by Larry Karp
“Like being Freitag’s assistant?”
The instant the words were out, Brun realized how unkind they might have sounded. But Maisie didn’t seem to take offense. “Well, of course. His pay is all right, and it’s that much more than I’d make just giving piano lessons.” She leaned toward Brun, face close to his, eyes sparkling. “But I think I can see a better opportunity, and not just for me. The way you play piano? Why, if you really can write music like you say, we could be in vaudeville, you and I. Just like the Harneys.”
Brun wondered whether she might have taken leave of her mind. He’d seen the Harney show himself. Ben was a first-rate piano man, maybe white, maybe just a touch of the brush; his wife Jessie was a gorgeous songbird, a Kentucky girl, most definitely white. Brun could not for his life see how he and Maisie could make it with that kind of an act, and he told her so.
Which got him a pretty little laugh. She patted his hand. “Oh, Brun, think a little, would you. We’ve got the talent. And I’ve got a little money, enough to get us started. What we need is music. This is my dream, ever since I was a little girl, and I’m not about to just follow around after Mr. Freitag or anybody else until I’m too old to ever have a singing career. How about you? Do you want to sell sheet music for Mr. Stark until you’re forty or fifty, then he dies and his family closes down the store? How old are you, Brun? Really.”
“Sixteen. Seventeen later this year.”
“And I’m twenty-two. That’s not such a big difference. Brun and Maisie, The Ragtime Sweethearts. We’d play St. Louis, Kansas City, Baltimore, New York…” All of a sudden, she jumped off the sofa, grabbed Brun by the hand, and pulled him toward the piano. “Sit down. Do you know ‘At a Georgia Camp Meeting’?”
“Well, ’course I do. I’ve been playing it over a year now.”
“Go ahead, then. I’ll follow you.”
She practically pushed Brun onto the piano stool. He executed a little flourish, then went into the actual tune, watching Maisie, wondering what was she going to do. The girl bowed toward the middle of the room, turned her eyes on her audience, and began to sing.
“A campmeeting took place by the colored race
Way down in Georgia.
Foolish coons large and small,
Lanky, lean, fat and tall…”
For all the times he’d played that tune, Brun had never given a thought to the lyrics, but now as he conjured up that great gathering of foolish coons of all different shapes and sizes, he caught sight of Scott Joplin’s unsmiling face in the the crowd, and straightway lost his place in the music. Maisie brought him back in a hurry. “What’s the matter? I thought you said you knew this tune.”
She stood over him, hands on hips, and her face told him that his professional reputation was on the line. He rubbed at an eye. “Sorry, Miss Maisie—I must’ve got something in my eye.” He blinked. “Okay, now. Let’s just start it over.”
He waited while she got herself back in position. She really does have a voice, Brun thought, every note like a bell. “Here we go,” he called to her, and off he shot, playing with a vengeance. She didn’t miss a beat.
“A campmeeting took place by the colored race
Way down in Georgia.
Foolish coons large and small,
Lanky, lean, fat and tall…
In that great coon campmeeting.
When church was out, how the sisters did shout,
They were so happy.”
Maisie danced across the room and back as she sang, every now and again bending forward like she was singing to a man in the first row of her theater.
“But the young folks were tired,
And wished to be inspired,
And hired a big brass band.”
Brun played and Maisie sang, chorus and both verses, and by the time they finished, singer and pianist were soaking in sweat. Maisie, laughing, dropped down to the bench next to Brun. A lock of yellow hair covered her left eye. She slipped a hand behind his neck, and kissed him.
At fifteen, Brun had done some sparking. He’d meet Taffy, his girl friend, on Saturday afternoons, when his parents and hers thought their children were in town, in proper company of the same sex. They’d run out behind Old Mr. Rasmussen’s barn and lie down together in the tall weeds, and kiss and kiss and kiss. They must have kissed hundreds of times, but never like Maisie kissed Brun on that piano bench. Her lips pressed onto his like a lid on one of his mother’s jars of preserved fruit, and her tongue moved inside his mouth like a snail having the epileptic seizures. For a second, Brun thought he tasted Sen-Sen, but then his mind moved back to the matters at hand. Maisie held the back of his neck firmly enough to make sure the only way he might be able to pull back was to stamp on her foot.
