn’t move.

  Train Ear shouted, “YO! YOU! Get off! Get off! Come on!”
/>   Beat Box, Boom Box, and Jelly Bones waved their arms and shouted at him. “Come on! Come on!”

  Ding-dong-ding. “Stand clear of the closing doors, please.” Ding-dong-ding.

  Clayton didn’t think. He got up and ran to the closing door, and then Train Ear, who blocked the doors with his skinny body, pulled him off the train.

  Ding-dong-ding. “Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”

  Clayton stood on the train platform, surrounded by Train Ear and the three boys. He’d given Train Ear the five-dollar bill. What more did they want?

  “Who you?” Train Ear asked.

  Clayton didn’t want to blink but he did. “Clayton,” he said. Look sharp. Be cool. “Byrd.”

  Beat Box started cawing, and the other boys joined in. “Caw! Caw! Caw!” They were so loud and crazy with their cawing and flapping, he knew what it meant to be surrounded by a murder of crows.

  “So show us what you got, Clay Bird,” the tallest teen said. “What’s in the bag?”

  Before Clayton could open his mouth, Jelly Bones and Boom Box grabbed the straps of his book bag and yanked it off his shoulders.

  “Hey!” Clayton said.

  “It’s light,” Jelly Bones said, giving it a shake before he tossed the blue bag to Train Ear.

  “No diggity,” Train Ear said. He shook the bag and tore open the zippers. Seventeen dollars. Now his. A peanut butter and cracker snack. He squeezed the little pack until the crackers crumbled and threw the orangey mush back in the bag.

  “Don’t you have school or something?” Train Ear asked. “Where’s your books?”

  “Who are you? My mama or something?” Clayton said this knowing his mother was a “mother” and not a “mama.”

  “Oh! Caw! Caw! Caw!” the others said.

  “Your mama! He said you his mama!” Beat Box said.

  Look sharp. Be cool. Don’t smile, he added to himself.

  Train Ear wasn’t cool, although he tried to play it off. He threw the book bag at Clayton’s feet, and when Clayton bent down to scoop it up, Train Ear swiped his hat, when he was tall enough to just take it.

  “Now I’m your pops,” Train Ear said, putting Cool Papa’s hat on his head.

  “Hey,” Clayton said again. “That’s mine.” He knew he had no chance of getting his money back, but the hat was altogether different.

  “Don’t worry, Clay Bird. I’ll give it back when I’m done.” Train Ear grinned. His face was roughly cut. What Cool Papa would have described as “hard pretty.” He seemed to like the hat.

  Clayton said, “All right,” even though it wasn’t all right. It wasn’t all right that the dude who probably hadn’t washed his thickly packed and matted hair in a month was killing the last of Cool Papa Byrd’s smell with his sweated-up head.

  “So what was that you were playing?” Train Ear asked. “A harmonica or something?”

  Clayton took the harmonica out of his pocket. A mistake, but he showed it anyway. “It’s a blues harp, man,” Clayton said. Cool Papa never called it a harmonica, although sometimes he called it a Mississippi saxophone. Clayton couldn’t see himself telling the tall, scary dancer that fact.

  “Blow something, man,” Jelly Bones said, mocking the way Clayton said “man,” which was Cool Papa’s way of saying “man.” “Make some noise!”

  Then the three boys—but not Train Ear—clapped their hands and did their hip-hop sliding step. One—cross left, then two—cross right. It wasn’t a blues beat. He couldn’t show them what he, Clayton Byrd on blues harp, really had to say, but he could play with the rhythm and speak their language. So he raised his blues harp to his lips to blow, but Train Ear snatched the silver bar from his hands.

  The three seemed to stop in mid-time-step. They looked up at Train Ear. “Whatcha doing?” Beat Box asked.

  “Hey, man!” Clayton said, reaching out for the harp. “That’s mine.”

  “No, Clay Bird,” Train Ear said. “It’s mine now.”

  “Then play it,” Clayton said.

  The three boys echoed, “Play it, play it, play it,” until Train Ear raised it to his mouth and blew. Hard. A high-pitched shriek ripped into the air. Another blow produced a squeal. He blew harder.

  The boys laughed, although they didn’t know what Clayton knew. That Train Ear was holding the blues harp with the wrong side up. After Clayton had made his first squeaks, Cool Papa showed him the tricks to knowing which side was up: Make sure the round bolts that welded the blues harp together were on top and not the square bolts. And that the numbers one through ten were always on the top side.

  Train Ear held the blues harp aloft, ready to throw it onto the tracks.

  “Wait!” Clayton said.

  “Why, Clay Bird?” Train Ear said. “Why should I wait?” He stepped closer to the edge of the platform, his arm in pitching motion.

  On the inside Clayton choked. Everything he felt, everything his blues harp was to him, was coiled around his rapid breathing. The thumping in his head. His hot red ears.

