The Ragtime Kid Read online

  Evenings, Brun usually went out and listened to the colored piano men who played in restaurants and bars. Sometimes an owner let him fill in while the professor went for a stretch, and some nights the boy came home with a dollar or two in tips, which he hid in a poke under his mattress. Once, he got up the nerve to catch one of those professors on his break and ask for ragtime piano lessons. The professor, a hulk named Ollie the Bear, shook his head and rumbled, “Ragtime ain’t your music, boy, never will be. Ragtime is colored music. An’ until you gets to be a colored boy, you ain’t never gonna be able to play it. Never. You try an’ take my music…” Ollie spluttered, flung his cigar to the ground, pushed his stubbled face into Brun’s; the boy recoiled from the spray of saliva and the reek of stale tobacco and whiskey. “Our music. Nigger-music. You think you wanna steal it huh? Uh-uh. Not offa me, you ain’t.” Ollie raised one leg, and blew out a long crescendo of a fart. “Now, go on, boy. Get you’self away from here, an’ leave me be.” Ollie snatched up his cigar, then stomped back into the saloon. Brun dragged his humiliated self home and up to bed.

  His performance in school, never anything to write home about, dropped off to nothing at all. In June, just before the end of the school term, his teacher, Miss Logan, a dried-up little spinster with a face in eternal mourning, called in Brun’s parents and told them in his presence that he had more brains than any other boy in his class, and if he’d only apply himself, he could be a great success. “Music is all he seems to care about.” Miss Logan’s voice left no doubt as to just what kind of music she meant.

  About that time, Brun commenced to think seriously about running away to Sedalia. Find Otis Saunders and Scott Joplin, get one of them to teach him ragtime piano. The idea raged in his brain like wildfire.

  Then, summer. Brun’s father got him a job on Calvin Utley’s farm just outside town. “Time you learned what the world’s really like,” Mr. Campbell said. “Farming’s tough work. It’ll make a man of you.” For more than a month, Brun spent six days a week milking cows, feeding horses, slopping hogs, pulling weeds in the corn patch, and being pecked by chickens who didn’t cotton to the idea of him taking their eggs. After supper, he took a bath and went directly to bed, too fagged to even think of playing piano, and sorer than boils at the looks his parents gave each other.

  One steaming Saturday afternoon, Mr. Utley caught Brun behind the barn, flopped in a shady spot, lollygagging about what it might be like to play piano for a living. Fancy clothes, good money, pretty girls to spend it on… The farmer gave the boy’s ears a cuffing like none before, then sent him off to shovel out the pig stalls. At the end of the day, Brun got no more than one foot inside the house before his mother hustled him out to the back yard and made him strip buck naked while she drew a tub of hot water. He scrubbed himself raw and put on clean clothes, but there was no getting rid of the stink inside his nose. Straightway after supper, he dragged himself up to bed, lowered his head onto the pillow, and became insensible.

  Next he knew, he was awake, clear-minded, at one in the morning. Out of bed in a flash, into his clothes, muscles complaining every which way he turned. But the exhaustion from the day before was gone. Take a little care, he told himself, go easy. It wouldn’t do to wake his parents.

  He sat at the wooden table in the kitchen long enough to write a note. “Dear Ma and Pop. It is not that I don’t love you, or that I’m ungrateful for what you have done for me.” He stopped to think. If his father and mother had any idea where he was headed, the police would likely be waiting to pick him up the minute he arrived. Brun closed his eyes, thought harder. Those stories in the newspapers the old man had been going on about, every night at supper, six months running? Pencil back to paper. “Pa, you always say a man has to strike while an iron is hot. Well, I’m old enough to make my own way now, and I don’t aim just to strike, I mean to strike it big. I’m going to Seattle, then up to the Klondike. When I see you again, I’ll have enough bags full of gold that none of us will ever have to work again.” He signed the note, “Your loving son, Brun.” That would do it. He laid the pencil on top of the note, carefully slid the chair away from the table, got up, slipped a couple of loaves of fresh-baked bread out of the breadbox, and wrapped them in a kerchief. Then he slipped out the back door.

