← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
A Celebration of Langston Hughes
00:58:01
Host Meg Wolitzer hands off to stage and film actor Teagle F. Bougere, our guest host for a show that celebrates the protean literary master and social activist Langston Hughes (1901-1967). It features three of his most striking works. In “Passing” Hughes reflects on a difficult aspect of the Black experience—the need some felt to “pass” as white. Program host Teagle F. Bougere is the reader. Pauletta Pearson Washington reads the humorous and much anthologized “Thank You, M’am." And Joe Morton performs one of Hughes’ most celebrated works, “The Blues I’m Playing,” which charts the long and complex relationship between a brilliant young Black pianist and her white patron. All three stories reflect Hughes’ explorations of questions of race, identity, and personal destiny.
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- [00:08]
Tegel F. Bouget
On this Selected Shorts program, we are revisiting one of the most important voices in the American literary canon, Langston Hughes. He came to prominence in the Harlem Renaissance, but was a groundbreaking and influential writer throughout his life. I'm your host, Tegel F. Bouget. Join me for memorable stories that tackle race, class and identity. I even get to read one. You're listening to Selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. Hi, I'm Tegel F. Bouget. I recently returned from England where I had the honor of speaking the words of James Baldwin in a West End and touring run of the famous Baldwin Buckley Cambridge debate from 1965. Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro? Years ago, I created the character of the invisible man in the world premiere stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison's iconic novel of the same name. Here in New York City, I've had the good fortune to appear in 13 productions for the New York Shakespeare Festival, nine of them in Central Park's Delacorte Theater. James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, William Shakespeare. And now My Good Fortune continues with this program celebrating Langston Hughes. Though he often looked slight and elegant in photographs, Hughes, who was born in 1901, was a literary giant and leading figure in the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s. His poetry, novels, short stories and plays reflected the black experience and spoke directly to his community. Here at Selected Shorts, we're in the performance and sound business, and what we especially cherish about Hughes's work is the rich, distinct voices of his characters, his humor and irony. Along with his powerful narratives, his many short stories are populated by dreamers and discards, rich and poor, young and old. The richness and diversity of Hughes work made the task of choosing three stories a challenging one, but we think we've landed upon a trio that beautifully shows his range. Hughes magnificent collaboration with the great photographer Roy DeCarava. The sweet flypaper of Life is a personal favorite of mine, as is our heartbreaking first story, Passing, which I'm about to read. This story first appeared in a 1934 collection called the Ways of White Folks and was my introduction to Hughes many years ago. Dear Ma, I felt like a dog passing you downtown last night and not speaking to you. You were great, though. Didn't give a sign that you even knew me, let alone that I was your son. If I hadn't had the girl with me, Ma, we might have talked. I'm not as scared as I used to be about somebody taking me for colored anymore. Just because I'VE been talking on the street to a Negro. I guess in looks I'm sort of suspect.
- [03:34]
Joe Morton
Proof.
- [03:34]
Tegel F. Bouget
Anyway, you remember what a hard time I used to have in school trying to convince teachers I was really colored? Sometimes, even after they met you, my mother, they wouldn't believe it. They just thought I had a mulatto. Mammy. I guess since I've begun to pass for white, nobody has ever doubted that I am a white man. Where I work, the boss is a Southerner and is always cussing out Negroes in my presence. Not dreaming I'm one it is to laugh. Funny thing though, Ma, how some white people certainly don't like colored people, do they? If they did, then I wouldn't have to be passing to keep my good job. They go out of their way sometimes to say bad things about colored folks. Putting it out that all of us are thieves and liars or else disease, consumption and syphilis and the like. No wonder it's hard for a black man to get a good job with that kind of false propaganda going around. I never knew they made a practice of saying such terrible things about us. Until I started passing and heard their conversations and lived their life. But I don't mind being white, Ma. And it was mighty generous of you to urge me to go ahead and make use of my light skin and good hair. It got me this job, Ma, where I still get $65 a week in spite of the Depression. And I'm in line for promotion to the chief office secretary if Mr. Weeks goes to Washington. When I look at the colored boy porter who sweeps out the office, I think that's what I might be doing. If I wasn't light skinned enough to get by. No matter how smart that boy would get to be, they wouldn't hire him for a clerk in the office. Not if they knew it. Only for a porter. That's why I sometimes get a kick out of putting something over on the boss who never dreams he's got a colored secretary. But Ma, I felt mighty bad about last night. The first time we'd met in public that way. That's the kind of thing that makes passing hard. Having to deny your own family when you see them. Of course I know you and I both realize it is all for the best, but anyhow, it's terrible. I love you, Ma, and hate to do it, even if you say you don't mind. But what did you think of the girl with me, Ma? She's the kid I'm going to marry. Pretty good looking, isn't she nice disposition. The parents are well fixed. Her folks are German Americans and don't have much prejudice about them, either. I took her to see a colored review last week and she thought it was great. She said darkies are so graceful and gay. I wonder what she would have said if I told her I was colored or half colored. That my old man was white. But you weren't. But I guess I won't go into that. Since I've made up my mind to live in the white world. And have found my place in it a good place. Why think about race anymore? I'm glad I don't have to. I know that much. I hope Charlie and Gladys don't feel bad about me. It's funny. I was the only one of the kids light enough to pass. Charlie's darker than you, even, Ma. I know he sort of resented it in school when the teachers used to take me for white before they knew we were brothers. I used to feel bad about it, too, then. But now I'm glad you backed me up and told me to go ahead and get all I could out of life. That's what I'm going to do, Ma. I'm going to marry white, live white. And if any of my are born dark, I'll swear they aren't mine. I won't get caught in the mire of color again. Not me. I'm free, Ma.
