Jack of Diamonds

by Bryce Courtenay

  I was too young or gauche to know how to react, so, instead of thanking him for the compliment, I said, ‘Sorry, sir.’

  He gave me a knowing grin. ‘Can’t speak for the missus and the girls, but I reckon you’re doing great. I liked it when you used to sing, you’ve got a real nice voice, Jack. But the harmonica makes a nice change from the records; goddamn gramophone drives me crazy.’ He smiled again. ‘Jack, I like the way you push the beat, put some oomph into the music. I like jazz. “Alexander’s Ragtime—”’

  ‘Jazz?’ I’d never heard the word.

  ‘Black man’s music, from America.’

  I’d seen one or two black people on the street, but I’d never met one, and was surprised to learn that different coloured people had different music. ‘Do black people have black music?’ I asked, curious.

  ‘I’ll say!’ he replied, obviously enthusiastic.

  My mother called the Iroquois songs I sang with her folk songs, but because they were just tunes, they didn’t count in my mind as real music. Now Mac was talking about jazz music that belonged to American black people.

  ‘You can hear it at the Jazz Warehouse on Dundas Street, not far from Yonge Street. Take you if you like,’ he offered.

  I instinctively glanced upstairs.

  ‘No, no, tomorrow.’ He glanced up too. ‘It’s quilting night. They’ll leave for St Enoch’s just before four o’clock. What say we take off about half past? Plenty of time to catch the jam session.’

  ‘What’s a jam session?’

  ‘Oh, it’s when the musicians play for themselves. We’ll just stand outside and listen. I know just the spot.’

  Jazz, black people’s music, jam session, and all happening in some warehouse on Dundas Street, not far from the street where the Mission handed out free beef sandwiches, tea and milk. It was close enough for us to walk there, no more than half an hour away, so we wouldn’t need money for the streetcar. ‘That would be great, thank you, sir,’ I said formally.

  ‘Good. Bring your instrument, Jack.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Mouth . . . er, harmonica.’

  Instrument! Mac was treating me like I was a proper musician. The timing was good – I wouldn’t have to tell my mom – and I knew I was safe with Mac, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  The following afternoon when my mother gave me my supper I was having trouble concentrating.

  ‘What’s the matter with you today, Jack? Cat got yer tongue?’ she asked, after I’d failed to answer yet another question. ‘You’re jumpy as a jackass!’

  I wanted to tell her, but then again I didn’t. I knew she liked Mac and was grateful when he fixed her snow boots, but he was still one of ‘them upstairs’ and she might be worried about Dolly’s reaction should she find out Mac was mixing with the enemy. ‘We had an exam today,’ I said, ‘it was hard.’ This wasn’t the truth – the exam hadn’t been difficult at all – but afterwards some of the brighter girls said they’d found it hard, so I was only half fibbing.

  ‘Oh, Jack, you’re such a clever boy, I’m sure it will be all right,’ she replied, dismissing my concern as she piled my plate with mashed potato and boiled cabbage. ‘Eat up. Maybe I’ll manage a soup bone from the butcher tomorrow. Never know, eh?’

  I felt a bit ashamed because I knew she trusted me completely.

  After my mom left for work, I got ready for the grand adventure. It was late November and already pretty chilly. We’d be returning after sunset and so I packed several sheets of newspaper inside my shirt – more than I probably needed, but this way I wouldn’t crackle as I walked. Then I put on my big overcoat (the charity lady, Mrs Sopworth, had been right, I had grown into it), my winter cap with padded flaps that covered my ears, and a pair of knitted gloves (same charity lady). I felt a bit overdressed for the time of the year, but walking to the library two days previously a chilly November wind had blown up around six o’clock, and Mac had mentioned that we’d be standing outside. I hated the cold. I decided that when I was grown up I was going to live in the South Seas or somewhere like Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday lived.

  I was ready twenty minutes before I heard Mac coming down the stairs into the front hallway. I met him at our door, which led off the foyer directly into our kitchen. ‘Thank you, sir, for asking me,’ I said.

