Kansas City Lightning

by Stanley Crouch

  That coordination allowed musicians of Charlie Parker’s era to create a new experience of time, an innovation in performing consciousness that was fresh to Western performing art. It amounted to a kind of control of the present. Unlike the European concert musician, who could be compared to an actor, a person who used the subtleties of interpretation to bring vitality to material created in the past, the jazz musician wrote and interpreted his own script on the spot, right in the middle of the chaos of the moment. Charlie Parker’s mind moved faster, and had a greater command of detail, than that of the merely gifted. And in order to serve his quicksilver consciousness—and the montages of passion that it demanded—he had to address not only his own physical limitations, but those of his instrument.

  From the start, one of Charlie’s goals had been to refine his tone, to get rid of that goddamn vibrato and create a sound that was built for speed. To further his cause, he took a Brilhart mouthpiece—an uncommon brand at the time—and experimented with its shape, filing it down in an effort to control the sound even further. In doing so, he was ignoring the advice of older musicians, who warned him about the possibility of brass poisoning. Players such as Tab Smith, an alto player with Lucky Millinder and Basie, had gotten infections when the sharp edge of an altered metal mouthpiece cut into their lips as they played. As was his way, Parker listened, said nothing, and then went on with what he was doing. Parker became such a proficient reworker of mouthpieces that he was soon filing away on those of his fellow band members and of any other saxophone players who trusted his skill. He was also trying out all kinds of different reeds, those shaved cane strips that rested between the mouthpiece and the lower lip, providing the quiver that created the sound when a player blew wind past its sharp edge. Parker singed his reeds with matches, sanded them, and scraped away almost invisible layers with a knife. He was trying everything he could think of to push his pitches through the horn quicker, to make them as blunt as snapping fingers when the inspiration demanded.

  But the physical world was distracting him, too. His troubles with hard drugs were increasing, and they brought his relationship with Tommy Douglas to a sour end. Soon he was back looking for another job, his saxophone always one step away from the pawnshop if his need for drugs outran his opportunities to make money playing. Charlie’s musical education was accelerating, but sorrow and confusion were entering his life at the same high rate of speed. He was starting to experience the discomfort of repeatedly disappointing people he admired. It was a feeling he didn’t like, because for all of his shyness, he was a proud young man. But pride and drug addiction are forever at odds. If pride wins, the person escapes the tragedy of addiction, while gaining an understanding of human frailty at its most harrowing. If addiction wins, however, pride takes that hard, mutating fall, boiling away in the bent spoon where the dope is cooked.

  Charlie’s relationship with Rebecca had changed since their violent altercation after she found the love letter from Geraldine. A chill set in, her disappointment matched by his aloof indifference. The situation took on its own rhythm, and Rebecca weathered it with the sort of stoicism she had always observed in the women around her, most of whom accepted the bittersweet particulars of domestic life and made their homes what they could by immersing themselves in work and through their dedication to their families. Rebecca knew she was isolated—shut out by her mother, only fitfully in contact with her siblings, considered an interloper by Mrs. Parker, and little more than a witness to Charlie’s dissolution.

  Nothing she had ever heard of or seen had prepared the pregnant young woman for what was happening, and there was no one to give her counsel. She had to make it day by day and stand up for her rights if they were trampled too harshly. Charlie knew it would be dangerous to abuse her again—that flying flatiron wasn’t lost on him—but he didn’t seem capable of telling her what was happening to him, what could make him want to go through the same thing over and over, falling into a pit of drugs and whatever else, climbing out exhausted and looking like a bum, then diving in again and again. Rebecca didn’t know if he was ashamed or just secretive, but it was clear that this was the new order of things and that they were handling a great burden very early in their marriage, neither aware of what catastrophe would happen next. The only thing that gave the household any feeling of consistency or direction was the fact that Addie Parker still handled all the washing, all the cleaning, all the cooking. Only in the evenings, as they sat and listened to the radio after dinner, did the two of them feel together, like family. At least that is how the younger woman felt, what lifted her up inside, as long as she could continue to believe it, just a little. A little was a whole lot when she worried that nothing was coming at all.