- [07:32]
Joe Morton
Free.
- [07:35]
Tegel F. Bouget
I'd be glad, though, if I could get away from Chicago. Transfer to the New York office or the San Francisco branch of the firm. Somewhere where what happened last night couldn't ever occur again. It was awful passing you and not speaking. And if Gladys or Charlie were to meet me in the street. They might not be as tactful as you were. Because they don't seem to be very happy about my passing for white. I don't see why, though. I'm not hurting them any. And I send you money every week and help out just as much as they do, if not more. Tell them not to queer me, Ma, if they should ever run into me and the girlfriend anyplace. Maybe it would have been better if you and they had stayed in Cincinnati. And I'd come away alone when we decided to move after the old man died. Or at least we should have gone to different towns, shouldn't we? Gee, Ma, when I think of how Papa left everything to his white family. And you couldn't legally do anything for us kids, my blood boils. You wouldn't have a chance in a Kentucky court, I know. But maybe if you tried Anyway, his white children would have paid you something to shut up. Maybe they wouldn't want it known in the papers that they had colored brothers. But you was too proud, wasn't you, Ma? I wouldn't have been so proud. Well, he did buy you a house and send all us kids through school. I'm glad I finished college in Pittsburgh before he died. It was too bad about Charlie and Glad having to drop out. But I hope Charlie gets something better to do than working in a garage. And from what you told me in your last letter about Gladys, I don't blame you for being worried about her wanting to go in the chorus of one of those Southside cabarets. Lord, but I know it's really tough for girls to get any kind of a job during the Depression. Especially for colored girls. Even if Gladys is high, yellow and smart. But I hope you can keep her home and out of those Southside dumps. They're no place for a good girl. Well, Ma, I will close because I promised to take my weakness to the movies this evening. Isn't she sweet to look at, all blond and blue eyed? We're making plans about our house when we get married. We're going to take a little apartment on the north side in a good neighborhood. Out on one of those nice quiet side streets where there are trees. I will take a box at the post office for your mail. Anyhow, I'm glad there's nothing to stop letters from crossing the color line. Even if we can't meet often, we can write, can't we, Ma? With love from your son, Jack. That was yours truly. Reading Passing by Langston Hughes. Hi, I'm Tegel F. Bouget. For me, Passing achieves its power and pathos not only from our look at someone so utterly uncomfortable in his own skin and with who he is, but someone who has essentially, by choice, lost a parent. Our second Hughes work strikes a lighter note, but is just as grounded in the importance of identity and relationships. It's the much anthologized thank you, ma'am in which a feisty older woman sets a young boy on the right path. We were lucky to get an actor who is booked and quite busy to embody these timeless characters. Pauletta Washington. Washington has starred in films including Tell It Like a Woman and recent series including Reasonable Doubt. And here she is to set you straight in thank you, ma'am.
