Feeling fine. Not understanding why, not caring why.
By “fresh-face clip-joint” Jim meant a concert-saloon or barrelhouse where the outsiders were clean. By “clean” he meant they were foreign enough to have little or no previous knowledge of Jim and Dropsy’s special bag of tricks.
Of course, the short-con routines of Jim and Dropsy were commonplace enough within the local criminal community of Orleans Parish, and the boys knew they could count on the support of their criminal brethren in a pinch. A general truth of the South was this: Your neighbor may be your enemy in the now, but when a Yankee came to town, The People of the South Stood United For Better Or For Worse.
“Where we headed to, Jim?” Dropsy was pooped enough to jump into the first dive with lights on, but Jim being a young man with a distinct sense of purpose in nearly everything he did would no doubt have something more particular in mind.
“How’d you feel about paying a visit to your dear brother-in-law, pal o’mine?”
“Guess so,” Dropsy sighed, too tired to throw up a challenge. Dropsy knew Jim’s dream was to graduate from the rat killing business up to the music business, so Buddy had become something of a hero to him. It seemed Jim was always looking for an excuse to see that mean-spirited drunken scoundrel play that damn cornet.
Buddy’s band was indeed playing a fresh-face clip-joint tonight-having recently retained weekly work at the Odd Fellows Hall, located at the corner of South Rampart and Perdido. Situated two floors above the Eagle Saloon (and sandwiching the Eagle Pawnshop & Loan Company directly below), Odd Fellows was a concert-saloon masquerading as a private society club peopled mainly with local musicians, gamblers and thieves. “Exclusive invitations,” however, were often issued to potential marks spotted by lookouts in the saloon below. These hand-picked suckers might as well have worn signs begging “SHAKE MY TREE”-their reliable presence constituting substantial cash flow to the local criminal economy. With plenty of suckers to go around for everyone, the resident smooth operators didn’t mind if Jim and Dropsy stopped by to pick a few berries of their own-as long as the boys minded their manners and didn’t horn in on someone else’s game. Many of the old hands even found it charming to watch the youngsters in action. As an added bonus, Dropsy’s oldest sister, Malaria, worked at Odd Fellows as a waitress on most nights. A fellow couldn’t have too many allies nearby and on hand in this business.
As the alley behind Marais Street opened out onto Perdido, Buddy’s bleating horn could be easily detected from four blocks away. Jim filled Dropsy in on the details of the night’s scheme as the two walked in the general direction of Buddy’s noise, Dropsy listening and nodding along the way.
The boys strolled casually through the front door of the Eagle Saloon-a few heads turning warily in their direction before nodding with recognition-and proceeded to climb the straight, narrow stairwell located at the rear of the bar and leading upwards to Odd Fellows. Upon reaching the top platform, Jim gave Black Benny a nod. Benny was a truly frightening individual who acted as doorman, bouncer and occasional house drummer. Jim greased the big man’s palm with a five-dollar bill before sticking his head through the entranceway for a quick survey of the crowd.
“Easy pickins tonight,” grunted Benny. “We’ll call this fiver a down payment depending on the take at the end.” This was not a suggestion but a statement of fact.
Even Jim knew better than to dicker with Black Benny. “Of course, my good man. Just a hint of greater things to come, this humble fiver.”
Jim yanked his head back into the stairwell and presented his partner with a broad smile. “Dropsy, my friend, I believe Mr. Benny is dead-on correct in his summation. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve spotted a party of five been awaitin’ on our arrival. Probably ruin their good time if we failed to give ’em a good goin’ over. Let us not disappoint, old pal. Shall we?”
Dropsy couldn’t help but give up a grin. “Well then, let’s have at ’em, Jim Jam Jump, Amazin’ Champeen Ratboy of Orleans Parish and Surroundin’ Terri-trees.”
A switch flicked on in Jim’s brain that lit his face with instant agony. Faux-misery in place, Jim pushed past Black Benny:
“
The air of the hall was a heady residue of things consumed, a living thing shaped by the racket produced by King Bolden’s Band. Supporting Jim from around the shoulders (as recently instructed during the duo’s Perdido Street stroll), Dropsy tugged his dramatically limping cohort through the crowded hall.
“Stand aside, gentleman! Sick youngster comin’ through here! Bit by a rabid animal and needin’ of medical ’tention!” And then louder: “
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:
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:
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!
“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
