unloaded.
The other door to the right was now halfway open, and as she passed it, she couldn’t help but peek in. There, just inside the doorway, with a cigar in his hand, stood Tom Anderson himself. Although Mary had never come this close to him, she and everyone else on Venus Alley knew who he was. His name sent shivers through peet daddy circles and caused flutters with the whores. Anderson’s eyes caught her gaze, and she instantly flushed. Snapping her gawking head back to attention, she scooted herself out of his saloon as fast as she could.
The entire way back to Venus Alley, Mary kept her hand securely over the parchment that contained a crib number and her name. Her name.
Beulah was still wallowing on the dusty stoop, drawing circles in the dirt with a stick, when Mary returned.
“We’re goin’ back to work,” Mary announced.
“Girl, what kind of remedy Miss Eulalie give ya? It’s makin’ you say stupid talk.”
“They’re comin’ to take down these boards. Only thing, it’s my name on this crib now.”
Beulah’s face crinkled as if she were growing scared of Mary. Just then, a man with a deep mark encircling his eye rounded the corner, stopping to check the number on the crib. Taking a chisel that had been dangling from his belt loop, he loosened the boards, and one by one they clattered to the ground. He kicked them out of the way, then, with a nod to Mary, and a half nod to Beulah, he headed off. To Mary’s amazement, Beulah was struck dumb.
“I’m droppin’ your rent to two dollars a month, Beulah, but we’re switchin’ shifts. You get daylight and I get all night. Ya ain’t gonna pay Lobrano no more. You’re gonna pay me, first of every month. And quit lookin’ at me like that. Ain’t you never seen a peet daddy with a pussy?”
C HAPTER SEVEN
The Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band, which played throughout the red light district
F erdinand LaMenthe hunched over the old upright piano at Pete Lala’s Café. He was outfitted in his Sunday best, although he’d removed his jacket and carefully hung it across a chair to ensure he’d appear pressed for tonight.
Tonight. Ferdinand knew that just a couple of hours from now he would embark on a momentous first, and he speculated that he’d still speak of this night many years from now, recounting tales of how, in his seventeenth year, he played before the highest of New Orleans society.
He wasn’t so much nervous for his debut as he was eager. His excitement had become so heightened it was prickly, and he’d been unable to keep himself still until he finally settled down to Pete Lala’s piano. Even just the simple rituals, scooting the bench to the right distance for his lanky legs, positioning his foot on the pedal, and hovering his hands over the keys, instantly soothed the current sparking through him. His shoulders, which had been inching toward his ears, melted back, and his stomach settled the moment his fingers ran through a simple warm-up—a little jaunt around the cakewalk, as he liked to say in his best rag-talk.
Most evenings, when the customers thinned out from the café, Ferdinand was permitted to trail from Southern staples of minstrels and folk songs and work on his own music. Within the scope of a few moments, he would fully transform from lighthearted piano man to serious composer, pounding and twisting and painstakingly piecing together his original compositions. As was the case now: with creased forehead, he pressed the same three keys over and over, humming to himself as he struggled to make the piano perfectly match the music in his head. He leaned his ear closer to the keyboard, as if listening for the tiniest distinctions or as if he might hear something he hadn’t noticed when he pressed the same key a second earlier.
It was amidst this relentless concentration that the rest of the world faded away, and, but for his attention to the piano, his other senses dulled into hibernation. Hours felt like minutes; hunger
The other door to the right was now halfway open, and as she passed it, she couldn’t help but peek in. There, just inside the doorway, with a cigar in his hand, stood Tom Anderson himself. Although Mary had never come this close to him, she and everyone else on Venus Alley knew who he was. His name sent shivers through peet daddy circles and caused flutters with the whores. Anderson’s eyes caught her gaze, and she instantly flushed. Snapping her gawking head back to attention, she scooted herself out of his saloon as fast as she could.
The entire way back to Venus Alley, Mary kept her hand securely over the parchment that contained a crib number and her name. Her name.
Beulah was still wallowing on the dusty stoop, drawing circles in the dirt with a stick, when Mary returned.
“We’re goin’ back to work,” Mary announced.
“Girl, what kind of remedy Miss Eulalie give ya? It’s makin’ you say stupid talk.”
“They’re comin’ to take down these boards. Only thing, it’s my name on this crib now.”
Beulah’s face crinkled as if she were growing scared of Mary. Just then, a man with a deep mark encircling his eye rounded the corner, stopping to check the number on the crib. Taking a chisel that had been dangling from his belt loop, he loosened the boards, and one by one they clattered to the ground. He kicked them out of the way, then, with a nod to Mary, and a half nod to Beulah, he headed off. To Mary’s amazement, Beulah was struck dumb.
“I’m droppin’ your rent to two dollars a month, Beulah, but we’re switchin’ shifts. You get daylight and I get all night. Ya ain’t gonna pay Lobrano no more. You’re gonna pay me, first of every month. And quit lookin’ at me like that. Ain’t you never seen a peet daddy with a pussy?”
C HAPTER SEVEN
The Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band, which played throughout the red light district
F erdinand LaMenthe hunched over the old upright piano at Pete Lala’s Café. He was outfitted in his Sunday best, although he’d removed his jacket and carefully hung it across a chair to ensure he’d appear pressed for tonight.
Tonight. Ferdinand knew that just a couple of hours from now he would embark on a momentous first, and he speculated that he’d still speak of this night many years from now, recounting tales of how, in his seventeenth year, he played before the highest of New Orleans society.
He wasn’t so much nervous for his debut as he was eager. His excitement had become so heightened it was prickly, and he’d been unable to keep himself still until he finally settled down to Pete Lala’s piano. Even just the simple rituals, scooting the bench to the right distance for his lanky legs, positioning his foot on the pedal, and hovering his hands over the keys, instantly soothed the current sparking through him. His shoulders, which had been inching toward his ears, melted back, and his stomach settled the moment his fingers ran through a simple warm-up—a little jaunt around the cakewalk, as he liked to say in his best rag-talk.
Most evenings, when the customers thinned out from the café, Ferdinand was permitted to trail from Southern staples of minstrels and folk songs and work on his own music. Within the scope of a few moments, he would fully transform from lighthearted piano man to serious composer, pounding and twisting and painstakingly piecing together his original compositions. As was the case now: with creased forehead, he pressed the same three keys over and over, humming to himself as he struggled to make the piano perfectly match the music in his head. He leaned his ear closer to the keyboard, as if listening for the tiniest distinctions or as if he might hear something he hadn’t noticed when he pressed the same key a second earlier.
It was amidst this relentless concentration that the rest of the world faded away, and, but for his attention to the piano, his other senses dulled into hibernation. Hours felt like minutes; hunger
Similar Books
