The Ragtime Kid

by Larry Karp

  Brun thought of telling the clod he didn’t look so good without two of his front teeth, but considering he had on his business suit, he decided to keep shut. He started forward, but Fritz moved over so as to block him from the doorway. “Excuse me,” Brun said. “I’m going in to work.”

  Fritz’s face bent into a sneer. “Oh, excuse me, I’m going in to work,” falsetto mimic. Then back to his usual voice. “Guess you’re just gonna have to get past me first, ain’t you?”

  Brun stepped sideways; Fritz moved right along with him. Brun was on the point of delivering a quick shot to the bread basket, double the stupid jay over and run past him into the store, but just then, John Stark walked outside. Fritz spat on the ground next to his shoes. “Go on back inside, old man,” he snarled. “Me and your kid here have some talkin’ to do.”

  Stark didn’t say a word, just stood there, hot-eyeing Fritz for all the boy was worth. A half-minute, maybe more, and Fritz appeared to shrivel. He spat again, but with a whole lot less conviction. “Okay for now, kid,” he said to Brun. “But don’t worry, I’ll be seein’ you.”

  “That’ll be your problem,” said Brun, bold as brass.

  Stark took his clerk by the elbow and led him inside. Isaac stood near the counter, looking worried. A few customers browsed in the sheets; a man examined a saxophone. “Brun, I think we all need to be careful,” Stark said. “You’re going to have to watch yourself, particularly your back.”

  Brun did feel concerned. Not that he worried about handling Fritz Alteneder in a fair fight, but he knew Stark was right, that he likely would not get a chance at a fair fight. So during his afternoon break, he walked down to Messerly’s General Store and spent a half-buck on a good sturdy jackknife.

  When he got back to the store, High Henry was waiting for him, face split wide by a grin. “Hey, Young Mr. Piano Man—Scott Joplin says tell you come on by the Maple Leaf after work. Don’t be wastin’ no time.”

  The money-clip—could Joplin have found out? But how? “What’s up, Henry?”

  “Ohhhhh.” Henry’s grin went sly. “You see. He gon’ have a big treat for you.”

  Brun worked the rest of the afternoon with only part of his mind on the job, then directly after closing, he beat leather down to the Maple Leaf and up the stairs to the big hall. Just inside the door, he stopped and stared.

  There was a crowd around the piano the likes of which he’d not seen before. Weiss was there, and Scott Joplin; so were Otis Saunders, Big Froggy, Arthur Marshall, Scott Hayden and five or six other colored men Brun didn’t know. They stood in a rough circle behind the piano, watching another colored man play. And what he played set Brun’s fingers tingling. It was ragtime, but not like Scott Joplin’s, and not really like barrelhouse either. Maybe I am getting an ear inside my head, Brun thought.

  Weiss waved his arms like a windmill. “Brunnie, why you standing in the doorway like a dummy? Come on over here.”

  The pianist stopped playing, and turned half-around. He was a round colored man with a large head shaved bald, and a fine-trimmed mustache. Even though it was only five o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, he was dressed as if for an evening out, a nicely tailored three-piece gray suit, spotless white shirt and bow tie. On the left lapel of his vest hung two impressive medals, with a heavy gold watch chain running below them. As Brun came close, he noticed the man’s eyelids, tightly closed under bushy eyebrows. “Gee-manie,” the boy breathed. “Blind Boone.”

  Boone smiled up at Brun. “I fear you have the advantage on me, sir.” For such a big man, his tone was surprisingly high-pitched and thin. “Your voice tells me you’re young, and probably from Kansas or Oklahoma, but I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”

  “No, sir. My name is Brun Campbell, and I recognized you from your pictures in newspapers and on posters. You never performed any place I was living, but if you did, I would have come for sure.”

  “Do you play, then?”

  Before the boy could answer, Scott Joplin spoke up. “Brun is my pupil. He ran off from Ark-City to take lessons from me.”

  “Hmmm.” Boone looked surprised. “Do you mind if I touch your face, young man?”

  “No, sir. I don’t mind at all.”

  Boone ran fingers lightly over Brun’s cheeks, then smiled and said, “So you ran off to study piano with Scott Joplin, did you? That’s not at all usual, a white boy running away to take piano lessons from a Negro.”

