That Poor Jazz Summer

That Poor Jazz Summer

Color through

Six-year Old Colored Eyes

by

Richard e Hill

Copyright 2012 by Richard Hill

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Dedications

To my best friend, my Mother…

Who always was, still is and forever will be a source of inspiration.

Our time together in this Earthly world was too short…

Our time in the next Eternal world will not be long enough

To my brother, who died tragically, violently, and prematurely in the inner city of Chicago…

A life storm blows unripe fruit from the trees to fall upon non-fertile ground

The seeds are left to grow in our hearts to flourish in our minds

As birds sing the fallen everlasting melody on wistful breeze

PRELUDE

Color, a noun and a condition --- or an adjective and a characteristic? Black is a condition where one feels the unsaid and ignores the said. A six-year old boy began the 1948 Chicago summer precocious, introverted and Colored; by autumn he was seven, grieving, disappointed and Black. His childhood though loving was incomplete as a warm embrace without the awaited kiss.

Black Lament

I knew what it meant to be Black when

I heard a man being called a boy and treated like a toy

Black parishioners kneeling and praying before White Jesus

Pedestrians dropping their gazes before pale uncaring faces

Signs that closed open door

Hooded nightriders on the roads once more

Half-awake sweating passengers standing in the back on a half-empty bus

Public schools with doorways where ax-handled Governors stood

Wealth, not what you had --- but what you never could

Smiling protesters hugging trees, saving seals and whales

Angry policemen busting heads and taking Brothers to jails

Soldiers without freedom fighting for peace

Tomorrow’s promises just beyond today’s reach

And realized there was no justice ---it was just ‘us’ .

Chapter I - Home Place

Summer is a time of discovery and realization. Romance, sports heroes and fishing holes are paramount among the youthful, fanciful revelations; the then six-year old Richard Hawkes would discover poverty. The family fortunes had suffered an extreme reversal due to the long debilitating illness of his Aboriginal American paternal grandmother, Montana Star Eyes. Insurance was not a common option in the Colored neighborhoods during these times. The holdings once comprising five adjacent houses and money tucked away had been reduced to a single mortgaged dwelling that was home to four children, two to four adults and several pets. Struggling Jazz pianist Jonathon Hawkes, the patriarch lamented, It’s like a losing game of Monopoly; you build up your empire and are ready to bust the game wide open. Then the dice turn cold and you land in all the wrong places; losing something on each turn until all you have left is one mortgaged house on the cheapest street on the board.

Baby-booming Chicago was rapidly growing; the city with broad shoulders had open political arms that needed blue-collared laborers for the factories and close-minded voters for the political machine. These workers needed a place to call home. World War II had changed the face and pace of the city. Multi-cultured neighborhoods were transforming into segregated ethnic economic conclaves. The atmosphere was filled with factory smoke and the stench of the manure piles from the stockyards. Train whistles and the lumbering sound of full boxcars interrupted conversations and sleep, as the city was the acknowledged railroad center of the world. Post war transients roamed the streets seeking work, shelter and identity. The last words spoken in a home after good night were, Did you lock the doors?

The first home was on a place. Streets in 1948 Chicago were usually named avenues, boulevards, parkways, roads or just streets. Places were short streets or cul-de-sacs with dwellings usually only on one side. They were located between numbered streets as 56th Place was situated between 56th and 57th Streets. Their provenance was the burgeoning post-war housing demand due to homecoming soldiers, European immigration and Southern migration. Newly concrete covered 56th Place was a cul-de-sac artery into black-tarred Stewart Street paralleling the railroad tracks atop a twelve-foot brick wall. Large wooden bungalows heated by hot air from aging basement furnaces fueled with cheap polluting coal from grinding stokers, yards full of trees, barking dogs, gardens, and fenced in hope --- a rat infested community that was a cinder spark away from incendiary destruction. These former company houses were now bottles from the well bin of the H K construction empire that spawned from Minnesota to Louisiana. The top shelf had lavish estates, factories and entire upper income suburbs. Name it and Hershel Korov would build it. Hershel the Hammer, a Russian Jew who was the legendary builder of dreams. The hammer identified his trade as well as his socialist political position. Paternal grandfather, Frederick Hawkes had been Korov’s confidant, bodyguard, and supervisor of construction sites.

