The Ragtime Kid

by Larry Karp

  Isaac took a moment to think matters through, then slowly went back to his chair. “He burn’ my dog! I never tie Buster up in the house, he was in the yard like always. What kind of a man is it, do a thing like that?”

  Mrs. Stark walked over to Isaac and rested a hand on his shoulder. Brun thought if they were giving out guns before a battle, Mrs. Stark would be at the head of the line.

  “A man like this Freitag tends to run up pretty long tabs himself,” Stark said. “Soon or late, I believe we’re going to have to collect.”

  Chapter Ten

  Sedalia

  Monday, July 24, 1899

  Joplin and Weiss were so engaged in their discourse as they walked out of Myers’ Drug Store, they bumped square into Emil and Fritz Alteneder. Emil shoved Joplin to the side, and growled, “Hey, nigger, watch where you’re going. You better learn and learn fast about givin’ way to a white man.” He turned a hot-eye on Weiss. “Same goes for fat old white fools who like to go walkin’ with niggers.”

  Joplin thought they’d been set up, the whole business staged, but no matter. Emil obviously expected a reply, though his son appeared to be more interested in getting inside the store to find relief for his swollen eye and bruised mouth. Most people hurried past, but a few waited to see what was going to happen. “I beg your pardon,” Joplin said. “I wasn’t looking, and I’m sorry I bumped you.”

  He watched the wind go out of Emil’s sails. Whatever the man had expected was not what he’d got. “Well, okay, then,” he grumbled. “See you don’t let it happen again.”

  “Come on, Pa.” Fritz’s plea was somewhere between whining and mumbling.

  Joplin and Weiss began to move off, but Alteneder called after them, “I ain’t done with you yet. One way or another, you’re gonna sell that music of yours to Mr. Freitag. If you’re smart, you’ll get paid decent. If not…” Emil shrugged, and showed his few teeth in a nasty smile.

  Joplin took a step away, but Emil went after him. “Nigger, a white man talks to you, you don’t just up and walk off.” He grabbed at Joplin’s coat, but Weiss moved with surprising speed to get between the two. Joplin heard a torrent of angry German words, the only one of which he recognized was schwein. Then, Weiss took him by the arm. “Let’s go, Scott.”

  Joplin had never seen his teacher so angry. When they got to the next corner, he asked what Weiss had said to Alteneder. Weiss reddened. “Just that he was a pig, a disgrace to Germany. And if he ever puts a hand on you again, I will cut off his penis and his testicles and feed them to dogs in the street.”

  ***

  At Stark’s that afternoon, Brun had an abundance of time to play the piano. He thought the lively tunes he knocked out ought to bring crowds into the store, but most passersby just stopped briefly, tightened their lips or shook their heads, and walked along. Shortly before closing, six or seven little boys came up to the doorway, stuck their thumbs in their ears, wiggled their fingers, crossed their eyes, and yelled, “Yah, Stark! Nigger-lover!” Brun took a step toward them, and they scattered.

  About four o’clock, Stark told Isaac to take off the rest of the day. Not long after he’d left, a sunburned pear of a man in farmer’s overalls, bald-headed and unshaved, duckwalked through the doorway. Brun asked could he be of help, but the man pushed past him like he wasn’t standing there. Just ambled up to the counter, and shouted through the open door to Stark’s office, “Hey, Stark, know what I just heard? They lynched that nigger, Embree. Took him away from the sheriff was bringin’ him back from Kansas, stripped off his clothes, laid on the lash ’til he was all over bloody welts, and then put a rope ’round his neck, threw the other end over a tree limb and raised him up so he choked real slow. Had more’n five hundred people watchin’. What do you think of that, huh?”

  Brun’s stomach rocked. He tried to remember where he’d herad about that business. Stark turned in his chair to face the man. “I thought Governor Stephens gave the Kansas governor assurance the man would be brought back safely to stand trial.”

  Now it came back to Brun. The newspaper article he’d read in the Boston Café at breakfast.

  The big man laughed. “Jeez, Stark, you are a daisy. Waste all that time and money on a trial? An’ then what if he breaks jail? Ain’t but one way to deal with bad niggers, ’cause if they don’t know for God’s truth they’re gonna get themselves strung up, no white woman’ll be safe anywhere, never mind little girls. Damn good thing you ain’t responsible for nothing except runnin’ a music store.”