  Mac chuckled. ‘Let’s get it straight from the beginning, Jack. I’ll call you Jack and you call me Mac and we can be buddies, right?’

  I nodded, not quite knowing how to reply. Mister or sir was how kids addressed adults. ‘I’ll try . . . ah, Mac.’

  ‘It’s just that all the folk that love jazz think of themselves as the same,’ he explained. ‘We don’t use our names to address each other – kids and grown-ups, we call each other “brother” or “sister”. We all . . .’ he hesitated a split second then spoke out of the corner of his mouth, stretching his words, ‘Jes jazz fans, man! Yeah, you can say that again, Brother Jack!’ He grinned. ‘That’s how we talk.’ He patted me on the shoulder and continued. ‘I hope you’re gonna be one of us, Brother Jack. The harmonica is a natural jazz instrument.’ He grinned again. ‘Yeah, man, Brother Jack, I’ve got a distinct feelin’ you are gonna take to jazz music like a duck to water, my good man.’

  Mac obviously liked to talk in what I suppose was meant to be black people’s language, but my ear told me it was sort of phoney, so I didn’t try to copy it.

  As we walked along Dundas Street you could hear music coming from this big warehouse, its timber walls practically vibrating with the volume. It sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before.

  Outside, there were several groups of young people huddled together against the cold, their feet tapping and their bodies swaying to the music. Some had their eyes closed.

  ‘Come on, Jack, too cold to stand with the brothers and sisters. I know a place where we can be warm.’ Mac led me behind the building to a small shed directly alongside a set of eight wooden steps leading to a red door. Three pipes ran from the shed into the building, each of them wrapped in burlap and tied with wire to keep the heat in.

  ‘Boiler room,’ Mac said, pointing to the shed as he walked over to the steps and ducked under them, indicating that I should follow. Lucky we were both small; there was just sufficient room for us to sit with our knees practically up to our chins. But here’s the thing: the hot-water pipes formed a barrier on one side of the steps, and I noticed the burlap had been neatly removed on the inside of the pipes, and the heat made it cosy as anything.

  Mac pointed to the pipes. ‘I did that last winter. Makes it nice and warm in here.’ He raised his voice above the music. ‘Don’t touch, hot as hell.’

  If this was jazz, I knew almost immediately that I loved it. I liked the rhythm and the wail of the saxophone, and the driving compulsive beat. This music wasn’t slow and tired like on the records upstairs, or pronounced and disciplined like a military band, but came at me urgently; it jumped and barked and wailed, hammering into my consciousness. Then it would go smooth all of a sudden and make you smile. It was ‘speaking music’. While I hadn’t yet learned its language, I knew I must. Black people’s music it might be, but it went straight to my white heart and soul. I’d discovered what was to become my first true obsession.

  The jam session continued until seven, when, Mac said, the musicians stopped to have their evening meal and a rest before the club opened. On the way home he explained the concept of a nightclub. ‘It opens at nine o’clock most evenings and closes at one in the morning, sometimes even later.’

  ‘But who would go to such a place?’ I asked, mystified.

  ‘Oh, rich people and people in business entertaining their clients after they’ve had dinner in a restaurant.’ He said it as if he knew all about such things.

  My mother cleaned offices, so the term ‘business’ was vaguely familiar to me, but I’d never imagined the people who dirtied the offices, or realised they ate in restaurants and visited places like the Jazz Warehouse. Rich people, I knew
, could do anything they liked and were not like us. I’d never been inside a restaurant. I don’t think Mac knew much about businessmen and clients and restaurants either, because all he volunteered when I asked him to explain further was, ‘It’s called nightlife. They’re night people.’

  I thought about this for a few moments then asked, ‘Are all black people rich?’

  Mac laughed. ‘No, Jack. The only black people at the Jazz Warehouse are the musicians, and they’re definitely not rich. They come from across the border: New York, Chicago, other places in America.’

  ‘Have you been inside?’

  ‘Oh, yes, a year ago, the last decent job I had. Miss Frostbite bought all these old couches and chesterfields – nice, mostly turn of the century, Edwardian and earlier, Victorian maybe – she wanted them upholstered in purple velvet.’