The mid-Spring Sun was concluding an intermittently rainy day by casting long shadows over rain pool reflections; then reclined behind pastel tinted clouds beneath the arriving star-sprinkled lace of nightfall. The piercing whistles of a steam engine pulling a caboose, rambling to the Pennsylvania Railroad yard a half mile to the north signaled the nocturnal creatures to begin their shift. Joining --- the chorus of bird calls, rodent squeals, and insects chirping--- was the bawdy laughter of two painted, tainted hostesses bidding adieu to four traveling salesmen customers as they splashed through a puddle to a waiting taxi in front of the house of ill repute down the street. A spotlessly clean station wagon with five Jazz musicians parked in front of 403 West 56 Place, the Hawkes residence on a double corner lot intersecting Stewart Street. Two young boys, one carrying a saxophone and the other a puppy ran to the back porch as a flash drizzle stopped as soon as they arrived at the steps. The Jazz players taking their instruments in hard leather covered cases from beneath the cover on top of the station wagon, paused briefly to chat with a group of confreres in syncopated rhythm passing in a large Buick sedan on the way to a gig. Time conscious Clyde Hutchins was the first to break away from the conversations with a mimicking comical Charlie Chaplin-esque walk, twirling a bulging umbrella as he ascended the stairs to the front porch. Buffalo, the aged, massive pet watchdog watching warily from the yard, emitted a deep barking warning before returning to his house beneath the back porch.

Inside the spacious bungalow Jonathon Hawkes stopped playing the incomplete, unnamed ballad that was a means of doodling or exercising when he heard, Now Fweddie will play the horn. Yaaaaay! Yaaaaay. Four-year old PJ introduced her brother and both simulated and initiated the applause in the living room for her entering big brother who was one month away from his tenth birthday. He shook a cluster of lingering raindrops from his horn before beginning an awkward attempt at the Jazz ballad, "Lover Man. A critical gaze from his six-feet four inches father who sat stretching his long legs from a piano bench while rubbing his large hands together was cause for the introduction and the alto saxophone solo to begin again. NO! NO! Dammit! If you are going to play, play it right!" Daddy Hawkes admonished and snapped his fingers to simulate the beat and gave a short vocal riff as a means of guidance after the second flawed attempt. A sharp glare indicated the next attempt would be without introduction by PJ. Jonathon Hawkes was a perfectionist regarding music. He smiled slightly as Fred began the next rendition flawlessly indicating the first two attempts were planned mischief. Young Fred, a budding virtuoso on the alto saxophone idolized the star-crossed Charlie Parker and would eventually speak in the deeper, richer tones of the tenor saxophone as the highly acclaimed young Jazz phenom neighbor, Gene Ammons living with his father, the legendary boogie woogie piano great, Albert Ammons. Gene’s bold bop tones would reflect the influence of this Jazz giant and the renowned master saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. The homes were separated by the home of the Schneider’s, the last White family residing on the short street. The previously friendly widow Kasha Schneider was now reclusive since Gerhard Schneider, an ex-German prison camp commander invaded three months ago, assuming the identity of his late brother-in-law who had been killed in an industrial accident in East Chicago, Indiana. He would occasionally curse the surrounding Schwarzes music emanating from his neighbors on both sides. Gerhard now imprisoned his household of his matronly sister, her daughter and pudgy seven-year old son, also named Richard. A dark blue Ford would whisk the downcast youth back and forth from a private school and he only could be seen gazing sadly from his bedroom window. The only other Whites were several attractive young ladies who worked at the ‘bad house’ at the end of the street. The remaining home had been vacant until a Filipino family began to move in a week ago from a smaller residence three blocks away.

Hawkes began to chord rhythmically as background to his son’s sax. Two-year old Billy began to bang on a large conga drum. It was at first amusing then became disruptive until his mother sat him in her lap and held his hands over the drums permitting them to touch sparsely and on tempo. Daughter Tiny did not participate because she was three years removed from being conceived. Paternal grandmother, Montana Star Eyes called Mama Montana began to dance, her long jet-black braids swaying, showing four-year old PJ, presently the only girl how to execute jitterbug steps. Six-year old Richard sat silently reading on the brain throne, a wooden stool that was previously a small chair until the back was discarded. His mother admonished him with the folklore he could develop hemorrhoids if he did not move the stool from over the hot air vent where he loved to position it while he read, Move that chair before you catch the piles from all that heat! It was a typical cool, rainy April evening and Richard had another reason from his usual separation from the litter; his father had been requested to accompany him to school tomorrow to discuss possible disciplinary purposes. After absorbing a disdainful glare from his father he slowly trudged to the stairs off the kitchen to go to the big boys’ room on the second floor. Once removed from view he vaulted the remaining stairs and dashed to the closet where the secreted in puppy was napping on an old blanket.

Sliding Clyde Hutchins, the trombonist knocked and entered the home in one motion; he began to open his umbrella to dry, then laughed apologetically, succumbing to the critical gaze of the winsome Mama Hawkes. It was bad luck to open an umbrella indoors according to Southern based superstition. He re-entered, leaving the opened umbrella on the front porch, extracted his longhorn and instantly began to trade fours with Fred in an impromptu duel. The rest of the group drifted in for the practice session and turned the simple tune into a long jam session; ‘Walking Wally’ Madison on bass, ‘Hollywood Hank’ Penn, the only White member on trumpet, ‘Slick Sonny’ Wade on tenor and the quickly becoming recognized, El Cubano on congas. Hollywood Hank removed his omnipresent dark glasses; his piecing blue eyes stared wistfully through the curtain covered bay window into the now starry still sky. Mama Montana began to serve coffee and homemade apple pie and soon the air became saturated with cigarette smoke and Jazz. A window was raised and the music chased the smoke drifting into the night, dissipating with today’s dreams to blend into tomorrow’s hope.

