Los Angeles Stories Page 8

  The slats in the bed upstairs went blamety­blam, crash! and Berta screamed. Then the floor got to squeaking in rhythm. A radio played boleros. Somebody was smoking outside. I followed the smoke, and it was a little man sitting in a metal chair in the backyard, in the moonlight. “Buenas noches,” I said.

  “Five to one, I know why you’re here,” the man answered in a soft voice.

  “My partner and I just hit town. We’re musicians,” I said.

  “I lose. Smoke?” He put his tin can ashtray down and held out the pack. I took one, and he lit it and used the light to study me. I got a look at him — older and scrawny the way a hobo looks, but with the watchful eyes of a smart man.

  “Thanks. I’m Al Maphis. Gambling man?”

  “Jim McGee. I have been, off and on. Ended up here, somehow. I like Mexicans, they don’t push.”

  “You were expecting somebody else?”

  “Always, ever since my last bad hand. Up in Joplin, it was. I saw that Buick of yours out front. That’s an interesting vehicle. You could go straight across the country without ever stopping.”

  “We have, on occasion.”

  “What’s in the big box over top, if I may ask?”

  “Water tank, and the instruments ride up there. String bass and drum set. I’m the drummer, Ray’s the bass. We’re appearing nightly here in town.” McGee seemed to relax a little. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the black sky streaked with clouds.

  “I never saw a night sky like you get out here,” he said. “Ever been in Joplin?”

  “Never worked up there. This is a crap town. Arizona is a crap state and very non­swinging unless you like to sit and watch clouds.”

  “I can still get my kicks. All I need is a stake.”

  I let the line out a little. “Berta tells me you’re quite the mechanic.”

  “Master machinist, first grade. I was head tool and dye maker at Martin-­Marietta in the war.”

  “That a fact? I wonder if you could help me. I got a money­making idea, but I need expertise. See, Jim, music is a two-­bit racket. You can’t get ahead unless you make records and the mob controls that, so what’s a drummer supposed to do? But I been around out here in the West, and I found out one main thing. This road­ building and oil­ drilling and increased population since the war, it depends on housing. Housing is the key. You can’t have workers on the job if they can’t afford to live. Then they can spend the rest of their money on music and girls and booze.”

  “On crooked cards and loaded dice and horses,” McGee said.

  “I’d sure like to show you my ideas. I bet a trained man like you could figure everything out to the nickel.”

  “Try me.”

  “See you tomorrow.” I left him there in his chair with his smokes and his clouds.

  I woke up smelling lard and thought I was back in Tulsa. Ask any Mexican about his earliest memory and you will get the same answer: frying lard. My daddy was a white man and a peace officer, but he couldn’t control the situation at home and it broke him down. I saw it happen. Mamma was a Mexican firebrand. She was dark and different from Dad as day is from night. She lived for dancing. Cain’s Ballroom was her real home, and she could be found there any night of the week, dancing with every man in the place. Blood was shed on a routine basis over who’d be next in line. One night, my dad walked in there and told her we were moving to California. A big man, probably some oil­ field roustabout, told Daddy to get out of Dodge. Dad was in uniform, and he drew his service revolver and told the man to step aside in the name of the law. The man grabbed the gun and beat my daddy over the head with it, and he beat him down to the floor while the crowd watched. That was the end of my parents’ marriage and my dad’s career in law enforcement. He drifted off and we never saw him again, only heard tell. Mamma died of a busted liver five years later. I got the news of her death in Catoosa, Oklahoma, while I was onstage. A man in the audience passed a note up. I played on, what else could I do? Mamma loved rhythm. One thing I learned in Tulsa was that things go better if you can front as a white man, daddy’s example notwithstanding. Doesn’t always work, but that’s my theory. I told Smokey when we started traveling together: let me do the talking. “No problema, mi jefe,” he said.

  I washed up and went downstairs. Smokey was there with his nose in a bowl of tripe soup, the Mexican cure for hangover. “Too much pussy,” he said.

  “Forget it. We got a real chance here. It’s going to fit together, it’s going to work.”

