Viper's Dream, page 3
Pork Chop led Clyde to the famous Gentleman Jack’s Barbershop, a Seventh Avenue institution. Now that it was clear he wouldn’t be playing in a band, the kid needed some kind of job. Starting with the tinkle of the bell above the door, Clyde felt surrounded by joyful noise, the voices and laughter of black men, of clippers buzzing and scissors snipping. Pork Chop presented him to the boss. Gentleman Jack was elegant and austere. With his caramel skin, pencil-thin moustache and sleek, processed hair, he resembled Duke Ellington, but in an immaculate white barber’s tunic.
“You know how to cut hair, Clyde?”
“No, sir, Mr. Jack. But I’d like to learn.”
“Well, I ain’t got time to teach you now. Can you shine shoes and sweep floors?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You’re hired.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jack!”
Pork Chop gave him a pat on the back. “Congratulations, Clyde.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pork Chop!”
“Big Al,” Jack called out. “Get this fella a tunic.”
“Why I gots to do it?” a deep voice bellowed.
“’Cause it beats standin’ in a breadline, Al! Now get off your ass!”
Gentleman Jack glared at the young employee sprawled in a barber’s chair, wearing a white tunic of his own, reading a newspaper. Evidently, he was in a lull between clients. When he rose from the chair, Clyde saw that Big Al was a strapping six and a half feet tall. He gave Clyde a look that said, “I could squash you like a bug.”
“C’mon, Country,” Big Al said to Clyde, “I’ll get you set up with a locker. And a broom—ha, ha, ha!”
Clyde followed Big Al past the shoeshine stand at the back of the barbershop, down a flight of stairs, and into a basement locker room. Big Al sneered at Clyde as he buttoned up his tunic. He grabbed a broom from the closet and shoved it in Clyde’s hands.
“Don’t forget—this is the busiest barbershop in Harlem, Country. There’s always hair to sweep up. Ha ha ha!”
* * *
Pork Chop had told Clyde he was dreaming the wrong dream, believing he could be a musician. Now, all Clyde dreamed of was staying in Harlem. During his first two weeks in the capital of Black America, he spent ten hours a day sweeping the floor and shining shoes at the barbershop. Gentleman Jack paid him at the end of each day. And he was earning good tips. Clyde actually loved his job. The shop was a microcosm of Harlem. All manner of black men came through those doors to get their hair cut and, more often than not, straightened, processed, conked. Doctors from Harlem Hospital, lawyers and teachers, preachers and plumbers, mechanics and morticians—they all came to Gentleman Jack’s. Clyde was earning enough to pay for his room at the boarding house and to eat out every night. And, best of all, to buy some of Pork Chop’s superb reefer.
Pork Chop let Clyde hang out backstage at Mr. O’s nightclub. From the wings he watched all the musicians who, unlike him, actually had talent. And afterward, he got to hang out with them at their parties, where there was always booze, women, music … and the fragrant herb.
“Mary Warner helps you play better,” Pork Chop expounded to a cluster of jazzmen at one lively late-night gathering. “Your senses become more acute. And you relax. You go mellow and get sharp—simultaneously. You feel your instrument in a different way, hear the music inside your head. Mary Warner is magic. The elixir of creativity. That’s why it’s illegal.”
“Pork Chop, quit philosophizin’,” said Bill Henry, a clarinet player wearing a natty striped bow tie, “and pass that damn stick!”
Pork Chop was not just the band leader at Mr. O’s nightclub; he was also the man to see for Mr. O’s Mexican locoweed. He sold little packs of carefully rolled marijuana cigarettes, called ’em sticks: fifty cents for a joint, five dollars for a dozen. Mr. O himself remained something of a mystery. Clyde had been hanging out at Mr. O’s club nearly every night for two weeks and had never seen the man.
“Hey, Pork Chop, where your boss been anyway?” a buxom beauty in a polka-dot dress inquired at one of the crowded and smoky late-night post-gig parties. “I miss my sugar daddy!”
“Evening, Estella. I don’t know where Mr. O at. Down in Mexico, I reckon. But have you met Viper Clyde here? He’s new in town.”
“Well, hello, Clyde. Where you from, sweetie?”
“Alabama, ma’am.”
