The Jazz Palace by Mary Morris Read Free Book Online

gone. A man across the way had lost his wife and his daughter. At night Benny heard his sobs. One woman had lost all six of her children. How could a person go on after something like that?
    His mother had only lost Harold. But he was the youngest and the sweetest of her boys. Benny couldn’t help but chuckle as he looked again at the tugboat’s name.
Favorite
. That’s what Harold was. Her favorite. It had been a knife in Benny’s heart. How Hannah doted on him. She saved for him the juicy chicken thighs, the marrow bones in the soup. The tenderest cut of brisket was never for her husband, always for Harold. And then she’d lost him, and though she’d never say it, Benny really was to blame. She had entrusted him with the boys. She cried for a year, then one day she stopped. But the headaches began, and they’d never gone away. Somehow the three boys who were left didn’t count. It made no difference when Benny said to her, “You still have me.”
    “How’s it coming?” he shouted to the pilot of the tug.
    “Good as can be expected,” the pilot called back with a wave. Benny lingered on the docks, then hopped the “el” that they called the Alley, which would take him downtown. He was happiest in motion. He didn’t want to sit still. If he could, he’d just keep going. He had thoughts of getting away, heading to some of the river towns. Davenport or St. Louis. Maybe even to New Orleans. He rocked with the rhythm of the “el” as it took him down Satan’s Mile past the saloons where Mickey Finn rolled customers for their wallets and left them naked on the streets. Benny didn’t care if the South Side was dirty or dangerous. He got off at Thirty-First Street and walked the rest of the way.
    The alleyway smelled of grease and dog shit, of piss and smoldering trash. The stink of a Chicago summer got into his clothes and his hair. He put his ear up to the tavern door and soon the music seeped out as he knew it would. Even at this early hour someone was playing the keyboard. At first he thought it was two people. It didn’tseem possible that it was only one. Whoever was playing seemed to be hitting all the notes at once, but the right hand ran wild while the left kept a steady bass. The notes swirled in murky colors, and the key kept changing. He couldn’t make sense of the chords.
    He didn’t know what this new music was called or if it even had a name. He just knew he heard it when he went to those places where his mother said he didn’t belong. Often Hannah chastised his father. “You shouldn’t be sending that boy on deliveries down to the South Side. He’s too young to go there.” She had read
Chicago and Its Cess-Pools of Sin
. Evils awaited her son in that part of town. “Lost souls” was what she called those who went there. But Leo protested, “He’s the only one who wants to go.”
    Not many of the boys would venture down to the South Side because it was rough. Sometimes they had their tips stolen, but Benny begged his father for those jobs. It didn’t matter to Leo who did the South Side as long as it got done. He didn’t want any competition in the area of rail and stockyard workers, so he gave Benny that part of town whenever he asked.
    When the music stopped, the silence was slow to reach him. He stood motionless as a huge caramel-skinned man in a soaked white shirt flung open the door. His hair, the color of molasses, was cut short, making his big head look like a balloon. His eyes were molasses, too. Bees must flock to him, Benny thought. The man glared at the boy who stood gaping. “What’re you doing here, son?”
    “Just listening.” Benny shook as he said it. The man gave him a smile, and a diamond stud glittered in his front tooth. “Was that you playing?” The man nodded, staring down at Benny so he thought he’d better say something more. “I was wondering, that music, what’s it called?”
    “Why do you wanta know?”
    Benny shrugged. “I haven’t heard