Passenger(23)

“Jum,” says Clarence, “this here’s Moe. Short for Mozart.”

“H’do,” Wiley Jum growls, bobbing his head like a marionette.

“Moe here, he’s a governmental spy, Jum. Had his mind wiped clean after his las’ mission and now he’s workin’ for me.”

“Hmmm,” says Wiley Jum.

“How ’bout that, Jum? Got me a governmental spy on the payroll.”

“Hmmm.”

As we continue stacking items toward the rear of the shop, Clarence elbows me in the ribs and says, in a half-whisper, “This some racket, eh, Moe? I got fools payin’ me in cash to haul their crap away and Wiley Jum here payin’ me to stock his showroom. You can’t beat a deal like that with a stick, Moe.”

“Who buys this stuff, anyway?”

“People who prob’ly make more money selling it somewhere else. Making more money than me. I ain’t sayin’ I’m the smartest cat on the food chain, you dig?” Clarence wipes his nose on his sleeve. “But even if they buy it, they’ll put it out on the curb eventually, and old Clarence will come and haul it away all over again. See this lamp? I done hauled this lamp three times already. Some goddamn lamp.” He smiled like someone who’d figured out the secret of life. “Now that’s the racket, boy.”

There is a rocking horse, a grandfather clock, a collection of old bicycle tires hanging from a peg in the wall…

It takes a good twenty minutes to relocate all the junk from Clarence’s pickup truck to Wiley Jum’s shop. In all that time, no one enters the place. When we finish, Clarence slouches against the cluttered desk while Wiley Jum digs around in an antique cash register with stumpy fingers. Wiley Jum counts some money in a language that does not sound like English then fits Clarence’s hand with a fistful of bills.

“Right on,” mutters Clarence.

Through a labyrinth of junk, I see an old upright grand. It is slouched in one corner, bookended by an old Naugahyde sofa and a plaster bust of the Venus de Milo, and burdened with time-dulled knickknacks, busted lampshades, dusty hardcover books with frayed corners, and what appears to be the speaker horn from an old phonograph. I negotiate the labyrinth of junk, using the arms of coat-racks and the backs of dining room chairs as handholds, and arrive at the keyboard like a Sherpa at the crest of a Himalayan mountain. The keyboard is powdered with bone-colored dust and absent a number of important keys. I crouch and blow a stream of air over the keyboard, causing a sandstorm of yellow dust to billow and shimmer around my head. There is a circular stool on rolling casters off to one side. I roll it before the keyboard—it squeals and rattles—and settle down on it. My hands lift, poise, my fingers splayed and strong, and I begin to play.

I begin with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata then segue into the melody of Dave Brubeck’s “Once When I Was Very Young.” The higher keys refuse to cooperate (and some are just missing) but the melody is all there. I play it simply and professionally, yet I do not know how I know it. I cannot remember when I have learned these ballads—when I had first listened to them on a record or perhaps live in concert somewhere—but I know them as if they are my own.

After a few bars of the Brubeck number, I pause for a measure with my fingers holding down the low octaves, the deep-voiced resonance echoing in the cluttered little shop. Then I scale to middle-C and continue, this time playing the unknown, sad little melody I played that night at the Samjetta while Patrice watched from across the barroom. That sad yet happy number.

When I finish, the last of the notes seem to simmer and die down all around me. I can almost hear them fading into the floor.

Clarence is clapping at the other end of the room. Wiley Jum looks cockeyed and bored behind his counter, the flaps of his unhooked suspenders bowing over the ample hillock of his gut.

“Check you out,” Clarence says as I get up and tread back through the maze of junk. “I didn’t know you could play like that.”

“Yeah,” I say, “I’m full of surprises.”

“He’s something, ain’t he, Jum?”

“Hmmmm,” says Jum.

“An’ he’s workin’ for me.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Hey, Mozart,” Clarence says. “Hey…”

But I am no longer paying attention to Clarence. I am focused on a single item tucked between a filthy-looking upholstered armchair and a highboy that could use a good refinishing. A small little thing, something I did not see until now…

Clarence comes up behind me, pokes me in the ribs. “What’s up, Moe? Find somethin’ else you like?”

“How much is this?” I ask, pointing to the item. It is a gumball machine—a glass fishbowl atop a two-foot-tall iron pedestal painted bright red. The fishbowl is only half-full of the small, colored gumballs.

“Hey, Jum!” Clarence yells. “How much you want for this thing?”

Wiley Jum says something that still does not sound like English, although Clarence apparently comprehends.

“Twelve bucks,” says Clarence. “You like gum, Moe?”

“Tell him to hold it for me. I’ll come back and get it when I have the money.”

“Get it now,” Clarence says, and stuffs a wad of bills into the breast pocket of my shirt. “Fifty clams. Thanks for the help, Moe. Some good biceps on them scrawny arms.”