Going, Going, Gone Read online

  The party that night was in what New Yorkers call a back house. For you non-Gothamites let me elaborate. Back in Dead Rabbit days, long before the tenement laws, a landlord could build his sheds any way he wanted – walls a brick thick, two room apartments with no windows and one door, no plumbing or wiring or roof. But sometimes unexpected pangs of guilt caused them to provide light and air; when that happened they’d throw up the usual seven-storey walk-up at the front of the lot, but one shorter than usual; leaving a small paved courtyard and a small wooden two or three-storey house, behind. That was the back house. Even in the old days it took a special kind of individual to live in a back house. Trish and Borden and I fell out of the cab when we got there, found the street entrance to the alley – an archway cut through the building façade, next to a junk shop renting the storefront – crept through the dark until we reached the court and then made our way up the wooden stairs that led to the second floor door. Things were swinging by the time we got there, and pushing into the room was almost as challenging a job as squeezing into Max’s.

  No sooner did I begin to scope the action than my usual suspects started to find me. ‘Walter,’ somebody shouted. When I gave the looksee I spotted Marv Ballard, Ogilvy scribbler by day, gutter lounger by night. ‘How you doing?’ he said; I heeded the gleam in his eye and counted five. ‘You holding?’ Goes without saying I was; that killer bud Chlojo left me rested in my inner jacket pocket. Weeks in the open air and the potency hadn’t lessened a bit. Hard to say how much moolah the frugal man can share, keeping a permanent stash. When it came to sharing the wealth I’ve always been a Huey Long, mind you, but Marv couldn’t stop asking for seconds until he reached nineteen.

  ‘Fieldstripped, my man,’ I lied. ‘Lighter than air.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  His eyes lit on new arrivals, and he vamoosed. ‘Bumbadiered,’ I called out after but he was already hard at work. Before I could slip a hand into my pocket and hold that bud beneath my nose long enough to slip into overdrive I spotted Gaspard, inconveniently close. Turning quickly I managed to miss his eye. Even if he hadn’t been such a blowhard we’d likely as not have called him Gassy, it just fit. He was the kind of art boy who never found the right gallery, and definitely not the kind of individual best fitted for the field of mind expansion. Couldn’t drain a half cup of mocha java without spinning into a tizzy. Best tale I heard, he’d gone upstate to see a friend, ran into a powdered donut man coming back from Buffalo. Next thing you knew old Cokey Joe’d done half an ounce of snow and called the local constabulary, shouting I know you’re looking for me, coppers. Coppers tried to tell him they weren’t but he was so insistent they finally went to his hotel. Lucky for him, by the time they got there he’d done up the rest of the bag. No evidence of anything save for aggravated stupidity. They kept him around till his head reattached itself and then stuck him in the first Northern Line heading back to New York.

  Borden wandered over, a panatella-sized spliff in his claw. Smiled like the cat who’d swallowed a dozen canaries. ‘Savouring the moment?’ I asked.

  He drew in enough to fell a mule; tried to speak, couldn’t, and tottered away. Trish broke out of her huddle and slithered over in my direction.

  ‘Having fun?’ Across the room Auden sat in a chair, pulling that poet routine so as to better lure the chickadees. Horror of horrors, I eyed some Fenster Moop in the corner whipping out his guitar and starting to plink out his version of ‘Tom Doola’. Wasn’t Grayson and Whitter’s, I can tell you that much. Made me want to go over with scissors and cut the strings but he didn’t take too deep a stab at it, some kind stranger was good enough to put on a mambo album. ‘Glad now you took my advice and came out, aren’t you?’

  Before I could say anything I realized that some unexpected crashers had made it through the door. My evanescent wallflowers lurked near the kitchen, giving me the fisheye. Only other time I’d caught them outside my crib was that time I saw them in DC, in the Willard. I tapped Trish on the arm.

  ‘Look in the corner. Over there. What do you see?’

