Thin Blue Smoke: A Novel About Music, Food, and Love

by Doug Worgul

  Everybody liked Shawn. He was a smart, funny, good-looking kid; a junior at Parker Academy—Kansas City’s high school for the performing arts—where he studied acting. All Shawn’s teachers and classmates said he had a real shot at a career in television or movies and almost all conversations with Shawn eventually provided him with an opportunity to mention this fact.

  Shawn was sitting at a table with some friends. A.B. waved at him. When Shawn didn’t wave back, A.B. went over to the table.

  “Shawn. How you doin’ Shawn?” Shawn looked up at A.B., unsmiling, his eyelids drooping.

  A.B. continued. “So? You diggin’ Mary’s blues, Shawn?”

  Shawn looked at his friends and grinned. “Sure,” he said. “I’m diggin’ Mary’s blues.” Shawn and his friends laughed. A.B. wasn’t sure what at.

  “Yeah, Mary’s great,” A.B. said. “She’s the real deal. And can you believe Pug? He’s awesome!”

  Shawn agreed. “Yes, sir! He’s awesome!” Shawn’s friends laughed harder.

  “Him and me work together,” A.B. informed Shawn’s friends. They nodded.

  There was an empty chair at Shawn’s table and A.B thought maybe Shawn would ask him to sit, but the invitation was not extended. A.B. decided that the chair must belong to one of Shawn’s friends who was probably in the men’s room.

  “So, anyways, I’ll see you at work on Monday,” A.B. said. “We’ll talk blues.”

  When Shawn came in late on Monday, A.B. handed him a stack of CDs. “Here, take these home and tell me how you like ‘em. There are some rare cuts on some of these. Pug helped me find them. They’re classics, man.”

  Shawn took the CDs. “Thanks,” he said. He put the CDs on top of the filing cabinet next to the time clock. Which is where A.B. found them when he was locking up the next night.

  When Shawn came in late on Wednesday, A.B. reminded him of the CDs. “Don’t forget to bring those home, man. You’ll love ‘em. I’m serious.”

  Shawn brought the CDs home and left them there for the next week, everyday of which A.B. asked him if he’d had a chance to listen to them. Finally, Shawn had had enough.

  “Look,” he said. “I haven’t listened to your CDs. And I’m not going to. I can’t stand the blues. It’s history. It’s old. It’s all ‘Oh, my baby left me. Don’t know what to do.’ It’s flaccid. The only reason I was there at that club was because I was writing a paper for school about African-American music traditions. It was an assignment is all. You and I got nothin’ to talk about. You got your thing going on, and I got mine. So leave me alone, man.”

  He walked off.

  A.B went out back for a smoke. His hands shook as he lit his cigarette.

  When he came back inside, Shawn was in the kitchen laughing with the busboy. There were customers lined up at the counter but Shawn didn’t seem to notice. A.B. didn’t say anything to Shawn. He just went over and started taking orders.

  McKenzie Nelson, the sales rep at KC.21, was first in line. She ordered a sausage sandwich, then paused before going to her table to wait for her order.

  “Forgive me for eavesdropping. But you can’t let that guy talk to you like that.”

  “What do you mean?” asked A.B., his cheeks on fire.

  “I mean, if you let an employee talk to you like that, everyone else on your crew will see that you’re a pushover. You can’t worry about your employees liking you. They’re your workers not your friends. You don’t need them to like you. You need them to respect you.”

  McKenzie went over to the soda machine and got herself a Diet Coke. A.B. tried to breathe.

  Later, LaVerne, who’d been out running errands, came looking for A.B., who was still working the counter.

  “What are you doing here?” LaVerne asked. “Isn’t that Shawn kid supposed to be working the counter today?”

  “I fired him, boss,” said A.B. “He was always late.”

  13

  September Night

  A young black woman in America in 1965 expected certain limits and impediments would be imposed on her by a society not yet convinced of her full humanity. But Angela Newton had not yet encountered many of those barriers, inasmuch as she had not yet broken through the barriers placed around her life by her parents.

