The Ragtime Kid

by Larry Karp

  One after the other, every head at that dinner table turned Brun Campbell’s way. If the boy had felt right at home a minute before, now he felt as much an outsider as a person possibly could. He cleared his throat, getting ready to apologize for something he might have said, but Mrs. Stark was quicker to speak. “I’m sorry, Mr. Campbell. We are being rude. The fact is, Isaac and Mr. Stark go back a very long way, and some people don’t take too well to that. Which means the Starks have never been the most highly regarded citizens of any town we’ve lived in. Mr. Stark told me about the way you punched that boy who was kicking Isaac, and that was very good and brave of you. But we’ve not seen the end of the matter. You likely don’t know just what you’ve let yourself in for, coming to work for Mr. Stark.”

  She turned to look at her husband, said nothing, didn’t need to. Brun had seen that look pass many times between his mother and father. A response was expected.

  Stark sighed. “You tell him, Sarah. You’re the story teller in this family.”

  Mrs. Stark’s face lit. “Well, then. Here’s the way it was. I’ve already told you, Mr. Stark courted and married me in New Orleans, and then his regiment was sent to guard Mobile Bay. The war was almost over then, everyone knew it, but the worse it looked for the Southerners, the more determined they were to spill every drop of Yankee blood they could. Even after the war ended, there were those who would not lay down their arms. One day, Mr. Stark’s regiment went out on maneuvers outside Mobile, and what should happen but a young Negro boy ran up and told them they were walking into an ambush. A bunch of rebels were hiding behind a knoll down the way, waiting to gun down every last Union soldier. So the troops changed their course, snuck up behind those rebels, and the ones they didn’t kill, they took prisoner. Not a single Union soldier was even hurt. They started to march the prisoners back to Mobile, but couldn’t decide what to do about the colored boy. If they let him march back into Mobile with them, they’d have stirred up the population something awful. And if they sent him away, they were afraid he might fall into the hands of other raiders who’d force him to betray the Union regiment. So the captain ordered Mr. Stark to take the boy out into the woods and shoot him.”

  Just what Freitag had said. Brun gasped. Mrs. Stark’s eyes commenced to shine. “But Mr. Stark would have none of that. He couldn’t refuse the order, of course, but he was not about to shoot down a boy who’d saved his life and those of his comrades. So, he took Isaac out into the woods, told him the situation, fired a few shots, and then they both ran. They trooped all the way to New Orleans, more than a hundred miles, traveled mostly at night, slept in fields and forests during daytime, shot game or stole food. They came into the city under cover of darkness, and went straight to my mother’s house. Mama was sitting up with a shotgun because we didn’t dare sleep all at the same time. It was only a month after Appomattox, and there were those in our neighborhood who called me traitor and made threats. The steamboats had just starting running up the Mississippi again, so next morning, Mama got dressed in her Sunday finest to go talk to the captain of one of the steamers…” Mrs. Stark took a few seconds to enjoy the scene she’d just painted. “Mama was never short on blarney herself, not by any manner of means. She paid my passage and Isaac’s—”

  Brun laughed. “Your leprechaun.”

  Mrs. Stark laughed along. “Yes, that’s right. Mother told the captain he was my servant, and we needed to go to Indiana for me to join my husband. So the next day, we boarded the steamer George Jackson.” Mrs. Stark looked at Isaac, who’d begun to laugh quietly. “There I was, all got up as a fine young Southern woman of sixteen, with my fifteen-year-old leprechaun-servant carrying my husband’s pistol under his shirt in case trouble found us. But early that morning, before we went…” She paused, not laughing now. “Mr. Stark gave Isaac that gun, and told him to shoot him in the leg, just give him a flesh wound. Isaac didn’t want to do it, but I’ve never known anyone who could say no and make it stick when Mr. Stark said yes. My brother and sister helped Mr. Stark get to the army hospital. He told them he’d been ambushed by rebels near Mobile, that they’d taken away a colored boy and hung him, and forced Mr. Stark to come to New Orleans, where the rebs were going to use him as a decoy to ambush a Union patrol, just like what almost happened at Mobile. But right outside the city, he managed to get away, though the rebs shot him in the leg. He stayed in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and once he was healed, they sent him back to his regiment. The next January, when he was mustered out, he came right up to Etilmon’s, and we have all been together since—which is why our neighbors have always told stories about us, better ones by far than I could ever make up. And after the way you behaved yesterday, Mr. Campbell, you likely will soon find yourself included in those stories.”