  “No tengo that much jam, jefecito.” Smokey ate his tripe soup with a worried look.

  Harry Spivak said there was a group from the high school for the matinee and we had better act like gentlemen. Pianist Billy Tipton had just got into town. That was supposed to be hot, a personal appear­ance by a known celebrity in a hick burg like Kingman. I had worked a previous engagement with Billy in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, so we were acquainted. Billy had a career in show business that was unusual. She had been pulling it off working as a man for years. She wore her hair cut short and styled tailored gabardine suits with a bow ­tie, her trademark. A regular tie would stick out, you dig. Billy dug women — like who doesn’t? — and the word was she got more ass than a toilet seat. She had the hicks fooled but good. So Billy says, “Ladies and gentlemen, especially you ladies! Right about now, for your dancing and listening pleasure, the Billy Tipton Orchestra is pleased to offer you a rendition of a little number titled, ‘I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.’ Take it away, Al Maphis!”

  I took it. Billy was actually a very swinging piano man. “Falling in Love Again” was a special number featuring a vocal by Billy: “Love is my game, I play it how I may. Guess I was made that way, I can’t help it.” The high school girls were intrigued. Billy sat at the piano and signed autographs. That’s a square hustle, in my opinion. People think they want a memento to take away; then they forget all about it and lose the paper in the parking lot. The girls crowded around the piano and seemed to go wild for her. Him, I should say. They were just ordinary white kids; they didn’t know what time it was.

  Billy was suave, I checked her out. I loitered nearby. She picked up on two girls in particular, a blond and her friend, a plump little brunette. Two friends together, that’s good trolling. They feel safe with each other, and you can cut them out of the pack. Billy says, “I’m having a little party back at the hotel. Some friends of mine from town. How ’bout you girls ride with me in the limbo?” Billy had a husky voice for a woman.

  “What’s a limbo, Mr. Tipton?” asked the blond girlie.

  “I meant limo, that’s just musician talk, you know how it is with entertainers, how we like to kid around, you’re gonna know everyone at the party, we’ll have a ball!”

  The brunette said, “Well, I don’t know about going to a hotel.”

  “Oh, sure, that’s the fun part,” said the blond, “I’ve never been. Wait ’til Maxine hears!”

  “Sure,” Billy said right on top of it. “Wait till your friends hear about who you got to meet. Hey, Al Maphis, tell them who’s going to be there!” Billy gave me the look. I took it.

  “Girls, pick up on this. There is a VIP here in town to see Billy about a very big deal. I’m sure I can rely on you to keep it under you hat.”

  “Mums the word!” said the blond, getting excited.

  “His name is Johnny Dollar, and he is a top gambler in Los Angeles. When he meets a person for the first time, he gives them a silver dollar just to remember him by, and that goes for you, me and the lamppost. Johnny digs people, he wants everybody to have a blast when he’s around.”

  “A gambler?” asked the brunette. Her resistance was fading. Free drinks and food were winning out.

  “Johnny’s the man with the action-­packed expense account,” Billy said. “You never can tell. Everything will be in the line of hilarity.” She put her arm around the blond and gave her a squeeze. Deal closed, I could smell it.

  Hick-­town hotels are a real
pain in the ass, as you know. No coloreds, no unescorted women, no drinking, no gambling. Billy had a suite on the top floor, the fourth. The management was not with it. It was “Right this way, Mr. Tipton. A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Tipton,” et cetera. I rode up with Billy and the two girls.

  Billy sent the bellhop out for liquor and sandwiches. The girls checked out the suite. They dug the king-­size bed; they bounced up and down on it, laughing and carrying on. Billy sat there and watched. The blond, her name was Betty Newlands, had nice juicy little legs, and she could really bounce. “Betty’s a cheerleader at school,” Joyce, the brunette, explained. Betty really bounced. She lifted her dress up like cheerleaders do, showing off her underpants. “Betty, put your dress down!” Joyce said. Suddenly I was back in Oklahoma. I saw the white sheets, the burning cross, I felt the heat.

  “Al, why don’t you take Joyce over to the sitting room and get her something to eat and drink?” Billy told me. Billy had eyes, she was juked.

