“THANK YOU, BOYCHIK.” Solly turned the card over. A king of clubs. “Ah. Now I see. The boy is brilliant.”
“What does it mean? Is it bad?”
“What’s a club? A club is a group of people. You need help in your crisis. You need a king, a friend. If you share your burden, all will be well. The cards have spoken. Daveleh, you can wake up now.”
I rubbed my hands over my eyes like I had just woken up. “Did we help her, Grandpa? Will everything be all right?”
“Yes, little momzer, we helped her.”
“Good.” I smiled up at Mrs. Smith.
She beamed at me. “Thank you, son.”
She didn’t buy any more cards. She said good-bye, promising to rave about him and me to all her friends.
When she’d gone, Solly said, “You’re a natural, boychik. I wish I really did have a grandson like you.”
Maybe I could live with Solly. I could earn my keep by helping him tell fortunes.
“Where do you live?” I said.
“Why? You’re planning to send me flowers?”
I didn’t know how to answer. Why wouldn’t he tell me?
“On Stanton Street. And you?”
He lived in my old neighborhood! “We used to live on Ludlow.” I was excited. “I went to P.S. 42, on Hester Street.” If I stayed with him, I could go back there.
“So, nu? Where do you live now?”
I was embarrassed. “At the HHB.”
“I should know what an HHB is?”
I shrugged and shook my head.
“Never mind. We’re wasting time. Tell for you your fortune?” He started walking. Bandit squawked, “Tell for you your fortune?”
I saw Irma Lee across the room. I wondered if she knew Solly told fake fortunes.
Our next customers were the couple who’d arrived in the Pierce-Arrow. They didn’t believe Solly could see the future, and they laughed at everything he said. I didn’t bother rocking or groaning for them.
But they gave Solly two dollars for a whole-life fortune for each of them. Solly told the man that he’d be rich someday, but I knew he must be rich already to spend two dollars on a phony fortune. Solly warned him to watch for a man with one blue eye and one green eye. He told the woman that she’d marry an English lord and have twelve children.
At the end, the man gave Solly an extra dime as a tip. In less than an hour, he’d made two dollars and eighty-five cents! It used to take Papa a whole day to earn five dollars.
“Dave!” Irma Lee pushed through the crowd to us. She was wearing a coat now. “Mama says I can invite you and Mr. Gruber to our party.” She opened a little blue pocketbook and took out two pieces of stiff white paper. She gave one to me and one to Solly.
In script with lots of curlicues it said,
You are cordially invited to
A gathering
At the city residence of Miss Odelia Packer
143 West One Hundred Thirty-fourth Street
Saturday evening, December 11th, 1926
Come early, stay late!
Conversation, Music, Potations, and Comestibles
“Can you come?”
“Mazel tov!” the parrot squawked.
It was more than a month away. I didn’t know where I’d be by then. But I’d come, no matter where I was. I nodded. “Yes.” Whoa! “Can’t I, Grandpa?”
“The boychik and I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I have to go now. ’Bye.” She smiled at me and turned to leave.
“’Bye,” I said.
She turned back and touched my shoulder. Then she leaned up to kiss me on the cheek. The kiss was soft and light and warm and over in a second. “’Bye,” she said again.
“’Bye,” I repeated.
She left, threading through the crowd. She was perfect!
“Shayneh shvartzeh maidel,” Solly said.
“What does that mean?”
“Pretty black girl.”
Pretty wasn’t good enough, and black didn’t sound right. Her skin was brown. Beautiful. Perfect.
I bent down and put the invitation in my other slipper. “What time is it?” I asked.
It was twenty after two. I still had time.
“Tell for you your fortune?” Solly chanted.
“Tell for you your fortune?” the parrot echoed.
We had three more customers. The first was a colored man who wasn’t interested in picture cards or in anything Solly said. He only wanted numbers he could “play.” When the card was a nine, he wrote it down. When it was a three, he wrote that down. When it was a king, he growled, “Another one.” I didn’t have to groan or do anything.
