Uptown Blues Read online

  Uptown Blues

  Seth Pevey

  For Eileen, with love and gratitude.

  Copyright © 2021 by Seth Pevey

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Afterword

  One

  When Louis Armstrong was a small boy, his father left him.

  None of the books I read say much about why he left or where he went, just that one day Papa Armstrong was gone. That’s the important bit of the story.

  Louis was probably too young to say goodbye, or to even understand goodbyes as huge as that one, which would have been one of those life-changing ones that you have to try and remember forever. Except, you never really know which goodbyes are such a kind, do you?

  I think about little Louis a lot, can almost see him sometimes. I can see his mama just set him down at the supper table one evening, can see her sadly ringing that porch bell, not really expecting an answer from down the alley. But she still rings it anyway, stares down to the empty end of things. When no one comes, this now smaller Armstrong family sits and eats but leaves Daddy’s seat at the table empty, and nobody touches his chair or his plate. I can see them, even if the books don’t have much more than a sentence or two about the whole thing.

  I think that my daddy would never ever do that. Not on purpose. He’d never leave me if he had a choice. At least, he wouldn’t leave forever. He’s not around all the time, but that’s because he’s a hardworking man. From four to midnight, every day, Daddy is gone. He makes the streetcar go, gladly rings the bell (clang clang clang) all of the evening hours. You can hear him, and it doesn’t matter where you happen to be in the smile, which is what I call Uptown because the river curves in a big smile shape and so do all the streets. Daddy’s route even looks like a smile, too, because it matches the path of the river. Up and down and up and down Carrollton Avenue he goes smiling, and then over by us in the Seventeenth Ward, where he turns the seats all around and goes back again. But my daddy always puts the streetcar back in the big shed and comes to supper just past midnight. He even eats the same meal just about every night. I’m in bed when he comes, but I listen for his boots to land happily on the porch (thunk thunk) and his chair to be tiredly pulled back and his waffles to go launching up from the toaster. Daddy is the only man in the world who likes to dip waffles into red beans, Mama Jones says. I tried it once but only once. Like Louis, I prefer cornbread all the way.

  I do get to see my daddy every day, though. Mr. Julian’s studio is too far away from the Seventeenth. So is Mrs. Weinberger’s clinic. Last but not least, my favorite—Mr. de Valencia’s fancy home is also too far away. None of them live near the Seventeenth, but they do all live in the smile, right about where the nose would go, which is around where Napoleon crosses St. Charles. And so, every day when I finish my appointments, I get to walk out into the neutral ground with my horn and wait for Daddy to come on by in his streetcar and scoop me.

  But today.

  Today was a bad day. There were dark clouds in the sky and Mrs. Weinberger had asked me beaucoup questions and Mr. de Valencia had run out of petit fours. I had a dark feeling about things, standing there in the neutral ground with my horn and my backpack and knowing that it was just about to rain on me. Cold, too.

  All of the streetcar drivers know me, of course. They all wave or tip their hats and Mrs. Washington even throws me a chocolate on most days as she rolls on by. But not today. She went on in a hurry. I think maybe when the rain is coming, people treat the conductors more rudely. I could see folks in her car who were looking mean out at all the big houses and magnolias. The streetcars are stacked, so I knew the next one, which was going to be Daddy, was coming along directly.

  I know perfectly what the clang clang on Daddy’s streetcar sounds like, because it is just a little happier than the others and that makes it different. I think this is because there’s a chip on the old bell about the size of a chiclet missing, and it makes the notes hop just that little bit higher. You take something out, you get something new. It’s the same way small horns sing higher than fat ones; the same way people do.

  Every day, when I hear it, I smile. And that was what happened today. Clang clang, and I knew Daddy was coming, just a pinpoint under the oaks but getting bigger every second.

  When he finally got to my stop, Daddy hoisted open the old streetcar door for me and gave me a big smile because he is not someone who catches dark feelings, even on rainy days when people are rude and don’t have correct change, or are short altogether, which is what happened next.

  A tall lanky fellow wearing dirty cooking pants and a tight white shirt cut right in front of me as I was trying to board. He smelled like smoke and nasty beer, so I tried to keep my distance. He messed around with the stuff in his pockets for a minute, mumbling something under his breath, before he turned to face me.

  “Hey, kid, you got a quarter?” he said, in a voice that made me think he might shake it out of me if I said no.

  I stared at him.

  “Kid?” he said again, his eyes flicking down to the horn I had in my hands, which made me grip it very tightly.

  Daddy chimed in just then, tapping the passenger on his shoulder, taking the dollar and then nodding to the back of the streetcar as if to say, “Don’t worry about it.”

  Then Daddy pulled the missing quarter out of his own pocket, winked at me, and slipped it into the machine.

