Coming Through Slaughter (11 page)

Willy Cornish

Then everyone was becoming famous. Jazz was now history. The library people were doing recordings and interviews. They didn’t care who it was that talked they just got them talking. Like Amacker, Woodman, Porteous, anybody. They didn’t ask what happened to his wife, his children, and no one knew about the Brewitts. All I had of Buddy was the picture here. Webb gave that to me. I never wanted to talk about him.

Didn’t know what to say. He had all that talent and wisdom he stole and learnt from people and then smashed it, smashed it like ice coming onto the highway off a truck. What did he see with all that? What good is all that if we can’t learn or know? I think Bellocq corrupted him with that mean silence so Buddy went and Bellocq stayed here shocked by his going and Buddy gone for two years then coming back and gentle with us till he had to go … crazy in front of children and Nora and everyone.

Then jesus that,
jesus
that hospital and the company there which he slid through like a pin in the blood. With all his friends outside like they were on a grandstand watching him and when they began to realize he would never come out then all the people he hardly knew, all the fools, beginning to talk about him …

In the room there is the air
       and there is the corner
and there is the corner
and there is the corner
and there is the corner.

If you don’t shake, don’t get no cake.

Bella Davenport married Willy Cornish in 1922.

Cornish 6′3″—297 lbs.

‘When I married him he was healthy as a pig’

Cornish had his first stroke on Rampart and
Julien while playing. Arm paralysed.
Bella questioned about those Cornish
had played with —

‘He and Buddy were just like that’

&                         

‘All of them mostly lost their minds’

When protests began over guard rapes, bad plumbing, labour, lack of heat, the patients organised a strike. This did nothing. They then cut their tendons. Not Bolden, who sublime took rapes from what he thought were ladies in blue pyjamas. And work as his duty to the sun. Bertram Lord walked down the hall and slid the coke bottom under each door to the patients. They took the sharpened glass, cut their tendon, and passed it back. Bolden who saw the foreign weapon enter his room left his window where he was waiting for morning, heard the whispered order on the other side of the wood, peered at it, touched it with his foot and pushed it back slowly to Lord who eventually covered 28 doors.

In the morning men were found heels bandaged in their nightshirts and naked when the doors opened. The sun fell on Bolden’s waiting face, he smiled, walked out spry and was almost alone at breakfast where he met his visitor again, this morning as a brilliant lush bar of light that lay in an oblong stretch nearly touching his plate. So bright it showed him the textures of the old fork-scarred table. He almost didn’t want to eat today. He kept putting down his spoon in the tin bowl and placing his hand over the warm yellow of his friend and his friend magically managed to put his light over Bolden’s hand simultaneously, so that it was kept warm. Later in the day he moved following his path. He washed his face in the travelling spokes of light, bathing and drying his mouth nose forehead and cheeks in the heat. All day. Blessed by the visit of his friend.

Webb in town years later, 1924, talked to Bella Davenport, Willy Cornish’s wife then, Bella Cornish then, in the corner of a loud party. Talking and eventually sliding onto the subject of Bolden. Webb said he had been an old friend of his. This was the year Tom Pickett was shot and killed on Poydras Street. The party was on Napoleon, everybody crowded into two floors and stairs and on the steps outside. Webb back here after many years, standing beside Bella Davenport and not too interested until she said she was Bella Cornish rattling her white china pearls, and Webb looking at her and recognizing they were all growing old, the lines deep and thin and dark on their faces.

So it must have been over Pickett’s death that they got onto Bolden. He and Willy were just like that, she said. Sitting with her on the bend of the stairs he said that Buddy’s death had surprised him, he’d always expected Bolden to jump out of his silence when he got bored, shit I was sure he was just hiding you know hiding from us all and that he’d put on a red shirt and come back, yeah, Nora’s letter surprised me alright, I’d been going in every few months to visit though he said nothing and then she writes not to bother anymore because Buddy died, how things get to you huh. Looking up then because the rattling of pearls had stopped and Bella Cornish was not moving.
But he’s not dead
, whispered. He’s still at the hospital, the state hospital, he’s still there, heaven. When did Nora write you?