  Now that Charlie had dedicated himself to his career as a musician, and was growing more confident about his career, it became normal for him to appear and disappear almost continuously, leaving early in the evening and arriving home the next morning. Rebecca had a job working half a day way out on Prospect Avenue, where the rich white people lived at the time. When Charlie got home Rebecca was at work, and when she got home he was asleep.

  The couple she worked for was Jewish; they owned markets and vegetable stands in downtown Kansas City. Rebecca took the streetcar to their house and did her work down in the basement—household laundry, washing the baby’s diapers, and ironing—from early morning to noon for fifty cents. The lady of the house made dresses at home and would give Rebecca one of whatever was sewed into form—suits and dresses, often very pretty. If the lady of the house had a feeling to do it, she even gave Rebecca new shoes. The gifts made the job very good, allowing her things that were far beyond her salary. One by one, however, Charlie stole all these gratuities and sold them for drugs.

  In January 1938, when Rebecca was fully swelled with child, Charlie told her, “Rebeck, don’t name the baby if I’m on the road when he’s born. I’ll name him.”

  When the labor pains finally came, Rebecca called out for Mrs. Parker, who came upstairs to help. Calm and completely in command, she soothed Rebecca, braided her hair, and got her dressed. They went to General Hospital in Parkey’s car. As delivery time came, there were three sharp pains, then Baby Parker, eight pounds and nine ounces, was born, naturally, no drugs, nothing. It was seven o’clock in the morning on Monday, January 10, 1938. Rebecca had been there no more than an hour.

  About a month and a half later, Charlie returned home in the morning around ten o’clock. Rebecca was upstairs with the baby, who was in a bassinette. Charlie came in the room and kissed Rebecca on the forehead. He was happy. Charlie stood there staring at the sleeping baby. Even as new to the world as he was, he looked exactly like his father.

  “Rebeck, his name will be Francis Leon Parker. Francis is for Francis Scott Key, and Leon is for Mr. Leon ‘Chu’ Berry, the greatest saxophonist that ever lived.”

  Charlie seemed to feel he had done something great in fathering a son. In the springtime he took to sitting outside with him for hours, playing with the child. Now and again Charlie took the baby, whom they called by his middle name, in his basket and put him in the swing on the porch where he and Rebecca had once held hands in secret. The new father pushed the swing back and forth, taking care that nothing went wrong. People came around to see the child: sissy Julius from next door, Sterling Bryant, some of the white people in the neighborhood, a few of Charlie’s musician friends, some of Rebecca’s friends.

  To Rebecca, Charlie’s feelings toward Leon seemed less like a father’s love for a child than like a child’s affection for a toy. Perhaps he was too occupied with the drugs and the music, the needles that took him upstairs and the saxophone that sent him out into the street. He and a friend named MacDowell were still sneaking off upstairs to his room on a regular basis, pulling out the needles, and then staying there until they were ready to come down and head out for the night. When he came home, he didn’t say anything to the child—none of the usual childlike phrases, teasing questions, or f
unny faces, the sorts of things babies absorb rather than literally understand, that make them feel they are the objects of a secure affection. No, it wasn’t in Charlie to act the way Rebecca knew men to act if they loved their children. He was proud and happy about his child, but he held himself at a kind of a distance—exactly the way Addie Parker acted toward her son. No matter how warm the outside seemed, the filling was ice water. His ways instigated a wariness in Rebecca, a feeling that she couldn’t trust him if she should ever need him to stand up for her or their baby, and it lended a sting to the sadness spreading inside her.

  Rebecca was wary of him in other ways. The letter from Geraldine, which included references to oral sex, made her reluctant to kiss her husband, lest she catch anything from him. When she began to itch and notice bugs in her pubic hair, Rebecca asked Addie Parker what to do. Parkey got her some medicine and told her how to clean herself and kill off the intruders. Only later did Rebecca realize that the bugs were crabs she’d caught from her husband.