  In the privacy of his mind, Brun cursed Freitag. The boy considered what a marvel it was, the way two people could tell the exact same story, and have it come out so different. Just because something’s a fact doesn’t necessarily make it truth. “I’d be honored to be included, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Stark beamed. “We’re pleased to have you, just so long as you come in with your eyes open.” She pushed away from the table. “Well, then, Mr. Campbell, I hope you’ve saved room for coffee, and a piece of my apple pie and vanilla ice cream.”

  “If it’s anything like my mother’s,” Brun said, “I’d never say no to a second slice. And Mrs. Stark, it would please me most mightily if you’d call me Brun.”

  Isaac pounded one fist into the other. “Sen-a-tor Brun. I do believe you are elected.”

  Brun thanked him, but the boy had no wish to be elected senator. Vice-president of Stark and Son Music Publishers would do just fine. Even better, vice-president of Stark and Campbell.

  After coffee and two helpings of apple pie, the company repaired to the living room. A small black spring-powered fan on an oak table did its best to keep the close, muggy air moving, but the poor thing was overmatched. The men sweated, the women perspired, and everyone just went on with their business. Mr. and Mrs. Stark and Isaac listened to Nell and Brun take turns at the piano. It occurred to the boy that in most homes, whether in Sedalia or just about anyplace else, playing the piano on the Lord’s day was ample cause for a whipping. But in most homes then, one of the hostess’ first questions of a guest would have been which church did he attend, and no Stark had posed him that question. Nor did the boy see a Bible on a table, or an image of a crucified man surrounded by winged creatures hanging on a wall.

  Brun thought Nell played a beautiful piano, but especially on ragtime did her skill surprise him. She seemed to let the music play her. Like Joplin did. Listening to Nell follow his own playing of “Maple Leaf Rag,” Brun felt humbled, and when she finished, he applauded with gusto. “Miss Nell, you take the cake for fair. You’ve cut me so bad, I don’t think I have any blood left. Where did you ever learn to play that music?”

  Nell laughed. Most young women would have said, “Oh, Mr. Campbell, you are flattering me shamelessly. My piano playing can’t hold a candle to your own.” But Nell didn’t pretend modesty. “We came here to Sedalia just after I turned eleven, so I grew up right along with ragtime. But don’t be discouraged. When you’ve been playing ragtime for as long as I have, I’m sure you’ll be just as good.”

  Stark cleared his throat. “Nell, it didn’t hurt that you got lessons from Scott Joplin, on and off for four years. Whenever he and you both happened to be in town.”

  “I’d never deny that, Papa. Mr. Joplin helped me tremendously. And I’m sure he’ll be just as much help to Mr. Campbell.”

  This Miss Nell was some handful, Brun thought. Coming up on thirty, still a spinster, maybe no wonder about that. She’d not only taken ragtime piano lessons, she’d taken them from a colored man. “Miss Nell, how on earth did you ever…I mean, you didn’t go down to the Maple Leaf Club—”

  She cut him off with an unladylike guffaw. “The Maple Leaf Club started up only last year. Mr
. Joplin came to our home to give me lessons.”

  So a colored man had come regularly to a white house to give piano lessons to the young daughter. Not as far outside the proprieties as the idea of that girl going to a colored club for lessons, but still way beyond what was conventionally thought seemly those days. But then, here was Isaac, sitting in the parlor after dinner, a family member who lived in another house only because maybe there were limits that even the Starks needed to observe.

  ***

  By the time Brun had made thanks to his hosts and set off for Higdon’s, it was near on seven o’clock, a warm summer Sunday evening, laziest time of the week. Full of good food and beer, the boy walked slowly down Fifth to Ohio, then turned north. Any other time of the week, there would be bustle on that street, all the sights and noises of commerce, but right now the town looked dead. The only sounds of human activity Brun heard came through the open windows of churches he strolled past. Evening services, vespers.

