The Ragtime Kid

by Larry Karp

  Tom Ireland clearly had no intention of even touching the key head. He placed the money-clip gently into Joplin’s hand. Saunders waved a general good-bye and headed for the door. Joplin strode back to the piano, sat on the bench, took a deep, deep breath. Then he shot his cuffs and began to write.

  ***

  Late-afternoon business was slow at the John Stark and Son Music Store. A few customers browsed the sheet-music racks, and two colored men toward the rear of the shop looked over a banjo. Behind the glass counter just inside the doorway and to the right, the proprietor sat drowsing, regretting the big slice of apple pie he’d added to his lunch. He glanced down at the bulge beneath the lower part of his vest. Of all a man’s appetites, he thought, only the one for food stays with him as he gets older. Damn! In just two years, he’d be sixty. He’d heard it said that sixty-year-old men should be chloroformed. Maybe there was something to that.

  He blinked his eyes open as two men came through the doorway into the shop and walked up to the counter. The younger man tipped his derby, showing a full head of thick, dark hair, parted directly in the middle. “Afternoon, sir.”

  Stark blinked one more time, then nodded. “Good afternoon to you.”

  “My name is Charles Daniels,” the man said. “I’m with Carl Hoffman, Kansas City. And this is my, uh, associate, Mr. Elmo Freitag.”

  Stark shook the outstretched hands, first Daniels’, then Freitag’s. “I am most pleased to meet you, sir,” the big man said. His voice was full and melodious, but the hint of magnolias was more than offset by an unmistakable whiff of second-hand booze.

  Stark turned back to Daniels. “Hoffman, eh? We sell a great deal of your music. New salesman, are you?”

  Freitag let go a hootch-scented guffaw. Daniels didn’t seem bothered. “No,” he said. “I’m a sales agent and demonstrator for Hoffman—”

  “‘Margery,’” Stark broke in. “You’re the young man who wrote ‘Margery’ last year, aren’t you? Fine tune. We sold a great many copies.”

  Daniels looked pleased, no surprise to Stark. “I’m glad to hear that. I do write music, yes, but my first responsibility is to find good tunes for Mr. Hoffman. That’s why Mr. Freitag and I are in Sedalia. We’re looking for your son. Will.”

  “Will’s in St. Louis now,” said Stark. “So I guess you’re stuck with me.”

  At that point, the two Negroes walked up from the back of the store. One, an older man, slightly stooped and favoring his left foot, wore torn overalls and a ragged blue shirt; he carried the banjo the two had been examining. The other colored man, darker by several degrees than Otis Saunders but lighter than Scott Joplin, was slim, about fifty, with shiny, tightly kinked black hair, and was dressed neatly in an open-collar white shirt and black trousers. He walked behind the counter, to the register, took money from the man with the banjo and rang up the sale.

  As the customer limped through the doorway into the street, Daniels and Freitag looked at each other. Freitag laughed again. “Times must be mighty good in Sedalia,” he boomed. “If a nigger can afford to buy a banjo in a white man’s store, and another nigger has a white man’s job, waiting on him.”

  Stark wondered if the day would ever come when he would not have to listen to that talk. “This is Mr. Isaac Stark,” he snapped. “My associate. Mr. Stark, these are Mr. Daniels and Mr. Freitag, from Carl Hoffman in Kay Cee.”

  Daniels reached to clasp Isaac’s hand. Freitag kept his hands at his sides. “Isaac Stark?” he growled.

  “That’s right,” John Stark said. “Mister Isaac Stark. We have the same last name.”

  Isaac smiled through tight lips.

  “Where I come from,” Freitag said, “there ain’t no niggers get called Mister.”

  “Then you’d better go back where you come from,” said John Stark.

  “Would if I could.” Freitag’s tone was surprisingly affable, almost off-handed. “But where I come from ain’t there no more, thanks to Mr. Lincoln and Mr. U. S. Grant.”

  “That’s a good thing, I’d say, and not something I can help you with. Nor would I if I could.” Above the edge of his beard, John Stark was livid. “Now, you’ll please remember that in my store, this man is Mr. Stark. And that he’s a Negro, if you need to comment on that at all.”

