The Magic Keys

by Albert Murray

  This had been going on for some time. Not that she had ever thought of herself adding her voice to a lot of others, because she knew he respected her opinion and would give some serious consideration to anything she suggested, and that was as far as she was personally involved. She just brought it up from time to time, sometimes jokingly, saying things like, You understand, of course, that I’m not talking about a biography. What I’m talking about is a memoir. That’s about as far as it went.

  And then you showed up, she said. Then she said, Let me tell you something. The very first time I laid eyes on you sitting back there, just sitting back there on that stool at the bar listening like that, I said to myself, This one ain’t just another one of them campus hipsters out looking for the latest do to impress them other hipsters and squares. I said, This one is out here to hear some music to connect with something he came to college to learn about life. You just struck me right off as somebody who came to get a college education. Not just to learn how to make a living doing something above common labor, but also to learn as much as you can about how to appreciate what a full life is really all about.

  And that was when she told me that she had been more impressed when I said my course of study was liberal arts than she would have been if I had said it was music. And that that was when she decided to invite me to come by her house and listen to whatever I selected from what turned out to be her very comprehensive collection of recordings. We were at the intersection then, and as we came on across the interstate highway and headed through that settlement to the Dolomite, she looked at me and said, Although I didn’t mention anything about it at the time, that was the beginning of what led up to getting you that summer gig with the band was all about. That’s why as soon as I heard that Shag Phillips was going to have to go home, I called old Joe and said, See what we can do to get our schoolboy in there as a stopgap for the summer, and Old Pro went along with old Joe on it.

  So, she said, that’s how I went from making a suggestion to being knee-deep in the whole thing. But anyway, I was pretty certain that he would give me the benefit of the doubt. And when I heard his voice on the phone when he called to tell me when and where to send you up to Cincinnati, I considered my scheme was already under way, even if you had gone on to do that grad school work at the end of that first summer. Because by that time he had you checked out. So even when you decided to stay out in Hollywood that next time around, he was just as confident as I was that you hadn’t given up on grad school because you were starstruck or anything like that. On the contrary. And also by that time old Daddy Royal was in on the scheme, so when you made that trip to Europe and came back and got hitched and checked into NYU, everything was falling into place, with old Joe keeping tabs.

  Come to think of it—she began, as we came up the incline to the Dolomite and pulled into her parking place at the side entrance. Then she went on, You know something? Everybody in that band knew more about why you were really in there with them than you did. Because I hadn’t said a word to you about what that bull fiddle was leading up to until now. And that was when she said, This is not what I had in mind when I had it fixed up and gave it to you, but it sure did come in handy when old Shag had to go home. That’s when it hit me. Because I remembered that I had invited the boss to hear you with the combo and right away he spotted you as being from Mobile or somewhere in old Daddy Gladstone’s territory. That’s when I decided on what I said when I called old Joe.

  Then as we came on into her office and dressing room after she said what she said to Wiley Payton in the main entrance lobby and also told him to send in two tall fountain Coca-Colas, she sat at her desk and had me pull up a chair, and as we waited for the Cokes she said, We got a call from the Bossman last night and from Daddy Royal this morning, and I told him that I thought you were pleased with your class schedule and I was expecting to pick you up on the campus this very afternoon.

  Then she said, So here we are. Because as soon as old Joe found out that you were thinking about taking a break from grad school studies and had an offer to do some part-time teaching down here, we both said, Hey, this could be the time. And I said, Let me be the one, and when I called the Bossman he said, Why don’t we start with Daddy Royal. So that’s the proposition old Joe laid on you.

  So here we are, she said again holding up her fountain Coke again, and isn’t it just like the Bossman to set us up with a vamp? The deal is on, but we vamp till he’s ready. And you know what old Daddy Royal said? He said, That just goes to show you. He said, Once you bring up something you want him to consider and give him a little time to get around to it, that’s exactly what he’ll do.

  Then he said, Yeah, I’m the vamp. He said, Don’t you always start patting your feet before you start the music? Patting your foot and sometimes also snapping your fingers? You’re already dancing before the instruments come in. See what I mean? And you can always bet when he comes in with that segue he’s ready. He’s ready. Jam, scram, or straight-ahead chronogram.

  Old Daddy Royal, I said, Old Daddy Royal. Old Daddy Royal is always on the case, I said, remembering but not mentioning that already before any proposal of any kind had been brought up, he had begun showing me his memorabilia simply because he assumed that I was a special kind of schoolboy who was curious enough and hip enough to appreciate them. And when we came to the scrapbooks that included clippings and other souvenirs of his early tours in Europe he said, Now we’re coming into a territory where they have another attitude about all this stuff. It’s not just some kind of light entertainment to them. Like that old guy. Some old professor somebody over there told me one time. I can’t call him by name right now and he’s not in any of these clippings but I’m bound to have it around here stuck in somewhere and maybe a picture, too, and I’ll recognize it as soon as I come across it. But anyway, he’s the one that said dancing came before music as such. He was talking about way back there, if you know what I mean. All the way back in what they call prehistoric times. And he was also the one who also said that the first floor of the theater is called the orchestra because that used to be the word for dancing space. I don’t remember exactly what he said about how that word got to be the word for a big band. Maybe because that’s where they used to sit before somebody came up with the idea of the pit. But anyway, the main thing for me was that dancing came first. He said, Dancing came first, then music. So that’s the boss for you, and that’s why he’s the emperor.