  Brun looked hard at Boone’s eyelids, sewed tight-shut. No way did he have eyes behind there, peeking through slits. “You know I’m white on account of the way I talk?”

  “That’s a part of it, but only a part. I can see with my fingers and my mind; I tell color by touch.” He reached to rub the sleeve of Brun’s suit between his fingers. “Your suit is quite dark. Sober, temperate. You wouldn’t happen to work in a funeral parlor, Mr. Campbell, would you?”

  His face told the boy he was joking. “No, sir, in a music store. But my boss is very proper.”

  “Boone, now, how you ever do that?” Big Froggy shook his head in wonder. “Tell color by touching.”

  “It’s something I always could do, I think mostly thanks to my mama. When I was a little boy, she was always telling me what things looked like. Flowers, water in a lake, stones and trees. She made me to touch them. Music is like that, too…listen.” Boone swung around to the piano. “This is the Hungarian Rhapsody Number Six, by Franz Lizst. Listen here.” He played a bit, then stopped and quickly replayed a short passage. “Hear that glorious chord? It’s a bright yellow.” He played another few seconds. “Hear that, now, how it just glows with fire, like a coal? That’s a rich, red part. How do I know that, Mr. Froggy? How is it you look with your eyes at the sky, and can say it’s blue? Now, Mr. Campbell, I would like to hear just why it was you left your home to come all this way to study with Scott Joplin.”

  “To learn colored ragtime,” Brun said. “The way he plays it.”

  “Was there no one in Arkansas City could’ve taught you?”

  “No, sir. The colored wouldn’t, and white people didn’t even know the music.”

  “Now, that’s a sad thing,” Boone said, “very sad. All my early piano teachers were white. They taught me proper technique, and the music of the European classical masters. If it were not for those white men and boys who taught me, I would likely be standing on a street corner with a cup in my hand.” Then, Boone swung back to the piano and played for a few minutes, that same ragtime music so different from Joplin’s, but not like barrelhouse. He looked over his shoulder, asked Brun what he thought.

  The boy couldn’t shake the weirdest feeling that this eyeless man could actually see him. “I do like it,” he said. “What is it?”

  Boone smiled. “Just a little something I’ve been fooling with, a medley of some southern rag-tunes. Do you think you can play it?”

  “Not like that,” Brun said. “But I can try.”

  Boone shifted to the end of the bench to make room for Brun. The boy sat, stretched his fingers, moved them toward the keys, then pulled them back. “Here, now,” Boone said, and reached over in front of Brun to play a short passage. “There’s the beginning for you.”

  Which helped considerably. Given the start, and allowing that it was a first try and without music to read, Brun thought he did a creditable job. Boone flashed a broad smile. “Not bad at all, young man. You have ability, and I hope you’ll work to develop it. Scott Joplin can teach you what you need to know.”

  “He picks up your music faster than he does mine.” Joplin didn’t sound sore, just matter-of-fact.

  “The way he plays, he’d probably pick up easy from Turpin.” Boone turned his sightless face back to Brun. “When you go to St. Louis, go on by the Rosebud Saloon and listen to Tom Turpin play.”

  “That’s the man wrote ‘Harlem Rag.’”

  “And a whole lot more. He plays his own ragtime pretty much the way
he wrote it, like Joplin here, but the music itself is closer to what you and I just played—nothing more than some tunes been around the south ever since the colored first came in. I set them into ragtime, but I leave plenty of space so a performer can fiddle them any way he sees fit. But your teacher’s up to something different altogether. He takes those folky tunes and he cleans them up, polishes them ’til they shine, and then he makes them over into ragged time. He’s turning ragtime into a whole new form of classical music. Now, this Ragtime Dance, Joplin? Not a whole lot of help I or anybody else can give you for it. Little things, that’s all. Remember that part from the ‘Dude Walk,’ comes right after the ‘Backstep Prance’?” Boone played a few bars, then another few. “Hear the clash there? But that won’t be hard to fix.”

  Joplin moved toward the bench, Brun quickly got up and out of the way, and then everyone started talking at once. Joplin’s fingers flew, played a short musical passage, then another. Every now and again he stopped to scratch out notes on his manuscript and write others down. This went on for a good half-hour, at which point Joplin played a long stretch without interruption, the entire “Dude Walk” portion, which sounded very good to Brun. And from all appearances, also to Boone and the others.