“Oh, I didn’t know they made men as delicious lookin’ as you in Alabama,” Estella cooed.
Suddenly a deep voice bellowed: “Hey, Estella, why you wasting your time with that country-ass nigga?” Big Al rose from the couch he’d been lounging on, approached Clyde and Estella menacingly.
“Oh, go shit in your hat, Big Al,” Estella said. “Walk me home, Viper Clyde?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Big Al glowered at them as they left the party.
Sometime in the near future, Estella would boast that she gave Clyde Morton “the first pussy he ever got in Harlem.”
* * *
“We have a very special client this morning,” Gentleman Jack said.
Clyde and his boss were the only people in the barbershop. Gentleman Jack had instructed Clyde to show up at eight o’clock, an hour before opening time.
“Man the shoeshine stand.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Jack,” Clyde said.
“I’ll be back.”
Gentleman Jack disappeared down the stairs to his basement office. Clyde was suddenly nervous. Why would Jack leave him alone when a very special client was about to arrive?
The bell over the door tinkled, and in strode a tall, pale, stork-like white man, long legged with knobby knees, long necked with a throbbing Adam’s apple. He wore a dark blue pinstripe suit and a black derby. Clyde guessed from his wrinkled face that the very special client was in his sixties, but he moved with the energy and quickness of a much younger man. And he talked louder and faster than anyone Clyde had ever heard.
“You must be Clyde! Pleasure to meet you. Abraham Orlinsky. Everybody calls me Mr. O. But you know that already, don’t you? Let me get up on the big chair here. Thanks for the early shoeshine.”
“Thank you, sir! It’s a—”
“You’re from Alabama, correct? First time up North, yes? Have you ever met anyone like me before? Yes, no? I mean, a Jew? Ever meet a Jew before? That’s what I figured. Probably never met an I-talian, a Pollack, or a Chinaman either. I’ll bet that since you arrived in New York, what is it, two weeks, now? I’ll bet you haven’t even been outside of Harlem. We’ll take care of that today. I can see why people speak so fondly of you. Handsome, polite. A certain rough-hewn charm. Do you box? I’ll take that shrug to mean you’ve never been in the ring before. But I’ll bet you’ve been in a few scraps in your day, haven’t you, Clyde? That’s what I figured. I’m an investor. That is to say, I dabble in various businesses. A nightclub, as you know. But I’m involved in many endeavors. And as an investor, I can tell you, the most important investment I make is in people. I invest in people. And I have a feeling you just might be a sound investment. Nice shine, Clyde. Thanks. Let’s go. You’re coming with me today. Oh, don’t worry, Gentleman Jack knows all about it. You game? That’s what I figured.”
Parked in front of Gentleman Jack’s barbershop was Mr. O’s silver Rolls-Royce, gleaming in the sunshine. Standing beside the car was a chauffeur in cap and livery. He was a short, young black man, barely five and a half feet tall.
“This is my driver, Peewee,” Mr. O said. “Say hello to Clyde, Peewee.”
“Very pleased to meet ya.” The diminutive chauffeur gave Clyde a big grin, but his eyes were wary under the brim of his cap. Peewee opened the door, and with a dreamy sense of unreality, Clyde stepped into the back of the Rolls-Royce.
“Peewee, let’s introduce Clyde to Manhattan.”
Peewee drove them all around the island. From the back of Mr. O’s Rolls, Clyde saw for the first time, with his own eyes, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park. And the whole time, Mr. O never stopped talking.
“New York is a very tribal city. The tribes are defined by ethnicity. And so are the neighborhoods. You got Chinatown and Little Italy downtown, the Irish in Hell’s Kitchen, the Jews on the Lower East Side and the blacks in Harlem. I happen to feel there is a natural affinity between the blacks and the Jews. We were both enslaved, after all. Go down, Moses! Let my people go! God, I love Negro music. That’s your people singin’ my people’s story. Both our people’s story. The tragedy in this country is you blacks don’t have access to capital. That’s why I like to invest in Harlem, invest in black folks. Blacks and Jews. Together, we can do great things in this city.”
Throughout the tour, Clyde sometimes glimpsed Peewee spying him in the rearview mirror, the chauffeur’s eyes glittering under the brim of his cap.
