Nathaniel Adams Cole. It seemed we were both a little surprised that our names werenât ours alone. At the same time, I was glad to know I had at least one thing in common with somebody. By third grade, I was the only Nathaniel left. Like many of the families in Bel-Air, Nat and his people had gone to Chicago.
He went up there and got himself famous. âMontgomeryâs Very Own Nat Cole Battles the Legendary Earl Hines in Chicago.â The papers added âMontgomeryâs Very Ownâ like it was his given name. For a while Eddie Coleâs name was bigger than his younger brotherâs. âSepia Records Presents Montgomeryâs Very Own Eddie Cole and His Solid Swingers.â And months later the stories read âThe Cole Brothers and Their Solid Swingers.â Finally, the name was Natâs alone.
Before the war I worked with my family, driving a taxi from our stand on Jackson Street. Nat Cole was good cab conversation whenever his songs came on the radio. You know, he was born right here. He played the kind of music that made people feel generous enough to kick in an extra penny or two in tip money, as though Natâs crooning could get somebody from here to there a little bit faster, make the ride that much smoother.
Nat was good barbershop conversation next door to the cabstand at Malden Brothers.
You know, heâs from right here.
Samuel Malden would say it every time a song came on, sometimes pointing his razor to the floor, as though Nat had sprung up through the clay and the earth, straight through the concrete and the black-and-white floor.
Martha Gray said it, too. You know, heâs from right here , when anyone brought his records to the counter ofher shop around the corner on High Street. Though the top-forty slots reserved for the hit makers changed every Tuesday, Nat always had a place reserved. Nat Cole never really left, though he had been gone from Montgomery for all those years.
George Worthy said it, too, on his radio show, Hometown Serenade . You know, friends, heâs from right here. George put a little bit more space between the words and talked in a whisper, his voice turned down and softened, a little brush on a snare drum. Right here. The stationâs signal came through strong on Centennial Hill. They played Natâs songs that evening, but in the back of that cab on the way to the show, his voice got weaker as we crossed from the Hill to downtown. Soon after, the voice was gone altogether.
The theater district was foreign to us and governed by different rules, going through side doors and sitting in balconies. Every so often, though, the closed doors were minded by a Negro janitor or doorman who I knew from the neighborhood. Mr. Cartwright had cleaned up at the Empire for as long as Iâd known him, and he was just then sitting by the back door. The coin I pressed into his hand was newly minted, a half-dollar with Booker T.Washingtonâs face looking sideways from Mr. Cartwrightâs fingertips.
âSon, you donât have to do that.â
âI want to, Mr. Cartwright. Besides, it ainât about have to.â
He held the money for a while, flipped it over a couple of times, head and tail of Booker T. spinning.
âAppreciate you,â he said, and the door opened to us as long as no one found out.
I wanted to take a picture with Nat before the show and also have a word. I had a ring in my pocket. I had been waiting for that night to give it to Mattie, and who better for a serenade than Nat King Cole, born across town and a friend for all those years.
I heard the trio of voices on the other side of the dressing room door. In the mix of them, one was unmistakably Nat. Mattie turned her head and brought her ear a little bit closer to the door. She held her camera as if every picture sheâd ever taken was still inside. Surely, the picture we would take with Nat would end up in a frame somewhere in the little house for sale