  Stark got up slowly, walked to the counter, reached underneath, and came up pointing the shotgun at the big man. He waggled the barrel in the direction of the door. “Get out.”

  The man looked like he might call Stark’s bluff, but moved away, probably a smart call, considering the look on Stark’s face.

  “Come in here and talk like that again, you won’t walk away,” Stark called to the man’s back. He replaced the gun, walked back into his office and sat at his desk. Brun quickly found some music sheets that needed to be put into the racks.

  ***

  Back at Higdon’s after work, Brun spotted Luella in the yard, taking down the wash. Just like his mother, a wooden clothespin in her mouth, folding a towel with one hand, while the other hand pulled a sheet off the line. Meanwhile, clothespins, one after the last, dropped neatly into a little wooden box on the ground. A trick women were born knowing how to do? Brun believed he could practice ’til the cows came home and he’d still have clean wash all over the ground and clothespins across hell’s half acre.

  When Luella noticed her audience, she got the clothespin out of her mouth in jig time. “Hi, Brun.” She waved the towel like a flag. “I got you all nice, clean towels and sheets—this is Monday.”

  Just one more funny way of women. Sleep on a sheet for a week, or use a towel for that long, a man won’t see anything wrong with it, but to a woman’s eye it’s dirty, no room for discussion. Brun said a proper thank-you, then waited until Luella had all the wash down, and carried the basket inside for her. She looked up at him like he’d pulled a sword and killed a dragon that was going to eat up all the sheets and towels.

  At dinner, talk turned to the previous night’s Lincolnville fire, after which Brun told about the goings-on at the store that afternoon. Higdon looked grim. “I’m concerned for Isaac,” he said. “And John Stark, for that matter. Rabble-rousers like Freitag know just how to get others to do their dirty work for them, while they keep their own hands nice and clean.”

  Luella, who hadn’t said a word to that point, put down her fork, and said, “Brun…” in that tone women use that tells a man trouble’s moving in fast. “Let’s you and me walk over to church after supper, and say a prayer for Mr. Stark and Isaac.”

  Brun scratched at his head. “Well, truth, Miss Luella, I’m really not much for praying. Last time I was in church was when I was baptized.”

  “But you were baptized.”

  But I was only a month old, Brun thought, so I couldn’t do a whole lot about it. But neither could he manage to say that to Luella. Her face had gone all bright and smiling. “I know what, Brun. You walk me to the church, and I’ll say a prayer.”

  Belle’s expression and Higdon’s told Brun they both were on to Luella’s game. He felt sorry for the girl. “All right,” he said. “I’m game to do that.” At which, Higdon’s body relaxed, and Brun thought Belle wanted to put her arms around him and give him a hug.

  After dinner and after the dishes were cleaned, off the young couple went across Sixth, Luella’s hand linked into Brun’s elbow, while she prattled away about what a comfort it was for a person to know they were saved, and that whatever happened in this life, all would be well afterwards when Jesus himself would personally welcome them into his kingdom. Brun listened politely. In front of the Central Presbyterian Church, he made ready to wait outside, but Luella would have none of that. “Oh, Brun, come on in with me. You can just sit there, you don’
t have to pray. Why, you look like you’re afraid.”

  “Well, ’course I’m not afraid.”

  Brun took her arm and escorted her up the walk and into the church. It was dark, cool and quiet, and the boy admitted to himself, if with some considerable reluctance, that it gave him kind of a peaceful feeling. Luella led him up to the back pew, and he sat and listened while she went through the rigmarole, addressing Jesus like he was some kind of old friend, then invoking his blessing and protection on Mr. John Stark and his whole family, and Isaac Stark and little Belinda, colored though they were. Brun couldn’t help but think of Jesus being like an operator on one of those telephone switchboards, headphones over his ears, hooking up one supplicant after another to God, local and long-distance, world without end. Brun’s Ma always told him to trust in the Lord, and the boy considered that if a person could believe in the Lord in the first place, it probably did make sense to figure He’d call the best shot, and put all that praying time to more practical use.