  Angela was convinced that when physicists put forth the conundrum of the irresistible force and the immovable object they had her parents in mind. The former being her mother, the latter being her father. She was also certain that her mother and father were squeezing every ounce of independence and individuality right out of her.

  Graduation from high school—in most homes a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood—with its accompanying rights and responsibilities, did not in Angela’s case result in an appreciable increase in either. Her friends all had summer jobs and spent their summer nights cruising Swope Park. But Angela’s father, the Rev. Dr. Clarence E. Newton, senior pastor of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church, had forbidden her from working on the grounds that it was unnecessary and unseemly. Her mother, Alberta H. Newton, outlawed the cruising on general principles.

  Angela’s enrollment in college that fall also failed to loosen her parents’ restrictions. They insisted she live at home and that she observe a strict curfew. Because they were paying for her education, Angela felt she had little choice in the matter. She felt, in fact, that she had little choice in any matter.

  She attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City where she majored in English, with the objective of becoming a high school teacher or perhaps a school librarian. She was passionate about books and literature, especially English novels, and could not abide the thought of a child growing up without the joy of reading.

  The Rev. and Mrs. Clarence E. Newton had deeply entrenched beliefs regarding the proper role of a Christian young woman; specifically that she should present herself a willing and obedient servant to God by marrying a minister of the Gospel, bearing and raising his children, and supporting him in his ministry. But, above all else, a godly young woman must keep herself in all ways pure.

  Therefore, in the Newton household there were strict prohibitions to which Angela was expected to adhere without complaint. First, there was to be no sexual activity of any kind before marriage. Additionally there would be no drinking, no smoking, no swearing, no card playing, and no dancing; and no dating boys who engaged in any of the aforementioned. Which meant that there would be no dating, since there were no boys —not even those whose families attended New Jerusalem Baptist Church—who abstained from each and every one of these activities.

  *

  Rev. Newton was a respected leader in the General Baptist denomination, and every year, during the third week of September, Rev. and Mrs. Newton attended the annual General Baptist convention. When the children were young, the Newtons left them in the care of one of the families of the church when they went to the convention. When they were teenagers, they accompanied their parents to the gathering where they participated in Baptist Youth Fellowship events. But Angela’s brothers, Luke and James, were grown and gone and she had classes to attend, so this year the Newtons reluctantly left Angela at home when they left for their annual meeting, which that year was in Detroit.

  “Come right home after class,” Alberta Newton admonished her daughter as she kissed her good-bye on Wednesday morning. In the driveway Rev. Newton sounded the horn of his Oldsmobile. “I bought all the groceries you could possibly need. So just come right home and watch a little TV and study your books. You’ll be just fine.”

  “I’m not worried about being fine, Mama,” Angela said. “I know I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’m grown up now.”

  Angela did go right home on Wednesday and on Thursday, but on Friday after class she didn’t feel like going right home. The possibility of deciding for herself what she would do with her time, without having to explain or apologize for it, felt good. Sh
e decided to go to a movie.

  She had wanted to see The Sound of Music for a long time and when the movie was over she cried. Then she went to the ticket counter, bought another ticket and went back into the theater and watched it again.

  The next morning, Angela took the bus to the library; not to study or research an assignment for class, but to browse the stacks, flip through the pages of old atlases, read summaries of novels on brittle, yellowed, dust jackets and breathe in the musty, slightly mildewy air.

  She stayed so long that she forgot to eat lunch. When she left the library and stepped out into the cool late afternoon she realized she was hungry. She realized that she was, in fact, hungry for burnt ends. She boarded the Vine Street bus with Arthur Bryant’s in mind.

  Bryant’s was a Newton family favorite. Rev. Newton always ordered the ribs. Luke and Mrs. Newton preferred the brisket. And James and Angela liked the crispy smoky burnt ends, with a mountain of fries and a red pop. At the counter, Angela thought for a moment about ordering a beer, but decided against it.

