Razorblade Rag

  Take me back to Chicago
Lay my soul to rest
Where my life was free and easy
Remember me at my best.
  Take me back to Chicago
Where music was all I had
I tried to be good as I could
And sometimes that made me sad.


    Chicago's called the windy city, and it can certainly be. But it's a common misconception that the nickname has anything at all to do with the weather. It had more to do with it's politicians.
    Seattle's called the Rainy City. Because it rains all the time. No misconception there- It's been raining since my first night in. I don't really mind it, but it tends to conjure up an atmosphere of the Blues, and without Billy, that just doesn't seem right.
    It was raining that night like it always did. I was sitting outside of a place called Serafina. More attitude than atmosphere as far as I could see, and I just couldn't put myself back inside, with that glowing knot of assembled glitteratti. Instead, I just sat there, smoking in the shadows, and watching the red drizzle of passing taillights in the rain.
    "Young lady like you shouldn't be alone in the dark. The city isn't safe anymore."
     I'd seen his car pass by and park, and I'd heard his door open and close with an expensively velvet 'thump', but I was thinking about Billy, and it never crossed my mind that anyone'd notice me sitting there. I was about to brush him off. The smart-assed words were already forming on my lips, when I turned my head to get an eyeful of tall dark and handsome that shut my mouth, and put a smile on it.  
     He was all starch and press, Armani and London Fog, and though I don't know cars and I didn't really get a look at his, I could guess that was expensive too. For about a split second, it crossed my mind that this might be the second man in this damned city to think I was for sale. I briefly considered a change of lipsticks.
    "Can I offer you a ride somewhere," he asked. There was a scar the length of his pretty face that looked like he'd gotten into the wrong end of a brawl with a guy named Vito, and it moved when he talked, adding action to an already busy stage.
    "You make it a habit to offer rides to ladies before you know their names," I asked, thinking that it probably worked for him most of the time. He might have blushed, but it was hard to say under the arclights, and he offered his hand, which was cold as a dixiefreeze, and his name, which was Seth. For about two seconds, I thought he was one of us. Then I caught a whiff of him on the wet breeze, and nearly bit my tongue.
    Instead I just smiled and gave him a nod, and let him lead me back to his car. I never gave a second thought to the folks inside Serafina- hell, I don't imagine they'd even noticed me leave.


Unclaimed by the land that bore us,
Lost in the land, we find
The brave have gone before us;
Cowards are left behind.

Then stand to your glasses steady
And drink to your comrade's eyes
Here's a toast to the dead already
And hurrah for the next who dies.



    Seth. There was something about Seth that caught my attention and didn't want to let it go. Maybe it was his good looks, or maybe it was just those eyes- Billy had eyes like that. Made me feel like I was naked, but Billy was a blind man, and Seth seemed to look right through my skin. Maybe it was only that I'd caught his attention. Yes. Vanity. That's all it was.
    Seth wanted to drive me home. I almost let him. But it didn't take long before the alarm bells started going off inside my head. He looked too good. Smelled to good. And asked questions like he already knew the answers. He kept hinting that he knew what I was. Billy'd warned me a long time ago about Groupies- people who know just enough to think they want what we've got, and not enough to understand what it's about. Seth was shaping up to be a groupie, and I was having second thoughts about just who was the monkey, and who the buzzard.
    I let him drive around a while asking his questions, feeding him lies that I don't quite think that he bought, then I gave him directions to Pioneer Square. He asked if he could reach me. I told him that he couldn't. So he gave me a card with his number. I thanked him and climbed out, telling him I'd call, and pretty sure I wouldn't, and that was that. At least, at the time that's what I believed.