  And to somebody else. Loud clapping from behind, then a voice familiar to Brun. “Bravo, maestro, bravo. That should knock those Emancipation Day dudes smack on their ears.”

  Along with everybody else, Brun turned, and there was Freitag, Maisie McAllister at his side. Maisie winked at Brun, which under other circumstances would have pleased him no end, but right there and in that place, he hoped no one noticed. No such luck. Otis Saunders, standing right next to the boy, chuckled and gave him a sharp elbow to the ribs.

  “We were passing by,” Freitag said, “and we couldn’t help but hear the fine music through the open windows.” He looked closely at Boone; Brun saw the light go on. “And my, my, who have we here but Blind Boone. I am honored to meet you.”

  Boone didn’t look like he felt the least bit honored, didn’t say a word. Nor did anyone else. Finally Freitag spoke. “I’m Elmo Freitag, formerly of Carl Hoffman Music Publishers, now sole proprietor and impresario of Freitag Enterprises, devoted to the publication and performance of colored music, both in the United States and abroad.” He stuck a hand under Boone’s nose, then chuckled. “Oh yes, I forgot,” and grasped Boone’s hand where it rested on the piano keys. Boone pulled his hand away.

  Which didn’t appear to bother Freitag, who shifted his attention to Joplin. “Well, Scott, how about yourself? Have you had any change of heart? Performing your score at Emancipation Day festivities in Sedalia is one thing. Having it published nation-wide and performed on-stage is something else altogether.”

  Joplin turned a frozen face to Freitag. “I’ve had no change, sir, not of heart, mind, or anything else. Now, please, I need to excuse myself. I have work to do.”

  Looking at Freitag, you’d have thought Joplin had told him it was a nice day out. He laughed lightly. “You know, I just can’t help thinking…can you imagine Blind Boone and Scott Joplin playing their music on the same stage? Why, no one would even think about Bob Cole and Will Marion Cook any more, you’d run ’em into the ground. We’d be booked a year in advance, sellout crowds all over the country. Then maybe a European tour—”

  “Thank you, but I have a manager. Mr. Lange.” Boone pointed to a light colored man with close-cut hair, an amazing pair of mutton-chop whiskers, and a severe expression, standing very straight between Froggy and Scott Hayden. “He does very well for me, thank you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he does,” Freitag boomed. “And considering what fine skills I know he’s got, I would find a right place for him in my company. But for managing your career, there’s no question I can do even better for you. I can get you bookings that no colored man could ever get. And I can take the bother of money troubles off Mr. Lange’s shoulders and yours. We’d all be doing what the Lord intended. You colored would make music, sing and dance, I’d look after the business, and we’d all come out on top.”

  Brun wasn’t sure who was going to blow first, Lange or Froggy. Both colored men seemed to be holding themselves in check with difficulty. Lange’s hands trembled, though not, Brun thought, from any weakness. But it was Boone who answered Freitag. “I thank you for your consideration, sir, but I’m completely satisfied with my situation.” There was an edge to his voice you could have cut a finger on. “And now, as Mr. Joplin said, we need to get back to work. Joplin, let’s go on to that ‘Stop Time’ dance.”

  Boone raised his hands over the keyboard. Freitag’s cheeks deepened to the color of ripe plums. All the colored men turned back to the piano, and began to talk, but softer now, Brun noticed.

  Freitag sniffed. “Some people, you just can’t do a thing to help them. You’re being foolish, the both of you, and you’ll live to regret it.” Then, Freitag swiveled like a soldier, took Maisie by the arm, and walked to the doorway and out.

  When the stomp on the stairs died away, Boone let up playing the theme from “Stop Time,” and turned his face toward Joplin. Brun again marveled at the way that blind man could tell where everyone stood, even as they shifted and moved around. “Joplin,” he said, very gravely. “That is a bad man.”

  “I know. He came by last month with Mr. Daniels, from Hoffman. They wanted me to give them Ragtime Dance. Daniels did most of the talking, but he didn’t get anywhere, so maybe he sent Freitag around to see what he could do with that sleigh ride about happy darkies on the music plantation.”

  Mr. Daniels, from Hoffman? Brun took care to file that scrap of information in his mind.