  At Third, he turned left and started walking toward Liberty Park. Every step raised clouds of tan roadside dirt. One of the little yellow streetcars rumbled past, chock-full of young people on their way back from an afternoon at the park. Through the open windows, Brun heard raucous singing: “Sometimes Pa says with a frown, soon you’ll have to settle down, have to wear your wedding gown, be the strictest wife in town…Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay.” A laughing girl his age gripped the window edge and leaned far out to wave a bright blue hat at him. He waved back, but with less than full enthusiasm. Sunday night seemed the worst time to be by yourself in a new town.

  Not many people still in the park when Brun got there. He walked through a stand of maples to a small grassy hillside near the lake, folded his jacket on the ground and stretched out, his head on the jacket, and watched clouds drift across the pale blue sky. Unlike those clouds, Brun Campbell was moving fast, and with a particular direction in mind. Mrs. Stark had asked him back to dinner the next Sunday, as good a sign as he could’ve hoped for. Mr. Stark was giving him a great opportunity, but he needed to watch his step; no-nonsense men like Mr. Stark generally expect other people to behave as well as they do. Generous with opportunities, such men are miserly with second chances. Brun wondered whether he might be able to get Scott Joplin to let Stark and Son publish his music, but then the clouds took over, and the boy fell sound asleep.

  ***

  After Brun left Stark’s, Isaac walked out and down to the vestibule, then came back brandishing a dark, heavy club. Three pairs of eyes widened. “This’s why I be late to dinner.” Then he told the Starks about his set-to with Emil Alteneder earlier that afternoon.

  Stark shook his head sadly. “This is not going to end well, at least for someone.”

  “You’ll stay here tonight!”

  Isaac looked at Sarah Stark, seemed about to say something, then chuckled. “Ain’t no point, me tryin’ to argue, is there?”

  “No,” Sarah said. “None at all.”

  ***

  Walter Overstreet heard the knock, tried to pretend he hadn’t, but knew it was no use. “I’m coming,” he shouted, then pushed himself out of the soft armchair, trudged to the door, let Bob Higdon in. Without a word, the doctor ushered his visitor into his office, flopped into his desk chair, and pulled the bottle and two glasses from the little cabinet. “Join me?”

  Higdon nodded. From across the desk, the lawyer studied Overstreet’s bloodshot eyes, his fluttering lids. “Sorry to have to bother you, Doc.”

  Overstreet leaned across the desk to hand Higdon the glass, two inches of brown liquid at its bottom. “I couldn’t talk to you earlier because I had to get over to the Katy Hospital, one of the yard men got his leg and pelvis crushed.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Luther Jensen?”

  Higdon shook his head. “No. Did you get him through?”

  Overstreet downed his drink in one swallow. Higdon wondered how the man managed to get through one day after another after another, running full tilt, but always a half-step behind Death. He took a sip from his glass, then said, “Sorry.”

  The doctor poured himself another drink. “Left a wife, two months pregnant, and a little girl, three. No family to take them in. I can get her a job in the kitchen at Sicher’s Hotel, but then, when she starts showing… Well, we’ve got a month or two to think about that. I gave her twenty dollars for now.” He slammed down the second drink, poured a third.

  Higdon thought about Fitzgerald, that pathetic, ineffectual bag of Southern manners. He also had a wife and a small child—what would happen to them? The lawyer imagined himself looking up at a scaffold as the sheriff fitted a noose around Edward Fitzgerald’s neck. At least Jensen’s family could count on some charity from the yard workers and their families. Who ever tried to help the family of a convicted murderer?

  Higdon set down his glass. “I’ll try not to keep you too long, Doc. I’m representing the man they picked up in connection with that young woman who was strangled last Tuesday night. Can you tell me what you found when you examined her?”

  Overstreet slowly sank back into his chair, closed his eyes, then blinked them open. “Somebody did a real job on her. Bruises all around the neck, and her trachea and larynx were shattered. Whoever killed her was strong as the deuce.”

  “And that’s all you found?”

  “I’m afraid so…but wait a minute. Talking about Mrs. Jensen reminds me. The dead woman was two months pregnant.”

  Higdon sat up straight. “You’re sure of that? Two months?”

  “Easy enough to tell.” Hoarse laugh. “Ed Love was a little more difficult. He wanted to know what color the baby was. But yes, you can figure two months, though I don’t know how that would help your client. He could have been with her in some other town, two months ago.”

