Juba! Read online

  Cissy didn’t answer. Pete looked at her kind of mean and then turned away. “You’re liable to be dead before you finish paying me my money,” he said.

  Up close Cissy was good-looking, as Pete had said. She had a thin, heart-shaped face with light brown eyes and a small bow mouth. She could have been a looker if she gained a few pounds. Once, she glanced at me but quickly looked away.

  Miss Lilly asked her again if she wanted some lemonade, and another tiny little “no, ma’am” came out. For a few seconds nobody spoke, and then Miss Lilly started talking to Pete about the carpenter.

  “What he said was that he could build a small platform like they used to have at that club up near Pearl Street, across from the cigar store,” she said. “You could pull it out from the back wall and lay it down where you wanted it. Then when you were finished with it, you could put it back against the wall and lift it up so it would be out of the way.”

  “How much he want for that?”

  “Twelve dollars,” Miss Lilly said. “I didn’t like the idea that much. We don’t have a platform now and nobody is complaining.”

  “Maybe they would say something if we had one,” Pete said. “Then whenever we had something special going on, people could tell because we brought the platform out. What you think?”

  The girl was crying again, and truly it touched my heart a little. I hate to see people sad. I felt Pete nudge my hand and realized he was talking to me. I asked him what he wanted, and he asked what I thought of the platform.

  “You thinking it would bring in some uptown money?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Cissy, why don’t you go on upstairs,” Miss Lilly said.

  We watched as Cissy started to leave, then came back for the mop and pail and carried them off with her.

  “Miss Lilly likes that girl because she’s polite, but she’s also hardheaded,” Pete said. “She can’t figure out that nothing comes for free. Everything you get in life has got some kind of price to it. The only things that are free are air and water, and one day somebody is going to figure out how to get air and water in a bottle and sell that. You’re not looking for a wife, are you?”

  “No, I’m not,” I said.

  “Because with you dancing for Pete Williams and her washing floors for Pete Williams, the both of you could become famous,” Pete said. “Maybe you could get her out on the dance floor and have her sweeping the floor around you as you danced. Then maybe I’d have that platform built. We’d call it the Master Juba stage.

  “You know your boy was here earlier—what’s his name, the one walks like he got a stick up his butt?” Pete asked.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I said. “None of my friends carry sticks in that position.”

  “The one who speaks so proper and wants to be a cook,” Miss Lilly said. “He was here when Mr. Reeves was talking about hiring some dancers and singers. I know he told you about that.”

  “He didn’t mention anything to me,” I said. “Who is Mr. Reeves?”

  “You remember that theater that was closed about eighteen months ago?” Pete asked. “The one over the Playhouse?”

  “Something about it not being safe?” I said.

  “Well, he’s got a chance to get a license to open it up again,” Lilly said. “He wants to invite some people here from City Hall and some backers to talk it over. It should be kind of informal, but he wants a nice show. That’s why he’s holding auditions this weekend. If you’re interested, maybe Pete can put in a word for you. You work for Mr. Reeves and a lot of people are going to be seeing you.”

  “He wants to put on a show here?” I asked.

  “You got a problem with Almack’s?” Pete asked.

  “No,” I said. “None at all.”

  My mind was working hard, but I couldn’t come up with anything that made sense. There was nothing wrong with Almack’s for giving a show, but there were a lot better places. Pete kept talking about how he could put in a good word for me if I signed a contract to work for him for one year. I told him I would think about it.

  “Don’t think yourself out of a good chance to get ahead in the world,” Pete said.

  “I’ll try not to, Mr. Williams,” I answered him. “I’ll certainly try not to.”

  Home, and Stubby wasn’t back yet, so I sat out on the stoop to wait for him. I knew he would be rushing back with something to cook for supper. Sure enough, I spied him coming down the street with a package under his arm.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You tell me!” I said. “Pete said you were over to Almack’s and they were talking about having auditions for a show. He said they were looking for dancers and singers. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was going to tell you when I got off work.” Stubby was trying to sit down with me, but I got up and faced him. “I was going to tell you, but it slipped my mind when they said I wasn’t working today.”