  People say that my daddy is one of the most handsome men in the Seventeenth. But one of his front teeth is chipped just like the bell on his streetcar, and his smile, even though it is one of the biggest you’ve ever seen, always seems a little crooked—like if Tchoupitoulas Street had to make a detour around construction. But his uniform is always clean and starchy and his boots are always polished because a man takes pride. He smiled at me and I smiled back.

  Then I swiped my special RTA card, which has Daddy’s name and face right on it. It lets me ride any bus or car in the city for free, anytime I want.

  “Where you at, junior?” he said, which is what he always says. I didn’t say anything, which is what I usually say. But now I hate myself for that, and I wonder what Louis Armstrong would have said if he knew that his goodbye was the kind that it really turned out to be.

  I have a special favorite chair on Daddy’s streetcar, which is, of course, the conductor’s chair. It’s on every car, actually. The thing about a streetcar is that it has two conductor’s chairs. It has the one that’s in the front, where the conductor sits, and then the one that is going to be in the front in the future, just as soon as the streetcar gets headed in the other direction.

  Daddy always says if there is another person sitting in the backwards conductor’s chair, you’re not allowed to get upset, because that’s every kid’s favorite chair and you ain’t royalty. But telling someone they are not allowed to be upset is a pretty silly thing to do because you either
are upset or you aren’t. What’s for sure is that I’m not allowed to stand and stare at the person until they move, which is something I used to do all of the time before Daddy’s boss fussed at him about it. Someone must have complained, he said, and didn’t smile at me for a whole hour, which felt like that part of “Saints” where it goes on about how the sun refused to shine.

  There are a lot of things like that. Things I don’t know how to do quite right. That’s why I go to see Mr. de Valencia. He is a fancy man in a big fancy house and he knows how to make people feel comfortable with his behavior. That’s what Daddy said about him, and he was right. When I see him and he speaks gently to me with his accent all funny, I do feel beaucoup comfort, and I understand why they call a person like that a “gentle” man. I like Mr. de Valencia. He is the only one who seems to know and to understand why I don’t speak much. The others (Mr. Julian and Mrs. Weinberger especially) can’t seem to wait for me to open my mouth. I don’t know why. But not Mr. Valencia. He pours me tea and gives me petit fours and talks to me about things. He says you should always hold open doors, walk with good posture, don’t slurp soup or burp at the dinner table. Sometimes he talks about things which I can’t understand and other times I blow my horn for him. He is an old man in a wheelchair and when he smiles, which doesn’t happen too much, I can tell he means it. I like Mr. de Valencia.

  Anyway, today there was no one sitting in the backwards conductor’s chair. In fact, there were only three other people on the whole entire streetcar, including the lanky man without proper fare. It has been mighty slow lately, as Daddy had been saying quietly to Mama Jones over his waffles, maybe thinking I couldn’t hear. Daddy worries about slow because of downsizing and layoffs. But I love it, because I get to sit in my favorite chair. I kind of feel like Daddy when I sit there, and sometimes I even like to pretend that that is exactly who I am.

  But today I was thinking of something else. I looked out at St. Charles Avenue moving away from me, like the whole world was in reverse, which it was. Oak branches were there for just a second and then they were gone on down the road. People would go from frightening-big to small and their voices from forte to piano. Cars pulled into the neutral ground and made big turns as soon as we passed by, and bikers crossed the tracks. But it was like everything I saw had already happened. It was different from riding up front and seeing everything waiting to happen. I was thinking about the way things can happen only once. They happen big and then they get smaller and smaller until you can barely see them until the vanishing point eats them right up.

  I remember I was thinking that because that is when it happened.

  Where Mama Jones and Daddy and I live is called a shotgun. It is painted a color which I think is purple but Daddy calls grape when he gives instructions to the pizza man or the Chinese takeout man. I happen to know that a real shotgun is black and gray and wood-colored and not even close to grape. I don’t like how our house is called a shotgun. That’s because I know the sound a gun angrily makes.

  Poor little Louis Armstrong. He is sitting at the supper table and Daddy’s chair is empty. His life is missing love from the very get-go. He doesn’t know yet that one day it will fill back up, that it will flood, that it will go over every levee and every bank. He doesn’t know yet that he will drown in love one day. All he knows is that Daddy is gone. Right in that moment, he can’t even see the thing getting smaller and smaller and moving away from him. All he knows is that he has to grow up now without love beneath him.

  Pop. Clang. Scream. Shatter. Moan. Scream. Crash. That’s the sound a gun makes.

  My knuckles go white against my horn. I grip it so tight I can feel the muscles inside my fingers start to unwind, to burn. The streetcar keeps going. It runs right through the light on Oak Street and into a big blocky SUV, which it crumples like a paper cup and pushes for another few feet before finally coming to a grindy stop. I am thrown to the ground, and by the time I get back up on my feet, the other three people who were on the streetcar have already left. I can see the backs of them running down Oak Street, away from us. I can see the fear in the way they move, and I know it is terrible because I feel it now too. But I don’t run, not at first. My heart is beating from deep inside my head, making me dizzy, making it hard to see or move or think.