    I'd been hoping all night to run into Garfield, but he seemed to be laying low, and his reasons weren't any of my business. I walked into the Gaslight Lounge and did my best to get comfortable at the bar- some stiff was hammering out something heavy and classical on the baby grand. I ordered myself an Old Fashioned and let myself get lost in the ice. (Ice cubes, as far as I'm concerned, are pure magic. Ask me about them sometime.)
    After a while, the piano just got to me. I picked up my drink and headed into the corner with a serious intent when I finally got a good look at the guy. I'd seen him before. He'd been in here a week or so ago, playing Gershwin like there was no tomorrow. I stopped, took a sip of my drink, and changed the attitude in my walk from a stalk to a slither. He'd just take a little coaxing and the atmosphere was sure to improve.
    He spotted me before I got to him, and I guess something in my presence was coaxing enough. He rolled Rachmaninov into Ruby James without a second thought, and I was singing before I got to where he sat. He'd never told me his name- we hadn't spoken at all that first time. He played, and I sang, and that was that. It wasn't a complicated relationship at all. I felt like we'd been there before.
    It worked like that again. We rolled through a half dozen tunes without skipping a beat. There wasn't a crowd to applaud us, and that was just fine by me. It was me that pulled up the stops though. Somebody I didn't recognize came in, and gave us both the eye, and that was the end of that. I just turned my back on the piano, and went to freshen up my drink.


    His name was Max. There was more to it than that, but it didn't really matter. I didn't really care to know. Didn't want to complicate it. He sat down on the stool next to mine, made some small talk. He was muscle for the local thugs, and I thought he could do better, I was a no-name jazz maul lost among the real talent, he thought I could do better. Funny how personal he seemed to take that. As if it was different for me.  I wished that we hadn't talked. When he left, I was glad to see him go, and swore an oath not to let him talk next time. We talked better in the music. Like a lover that you don't really like- some things are better left unsaid. I didn't wonder how the Brujah could just lay waste to an artist like that. I was born in Chicago.
    When Max walked out, I turned back to my drink. Ice cubes. Magic, remember? I used to sit on the front stoop of my folks' walk-up in the summertime waiting for the Iceman. He came twice a week, and for kids that were good and helped out, he'd hand out frozen sweets, but I would have been there just the same. The ice was like magic. I imagined that it came from a sparkling mine, high up on a mountain, way out in the middle of the lake. I told Jennifer Brunnemeier that, and she laughed until she cried, and then told all the neighborhood kids about the story "that stupid polock" had told her. We weren't friends after that, and I never told anyone else.
    Max was an artist. Somebody should care- but nobody did except me, as far as I could tell. So he and I were birds of a feather. Maybe I was supposed to be his Billy Blue. But Brujahs and Toreadors aren't exactly the best of blood, or at least not the way I'd ever seen it, and Max had Property of Brujah stamped on his ass, plain as day. I tried to think about the ice instead. Artists come and go, don't they. I sure as hell did.  Was that what Bill had seen in me on that hot summer night so long ago? An artist worth saving? He'd always been right about everything else, so maybe it wasn't too late. I walked over and ran my hand across the piano's lid and sucked on my last few chunks of melting magic. Magic on my tongue. Maybe I could pull it out. Just maybe Bill was right about me, too.
                                                    
                                                                                 ***

    It was a hot summer night on the Chicago Southside, 1936. The air was so heavy that just breathing was an effort, and the few seedy customers in Palermo's probably would have been satisfied watching me do just that. But if Louie'd caught me sitting on my kiester sipping a sloe gin fizz, he'd pitch an ing-bing, and with my rent due on tuesday, I'd be out of more than just a job. Twostep, the piano player, had just stepped off for an alley break and I was sitting on the steps of the stage when this colored guy walks in, tall and narrow enough to make me thirsty. I wouldn't have noticed, but he was wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses and not even breaking a sweat. He was that dark kind of pretty that could get an irish girl like me in trouble in those days. He walked up to the stage like he was made out of the wind, stepped over me without a word, and got comfortable behind the keys. Next thing I know he's rolling out an 18-carat barrelhouse, and making me wish that Twostep would never come back.
    "Hey, sister, you got a song you can spare," he asked, and I knew he was talking to me. He wasn't looking at me- he hadn't looked at me once- but I knew that he was, and for all of his pretty, it sent a shiver down my spine. I appreciated it. Leave Twostep to his mudpipe. I had better things to do. I tapped my foot to a little eight-bar, and gave the 'bo a flirty grin when he picked it right up into a twist on "There'll Be Some Changes Made".  I took the hint and dragged myself over to the microphone, turning so I could watch the way he played.

"They say don't change the old for the new;
But I've found out that this will never do;
When you grow old, you don't last long,
You're just here, my honey, then you're gone..."


