For ten seconds he had been good, many high blue notes to the measure, but the same moment I recognized him as Harley Butte, in a blue satin jacket like the rest of the band, he began failing on the solo. He punched out a few very high notes, which would impress a musical amateur like Fleece, but he folded all of a sudden from even doing that. His face looked hurt as he put the horn down. I know I saw tears on his face, and he sat down, or fell back in his seat right in the middle of his ride, as if struck by some-thing. Even Fleece knew something had gone wrong. Only the rhythm and piano were going, and the spotlight ducked off of Harley and went back to the bare black center of the curtain. It was a collapse in a show everybody had paid for to be gorgeously slick. The crowd murmured. I saw Harley get up and jump off the back of the stand in the shadows. The band picked up again. Me, I had gotten off my seat and was walking toward them, and Fleece was trailing me, calling to me. I got the blast of the band right in the face, heard the keys of the saxes clicking, saw the Negroes bearing down on the mouthpieces. When I passed the band a lone girl was on stage. She was rolling her stomach out with enough violence to throw her organ right off her and into the audience.
Harley was under the bandstand putting his horn in its case. The band grew mellower over us. They were doing a snaky Turkish number now. The only light we had was the overflow from the spot and the yellow dimness cast down from the bandstand lights. The bandstand was a unit of mo-bile bleachers, and you could see the shoes of the musicians.
“Harley Butte?” I whispered.
“You got an aspirin? You got to have an aspirin. I got a headache.” He held his hands to his ears.
“This is Harry.”
“My ass. Oh, my ass. You aren’t wearing the beard any more. Do you just have an aspirin?” He jerked his thumb up toward the band. “That’s a whole drugstore up there, they got anything you want. But all I want’s an aspirin. I’m the only healthy one here, and I’m sick.”
“It’s hard to believe,” I said.
“Nothing’s hard to believe.”
“I have two aspirins,” said Fleece, reaching in his coat pocket. Fleece was always having headaches. Harley took them down dry. He stood up and we walked toward the back of the stage. Back here there were a lot of trailers with wooden steps at their doors. In one of the trailers I saw a number of girls in bikinis and robes and caps with huge peacock feathers attached.
“I’ve got a gfrlfriend in that trailer. I don’t believe it, but I do,” said Harley.
“Monroe.” Fleece nudged me. A man was coming to-ward us around the narrow walkway behind the backdrop; he came down the stairs like he had urgent business with me. He was white. Harley said that this was the road man-ager.
“Back up front, up front, boys. Is this man pimping? What are you pulling, Butte? Why aren’t you in the band? Mother Nature. Shit.”
“Get your finger out of my face,” said Harley.
“This thing is going to fall apart if we don’t have rules, Mr. Butte. I thought you were one of my leaders. I trusted you.”
“I’m quitting.”
The man looked at me angrily. “What’s your business with this man? Butte, do you know where you are? You can’t just jump off the tour. We need you. Please.”
“I live near here. I got a wife and kids in this state. Don’t touch me, Shamburger. I got an awful, awful head-ache.” The man looked even more hatefully at me and Fleece.
“What kind of deal have you made here? Are you using this man’s wife and children?”
“Not making anything,” said Harley. “Getting away to the place I won’t have any more headaches like this one. Get out of the way.”
About that time a long line of girls came out of the trailer weiring those skullcaps and plumes. They mounted the steps and one by one broke out to the stage through the flap in the backdrop. The manager went over to time them. The band was popping and screaming now. Harley put his hands to his ears as we made our way around toward the exit. I carried the horncase. He was really hurting. He stopped. “Come on, aspirin,” he said. Apparently he couldn’t go any farther. “Come on.” You had to root for the aspirin.
Five minutes later the girls poured out of the flap and across the sawdust to the trailer. Last of all came a mulatto woman with paint melting off her eyes. She was greasy with sweat. She had gotten a robe on but wore it negligently. It parted and showed her totally bare. Her feet were veiny and dirty. In her hand were two silvery high heels. Then she went on into the trailer, taking her time, not noticing us. Fleece uttered a wounded sound.
“Well, that was a buck’s worth, about, I guess.”
“Ahhh! Land of Jesus! Come on, aspirin!” Harley was getting relief from the aspirins. He still had the jowl beard and the mustache and looked like a man in a drug ecstasy now. Around the way, you could hear the people filing out.
“Let’s go.” He took off the coat and tossed it on the stage, leaving himself in white ruffled shirt and bow tie. The show was over and we were the last in the exit. It was weakly golden here, the lights were down, and the ropes around us were still vibrating in a lingering effect from the show. The sawdust was much-trampled and compact, in the exit.
Gillis Lock was waiting for us, and standing by him, Peter. Otherwise, the fair was dead at this end; the ferris wheel had stopped, the freak show lights were out, and far away you could hear a forlorn calliope, like a lone berserk bagpiper.
“Look at the last ones crawling out!” said Lock. “Wonder what they got Mustard doing for them. You carrying her suitcase for her too?” looking at me and past me. I turned around. Next to the canvas flap in the exit stood a girl the color of a tan egg; she had thrown a stage wrap over herself. Her wrists crossed, holding the wrap at her throat. She was cocking her head sideways, making some message to Harley. Harley gave her a short goodbye salute. This gal was a grief-causing beauty.
“You boys forget what you came after?” said Lock; he was tall, with thin hips but a soft pot out front. He favored the hairstyle of a high arch groomed to one side, which makes a person look headlong and earnest at all moments. “Or couldn’t you afford her, Monroe?”
“I saw your letter. Come over here in the light, and bring the ancient cocksman over here too.” I beckoned to Peter and was sick in my stomach as I did. “Bring your cowboy hat. See how you make out.” Lock came right toward me. I may have backed up. Harley groaned something.
“Stop!” yelled Peter.
“Why? Why?” asked Lock.
“Because Monroe has a gun,” said Fleece.
Lock stopped, looking suddenly limp, as if his spine had been jerked out of him. His arms fell to his sides useless and I believe he was just before begging me not to use a gun on him. “I have one too,” said Fleece. I caught his big golden forehead out of the side of my eye. His head seemed about to burst in fire.
“I have a gun in the pocket of my car,” said Lock whiningly, his lip sulking.
“Aw hell,” said Harley, moving up between me and Lock. “Crying out loud! We got a meeting of a gun club here? You people—”
“Shut up, mustard-face!” said Lock. “I’ve seen you before too.”
Peter eased up slowly, examining Harley. “The band-director nigger gentleman?” he said.
“He was at the parade amongst them niggers. I couldn’t forget that beard,” said Lock.
“I know, I know, I know, I know,” Harley threw out his hands. “You hear now, you two. You’re the one that pushed that child out at me, you’re the one the police told, baby. And you’re the one come across the street and got hit, didn’t you? and got run over by that Christmas float? I recognize you. That’s who recognizes who, goddam it. Every time I been in this town I had to look at one of you. I been all over the United States with this ‘Harlem in Havana,’ and the first time I hit the open air of this Jackson and this Mississippi, who do I see? Who’s waiting there saying Shut up, Mustard, and like that.”