  She took her tray into the crowded dining room. Virtually every seat was occupied, except for a chair at the end of one of the longer tables. At the other end of the table sat a skinny boy about her age. He was just starting in on a combo platter—burnt ends and brisket—with a mountain of fries and a beer.

  LaVerne Williams saw Angela as soon as she walked into the room. Slender, with a nice ‘fro, wire-rimmed glasses, and a shy smile.

  His season with Birmingham had ended earlier that week, and the Athletics had given him a bus ticket to Kansas City so he could meet some of the team and watch their last few games. He’d never been to Kansas City before and didn’t know much about it, but Blue Moon Odom, a pitcher who had just been called up from Lewiston, had recommended that he try Bryant’s, which LaVerne did primarily to compare it to the barbecue back home in Texas.

  “Please sit here,” he thought. “Please sit here.”

  Angela sat down and for the next fifteen minutes both she and LaVerne ate in silence studying the barbecue in front of them as if they were inspectors from the health department.

  “Please say something,” she thought. “Please say something.”

  Finally, LaVerne spoke up. “You live here? Here in Kansas City?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. She glanced at him then looked back down at her food.

  “I’m just visiting,” he said. “I’m with the Athletics’ organization.”

  He waited for a response but Angela had just taken a bite of burnt ends. He proceeded. “You like baseball?”

  Angela nodded, her mouth full. “I do,” she said, trying to swallow her food in a hurry. “My whole family does. My father saw to that. He’s maybe the biggest baseball fan in the world.”

  LaVerne wiped his hands on a napkin and extended his right hand across the table. “I’m LaVerne Williams. I’m from Plum Grove, Texas. Just north of Houston.”

  “I’m Angela. Angela Newton. I’m from right here in Kansas City.”

  She noticed that the palm of his hand was calloused, but the top of his hand was smooth and fine boned. His fingers were long and strong and graceful.

  He noticed that her handshake was tentative and that his fingers wrapped all the way around her hand and that her fingernails were the shape and color of almonds.

  They silently stared down at their food again, smiling and not very hungry for barbecue anymore.

  Finally LaVerne spoke up again. “So, you going to the game tonight?”

  “No,” said Angela. “But I read that Satchel Paige is going to be there.”

  “He’s not just going to be there, he’s going to pitch tonight. That’s just unbelievable,” said LaVerne. “Do you want to go? To the game I mean. I mean, can you go? Would you like to go? To the game. With me. Would you like to go to the game with me?”

  Angela said yes. She marveled at how easy it was to make up her own mind without giving a thought to what her parents would say.

  *

  It was the 25th of September. The Kansas City Athletics were hosting the Boston Red Sox. Angela and LaVerne sat behind the Athletics dugout with a few other prospects from the club’s farm teams. Blue Moon Odom waved to LaVerne on his way out to the bullpen. When he saw Angela sitting next to LaVerne he gave LaVerne the thumbs up sign and grinned. Angela blushed.

  The Athletics trotted out to their defensive positions and began warming up; tossing the ball around the bases. After a couple of minutes of this, Satchel Paige walked purposefully out to the mound and picked up the rosin bag. He was sixty-years-old.

  In a move that was one part charity, one part recognition of Satchel Paige’s genius, and yet another part gimmick, Charlie O. Finley had signed the old vet to a contract. This, together with the seasons he spent with Cleveland and St. Louis twelve years previous, would give Paige enough playing time in the majors to allow him to collect a pension. Finley also hoped a Salute to Satchel Paige Night would sell tickets.

  It didn’t sell many. There were only 9,289 diehard baseball fans in Municipal Stadium to watch Satchel Paige pitch. The Kansas City Athletics never drew much of a crowd. They were the worst team in baseball, perhaps the worst team ever. If God Himself had been the Athletics’ starting pitcher that night, there might not have been many more people in attendance.

