Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

“Stand aside, gentleman! Sick youngster comin’ through here! Bit by a rabid animal and needin’ of medical ’tention!” And then louder: “ Is there a doctor in the house? Jesus please , is there a doctor in this house?” Dropsy’s heart-rending performance was enhanced nicely by his authentically rattled nerves and genuinely throbbing head.

The band charged furiously through Buddy’s signature tune, Buddy himself standing authoritatively at the edge of a six inch platform serving as stage. Holding the cornet in his left hand, King Bolden belted out the lyrics with the passion of a back-o’town street preacher:

Way down, way down low

So I can hear them whores

Drag their feets across that floor…

Buddy interrupted himself with a quick, nasty phrase from the cornet, blinking hard in mid-verse at the commotion stirred by Jim’s wailing. Annoyance transformed quickly to amusement as Buddy recognized the boys-and with a wink in their direction he lowered the cornet once more to resume verse:

Oh, you bitches, shake your asses

Funky butt, funky butt

Take it away!

Dropsy pulled Jim through the sorry looking throng of lowlifes and slicks; an unlikely mixture of race and class-from black to white and from high to low-that Buddy’s unique style of playing managed to draw together in the district with astonishing regularity. Despite the diversity, the locals and out-of-towners were easy enough to tell apart-nearly as easy as telling cats from mice.

With steadily escalating imagined agony, Jim knocked his genuinely dog-injured calf hard against an empty stool to coax out a few additional drops of blood, just for show.

“The pain! The pain! ”

“Somebody please help this poor boy!” Dropsy was now so anxious that his eyes produced genuine tears. Nice touch, that-but his concern was well founded. The out-of-town element in Odd Fellows tonight had a distinctly hardened air about them, clearly not the type accustomed to playing mouse. This was often a good thing; the more worldly the prospect, the more likely the prospect would consider himself immune to tricks perpetrated by under-aged white kids and slow-minded coloreds-which meant a lowered guard. But also: one misstep with this bunch could prove disastrous or deadly. Not that the locals wouldn’t bail the boys out in a crisis scenario, but some of these tourists carried pistols-and there wasn’t enough Southern Loyalty in the whole of God’s green earth to stop a bullet.

Dropsy pushed onward towards the bar until Jim signaled with calculated resistance. He led Dropsy leftwards with a staged shudder and low-pitched moan-mere preamble to an artful backwards fall. The cards and drinks of Jim’s chosen party took the intended tumble, causing ten droopy, alcohol-fogged eyes to widen with surprise.

To Dropsy, the five out-of-towners looked like a postcard straight out of the Wild, Wild West: a crew of red-faced, hardened outlaws dressed in their Sunday best. As drinks splashed into laps and glasses chimed then tinkled musically to the floor, two of the men cursed and jumped up, while two others just sat looking confused. The fifth man looked only mildly startled-and somewhat concerned. This least perturbed member of the party stood up soberly, giving Jim a hand up from the ground and offering him his chair.

“You all right, boy?” said the man, crouching down to meet Jim’s eyes.

Paydirt , thought Jim Jam Jump.

“Thank you, thank you so much for the kindness, sir. I’ll be all right. It’s just that it hurts…so… aaahhh !” A dazzling demonstration of sobs sprang from Jim’s throat. His aim was to melt the hearts of the remaining four, but the immediate results were mixed at best.

The two who’d remained seated-one as fat as the other was skinny-got to their feet just long enough to right the table, then quickly reseated themselves with narrowing eyes. The two who’d jumped up wore put-out expressions-but were already on a slow cool, both standing with hands on hips as if awaiting formal invitation to rejoin their own party. The Good Samaritan who’d given up his seat had already full-out taken the bait, now placing an arm around Jim’s shoulder while the boy responded with meek, artificial gratitude; trembling and fighting to hold back fake tears.

“There now, you’ll be okay, son,” said the Good Samaritan. Then to Dropsy, “Well, don’t just stand there, ya stupid nigger, go find a doctor!” Dropsy scrambled off, hardly able to conceal his relief.

“I’ll pay fer them drinks I done knocked over, sir. I got some money…” But the act of reaching into his own pocket caused Jim a freshly imagined stab of pain. “Aahhhh… ow! ow! ow eeee! ”

“Nonsense,” said the Good Samaritan. “Don’t you worry ’bout that, son. Tell me yer name, now.”

“Nick Clay, sir.” Jim’s spur of the moment identity for the night.

“Well, Nick, you can call me Walter. Now, tell me what happened.”

“Well, Mr. Walter…this rabid dog roamin’ the street done cornered me. I tried ta git away, but he came up fast and bit me on the leg-wouldn’t let go, just shakin’ and growlin’. That niggra came out of nowhere and kilt that dog with his bare hands. Bravest thing I ever seen.”

“Well, I’ll be damned, is that a fact?” Then, after a beat: “What happened to the niggra’s face? He get bit too?” The question revealed an angle Jim had neglected to work out in advance. Walter’s question was a trap-Dropsy’s head injuries bore no resemblance whatsoever to a dog bite, and Jim knew it.

“No, sir,” Jim improvised. “In the struggle…ya see, uh…the dog tripped him up and knocked him on his head. Hit the ground hard but kept on fightin’. That niggra saved my life, I tell ya!”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the Samaritan repeated with apparent satisfaction, as he pulled a clean white hanky from his breast pocket to wrap around Jim’s bleeding calf. “Anything I can do for you, son?”

Jim hesitated expertly. “Well…ah, nevermind. You already been way too kind, sir…” Jim squinted in actual pain as Walter wrapped the hanky too tight.

“Out with it, son. This ain’t no time fer shyness.”

“Well, maybe if I could get a little snort…for the pain, I mean.”

“Well, of course! Sure thing, little fella!” Walter was clearly delighted at the prospect of reintroducing liquor to the table. “You betcha! Waitress !”

Dropsy had already shoved his way through the crowd to the far end of the bar, beyond easy visibility of Jim’s table of marks. From across the bar he made brief eye contact with Malaria, who gave him a scolding glance but hurried herself in the direction of Jim’s table of marks just the same. She didn’t approve of the boys’ thieving shenanigans, but neither did she wish them harm and so intended to keep a close eye. Dropsy wedged himself against the wall near the back end of the stage in just the right way, finding a good vantage point from which he could catch Jim’s eventual signal indicating the commencement of phase two.

Buddy’s horn was awfully harsh at such close range, but Dropsy decided it would be rude to jam a finger in for relief so close to the stage where people could see. And just then, with a quick motion of Buddy’s hand, the band stopped all at once-the sudden absence of sound leaving a tinny whine in Dropsy’s ears. Buddy took the opportunity to berate the crowd, imploring them to “not be so dern cheap and how about a tip for the band and nevermind the dern waitresses, they make good enough money around the block when they whorin’.” Finally stepping down from the low platform, Buddy took two quick strides before throwing an arm around Dropsy’s shoulder.