- [11:47]
Pauletta Washington
Thank you, ma'am. She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails. It had a long strap and she carried it slung across her shoulder. It was about 11 o'clock at night and she was walking alone when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse. The strap broke with a single tug, but the boy's weight and the weight of the purse combined caused him to lose his balance. So instead of taking off full blast as he had hoped, the boy fell on his back on the sidewalk and his legs flew up. The large woman simply turned around and kicked him right square in his blue jean sitter. Then she reached down, picked the boy up by his shirt front and shook him until his teeth rattled. Pick up my pocketbook, boy, and give it here. The woman still held him, but she bent down enough to permit him to stoop and pick up her purse. Now ain't you ashamed of yourself? Firmly gripped by his shirt front, the boy said. Yes, the woman said. What did you do it for? The boy said. I didn't aim to, she said. You a lie. By that time two or three people passed, stopped, turned to look, and some stood watching. If I turn you loose, will you run? Asked the woman. Yes'm, said the boy. Then I won't turn you loose. She did not release him. I'm very sorry, lady. I'm sorry, whispered the boy. Mm, and your face is dirty. I got a great mind to wash your face for you. Ain't you got nobody home to tell you to wash your face? No, said the boy. Then it will get washed this evening, said the large woman, starting up the street, dragging the frightened boy behind her. He looked as if he were 14 or 15, frail and willow wild in tennis shoes and blue jeans. The woman said, you ought to be my son. I would teach you right from wrong. The least I can do right now is to wash your face. Are you hungry? No, said the bean drag boy. I just want you to turn me loose. Was I bothering you when I turned that corner? Asked the woman. No, but you put yourself in contact with me, said the woman. Now if you think that contact is not going to last a while, you got another thought coming. When I get through with you, sir, you are going to remember Mrs. Louella Bates Washington Jones. Sweat popped out on the boy's face as he began to struggle. Mrs. Jones stopped, jerked him around in front of her, put a half nelson about his neck, and continued to drag him up the street. When she got to her door, she dragged the boy inside, down a hall and into a large kitchenette furnished room at the rear of the house. She switched on the light and left the door open. The boy could hear other roomers laughing and talking in the large house. Some of their doors were open, too, so he knew he and the woman were not alone. The woman still had him by the neck. In the middle of her room she said, what is your name? Roger, answered the boy. Then, Roger, you go over to that sink and wash your face, said the woman, whereupon she turned him loose. At last Roger looked at the door, looked at the woman, looked at the door, and went to the sink. Let the water run until it gets warm, she said. Here's a clean towel. You're gonna take me to jail? Asked the boy, bending over the sink. Not with that face. I would not take you nowhere, said the woman. Here I am trying to get home to cook me a bite to eat, and you snatch my pocketbook. Maybe you ain't been to your supper either, ladies that be, have you? There's nobody home at my house, said the boy. Then we'll eat, said the woman. I believe you hungry or been hungry to try to snatch my pocketbook. I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes, said the boy. Well, you didn't have to snatch my pocketbook to get some suede shoes, said Ms. Louella Bates Washington Jones. You could have asked me, ma'am. The water dripping from his face, the boy looked at her. There was a long pause, a very long pause, and after he had dried his face and not knowing what else to do, dried it again. The boy turned around, wondering what next. The door was open. He could make a dashboard down the hall. He could run, run, run, run, run, run, run. The woman was sitting on the daybed. After a while she said, I were young once, and I wanted things I could not get. There was another long pause. The boy's mouth opened. Then he frowned, but not knowing, he frowned. The woman said, mm. You thought I was gonna say, but didn't you? You thought I was gonna say, but I didn't snatch people's pocketbooks. Well, I wasn't gonna say that. Pause. Silence. I have done things too, which I would not tell you, son, neither tell God if he didn't already know. So you sat down while I fix us something to eat. You might run that comb through your hair so you will look presentable. In another corner of the room, behind a screen, was a gas plate and an icebox. Mrs. Jones got up and went behind the screen. The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was going to run now, nor did she watch her purse, which she had left behind her on the daybed. But the boy took care to sit on the far side of the room, where he thought she could easily see him out of the corner of her eye if she wanted to. He did not trust the woman not to trust him, and he did not want to be mistrusted. Now do you need somebody to go to the store? Asked the boy. Maybe to get some milk or something. Don't believe I do, said the woman, unless you just want sweet milk yourself. I was going to make some cocoa out of this canned milk I got here. That'll be fine, said the boy. She heated up some lima beans and ham she had in the icebox, made the cocoa, and set the table. The woman did not ask the boy anything about where he lived or his folks or anything else that would embarrass him. Instead, as they ate, she told them about her job in a hotel beauty shop that stayed open late, what the work was like, and how all kinds of women came in and out, blondes, redheads, and Spanish. Then she cut him a half of her 10 cent cake. Eat some more sun. When they were finished eating, she got up and said, now here, take this $10 and buy yourself some blue suede shoes. And the next time don't make the mistake of latching onto my pocketbook nor nobody else's, because shoes come by devilish like that will burn your feet. I got to get my rest now, but I wish you would behave yourself some from here on in. She led him down the hall to the front door and opened it. Good night. Behave yourself, boy, she said, looking out into the street. The boy wanted to say something else other than thank you, ma'am, to Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, but he couldn't do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back at the large woman in the door. He barely managed to say thank you before she shut the door and he never saw her again.
- [21:04]
Tegel F. Bouget
That was Pauletta Washington's reading of Langston Hughes. Thank you, ma'am. I'm Tegel F. Bouget. Checking to be sure I wash behind my ears. I think this piece taps into everyone's slightly guilty inner child while satisfying our grown up selves with its touching humor. When we return, some Chopin and some blues. I'm Tegole F. Bouget. You're listening to Selected Shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. I'm Tegel F. Bouget. Our final story celebrating the eclectic genius of Langston Hughes is the Blues I'm Playing, which charts the long and complex relationship between a brilliant young black pianist and her white patron. Like Passing, which we heard earlier in the show, the story was featured in the collection the Ways of White Folks. We should mention that there is a brief use of sensitive language in this story in the title of a book about Harlem from this period. As we are honoring Hughes work and legacy, we left his words unedited. The reader is Joe Morton, a longtime Selected Shorts reader whose credits include iconic indies like Brother, From Another Planet to action packed blockbusters like Speed. Recent work for television includes the drama series Our Kind of People. Here he is with the Blues I'm Playing by Langston Hughes.