  “When are they going to have the auditions?”

  “Saturday,” Stubby said. “Let’s go inside, Juba. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Pete said he’d put in a word for me with Mr. Reeves if I wanted,” I said. “This could be the break I was looking for.”

  “I told Freddy,” Stubby said.

  “You told Freddy, who is looking to get the same job I’m trying to get, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I told him and he said he had already heard about it from Simmy Long, and he wasn’t sure how legitimate it was.” Stubby had started up the stairs and had his hand on the doorknob.

  “Freddy probably told you that so you wouldn’t tell me,” I said. “He can’t dance with me and he can’t sing with me, and he knows it.”

  “No, not Freddy,” Stubby said. “Simmy said there was something wrong with the deal. He said Mr. Reeves was going around asking people to come to the auditions, but he wanted them to keep it quiet. Simmy doesn’t trust white men who go around telling you to keep things quiet.”

  “Look, Freddy is a dancer, and Simmy is a dancer,” I said. “We’re all out here looking for a place to perform. Neither one of them wants to give me a hand up. You think we should ask Jack about it?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Stubby said.

  I was getting excited and trying not to get excited at the same time. Having an audition at Almack’s, with Pete on my side, sounded like a good deal, even though there was no way under the sun that I wanted to work for Peter Williams. But any time I had a chance to show people how well I danced, it was a good thing. People remember talent. They talk about fiddlers they heard four and five years ago, or singers they went to hear when they were young. If I could show a theater owner what I could do, it had to be a good thing.

  There were some beans left over from the night before, and I put them in a pot with some water and a little fatback and started heating them up. Stubby asked me if I wanted him to cook the fish filets he’d brought from the docks, and I told him I didn’t mind one way or the other, and he said he wouldn’t cook them but I knew he would. He couldn’t stay out of a kitchen if his life depended on it.

  By the time Jack got home, I had almost changed my mind about telling him about the tryouts or the theater opening again. The truth was I didn’t want anything to be wrong with it. Knowing Jack, I knew he would find something bad to say. The man could find fault with a newborn baby.

  “You have to have three things to open up a theater,” Jack said, washing his hands at the washstand. “You need somebody with money behind you is the first thing. Money is like oil—it gets the machinery going. If this fellow Reeves had any legitimate money, he wouldn’t be sneaking around in the dark. So the money he’s sniffing out has got to be dirty. Nothing wrong with that, but you got to know it, so I put it on the table.

  “The second thing you need is a theater.”

  “He’s got that little place over the Playhouse,” I said. “The one that got closed down before.”

  “He’s got t
hat place, but it’s closed down. It might as well not exist unless he can bribe somebody in the city to get him a license,” Jack said. “So we’re back to money again. The third thing you need is a blanket to put over everybody’s head so they don’t see what’s going on.”

  “You don’t know for sure that something shady is going on,” I said.

  “If Pete Williams is involved, and this Reeves fellow, and they’re talking about keeping things quiet, I know there’s something shady going on,” Jack said. “You can go on and try out for the dancing, but keep your eyes open. Don’t let your eyes get bigger than your belly.”

  Jack was right about me being so excited I didn’t want to see anything wrong. But it was hard for a dancer to make a living. The Irish dancers enjoyed themselves, and sometimes, if they were good enough, they were asked to come to parties and celebrations. But they only made a few dollars when they came, unless someone threw them a few coins. Once in a while there would be a contest and the best dancer would get a dollar or two, but that wasn’t enough to get excited about.

  The real money was in the theater. Any kind of theater where people came and paid their money to see you dance. Sometimes a show would last for months, even years. I had never seen a show with a black dancer in it. There were minstrel shows, where white men put on black face paint and pretended they were colored, but it wasn’t the same. They were being paid to clown around and tell jokes, not to dance.