When Maisie finally popped her lips free, Brun swallowed such a gulp as could be heard out on the street. Maisie slid a small, warm hand into his, laid her head on his shoulder, then sighed, “Oh, Brun,” a breathy whisper. “Please forgive me for being forward, but I got so happy and excited. We were good, weren’t we?”
Brun coughed his throat clear. “Truth, Miss Maisie, I didn’t have any idea you had such a voice.”
She picked strands of his hair between a couple of her fingers, and twisted. “Why, I’ll bet if we had some real ragtime numbers, we could bring down any house. And if we had our own music, not just have to sing other peoples’ songs…” She leaned forward again, and Brun prepared himself for another whopper kiss, but to his disappointment, she just kept on talking. “Just think what a start we’d get off to if we had Scott Joplin’s Ragtime Dance. You could write words to those tunes, and we’d be a sensation.”
Brun was up like a shot, but Maisie grabbed his hand and pulled him back down, then put a finger to his lips and shushed him. “Just listen for a minute, Brun, all right? Can you imagine the act we could put together with that music? Thirteen different tunes, isn’t it?”
“Something like that. I didn’t count them. But a lot.”
“Enough for a couple of acts, easy. You’ll play, I’ll sing and dance. We’ll sell the music to a publisher, and I don’t mean Freitag. We’ll go big time, right to the top, New York. Witmark? Or Stern and Marks? Why not?”
“Why not is that when Scott Joplin found out, he’d know exactly what happened. And how many people here already know the music is his?”
Maisie shrugged. “What of it? What’s some colored man in Sedalia going to do, take us to court?” She giggled, then took Brun’s hand between both of hers, squeezed it, and looked squarely at the boy from not more than four inches away. He thought he might fall into those blue eyes and drown. “Oh, Brun, please don’t think badly of me. Maybe it’s not exactly a nice thing to do, but this is my chance—our chance. People who don’t take a chance usually die without ever having their dreams come true, and I’m not going to do that. You shouldn’t, either. This is perfect for the two of us. The minute I saw you the other day at that piano in Mr. Stark’s, I knew.”
“And you’re going to just up and tell Freitag to get lost?”
“Faster than you can blink your eyes. Think what it would be like for us. The Ragtime Sweethearts, topping bills for Keith-Albee, or the Orpheum. Tony Pastor’s. Then we’d go off to tour Europe.”
All of a sudden, being part-time clerk and future vice-president at Stark and Son didn’t look like such great shakes anymore. Not next to the notion of playing hell out of a piano while a theater full of people clapped and cheered, then waking up next morning with a certain face on the pillow next to his. Was stealing written music really that far past stealing another man’s tune off a piano performance? Brun knew he should’ve just up and walked out the door, but Maisie’s face a few inches away was as effective at keeping him in the room as if she’d been holding a revolver. Maybe more so. He shook his head, chuckled deep in his throat. “You sure don’t do things by halves.”
She squinched her eyes. “I don’t do anything by halves, Brun.�
�� She got up and stretched, then took a couple of steps toward the back of the house. “Too hot tonight to be wearing all these clothes. I’m going to get out of them.”
“Okay,” Brun said, and started back to the piano. “I’ll wait for you here.”
“Brun!”
She was halfway to the door, hokey displeasure all over her face. “What kind of a gentleman are you, anyway? Aren’t you going to come help me out of all these hot clothes?”
***
Fifty years later, Brun could recall every detail of that night. With no clothes on, Maisie put her experience as a circus aerialist to amazing use on the mattress, put poor Rita Hodges all to shame. Afterward, Brun slept like a dead man, and when he woke the next morning, it was broad daylight and the house was full of the smell of eggs and bacon. He stretched, and as he rolled over, he noticed a purple discoloration on his left arm, just below the shoulder. He grinned, then hustled into his clothes and ran out and into the kitchen.
