Page 12 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

In Manhattan, Breeze wasn’t sure of anything. Where would he live? Could he keep chickens there? Which subway would take him to the meatpacking job Sonny had fixed for him? He barely even understood northern accents (he’d actually departed the train in New Jersey, because the train announcer’s “Newark” sounded likeNew York). The city might swallow him whole, but first, he had one piece of business. To find tonight’s piano cutting contest and play the hell out of “Carolina Shout.”

The only truth Breeze Walker held was that he was a great jazz pianist. When he played, for those few minutes, his broken world slotted back together, like a jigsaw puzzle. But his confidence was unearned. Tonight, he wanted to prove it.

“You listening?” Sonny snapped his discolored, burn-scarredfingers in front of Breeze’s face. “Keep walking—we’re almost at the suit shop. We’re hitting the town tonight; you gotta look spiffy. Never know who you’ll see at the cabarets. Somebody’s plumber, Zora Hurston, my dentist, Mae West, Louis Armstrong, the dame who hawks collards on 143rd, all in the same joint!” Sonny plucked a rose from a bouquet outside of a deli, handed it to a swanky-looking lady, and hollered behind his shoulder, “Put it on my tab, James!”

Prohibition was currently keeping Sonny employed as a bagman. His job was to slip cops bags of cash in exchange for allowing liquor to lubricate the finer establishments in town. He and Breeze were raised the same way, living in identical tin-roof shacks with no electricity, running water, heat, or shoes. For Breeze, Sonny’s cosmopolitan persona was brand new, and it was both amusing and annoying.

“Does Mae West know that when you first moved up here, you tried to turn off an electric light by blowing on it?”

“You lie like a no-legged dog,” protested Sonny, looking around to make sure no one overheard. “I regret writing you all those letters.”

Sonny paused to tip his hat to a white cop and shake his hand. They clearly worked together. Breeze ducked his head instinctively, careful not to meet the cop’s eyes.

“We don’t gotta do that here, cuz,” said Sonny, throwing his arm around Breeze’s shoulders as they made their way through the crowd. “These fays ain’t like the ones back home. They wanna be like us!”

Breeze chuckled. “I was born at night, but not last night.”

“I ain’t lyin’,” insisted Sonny, suddenly serious. “Leave thatyessuh massashit at home. Ain’t no place in America for a humble Negro.”

Just then, Sonny stopped in front of a lavish storefront.Mr. Stein’s Fine Suiting and Haberdashery, Est. 1892was etched onto the window in gold calligraphy. A stout man exited the front door, wearing the cleanest suit Breeze had ever seen.

“Sonny! These suits are fifteen dollars. I can’t afford this—my job don’t even start till Monday.”

“It’s on me. Listen, two things can be true at once. Are you a looker? Yes. Are you currently dressed like a ragamuffin? Yes. Ain’t nobody gonna take you seriously as a musician or otherwise looking like Uncle Remus. Allow me to gussy you up.”

Breeze allowed it and swore to pay Sonny back. He knew he stuck out. At the very least, he shouldlooklike he fit in. He was drunk on the promise of New York City. He wanted it all.

Sonny and Breeze made their way down 133rd between Seventh and Lenox Avenues: Swing Street or Jungle Alley, depending on who you asked. It was 3:00 a.m., and well-heeled flappers, playboys, celebs, and townies spilled from taxis, buzzing and up for anything.

Sonny discovered the whereabouts of the piano cutting contest. The Nest! Hidden in the basement of a barbecue spot, it was a dive where any itch could be scratched (whether you liked boys, girls, both, or in the extremely specific case of one Atlantic City gangster, a store mannequin named Mama). Plus, the hooch was pure, and on Thursdays, the sequined chanteuse belting out Ma Rainey’s songs at the piano was, in fact, Ma Rainey.

Breeze followed Sonny down to a barred basement door. His cousin muttered a secret code to the gargantuan doorman behind the bars: “One-Nut Charlie dies at dusk.” With a nod, the doorman led them into bedlam.

Inside, Breeze was hit with sound. The room was small but feral. Frenzied music raged, the floor shaking as revelers danced the foop and jig-jag. At cocktail tables, politicians mingled withsooty-eyed socialites too saddity to stomp. Breeze didn’t recognize the piano player, but he was accompanyingtheBessie Smith as she belted out her upcoming single, “’Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do.” A hulking bartender poured bathtub gin into the mouths of two jazz babies in drop-waist satin. Giggling, they tongue-kissed and toppled onto a senator’s table, legs akimbo.

“Underwear’s optional here, I see,” remarked Breeze. Realizing he was staring, he averted his eyes. He wondered if he’d ever get used to the sights and sounds of Manhattan. Maybe he was too weary. Dragging around that old, familiar grief muffled the feel of the city’s fizzy electricity. He was just a bystander.

I just need to play, he thought.Sonny found peace through partying; I’ll find it playing.

“That’s Lo and Behold, the cabaret act,” said Sonny. “Okay, a few rules before we part ways. First rule: don’t look surprised if something outrageous happens.”

“Define ‘outrageous,’” said Breeze, watching Behold crawl across the senator’s table and crouch over a wine bottle, picking it up sans hands.

“You’ll know when you see it. Here.” Sonny grabbed a tin of toothpicks from his suit pocket and handed it to Breeze. “Chew on a toothpick. It’ll give you something to do so folks don’t know you’re thinking bumpkin thoughts.”

“Maaaan, I’m up in the same room as Bessie Smith,” he said, almost to himself. “Bessie Smith! You believe that?”

“See? That was a bumpkin thought. Second rule:don’t look impressed by famous people. Or anything. Never be impressed. Third rule: don’t get drunk. ’Cause you gotta play the fuck outta ‘Carolina Shout.’”

With that, Sonny disappeared into the crowd, and Breeze was alone. At a party straight out of the moving pictures. Dressed like he was, too, in a striped suit, spats, and oxfords. Earlier that night,he’d glimpsed himself in a cab window and had to blink twice. The only trace of the old Breeze was his face—and his hands, still stained from priming tobacco.

I was in the fields just two days ago, he reminded himself, and then he tried to stuff those memories somewhere deep, deep inside. He took in the spectacle of the room, marveling at a scene he’d never expected to see with his own eyes. It was 1923, he was twenty-three years old, and his brand-new Harlem life began now. He refused to be tied to the past.

Eagle-eyed, Breeze scanned the cocktail tables. He saw actress Fredi Washington emitting twinkling laughter with Louis Armstrong. And A’Lelia Walker, heiress to the Madam C. J. Walker fortune, puffing cigars with three young men wearing rouge. Then he froze.

James Johnson, Fats Waller, Willie the Lion, and Duke were seated up front, cigarette smoke swirling above them. Breeze closed his eyes, marveling that he was breathing the same air as his idols. For a moment, he was still. Grateful.

Then Breeze heard the crowd roar. His eyes flew open. In a matter of seconds, all hell had broken loose. Twelve showgirls wearing feathered lingerie, feathered anklets, and beaked, feathered headdresses rushed through the crowd toward the dance floor. The whole place started chanting,“Where do the birds go every night? To the nest! To the nest!”

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