The Color of Family

by Patricia Jones

  “Like?”

  “Well, like a few weeks ago, I found a torn-up letter that had been addressed to my mother from someone here in Baltimore, only whoever sent it, sent it to her in New Orleans. Yet my mother brought it all the way here to Baltimore, then ripped it up and threw it out. Who is this person, and why is she writing to my mother, and how does she even know my mother?” He launched into the energetic staccato rhythm of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz, then turned to Professor Fletcher and out of nowhere said, “I’m thinking I’ll close with this one when I play here in Baltimore. I don’t really know why, except that it just makes me think of a jaunty dance with the devil, and that’s what I feel like I did in some of my most melancholy moments in that dream when I was here in Baltimore another lifetime ago.” And as he lavished his attention on the melodic, rhapsodic midsection, he let his head drop back, and moaned, “And now the seduction. The devil’s seduction.”

  Professor Fletcher asked quietly, “And how did the devil seduce you?”

  “He brought me back here, didn’t he? And I don’t know why, but I think my answers are back here.” But what he didn’t go further to say, and what he’d never even said in his earlier years of taking Professor Fletcher into his confidence, were the calls from his mother, every day, wanting to know if he’d met anyone today, or if he’d heard from anyone today. Those calls made no more sense now than they did then, and to admit them out loud would probably make them sound even more absurd and devoid of context. “Something drew me here, Professor Fletcher…Lars. Why did I choose Peabody over Juilliard or the Curtis? I got into all those schools, but why did I come here?”

  “You always said it was because of André Watts. You said, and I remember, ‘I always wanted to study in the place where he honed his brilliance.’”

  “Maybe,” he said as he brought the Mephisto Waltz down to its dramatic end. Then he looked up at Professor Fletcher and smiled ironically. “And so why André Watts, when there were a plethora of giant footsteps to follow at the other schools?”

  “I can’t answer that for you, Clayton. And I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but that dance with the devil you just played, ended with a somewhat dissonant crash of a chord.”

  Clayton laughed out loud and with an intensity that came from a place that had never before sent forth laughter. He looked squarely at Professor Fletcher so that there would be no mistaking his words, and said, “And maybe that’s how this whole torment will end for me. In one loud, dissonant, resounding crash.” And the drollness of the previous seconds was wiped clean from his face by the sobering thought of possibly learning in Baltimore that he should have left sleeping dogs lying in the blissful ignorance of their slumber.

  When Clayton pulled into the garage, DeWitt Dilly waited eagerly as if his only assignment for the evening was parking Clayton’s car. Clayton didn’t look directly at him, trying to stave off for as long as possible the moment when insincere grinning would have to begin. He took his time inching the car to a complete stop, then putting it into Park, and then putting on the emergency brake. What did this young man want from him? A kind word, a smile maybe, he presumed, but there were some times, like now, when that was simply asking too much from him. He recalled his life in New York when he wouldn’t leave his apartment for days at a time because his mood wasn’t conducive to cordial greetings with neighbors on the seemingly interminable slide down in the elevator from the thirty-eighth floor. And now in Baltimore, the elevator ride isn’t as long as in New York, but no less interminable in his mind when he didn’t want to be the charming legendary pianist who had come to be known for a steadfast good nature, and who would never even consider telling someone to step completely out of his space. Only now, he thought as he could see nothing but DeWitt Dilly’s crooked teeth, it was much worse, because the image that had been glued to him by some random article or television profile had gone beyond making him well-respected by those with a certain authority of music and musical dilettantes alike, but it had made him revered, and reverence, as he’d come to know it, was a difficult zenith on which to stay balanced on a daily basis. Particularly now, he thought, as he slowly opened the door to get out of the car.

  “Evenin’ Clayton,” DeWitt said, saying Clayton’s name with a certain pride for the privilege.

  “Hi, DeWitt” was all Clayton said as he shoved his hand in his pocket for a tip. When he pulled out a five-dollar bill, he handed it to DeWitt, saying, “Thanks a lot.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir,” and he gladly put the money in his shirt pocket. “Say, you’re kind of late tonight. Did you have some big to-do somewhere, or somethin’?”

  “No, not tonight. Well, good night, DeWitt.” And that was the most gracious way he could think of to leave.

  “Good night, now. But tell me, before you go, how do you like Baltimore, so far?”

  Clayton turned to find DeWitt leaning against the door of his car, arms folded, settled in for a long talk. He simply couldn’t do it, so he said, “Well, DeWitt, you know I lived here before.”

  “Yeah, I know that. But has anything changed? Do you still like it?”

  Clayton collected himself, resigned that he practically had no choice but to stay, short of out-and-out rudeness, so he said, “I guess I find it colorful in a one-dimensional way. You know how it is in New Orleans and even up in New York where it’s colorful in every way you can imagine. Well, it’s not like that here. There’re only about two or three colors here, but those colors are just deep enough to make this place interesting.”

  “I guess you ain’t talkin’ about people, huh?”

  Clayton chuckled in a reserved, nearly condescending way. “No, DeWitt, I’m not talking about people.”