- [23:12]
Joe Morton
The Blues I'm Playing Osceola Jones, pianist, Studied under Philippe in Paris Mrs. Dora Elsworth paid her bills. The bills included a little apartment on the Left bank and a grand piano. Twice a year Mrs. Ellsworth came over from New York and spent part of her time with Osceola in her little apartment. The rest of her time abroad she usually spent in or Juan Lepin, where she would see the new canvases of Antonio Bas, a young Spanish painter who also enjoyed her patronage. Bas and Osceola, the woman thought both had genius, and whether they had genius or not, she loved them and took good care of them. Poor dear lady, she had no children of her own, her husband was dead and she had no interest in life now save art and the young people who created art. She was very rich and it gave her pleasure to share her richness with beauty, except that she was sometimes confused as to where beauty lay in the youngsters or in what they made, in the creators or in the creation. Mrs. Ellsworth had been known to help charming young people who wrote terrible poems, blue eyed young men who painted awful pictures, and she once turned down a garlic smelling soprano singing girl who a few years later had all the critics in New York at her feet. The girl was so sallow and she really needed a bath or at least a mouthwash. On the day that Mrs. Ellsworth went to hear her sing at an east side settlement house, Mrs. Ellsworth had sent a small check and let it go at that since, however, living to regret bitterly her lack of musical acumen in the face of garlic. About Osceola, though, there had been no doubt the Negro girl had been highly recommended to her by Ormond Hunter, the music critic who often went to Harlem to hear the church concerts there and had thus listened twice to Osceola's playing A most amazing tone, he had told Mrs. Ellsworth, knowing her interest in the young and unusual, a flair for the piano such as I have seldom encountered. All she needs is training, finish, polish a repertoire. Where is she? Asked Mrs. Ellsworth at once. I will hear her play. By the hardest. Osceola was found by the hardest. An appointment was made for her to come to 63rd street and play for Mrs. Ellsworth. Osceola had said she was busy every day. It seemed that she had pupils, rehearsed a church choir and played almost nightly for colored house parties or dances. She made quite a good deal of money. She wasn't tremendously interested, it seemed, in going way downtown to play for some elderly lady she had never heard of, even if the request did come from the white critic, Ormond Hunter, via the pastor of the church whose choir she rehearsed and to which Mr. Hunter's maid belonged. It was finally arranged, however, and one afternoon, promptly on time, black Miss Osceola Jones rang the doorbell of white Mrs. Dora Ellsworth's gray stone house just off Madison. A butler who actually wore brass buttons opened the door and she was shown upstairs to the music room. The butler had been warned that she was coming. Ormond Hunter was already there, and they shook hands. In a moment Mrs. Ellsworth came in, a tall, stately gray haired lady in black with a scarf that sort of floated behind her. She was tremendously intrigued at meeting Osceola, never having had before, amongst all her artists, a black one. She was greatly impressed that Ormand Hunter should have recommended the girl. She began right away treating her as a protege. That is, she began asking her a great many questions she would not dare ask anyone else at first meeting except a protege. She asked her how old she was and where her mother and father were and how she made her living and whose music she liked best to play. And was she married, and would she take one lump or two in her tea with lemon or cream? After tea, Osceola played. She played the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C sharp minor. She played from the Liszt Etudes. She played the St. Louis Blues. She played Ravel's Pavane pour une enfant de font. And then she said she had to go. She was playing that night for a dance in Brooklyn for the benefit of the Urban League. Mrs. Ellsworth and Norman Hunter breathed how lovely. Mrs. Ellsworth said, I am quite overcome, my dear. You play so beautifully. She went on further to say, you must let me help you. Who is your teacher? I have None, Osioda replied. I teach pupils myself. Don't have time anymore to study. No more money, either. But you must have time, said Mrs. Ellsworth. And money also. Come back to see me on Tuesday. We will arrange it, my dear. And when the girl had gone, she turned to Ormond Hunter for advice on piano teachers, to instruct those who already had genius and needed only to be developed. Then began one of the most interesting periods in Mrs. Ellsworth's whole experience in aiding the arts, the period of Osceola for the Negro girl, as time went on, began to occupy a greater and greater place in Mrs. Ellsworth's interests, to take up more and more of her time and to use up more and more of her money. Not that Osceola ever asked for money, but Mrs. Ellsworth herself seemed to keep thinking of so much more Osceola needed. At first, it was hard to get Osceola to need anything. Mrs. Ellsworth had the feeling that the girl mistrusted her generosity, and Osceola did, for she had never met anybody interested in pure art before. Just to be given things for art's sake seemed suspicious to Osceola. That first Tuesday, when the colored girl came back at Mrs. Ellsworth's request, she answered the white woman's questions with a why look in her eyes. Don't think I'm being personal, dear, said Mrs. Ellsworth, but I must know your background in order to help you. Now tell me. Born in Mobile in 1903. Yes, ma'am. She was older than she looked. Papa had a band. That is, her stepfather used to play for all the lodge turnouts, picnics, dances, barbecues. You could get the best roast pig in the world in Mobile. Her mother used to play the organ in church, and when the deacons bought a piano after the big revival, her mom played that, too. Osceola played by ear for a long time until her mother taught her notes. Osceola played an organ also, and a cornet. My, my, said Mrs. Ellsworth. Yes, ma'am, said Osceola. She had played and practiced on lots of instruments in the south before her stepfather died. She always went to band rehearsals with him. And where was your father, dear? Asked Mrs. Ellsworth. My stepfather had the band, replied Osceola. Her mother left off playing in the church to go with him traveling in Bill Kursan's Minstrels. He had the biggest mouth in the world, Kirsan did, and used to let Osceola put both her hands in it at a time and stretch it.