    It was too hot. I was hardly at my best. He didn't seem impressed- but he didn't look disappointed either. He just kept on playing, and I winced as a bead of sweat ran down my back inside my dress.When I got to the chorus the pianoman's grin split like an over ripe peach, but I just thought I was getting in the groove- it wasn't until later that I learned what he found so amusing...

"There's a change in the weather, there's a change in the sea,
So from now on there'll be a change in me,
Why, my walk will be be different, and my talk, and my name,
Nothing about me gonna be the same..."


Yeah. Funny, Billy. But as usual, you were right. You were right on the money about everything. Except for me.

                                                                          ***

Come on-a my house, my house a come on
Come on-a my house, my house a come on
Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you candy
Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you everything...


    Funny thing was, I hardly noticed. He went by Billy Blue, and the bartender knew what he drank and didn't wait to be asked. And Twostep- well, I just never heard from him again. I always figured that he'd found his dragon, but then again, Billy might've had a hand in that coincidence too.
    We rolled on until about a quarter past one, and generated enough heat that I forgot all about the weather. Eventually, he just stopped playing, got up, and headed out the door. I don't know why I followed him, or why I thought he wouldn't mind, but I did, and he didn't, and I don't think I'll ever regret that it went just that way.
    Billy changed me that night, in more ways than one. He brought me to life, and he killed me, and taught me some serious high notes, and a few really low ones too. And I've heard a lot of our kind say that that little something that makes a spark between a man and a woman flickers out with the last breath, and it's not polite to kiss and tell, so all I'll say is, according to Billy Blue Whitman, it ain't necessarily so.

    We hit the nightlife for real then. Billy seemed to know everyone who was anyone, and everyone who should have been, too, and he introduced me to them all.  We hit the Paradise Theater and the Savoy and the Arcadia Ballroom, places I never would have dreamt of showing my face before, let alone singing. No more dives, no more grifters, no more filthy bindle-punks trying to cop a feel. Billy was rolling in rhino, and seemed happy enough to be sharing it with me. And for some reason, no one even batted an eye at the blonde twist with the blind smoke. When Bill and I walked through a door, heads turned alright- we dazzled.
    He told me I was good- nobody had said so except me- and among our clan, that's all that really counted. As usual, he was right. Chicago was lousy with Toreadors in those days. With prohibition off, it was a cocktail paradise, as bright with talent as with it's city lights, and everyone seemed to want to raise a toast to validate John Dillinger's murder.  I stuck close to Billy though. He had warned me that they were all sharks.
    Billy taught me everything he knew about the court and the clan. He showed me the teeth of the night, and he kept me safe from the predators that were just waiting to slit my throat. In his way, he made me a predator myself, but not like so many of them.

    "We don't kill," he told me, "Pretty as we are? There just ain't no need. You find you a dapper jack, you flash a little smile, and talk a little sweet, you won't ever have to take that road. But there's a new act in town these days, an' they like things crazy like a cross burnin'. You need to keep your head low, even on the stage sugar, 'cause those ones are rabid like dogs, and they don't follow our laws."

