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

wanted, but now he did. “I want to come inside.”
    The man let out a gruff laugh, thick with smoke. “Well, be my guest.” He flashed a smile with his diamond stud and poppy-seed kernels between his teeth. Making a deep bow, he let the boy pass through a haze of perfume and smoke. Billiard balls clacked in a corner while two girls with red nails and creamy red lipstick leaned against the bar. Their breasts were pushed up almost to their chins, and they wore black lace stockings hooked onto a garter belt andred bows in their hair. Benny had never seen girls dressed like this before, and he looked at them more with curiosity than desire.
    Honey Boy Bailey crossed the room, his buttocks shaking like Jell-O. “Hey, Honey,” one of the girls called. “You gonna let that doughboy sit in with you?”
    “He’s not white.” Honey Boy held up Benny’s tanned arm. “Look at him. He’s almost black as us. Besides this boy likes our rhythms. And you can see he’s got the heebie-jeebies, so why don’t you go outside and get us some business, Velvet?”
    The man pulled up a chair beside the piano. “Okay, you just sit here and watch.” He stretched out his long black fingers that moved like termites in a house on fire. He took up the whole keyboard as his pink nails flitted up and down. His hands went in different directions while his feet danced on the floor. His elbows jabbed the air as he kept the melody moving with his right hand. Benny kept his eye on the left hand as he tried to figure out the chords.
    Honey Boy played his rags and the blues, but then the tunes took off on their own, and Benny had no way of following. His right hand crossed over his left and Benny couldn’t keep up. Honey Boy seemed to be using the instrument more like a drum than a piano.
    His hands glided for an hour, a day; Benny had no idea how long. All he knew was that he couldn’t follow the tune by just sitting there. And that this man wasn’t called Honey Boy because of the golden brown color of his skin. He was Honey Boy because when he played, what came out of him was sweet and smooth.
    When Honey Boy was finished, he looked at Benny, who was concentrating very hard. “What are you thinking?”
    Benny shook his head. “I’m thinking about how you do that.”
    Honey Boy laughed. “Well, when you solve it, you come back and show me.” Reaching into a jar, he swallowed a handful of poppy seeds. “Jelly Roll Morton, he thinks he invented jazz. But let me tell you, I taught him a thing or two before you were born. Now you go work on that, then come back for your next lesson.” Honey Boy laughed, giving Benny a pat on the back. “And eat poppy seeds,” he said, holding up the jar. “It’s good luck. It’ll make a success out of you.”
    As Benny stepped into the warm air, he was surprised at how dark it was. He tried to ignore the laughter trailing after him. They were making fun of him, but he was too busy, trying to figure out what he’d just heard. He ran the music over in his head. There were two or three chords he could make sense of. The rest was a cloudy river with no bottom in sight. As he walked, his fingers worked, laying out a melody on top. He didn’t even notice that he was heading the wrong way home.
    —
    I t was called the Stroll, that part of South State Street where the music lived. The Dahomey Stroll to some. A strip of flashing bulbs, all blue, red, and yellow, where midnight was like noon. The music was coming from there twenty-four hours a day. From the Elite and the Vendome. From the Grand and the Deluxe. It was said that if you held a trumpet in the air, it would play all by itself. They called it the Bohemia of the Colored Folks. Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, and South State Street, those were the epicenters of the world.
    Postal workers and delivery boys, hotel maids who cleaned toilets, and men who hosed down the stockyard floor, they went home, took a shower, dressed to the nines, then headed out again.