- [30:36]
Tegel F. Bouget
Well.
- [30:37]
Joe Morton
She and her mama and Steppa settled down in Houston. Sometimes her parents had jobs and sometimes they didn't. Often they were hungry. But Osceola went to school and had a regular piano teacher, an old German woman who gave her what techniques she had today. Fine old teacher, said Osceola. She used to teach me half the time for nothing. God bless her. Yes, said Mrs. Ellsworth, she gave you an excellent foundation. Sure did. But my step papa died, got cut, and after that Mama didn't have no more use for Houston. So we moved to St. Louis. Mama got a job playing for the movies in a Market street theater. And I played for a church choir and saved some money and went to Wilberforce. Studied piano there, too. Played for all the college dances, graduated. Came to New York and heard Rachmaninoff and was crazy for him. Then Mama died. So I'm keeping the little flat myself. One room is rented out. Is she nice? Asked Mrs. Ellsworth. Your roomer? It's not a she, said Osceola. He's a man. I hate women. Rumors. Oh, said Mrs. Ellsworth. I should think all rumors would be terrible. Oh, he's right nice, said Osceola. Name's Pete Williams. What does he do? Asked Mrs. Ellsworth. A Pullman porter, replied Osceola. But he's saving money to go to med school. He's a smart fellow. But it turned out later that he wasn't paying Osceola any rent. That afternoon, when Mrs. Ellsworth announced that she had made her an appointment with one of the best piano teachers in New York, the black girl seemed pleased. She recognized the name. But how, she wondered, would she find time for study with her pupils and her choir and all? When Mrs. Ellsworth said that she would cover her entire living expenses, Osceola's eyes were full of that. Why look as though she didn't believe it? I have faith in your art, dear, said Mrs. Ellsworth. At parting that night, Mrs. Ellsworth called up Ormond Hunter and told him what she had done. And she asked if Mr. Hunter's maid knew Osceola and if she supposed that that man rooming with her were anything to her. Ormond Hunter said he would inquire. Before going to bed, Mrs. Ellsworth told her housekeeper to order a book called Nigger Heaven on the morrow, and also anything else Brentanos had about Harlem. She made a mental note that she must go up there sometime, for she never yet seen that dark section of New York. And now that she had a Negro protege. She really ought to know something about it. Mrs. Ellsworth couldn't recall ever having known a single negro before in her whole life. So she found Osceola fascinating and just as black as she herself was white. Some days later, Ormond Hunter reported on what his maid knew about Osceola. It seemed that the two belonged to the same church. And although the maid did not know Osceola very well, she knew what everybody said about her in the church. Yes, indeedy, Osceola were a right nice girl for sure. But it certainly were a shame. She would have given all her money to that man who stayed with her and what she was practically putting through college so we could be a doctor. Why? Gasped Mrs. Mrs. Ellsworth, the poor child is being preyed upon. It seems to me so, Said Armand Hunter. I must get her out of Harlan, said Mrs. Ellsworth at once. I believe it's worse than Chinatown. She might be in a more artistic atmosphere, agreed Ormond Hunter, and with a career launched, she probably won't want that man anyhow. She won't need him, said Mrs. Ellsworth. She will have her art. But Mrs. Ellsworth decided that in order to increase the rapprochement between Art and Osceola, something should be done now, at once. She asked the girl to come down to see her the next day. And when it was time to go home, the white woman said, I have a half hour before dinner. I'll drive you up. You know, I've never been to Harlem. All right, said Osceola. That's nice of you. But she didn't suggest the white ladies coming in. When they drew up before a rather sad looking apartment house in 134th Street, Mrs. Ellsworth had to ask could she come in. I live on the fifth floor, said Osceola, and there isn't any elevator. It doesn't matter, dear, said the white woman, for she meant to see the inside of this girl's life, elevator or no elevator. The apartment was just as she thought it would be. There were only four rooms, small as maids rooms, all of them. An upright piano almost filled the parlor. Osceola slept in the dining room. The roomer slept in the bedchamber beyond the kitchen. Where is he, darling? He runs on the road all summer, said the girl. He's in and out. But how do you breathe in here? Asked Mrs. Ellsworth. It's so small. You must have more space for your soul, dear. And for a grand piano. Now in the Village, I do right well Here, said Osceola. But in the village where so many nice artists live, we can get. I don't want to move yet. I promised my roomer he could stay till fall. Why till fall? He's going to Meharry, then, to marry Meharry? Yes, ma'am. That's a colored medicine school in Nashville. Colored? Is it good? Well, it's cheap, said Osceola. After he goes, I don't mind moving, but I wanted to see you settled before I go away for the summer. When you come back is all right. I can do till then. Art is long, reminded Mrs. Ellsworth. And time is fleeting, my dear. Yes, ma'am, said Osceola. But I gets nervous if I start worrying about time. So Mrs. Ellsworth went off to Bar harbor for the season and left the man with Osceola. That was some years ago. Eventually, Art and Mrs. Ellsworth