  After the baby was born, Rebecca went back to work out on Prospect. While she was at work, Parkey took care of the baby. Then, in March, Rebecca became pregnant again.

  This time it was a surprise, and it worried her deeply. The way Charlie was acting with the drugs, the things he was stealing from the household, and his refusal to talk with her except through his eyes, she knew another baby could be a burden their fragile marriage couldn’t handle. There was nothing she could do; she was trapped with another birth, another child Charlie would treat like a toy, interested at first, then indifferent.

  One day, a few months into her pregnancy, when Rebecca was at work, she went outside to put the baby’s diapers on the clothesline to dry. Later, when it was almost time to go home, she got the diapers to bring them inside and fold before leaving. On the way inside, her foot got caught, and she fell down the stairs; years later, she couldn’t say for sure that she didn’t jump. She did know that she went down that entire flight of stairs before she could take a breath, landing so quickly she felt as much pain as surprise. As she rose, surrounded by clean, wrinkled clothes and a partially empty basket, she was already worried about cleaning up after herself. Then she felt something tearing inside her. She seemed to awake for the second time that morning.

  Certain that something was wrong, Rebecca alarmed the lady of the house when she asked to take the streetcar home, saying her workday was almost over and she needed to sit down somewhere. She worried all the way to 1516 Olive, rolling slower than ever but getting there. Once inside the walls on Olive, she examined herself and found her underwear bloody. Her urgency overcoming her reluctance, Rebecca rushed to tell Parkey. At first Addie Parker chose “not to touch the wire,” to let anyone know what had happened. Eventually, though, the young mother managed to call Kansas City, Kansas, for J. R. Thompson, the doctor who had delivered Charlie.

  Thompson told her to come to his office immediately.

  Rebecca took a streetcar to a place where she could catch a cab and then went to Dr. Thompson’s office, which was up on a hill. Because it was an emergency, Rebecca was taken in immediately. Dr. Thompson was a handsome, light-brown man with gray hair, tall and thin, older than Mrs. Parker. He looked to Rebecca like an individual of mixed race, his Negro blood mixed with white or Indian, like a member of her mother’s side of the family.

  Oh, God, her mother, Birdy, whom she missed more now than she ever knew she could. But in that office, looking at that man, even upset as she was, Rebecca felt better, not so alone, in the hands of someone who knew what he was doing and cared about how she felt.

  Dr. Thompson examined Rebecca and told her she was about to lose the baby. He packed her with medicated cloth and then told her that she would abort normally, for the baby had broken off from the umbilical cord. She was instructed to go home and let it happen there. Dr. Thompson gave her a bedpan, explaining that she would soon abort in her bed and that Charlie should take her to the hospital right after the fetus came down, for the bleeding would be profuse and needed to be managed by medical professionals. Then he asked her how Charlie was—and if the young man he had delivered into the world almost eighteen years ago was still using drugs. Dr. Thompson had apparently found out about his addiction from either Addie Parker or Charlie himself. Rebecca told him that her husband wasn’t working, that he was still using drugs, shooting up with needles, and running around like he was out of his mind.

  Dr. Thompson looked Rebecca in the eye. “If he keeps using that stuff,” he said gravely, “I give him only eighteen to twenty years at the most.”

  From Dr. Thompson’s office she took a cab to the streetcar line. By the time she was walking up the steps of 1516 Olive, she had calmed down somewhat. She had made it that far. Rebecca told Addie what Charlie was supposed to do after the baby was stillborn and then went to bed, relieved that it hadn’t happened on the street.

  When Charlie got home, he went upstairs to see Rebecca. He was obviously upset; Rebecca noticed him pushing his tongue against his lower lip, the way he did when things troubled him. Yet to Rebecca it seemed as though he was about to cry. She felt as if there were no air, only emotion pushing at them from every direction. That emotion on her side turned to pain, and she began to wince as a large clot of blood made its way out with what was not a distorted baby but a string of flesh, not yet developed enough to be recognized as an unborn child. There was no time to think about that; within moments, the immobile string of flesh was followed by a gushing. Charlie was moving to assist his wife. He took the clot, dropped it in the bedpan, perused it very quickly, and stepped to the toilet. Then it was gone.