  She chinked her eyes as she focused on the mob. ‘Long Island girls out of their league. Borden holding up a wall. Two bowls of potato chips –’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘About covers the terrain,’ she said. ‘What’s up? You look like you’ve seen –’

  ‘All good fun must come to an end,’ I said, suddenly wanting out. ‘Must run.’

  ‘Stick tight, it’s early.’

  ‘Maybe I’m coming down with something,’ I said. Nerves, to be sure, but I didn’t say it. ‘I’ll call you. Got to talk.’

  ‘Heart to heart?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Fabulous. Whenever, wherever.’

  She made with the double air peck and I started to push. After a few minutes of rush hour IRT I got through the door. Stepping into fresh courtyard air, I felt like I was popping out of a submarine into the ocean, except in this case the water was inside. Felt thirty degrees cooler once in the ozone so I zipped up my jacket. My shoes clicked on the bricks underfoot as I headed for the passageway to the street. Over the entrance was an idea-sized light bulb; at the far end of the tunnel, a streetlight. Then I thought I saw something move at the end of the tunnel as well; whatever it was slipped into the ink. I hung back, my brothers, listening for the sounds of lurkers in the dark; mugs and thugs loitering by the exit, picking off party guests one by one as they stumbled home. I gave the passageway another onceover. One second the streetlight was still there; then the eclipse started.

  ‘Here chick-chick-chick.’

  Young snarl, Polish or Irish or Italian, full of Catholic blood. I’m no gunslinger, brain takes brawn down two falls out of three and when it doesn’t, that’s where feet come in handy. Problem was, in this courtyard there was no place for feet to go. The guy started to come out of the passageway, pasty white, a head taller than me and a foot wider, Puerto Rican fence climbers on his feet and something long and metal in his right hand. Didn’t think he was looking for the eighteenth hole.

  ‘Hand it over, faggot,’ he said. ‘Whatever you got –’

  If you’d been watching this on film you’d have figured some big wind came along, just then; his feet lifted a good six inches off the pavement and he disappeared head first into the passageway. I gave a look down the passageway, but saw no light; something big still blocked it. Noise I heard sounded like a dog cracking chicken bones.

  ‘Chlojo?’

  No answer, but I had a hunch. Those dames were first class when it came to going incognito. The streetlight appeared at the far end of the passageway and I started in. Listened to broken glass crunching underfoot but thank Valentine didn’t step into anything slippery. I gave the sidewalk a one-two when I made it outside.

  ‘Chlo? Eulie?’

  A street or two away I heard a garbage truck crushing up the day’s leavings. A beaten up Rambler rumbled down the street, some old codger behind the wheel. Under the streetlamp shine I saw a pair of mens’ shoes in the gutter. The toes were as pointy as fence climbers get. Mysterious debris indeed so I sidled across the sidewalk to get a better view. The shoes seemed to be propped up over a sewer opening in the curb. When I stepped into the street, though, I saw that the shoes still had feet in them. The feet were still hooked onto the legs, but those disappeared some short distance into the opening. Couldn’t say how much more of my unlucky assailant was still attached but I decided I could live without knowing.

  So I walked briskly toward nominally safer Avenue A, at which point I headed north to Fourteenth. Didn’t see my lady pals anywhere; although this kind of suggested to me that even though they weren’t there, they were keeping an eye out. Can’t say that made me feel more comfortable, though I wished it had. When I reached Fourteenth I went over to Second, and then up and finally back home. My ghosts must have caught a cab; they were waiting for me when I got there.

  Time came soon after that when I realized I had to let Jim know I was alr
eady in on his game. Clearly this wasn’t a subject he liked to brag about. Now as I said, in my field of interest there are a lot of handy techniques that work when it comes to scoring info. Ingratiation is the easiest, long as you’ve got any personality at all. A little cadging here, a little cajoling there, and soon enough they’re eating out of the palm of your hand. (Something all ladies know from birth, but it amazes me how hard it is for gents to comprehend). Problem was, though, that ingratiation is a two-way street. During the weeks I’d spent hanging out with him I’d gotten to really like old Jim – for one thing, he was the only obsessive I ever met who knew more about those golden discs than I did. Martin was lying low, and that was just as well; but whatever it was I was doing, for whatever reason I was doing it, started to gnaw at me. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be upfront with him, at least about my being more than a little aware of who those relatives of his actually were.