  Daniels jumped forward, in front of Freitag; Stark saw him kick the big man on the shin. “Mr. Stark, as I said, I came to talk with your son, but if he isn’t here, I would like to talk to you.”

  Stark noticed the change from we to I.

  “The actual reason I came out to Sedalia was to see Scott Joplin. Do you know him?”

  “Certainly. He’s a fine young man, and a very talented musician.”

  “He’s also a very talented composer. You may know, we brought out a piece by him earlier this year, ‘Original Rags,’ and we’d like to publish the work he’s doing now, a ballet called The Ragtime Dance.” Daniels leaned forward and lowered his voice, like he was about to pass along some important secret of state. “Ragtime’s the coming thing in popular music, Mr. Stark—you must hear people talking in your shop. Joplin’s got maybe fifteen different rag tunes in this ballet of his. I want to set them up into separate pieces and publish them one at a time. If they catch on, maybe someone will stage a performance. And then Hoffman could put out a folio.”

  Stark wondered if he’d missed an important point somewhere. “That’s well and good, but I don’t understand why you’re talking to me about it. Why don’t you discuss the matter with Mr. Joplin?”

  From behind Daniels, Freitag let go another snort. Daniels gave him another, backward, kick. “I just did. Or, maybe I should say I tried talking to him. I offered what I thought were generous terms, three hundred dollars for the whole work. But Scott said he won’t publish unless he gets a royalties contract and retains performance rights.”

  Stark smiled more widely than strictly necessary. “Well, good for him. Sounds like he wants a cut of the profits. What’s wrong with that?”

  Freitag pushed past Daniels. “What’s wrong is that Hoffman ain’t about to give royalties to some piss ant Knee-grow composer who thinks he’s the whole cheese. And anyway…” A sly smile spread across his face. “Joplin’s got himself a bug up the ass on account of Charlie’s name was on ‘Original Rags’ as the arranger. Dumb coon, he ought to fall down on his knees and kiss Charlie’s feet for all the time Charlie spent making those chicken-scratches over into something a white man could read and play.”

  Stark glanced at Isaac, then leaned across the counter and stuck his face right into Freitag’s. “A man who talks like that is not welcome in my store. You come in stinking of liquor, insult my associate, who is your superior in every respect I can imagine…now, sir, you will apologize.” He swept a hand toward Isaac. “Or you will get yourself out of my store, right now. I may be twenty years older than you, but I’m capable of giving you the thrashing you deserve. And I’d be only too glad to do it.”

  Charlie Daniels sighed, deep, loud, long. That old man was built like a tree trunk. Daniels didn’t doubt for an instant that he could and would pound Freitag, that moron, within an inch of his life if matters didn’t get squared away fast. And that would be the end of any possibility of hitching horses with Will Stark over Joplin’s music. Daniels had his mouth open, ready to apologize for his associate’s talk, but Freitag, who’d taken a step backward, out of Stark’s immediate reach, spoke first. His piggy eyes shone with cunning. “Now, then, Mr. Stark, let’s not get ourselves all hot under the collar. War’s been over near-on thirty-five years. Time to get yourself out of that blue uniform.”

  Stark didn’t miss a beat. “Nor will I ever. Not while there are such as you still contaminating the earth with your claptrap.”

  To Daniels, the air in the store felt heavy, like right before a major storm. Freitag grunted, or maybe he was trying to cover over a belch, but then, of all things, he laughed out loud. “You really did fight in that war, didn�
��t you, Pops.”

  “I most certainly did,” Stark snapped. “I enlisted right after Fort Sumter, and I wasn’t mustered out ’til January of ’66. Indiana, Company B, First Heavy Artillery. Now, sir, I am still waiting for you to apologize to my associate here.”

  But Freitag all of a sudden looked like a man having an attack of apoplexy. At the mention of Stark’s military service, the salesman’s face went near-purple. A blood vessel pounded over his left temple; his eyes bugged. He swallowed hard, a choking sound. “Indiana, Company B… You were in Mobile, then.”

  “At the end of the war, yes.”

  “My daddy died in Mobile. Right about the end of the war.”

  Stark thought the man might be accusing him personally of causing his father’s death. “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Freitag. Many good men died in that war…because some of those men believed it was right and moral to keep human beings as slaves.”