Clyde wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when Mr. O abruptly said, “Peewee, take us to Eddie’s gym.”
They were back in Harlem. A vast, dark grotto of a gym. The stink of sweat. Men pounding swinging heavy bags, pounding each other, skipping rope, growling and grunting. Mr. O led the way through the crowd of brown bodies, striding in front of Clyde and Peewee. He was the only white man in the gym, but no one seemed fazed by that. At the back of the gym stood a squat, old, bald-headed, light-skinned man with a face that made Clyde think of a bruised piece of fruit.
“Eddie here is the best trainer in Harlem,” Mr. O said. “Eddie, meet Clyde Morton. What do you take him for, Eddie, a welterweight?”
Eddie spat on the floor and grumbled, “Middleweight, I’d say.”
“Great, let’s see him in the ring against one of your sparring partners.”
Clyde began to panic. “Mr. O, excuse me, sir, I ain’t no boxer.”
“I know that, Clyde. I just want to see how you hit.”
They put Clyde in trunks and boxing gloves, shoved in a mouthpiece, strapped a leather helmet around his head. Before he knew it, he was in the ring, in a crouch, fists up, facing his opponent, who seemed to be named Crusher. They slowly circled each other, like two big cats, circling and circling. A crowd had gathered around the ring.
“Take him out, Crusher!” someone shouted. “Go get him, man! Show this kid who the boss,” someone else yelled. “Damn it, Crusher, hit him already!”
There was no doubt who the crowd was rooting for. Then Clyde saw Peewee, in his cap and uniform, standing close to the ring, right beside an anxious-looking Mr. O. Suddenly, the little driver screamed in his high-pitched voice: “Kick his ass, Clyde!”
Crusher swung at Clyde. Clyde ducked, stepped back and let go a roundhouse right to his opponent’s jaw. Crusher went down, out cold.
The crowd erupted in one deafening “Whoooaaa!”
Mr. O grinned and said, “That’s what I figured.”
An hour later, Clyde was in a cozy fitting room, a tailor named Seymour fussing over him, measuring, snipping, marking the fabric with chalk. This would be the first suit he’d ever owned. Mr. O stood nearby while Peewee sat in a chair in the corner, watching everything.
“All the best tailors in Harlem are Jewish, Clyde. All the best tailors in New York, for that matter. Ain’t that right, Seymour?”
“Whatever you say, Abe, whatever you say,” Seymour muttered. “This schwartze is not as big as the last one you brought me.”
“You ready to talk business, Seymour?”
“Step into my office, Abe.”
The two old men disappeared, and Peewee and Clyde were suddenly alone in the fitting room.
“How ya doin’, Clyde?”
“All right, I guess. I just don’t know what your boss wants from me.”
“He’s grooming you.”
“Yeah, but for what?”
“You’ll see.”
Mr. O and Clyde returned to Gentleman Jack’s barbershop at seven thirty that evening, half an hour after closing time. Gentleman Jack and his top deputy, Carlton, were waiting for them. Big Al was sweeping the floor.
“Thanks for staying open late for us, Gentleman Jack.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Orlinsky. Big Al, you can go home now.”
Big Al set down the broom and glowered at Clyde as he stalked out of the shop.
“I’d like you to give Clyde a conk, a shave, and a manicure,” Mr. O said. “Make him look almost as good as you, Jack.”
“Have a seat, Clyde.”
“I ain’t never had my hair straightened before,” Clyde said.
“Nothin’ to it,” Jack said.
Yeah, right. Clyde screamed when the sizzling lye hit his scalp.
“Aaaarrrrgggh!”
Gentleman Jack, Carlton, and Mr. O all had a good laugh. “First time’s the worst time,” Jack said. Clyde’s scalp was still burning as Jack combed out the naps.
The whole time Mr. O stood by the barber’s chair, observing the process.
“So here’s my proposition, Clyde,” he said. “I’d like you to be my shadow, my body man. Where I go, you go. By day, we’ll make business rounds; by night, we’ll have a good time. Work hard, play hard, that’s my motto.”
The bell over the shop door tinkled.
“Here’s Peewee with your new suit, tailored shirt, and matching tie. I also bought you some new shoes. We can discuss your salary in more detail later, but for now, here’s a one-hundred-dollar advance.”