Eight years ago.

He’s still there, eighteen years now. Willy saw him a year ago. He does nothing, nothing at all. Never speaks, goes around touching things. One of the doctors told Willy who had to pretend to be his brother. Willy sat in the hall all day to talk to the doctor and Willy just getting over his stroke, heaven, they told him Buddy touches things, there are about twenty things he will touch and he goes from one to the next, that’s all. Won’t talk, do you know they even have a band but he has nothing to do with it, was cutting hair but that stopped a while back. Now this touching thing. Willy nursing his soft hand goes all the way to the hospital and stays in places like Vachery overnight to get there and Buddy don’t say a thing to him. And he and Willy were just like
that.
Don’t even pretend to know who he is. The doctor says that most of the patients don’t know who their visitors are but they pretend they do so they have company but Buddy won’t. Willy walked round with him while he went about, like doing a tour or inspection of the place, the taps on the bath, the door frame, benches, things like that.

She talked on and on repeating herself and her descriptions, going back to things she’d mentioned and retelling them in greater detail for Webb. Who could not talk just strained his body and head against the wall behind him as if he were trying to escape the smell of her words as if the air from her talking came into his mouth and filled it puffed it up with poison so the brain was put to sleep and he could do nothing with it only react in his flesh. She talked on not knowing he had brought Buddy home, instead, seeing the effect of her words, she whispered on bending nearer to him like a lover surrounded by the loud moving of the party against them telling him again and again
he touches things
, like taps first the hot water one and then the cold, which was not true for there were only cold water taps at the East Louisiana State Hospital, but she continued to describe—as fascinated by that strange act as if it was the luxurious itch under a scab. While he arched away his body stiff and hard trying to break through the wall every nerve on the outside as if Bella’s mouth was crawling over him, and his unknown flesh had taken over, and crashed fast down the stairs stepping on hands and glasses almost running over the bodies on the crowded stairs smiling and excusing himself out loud I gotta throw up ’scuse me ’scuse me, but knowing there was nothing to come up at all.

Bella watched the flapping body on its way down the stairs and noticing now the damp mark on her right where his sweat had in those few minutes gone through his skin his shirt his java jacket and driven itself onto the wall.

Frank Amacker Interviews. Transcript Digest. Tulane Library. Also present William Russell, Allan and Sandra Jaffe, Richard B. Allen.

Reel 1.
June 21, 1965

Plays (almost immediately) old rag with wide arm spread. He cannot remember the name of the rag. He discusses his prowess in playing with hands far apart. He’d like to bet that nobody can beat him at that. He now says that he made up the last song.

He then talks about this wide arm spread being the natural way of playing the piano. He then talks about the public acceptance of pianists who can’t play as well as he. Asked how old he is, he replies that he was seventy-five years old on March 22, 1965.
AJ
asks for ‘My Josephine’,
FA
plays ‘Moonlight on the Ganges’. He says he and Jelly Roll Morton hung around the
BIG 25
together. He was playing there on the night of the Billy Phillips killing at the 101 Ranch. Gyp the Blood killed Billy Phillips right in front of his own bar at 4.20 am on Easter Monday and then went across the street and killed Harry Parker. The salary was $1.00 to $1.50 a night, plus tips. Money was worth a lot more then. He explains the meaning of ‘Lagniappe’. He explains the term ‘can rusher’.

END OF REEL ONE

Reel 2

There follows a discussion of waltzes. He says he can play ‘The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi’ and ‘Schubert’s Serenade’,
WR
asks for the latter, and
FA
plays ‘Drigo’s Serenade’. He became quite wealthy he says, but lost all of it. At one time he owned five places. At one time he had a bar and a restaurant. The welfare department has all the records of his former wealth.

END OF REEL TWO

Reel 3.

He plays ‘The House Got Ready’. He plays the Amos ’n’ Andy theme song. Next a slow rag with wide arm spread again. (Some of his rags have obscene titles. He would not give them in front of
SJ
or
RBA.
)
FA
says he used to play thousands of rags. He doesn’t know how to play Jelly Roll Morton’s ‘The Pearls’. Then he plays and sings ‘I’ll see you in my dreams’. Asks for a little shot.