  ‘Miss Frostbite! Is that her real name?’ I asked, surprised.

  He shrugged. ‘It’s what her staff and the musicians call her.’

  ‘For real or behind her back?’

  ‘No, it’s said friendly-like and she doesn’t seem to mind as long as it’s staff and musicians and workmen like me who call her that. Mind you, Miss Frostbite is not a bad nickname for her.’ He turned his head and grinned. ‘Believe you me, that lady . . . man, she ain’t nobody’s pushover, nosirree, def-fin-nitely!’ he said in the new jazz accent. Then, speaking normal Canadian again, he added, ‘They all say she’s hard as nails and I’ll admit she didn’t give me a cent I didn’t earn twice over. She wanted receipts for everything I bought: upholstery studs, lining material, sets of springs, edging tape, tacks . . . every goddamned little thing! She drives a hard bargain, but she always paid me in cash at the end of each week, and in these hard times that was good enough for me. She also told me I done a good job and took my name and address.’

  ‘So, what’s her real name? It can’t really be Miss Frostbite, can it?’

  ‘To tell the truth, Jack, I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But her customers call her Fairy Floss. So do those young people you saw standing outside, listening to the jam session. It’s a name I believe she got from the soldiers in the Great War when she was a nightclub singer. She was young and very beautiful then. She still plays the piano; she’s got an act with an old black guy. I’m told it’s very good, but not jazz. I haven’t seen or heard it. It’s not a part of the afternoon jam session.

  ‘Doing her couches is how I got to know about the jam sessions. She insists her musicians practise every afternoon. It’s become a ritual. Late summer afternoons and early evenings, lots of people gather, young ones mostly, but not all, some like me. They come directly from their work. Those we saw today probably don’t have jobs. We’re all true jazz lovers, the brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Miss Frostbite doesn’t mind? You said she was hard as nails.’

  ‘Nah, I think Miss Frostbite does it just for us, the fans standing outside. When I was doing the upholstery, I once heard her telling a visiting musician how much she loves jazz, that it’s in her heart and soul. He was an American saxophone player. I reckon she invented these afternoon rehearsals to bring jazz to Toronto. She wants everyone to enjoy jazz. She wouldn’t stop them for anything. She knows most of her paying patrons prefer her two-piano act with the old guy, they don’t come to hear the jazz. She and the old guy perform twice a night for almost an hour, and the jazz is just in between. But she’d never admit she’s being kind and generous to the brothers and sisters outside. I expect it’s a tough job running a nightclub and she don’t want to be seen to be someone you can take advantage of.’

  I didn’t quite know how to ask my next question. I had read Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mom and I had cried and cried, but I was, of course, too young to see it as an indictment of racial prejudice. So although I knew about black slavery in America, I never connected it with Canada because, as far as I knew, we didn’t have slaves. Still, even at the age of eight, I knew that most white Canadians didn’t have a good word to say about anyone who wasn’t white. My dad’s opinion of black people was probably very little different from that of most people in Cabbagetown and perhaps the rest of Canada. Asians – ‘Japs and Chinks’ – as well as Indians from the subcontinent, were all considered to be a lower form of life by most white Canadians. My dad called black people ‘Dirty fuckin’ niggers’. So how then could Miss Frostbite invite black musicians to play in the Jazz Warehouse? Wouldn’t people object? If we were going to be brothers and sisters and talk from the side of our mouths and be make-believe black men, was that maybe against the law or something?

  ‘You said black musicians come from America to play.’

  ‘Yeah, guest artists.’

  ‘Is that allowed?’

  ‘You mean segregation?’

  I’d never heard the word segregation before.

  ‘It means keeping coloured people out of restaurants and other places,’ he explained, seeing my puzzled expression.

  ‘Yeah. My dad calls them niggers and says they’re scum, the lowest.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you see, that’s just people. Miss Frostbite don’t buy it. Nosirree, she don’t! In the entrance to the Jazz Warehouse she has this notice.’ He sketched the lines in the air as he spoke.