  The summer night air was warm and fragrant; a three-quarter moon sat low on the horizon. Brun’s heart pounded as he followed that moon to the railway depot. He’d hop a freight to Oklahoma City, change there, go through Tulsa and on to Kansas City, then change again for Sedalia. Easy.

  But by the time he finally rolled out of Kay Cee, he was feeling a whole lot less enthusiastic. In Oklahoma City, he’d gotten chased by yard bulls, jumped aboard the wrong train, and found himself in Amarillo, not Tulsa. Coming back, he made a worse mistake, climbed into a car where two ’boes lost no time in relieving him of his bread and the little poke in his pocket with more than thirty-five dollars in it, every cent of his tips from playing piano. After the bums shoved him out, he settled himself into a blind baggage car, but as the train rolled out of Tulsa it pulled up short, and a little wooden box full of lead shot flew off a pile and delivered the boy a blow to the ribs that left him gasping and clutching at his side for several minutes. Now, chugging across Missouri out of Kansas City, he huddled behind stacks of lumber, and tried not to think of food. When he had to relieve himself, he turned sideways, opened his pants, and let fly against the wall. He willed himself to stay awake, crawled over to the door, cracked it. Raindrops pattered onto his face.

  When he felt the train slow, he stretched his legs and peeked out the crack. In the glow of streetlights, he made out city buildings. Sedalia. He felt dizzy, whether from excitement or hunger, he couldn’t have said. Just before the train pulled into the station, he slid the door open far enough for him to squeeze through, then jumped to the ground, a good clean four-point landing.

  The rain had stopped, though the air felt heavy enough to swim through. Brun wiped his wet hands on his pants, then started walking toward the buildings and lights he’d seen a few minutes before. All right, he’d lost his food and money, but now his luck was going to change. He knew how to play piano; he wouldn’t be hungry or broke for long. He’d get a job and find lodging. And then he’d look up Scott Joplin and somehow talk piano lessons out of him.

  But right then, food seemed like the first consideration, and after that, a place to sleep. He even thought a nice tub of hot water didn’t sound too bad, and laughed out loud, thinking of his mother’s face if she could’ve heard that particular thought.

  Clouds sailed across the dark sky, but a full moon shone uncovered. Brun figured it was probably a little after midnight. His side ached where the box of shot had caught him; he stretched his arms over his head. Hobo life wasn’t for him, no sir. Dress in rags, all filthy and smelly? Live by train-hopping and begging food and money? He shook his head. Playing piano, a man could make real good jack, and if he didn’t drink it away, he could eat high off the hog, wear spiffy clothes, and when he felt sand in his shoes, travel like a sport inside the passenger coach of a train. Brun was so caught up in his fancies, he didn’t notice a log in the weeds at the side of the street. He stumbled, staggered comically, all the while misusing the Lord’s name in a most serious manner. Finally, he recovered, and aimed a kick at the log, just to show it who was really boss. As he landed the blow, it occurred to the boy that the log was soft. It shifted just a bit, and by the light of the moon, Brun saw that this particular log wore a long white dress and petticoats.

  ***

  Dr. Walter Overstreet wondered just how long this goddamned meeting would go on. Why in all hell had he ever let Bud Hastain sweet-talk him into running for mayor of Sedalia? Overstreet’s prize for winning that race was two years of political shit to shovel off his desk every single day, never mind he had an active medical practice to keep up. Today, he’d started with a breech delivery at six in the morning, and what with the usual hospital rounds an
d house calls, afternoon office visits, a meeting with a bunch of irate citizens, two kids with firecracker burns, and a City Council meeting, he’d gone nonstop until ten that night. By then, he thought he might just be home free, but no. Martha Smith, daughter of George Smith, the founder of his fair city, was having one of her so-called spells. If Sarah Cotton, Martha’s sister, had heard what the good doctor said after she’d hung up the phone, he never again would have been allowed to set foot inside the Smith mansion in any capacity. Wearily, he grabbed up his bag, and was off to the huge stone house on East Broadway to dispense smelling salts, a touch of laudanum, and close to two hours of gentle sympathy and encouragement. By the time he dragged himself back, Bud Hastain and John Bothwell were waiting for him in his office, directly below his bachelor apartments. “No,” Bothwell told him. “This can’t wait until tomorrow. I have appointments all day tomorrow.”

