Jazz Moon by Joe Okonkwo Page A

worked to reassemble themselves. “I . . . I ain’t know you was comin’ over.”
    He said it with the innocence of a little child seasoned at eluding punishment by exerting charm, looking up at you in that adorable way that he hopes will wilt your anger.
    Ben retrieved the Keats book from his pocket and smashed it into Willful’s face. He heard a crunch, saw blood on Willful’s nose and forehead. He hurled the book onto the grass and took off as Willful howled after him like a tortured dog.
    Â 
    He closed the Keats.
    He looked around. Pigfoot Mary’s bustled with mostly former Southerners, Ben guessed; folks who, like him and Angeline, didn’t give a damn about the South except for the food.
    â€œEveryone down there can go to hell,” Angeline once said, “long as they leave the pigs’ feet and cornbread.”
    It was their favorite restaurant. They had heard that Pigfoot Mary got rich off her cooking, then went into real estate and got richer. The story went that if a tenant was late with the rent, she’d send a note saying, Send it, and send it damn quick . They used to laugh every time they heard it. Sometimes Angeline would retell the story to cheer Ben up, or he’d use it to amuse her.
    He wondered how she was doing, then almost laughed aloud at the outlandish thought that he didn’t know how his own wife was doing.
    He threw money on the table and left, then lingered on the sidewalk. He watched Harlemites cram into restaurants that scattered the sweet and tart aromas of barbecue out into the street and pack into clubs with pining horns and plinking piano keys. Some gathered on the sidewalk outside the clubs, smoking and ostensibly gossiping or catching up, but really trying to catch the remnants of jazz coming from inside.
    What to do? Catch a reading at the library? Kill some hours walking up to Sugar Hill and back? Or go home and pray that Angeline was already asleep and the bedroom door shut? He opted for Sugar Hill, but saw a familiar face coming toward him.
    â€œHey. Baby Back,” he said when the trumpeter was a couple of feet away.
    Baby Back didn’t stop, respond, or look.
    â€œIt’s me. Ben. Ben Charles. Mr. Poet. How you doing?”
    Baby Back brushed on by. Ben trailed him.
    â€œHey. Hey! Baby Back. Mr. Johnston? I know you ain’t ignoring me when I’m talking to you. Trying to talk to you.”
    Baby Back neither sped up nor slowed down as Ben tagged after him like an unwanted puppy too dumb to accept that it’s being left behind. “I’m talking to you! Damn it, turn around and talk to me!”
    But Baby Back continued apace.
    â€œYou think because you’re a big-time musician on his way to Paris one day, you can ignore me? Well, you ain’t that big. If you’re so big, why you working in a basement dive? Huh? Why ain’t you at one of the good clubs? You ain’t no King Oliver, that’s why. And never will be. You ain’t nothing! You hear me, Mr. Baby Back Johnston? You ain’t nothing, so fuck you!”
    Baby Back kept going as though Ben’s shouting was nothing but normal Harlem street noise. He rounded a corner, disappeared. The puppy didn’t pursue. Ben propped himself against a building. When he was calm, he saw he’d attracted a small crowd that kept its distance, staring at him. Like he was crazy.

9

    I ride the moon
To the dark place,
Traveling swiftly.
    Â 
    The moon is a slave ship.
I am trapped, shriveling.
    Â 
    I want to leap overboard.
Chains bind me.
    I want to ditch the moon,
Dance to the true beat of my heart,
Sip nectar from the stem of a rose.

    H is work ethic betrayed him. He couldn’t concentrate. He bungled orders, grabbed the wrong food from the kitchen, delivered it to the wrong tables. Even Mr. Kittredge scolded him. “No, no, no, Benjamin. I ordered grapefruit, not toast,” he said one morning, his English accent crisper