A Drop of Patience

by William Melvin Kelley

  “You serious?”

  “Oh, I’m serious all right. Can’t you tell?”

  “What you mean by love? Like a mother, a sister or a wife?”

  “A wife.”

  He was certain she was fooling, or bragging, or making promises she would not keep. He could not resist challenging her. “What’d you say if I said to you—Wife, let’s run back to the hotel and knock off a piece?”

  “Yes. But after I have another beer.”

  He still did not believe her. “You’re on, baby. Get your beer.”

  She ordered, and, talking happily to him about a variety of things, drank the beer. Then she said she was ready and they went out into the noisy Harlem springtime.

  Behind locked doors, he listened to her undress. Then she went to the bed; the springs whined and crackled under her.

  Still surprised, and knowing she must be watching him, he undressed, climbed into bed beside her and put his arms around her, finding her skin cool even in the warm room. She did not wear perfume, only lots of powder, and her skin was slippery. On her back were many bumps the size of the heads of pins. There was a hook-shaped scar, the length of his thumb, on her right buttock. He asked about it; she had arthritis at one time, she said.

  He gave her a last chance to back out—and, he realized, himself too. “You sure you ain’t just all talk?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay.” He kissed her, and enjoyed it. “I believe you.”

  4

  IT WAS GOOD having a steady woman again—especially since Harriet demanded nothing of him. He knew he could break it off at any time. He had made no promises. He did not love Harriet, but he certainly liked her a great deal and showed her that he did. He paid attention when she complained about some injustice at school, listened and soothed her when she cried because she was gaining weight or when her face started to break out. At first he thought little of these attentions, but he came to realize they were quite important, not only to her, but to himself. He realized he had never before paid so much unselfish attention to anyone. Perhaps Etta-Sue and Ragan had not betrayed him as much as he had betrayed himself by not really listening to them. Perhaps if he had listened to them, really examined their words, they would never have disillusioned and betrayed him, because perhaps he would never have trusted or had any illusions about them.

  On the same day that Harriet graduated from college, Ludlow was offered a job in a quartet that played at a small Negro resort hotel an hour’s drive from the city. Harriet went along, securing a job as a waitress in the dining room.

  She worked most of the day, and just when she was finishing, his hours were beginning. Sometimes she would come to listen to him, but most often she slept, getting up when he was finished. In the cricket-filled nights they would sit on the damp grass behind the hotel, or walk to the small pond where the guests swam. Sometimes Harriet would undress and swim, while he sat on the cold sand beside her still-warm clothes. Ludlow never went into the water; he could not swim.

  There were two sounds to her swimming: the dull, low bubbling of her kick and the higher splash of her arms. His hands squeezed the damp sand into a ball.

  She ran toward him, the water crackling. “You’re sweating. Why don’t you come in?”

  She was standing close over him, giving off cold. He laughed. “Don’t want me around no more, huh? Well, you don’t have to drown me. I’ll just go.”

  She squatted in front of him. Cold lips kissed his. “I won’t let you drown, Ludlow. I promise.”

  He tried to remember the last time he had been in the water, could not. He shook his head, vaguely afraid. “We ain’t got no towel.”

  “Yes, we do. I brought one tonight. I can teach you to swim. I’m an instructor in the Red Cross.” She was proud of that.

  “That so?” He pretended to be impressed.

  “I worked very hard. I had to tow a man a hundred yards.”

  “What man?”

  “Jealous?” She wanted him to be.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know you then.”

  “Won’t you come swimming?”

  She seemed so disappointed that for an instant he weakened. “Sure.” He stood up and took off his jacket and unbuckled his belt. Once again he was afraid, as if there were something waiting for him in the water.

  When he was undressed, a breeze blowing cool on his warm skin, she took his hand and led him slowly into the water. It rose over his shins and knees, up his thighs, painful and refreshing. Then it was a knife between his legs….

  * * *

  —

  HIS TEETH were chattering; his brother gripped his hand tighter. “He scared, Papa.” His brother shouted toward the shore, a mile away.

  “Don’t be scared, Luddy.” His father’s voice came across the water, riding small waves. “He’ll hold you. Don’t worry.”

  “He still shaking.” His brother’s voice tickled his ear: “Don’t shake, Luddy. I’ll keep you all right.”

  His teeth clicked rapidly. He was moaning. He tried to tell his brother he was not afraid, but could not speak.

  “He shaking like mad, Papa.”

  “You bring him in here then.” His mother did not shout, but her voice came clearly on the small waves of the pond. “He’ll learn to swim tomorrow.”

  “Come on, Luddy, you don’t got to shake no more.” His brother took his shoulders and turned him around. The water slid down his legs. Then the sand was warm and dry. The heat came from high up, through a breeze. “He still shaking, Mama. He crying too.” His brother disapproved.

  “Bring him here.” His mother was sitting on the sand, her voice level with his ears.