  I didn’t know much about Mr. Reeves except what I had heard. People said he recognized talent when he saw it but didn’t want to pay very much for his acts. That was all right with me. All I needed was someplace where people could see me dancing, and I would let my feet do the rest. When Mr. Reeves’s little theater got closed up, he tried renting out other theaters, but he never got anything going that lasted more than a few performances. Once he worked putting on sideshows with Mr. Barnum, but they had a falling-out.

  I decided to make the best showing at the audition, so I met up with Fred and asked him to come practice with me.

  “You can fiddle while I dance,” I said.

  “Juba, I don’t know how many black dancers they’re looking for,” Fred said. “But you’re a dancer and I’m a dancer, so that’s two, and I don’t know who else may show up. I’m not going to sit around and fiddle for you when I should be practicing.”

  In my heart I knew that Fred Flamer couldn’t dance anywhere near my level, but I had to give him credit for thinking the thing through. Any dancer I would ask to practice with me would be nosing around to see what was going on and trying to make a place for himself. Then I thought of one dancer who might be willing to give me a hand. It wouldn’t be easy.

  “I do not like people knocking on my door,” Miss Margaret said. “And I especially do not want the likes of you standing here when I’m trying to get my sewing done.”

  “If I didn’t need help, I wouldn’t be here,” I said. “And if you weren’t the only person in the world who could help me, I wouldn’t be here. But I do need the help, and the good Lord has done me the favor of putting you here.”

  “You’d better be having another cup of tea with the Lord and getting some more names, because I don’t give money to insolent children,” Miss Margaret said. The door slammed inches from my face.

  “Thought you could help me with my dancing!” I called through the closed barrier.

  No answer. I had started walking away when a flash of light from Miss Margaret’s apartment hit the floor in the hallway. I turned and saw her silhouetted in the doorway. “So?”

  I explained to Miss Margaret how Mr. Reeves was trying to open up his theater again and was having auditions for both black and white dancers and singers. “If anyone is looking for the best dancer in New York City, they don’t have to look any further than me,” I went on. “But I just want to be good and ready for this audition, because I got a feeling it’s going to work out just fine. Once he sees me dancing, once he sees my style, he’s got to hire me.”

  “Do you get kinks in your neck from patting yourself on the back?” Miss Margaret asked me. “Because I’ve seen you dancing in the hallway and I’m not writing to the Pope about how wonderful you are. And if you’re as good as you think you are and half as good as you say you are, then why do you need me?”

  “Because I know that practice makes perfect,” I said.

  “And what’s my piece of this pie?” Miss Margaret asked.

  “You watch my dancing, and tell me if you see anything off, and I’ll . . . give you my first week’s pay when I’m working for Mr. Reeves,” I said.

  “Which is like telling me that I’ll get the first bucket of sunshine on a cloudy day,” Miss Margaret said. “But I’ll take you on, just to see if you really know anything.”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  One of the things about Miss Margaret Moran that I liked was that although she wasn’t very fond of me, I could tell she was still keeping an eye on my dancing. I knew if she saw anything wrong, she was going to point it out as fast as she could. She told me to show up at two thirty, and that was fine with me, because by then me and Stubby had got Jack’s cart loaded up and they were on their way.

  “You want to watch me dancing in the hallway?” I asked her. “I can dance up and down this—”

  “No, I don’t want Miss King poking her nose over the steps and seeing me with you,” Miss Moran said. “That woman can take a puff of bad air and blow it up into a hurricane in a heartbeat.”

  Miss King was about eighty and lived on the first floor with her two dogs. Whenever you came in late at night, you could see her door cracking open and you knew she was peeping at you. And if you were doing anything that she could spread around the neighborhood, she would certainly be spreading it.