  I tell you what, Hortense Hightower said as we finished our fountain Cokes and stood up. Since this thing has come back around to me, and I’m the one that brought you into it in the first place, why don’t you just go on and get your campus stuff in the groove and maybe by, say, Thanksgiving, you will have had enough time to think about how all this can really fit in with what you went on beyond college to graduate school to learn.

  Believe me, honey pie, she said, the last thing I want is for you to feel that we are rushing you into this thing. I haven’t forgotten and never will forget what you told me more than once about what they taught you and what they absolutely did not try to decide for you down there at that Mobile County Training School under your Mr. B. Franklin Fisher.

  But even as she was saying what she was saying and did not say what she did not say, it was as if you were listening to, Miss Lexine Metcalf herself again in her school bell morning enchanted classroom through the wall-length windows of which you could see the Chickasabogue sky beyond Bay Poplar woods even before it was your turn to stand erect and make your way past the bulletin board, the globe stand, and the map rack to the blackboard realm of schoolboy verbal and numerical derring-do.

  Miss Lexine Metcalf, Miss Lexine Metcalf, Miss Lexine Metcalf, I said, Mama, Miss Tee and Miss Lexine Metcalf who was the one Miss Tee took me to when Mama let her be the one to take me to the campus to be registered when the first day of my first school bell September morning arrived that year. And Miss Lexine Metcalf took us to Miss Cox in the primer grade room and said, I will be
waiting for you when you reach the third grade.

  Miss Lexine Metcalf, who would be the one who would say what she said about me to Mr. B. Franklin Fisher himself, who said of himself Fisher—yes, Fisher, as in fisherman. Fisher of men. Fisher of men of special promise. Men worthy of the women who bore them and nursed them. Who said, Many are called but few are chosen. And my question is, Who will be one in that number??

  Then on the day he came back to add my name to that year’s list of prospects selected for matriculation in the Early Bird Preparatory Program when you reached the ninth grade, she was the one who said, Who if not you, my splendid young man? Who if not you, my splendid young man, from all the way down in Meaher’s Hummock on Dodge Shingle Mill Road near the cypress swamp by the bottoms and the L & N Railroad. Who if not also you, indeed.

  As Hortense Hightower took me around to see the changes that she and Giles Cunningham had made in the Dolomite since I graduated and left en route to Cincinnati to try out for the summer job with the band before going to graduate school, every time she pointed out and explained another addition or renovation, you could see she was not only pleased with what she and Giles Cunningham were doing but also with where they had decided to do what they were doing.

  Which meant she was also pleased with the choice she had made when she decided to leave the band she had gone on the road with when she finished her college courses at Alabama State.

  XXIX

  Remembering the trip out to the Dolomite as I settled myself at the desk of my carrel in the arts and letters stacks of the library that next afternoon, I suddenly found myself thinking about old Deke Whatley saying what he said as we stood at the curb outside his barbershop after I had popped in to say hello that first Thursday afternoon.

  I just wanted to thank you for dropping in on us like this so soon after you got back in town. It tells me a lot. It tells me you still the kind of homeboy I took you for when you just set foot in there as a freshman. So I also just wanted to step out here and tell you how much I appreciate the postcards from some of the different places you got a chance to see for yourself after reading about. That tells me something.

  That tells me something about knowing what education is really about, he said, and then he said what he said about education and self-satisfaction, and that was when he went on to say, Man, I been seeing them coming in as freshmen and checking them that come back for their class reunions over the years all this time I’ve been right here on this block. And you know what I think education is really about? I mean really about adding up to? Knowing what to want.

  That’s the key, he said again. Man, that’s the key to the whole thing. Man, you miss that and you miss the main thing about what book learning is all about, don’t care which colleges and universities you go to and how many degrees you come back with. Remember them gold watch chains and neck chains and graduation keys graduating classes used to buy to wear once they got their diplomas? What did they fit into? Nothing. No locks that your grade-point average hadn’t qualified to open, by that time if you see what I mean. And even as I said I do, I really do, the very first person who had come to mind was Creola Calloway, not because she knew what to want but because she was somebody who knew what she did not want, no matter how many other people agreed with each other about what they thought she should want. The one and only Creola Calloway, who became notorious in Gasoline Point because it was as if she was just about the only one in town who did not think she should go into show business and become rich and famous because she was as good-looking as she was.

  Not that she thought that being that good-looking was not supposed to be a special blessing and a God-given blessing at that, and therefore something to be grateful for and modest about. And the fact of the matter was that just about everybody seemed to be so impressed with how good-looking she was that it was also as if they regarded her as public property, and had no choice in the matter of what she should do with her own future.