  “I didn’t think you was, because this place is filled with nothin’ but people of color. I’m tellin’ you, I ain’t never seen so many black people livin’ in one city as I seen here. You know, somebody told me that this city is somethin’ like seventy percent black. Did you know that?”

  And Clayton tried to imagine under what circumstances he could possibly have come to know such a statistic during the course of his lifetime. Still, he only answered, “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, so I’m wonderin’, you know, if that’s true, is it gonna be hard for me to find a nice white girl to marry up here? I mean, does it make the pickin’s slimmer for a white guy to get a girl, with this city havin’ more black people than white?”

  Clayton looked at DeWitt through tired, impatient eyes, then smiled as if he meant it and said in a way that would have made anyone believe he was really pulling for such a love match, “I don’t think you’ll have to worry. I think you’ll do just fine finding the white girl you’re looking for. You’ll find each other.” Then he turned and pulled the door open. He looked back at DeWitt over his shoulder and continued, “Well, with that said, I’ve got to get going now, DeWitt. I want to see my boys before they’re in bed.”

  “Oh, all right,” DeWitt said as he turned and opened the car door. “Good night, Clayton.”

  “Good night,” Clayton said as he went through the door.

  When he got to the lobby, he found that smack in the center was a group of people either coming or going, he couldn’t tell. And he couldn’t determine whether it might be a crowd who’d swarm him for his autograph, a photo maybe, and then benign chitchat, or a gathering of souls who didn’t know him from the next man who’d cross the lobby. He wouldn’t take a chance on a night when he had no tolerance for his fame, so he lowered his head and crossed the lobby at a clip. That’s when the doorman beckoned to him, possibly blowing the whole thing, anyway.

  “Mr. Cannon,” the man said.

  Clayton looked up and smiled, then said, “Yes, Maurice?”

  “Everything’s all set for the delivery of your piano. I’ve arranged for the crane to be here to lift it up to your apartment.”

  “Thank you so much, Maurice.” And he thought that would be that until he heard someone recognize him, and
then felt the throng of eyes on him.

  “Aren’t you Clayton Cannon?” a woman said, while tapping his shoulder simultaneously.

  “Yes, ma’am, I am,” he said, turning to find the woman standing next to another woman and two men. The rest of the pack stood back in the distance with puzzled faces. Clayton smiled and tried to bring as much of his true self to these people as he could.

  “I thought so. We just love you. And we doubly love that you’re living right here in Baltimore,” the woman said.

  And then the other woman said, “Yeah, even when you were living in New York, we still claimed you just because you went to school down here.”

  Then every one of them laughed, and Clayton could do nothing but join them out of courtesy.

  “Then again,” said one of the men, “this one here, my wife, claims anybody who even passed through Baltimore down at Penn Station. She claims Oprah Winfrey, and we were in New York a few summers ago on vacation sitting in the hotel room watching the news one afternoon and she sees Sue Simmons, you know, the anchorwoman up there, and so now she’s claiming her just because Sue Simmons stopped through here to work on her way to fame in New York. So don’t mind her.” And then the man laughed heartily.

  “Do you folks live here?” Clayton asked.

  “Oh, no we don’t,” the man’s wife said. “We live out in Hunt Valley, but we’ve always been curious about what the inside of this place looked like, so we were having dinner over at Harbor Place and decided to come in here and take a look around. It’s real posh.”

  “Yes it is,” Clayton agreed for lack of anything else to say. “You would think I’d be tired of apartment living after being in New York, but we’ve found that it suits us. Particularly this building and where it’s located.”

  Then the man who had not yet spoken, who Clayton presumed must have been married to the other non-speaking woman, put out his arms as if to bring the encounter to an end and round everyone up all at once. He smiled kindly at Clayton and said, “Well, we just wanted to come over and say hello and tell you how much we enjoy your playing. This is my wife here, and we have two of your recordings, one of your Beethoven Piano Concerto Number Three, and the other where you’re playing Brahms.”

  Then, the talkative woman who initiated their encounter said, “We have a recording of you playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations. It’s really wonderful, but I enjoy listening to you most play the big classical and romantic pieces, you know, Hayden, Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt. To me, that’s where you really shine.”

  “Well, thank you,” Clayton said, and there was only the slightest twinge of something indescribable he felt at the center of himself with the understanding that someone, maybe only this one person, felt that he didn’t shine in every single period of music, every single composer he played. Then he smiled graciously and began shaking each of their hands, saying, “Well, I need to get going now. I want to see my boys before they’re in bed.”

  “Oh, of course,” the motormouth woman said. “We’ve got little ones to get home to, too. But it sure was nice meeting you. I’m Julie Pratt and this is my husband Brad. This is Brad’s brother Mike and his wife Patsy.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.”

  As the four of them began to turn and walk away, Brad said, “And we’re going to be at your concert here in Baltimore. We’re really looking forward to it.”

  “Good. Come backstage to see me afterward,” Clayton said only to wonder immediately afterward why on earth he’d extended such an invitation that was now impossible to retract.

  “Oh my God!” Julie said. “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes,” Clayton said as forcefully as he needed to say it to keep his truth from being known. “Yes, I do mean it. Just come to the stage door and I’ll leave your names with the guard there.”