  Coming out of the bathroom, Charlie was fully a man somehow; in the moment of crisis he summoned full authority, shouting to Parkey that Hattie Lee had to call a cab now. Terrified or not, he rode with Rebecca, trying to soothe her as she continued to bleed. At the hospital, he told the staff it was an emergency and signed his wife in.

  Rebecca was in the hospital for four or five days. Charlie never visited her there as she was mending, nor did he touch the wire.

  When it was time to go back to Olive Street, Addie Parker came with Francis Leon and took her daughter-in-law home. There Charlie treated her just as he had before, never talking with her about what had happened, not even with his eyes.

  Surrounded by the familiar and the mysterious, Rebecca was relieved. Already nearly driven crazy, she realized now, clear as a bell, that she never again wanted to have another child with the sort of man Charlie Parker had become. Not with all she had gone through, with the signs and the pain of her body’s aborting, the strip of flesh and the blood clot, the gushing, the cab ride to the hospital, and all the days to think that followed. Not in this life would she allow that to happen, the good way or the bad. So help her God.

  10

  In April 1938, Jay McShann took the first Negro group out to Martin’s-on-the-Plaza, a club where particular white people congregated—the rich. It was a small unit that had come about in the way that things often happen in jazz, when McShann, who’d been playing around town for a little more than a year, learned that Walter Bales, a wealthy white man, wanted him to come to his home. Without knowing much about what Bales wanted, McShann made the trip, hoping another job might come out of it—another opportunity to keep some grits and gravy on the table. It turned out that Bales had made some money backing Count Basie, and he was interested in hearing whether McShann might have what it took to follow in Basie’s footsteps, to become more than just a good piano player, to take those giant steps. No one knew who would. Any chance to get somewhere was better than looking down the throat of a potential gift horse. Walter Bales did not have the sound of jive in his voice. That was good enough.

  The meeting was fortuitous. It began with playing. Nothing else for four hours except sipping a bit as they went along, becoming relaxed enough to drop some suggestions. Bales played well enough himself that he felt able to give McShann some advice, to counsel him to calm down and not po
und the piano. He could slip into his ideas gently, controlling the pace, avoiding the temptation to rush. Then he could pull more colors out of the keyboard by refining his touch. All of that sounded good to McShann, who recognized informed talk when he heard it. This rich fellow had a real feeling for the art of jazz, for how to inspire professionals who wanted to take their playing down as many corridors as they could effectively run. And McShann was certainly a buoyant guest; he could have been having as good a time as Upper Crust Walter, the one accustomed to hearing this new guy from Muskogee, whom some were already calling a meathead, as he sat there playing all night in the clubs, trying to hold up the swing and keep the groove in place, and dealing with all the boredom he had to triumph over; anything that helped expand what he was trying to do, he would listen to quick, in a hurry.

  Like most, high or low, Bales took a liking to McShann, and the two men started getting together regularly, either at Bales’s home or in Kansas City proper, where he would rent two pianos at Jenkins Music Company. Those sessions, with the liquor, the jokes, the talk about who came from where and who had seen what, edged into the music itself, keyboard conversations in which familiar phrases and tunes were approached respectfully or with parody. Bales would show McShann something he had picked up from Basie; McShann would show Bales things he had heard or figured out for himself. Together they swung, romped, and put down the rhythmic figures that defined the pulsation of their world, in Kansas City and across an America full of people who spent their days looking in store windows, peering up at movie marquees, listening to radios, watching the forward march of technology, and feeling the melancholy of the Depression challenged by the musicals, the dances, and the tall-tale dreams of the era.

  It was through Bales that McShann met Count Basie—a thrill, to see the master of Kansas City piano right there in the brown flesh, his clothes store-bought, the ragged days behind him, the dry humor and appetite for ribs and good spirits all intact. And it didn’t stop at one meeting. Soon Bales was renting three pianos when Basie was in town, so they could all go at it together until they were satisfied. “Walk three,” as the order used to come at the Reno Club.