  Paige retired the first two batters and murmurs of amusement tittered around the ballpark. Then Boston’s slugger, Carl Yastrzemski, smacked a double off the fence in left-center. A groan went up from the crowd. LaVerne told Angela that if he’d been out there he’d have caught that ball. The next batter fouled out.

  Satchel Paige befuddled the next six batters with his double-pump hesitation pitch, in which his right hand hovered over his head for just a bit longer than a batter thought it should, as if he were deciding whether or not to actually throw the ball. The old man had the crowd deep in the pocket of his glove.

  But Charlie Finley decided to end the stunt while the legend was intact. As the first Red Sox batter stepped up to the plate at the beginning of the fourth inning, the Athletics’ manager Haywood Sullivan signaled the bullpen and walked slowly out to the mound to relieve his starter. Together the two men walked back to the dugout. At the top step Satchel Paige removed his cap and bowed to the cheering crowd.

  In the clubhouse, Paige took off his uniform and sat in front of his locker in his long johns, staring at his feet. He heard the clatter of cleats in the tunnel and looked around. The batboy poked his head in the door.

  “Mr. Paige!” he yelled. “They want you out there. They’re calling for you.”

  The old man stood, pulled on his jersey and pants and returned to the field.

  The lights had been turned off, but the stadium was not dark. Little flames from thousands of matches flickered in the night. When the crowd saw Paige walk out onto the field they began singing the old folks favorite “Rockin’ Chair”:

  “Old rockin’ chair’s got me, cane by my side. Fetch me that gin, son, ‘fore I tan your hide.”

  Satchel Paige stood on the first baseline, stone still, and though no one could see it, he was smiling.

  Another song, “Darling, I Am Growing Old,” then floated out over the park:

  “My darling, you will be . . . always young and fair to me . . . silver threads among the gold.”

  Angela looked over at LaVerne. His eyes were filling up and his bottom lip trembled slightly. She turned away.

  Finally, the serenade concluded with “The Old Gray Mare”:

  “The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be, many long years ago.”

  Satchel Paige waved his cap to the crowd and walked back into the clubhouse in the dark.

  *

  When the game was over, neither Angela nor LaVerne wanted the night to end. They stayed in their seats as the stadium emptied until they were the only two
people left, except for the clean up crew that had started sweeping the beer bottles and popcorn cartons out from between the seats. Somebody had put the radio on the public address system. The Four Tops were singing “I Can’t Help Myself.”

  They were quiet for awhile, listening to the music. Then Angela spoke. “Thank you, LaVerne.”

  “No. Thank you,” he said. “Let me go down to the clubhouse and call you a cab. You shouldn’t take the bus at this hour.”

  “Can we just sit here for awhile longer?” Angela asked. “Maybe just talk for awhile?”

  They did talk. Angela told LaVerne about her two older brothers, Luke, who was in seminary in Chicago, and James, who had just taken a position as an associate pastor at a church in St. Louis, and how they had teased and tormented her when she was little, and how, when they were around she felt pretty and calm and safe.

  LaVerne told Angela about his mother Loretta and that she had been in prison off and on for most of his life and how he didn’t really know much about her and how he didn’t know who his father was and that his mother didn’t know either.

  He told her about his grandmother Rose and how hard she worked at Raylon Rice and Milling to keep him fed and clothed and how she made sure he went to church each Sunday at Plum Grove Second Baptist Church and how on hot Texas nights the two of them would sit outside on her porch and drink lemonade and listen to the radio.

  Angela told LaVerne that she missed her best friend Lucille who had left two weeks earlier to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C. and that Lucille wanted to be a lawyer and that she had met Thurgood Marshall. She told him about the brainy boy her age at New Jerusalem Baptist Church with the nappy hair and the one eye that looked in one direction and the other eye that looked in the other direction and how he had a crush on her, and even though she knew it wasn’t Christian of her she wished his family would find another church to attend.