  Luella prayed not more than five minutes, and as Brun led her back outside, he asked whether she’d like to take another walk through town. The look on her face caused him to wonder if that actually might’ve been what she was praying for. “Let’s go up Lamine to Second,” he said. “Then we can cut over to Ohio, and walk back to Sixth.”

  He’d rather have gone as far as Main, but knew there would be hell to pay back at Higdon’s if Luella burbled about how they’d gone walking across Main Street, especially coming on dark. In any case, the girl seemed to have gotten the religion out of her system for the time being, and as they strolled up Lamine, she talked on about how she really didn’t want to go back to Kansas City in the fall, and maybe she’d ask Uncle Bob to talk to her father and let her stay on in Sedalia. “Sedalia’s lots nicer than Kansas City, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Belle are so good to me. And now that you’re here…”

  Brun commenced to shed considerably more sweat than the weather could have justified. Going for walks, hand in arm, two nights out of three, put him close to being a beau. Stay away from Liberty Park, he told himself. Don’t let her even think you might want to take her sparking. Thirteen was old enough to be married, and breach of promise was a serious affair. A young man could get himself a life sentence, no parole, by saying something he didn’t really mean, or intended a different way.

  As the young couple came up on Third Street, a rough voice startled Brun out of his thoughts. “Hey-a, young mister and young lady. No you go walkin’ down in that alley.”

  It was Romulus Marcantonio, a raggedy Italian with a big bushy mustache and dark eyes that made him look sorry he’d ever left Italy. Romulus pushed a wagon around town all day, hollering, “Ice-kadeem, ice-kadeem.” He leaned against the wall of Glass’ Wholesale Liquors, wobbling, weaving, as he waved a wine bottle to punctuate his warning. Luella moved closer to Brun, whether out of genuine fear or just opportunity. “He’s all right,” Brun whispered. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody.” Brun cupped his hands around his mouth. “What’d you say, Romulus?”

  The Italian tipped a stained brown fedora toward Luella. “I wisha you a good-evening, young lady.” Then he wagged a finger at Brun. “You no take-a this nice young lady walkin’ down da alley-there. Not safe. Got ghosts.”

  Luella put a hand to her mouth. “Come on, Romulus,” Brun said. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  The Italian came right back. “What you say, boy, there ain’t no ghosts? Well, you wrong. That place, there, it’s-a haunted. Once-a time I’m standin’ right here an’ I see those ghosts, an’ I run for my life. I no mess-a with no ghosts, no sir. No more I go over there after dark, not for nothin’.”

  “Probably got the DTs and has himself scared silly,” Brun whispered to Luella. Romulus took a stagger-step, came close to dropping his bottle, and in recovering it, nearly went face-down in the street. If he had, Brun thought, he’d tell the next people by that a ghost had pushed him. “Okay, Romulus, thanks,” Brun said. “We’re not going down that alley, not for nothing. We’ll go up and walk across Second.”

  “You welcome. An’ stay this side of the street,” Romulus called after them.

  “Thanks, we will,” Brun shouted over his shoulder.

  They strolled past the Post Office, crossed at the corner of Second and walked past Kaiser’s Hotel. After a quick look into Mr. Bard’s jewelry-store window, they went along to Ohio, then turned south. As they passed the Boston Café, Luella flashed such a look of longing that Brun told himself what the hell, steered her inside, and bought her another ice-cream soda. The way she looked at him, face to face over their straws, reminded him of Wendell, the little cocker pup his parents gave him on his seventh birthday. Wendell got run over by a wagon when Brun was nine.

  Back at Higdon’s, Belle took Luella off to the kitchen to pit cherries. Higdon was nowhere to be seen. Brun went out back to the screened porch, rolled a cigarette and lit up. Thinking about Romulus Marcantonio and his ghosts, he laughed. Italians are so superstitious, anyone could tell you that, and they can be as hysterical as women. Besides, Romulus had been drunk. Maybe he had a bad dream and didn’t even know he was sleeping.