Clyde damn near fell out of the barber’s chair when Mr. O laid the five twenty-dollar bills on the counter.
“Get a good night’s sleep, Clyde. We’ll pick you up at your boarding house tomorrow morning at ten o’clock sharp.”
“Yes, sir! Thank you, Mr. O! Thank you!”
The next morning, Peewee drove Mr. O and Clyde back to the tailor’s shop. Clyde was wearing the gray pinstripe suit that had been made especially for him. Mr. O led him into the office of the tailor who had fussed over him just the day before.
“Seymour, I hope you’ve had a change of heart since yesterday.”
“Heart schmart, Abe, I told you I don’t have the money.”
“Clyde, grab Seymour by the throat.”
Clyde did as he was told.
“Ach, I can’t breathe!”
“Seymour, yesterday I saw Clyde knock a big buck unconscious with a single blow. If he punches you in the face at one hundred percent of his strength, he’ll kill ya.”
“Lemme go, lemme go!”
“The money, Seymour. One thousand clams. Now.”
“I haven’t got!”
“Clyde, applying twenty percent of your strength, punch Seymour in the face.”
Clyde did as he was told.
“AAAACCCCCHHH!”
Seymour fell to the floor, his face a bloody mess.
“Hit him again, Clyde,” Mr. O said.
“No, please,” Seymour cried, “please, no!”
Seymour crawled on his hands and knees to a file cabinet in the corner. He opened a drawer, reached way in the back, pulled out a wad of bills, then he crawled back across the floor, held out the money, sprinkled with the blood dripping from his face.
“Here it is. Please, just don’t hit me again.”
Clyde felt exhilarated. Powerful. Never in his life had he punched a white man in the face. If this was the job Mr. O wanted him for … he could get used to this. In some small but significant way, at long last, Clyde Morton had avenged his daddy’s death.
CHAPTER
3
I AM SPEAKING NOW OF November 1961. The night of Clyde Morton’s third murder. Pork Chop Bradley had located the Viper at the Cathouse.
“Achooo!”
“God bless you, Clyde,” Pork Chop said.
“Nica and her damn cats,” Viper muttered.
Pork Chop and the Viper sat beside each other on the couch in the baroness’s vast living room, passing a joint back and forth.
“There was a lot of blood, Clyde,” Pork Chop said again, slowly. “A lot of blood.”
“Did you see Red Carney?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t see me. There was a crowd at Yolanda’s place. Cops. Doctors. Scumbag reporters.”
“Carney gave me three hours to disappear. That was an hour and a half ago.”
“So what the fuck are you doing?”
“Well, I’ve got this notepad and pencil here in front of me, and I’m contemplating. Nica asked me, if I was given three wishes, to be instantly granted, what would they be?”
Pork Chop seemed puzzled. “Yeah …?”
“So, I’m thinking …”
“Are you serious?”
“She’s never asked you?”
“Fuck no.”
“She’s making an archive of responses. She probably didn’t think you were interesting enough.”
“The baroness already knows my three wishes: music, reefer, and more reefer. It ain’t so complicated. You gotta reflect? And you wanna do this now?”
“What else am I gonna do?”
“Run!”
“That’s what I figured you’d say.”
“Clyde, listen. You’ve got to—”
“That’s what I figured. Did you hear me when I said that? Who does that sound like?”
“Jesus, Clyde.”
“Mr. O. You don’t like to talk about Mr. O, do you, Pork Chop?”
“No, Clyde, I don’t.”
“That’s what I figured.”
* * *
“Gage,” Mr. O said. “Reefer. Weed. Pot. Herb. Tea. Muggles. Grass. The Green Lady. The tasty green. Mary Warner. Mary Jane. Only sex organs have more monikers than marijuana.”
I am speaking now of 1938. Clyde Morton had been working for Abraham Orlinsky for two years. He was twenty-one years old, had his own apartment on Lenox Avenue, wore custom-tailored suits, and was gettin’ laid. And every night he got high on Mr. O’s Mexican locoweed. One sultry summer evening, riding in the back of the Rolls-Royce, the boss fired up a joint, took a long drag, then handed the spliff to his body man. The chauffeur, Peewee, watched them warily in the rearview mirror.
