The King of Ragtime Read Free

the steam engine. Even in the third colored car, a fine layer of black dust nearly obscured the curlicue pattern on the threadbare carpeting. The horsehair stuffing in the seat cushions had long since deteriorated into powder, such that passengers sat on petrified lumps that assaulted their hindquarters with every bump of the train on the tracks. The dingy, worn seat covers were pocked by cigar and cigarette burns; many armrests were gone. The railroad company used the condition of the colored cars as evidence of how reasonable their policy was. Why, if they let those people just sit anywhere, the whole damn train would look like that, and then how many decent people would want to take a train trip?
    Halfway back in that third colored car, a man in his mid-thirties, with a thin, stylish mustache and a forehead extending all the way to the crown of his head, sat hunched over lined music paper. He hummed short passages, changed a note here, a chord there. Occasionally, he smiled, or said, “Yeah, that’s right.”
    As he stretched and gave a tug at the starched collar on his brand-new white Arrow shirt, a man who’d been sitting across the aisle got up, stepped over, and started eyeballing his music. The bald man put down his pencil and looked up. Young guy, not even twenty, nice-looking kid except for a three-inch raised scar along his left cheek, and a nose that had been broken and not set back nearly straight. Skin like coffee with a good shot of cream, big brown eyes, ivory-white teeth set just so. Dark hair rippled over the top of his head, parted cleanly in the middle. But the suit of clothes on that boy—where on
earth
did he get those duds? Yellow and black checked jacket over a black vest and a bright pink silk shirt. Black patent leather shoes with pearl buttons. Just a kid puttin’ on the style, thinks he looks like the last word, but what he looked like to the older man was a pimp who couldn’t keep clear of fists and knives. The boy fiddled absently with his trousers, pulled at his vest, straightened his tie. “You write music, huh?”
    St. Lou to New York could be a damn long train ride, the bald man thought, but nasty just wasn’t his style. He half-turned in his seat. “Yeah, I write. Play piano, too.” He extended a hand. “My name’s Eubie—Eubie Blake. Pleased to meet you.”
    The young man answered with a handshake too energetic by a country mile, then slid past Blake to settle into the inside seat, and turned to face the older man. “I be Dubie. Dubie Harris.”
    Blake laughed out loud. “Dubie and Eubie? You pullin’ my leg?”
    The boy shook his head. “No stuff. It’s short for DuBois, my gramma was Creole. An’ Mr. Blake, I done heard of you. ‘Chevy Chase’? ‘Baltimore Todolo?’ Those ain’t no easy pieces. He glanced at Blake’s hands. ‘Less, maybe, a man got fingers long as yours.”
    Blake tried not to smile. “You a musician, Dubie? Takin’ yourself off to the Big City?”
    Dubie grinned extravagantly, opened his eyes wide as nature would allow. “Betcha sweet patootie, Mr. Blake. St. Louie ain’t near big enough to hold me. I play clarinet and horn, and of course, pianna.” Dubie pointed toward the overhead storage across the aisle. “Got my instruments up there. Going to get me a spot in Mr. Jim Europe’s band, learn me all of his tricks, and in a couple a years, gonna have my own band, just see if I don’t. I write, too—but I ain’t no dummy, gonna let some two-bit publisher in St. Lou or Chi or Kay Cee jew me. I’m gonna take my music straight on over to Tin Pan Alley.”
    Where every music publisher is a Jew, Blake thought. He couldn’t decide whether this kid had moxie to burn, or if he was just plain foolish. “New York can be a tough place, boy. I hope you got yourself somewhere good to stay.”
    “Oh yeah, you bet. My uncle and auntie got plenty room. They went up to Harlem a few years back, buyed themselves a nice house on West 131 st Street, and