Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

‘Old Fritz ain’t built for the heat,’ said Chip, smiling.

‘Not like you jungle monkeys,’ said Fritz.

Hiero give him a uneasy look.

I grimaced, even though I known he only joking. It was just his way. Fritz was rough at times, sure, but he ain’t meant nothing by it.

Chip asked Paul bout his two janes. Paul been running with two ladies for a month now, sometimes slipping away from one to be with the other in the same damn night . One evening, he was even on a date with both of them in the same restaurant . And neither found it out. Chip said it was his piano hands — one ain’t never doing the same thing as the other. Hell. I thought Paul got to be near exhaustion. Chip thought he was a beautiful son of a bitch. The kid, well, I think he was just a little frightened by it all.

‘You’re going to have to choose sooner or later,’ said Ernst. ‘If only to keep yourself from collapsing.’

‘Chip doesn’t think so,’ Paul smiled. ‘He thinks I should introduce Marta and Inge to each other. See what comes of it.’

I laughed. ‘Marta’s a tasty little dish alright. But you be a damn fool you risk losin Inge. Girl got a chassis like, well, hell.’ I held out my arms like to measure a iron boiler. ‘Brother, you got to pull back you own eyelids just to get it all in view .’

‘I still ain’t clear on why you got to choose , buck,’ Chip said.

Fritz chuckled, his enormous red cheeks juddering away. But it seem to me his eyes looked small, hard.

‘What you think, kid?’ said Chip. ‘Inge?’

Hiero shrugged shyly.

‘Speak up, brother.’

‘Marta,’ the kid said, reluctant. Then he blushed. ‘Or Inge. Aw, they both nice.’

Chip peeled off his trousers. He stood with one foot propped on the bench, his hairy bits swaying like a bell. ‘Marta!’ he laughed. ‘Hell, brother, there ain’t nothin on the front, and too much in the back.’

‘She got a nice smile,’ said the kid, trying not to look Chip’s way.

‘Old Inge, though.’ Chip grinned. ‘She get you hot behind the ears just by takin a breath. She make you motor smoke.’

‘You’re making my motor smoke, buck,’ Paul called across. ‘Put on a towel, or come on over here and give us a kiss.’

‘The towel, please,’ said Fritz.

Chip ignored them. ‘Nice smile won’t pick the locks, brother.’ He was leaning forward and I swear he liked his old calabash clapping there. ‘A nice smile won’t get you any nearer the treasure at all. Less it’s one hell of a smile. Like old Mona Lisa. Now there’s a attractive jane — she got mystery .’

Ernst hung his tie over the door of the locker. He turned, give old Chip a long appraising look. ‘Charles C. Jones,’ he said with a slow smile. He unfastened his cufflinks. ‘Every so often you say something absolutely astonishing.’

Chip chuckled. ‘Sure. Wouldn’t kick old Mona out of bed. She ain’t got no eyebrows — ain’t you curious where else the hair’s missin?’

Ernst blinked. ‘Every so often,’ he said, shaking his old head. ‘And then you just keep on talking.’

I twisted out my shirt without even bothering with the buttons, kicked free my damn drawers. I looked up to find Hiero staring at me.

‘You just ain’t my plate of steak, buck,’ I said. ‘Don’t you get no ideas now.’

Chip looked up, smiled. ‘Hell, Sid, you got to do more sport. I seen better legs on a Georgia chicken.’

I swiped at him with my towel. And then we was running through the long corridor where the older gents lounged on benches, wrapped in sheets like they ready for burial. Wet stones slapping under our feet. We run howling past two wrinkled old jacks leaning in robes over a chess set, the mulchy smell of their wet skin, their damp towels coming off them. And then we was out, running in the dimly lit caverns of the bathhouse, its cathedral ceilings vanishing overhead in shadows and steam. Huge and vaulted like a opera house, with its haunting acoustics, its crumbling arched galleries along the walls.

Old Chip run straight for the far pool and leapt, smacking the water with his belly.

‘Hell, brother,’ I said, laughing. ‘You must have a stomach of stone.’

‘Man, that hurt ,’ said Chip, grinning. He shot a long stream of water through his foreteeth.

I crouched down, slipped in. Our voices echoed back to us off the walls. Around us the steam rose in panes, distorting everything, making it shimmer. Felt like you was standing in a autumn field, trying to see through thick fog.

The others come out slow like, Ernst dropping his towel from his soft waist and wading in, gleaming pale and waxy. Paul, he stood like a crane on one leg before putting both feet down. Fritz’s enormous gut, already red from the heat, just grown pinker and pinker, and he heaved it in both his hands as he come down into the water, his cock like a red slug under it.

Ernst splashed across to the wall. ‘Where’s Hiero?’ He wiped the water from his face.

‘Aw, he just bein shy,’ I said.

‘He all anyone care bout?’ said Chip.

‘He’s probably going through Chip’s wallet for his middle name,’ called Paul through the steam.

‘I’ll give you a middle name,’ said Chip. ‘And by middle name I mean a kick in the teeth.’

Big Fritz coughed, his grunts rumbling off the walls.

And then the kid come in, clutching his towel against him. His skin look real dark against the white cloth, his skinny chest heaving a little with his breathing. Kid seemed nervous as hell, but wasn’t no reason for it. I felt bad, seeing him like that.

‘We just talkin bout you, kid,’ called Chip.

Hiero waded in, looking alarmed.

‘We was wonderin if you black all the way down.’

‘You need to learn which hole the shit’s supposed to come out of, Chip,’ Paul called across.

Hiero glanced over at Paul. All a sudden he laughed.

‘Aw, you think he funny?’ said Chip, smiling. He splashed on over to the kid, set both muscular arms over his narrow head, dunked the kid in a single violent thrashing of foam. Kid’s body look like windblown ashes under that water. ‘Keep on laughin, buck,’ Chip hollered. ‘You still laughin?’

‘Chip,’ I called. ‘Stop that.’

‘That’s enough,’ said Fritz. He reached across, and gripping Chip’s underarms, dragged him off the kid like he lifting nothing heavier than a sandwich. Chip squirmed against Fritz’s belly. ‘Leave him alone, now. You’re too rough with him.’

A rise of water surged back, and the kid shot up, coughing and spitting snot. He shook his head to clear the water. Smiling in a way supposed to be casual, he looked embarrassed, terrified and angry.

Chip was struggling in that massive grip, making a disgusted face. ‘Hell, I can feel how happy you is to see me,’ he hollered. ‘Get off , get off .’

‘You sure that what you want, buck?’ I laughed.

But Fritz let him go, and he splashed out of reach at once. ‘You be careful, brother,’ he called. ‘I like to slap you face, if I could just figure out which side of you to start climbing.’

Ernst stood abruptly at the edge of the pool, a great wave of water slapping his pale chest. His deep black hair was slicked back. ‘So let’s talk about it. Do we go or not?’

‘To Paris?’ Paul called out. ‘Of course we go. Why wouldn’t we?’

Chip and Fritz both glanced from Paul to Ernst and back to Paul.

‘Do you know what they’re talking about?’ said Fritz.

Chip shrugged.

‘We have an offer, gentlemen,’ said Ernst. ‘A lady came by today to ask if we’re interested in cutting a record with Louis Armstrong.’