Over breakfast, Maisie asked whether she’d convinced him to be her ragtime sweetheart. Brun told her she’d made a strong case. “But just thinking about stealing Mr. Joplin’s music makes me feel so bad, I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if I actually did it.”
One more time, he thought of the money-clip hidden in his closet. If that ever came to light, Scott Joplin would have no further use for his music, nor would there be any accusations when The Ragtime Dance, by Brun Campbell, sold thousands of copies and had them dancing in the aisles in New York. He actually had to stop eating for a moment.
“Well…” Maisie squeezed his hand. “I thought you might not just say yes right off, but I was hoping, and I still am. At least think about it, would you, Brun? Please?”
He nodded. “Truth, Miss Maisie, I don’t think I could help doing that.”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “O-kay. Just don’t think too long and miss the train.”
Or run too fast, stumble and fall underneath, Brun thought.
“And, Brun…”
He looked at her. Those blue eyes. Maybe before he left, she’d like to do a little more persuading.
“I think we’re well enough acquainted now, you can forget the Miss.”
***
Maisie had a ten o’clock piano student, so directly after breakfast, she walked Brun outside. He wondered whether he should say anything at Higdon’s about his night-long absence, but decided no point bringing up an awkward situation. Better to just wait and see whether anyone asked about it. Maisie gave him a good solid kiss to send him on his way. As he started down the path to the street through the ivy, she called after him, “Don’t forget, now. You get the music and we’ll set vaudeville on its ear.”
Brun turned, and straightway saw he wouldn’t have to worry about making excuses to the Higdons. There stood Luella, a basket of eggs on her arm, staring smack-dab at him. She must have gone to Tobrich’s, a block further across Sixth, where they kept chickens and sold fresh eggs. The look on the girl’s face as she took off toward home made it more than clear she didn’t care to have him accompany her.
Chapter Thirteen
Sedalia
Saturday, July 29, 1899
Back at Higdon’s, Brun went straight for the piano, and practiced until just before one. Mr. Higdon was nowhere to be seen, and both Luella and Belle gave the living room a wide berth, whether out of consideration or because Luella had spilled the beans the instant she got home. Brun’s mind labored through heavy weather. He felt bad about upsetting Luella, had hoped to disabuse her of her illusions a bit more gently. Then, there was the matter of stealing music from Scott Joplin, which he knew he shouldn’t even be thinking on. And how about abandoning John Stark for Maisie McAllister, never mind that most fifteen-year-old boys would make that trade in the blink of an eye? Worst of all, he still hadn’t figured out what to do about the locket and the money-clip hidden in his closet. More and more, it looked like the choice of whether to send Edward Fitzgerald or Scott Joplin to the gallows was going to be Brun Campbell’s.
***
Business was brisk that afternoon at Stark’s, but not quite up to the Saturday usual. Brun noticed that several customers were more reserved than he’d known them to be, not so much inclined to chat over their purchases. Toward midafternoon, lardy, frowzy Mrs. Wilkins walked up to the doorway, stood with her hands on her hips, and harrumphed until she had Stark’s, Isaac’s and Brun’s full attention. Then she wheeled around and stalked away. Brun scratched his head. “What’s eating her?”
“Judging by her expression, I’d say her hemorrhoids are acting up,” said Stark.
Brun laughed, but Isaac looked almost grim. “I think somebody be tellin’ stories.”
Stark shrugged. “Probably so. And that battle-ax would be the first to believe them.”
A bit later, during a lull, Stark and Isaac told Brun more about Mrs. Fitzgerald. When Isaac’s status in the house came clear to her, she grabbed little Frankie and started to stomp out, all the while delivering a world-class harangue about how she was not about to stay in a place which catered to white and colored alike, nor sit next to a nigger at the dinner table. It took a good bit of Mrs. Stark’s blarney to convince her guest that she was not at a boarding house, and that white and colored alike who needed sanctuary would find it within Sarah Ann Casey Stark’s walls. “I was all for just getting out of her way and closing the door behind her,” Stark grumbled. “But you know Sarah.”