  Dr. Overstreet slung his bag into a corner, pulled a decanter labeled SCOTCH and three glasses from a little cabinet next to the red-leather armchair behind his consultation desk. Hastain and Bothwell sipped at their drinks, but Overstreet threw his down in one swallow, then refilled his glass.

  His visitors glanced at each other, then Bothwell spoke. He was a good-looking man just past fifty, with a full head of dark hair, pompadoured in front, long sideburns and a thick mustache. Dark eyes peered out from below craggy, bushy brows. His bearing and tone of voice never left doubt that if he was not getting his way right then, he shortly would be. “Sorry to keep you up, Doc, but we need to keep moving forward on this State Fair business. We’ve got to be good and goddamn sure we don’t lose the Fair the way we lost out on the Capital.”

  Hastain, a stocky, light-haired man a few years younger than Bothwell, nodded.

  For a moment, Overstreet gave serious thought to asking the two men to leave, then resigning as mayor. Doctors had no business being in politics; he had no trouble imagining what his father would have had to say about that. Two of Overstreet’s patients had died that day, one from a heart attack, another from a railyard accident, and now he was supposed to get all worked up about Sedalia’s having lost out on the Capital and maybe losing the State Fair as well. But Bothwell and Hastain owned considerable real estate in Sedalia, were officers in banks, operated lucrative farms in the area; if Sedalia failed, the two of them would be just another couple of dime-a-dozen lawyers. That’s why Bothwell had got himself elected State Representative from Pettis County, and Hastain had served two terms as mayor. But Bud wasn’t allowed to stand for a third term in 1898, so he persuaded his friend, Dr. Walter Overstreet, that it was Walter’s civic duty to run for mayor. No worry, Hastain and Bothwell would give him all the help he needed. Some help. When Jefferson City managed to hold onto the State Capital, Sedalia was left holding a large plot of land where the capitol building was supposed to go, and Bothwell and Charlie Yeater, the Pettis County State Senator, were bound and determined that the state legislature would vote that fall to use Sedalia’s available acreage as the site for the Missouri State Fair. Not as good as getting the Capital, but a decent consolation prize, one that would bring considerable business into town, year after year. Overstreet had heard so much palaver about cows and sheep and horses, he thought he’d be better off had he gone into veterinary medicine.

  “Walter, God damn it. Are you listening to me?”

  Overstreet, blasted out of his reverie, nodded. “Yes, John, I’m listening to you.”

  “Well, then, what the hell do you intend to do about getting the merchants to support the September street fair? We’ve gotten off to a good start—even with the rain, we drew a nice out-of-town crowd for the Fourth. But we need to do something big right before the legislature meets to show them we will get people to come to the Fair from all over the state. Don’t those damn fools on Ohio Avenue understand that?”

  Overstreet looked at Hastain, who quickly looked away. The doctor had known Bud a long time, and no question, he was a good man. Hastain knew it shouldn’t be up to Overstreet to try to squeeze money out of businessmen to underwrite a street fair. But Bud was not about to take on John Bothwell, not over an issue so important to the senator, and certainly not in public.

  “If they don’t have the sense to contribute willingly, then get a general assessment passed,” Bothwell stormed. “You should be able to talk that through the City Council. If you need help, Bud will give you a hand.”

  Clear to Walter Overstreet what Bothwell thought of a mayor who’d need help to ram a general assessment through a city council. The doctor set his jaw the way he did when he was about to give holy hell to some drunken yard man who’d beaten up his wife. “Listen to me, John. Most of these businessmen on Ohio, and on Lamine and Osage and Kentucky and every other street, for that matter, are just scraping by. They work from sunup to sundown, and barely make enough to feed and house their families. They’re already taxed heavily, and I’m not going to lay another burden on them. It’s as simple as that.”

  Bothwell balled both fists. He lowered his head, the better to glare at Overstreet from beneath his massive brows, a look that usually brought anyone from a naughty child to an erring employee directly into line. But Overstreet had nothing to lose beyond his mayoral office, hardly a deterrent. “Pick out the merchants who are doing well,” he said evenly. “Talk to them. Show them it would be to their advantage to sponsor the street fair. But do it yourself. I’m not your errand boy.”