END OF REEL THREE

Reel 1. Digest Retype. July 1, 1960

Frank Amacker born in New Orleans, March 22, 1890. He began playing music when he was sixteen, playing in the District. His first instrument was piano, he later took up guitar.
RBA
asks if
FA
ever played (Tony Jackson’s) ‘The Naked Dance’,
FA
says he played many naked dances, but the piano player was just supposed to play, keeping his eyes on the keyboard and not looking at the whores,
FA
then says that it is God’s will that he looks as young as he is today, that it must be that he is being saved for something special by God.

He says he knows he could play most of the things he hears on television, that all he needs is a chance.

END OF REEL ONE

Reel 2.

[No interesting information]

Reel 3.

FA
says a really good singer, like Perry Como, should be able to take the song he now plays, which he composed, and make a hit out of it.
FA
then says that A.J. Piron heard him playing the song, years ago, and told him it was the most beautiful song he ever heard, that he would write it down and make him famous. The name of the song is ‘All the boys got to love me, that’s all’. Johnny St Cyr wrote the words and Piron wrote it down. All the people in the District praised the song. It was the most unusual blues you ever heard. It was so sad. It’s about a man who takes his girl to a dance. The girl starts flirting with another man. He doesn’t start a fight, but takes her home and sings this song, (
FA
plays and sings.) The lyrics are full of regret, he tells her he is sorry he met her, among other things, and finishes by saying he is going to take her into the woods and shoot her. He kills her but he still loves her and he tells the undertaker to be very careful with his beautiful baby.

END OF REEL THREE

Reel 4.

FA
answers questions about good trumpet players by saying that Buddy Bolden was the loudest. Freddy Keppard was a master, and so was Manuel Perez, but the most masterful master of all was James McNeil who was college trained. In contrast Bolden played this ‘old lowdown music’,
FA
says he remembers ‘Funky Butt’ (also known as ‘Buddy Bolden’s Blues’),
FA
does not remember August Russell. He says Johnny Delpit was a good violinist. He says Frank DeLandry (or D. Landry or Delandro?) was the greatest guitarist he ever heard. He says all the guitars were buried when DeLandry died.

END OF REEL FOUR

T. Jones

‘The train he was on—sorry, let me start again. The train journey took up the first 100 miles. Nobody knew who he was so there was no problem. The surgery round his throat done in the House of D covered with bandage. Above it his emotionless face looking straight ahead—they all do that, as if showing how they can control themselves. Black coat, open shirt. And all day the river at our side, Mississippi, like a friend travelling with him, like an audience watching Huck Finn going by train to hell. Oh sure I read too you know. I can see the joke. I know he was important, but he was also sick and crazy …

At Baton Rouge the bandage was full of red though he had hardly moved. I gave him a cloth to cover it. Whole trip went well. No trouble. He must have been tired from the operation the day before. From Baton Rouge we took the wagon up through Sunshine, Vachery, and Slaughter. Forty-eight miles. Again he was very calm. North of Slaughter McMurray and I wanted to swim. It was hot. We stopped and found a small river. We got him down off the wagon and took him the 100 yards to the water and he just stood on the bank. He watched while we took turns swimming. That was the fifth of June, so he was admitted late that day. We never saw him after that. We put him in the chair in the Superintendent’s office, got the papers signed and left him with them.’

They had gone through the country that Audubon drew. Twenty miles from the green marshes where he waited for birds to fly onto and bend the branch right in front of his eyes. Mr Audubon drew until lunchtime, sitting with his assistant who frequently travelled with him. The meal was consumed around a hamper, a bottle of wine was opened with as little noise as possible in order not to scare the wildlife away.

*

I sit with this room. With the grey walls that darken into corner. And one window with teeth in it. Sit so still you can hear your hair rustle in your shirt. Look away from the window when clouds and other things go by. Thirty-one years old. There are no prizes.