triumphed. Osceola moved out of Harlem. She lived in Gay street, west of Washington Square, where she met Genevieve Tagard and Ernestine Evans and two or three sculptors and a cat painter who was also a protege of Mr. Mrs. Ellsworth. She spent her days practicing, playing for friends of her patron, going to concerts and reading books about music. She no longer had pupils or rehearsed the choir, but she still loved to play for Harlem house parties for nothing, now that she no longer needed the money out of sheer love of jazz. This rather disturbed Mrs. Ellsworth, who still believed in art of the old school. Portraits that really and truly looked like like people. Poems about nature, Music that had soul in it, not syncopation. And she felt the dignity of art. Was it in keeping with genius, she wondered, for Osceola to have a studio full of white and colored people every Saturday night, some of them actually drinking gin from bottles and dancing to the most Tom Tom like music she had ever heard coming out of a grand piano. She wished she could lift Osceola up bodily and take her away from all that for art's sake. So in the spring, Mrs. Ellsworth organized weekends in the upstate mountains where she had a little lodge and where Osceola could look from the high places at the stars and fill her soul with the vastness of the eternal and forget about jazz. Mrs. Ellsworth really began to hate jazz, especially. Especially on a grand piano. If there were a lot of guests at the lodge, as there sometimes were, Mrs. Ellsworth might share the bed with Osceola. Then she would read aloud Tennyson or Browning before turning out the light, aware all the time of the electric strength of that brown black body beside her and of the deep, drowsy voice asking what the poems were about. And then Mrs. Ellsworth would feel very motherly toward this dark girl whom she had taken under her wing on the wonderful road of art to nurture and love until she became a great interpreter of the piano. At such times, the elderly white woman was glad her late husband's money, so well invested, furnished her with a large surplus to devote to the needs of her proteges, especially to Osceola, the blackest and most interesting of all. Why the most interesting? Mrs. Ellsworth didn't know, unless it was that Osceola really was talented, terribly alive, and that she looked like nothing Mrs. Ellsworth had ever been near before. Such a rich velvet black and such a hard young body. The teacher of the piano raved about her strength. She can stand a great career, the teacher said. She has everything for it. Yes, agreed Mrs. Ellsworth, thinking, however, of the Pullman porter at Meharry, but she must learn to sublimate her Soul. So for two years then, Osceola lived abroad at Mrs. Ellsworth's expense. She studied with Philippe, had the little apartment on the Left bank, and learned about Debussy's African background. She met many black, Algerian and French West Indian students, too, and listened to their interminable arguments, ranging from Garvey to Picasso to Spengler to Jean Cacteau, and thought they all must be crazy. Why did they or anybody argue so much about life or art? Osceola merely lived and loved it. Osceola hated most artists, too, and the word art in French or English, if you wanted to play the piano or paint pictures or write books, go ahead, but why talk so much about it? Montparnasse was worse in that respect than the village. And as for the cultured Negroes who were always saying art would break down color lines, art could save the race and prevent lynchings. Bunk, said Osceola. My ma and PA were both artists when it came to making music, and the white folks ran them out of town for being dressed up in Alabama. And look at the Jews. Every other artist in the world's a Jew, and still folks hate them. She thought of Mrs. Ellsworth, dear soul in New York who never made uncomplimentary remarks about Negroes, but frequently did about Jews of little Menuhin. She would say, for instance, he's a genius, not a Jew, hating to admit his ancestry. In Paris, Osceola especially loved the West Indian ballrooms Where the black colonials dance the beguine. And she liked the entertainers at Brick Tops. Sometimes, late at night there Osceola would take the piano and beat out a blues for Brick and the assembled guests. In her playing of Negro folk music, Osceola never doctored it up or filled it full of classical runs or fancy falsities. In the blues she made the bass notes throb like Tom Toms, the trebles cry like little flowers, flutes so deep in the earth and so high in the sky that they understood everything. And when the nightclub crowd would get up and dance to her blues and Bricktop would yell, hey. Hey. Osceola felt as happy as if she were performing a Chopin etude for the nicely gloved oohs and ah ers in a Krillian saloon. Music to Osceola demanded movement and expression, dancing and living to go with it. She liked to teach when she had the choir, the singing of those rhythmical Negro spirituals that possessed the power to pull colored folks out of their seats in the amen corner and make them prance and shout in the aisles for Jesus. Osceola's background was too well grounded in Mobile and Billy Kursan's minstrels and the sanctified churches where religion was a joy. To stare misty over the top of a grand piano like white folks and imagine that Beethoven had nothing to do with life, or that Schubert's love songs were only sublimations. Whenever Mrs. Ellsworth came to Paris, she and Osceola spent hours listening