  Freitag bit at his lower lip. Finally, he seemed to get hold of himself. He swallowed again, then set his skimmer straight on his head and thrust his chin into Stark’s face. “Wasn’t just men who died, Mr. Stark. We had us a way of life where every man and woman knew what was their place, and did their proper part. Emancipation? Might as well have passed a law that said you had to set your farm animals free and let ’em fend for themselves. A whole lot of good Emancipation did for these poor colored. On my daddy’s farm, they had work and a roof over their heads and good food to eat. They got took damn good care of. They were safe and they were happy.”

  He’s serious, Stark thought. He believes every word he’s saying.

  But Freitag wasn’t finished. “All kinds of scientists’ve proved that brains from colored’re smaller than a white man’s. Colored can’t any more look after themselves than a horse or a dog could. Turnin’ ’em loose in the world was a cruel thing to do.” He pointed at Isaac. “Take your boy there—how’s it come to pass that he’s gotta work for you, huh? Why doesn’t he have his own store…and maybe you work for him? I say he’s lucky he found you, ’cause if you weren’t looking after him, he’d be dirty and hungry and begging on the streets. That’s what my father died for, Mister! To try and stop Mr. Lincoln from destroying a good way of life.”

  “If it was so good,” Stark said quietly, “why did slaves run off whenever they could?”

  Freitag’s face asked how Stark could be so thickheaded. “Sometimes children run off, right? ’Cause they don’t understand. And then you gotta bring ’em back and give ’em such punishment so they don’t think of doing it again. I’ll warrant you didn’t let your children run wild as they pleased when they were small, now, did you?”

  Stark felt worn out. Years ago, that talk enraged him, but now it seemed like his bucket had gone dry. He privately dismissed his own demand for an apology to Isaac; even if it came, it wouldn’t mean anything. He waved a weary hand. Enough.

  Daniels picked right up, took Freitag by the shoulders, steered him toward the door. “Go get yourself a drink, Elmo,” Daniels whispered. “The train’s at six-thirty-three. I’ll meet you at the depot.”

  As the big man disappeared out the doorway and around the corner, Daniels blurted, “Listen, Mr. Stark, I’m sorry. Elmo doesn’t speak for me, not in any way.” He turned to face Isaac. “He works under me, so I will apologize for what he said. That’s not the way I talk to anyone, colored or white, and I’m sincerely embarrassed. My first job in the morning will be to talk to Mr. Hoffman, and if Freitag’s still working for him after that, I won’t be.”

  Isaac nodded. “That’s generous of you, Mr. Daniels, but a man don’t need to apologize, except for what he says or does himself. But I do appreciate what you say.”

  Stark looked around at the big clock up on the wall behind him. “We close in ten minutes,” he said to Daniels. “Perhaps you can tell me just why you’re here, and how I might help you.”

  Daniels took in a big breath, then let it out slowly. “Joplin was firm about royalties, and not having anyone’s name but his own on the cover. He said he’d been talking to Will, and that Will is inclined to give him the sort of arrangement he wants. But I didn’t know you were into music publishing.”

  News to Stark, though he was not about to let Daniels know that. “Well, a good businessman always looks for opportunity, Mr. Daniels; isn’t that so? But to tell the truth, I’m not sure just what arrangements Will might have made with Joplin. You know how it is with young men.”

  Daniels’ cheeks flamed. Isaac chuckled.

  “I guess you really do need to speak to Will when he’s back from St. Louis.”

  “I’d like that very much, Mr. Stark. If he really is considering publishing Joplin’s music, he might be better off cooperating with a firm as well established as Carl Hoffman, rather than competing with us. I think it would be to everyone’s benefit, Joplin’s included.”

  “I will tell my son you were by.” Stark looked almost amused. “And I’ll give him your message.”

  Daniels tapped a finger on the counter. “Thank you, sir.”

  Stark extended his hand, and they shook.

  The two Starks watched Daniels walk out. “Guess Will and I need to have a talk,” Stark said.

  Isaac flashed him a big grin.

  “Publishing music’s a tough affair.” Isaac thought Stark sounded like he might be talking to himself. “We did print up a couple of tunes once, didn’t we, back when Will first got the notion to publish. And I don’t remember that they did awfully well.”