  Daddy is still in the front conductor’s chair. He doesn’t move. I wonder, for a moment, why he went and let the streetcar crash like that, even in an emergency. Daddy is one of the best drivers in the RTA and has a perfect record. I try to take a step towards him, but my legs have gone cold and stiff.

  I manage to step one foot after the other, pushing myself forward down the aisle using the backs of seats, until I make it to Daddy. He still has his hand on the lever that makes the car go.

  I want to call out to him, but I am scared. I put my horn to my lips and just stand there, not making a sound. I stare at Daddy for a long minute, but he doesn’t make a move. I can hear something drip dropping out of him onto the metal floor and going plunk, plunk, plunk.

  I can’t see Daddy’s face. I mean, I can look at it, but I can’t see it. There is just a blur there. Not even a blur, but more like a completely invisible thing, like the black box when they show titty on television. I try to rub my eyes but I still can’t see it. Something in my brain, all hazy and blurry, has gone haywire and just won’t see.

  By now, a gray-headed man has pulled open the door to the streetcar and is standing over Daddy, saying, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. Call an ambulance, Gina! Call an ambulance!”

  Daddy still doesn’t move.

  I give Daddy a big hug, my horn still in one hand so that it bangs on the dashboard of the streetcar. The man yelling about Jesus is pulling me away, but I don’t want to let go. Hands are yanking me free, prying me, tugging me away. I can’t fight them, because there are too many, and the next thing I know I’m standing out in the neutral ground facing a circle of people who all want to ask me questions.

  “What happened?”

  “Do you know this man?”

  “Did you see what happened?”

  “Are you okay, kid?”

  I don’t like questions. And I especially don’t like it when people ask them at me, even when I’m feeling happy and good and safe, which is not even close to how I feel standing there beside the smoking streetcar all banged up and poking into that SUV, with a daddy that hadn’t moved or taken a breath when I put my arms around him, and I think—

  I think about Louis Armstrong. He’s a tiny child and sitting on his porch. He’s looking down his downtown street in the evening, looking through the gas lanterns and past the stray cats and waiting to see if Daddy will come home again. All of the things that Louis will be in his life are waiting to happen. He will become famous. He will play Carnegie Hall. The airport in New Orleans will be called Louis Armstrong International. He’ll be on a postage stamp and his music will be sent out into space for aliens to find. But for now, he is just a lonely boy in a bad neighborhood with a horn and Daddy is gone and rushing away to the vanishing point at the end of the street that has already swallowed him up forever.

  I run. The Jesus Christ man goes to grab me, but I dodge out of the way and I’m gone. I’ve always been a fast runner. There is none of them, especially not Gray Hair, who is going to come close to catching me. My backpack is bouncing on my back and I’m swinging my horn out in front of me until my legs have come fully back to life. Then I’m flying.

  Down Oak Street I run off into the neighborhood until I can’t hardly breathe. My heart is crazily thumping like a scat singer. For a while, I hide in Mrs. Lafreniere’s carport. I hold tight to my horn. I wrap my hands around the cold brass and I rock for a while, press it to my lips but don’t blow. The brass doesn’t shine bright. It is red now, slippery. My shirt is also red. The sun is also red, hanging low in the sky, and I know it will leave the smiley face soon and I sit there wishing it would take me with it.

  Mrs. Lafreniere comes out, and when she sees me s
he screams. I know she likes discipline and church and I’d never heard that kind of sound come out of her. But her scream is real short and high—just a yelp. She puts her hand to her chest and takes a deep breath, during which her shoulders sag a bit and I have the sense that she is mad at me.

  “What on Earth happened to you, child?”

  Her eyes are getting wider the longer she looks at me. I start to cry.

  She grabs me by the wrist and goes to gently twisting me this way and that. She lifts my shirt and runs her old hands against my chest with a worried look in her eyes. The wrinkle lines have gotten so deep on her forehead that they look like the bars on a sheet of music.

  “This ain’t your blood, Andre. Whose blood is this? Look at me, child. Andre, whose blood is this?”

  I start to pull away, but her grip is strong and I can see that she is not scared but that nothing else in the world matters to her right then.

  “Come on, baby,” she says and opens the door to her noisy Pontiac.

  It is dark by the time she opens the car door again and tugs me out onto the street in front of our grape shotgun. In our driveway there are three police cars with their blue lights flashing, and strange men in uniforms are standing out front and watching me.

  Then I hear Mama Jones screaming. It’s a good three octaves above the sound she makes when she stubs her toe. It’s more pitiful than the wailing she does when one of her stories ends with the lovers all heartbroken. It’s got more terror in it. The scream is bouncing all down the street and has people coming out onto their porches and looking down at us. When I hear that scream I know that it is something I will always remember, no matter how much time were to pass.