  Higdon made a wry face. “You ever think of taking up the law, Doc?”

  Overstreet’s reply was instant. “I’d take my life first.”

  ***

  When Brun woke, it was dark. Cotton in his head, a dry, salty taste in his mouth. He stumbled to his feet, then picked up his jacket, made his way down the hill to the lake, washed his face, and headed back up the hill and into town. As he came up on Ohio, he heard noise, loud shouting, and stepped up his pace. From the corner of Ohio and Third, he saw a crowd up a few blocks, on Main Street, and past the knot of people, an orange light in the sky. Fire. In Lincolnville, north of Main.

  He ran up the street to the mob. Everyone he saw was white, and as the group shifted and pulsated, it took care to stay on the proper side of the railroad tracks. “What happened?” Brun shouted, but the only answer he got was “Fire in Lincolnville.” No one seemed to know what was burning. When he asked whether the fire department had gone out, a man he took for a drummer stranded in Sedalia over a Sunday, laughed and said, “Fire department? Whatever are you thinkin’, boy? You suppose a white volunteer fireman oughta go’n risk his life for a nigger’s house?” A woman at his side spoke up. “We’ve got a paid fire department in Sedalia, and they go to any fire, anyplace.” “Well,” said the drummer. “Then you’re a bigger bunch of fools than I took you for.”

  Brun turned to leave, but at the edge of the crowd, he almost walked straight into Elmo Freitag, grinning to show all the teeth in his mouth. “Well, now, if it ain’t young Master Campbell. You got a pretty mean right cross, you know that? That boy you hit yesterday still ain’t eating or saying a whole lot.”

  Brun looked around. Emil Alteneder stood like a stone statue just to Freitag’s left, and he wasn’t close to smiling. Arms crossed over his chest, eyes sizzling, he glared at Brun. “Fat pig that kid is, it won’t hurt him to go without food a while,” Brun said, keeping a good eye on Alteneder. “And considering what-all he likes to say, it won’t be so bad for him to keep his trap shut a while, either.”

  Freitag looked like Brun had just barely managed to amuse him. “You’ve got a good mouth on you, all right, Master Campbell.
Just you better keep watch nobody messes it up.”

  Brun glanced at Alteneder. “That a threat?”

  “No, boy. Just a little warning, friend to friend.”

  “I don’t think you’re my friend.”

  Freitag shrugged. “Your loss.” He jerked a finger back toward the fire. “Too bad about that nigger’s house—it’s gonna burn right to the ground. Won’t be a thing left, inside or out, and his dog’s gonna get cooked up nice and juicy. It’s a real mistake to tie up a dog inside of a house, ’cause you never can tell, can you, when there’s gonna be a fire. But then, a nigger’ll eat anything he can get into a stew pot, possum, squirrel, ’coon, whatever. Bet he’ll think roasted dog is damn fine eatin’.”

  Alteneder let out a gargle of a laugh. In the dim streetlight, Freitag’s face was aglow. His eyes fairly shone. Despite the warm night air, the joy on the man’s face set Brun to shivering.

  “Good thing the nigger and his li’l girl weren’t in there when the fire hit, ain’t it? Otherwise, they’d be just as cooked as their dog.”

  “Isaac…” It was out of Brun’s mouth before he realized he’d even thought it.

  “Oh, yes. Yes indeed. Mr. Isaac Stark. That’s his house burning. You didn’t know that, huh?”

  “Nobody here seems to,” Brun said. “Except you. I wonder how it is you know.”

  Freitag threw back his head and laughed like a maniac. A well-dressed man and woman stared at him a moment, then quickly moved away. Alteneder stepped forward; Brun got a whiff of coal oil and smoke. Freitag coughed his guffaw down to a snide chuckle, then said, “Well, now, Master Campbell, is that some kind of threat.”

  Brun thought about telling him, no, just a warning, but he was already off and running, down Ohio to Fifth, to Stark’s, up the stairs, banging at the door, shouting. John Stark let him in and took him directly to the back porch; at the sight of him, Isaac’s eyes opened wide, and Mrs. Stark clutched at her throat. By the time the boy finished his story, Isaac was halfway to the door, but Stark told the colored man to sit tight and cool down. “Nothing to do now.” Each word clipped cleanly, right at the edge. “Going into that crowd would be foolish at best.”