  Next time I went to the record store, however – couple of days after that party – I didn’t get a chance, at least right off. ‘Look at this, Walter,’ he said when I strolled in late one afternoon. He picked up a platter and a shammy to swaddle it in and cradled it in his hands like it was his firstborn. ‘Ever seen one?’

  Poor cynic me; before I scoped I figured it was something I had – I didn’t make much of my holdings that often, bragmasters wear on everybody’s nerves – but I was wrong. I nearly dropped on the spot. It was like seeing ghosts. A plain kraft paper sleeve insulated an Okeh labelled platter, serial number 847773. Said Goodbye to My Baby backed with Black Harvest Blues. 1944. Performer, T. E. Barnstable, lay preacher in the Reformed Christian Church of Jesus, onetime performer in crow’s nests up and down the Pacific coast, onetime escort on the Underground Freeway; and most notable to the majority, perpetrator of the Crime of the Century. Everybody knew his name, nobody said it. When it came to his kind of action, Nat Turner and Caesar Blanchard were pikers, compared. I stared at the label as if I was staring into the sky and saw the Sons of Light descending, ready to rumble with the archons one last time. Now hear me, my brothers; you know well as I do that no group can be completely wiped out, no people absolutely erased. There’s always traces left on the paper, a scent left in the air, the memory of a memory of a memory. Never mind the records; if that was the case, I wouldn’t be here not letting loose on your ear. But when it comes to individuals, though, that’s something else entirely. Judging from what was left of Theodore E. Barnstable, you’d have thought he lived a thousand years ago.

  ‘Is it legal to own one?’ I asked, unnaturally fretful.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ he said. ‘Can’t say I’m overly concerned.’

  ‘You’ve listened to it?’

  ‘Not yet. Going to when I get home. Want to join me?’

  It was closing time, and he slid the disc in a Halliburton case, the kind with the hard vanadium shell and padded inside; the kind of accoutrement only Kennedys can afford. After locking up we flagged down a cab at the corner of Columbus. As we hopped in it struck me that I had no idea where Jim lived.

  ‘Dakota,’ he told the hack. Only about eleven blocks from store to home – well, Jim was big, but he wasn’t big on exercise.

  ‘So where’d you get it?’ I asked.

  He smiled. ‘Guy came in this morning, used book dealer I know. Usually picks for Pageant and Abbey down on Fourth Ave. Knows as much about records as we know about rocket science. He’d gone through the collection of a dead rabbi out in Flushing. Nothing but religious books and male pornography. The sacred and the profane.’

  ‘Horse and carriage,’ I offered.

  ‘He lugged in a boxful. Didn’t know how to pack ‘em, so some of the ones on the bottom were broken. You know to expect that. Started going through the batch. Some nice cantorial stuff, a few Hungarian cymbalon pieces. Then some of the old Negro preachers. The usuals, McGee, Rice, Reverend Gates of course.’

  ‘The guy was a rabbi and he had these?’

  ‘Maybe trying to hedge his bets,’ Jim said. ‘Then I spotted this. Thought I’d have a stroke but I kept a straight face. Offered him a dollar per record. He said great, I gave him the money and he went out the door a happy man.’

  ‘You’re keeping it?’ I asked, hoping he wouldn’t but knowing he would. He was considerate enough not to rub it in by answering me.

  ‘Wasn’t even officially issued, you know. Month it was pressed he –’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Somebody always walks away with a few under their coat, though.’