  “Because,” Beat Box said, “he keeps the beat.”

  “He makes some NOISE!” Boom Box said.

  “We got paid,” Jelly Bones said. “They,” he said of the train riders, “like his playing.”

  The others agreed. Clayton kept a beat and he made the right kind of noise.

  Clayton heard Cool Papa. Look sharp. Be cool. He shrugged and said, “It’s the only one I got.”

  “Come on, man,” Beat Box said.

  “Come on,” the others said. “Give it back.”

  Train Ear laughed. “Okay, Clay Bird. But you have to answer this one question.”

  “Shoot,” Clayton said. Furthermore, he didn’t want to be called Clay Bird—and from the way the boys cawed, he knew they saw a “bird.” Not a Byrd. He didn’t have his blues harp in his hand or in his pocket so he kept that observation to himself.

  “We’re the Beat Boys,” Train Ear said.

  “Beat Boys!” echoed around him.

  “MAKING NOISE—

  TO THEM, WE’RE INVISIBLE—

  MAKING NOISE—

  TO US, WE’RE INDIVISIBLE!”

  “So, are you down with us, Clay Bird?”

  Clayton looked up at his blues harp. His grandfather’s porkpie hat.

  “Down with us?” Beat Box asked.

  “Or get beat down?” Train Ear asked.

  Clayton was certain Train Ear would throw his blues harp onto the train tracks, but within him, he also knew the other Beat Boys wouldn’t give him a beatdown.

  But then Train Ear cocked his head. Tossed the blues harp to Clayton, who didn’t expect it, but caught it.

  “Nice catch,” Beat Box said, his eyes fixed on the blues harp. To Clayton, Beat Box seemed a little embarrassed, like he had been caught wanting something he couldn’t have. “Show me how to play that,” Beat Box both said and asked.

  Clayton shrugged, as if to say okay. But not right now, he told himself. He had just gotten his blues harp back, and he wasn’t ready to let go of it.

  “A stop away,” Train Ear said, his voice different. Not teasing and threatening. Serious. “Showtime.”

  Clayton pressed his ear to the air but couldn’t hear the oncoming rumble. He stuck his blues harp in his pocket and followed the Beat Boys to the other end of the platform.

  THE OPPOSITE OF BLUESMAN

  They like his playing. That was what Jelly Bones said. But what did that matter without his hat? He eyed the porkpie hat tilted on Train Ear’s squirrely head. Cool Papa’s words came back to him. I’m not raising you to be some cute kid. Those words were funny back then. Cute kid. But now he could see Cool Papa’s face and hear disgust in the hard K sounds. Cute kid. The opposite of a bluesman.

  Clayton rubbed his hands. A prickly feeling jumped to his ears. And then to his cheeks. He rubbed all over.

  Beat Box tapped him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Boom Box said, “Bedbugs.”

  “I don’t have no be
dbugs, man,” Clayton said. Just a feeling he couldn’t put into words, but a face he could see. Disgust he could hear, as if Cool Papa looked down on him from wherever he was. Is that who you are? A snake charmer? A cute kid blowing a harmonica, making the people smile? And his grandfather never called the blues harp a harmonica. Never.

  “Clay Bird’s one weird bird,” Boom Box said.

  “But he gets them tapping,” Jelly Bones said. “And dropping change.”

  Train Ear nodded. “He’s down with us. He’s ours. Right, Clay Bird?”

  “My hat, man,” Clayton said.

  They only laughed. Except Beat Box. He didn’t laugh.

  Headlights like bright eyes came around the dark bending tunnel. A train, to take him farther away from his plan. And yet, when the train pulled in, and the doors slid open, and the prickly feeling jumped to his knee, Clayton followed Beat Box, Boom Box, Jelly Bones, Train Ear—and Cool Papa’s porkpie hat—into the train car.

  He pulled his harp out of his pants pocket and wiped Train Ear’s spit and fingerprints off its body. To be sure, he wiped it again before sinking the blues harp deep into his mouth. He hated Train Ear. Hated him. And yet when it was time to play his part, he pulled air from deep down and blew.

  Train Ear’s arms were so long, he almost hit a man. That didn’t stop him from spreading his skinny arms wide and shouting, “EVERY RIDER, CLAP YOUR HANDS!”

  While the others shouted, “YOU HEARD HIM!”

  “EVERY RIDER, CLAP YOUR HANDS!”

  The Beats had scrambled to their posts, which wasn’t easy, since the train car was occupied. Every seat filled, every pole leaned on or clung to. The center of the train, the spot where Train Ear would do his backflips, pole spins, and whirligig legs, was already occupied by a man wearing a broken-down top hat and a once-black cape, and holding a wand. The magician had tapped the wand three times and was about to say “Abracadabra!” or whatever Clayton imagined magicians say as they pulled off their magic trick. But between the chanting, the harp chords, and the train rumble, the magician was losing his audience.