  I steered Joyce out and closed the bedroom door. “Let’s see. There’s ham, cheese, ham and cheese, and some of these little cocktail tamales, Joyce, honey. Here’s scotch, bourbon, and ginger ale. Bet you’re ready for a plate and a drink. I’m feeling a little warm, how ’bout a tall cool one? How’s that going to be? Let’s play the radio. Look, we’re all the way up on the fourth floor, look out there.” Two blocks past the hotel, Kingman quit trying. The desert stretched out for a hundred miles, maybe more.

  Joyce got a tamale plate. “I never tried these before,” she said. I fixed her a weak high­ball and made myself a stiff one.

  “Those are Mexican tamales. Pork on the inside, corn on the outside.” Just like you, honey. I was getting a bad feeling, like when the sax player solos in the wrong key and there’s nothing you can do about it. Schoolgirl held captive. Public demands justice.

  “My daddy told us to always stay away from Mexicans.”

  “That’s good advice. Drink your drink, honey.”

  “Where is everybody? When does the party start?” Joyce asked. In the bedroom, it was quiet. The party had started. Right on cue, there was a knock at the door of the suite. I knew it was a bad mistake, but I opened it. There was a man in a Western-­cut sharkskin suit, polished black cowboy boots, and a Stetson city ­brim like gamblers wear. His clothes cost more than I make in six months of steady work. Six-feet-four, narrow and hard like a telephone pole. Just kill me, por favor, I thought.

  “I heard Billy Tipton was here,” he said.

  “You heard absolutely right. Come on in, have a drink, Jackson. There ain’t nobody here but us chickens.” I said, trying to act breezy, like the joint was jumping.

  “Who are you, friend? Where’s Billy?” he said.

  “I’m Al Maphis. Mind if I call you Hurley Jim Bowling?” It was a crazy thing to say, but I hadn’t eaten all day except the highball.

  “Why should you?”

  “Because that’s your name. Joyce, meet Hurley Jim, a well­ known man in certain circles. I told you the party was going to pick up steam.”

  “I don’t get your drift,” he said, quiet­like. “What’s the set­up? You look Mex to me.”

  “No offense meant. I play drums for Billy. How many drummers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three: one to screw, one to count off.”

  “Maybe you better take the air, Pancho. Take the kid out of here, they got laws in this state.”

  “We were just leaving. Joyce, Hurley Jim has got a point. Shall we vamonos por some nice quiet place?”

  “What about Betty? I can’t leave without Betty?” Joyce said.

  “Who’s Betty?”

  “Another good friend of Billy’s. Ever been in Joplin?”

  “Just came from there. Anything to it?”

  “Nothing at all. Never made it that far north. Never did.” I steered Joyce into the hall and hustled her down the back stairs.

  Night was coming on. The wind blew fine­-grained dust off the hills and down the main drag, which was empty of people and cars at that time of day. Everyone was hunkered­ down with their chicken-fried steaks and mashed potatoes. We walked in the direction of the bowling alley. The sky went from orange to red to purple, and the dust and paper trash swirled around our feet. “That wasn’t a very good party,” Joyce said.

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  “I thought Mr. Billy Tipton was going to be a nicer man. I thought we were going to have fun and meet people.”

  “You did.”

  “Ugh, I didn’t like that man. Why did he say you look like a Mexican, are you? You’ve been very white to me.” She put her hand up to her mouth. “Oops, I’m sorry.”

  “No offense. Hurley Jim Bowling isn’t a likeable man, I admit. He’s a big-time gambler, and this is a small town. I don’t know what he’s doing here, but I’m going to try to stay out of his way.”

  “Betty Newlands is always playing tricks on me. We go places together and then she finds someone and takes off without telling me. I’m never around at the finish.”

  “Tell her you don’t like it.”

  “Oh, no. Betty’s a very pretty girl, it’s different for her.”

  “Why? You’re pretty nice looking.”

  “You don’t have to say that, I know I’m fat.”

  “So get some exercise, go dancing.”

