Being Fats Waller in Harlem is actually quite a trip. He is
very popular. And being popular means, lots of Dames, favours and adulation.
The cat house on 116th Street is my temporary home. I have to earn
my keep, but that is understood. I play several sets well into the night. The
booze keeps flowing and the punters ever changing. Mostly black, but some
Hispanics and the odd college kid seeking to loose his cherry.
Doil drops in from time to time to give me the low down. Not
much change there. Obviously the poker player shooting didn’t set the times a
changing. I ask about Veronica,
but he says know not of her whereabouts. He is lying of course, but what can I
do? Go downtown 7th
precinct and be a nuisance? I am
getting used to being in Fats’s skin.
It’s 11 pm Eastern Time and its time for the show. The piano
is a saloon upright with a candlestick screwed to the front in which I have
placed my cigar. It sounds like a paper bag has been wrapped around each
string, but it has been tuned so doesn’t pain the ears too much.
The cat house is a big stand alone tenement situated at 203
East 116th street just off 3rd Avenue. On the ground
floor is a pawn shop and the door to the cat house is to the side. You have to
know it to use it. Pop your suit then pop your cherry. I have a room on the top
floor which I share with a hooker called Big Sal. She is just 18 with lovely
big eyes and a generous nature. She laughs a lot and is very popular with the
older Johns who like a bit of meat on the bones. During office hours I stay out
of the room. I use it just for sleeping. The bed is a big brass thing with
creaking springs. Sal changes the linen every morning after her shift, so I
always have a clean crib. The bathroom is ajoining with a cast iron bath on
claw feet. It is big enough for me to soak in, which I do, with Sal sitting on
the john telling me about her day. I like this time of the morning when all the
revellers have gone and the house is quiet. Me and Sal plus maybe a couple more
go to the drug store on the corner for eggs and hash browns to relax and
recharge the batteries after a hard night. We are onto our second free coffee
when the cat house is raided. We have a good view from the store of six maybe
eight squad cars and a paddy wagon fill the street. Using a log in a sling they
force the door open and take away all who are on the premises. A few late Johns
are hustled in to the paddy wagon along with the working girls. A young white
kid is let go. That is the way of things, “if yuse white yuse all right, if
yuse brown stick around, but if yuse black git back.”
Back at the cat house all is chaos. A few had hidden in
cellar and are trying to clear up the mess that the cops had left. What could
be broke is broke. Some are crying but most are just angry. They know, that
after a fine, the girls will be
back. This kind of raid happens when the police chief is trying to impress the
mayor, or some smuck in County Hall complained about the vice in this town.
Probably some punter who thought he had been ripped off and wanted revenge.
The cat house is run by coffee skinned Madame answerable to
the local master of ceremonies. Mr Big. Fortunately a jazz fan, and hence my
protection. He loves the stride piano, and sits at the window listening and
watching. He has enemies too. No one not even Mr. Big, is fire proof.
I am telling you this to keep a record of my days away. My
days away from Brian, my computer, from Zeno, and my mate Artie. Being Fats was
all very hip but I had a life elsewhere, a contented life, a creative life. I
long for my apartment and a proper club sandwich with salted meat and pickles.
They make them at the deli, here on 116th but something is missing. Probably it’s the mayo.
I help with the clearing up an eventually hit the sack a noon.
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