C H A P T E R • 10
Adrianne, Al and I took a gypsy cab to the Kit Kat Klub. Viola’s club up the hill was a little hole in the wall with live music and a killer jukebox, and it had been one of Daddy’s favorites. But the vibe had definitely changed since the last time I was there. It was charged with anticipation.
Dinah Washington was singing “What a Difference a Day Makes.”
Bobby Bop’s picture was on the sandwich board outside the Kat that night.
Al did the glad-hand, brother hugs as he walked the length of the bar, and he stopped and watched Bobby Bop putting the saxophone’s neck strap around his beautiful sweater. It looked like an Armani. Al let him finish putting the neck on the body and the reed on the mouthpiece before he walked over.
“I will say you have a hell of a nerve young blood,” Bobby Bop said when he saw Al.
“I’m Al Carter and I came to say I love your music.”
“That’s why you chose to steal it and sell it on the street,” the jazz man said.
“I play. I don’t want to be your enemy. I play.”
“What do you play besides copy machines.”
“Drums.”
“Everybody thinks they can play drums.”
“I can’t wait to play,” Al said and fingered his stick bag.
“You would have to play your ass off to make up for this morning.”
“I do.”
I left them to it and walked to the bar where customers were two-deep. The lucky ones were perched on tall chairs with backs, and the regulars had their names on some of them, lettered professionally, worthy of the professional drinkers who earned them. Some of the overflow sat on stools, including what looked like a gaggle of tourists trickling in to mix with the regulars.
There was a poster-sized picture of my father with hand-written messages all over it. Smaller posters of jazzmen and women darkened the windows. Balloons in the black and purple colors of mourning bounced over the bar, and a banner said, Rest in Peace Charles.
Even as Adrianne was sliding onto her stool, the bartender handed her a drink, which had to be the usual. My editor had turned into Miss Personality, laughing, playing the phrase games, swinging a leg, lighting a cigarette.
“Pearl, you just going to stand there and look like you at the theater watching good black people drink some liquor? What the fuck?” And the people around her all laughed.
I thought that’s exactly what they looked like, one of those Negro stereotypes Lt. Summer Knight was always bouncing off of in Hollywood for laughs. I ordered a vodka martini on the rocks. “I’m taking it slow. We’ve probably got a while to be here.”
They thought that was funny too.
Mister Bell gave me his seat and the bartender nodded to a man at the other end of the bar as she handed me my drink. “He said it’s for your father.”
Then she said loud enough to carry over the bar noise, “To Charles Washington.” We raised our glasses.
“And to Cecelia Miller,” she said.
Mister Bell took the seat someone vacated next to me. He picked up one of the drinks spread out in formation in front of him, and we raised our glasses again. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, acknowledging the hands on his back.
The jukebox went silent and the piano man, without any intro, started playing pretty, just running here and there, before the rest of the quartet came in with Al keeping time.
“That boy can still play,” Mister Bell said. “He’s had a hard time. But it looks like he’s back.”
We listened for a moment before he asked, “Has Viola talked to you about investing in the bar?”
“Attorney Robinson said Daddy owned part of the bar. I’m surprised.”
“Vy needed some money and Charlie wouldn’t just give it to her. And he was not a passive partner. Viola was a kind of connection, a kind of harmonic, to the music he loved. She could use your help.”
“I don’t know anything about running a bar.”
“That’s not all the help she needs.” He looked around. “She should be here. I’ve not been able to get hold of her for hours.”
“You all keep up like that?”
“Now I do.”
I drank the rest of my drink and ordered another.
“Here on Harlem’s 125th Street today . . .”
The bartender must have turned up the volume on the television over the bar because it intruded for the first time into the dusky space.
“A hit-and-run accident claimed the life of one of Harlem’s own, Cecelia Miller. The car went out of control and drove onto the sidewalk. Witnesses say it was just lucky no one else was killed. The street is too full, people say, and street merchants who call themselves African vendors fill the sidewalks.”
John’s opening shot framed the shot of Mister Bell at his corner.
“I’m here in front of the Theresa Towers on 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard where Fidel Castro moved the entire Cuban delegation 30 years ago when the Theresa was still a hotel. It’s a corner made famous by its preachers and teachers. Malcolm X and President Nelson Mandela spoke here. Today I’m here with Marcus Bell, who was at his Freedom Books bookstore on this corner when the accident happened.”
A hoot went up. “My man Marcus,” someone shouted.
“Shut up. What’s he saying?”
“Cecelia had just purchased some fruit from me.”
“Did you see the driver?” John asked Mister Bell.
“No. It happened around the corner.”
“Why was the driver in the wrong lane do you think?”
“Probably to beat the traffic. People are in a hurry to get across the Triboro Bridge.”
“But he was going the other way.”
“People do stupid things. I see it all the time.”
The reporter looked straight into the camera. “125th Street is a crowded throughway to the highways and to the bridge for some. But it’s Main Street for people who live here. Witnesses say somebody could get hit out here on any given day, pushed into traffic by all the vendors on the sidewalk and the people stopping to look and shop.”
“Only black people would put up with this.” Joseph repeated on camera what he told us at the bookstore. Except now we were black people instead of niggers. “They’re not Africans. Most of these people are from New Jersey or Brooklyn. Makes it impossible for legitimate businesses to exist.”
“We’ll bring you more information as the police investigation unfolds,” the reporter continued. He signed off and we all applauded Mister Bell and Joseph, the television stars in our midst.
“My quotes will get a swift reaction from the ever-vigilant culture police,” Joseph announced.
“Sons of bitches used her death to make a little story that is not about her,” Mister Bell said. “Sons of bitches need to talk about real people dying like they do about those motherfuckers nobody even knows.”
They were quickly surrounded.
And, still looking for conversation and for answers, I took out my notebook and looked around the bar for someone who I expected would give me a good quote.
“What the—?”
What sounded like an explosion was loud enough to rattle some glass and silence Bobby Bop’s horn.
Karl was the first to move and he had the shortest distance to go from his stool beside the door. His camera bag was flung out behind him and his Pall Malls were still on the bar.