  Miss Moran’s apartment was a surprise. Most of the places Jack rented out had a few pieces of furniture, maybe a bed and a table, a stove, some chairs, and a chest of drawers. The room that opened up onto the hallway in Miss Moran’s apartment was large and had a small kitchen area, and chairs she had put around the wall, and two or three rugs she had kind of thrown together to cover most of the floor.

  “Can you do a square clog step?” she asked.

  “I can do anything,” I said.

  “So let’s see it!”

  I started thinking of something to dance to and came up with a tune called “Kerry Strutting,” which I figured Miss Moran would know. I hummed a bit of it and started with a basic step for four beats, then doubled it, then back to the basic for just two beats and doubled it again.

  “You’re off-rhythm!” Miss Moran said.

  “You can’t count, Miss Moran,” I said. “If there’s anything I know about, it’s rhythm!”

  “No, you don’t,” Miss Moran said. “You call me Margaret. I’m not so old you need to call me like I’m your mother. And you wait right here until I get back.”

  She flicked her fingers like she was snapping them, but it didn’t produce any sound. She turned and headed for the door and was out like a shot, leaving me alone.

  I liked the way the place looked, and saw that she had a nice white tablecloth with a lacy trim on the table. There were little lady signs all around. A small statue of Jesus was on the mantel next to a wooden house with windows and an open door. There was a tea set on the board near the stove that covered the bathtub and a jar of something I figured to be sugar. I wanted to take a closer look, but then I heard Miss Moran’s—Margaret’s—voice coming up the stairs.

  The door opened and she came in with a skinny fellow carrying a fiddle. He took one look at me and stopped in his tracks.

  “I’m not playing no fiddle for the devil!” he said, pointing a bony finger at me. “It takes a woman to beat a devil, not a fiddle!”

  “He’s not a devil, Rafferty, he’s a dancer.”

  “He looks like a devil!”

  “Play a clog dance for me.”

  “You sure he’s not got you befuddled?”

&n
bsp; “Play!”

  The old man looked me up and down and started to play. I didn’t know the tune, but I knew the rhythm and started to dance. He knew how to fiddle and tried to throw me off by playing faster, but I just increased my tempo and stayed with him. All the while, Margaret was doing that thing with her hand, keeping time in the air but not making any sounds. Finally, when the old man finished the chorus, he leaned away from me, bending his back and turning his shoulders so he could see me from a different angle.

  “Thanks, Rafferty,” Margaret said.

  “Watch him close, dearie,” the old man said. “Real people don’t move like he does. Devils move like that.”

  The old man actually asked me to close my eyes so I couldn’t see where he was going, as if a real devil would have trouble finding him.

  “You’d think he’d been playing for devils all his life,” Margaret said.

  “You knowing now that I’m dancing in the right time?” I asked.

  “Your feet are dancing in the right time, Booby—”

  “Juba!”

  “Your feet are dancing in the right time, Juba,” Margaret said. “And your hands are moving in the right time, but you’re not dancing right for somebody watching you. Oh, sure, they’ll look at you and see you can move your skinny little legs around, and some will be impressed by that. But none of them can move their legs around like you.”

  “That’s why they’re watching me and I’m not watching them!” I said.

  “If you weren’t so thickheaded, you’d know they were watching you because they want to enjoy themselves, not marvel at you. You ever go to an Irish dance and see the young people swinging themselves around and kicking up their heels and the old people watching them? The old people are thinking back on a time when they were young and they could do the same thing the young people are doing. But you have to give them something they can do, if only on the floor between their ears, if you get my drift.”

  “What floor was that?”

  “They’re thinking about themselves dancing, and you can see their shoulders moving a bit with the music and their heads nodding, and in their minds they’re doing things they could never do in real life,” Margaret said. “But if you get their heads going in the right direction, they can do anything. You’re switching up so fast and doing so many tricks that I can’t keep up with you in my mind. If I knew what you were going to do, even if you did it like your pants were on fire, I could keep up with you.”