  His brother led him to her and then her hands took his waist, and pulled him gently to her, into her lap. For a moment, she released him with one hand, fiddled with something above his head. Her skin tasted of salt; his face brushed soft, warm flesh. Then his lips found the small button of her nipple and he was sucking. “Don’t cry now, Luddy.” Her voice came down to his ear, and through her breast too. “Mama’ll take care of you. Don’t cry.”

  “He all right?” His father was close too, his breath smelling of the beer he had been drinking.

  “He’ll be all right soon.” When her voice stopped, over the sound of waves on the shore, his brother paddled away in the water….

  * * *

  —

  “LUDLOW, don’t cry.” Harriet had stopped pulling him, had dropped his hand, put her arms around his waist, and kissed him.

  “God damn mother-fucker!” He was too ashamed to say anything else. “Damn mother-fucking bastard!”

  “It’s all right. Come on. It’s all right. I’ll take you out. Come on.” She pulled him into ankle-deep water. They stood on wet sand; the water covering their feet was warmer than the air. “It’s all right.”

  “Shit!” He stopped, sighed and told her what had happened to him, embarrassed, ashamed and confused to be remembering such things and, worse, to cry over them. When he had finished, she only kissed him and told him she loved him.

  He lowered and shook his head as he had often done when she told him this.

  She shrugged, a smile in her voice. “It doesn’t matter.”

  They dried off, put on their clothes, then sat down on the sand, and Ludlow talked. He could not stop himself. He told her everything, about Etta-Sue and Ragan and how he thought sometimes about the daughter he knew he had, and the child he was not certain had ever been born. He wondered how much of what had happened to him was his fault, or someone else’s fault, or perhaps no one’s fault at all. He told Harriet he might never love her, and again she replied that she had decided to love him and that would be enough for a while.

  The coming day began to dry the air; Harriet told him it was time for her to set the tables in
the dining room. They walked toward the hotel, his hand on her elbow.

  “Don’t you want to get married and have kids and all that?” This still bothered him. He had never met anyone who seemed to want nothing.

  “Sure.” She paused. “But I have time.”

  “Well, don’t get too tied up here now.” He smiled.

  “I told you that’s my problem.” She sounded slightly angry.

  “All right.”

  “You just remember it.”

  They went on to the row of cabins where the help and the musicians stayed. They had been assigned to different cabins, but they had worked out an arrangement with their cabin mates so they could stay together. Ludlow stood on the second step. “You’ll be dragging all day.” He put his hand on top of her damp head.

  “I’ll sleep this afternoon.” She grew very serious. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. “I’m doing fine.” He realized then, his hand in her damp, curly hair, how very much he liked her.

  5

  HE WAITED for Harriet in a clearing in the woods. They had found it one afternoon, a treeless square twenty paces long, fifteen paces wide. He had come there alone, his instrument case in his hand, his feet knowing he was straying off the path when his footfalls were softened by leaves and pine needles. He sat now, birds and leaves singing and shuffling overhead, and practiced. Harriet had gone into the city for the day, but would return soon.

  Sitting on a rough log in the late summer afternoon, he had been thinking how much he hated winter. Nothing good had ever happened to him in the winter, and most of the bad. He could not remember ever having been happy when he was cold.

  Perhaps he and Harriet would go South—not to New Marsails of course; he did not want to meet Etta-Sue or his daughter and upset their lives. But he and Harriet could find some place warm and he could play with a small group and make enough to live. He smiled at the idea, sadness tugging him downward; he would never do such a thing. He was certain, but did not know why.

  He wondered what time it was. It seemed as if an evening breeze, cooler, was blowing down the well formed by the trees. He began to play again, drowning out the sounds of the clearing.

  The leaves on the path began to rattle steadily, the hissing of small, dry beads in a gourd. He stopped playing. Under the hissing came the thump of her running steps. “Hiya, baby.”

  “I have the greatest thing—”

  “I know you do. Have a good day?” He bent forward, opened his case and put down his instrument. “Come here and tell me.” He opened his arms; she sat on his lap.

  “A wonderful day!” She put her arms around his neck, squeezed him tight and kissed him. He began to want to make love to her, but she was also beginning to get heavy. He could feel the rough bark through his pants.

  “Listen to me, Ludlow.”

  He put his hand on her side and tickled her, then kissed her again. “I missed you, girl.”

  “I missed you too, Ludlow.” She stopped laughing. “But listen.”

  “Okay, but you getting heavy; move off!” He patted her behind.

  She got up, then sat on the ground between his knees, her back to him. “Now listen to me. This is really important.” She meant it. He did not reply. “I bought Four-Four today because I thought you’d like to know who was doing what in New York and stuff like that. And I was reading it myself coming back here and there’s an article about you, Ludlow.” She stopped, probably waiting for an answer. But she had not told him enough.

  “Don’t you understand? It’s all over now.” She moved forward and then she had turned around to face him, her hands on his knees. “All the bad times are over for you.”