  Bothwell let out a noise, half-grunt, half-growl, and jumped to his feet. Hastain moved quickly to position himself between the two men. “John, he might have a point. Voluntary contributions from the bigger companies probably would be better. We don’t want word getting around that smaller businesses are leaving Sedalia because they’re getting taxed past the limit. Besides, Walter really doesn’t have the time…” Hastain looked over his shoulder at Overstreet, winked, and turned back to Bothwell. “…or the talent for drumming up contributions. Leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.”

  Bothwell’s face contorted in disgust. He glanced at Overstreet, then nodded several times, like he was trying to convince himself. Then he gave Hastain a heavy dose of his famous glare, and said, “All right. I’ll be out of town most of the rest of the summer, drumming up support around the state, so I’ll leave you in charge here. Just remember, if we don’t get that Fair, we might as well board up the city. All the time we’ve put into the Build Factories Drive, all the calls and letters going out all over the country to convince businesses they should move here, or at least expand? Without the Fair, what are we going to have to bring in that trade? You think the whorehouses down on West Main are going to get respectable businesses to relocate in Sedalia?”

  Overstreet worked to keep a smile off his face. He spent a fair bit of time down on West Main, attending to knifings and shooting victims, or a prostitute writhing on her bed, feverish with abdominal gonorrhea, and he could have told John Bothwell about quite a nice number of respectable businessmen he’d spotted on West Main late at night. The doctor liked the lively, syncopated piano music he heard through the open doorways of the saloons and brothels—but then, he was an acknowledged nonbeliever, a member of no church, so why shouldn’t he appreciate the music of the devil?

  “I think we ought to just close those damn places down,” Bothwell snapped. “Battle Row! The clergy all over town are getting louder and louder about it. Hell, even the colored preachers want Main cleaned up.”

  “Even the colored preachers,” Overstreet thought. Jesus!

  Bothwell wasn’t finished. “Maybe we should listen to them. Until we get that Fair locked up and delivered, this needs to be the cleanest town in the Union.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Overstreet. “You might make the preachers happy, but not a whole lot of other people. Shutting down West Main is probably the best thing you could do to cause trouble.” He flashed a sly smile at Hastain. “What do you say, Bud?”

  Hastain’s face colored, b
ut he laughed. “He’s right, John. Get the parlors off West Main, you’ll still have the fights and the killings, but they’ll be going on all over town instead of just on one street. People will be screaming about how they can’t walk out of their houses at night.”

  Bothwell snorted. “All right, all right. But Walter, you talk to Chief Love, you hear? Make good and goddamn sure he’s got cops watching those places.”

  Overstreet sighed, then nodded, and watched his visitors out the door, then poured himself another belt of scotch and knocked it down. He trudged upstairs, all the while trying to shut out his father’s longwinded sermon about sons who stray from their proper medical duties to sully their hands and good names by taking part in filthy political schemes and intrigues. Overstreet shucked his shirt and trousers onto a straightbacked chair, and fell into bed. He was more than weary. He’d been more than weary for a long time.

  ***

  Young Brun Campbell dropped to his hands and knees, and begged pardon of the woman he’d just kicked. Icy water popped out all over his skin. When the woman didn’t respond, Brun wondered had she fainted. Women did that, he knew, with a fair degree of regularity; he’d seen many such performances. A man properly responded by cradling the head of the stricken lady, rubbing her wrists, and giving her smelling salts and sips of water. Brun had neither salts nor water on his person, but he set out to do the best he could. Tall weeds scratched at his hands and face, so he slid an arm beneath the woman’s head, and carefully pulled her into the open. Her head flopped like a rag doll’s against his chest. Long, dark hair, wet and tangled, fell across her face.

  Brun wriggled out of his jacket, folded it and shoved it under the woman’s head, then reached for her hand. It felt like putty. He rubbed at her wrist, troublesome because he needed to work around a small locket on a chain. Once again he misused the name of the Lord, then snapped the locket free and without a conscious thought, slipped it into his pocket. He patted the woman’s palm, kneaded her wrist hard as he dared. “Wake up, Lady,” he whispered. “Please.”