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
'em feel it."
When things slowed a little, he said, "You ain't seen nothing tonight. You wait until you see a
spooks' dance! Man, our people carry on!" Whenever he had a moment, he kept schooling me.
"Shoelaces, this drawer here. You just startingout, I'm going to make these to you as a present.
Buy them for a nickel a pair, tell cats they need laces if they do, and charge two bits."
Every Benny Goodman record I'd ever heard in my life, it seemed, was filtering faintly into where
we were. During another customer lull, Freddie let me slip back outside again to listen. Peggy Lee
was at the mike singing. Beautiful! She had just joined the band and she was from North Dakota
and had been singing with a group in Chicago when Mrs. Benny Goodman discovered her, we
had heard some customers say. She finished the song and the crowd burst into applause. She
was a big hit.
"It knocked me out, too, when I first broke in here," Freddie said, grinning, when I went back in
there. "But, look, you ever shined any shoes?" He laughed when I said I hadn't, excepting my
own. "Well, let's get to work. I never had neither." Freddie got on the stand and went to work on
his own shoes. Brush, liquid polish, brush, paste wax, shine rag, lacquer sole dressing... step
by step, Freddie showed me what to do.
"But you got to get a whole lot faster. You can't waste time!" Freddie showed me how fast on my
own shoes. Then, because business was tapering off, he had time to give me a demonstration of
how to make the shine rag pop like a firecracker. "Dig the action?" he asked. He did it in slow
motion. I got down and tried it on his shoes. I had the principle of it. "Just got to do it faster,"
Freddie said. "It's a jive noise, that's all. Cats tip better, they figure you're knocking yourself out!"
darsice
(darsice)
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