  “Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Cannon,” Julie said.

  “Okay, good night.” And with that, Clayton was at the doorman’s desk writing their names down on a slip of paper. If he was going to honor a commitment he shouldn’t have made in the first place, he was going to have to do his best to at least remember their names. When he finished, he shoved the paper into his pocket, and when he turned back, they were all, the whole lot of them, nearly completely out the door. He went to the elevator, and by the time the doors slid open and he stepped on, he had resigned himself to what he had done in the throes of a haze that had taken him out and up to the Peabody Conservatory in search of an unknown something.

  When he walked through the door and closed it behind him, the silence of the apartment at first made him think that everything had been rolled up for the night and everyone was down for their slumber. But as he walked through the vestibule and into the living room to put his keys on the coffee table, he could hear the low-tone voices of Susan and the boys coming from the bedroom. Good, he thought, because he made his way home early from his tour of reminiscence for this peaceful time with his family. He went immediately down the hallway toward the bedroom. Underneath the guest room door where his mother stayed, he saw the yellow glow of her bedside lamp and the muffled voices from her television, but he kept going. He’d see her in the morning.

  He got to his bedroom and stopped to listen to what they were talking about, but when he simply couldn’t get the substance from just the snatch he’d walked up on, Clayton opened the door slowly. All three of their startled faces turned to see him standing there, so he said, as he closed the door, “Why the surprised looks? I live here, you know.”

  They all laughed, then Noah said, “Dad, we’ve been talking to Mommy about something we’ve been studying in school. We’re talking about the Civil Rights movement and how black people had to go on marches and everything just to be treated equal to white people.”

  “That’s true, Noah,” Clayton said as he emptied his pockets onto the top of the dresser. He took off his jacket, threw it across the chair, then said, “It was mainly down in the South. And in fact, blacks couldn’t do things like go into department stores and shop, they couldn’t eat in certain restaurants, and even when they could, they had to eat in the back. And they had to ride in the backs of buses.”

  “Yeah, that’s what the teacher said,” Luke added. “She told us about Rosa Parks and how she got arrested because she wouldn’t move to the back of the bus one day when she was tired.”

  Clayton went to the bed and sat next to Susan and, after kissing her hello, said, “And boys, that’s only one of many, many, many stories about all the injustices done to black people by whites.”

  “How come the president didn’t make it stop?” Noah asked.

  “The president, or presidents did what they could, but you see, in the South, blacks lived in fear for years after slavery, and after a while it just became a part of life. In those days if you were black, you didn’t go to the white part of town because you knew you’d come back dead. Black men didn’t do something as simple as say hello to a white woman because they’d end up being hung from a tree.” Clayton thought for a moment about music, because everything in life can be attached to music. Then he continued, “Tomorrow after school, I want you guys to come into my studio and I’m going to play a song for you by a woman who’s from right here in Baltimore. Her name’s Billie Holiday, and she sang a song called ‘Strange Fruit.’ It says an awful lot about most of the years of the twentieth century in the South, when black men were killed mostly just for being black. And in a way, all the presidents of this country did was to look away while all of this happened, trying to stay true to a legacy that men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson put into place with slavery. Of course all the presidents since the end of slavery would have denied that, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me since they could have put an end to all the bad things whites were doing to blacks long before it finally stopped.” Then he happened to look into Susan’s eyes that were peering into the side of his face with fire. But he only smiled, then asked the boys, “Don’t you think?” />
  “They sure could have stopped it,” Luke said. “They were presidents.”

  Susan finally spoke up. “I don’t think that’s an altogether accurate account of things, Clay, honey. I mean, if things were as bad as the way you tell it, then there’d be absolutely no black people left down South whatsoever.”

  “That’s true, Daddy,” Noah said.

  “Susan, don’t confuse the boys,” he argued sharply, turning a stern face to Susan. To the boys, he said, “I’m not saying that this is something that happened to every single black person in the South, but I am saying that it happened to far too many people at a time when it shouldn’t have been happening, not that there’s ever a good time for that kind of inhumanity. And I’ll tell you something else. It happened so often that there probably wasn’t a black person who wasn’t related to or knew someone who ended up being a victim of white violence.”

  But Susan countered with, “What I’m saying to you, boys, is that there are two sides to everything, and you can’t fault people for being scared. A lot of bad things happen in this world because people are scared, and all I’m saying is that some of the white people in the South in those days were scared and so they did those bad things out of fear of black people. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that’s why those things happened.”

  “Why were they scared of them?”

  And before he would give Susan the opportunity to give some indulgent answer that wouldn’t come anywhere close to the heart of the question, Clayton answered with swiftness, “Because they had been conditioned by their fathers, who had been conditioned by their fathers who had been conditioned by their fathers to consider black people less than human because they didn’t have white skin. And so all the bloodshed and hangings in the South can be blamed on white ignorance.” And he had no idea why he blamed the brainwashing on fathers, except that as he spoke, Susan’s father was coming clearer into his mind, as if the evil thoughts had summoned the man’s image.