Daddy Hawkes sat on top of a foot locker in the master bedroom after finishing shining his dress shoes, preparing for the trip to school tomorrow. He picked up a scrap book filled with sports clippings that he had just appended, turned to a year old article from a St. Louis daily with the racially slurred 1947 headline panning Jackie Robinson as Blackie Robinson, stared harshly before returning the book to its place inside of the foot locker. Patting a bare foot in time to the bedside short wave radio playing the theme song, Take the A Train from a Duke Ellington band broadcast; then smiled thinking of the practice session that had concluded an hour ago. The boys were really on tonight, there’ll be a lot of tips in the kitty tomorrow, he said to Mama Hawkes as she looked in the mirror admiring the new homemade quilted robe her mother, Big Mama had just given her. Her body was still firm and shapely despite bearing four children. He looked at her as she spun around and continued, You are the only person who can look good in one of those big old robes, but you can look good in anything. She crinkled her nose, opening the window slightly to dissipate the acidic smell of shoe polish, I know what’s on your mind, but I have to check on the kids first, laughing softly before dashing off to make the rounds. Jonathon Hawkes didn’t tuck children in or listen to prayers; those were his woman’s job. He would look in on them when he returned home from a late night gig or in the middle of the night when he had used the bathroom. He was tough like his father, the ex-soldier dubbed the Perfect Warrior, who could beat men half his age in a fist fight until the day he died. He would kiss the baby girl on the forehead or cheek, the boys received a firm handshake, a palm slap, or pat on the back. Men only hugged men when they recovered from illnesses or returned from long journeys, otherwise a consoling or comforting arm around the shoulder was good enough. Men didn’t kiss men, that was something those Frenchmen did, and we all know about them and the things they do. The Spanish men did a little too much hugging, but they were otherwise real men too. The Indians, now those were some men who knew how to take care of themselves and keep their women in place.

Mama Hawkes entered the adjacent baby room where four-year old PJ and two-year old Billy were sleeping; they still had the distinctive smell of Ivory soap from the bedtime baths. PJ had her favorite toy, a homemade rag doll on the pillow as she stirred slightly before rolling over to face the window. Billy had a mischievous smile as a leg dangled from the crib with one side removed to permit exiting to use the trainer toilet. She pushed him gently completely into the bed, adjusted the covers, and laughed to herself, That little rascal is always planning something, he is really going to be a handful when he gets older; he is so ‘busy’! She kissed them softly on the cheek and uttered a prayer before leaving. An inflated toy protruded from beneath the dining room table, retrieving it and descending halfway up the stairs to the next level before tossing it through the open door to the playroom and into the toy chest. She blew on a clenched fist and rubbed it across her chest to celebrate her accuracy, then yelled, Freddie get in there and pick up those toys and put them in the box!

Freddie mumbled as he stomped to the playroom to complete the impromptu chore.

Don’t be talking under your breath and stomping when I tell you to do something! I’ll come up there and knock you into the middle of next week! she admonished.

I’m sorry Mama, he hastily apologized.

Mama seldom physically punished her children; this was the purview of their father. She would slap them on the back of the head, swat them firmly on the bottom, or occasionally throw her shoe at them as they fled, hardly ever making contact. More than likely after a stern lecture she would send them to their room to sit silently, this would be severe for her active bunch. A switch or a belt was more of a threat than an actuality, but it was an option. Freddie once teased Dickie before consoling him after a ‘real’ whipping by Daddy Hawkes; Dickie remarked, It doesn’t hurt as much as Mama’s fussing. She descended the stairs and entered her mother, Big Mama’s room joining the kitchen. Rotund Big Mama sat in a rocking chair with her legs extended and her feet on the bed. She was taking a break from organizing her belongings after arriving on the afternoon City of New Orleans Special train. Reverend Boddie’s broadcast was playing softly on an old crackling radio. An urban legend stated the preacher would give winning illegal gaming numbers during his program; they were allegedly imbedded in hymn numbers or Bible verses. Mama Hawkes kissed her mother and sat on the bed to rub the swollen ankles and feet, listening to another briefing of her nine siblings, who lived in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Big Mama would spend part of the spring and the summers visiting her beloved children and their families. The grandchildren would begin to salivate at the news of her impending visits. Big Mama’s southern style cooking, especially the pastries would be anxiously anticipated.

Mama resumed making the rounds as Big Mama sang along off-key with the hymn Just a Closer Walk with Thee emanating from the radio. She sighed and said to herself I love you Big Mama, but you can’t sing a lick! She looked into the large storage room upstairs with the leaking ceiling and cracked plaster wall; that was to be Daddy Hawkes’ chore tomorrow. Pausing outside the boys room, recalling the commotion