The Jazz Palace by Mary Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

anything like it before.”
    “What’s it worth to you?”
    Benny dug into his pockets. All he had was his carfare home. “I’ve got this.”
    “Ah, forget about it.” The man gave him a grin. “It’s called jass.”
    Benny stood, not moving, repeating the word. “Jass.”
    “You know, son, this is the devil’s music. The demon dwells here. It’s Negro music, boy. Whorehouse stomping. Coon shouting.” The man was taunting him now. “It’s what your mama told you to stay away from. So you better do that. Now you get outta here.” And the man planted a kick in the air.
    —
    I n August the White Sox bought Shoeless Joe Jackson from Cleveland for twenty-five thousand dollars. In sandlots boys were slamming line drives into left field, hoping that one day Shoeless Joe would miss one of theirs. On a hot Saturday afternoon Benny hit a grounder onto Leland Avenue. He had a good stance and a strong swing, and he whacked it out of the lot. He rounded the bases with his mother hollering from the window that he’d be late for his piano lesson. As he touched home plate, he gave her a wave and waited until she went back inside. Pocketing the money she gave him to pay his teacher, he hopped a trolley, heading south.
    Once more Benny got off at the Shadows and walked along the docks. Now the black tug was gone, and so was the
Eastland
. The river was devoid of the tragedy as if it had never occurred. Nothing marked the spot where 844 people drowned in the hull of a ship. The river flowed, greasy and dark, and Benny shuddered as he walked along Clark Street. The sounds of Tom Brown’s Ragtime Band, coming from the Lamb’s Café, made him pause.
    Inside a piano man was warming up. Benny stared at the poster of Joe Frisco, the “American Apache,” as he danced “the frisco” bug-eyed with derby and cigar. At the bottom of the poster Benny saw the word written for the first time. JASS BAND . He stuck his head in as the band was setting up. “Hey, when’s the show?” he called to a waiter in a white tie and tuxedo, but the waiter shooed him away.
    “Scram, kid,” the waiter chimed, slamming the door in his face. Benny waited outside, hoping the band would warm up again. When it didn’t, he took a school pencil from his pocket and crossed the
J
out of “Jass.” ASS BAND , it read. Then he caught the Alley to Satan’s Mileuntil he stood again in the alleyway near the trash cans where a dog chewed a bone. The stink of rancid meat made him swoon. He put his ear to the door and recognized the sound.
    That caramel man was pounding out a tune, and those buttery hands never missed a note. Pigeons roosted overhead. The shadows grew longer as Benny tried to see the music in his head. But the colors weren’t coming out clear. They were kind of gray, fuzzy around the edges. Everything that was jumbled up inside him was flowing through that door. He tried taking the notes apart, but nothing was making sense. This was no written-down, planned-out thing. Nobody had played like this before. Benny listened the way a sleeper listens to his own dream. He wanted more “jass.”
    As he was leaning against the door, it opened, and he tumbled against the trash cans. Startled at first, the big man laughed. “You back again?” He was rolling a cigarette, licking the paper with his long pink tongue as Benny nodded. “You must be stealing,” the man said nonchalantly.
    Benny looked around the alleyway. What was there to take? “Stealing? I never stole anything in my life.”
    The man laughed. “Music. That’s what white kids steal.”
    Benny shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
    The man lit his cigarette. “So what d’you want here, boy?”
    Benny tried to find the words for what he wanted, but they eluded him. “Nothing,” he replied, though he knew this wasn’t true. He did want something.
    “Then why you keep showing up?” The man stared at him, but Benny held his ground.
    A few minutes ago he hadn’t known what he