Isaac laughed lightly.
Stark gave him the hard eye, then turned to Brun. “The woman’s not in her right mind. Do you know what she did at supper last night? Just set down her fork, and said, ‘Mrs. Stark, I spent a great deal of time this afternoon at the mirror, trying to see how I would look in mourning. How do you suppose I’d appear?’ Can you imagine that? Mrs. Stark just told her she imagined Mrs. Fitzgerald would look somber and sad as any mourner, but she shouldn’t worry her head because Mr. Higdon would get her husband safely back to her.” Stark shook his head.
Late in the afternoon, Professor Weiss waddled into the shop. Brun hustled by to see what he needed. “Music paper, if you please, Brunnie. Scott makes changes, changes, changes. I tell him, the music’s good, leave it be, but no. He needs it better, always better, change this, change that. He’s used up all his paper, but he still won’t stop with his changing. Better give me two packages.”
Brun pulled two pads of music manuscript paper from the rack, and handed them to Weiss. The old German’s dark eyes looked weighted with the cares of the world. “I don’t know if Scott is going to finish before the performance so he’s satisfied. Never have I seen him so uncertain. You know what he says, Brunnie? That it’s because he lost the money-clip I gave him. He says all the years he had it, he had good luck, and now he feels like maybe he can’t write music no more.” Weiss cocked a finger at Brun. “You see how strange is the workings of the mind? Scott thinks the money-clip was bringing him luck, so he says to himself, ‘I lost the money-clip, and now I can’t no more write music…’ Brunnie, are you okay? You’re so pale, maybe you should lay down.”
The boy shook his head. “I’m all right.” He rang up the purchase and took Weiss’ money.
Weiss didn’t look convinced. “You sure you’re all right, Brunnie? You look like you saw a ghost—mein Gott, you are going to fall down on your face. Here, let me help you.” The German reached stubby arms across the counter; Brun waved him off. “Don’t worry, Mr. Weiss, I’m all right. I guess I just feel bad on Mr. Joplin’s account.”
***
At dinner, Brun picked at his food, and now and again wondered whether Belle and Higdon were looking cross-eyed at him. Higdon’s fiancée, Miss Gertrude Selover, was there, and it seemed to Brun that all the Higdons were taking care to not say anything out of turn. Everything about Miss Gertie seemed sharp: the angles of her thin body, her slim nose, thin lips showing just a slit of tooth at the middle. Every word she spoke sounded lik
e it had been snipped off with well-honed shears. And she showed not the least reluctance about telling Mr. Higdon how he should manage his business. “Bob, I think it’s a mistake for you to defend that Fitzgerald man. The whole town’s talking, everyone thinks he’s guilty. I’m afraid you’re going to end up losing a lot of good clients.”
Higdon smiled. “Not if I get him off. Let me get an acquittal for a man everyone thinks is guilty, and I’ll have a line outside my door two blocks down Ohio.”
Miss Gertie said she didn’t think that was at all funny.
Brun ground his teeth so hard, a pain from the corner of his jaw shot down his neck. He knew just how to settle the whole matter, didn’t he—set Mr. Fitzgerald free, make sure Mr. Higdon had no problem, and put every note of Scott Joplin’s music up for grabs. One stone, three birds. Brun felt his dinner rise up like boiling water into his throat. He didn’t say another word the entire meal, just sat and chewed his cud.
***
After supper, Higdon and Miss Gertie took off for the Saturday night dance in the big hall over the St. Louis Clothing Store. Brun followed them out, but where they turned off Sixth onto Ohio, the boy continued straight. He walked four blocks to Lafayette, looking up and down the avenues as he crossed, then went north a block on Lafayette and started westward on Fifth.
Early Saturday evening, the work week done. People sat in small groups on porches, gossiping. A boy of about eight shot out from between two houses, crossed Brun’s path, darted across the street and vanished up between two houses on the other side; he was followed closely by a gang of eight or ten boys about the same age, all of them laughing and shouting, “Go, Sheepy, go!”