  “Today was the first I met the man,” Boone said. “But I did hear him once before, down at the train depot after I was by to work with you last Tuesday. I was waiting on the platform to catch the train back to Columbia, and I heard him tell a woman to get out of town and stay out, that if she thought she was going to make trouble for him, she’d find out in a hurry what real trouble was. She had a beautiful voice, and if she hadn’t been so upset, it would’ve been pure pleasure just listening to her.” Boone shook his head. “Don’t have any truck with that man, Joplin. Don’t let him near your music.”

  “A woman with a beautiful voice, you say?” At Joplin’s question, the whole room went still.

  “Oh, just lovely,” said Boone. “She could have sung for me any time.”

  “She was here,” Joplin said. “Last Tuesday, that’s right—while I was having lunch at Cleary’s. She told me she was desperate to find Freitag, had heard him mention my name, and thought I might be able to help. I’ll admit, I was a little short with her. She said she was sorry to interrupt my meal, and could she come back later? I told her not to bother, that I had no idea where Freitag was.”

  “Did she?” Question out before Brun even knew he was thinking it.

  “Did she what?” Joplin looked confused.

  “Come back later. Like she said she was going to do?”

  Joplin couldn’t seem to figure the why of Brun’s question.

  “Just asking,” Brun said.

  “Some questions a man don’t ask,” Big Froggy rumbled.

  Brun started to say he was sorry, but Joplin beat him to the punch. “No, she didn’t. I never saw her again. But I certainly do remember her voice.” Then he looked around at the group. “Let’s go on,” he said. “Now that I’ve got Boone here, I’d be a fool not to take full advantage.”

  Everybody laughed, except, of course, Joplin.

  ***

  Next morning, when Brun came downstairs for breakfast and piano practice, Belle and Luella ran out of the kitchen and up to him. “Mr. Higdon is over at the jail,” Belle said. “There was a break. He says you can go over there and meet him, if you want.”

  The boy was halfway outside when Luella called, “Brun, Brun…You haven’t had breakfast. I can make you some eggs real quick.”

  “Thanks, Miss Luel
la,” Brun shouted back. “I’ll just get something later.”

  Outside the jail, men stood in groups, talking. Brun pushed his way through them and ran inside, where he saw Mr. Williams, the sheriff, talking to six men. Brun figured he was deputizing them and they were going to chase after the escaped prisoners. He started past the group, but the sheriff shouted, “Hey, you—boy. Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Mr. Higdon sent for me,” Brun said, polite as he possibly could sound. “Can you please tell me where I’ll find him.”

  A couple of the deputies started to laugh, but shut up in a hurry when Sheriff Williams looked at them. The sheriff jerked his thumb toward the cells. “He’s back there with Robert E. Lee. Last cell on the left.”

  Which is where Brun found Higdon and Fitzgerald, sitting side-by-side on the cot. Fitzgerald looked like he’d crawled home on his eyebrows. “Who got out?” Brun called through the bars.

  Higdon reached a key through the bars and opened the door. “A couple of bad ones, a thief and a murderer. Somebody got them a hammer and a chisel.” He pointed at the next cell over. “This red stone is soft as mud. They chipped away around the bars, then pulled them free, and bashed enough stone to get out through the window.” He glanced toward Fitzgerald. “When they had it all clear and were on the way out, they tossed the tools over here for Mr. Fitzgerald to use.”

  “But you didn’t,” Brun said.

  Fitzgerald pulled his back straight and raised his head so he was looking down at Brun. “No, sir. I certainly did not.” He looked insulted that the boy had gone so far as to even think he might’ve gone out a jail window. “When a man sacrifices his honor and good name to expediency, then he’s not worth his space on earth.”

  “If he had run, he would have convinced everyone he was guilty,” Higdon added.

  “I am innocent of the charges against me, and I intend to clear my good name.”

  He sounds like a politician on a soapbox, Brun thought, then wondered what he would have done in Fitzgerald’s place. The man could have hopped the next train to Buffalo and been gone. Or hid out for a while somewhere down south. But it takes considerable gumption to break jail, even more to stay out, and Brun did not think Fitzgerald was long on gumption. If he’d gone out the window the night before, like as not he’d already be back behind bars, and as Higdon said, he’d then have everyone convinced he was guilty. And the longer Brun looked at Fitzgerald, slumped on the edge of the cot, tired lines and creases around his eyes deeper than ever, the guiltier he felt for his own behavior.