The numbers man left after he’d bought three cards. Our next customer was a colored woman who was repeat business, like Mrs. Smith had been. When I groaned, she asked Solly if I was “communing with souls in the hereafter.”
The last customer bought a lifetime fortune for his girlfriend. They were like the other couple—they didn’t think anything Solly said would come true, they were just having fun. Solly gave them nice lives. They were going to get married in seven months, have five children, and live in a warm climate. He was going to be elected to Congress, and she was going to be in the movies. They left us laughing their heads off.
Solly’s grand total was seven dollars, for an hour and a half of work. “Enough already,” he said. “It’s time for jazz music. Boychik, get ready for heaven.”
Jazz. It didn’t sound Yiddish. “What time is it?”
It was three-thirty. In an hour I should leave.
Solly led me back to the hallway Irma Lee and I had been in before. We passed the vestibule that led to the kitchen and turned into the next doorway.
The light was dim. The floor shook. All over the room people were jumping around, dancing to the happiest music I’d ever heard.
We edged our way toward the musicians. Chairs were pushed against the wall in here too. Solly sat on one and started pumping his knees, nodding, and tapping his feet in time to the music. I stood next to him, not moving, although that was hard. This music wanted you to dance.
Nobody was playing the drums right now. There were just a pianist and the man I’d seen on the street—Martin—playing the trumpet. For two people, they made a lot of music.
It was wide-awake music, nothing like the waltzes Papa used to whistle. If I could have painted it, I would have used bright colors and short straight lines. The music was the opposite of the HHB. It was warm and happy and you couldn’t hold it in. This music didn’t know about locks and iron fences—it would blast through anything.
I closed my eyes to hear better. Sometimes the piano was on top, and sometimes the trumpet was, and sometimes it sounded like they were talking to each other. The pianist had to have a hundred fingers to play the way he did. And it was a good thing we were in New York City, not Jericho, because with Martin playing the trumpet those walls wouldn’t have stood a chance.
I opened my eyes. A man and a woman hopped in a circle with their arms over their heads. Another couple crossed and uncrossed their hands over their knees in time to the music. And another kicked and hopped at the same time. I guessed they were doing the Charleston. I’d never seen it, but I’d heard of it.
The only ones who weren’t dancing were Solly and me and four men standing near the musicians, watching them. One of them nodded his head slowly, and another kept time with one hand.
The song ended. A few people clapped. Somebody called, “Play ‘Cake Walking Babies.’” Somebody else yelled, “My man, Martin.” The pianist stood up and stretched. Somebody called, “Give Nate a turn. I want to hear some real music.”
Solly told me, “It’s a cutting contest, boychik. Each musician tries to show he plays best.”
The pianist pushed back the bench and joined the men who’d been standing around. The one who took his place was the other man I’d seen on the street, the one who’d clapped while Martin played his trumpet. For a few seconds he just touched a few keys, and I thought, He doesn’t know how to play—he’s going to be so embarrassed.
Somebody yelled, “Do that ‘Chop Suey’ number.”
Then the new pianist got going, and his playing was even better than the other guy’s. The new man sounded like he had a thousand fingers. Everybody started dancing again. I felt like marching around the room and clapping and shouting. Instead, I sat next to Solly and tapped my feet.
I watched the dancers nearest us, trying to figure out how to dance like them. I moved my feet the way they did, but it didn’t seem right. I’d have to stand up to really try it, but I was too shy.
The next song was slow, and the trumpet was more important than the piano. I closed my eyes. The trumpet purred and hummed, and sometimes it sang so sweetly it could have been a lullaby. I leaned my head back against the wall behind my chair. I wondered if Irma Lee knew how to do the Charleston. I didn’t know anything about dancing. But if I tried it, I knew she wouldn’t laugh at me.
I’d be her friend, just like I promised I would. I’d be her friend even if I had to climb down the walls of the asylum to see her.
The music stopped. I opened my eyes. Solly was there, laughing and talking with the musicians, but everyone else was gone. I’d been asleep.
The sky outside the window was gray, not black. It was morning! Was everybody awake at the HHB? How was I going to get back in?