When I got home, Ella said there had been a telephone call from somebody named Shorty. He
had left a message that over at the Roseland State Ballroom, the shoeshine boy was quitting that
night, and Shorty had told him to hold the job for me.
"Malcolm, you haven't had any experience shining shoes," Ella said. Her expression and tone of
voice told me she wasn't happy about my taking that job. I didn't particularly care, because I was
already speechless thinking about being somewhere close to the greatest bands in the world. I
didn't even wait to eat any dinner.
The ballroom was all lighted when I got there. A man at the front door was letting in members of
Benny Goodman's band. I told him I wanted to see the shoeshine boy, Freddie.
"You're going to be the new one?" he asked. I said I thought I was, and he laughed, "Well, maybe
you'll hit the numbers and get a Cadillac, too." He told me that I'd find Freddie upstairs in the
men's room on the second floor.
But downstairs before I went up, I stepped over and snatched a glimpse inside the ballroom. I just
couldn't believe the size of that waxed floor! At the far end, under the soft, rose-colored lights,
was the bandstand with the Benny Goodman musicians moving around, laughing and talking,
arranging their horns and stands.
A wiry, brown-skinned, conked fellow upstairs in the men's room greeted me. "You Shorty's
homeboy?" I said I was, and he said he was Freddie. "Good old boy," he said. "He called me, he
just heard I hit the big number, and he figured right I'd be quitting." I told Freddie what the man at
the front door had said about a Cadillac. He laughed and said, "Bums them white cats up when
you get yourself something. Yeah, I told them I was going to get me one-just to bug them."
Freddie then said for me to pay close attention, that he was going to be busy and for me to watch
but not get in the way, and he'd try to get me ready to take over at the next dance, a couple of
nights later.
As Freddie busied himself setting up the shoeshine stand, he told me, "Get here early... your
shoeshine rags and brushes by this footstand... your polish bottles, paste wax, suede brushes
over here... everything in place, you get rushed, you never need to waste motion... ."
While you shined shoes, I learned, you also kept watch on customers inside, leaving the urinals.
You darted over and offered a small white hand towel. "A lot of cats who ain't planning to wash
their hands, sometimes you can run up with a towel and shame them. Your towels are really your
best hustle in here. Cost you a penny apiece to launder-you always get at least a nickel tip."
The shoeshine customers, and any from the inside rest room who took a towel, you
whiskbroomed a couple of licks. "A nickel or a dime tip, just give 'em that," Freddie said. "But for
two bits, Uncle Tom a little-white cats especially like that. I've had them to come back two, three
times a dance."
From down below, the sound of the music had begun floating up. I guess I stood transfixed. "You
never seen a big dance?" asked Freddie. "Run on awhile, and watch."
There were a few couples already dancing under the rose-colored lights. But even more exciting
to me was the crowd thronging in. The most glamorous-looking white women I'd ever seen-young
ones, old ones, white cats buying tickets at the window, sticking big wads of green bills back into
their pockets, checking the women's coats, and taking their arms and squiring them inside.
Freddie had some early customers when I got back upstairs. Between the shoeshine stand and
thrusting towels to them just as they approached the washbasin, Freddie seemed to be doing four
things at once. "Here, you can take over the whiskbroom," he said, "just two or three licks-but let