  He smiled; she was so earnest. “How you know?”

  “Because—I’m telling you—there’s a big article about you with pictures and everything. Wait a minute.” She rummaged through her purse. The teeth of a comb sawed, money jingled. “Okay. It’s called ‘Why Do We Waste Our Geniuses?’ It starts: As you can see from the title, this will not be simply another review of another record. What I will try to do in the next twelve hundred words, is to right an almost unforgivable wrong, to bring about justice. It all starts with a recording, however, the newly issued album of six sides of the now famous concert of Christmas last.”

  The writer, Four-Four magazine’s most widely known and respected jazz critic, went on to tell that he had been ill the Christmas before and had been unable to attend the concert. But he was now glad he had not seen it because perhaps, like everyone else he had talked to, he might have walked out after the big-name groups had finished and missed the jam session.

  “Side five was taken up with the jam session. You must all understand the hazards involved in a jam session. Usually there has been no rehearsal and the statement of the theme (if there is a theme) is usually shoddy. The solos are usually below par.

  “Even so, I listened through a series of good to excellent solos—and then thunder struck! Perhaps ‘brave’ seems a strange word to describe a tone, but brave it was, and deep and strong. Whoever was playing, and I did not immediately recognize the musician and had not read the album’s liner notes, had more than mastered his instrument. A name went through my mind—Ludlow Washington. Yes, this musician sounded a great deal like Ludlow Washington, though, of course, it could not be he. Everyone knows that seven or eight years ago Washington went berserk on the stage of a New York night club and was committed to a mental hospital. For all I knew, he was still there, babbling obscenely as he had that winter night so long ago.

  “Whoever was playing had learned a great deal from Washington, but that was not the most astounding thing. This musician had not only learned, he had built upon what he had learned. He was better than Ludlow Washington!”

  Of course the writer had been listening to no one but Ludlow Washington, and he had decided he would try to find him. He contacted Ludlow’s friend, Otis Hardie, who could only give him an address in Harlem.

  “So I went to Harlem, to a dingy hotel. The desk clerk told me that Washington had been staying there, but had checked out in June, leaving no forwarding address.

  “That was where the trail ended. Disappointed, I returned home and listened to all of Ludlow Washington’s records, starting with Inez Cunningham, ending with the concert. The emotion I experienced while listening to these uniformly brilliant performances was one of admiration, respect, gratitude and shame—the last because I realized that I, and all of us who love jazz, had been guilty of a grave crime. We had wasted, neglected, the only undisputed genius jazz has produced in the last two decades; we have allowed him to spend the last seven years in cheap hotels, playing in bad rock-and-roll bands. But our neglect, however bad that may be, is not the worst crime. We have cheated ourselves of the best music we will probably hear in our lifetime. Now you understand the title of this essay: ‘Why do we waste our geniuses?’

  “And Ludlow Washington, where is he now? Returned once again, without notice, to the wards of the insane, or dying, or perhaps even dead? I would give a great deal to know the answer to this question. This I do know: If Ludlow Washington is alive, and sane, he is playing—thrilling all those lucky enough to be within hearing.

  * * *

  —

  HARRIET FINISHED and sighed. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Ludlow, in reply, began to laugh and could not stop himself until the bones in his head seemed ready to burst, until the muscles in his neck ached. “You seen anybody being thrilled by my playing lately?” He laughed again.

  “Ludlow, don’t. Don’t you realize? You can go back to New York and start a new group and work in places where people actually care about what you play.” She took his hand.

  She was right. He could return to New York, but for some reason he was not nearly as excited as he would have thought. He supposed he had been waiting for something like this t
o happen. Perhaps the belief that it would happen had kept him playing.

  “Ludlow, you can go back.”

  He thought of New York as it had been for him seven years before. He remembered himself standing on a stage, under dry heat, playing his best into the face of tinkling glasses, ringing telephones, belling cash registers, screaming waiters, jingling money, booming laughter, and cackling women. Even when he was popular, there had not been much appreciation.

  He laughed. “If I want to.”

  “But of course you do.” She was bewildered. “You should be playing in better groups than you’re playing in now. People shouldn’t be dancing while you play.”

  The guests at the hotel did dance. But a person had to be listening to dance. If they were dancing, if the scraping of their feet rose to the bandstand, he knew at least he had reached them. Perhaps it was too much to ask of people that they sit for hours and simply listen. But in New York they did not dance, they did not listen. The audience sat and talked, and in a corner, where their music would not bother the audience too much, the musicians played. He remembered what Norman Spencer had told him once about the old Harlem rent parties. “We wasn’t making no money then, but hell, man, you knew that the twenty or thirty or fifty folks in that one small, cabbage-smelling room was enjoying what you was doing. You’d lean into the keys, and behind you they was having the best old time ever. Shit, you ask me why I don’t go downtown? That’s another reason.” Ludlow smiled, remembering the pianist’s bitter voice. Too bad there were no more rent parties.