( that gets a bit of a laugh, rememberin'. he'd been sweepin' the shop floor when reggie came on in, an' he remembers lookin' up an' seein' that smile an' lookin' immediately behind him to see who in the hell it was directed at only to realize it was no one else but him. )
Ah, I apprenticed under a fella named Ezra, learnin' carpentry in New York. Reggie's Ma'd ordered some furniture be made. She was a doctor, an' colored besides so she'd been turned away at a few other places, but Ezra weren't about that. He took on her order. Reggie came to pick everything up when it was finished, an' the two of us got to talkin'. Soon as he found out I didn't know a soul besides Ezra in Brooklyn, he wanted to take me out on the town. We'd hang out at Cafe Society an' listen to the musicians there an' drink Coke an' smoke. Lord, we saw so many folks — Miss Ella Fitzgerald, John Kirby an' his sextet... Hell, Buck Clayton half a dozen times.
( at the time, it'd been like steppin' into a new world of wonder and beauty. there was a lotta ugliness to be had too — cafe society was the first an' probably still the only club in new york that weren't segregated by race, an' more than once they took shit for their acquaintance on the street. but reggie had this way about him, an' a manner of turnin' enemies to friends without them scarce realizin' it was happenin' on account'a him bein' hell an' gone smarter than most of them. )
His folks died in a car accident in '40, an' he an' I moved back to Agathine a spell while their estate got sorted out. Once it was settled, he went to Britain to see his grandparents an' I guess somewhere in there he got tangled up in the War. He never talked about it much, an' he died in '42. Few days before I shipped out on our first operation in Italy.
no subject
Ah, I apprenticed under a fella named Ezra, learnin' carpentry in New York. Reggie's Ma'd ordered some furniture be made. She was a doctor, an' colored besides so she'd been turned away at a few other places, but Ezra weren't about that. He took on her order. Reggie came to pick everything up when it was finished, an' the two of us got to talkin'. Soon as he found out I didn't know a soul besides Ezra in Brooklyn, he wanted to take me out on the town. We'd hang out at Cafe Society an' listen to the musicians there an' drink Coke an' smoke. Lord, we saw so many folks — Miss Ella Fitzgerald, John Kirby an' his sextet... Hell, Buck Clayton half a dozen times.
( at the time, it'd been like steppin' into a new world of wonder and beauty. there was a lotta ugliness to be had too — cafe society was the first an' probably still the only club in new york that weren't segregated by race, an' more than once they took shit for their acquaintance on the street. but reggie had this way about him, an' a manner of turnin' enemies to friends without them scarce realizin' it was happenin' on account'a him bein' hell an' gone smarter than most of them. )
His folks died in a car accident in '40, an' he an' I moved back to Agathine a spell while their estate got sorted out. Once it was settled, he went to Britain to see his grandparents an' I guess somewhere in there he got tangled up in the War. He never talked about it much, an' he died in '42. Few days before I shipped out on our first operation in Italy.