  ‘Warning!

  When you enter

  the Jazz Warehouse

  you become colour blind!’

  That’s what I liked about Mac. As he’d promised, he talked to me like we were buddies and I was a grown-up and not some dumb kid. I was grateful for all the reading I’d done because it made me quite a good grown-up talker. Besides, my mom and I always spoke to each other as equals.

  We arrived home around half-past seven, a good hour before Mac said Dolly and the twins got back from quilting. When I asked him about quilting, he said he’d saved scraps of material from his upholstery for years before the Depression when he used to have lots of work. Dolly made quilts, which she’d then sell. But now, with the Depression, people seldom, if ever, bought one. Still, she was teaching the twins and other women from St Enoch’s Presbyterian Church how to make them. I admit I was surprised she’d do a kind thing like that for other people. I’d have liked to sleep under a nice warm quilt.

  ‘So, what do you think, Jack? Did you enjoy that?’ Mac asked, smiling. I think he already knew the answer.

  I grinned. ‘You can say that again, Brother Mac!’ Then we shook hands.

  ‘I did too! It was a real nice night, eh?’ He hesitated. ‘Like to do it another time?’

  ‘You bet,’ I replied.

  Tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t, I have to go to the library.’

  ‘Friday? I can do Friday.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mac.’

  ‘Bring your instrument.’

  I’d taken it with me that afternoon but there hadn’t been any point. ‘Why?’ I now asked.

  ‘Don’t you want to play jazz on that harmonica?’

  I stared at him in amazement.

  ‘Jack, I know you have a good ear. I’ve heard you picking up tunes from the gramophone in no time.’

  ‘Do you think I could? I mean really, really?’

  ‘Well, naturally not at first, not until you work out the chords and what have you. But if you practise on the spot, I do believe you could, Jack.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Well, I’d be practising and messing things up and it would spoil the jam session for you.’

  Mac laughed. ‘If it does, I’ll go stand with the brothers and sisters. There’s a group I stand with in the summer.’ He paused. ‘Mind, I wouldn’t be there always. I get an occasional upholstery job and sometimes a day’s work from the labour line, and that always involves overtime. The foreman only picks a handful and you often have to work an extra two hours without pay, sometimes more.’

  ‘That’s not fair. My dad says, “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but he has
a regular job,’ Mac said without malice. Then he added, ‘But, hey, you can’t complain, it’s work, a day’s pay.’ He glanced up automatically. ‘They’ll be home soon. Better be going, get the spuds on.’

  ‘Thanks again, Mac.’

  ‘Goodnight, Jack.’ We shook hands once more, like proper grown-ups.

  Inside I took off my boots and climbed into bed with my coat still on. I had two-and-a-half hours to go before my mom got home. Now I found myself in a real quandary. I got out my harmonica, but I didn’t want to play any of the old music, not even ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’, and I didn’t know how to play this new stuff that had made my heart pound and my feet tap involuntarily. It was music that got into your ear so you couldn’t think about anything other than jazz rhythm. I tried to sound some of the notes I’d heard, just a bar or two, and I finally managed a sustained wail from the harmonica, but it was pretty pathetic.

  Thinking it might help to stop the sounds reverberating in my head, I grabbed my book, The Last of the Mohicans, but I was near the end and half an hour later I’d finished it. Almost immediately, the music returned once more. The jam session had somehow got stuck in my head, and I was trying to pick it apart and bring some sense of order to it without any understanding of the underlying principles. I’d never heard of anyone making up music on the spot. Instruments came in solo, played a few bars and then faded out with only the drummer continuing to beat the time, then the others merged back in and all of it made perfect musical sense.

  However, one thing I knew for certain was that now Mac had suggested I take my harmonica, I’d be going back to the Jazz Warehouse as often as I could, even if it was every weekday except my library days. Reading was something I could never give up, but I persuaded myself there would still be plenty of time to read at night. Besides, after three hours my lips were too sore to play. If I could spend two hours playing under the steps at the back of the Jazz Warehouse and then another hour at home, perhaps I might one day learn how to play jazz.