  We pulled up on 72nd in front of Jim’s building. I’d passed by this joint a million times, but like most New Yorkers had never gone inside. Upper West Side’s full of those old Victorian monsters with dragons on the fence and demons over the door and old possessed women staring out the windows, cackling, but the Dakota was the biggest monster of all. ‘Keep the change,’ Jim said, handing the hack a bet to place, and we clambered out. The little brass house nodded as we walked into the dark courtyard. Jim lived in a corner apartment on the fifth floor. From the windows you could watch people getting mugged in the park. It was nominally three-bedroom, but all three were full of records and Jim slept – apparently – in a murphy he’d installed off the living room. As I looked around I started wondering how he could even have noticed his family, growing up. He had maybe twice as many records as I did, and he wasn’t really much older than me. Most of his furniture looked like he’d bought it in a job lot at W.J. Sloan. Jim’s professional unit was deeply impressive, though: a 1928 Victrola with a solid golden oak cabinet, lovingly polished, and a sterling silver crank. The interior of the box was plush red velvet. The doors of the bottom storage compartment were open, and I saw he’d installed a very good German tape-recorder. Probably a gift from Adolf to Old Joe.

  ‘Want a drink?’ he asked. ‘Fruit juice? Soda?’

  ‘Want to hear the song.’ He smiled. He laid protection down on the turntable, and installed a new needle in the arm. ‘You don’t actually have to crank it, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s electric. Great looking, though, isn’t it? Which side you want?’

  ‘Black Harvest Blues.’

  ‘Me too.’ Jim slotted the needle in the groove and adjusted the switch until the table started to spin. Barnstable’s voice was strong, though he didn’t always stay in tune, and the way he fingered his guitar made me think it was a cold day in the studio, and he had to wear gloves. Even so, he managed to get his message across. It was like hearing somebody singing on the moon.

  Late one evening, baby come crying to me,

  Oh, late one evening, baby come crying to me.

  Time they say to take ‘bo away

  Black harvest here at last Lord Lord

  Black harvest here at last.

  My brothers, I’d never before heard a song that didn’t exist even as I listened to it. Barnstable was a prophesier, that’s what my father called him; it was only a shame that he did what he did, the way he did it – one way or the other the writing was on the wall, but thanks to him the period was put on the end of the sentence sooner than it would have been. While I listened I almost got all weepy, once or twice; hard to admit but I’m not going to deny it. Didn’t want to give my own game away, going overboard, but I had a hunch Jim wouldn’t have cared, if he knew; and maybe he did know after all. He didn’t look too happy himself, listening; and for a second I thought that maybe at least after the fact this was a way caucasoids could really dig precisely what it was they’d done – even though the way I saw it, they never would; what was in it for them? Neither of us said anything until the last chord decayed.

  ‘Terrible sound, considering it’s Okeh,’ he said, lifting the arm and flipping over the disc. He switched off the tape recorder, removed the reel and marked the plastic with a series of laundry-marker hen scratches. ‘Must have been a rush job. Ten to one this was the only take, though we’ll never know for sure.’

  ‘Probably hard song to sing more than once,’ I
said, standing up. He didn’t get it; no surprise, really, but it couldn’t help but work at me. Old Jimbo would check this off on his 1944 Godrich, slide it into the B shelf between Blue Lu Barker and Barrel House Annie and play it no more than once a year or so; probably less, considering that I seemed to be the only fellow obsessive he hung out with. A collector’s item, no more; as truly meaningful to him as a Yoruba mask is to the Natural History Museum.

  ‘Imagine so,’ Jim said, but he couldn’t imagine. Not that I could, to be fair. ‘You doing OK with that drink?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Across the room, where the hall began, there were a number of framed black-and-whites on the wall. I strolled over and peeked: they were all there, every one. Mother Rose, Old Black Joe and the boys, boys together; boys separate. Joe and Jack in fine wool Brooks Brothers suits, Bobby in mountaineering togs high on Mount Roosevelt, young Father Ted looking like he hadn’t realized how tight those clerical collars would be. And Jim himself, in skinnier days, all Kennedy teeth and Kennedy hair; and a look in his eye like he was sorry to have been blessed with either. He caught my eye when I turned back around.