  “I like bowling. Fat people are good at bowling. Do you like bowling?”

  “Never tried it.”

  “I could teach you! Betty doesn’t try, she doesn’t care what I like.”

  “That’s mighty kind of you, but I’m in the band and the management, they don’t want to see us on the other side of the stand, understand?” I told Joyce adios and I beat it back to Spic Town.

  Jim McGee had papers spread out all over Berta’s back table. I got a beer and sat down across from him. He’d been working. “Eight men can live comfortably on two hundred square feet of floor space. Most states say ninety-six inches is maximum width for trailers on their highways. A majority of states specify thirty-five-foot overall length as maximum.

  “If you want to travel through all the states, you got to comply with the maximums. Besides, if your mobile boarding house is going to poke around in the backcountry, the narrower and shorter the better. So to get the required two hundred square feet and yet stay within the legal limits, I suggest making the trailer eighty-nine inches wide and twenty-seven feet long. That gives you 202.5 square feet.

  “It takes about twenty minutes to wash, brush your teeth, and shave — on the double. Statistically speaking, two washbasins and a shower would keep three men busy simultaneously and turn out all eight boarders, washed, shaved, and in their Sunday best within forty-five minutes. A thirty-­gallon water tank, electrically heated, will give you all the hot water you can use. Each of the lockers contains fourteen cubic feet. That’s enough for clothes and working gear, if your boarders are day workers. The outside toilet would have to work anywhere. An automatic pressure flusher draining through a two-­inch hose seems to be the answer.

  “You ought to use extra-heavy channel iron for the frame, six-­inch stuff instead of the usual four-­inch. From two to four inches of spun glass and rock wool insulation between the trailer walls. Open up an account at the liquor store for the duration. Two dozen cartons of Chesterfield cigarettes. Cash — an even thousand to start. It’ll take me a month if I don’t have to stop for anything. Any questions?”

  “Just one. What’s a man like you doing in the desert?” McGee put his cigarette out in the tin can and lit another. Across the street, the El Otro Lado cantina was pumping, the jukebox trying its best to be heard over the din. “Ingrato Amor,” it sobbed.

  “I got no complaints,” he said softly. “I did somebody wrong. If I do this work for you, then I got a stake. If I can run it up and square myself with some characters, then I can go on about my business, maybe even get back with my wife and kid.”

  “Some characters in Joplin?”

  “Th
at’s the size of it.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal. I’ll get you what you need, somehow.” We shook. McGee had little hands and he felt weak, but he had a big brain up there. You know what they say about drummers and lightbulbs.

  Harry Spivak called us together on the stand. “Boys, I’ve extended the contract two weeks. Billy has informed me he is staying with us for the duration.”

  “Did I hear you say ‘raise’?” I said.

  “I want to see clean shirts and pressed pants. If it says six o’clock downbeat, I want you here at 5:45, with a good attitude. Leave your shit off the stand, and I’m talking to you, Maphis.”

  “We want five dollars a week raise, a fifteen-­minute intermission, and access to the facilities.” I said.

  “I got pains in the kidneys, I got to piss a lot.” said Junior Tommy McClennan, our little guitar man.

  “Maphis, I expect some gratitude. I run a strictly no ­coloreds ­in ­front ­of ­house place, you just keep that in mind.” Spivak said. Right then, Billy walked in through the front door — Hurley Jim on the left, Betty Newlands on the right, in tight and solid.

  “A friendly discussion with the boys,” Harry said to Billy, but he didn’t pull it off.

  “We are standing down until we take a vote,” I said. “We know our rights.” I turned to the band. “All in favor?” The ayes had it.

  “What do you need, Al?” Billy asked me.

  “We’re opening the talks at eight dollars a week increase in pay and decent working conditions. They expect us to piss in the alley.”

  “Maphis, you’re fired.” Spivak snarled.

  Hurley Jim took a step toward Spivak. “Raise ’em ten dollars a week. Toilets. Maphis stays.”

  “Who the hell are you, giving orders? This is my goddamn place, I’m Harry Spivak.”

  “I’m Billy’s manager. You’ll take it and like it.”