  “No, they didn’t.” Isaac frowned. “But them two tunes… Mr. Stark, you know you ain’t never gonna make good cheese outa chalk. Not to mention, we didn’t exactly give those tunes any great push.”

  “Well, but that’s part of the problem. It’s not enough for a music publisher to figure out what pieces to print and how many copies, he’s got to go out to shops and push his line, one day after another. Today’s hit is tomorrow’s history. We’ve already got a music publisher in town, and I don’t see Austin Perry moving into a mansion. Let Perry—or Daniels there, for that matter—do all that doggoned leg work and take those risks. I’ll just go on selling their sheets, and we’ll see who comes out better. This store’s done very well for my family and me. Won’t be long and I’ll be retired, and then it’ll all be up to Will. If he’s got publishing fancies, then he can take that fling.”

  “We both of us know he’s gonna do just that,” Isaac said. “On’y question is when. All of the time he spendin’ in St. Lou these last few months, talkin’ with printers and pokin’ around in the big music stores? That Will’s a real go-getter, always was. He ain’t never been satisfied walking on a trail somebody else cut out.”

  Little chuckle from Stark. “I’m afraid you’re right, Isaac. He’s not thirty yet. Lord, when I was his age…”

  Isaac noticed that suddenly Stark stood straighter, all the slump gone from his shoulders, his blue eyes bright and clear. He seemed to drop twenty years the way a man might take off an overcoat. But then he sagged again. “I’m coming up on sixty, Isaac. That’s not when a man ought to be taking new risks in life.”

  “Oh, stop that talk now, Mr. Stark.” Isaac was disgusted. “You got plenty good years left.”

  “Go on.” Stark waved Isaac’s words out the door into the street. “Old people need to make room for the young, not get in their way. Another year or two, I’ll be ready for the rocking chair.”

  Isaac seemed ready to argue the point further, but then changed course. “Did you see how that man looked when you told him where you served in the War?”

  Stark nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “I hate sayin’ it, Mr. Stark, but I hope we ain’t got us some trouble.”

  Stark glanced at the shotgun under the counter, then turned weary eyes on Isaac. “Maybe not…I hope not. Blast it, I’m too old for any more trouble.”

  Silence between the two men. Then Isaac said, “Mr. Stark, ain’t nobody in this world
too old for trouble.”

  Chapter Three

  El Reno, Oklahoma

  Sunday, July 16, 1899

  Early morning

  Brun Campbell found himself sitting up in bed, wide awake. The little alarm clock his father had gotten him so he wouldn’t be late for work told him it was a few minutes past one. As suddenly as he’d awakened, he realized he’d somehow come to a decision, a big one. He was going to run away.

  Close to a year now since he’d met Otis Saunders in Oklahoma City, and it had been the worst year of his life. Schoolwork, chores, his old friends—none existed for him any more. There was only ragtime music. He played “Maple Leaf Rag” on the piano, over and over and over, struggled with rhythm breaks, fumbled with shifted and shifting accents, fiddled with the bass line. And the more he worked over the tune, the more he heard himself falling short. Like starting to read a book about something you figure is pretty well cut and dried, but the further you get into it, the more you see you really don’t know.

  All through that long winter of ’ninety-eight into ’ninety-nine, Brun bought every ragtime music sheet he could find in El Reno, not a whole lot. “Mississippi Rag,” by someone named William Krell, couldn’t hold a candle to “Maple Leaf.” But he liked “Harlem Rag,” a tune with a good driving bass, written by a colored man from St. Louis, Tom Turpin. He worked his way through Ben Harney’s Ragtime Instructor, but in the end he felt disappointed. Harney’s exercises were no more than a bunch of different songs decked out in syncopation, and “Annie Laurie,” even with her beats shifted, could not begin to compare in Brun’s mind with “Maple Leaf Rag.” Come spring, he found a copy of “Original Rags,” by Scott Joplin, published by Carl Hoffman Music Company in Kansas City. He couldn’t run home fast enough, but when he played the music, he felt a bit disappointed. Not quite up to “Maple Leaf,” he thought, but a fair bit of likeness, and both tunes different somehow from Tom Turpin’s piece.