  ***

  Next day at the end of Brun’s lesson, Scott Joplin allowed that he was pleased with his pupil’s progress, but still wasn’t altogether satisfied. “When you keep watch on yourself, you come close. But then you get into the music, and you sound like any barrelhouse player, da-d’-da, da-d’-da, da-d’-da. Your technique is good, but if you want to play my ragtime, you need to develop a better feeling for the music.”

  Professor Weiss had sat quietly through the lesson, but now he spoke up. “What you gotta do, Brunnie, is to develop that ear inside of your head. Scott says you play like a barrelhouse pianist, and that’s because maybe you hear the barrelhouse players in your own head. Have you ever been to a concert with a classical pianist?”

  Brun shook his head. “No, sir. Never.”

  “Ah, see!” Weiss turned to Joplin. “That’s the problem. You never was at a concert either, Scott, but you heard me all the time play classical music at Rodgerses’. I would play Brahms and Beethoven, remember? And then you would learn them yourself. Listen, Brunnie, I tell you what. You have a piano where you live, yes? To practice on?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. Then I will come there tonight, say, eight o’clock? It’s all right? I’ll bring music and play for you, and then maybe your ear can start hearing classical instead of barrelhouse.”

  “I’ll ask Mr. Higdon,” Brun said. “But I’m pretty sure he won’t mind.”

  As Brun put two quarters into Joplin’s right hand, the Negro slowly raised his left hand, all the while squeezing a rubber ball, one-two, one-two. “And meanwhile, remember—”

  Brun pulled his own rubber ball from his pocket. “I haven’t forgotten, Mr. Joplin. And I won’t.”

  The dark man nodded. “Good.”

  ***

  Brun stopped by Higdon’s office to tell him of Weiss’ offer. Higdon smiled. “I’ll let Belle and Luella know. A European musical salon in their own house, they’ll be thrilled.” He winked at the boy. “I suspect we’ll benefit by more than the music.”

  Just past twelve, enough time for Brun to get in a little practicing before lunch. On his way to Higdon’s, he squeezed his rubber ball, right, left, right, left. Keep this up, he’d have some real muscle in his hands and arms. He thought how strong Scott Joplin’s hands and arms must be after years of squeezing a ball. Strong enough, he wondered, to strangle a woman and break her neck?

  ***

  Higdon was right on target about the side benefits of the evening concert. When Weiss arrived at Higdon’s, there was a tray of gorgeous iced cakes and a pot of coffee on the low table in the living room. Brun introduced Weiss all around, they had refreshments, and then the German arranged himself on the piano bench and began to play. Brahms and Beethoven, as promised, also Chopin, Bach and Liszt. In between s
elections, Weiss dispensed bits of advice. “You see, my boy, every pianist plays the same notes from the score, but in spite of that, every player does sound different, yes? So, how can this be? For one thing, they use different dynamics, that gives the music color and flavor, sometimes even surprises. They try variations of tempo. And for a repeat passage—Scott’s ragtime has got lots of those—you can go up an octave, see? Makes it sound lighter, like in an orchestra where a whole different group of instruments comes in.”

  Through the hour-long concert, Luella sat at Brun’s side, eyes like pie plates, her mouth open fit to catch flies. After Weiss finished the last piece, a hectic Chopin polonaise, the company applauded, and the girl leaned and whispered into Brun’s ear, “Oh, Brun…isn’t it beautiful?”

  He could hear the unsaid part of the comment: “Not like that trashy ragtime you play all the time.” He gave the girl a smile he knew would settle the matter, but he also knew classical music would never touch his heart anywhere near the way ragtime did. Still, he vowed he’d do his best while he practiced his trashy ragtime to think of how Mr. Weiss played Beethoven’s piano sonata and Bach’s Toccata. Not that he cared whether Luella might like it better. But Scott Joplin might.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sedalia

  Tuesday, July 25, 1899

  A little before one next afternoon, Brun walked up to the front door of Stark and Son, but before he could get inside, Fritz Alteneder, sucking on a half-lemon, rushed up to plant himself in Brun’s path. Fritz pulled the lemon from his mouth and threw it on the ground. “You think you’re pretty hot stuff, don’t you, kid? Well, you’re gonna be feelin’ a lot different when we get done takin’ care of you and your pet nigger.”