  As I sat musing in the library that afternoon that many years later, I suddenly realized that it had been as if just about everybody in Gasoline Point back during those days had been so dazzled by how she looked that it was as if they never paid any attention at all to how nice and friendly and just like another one of the folks she always was with everybody. Nobody ever accused her of being stuck up. On the contrary, what some people said about her implied that her big problem was that she was not as stuck up as people wanted her to be!

  I hadn’t mentioned anything about Creola Calloway to Deke Whatley as we stood at the curb outside the barbershop that first Thursday afternoon. All I said at first was what I said about Miss Lexine Metcalf warning me that I might be one of the splendid young men who might have to travel far and wide to find out what mission I was best suited to or called to fill, and that splendid young men were precisely those who qualified for their mission even as they searched for it.

  To which he said, See what I mean? So take your time and go step by step and get it right. Right for you yourself, man. I know exactly where she’s coming from. Right out of that old one about answered prayers bringing more tears or grief and stuff than unanswered ones. You heard what I said when I said what I said about knowing what to want, didn’t you? Well, there it is.

  So before starting in on the academic materials that I had come to start collecting in preparation for the winter term for the course I was teaching, I went on thinking about what Deke Whatley had said to how pleased Hortense Hightower was with what she decided to do after she had finished college and spent the time she had spent singing with a road band.

  And then I went on remembering how when I graduated with a fellowship for advanced study she got me the job as summer substitute and how that led to the time I spent in California that led to what turned out to be my friendship with Gaynelle Whitlow in West Los Angeles, and my very special relationship with Jewel Templeton of Beverly Hills by way of Minnesota on the upper Mississippi.

  To Gaynelle Whitlow, not unlike Joe States, Hollywood was really pretty much the same as a factory town where production companies made movies, just as Detroit was a motor town where motor companies made automobiles.

  So to her, glamour in Hollywood was really a sales device, much the same as body and accessory design were in the automobile industry.

  As for her current means of livelihood, she described herself as a freelance projects administrator and office manager. As for the future, I’m all for it, she liked to say, and then go to point out that sometimes it brought good luck and sometimes bad luck but it was always hard on good-looking women whose beauty was their stock-in-trade. Not that she herself did not have the kind of good looks you could trade on. She didn’t take your breath away, as Creola Calloway did, but as soon as I saw her in that booth in the Home Plate I knew she could get along very well on her looks alone. But as that first evening got under way I found myself thinking that she was just the kind of bosom pal Creola Calloway needed when I was the boy becoming the schoolboy I was becoming in Gasoline Point.

  When I met Jewel Templeton, she had just recently met and become a friend of the Marquis de Chaumienne and some of his French and Italian friends, and was more concerned with what to do with the success she had already achieved as featured leading lady and costar than with becoming a superstar.

  In any case, I got the impression that what made her friendship with the Marquis de Chaumienne so important to her was not his rank and social status as such but his cosmopolitan interests and his taste, which, as my old roommate would surely have reminded me anew even if he didn’t think I had forgotten, was not unlike haute cuisine, predicated on a fine appreciation and respect for the intrinsic quality of the basic ingredients. Elementary, my dear fellow. Nobody appreciates the elementary like the ones who know what is relevant beyond subsistence.

  So, upper Mississippi River pragmatist that she still was indeed and withal, she no doubt thought of the people in his set, beginning that season at St. Moritz, as being dans le vrai pre
cisely because they struck her as knowing so much more than she did about what to want.

  Dans le vrai, dans le vrai, dans le vrai indeed, I went on thinking as I stood up and headed for the shelves and the books I needed for my winter term lesson plans. Wasn’t that what she also had in mind when she said what she said about magic keys when we said good-bye at the autobus station in Nice that afternoon? Some gold, some silver, some platinum. Or how about some sharp, some flat, some natural?

  Why not? After all, had I not arrived in Hollywood, the land of lotus eaters, as a neophyte timekeeper in a notorious band of syncopated calypso vagabonds? Why not indeed, since they were not only keys that gave access to enchanted castles but also served as talismen in the pernicious passageways to the chambers with the chests of infinite treasure therein.

  Not that the true storybook hero’s quest is ever likely to be for material riches as such except to pay off somebody else’s debt, otherwise his quest is likely to be for some magic means, not unlike the seed that became the beanstalk or the sporty limp stride of the seven league boots.

  But old Flaubert was not talking about castles and the treasures and pleasures of court life when he said what he said. He was talking about the pastoral life of peasants, the blisses of the commonplace.

  Creola Calloway herself would not have put it that way, I thought as I came along the aisle to the shelves from which I would select the books to be transferred to the reserve book room for supplemental reading for term papers, but the new friend of the Marquis de Chaumienne would have no problems pointing out that the blisses of the commonplace were precisely what nobody in Gasoline Point seemed to want Creola Calloway to want.