to symphonies and string quartets and pianists. Osceola enjoyed concerts, but seldom felt like her patron that she was floating on clouds of bliss. What Osceola really enjoyed most with Mrs. Ellsworth was not going to concerts, but going for trips on the little riverboats in the Seine or riding out to an old chateau when her patrons hired Renault, or to Versailles and listening to the aging white lady talk about the romantic history of France, the wars and uprising, the loves and intrigues of princes and kings and queens, about guillotines and lace handkerchiefs, snuff boxes and daggers. For Mrs. Ellsworth had loved France as a girl and had made a study of its life and lore. Once she used to sing simple little French songs rather well, too, and she always regretted that her husband never understood the lovely words or even tried to understand them. Osceola learned the accompaniments for all the songs Mrs. Ellsworth knew, and sometimes they tried them over together. The elderly white woman loved to sing when the colored girl played, and she even tried spirituals. Often when she stayed at the little Paris apartment, Osceola would go into the kitchen and cook something good for late supper, maybe an oyster soup or fried apples and bacon. And sometimes Osceola had pigs feet. There's nothing quite so good as a pig's foot, said Osceola after playing all day. Then you must have pig's feet, agreed Mrs. Ellsworth. And all this while, Osceola's development at the piano blossomed into perfection. Her tone became a singing wonder and her interpretations warm and individual. She gave a concert in Paris, one in Brussels and another in Berlin. She got the press notices all pianists crave. She had a picture in lots of European papers. She came home to New York a year after the stock market crashed and nobody had any money except folks like Mrs. Ellsworth, who had so much it would be hard to ever lose it all. Osceola's one time Pullman porter, now a coming doctor, was graduating from meharry that spring. Mrs. Ellsworth saw her dark protege go south to attend his graduation. With tears in her eyes. She thought that by now music would be enough after all these years under the best teachers. But alas, Osceola was not yet sublimated, even by Philippe. She wanted to see Pete. Osceola returned north to prepare for her New York concert in the fall. She wrote Mrs. Ellsworth at bar harbor that her doctor boyfriend was putting in one more summer on the railroad. Then in the autumn, he would intern at Atlanta, and Osceola said that he had asked her to marry him. Lord, she was happy. It was a long time before she heard from Mrs. Ellsworth. When the letter came, it was full of long paragraphs about the beautiful music Osceola had within her power to give the world. Instead, she wanted to marry and be burdened with children. Oh, my dear, My dear. Osceola, when she read it, thought she had done pretty well, knowing Pete this long and not having children. But she wrote back that she didn't see why children and music couldn't go together. Anyway, during the present depression, it was pretty hard for a beginning artist like herself to book a concert tour, so she might as well just be married a while. Pete, on his last run from St. Louis, had suggested that they have the wedding Christmas in the south, and he's impatient at that. He needs me. This time Mrs. Ellsworth didn't answer by letter at all. She was back in town in late September. In November, Osceola played at Town Hall. The critics were kind, but they didn't go wild. Mrs. Ellsworth swore it was because of Pete's influence on her protege. But he was in Atlanta, Osceola said. His spirit was here, Mrs. Ellsworth inside insisted. All the time you were playing on that stage, he was here, the monster, taking you out of yourself, taking you away from the piano. Why he wasn't, said Osceola. He was watching an operation in Atlanta. But from then on, things didn't go well between her and her patron. The White lady grew distinctly cold when she received Osceola in her beautiful drawing room among the jade vases and amber cups worth thousands of dollars. When Osceola would have to wait there for Mrs. Ellsworth, she was afraid to move, for fear she might knock something over that would take 10 years of a Harlemite's wages to replace if broken over the teacups. The aging Mrs. Ellsworth did not talk any longer about the concert tour she had once thought she might finance for Osceola if no recognized bureau took it up. Instead, she spoke of that, something she believed Osceola's fingers had lost since her return from Europe, and she wondered why anyone insisted on living in Harlem. I've been away from my own people so long, said the girl, I want to live right in the middle of them again. Why, Mrs. Ellsworth wondered further, did Osceola, at her last concert in a Harlem church, not stick to the classical items listed on the program? Why did she insert one of her own variations on the spirituals, a syncopated variation from the sanctified church that made an old colored lady rise up and cry from her pew? Glory to God. This evening. Yes, Hallelujah. Right at the concert, which seemed most undignified to Mrs. Ellworth and unworthy of the teachings of Philippe. And furthermore, why was Pete coming up to New York for Thanksgiving? And who had sent him the money to come? Me, said Osceola. He doesn't make anything interning. Well, said Mrs. Ellsworth, I don't think much of him. But Osceola didn't seem to care what Mrs. Ellsworth thought, for she made no