                                                                              ***

    Seth came out of the shadows of Pioneer square like creosote bleeding from the wet bricks. Like creosote, I smelt him before I could see him. Hell, I could taste him in the back of my throat the minute I stepped onto first avenue, but it didn't surprise me he was there. He'd made me sweat, sure, but it was pretty clear that the feeling was mutual. I didn't miss a step when he slid up beside me.
    "I thought I'd find you here."
    "Didn't know you were looking for me," I answered, "Why?"
    "That's a strange place you frequent. It seems... hard to get in."
    "It's a private club," I told him, "Private entrance."
    "How do you get in?"
    "Old money. Old blood. It's an east coast kinda thing."
    He didn't like my answers, and like before, he had another question waiting every time I stopped talking. I didn't like that. I thought about Max, and about how I'd rather Seth would just keep his mouth shut. His company'd be a lot easier to enjoy that way. I tried to slip around the subject, but he kept coming back to the Gaslight. Finally, I just twisted in my tracks and cut him off, dropping my shoulder against a wet brick wall. He didn't see it coming I guess, and nearly ran over me before he could stop. Lucky me. He shifted about an inch, back and to the side, but I didn't budge, and he didn't really seem to mind the proximity. I looked up at him looking down and smiled. My back was to a wall, and he had a good dozen inches and four score pounds in his favor. He loomed just a little, like I'd hoped that he would.
    "You've got such a pretty face," I told him, and reached up to run my fingers along the scar on his cheek, "I'd hate to see it get anymore cut up."
    I held his eyes for a couple of heartbeats, just long enough for him to decide whether or not I had the Chicago brass to threaten him from that position. I did, but I didn't keep it where he probably thought.  Before he'd come up with an answer, I shrugged myself free of the wall and moved on, as if nothing had been said. He blustered something about how he could handle himself just fine- the male ego's the same on any coast, in any decade. It's nice to be able to count on.
    He said he liked to keep things interesting- that a little risk made life more exciting.
    "You thought I looked exciting. Is that why you stopped to talk to me? You were looking for a little action?"
    I couldn't hide my smirk- I was playing, but I'm not sure he knew it, because he seemed to take the comment personally.
    "I was trying to be polite."
    I nodded.
    "Offering me a ride home."
    "Yes!"
    For all that he seemed to know more than he should, he seemed awfully easy to trip up. He seemed like he'd read books on how, but never actually ridden the horse, and he let me lead him all over the trail, but he kept refusing to take the reins. I knew he was lying. One of the benefits of my clan- I could see right through him, but Seth didn't know that, and I let him stumble a few more times just to watch what he'd do to cover his ass. Mostly, he blustered, and blamed the whole mess on me.
    "You still won't answer my questions."
    "I've answered them all. I just haven't told you what you wanted to hear. And you still won't just spit out the truth. What do you want from me?"
    "The truth."
    "About what?"
    We weren't getting anywhere, and we both knew it. He was frustrated, and I was getting bored of the dance, and I think he sensed that.
    "I want to know about the beginning. You and I both know that we're... not like other people. I want to- understand how it started."
    I couldn't help laughing. He had to be kidding. He knew exactly what I was, and I think he actually believed he could dupe me into thinking that he was one of us.  I should never have let him get even half this close. He was trying to play me- but for all of it, I might as well have been a kitten with a string. I had to know what he was after. I wanted to solve him almost as much as I wanted to taste him, and I wanted to taste him like nothing I'd ever wanted before.
    I let my feet lead us deeper into the shadows of Occidental, further from the growing crowds of the first days of Mardi Gras. I wanted him alone. I wanted to give him a shot at me, just to see if he'd take it. Billy would have been so proud...
                                                                                  ***

Savage Flame was precisely the color of blood. Frankie Delanno gave me a tube in 1921, along with a new dress and my first pair of heels. It felt like a threat. Then again, maybe it just helped Frankie to sleep at night, pretending it was only lipstick on his hands. I hated him, and everyone like him.
    Something about Seth reminded me of Frankie. Seth was a lot better looking, and smoother by a mile than a street-pimp like Frankie Delanno could ever aspire to become, but there was something sly in the way he kept telling me exactly what he thought I wanted to hear. Of course, I was an easier mark at 17.
    I slipped into the darkened mouth of a dead end alley off Jackson and leaned against a recycle bin, waiting for him to follow.
    He declined.  Instead, he stopped where the light from a streetlamp chopped a short diagonal into the muddy shadows. I did my best to look vulnerable.
    "What exactly do you want from me," I asked him again. I wanted to get him to put words to his lie. To make it concrete.
    "I just thought- Isn't there some way for you to know what I am? I mean-" he quickly ammended, "what kind I am?"
    Slowly, I eased my weight back onto the balls of my feet, nodding a little.
    "Yes," I told him, "There's a way to find out."
    As I spoke, I moved slowly toward him.  I reached out to take his hand, and he didn't stop me. Did that mean he didn't consider me a threat, or just that he was confident he could take me? I couldn't be sure, and I tried not to let it distract me. Instead, I cupped my other hand around, laying my palm against his so that my fingertips rested just at the crease of his wrist.
    "There's a way," I repeated softly, "but you'll have to trust me."
    I think that he nodded, but I can't be sure. As the words left my lips, I pressed with my left hand and curled with my right, and with one swift tug, I laid his right palm open to the wet air.  He didn't see it coming at all. He jumped backward a step with a shocked yelp like a kicked puppy, clutching his bleeding hand to his chest and staring at me with indignant betrayal. He might have said something, but I couldn't hear, because the smell of him hit me like tanker full of deisel.

No comments:

Post a Comment