defense. Thanksgiving evening in bed together in a Harlem apartment, Pete and Osceola talked about their wedding to come. They would have a big one in a church with lots of music, and Pete would give her a ring, and she would have on a white dress, light and fluffy, not silk. I hate silk, she said. I hate expensive things. She thought of her mother being buried in a cotton dress, for they were all broke when she died. Mother would have been glad about her marriage. Pete, Osceola said, hugging him in the dark, let's live in Atlanta where there are lots of colored people like us. What about Mrs. Ellsworth? Pete asked. She coming down to Atlanta for our wedding? I don't know, said Osceola. I hope not, because if she stops at one of them big hotels, I won't have you going to the back door to see her. That's one thing I hate about the South. Where there are white people, you have to go to the back door. Well, maybe she can stay with us, said Osceola. I wouldn't mind. I'll be damned, said Pete. You want to get lynched. But it happened that Mrs. Ellsworth didn't care to attend the wedding anyway. When she saw how love had triumphed over art, she decided she could no longer influence Osceola's life. The period of Osceola was over. She would send checks occasionally if the girl needed them. Besides, of course, something beautiful for the wedding. But that would be all these things she told her the week after Thanksgiving. And Osceola, my dear, I've decided to spend the whole winter in Europe. I sail on December 18th. Christmas, while you are marrying, I shall be in Paris with my precious Antonio Bas in January. He has an exhibition of oils in Madrid. And in the spring a new young poet is coming over whom I want to visit Florence. To really know Florence. A charming white haired boy from Omaha whose soul has been crushed in the West. I want to try to help him. He, my dear, is one of the few people who live for their art and nothing else. Ah, such a beautiful life. You will come and play for me once before I sail? Yes, Mrs. Ellsworth, said Osceola, genuinely sorry that the end had come. Why did white folks think you could live on nothing but art? Strange. Too strange. Too strange. The Parisian vases in the music room were filled with long stemmed lilies. That night when Osceola Jones came down from Harlem for the last time to play for Mrs. Dora Ellsworth. Mrs. Ellsworth had on a gown of black velvet and a collar of pearls about her neck. She was very kind and gentle to Osceola, as one would be to a child who has done a great wrong but doesn't know any better. But to the black girl from Harlem, she looked very cold and white. And her grand piano seemed like the biggest and heaviest in the world as Osceola sat down to play it with the technique for which Mrs. Ellsworth had paid as the rich and Aging white woman listened to the great roll of Beethoven sonatas and to the sea and moonlight of the Chopin nocturnes. As she watched the swaying dark, strong shoulders of Osceola Jones, she began to reproach the girl aloud for running away from art and music, for burying herself in Atlanta and love. Love for a man unworthy of lacing up her bootstraps, as Mrs. Ellsworth put it. You could shake the stars with your music, Osceola, depression or no depression. I could make you great. And yet you propose to dig a grave for yourself. Art is bigger than love. I believe you, Mrs. Ellsworth, said Osceola, not turning away from the piano. But being married won't keep me from making tours of being an artist. Yes, it will, said Mrs. Ellsworth. He'll take all the music out of you. No, he won't, said Osceola. You don't know, child, said Mrs. Ellsworth, what men are like. Yes, I do, said Osceola simply, and her fingers began to wander slowly up and down the keyboard, flowing into the soft and lazy syncopation of a Negro blues, a blues that deepened and grew into the rollicking jazz, then into an earth throbbing rhythm that shook the lilies in the Parisian vases of Mrs. Ellsworth's music room, louder than the voice of the white woman who cried that Osceola was deserting beauty, deserting her real self, deserting her hope in life. The flood of wild syncopation filled the house, then sank into the slow and singing blues with which it had begun. The girl at the piano heard the white woman saying, is this what I spent thousands of dollars to teach you? No, said Osceola simply, this is mine. Listen. How sad and gay it is. Blue and happy, laughing and crying. How white like you and black like me. How much like a man. How much like a woman. Warm as Pete's mouth. These are the blues I'm playing. Mrs. Ellsworth sat very still in her chair, looking at the lilies trembling delicately in the priceless Parisian vases while Osceola made the bass notes throb like Tom Toms deep in the earth. Oh, if I could holler sang the blues like a mountain jack, I'd go up on dem mountain Sang the blues and call my baby back. And I, said Mrs. Ellsworth, rising from her chair, would stand looking at the stars.
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Tegel F. Bouget
Joe Morton performed Langston Hughes's the Blues I'm Playing. I'm Tegel F. Bouget. One of the things I find most captivating about the blues I'm playing is that it is devoid of true villains and rather offers differing ideas about art, destiny and what matters most in one's life. It also beautifully conjures the atmosphere of the time. Both things are a large part of Langston Hughes great legacy and what makes him a writer for all time, not just his time. I'm Tegolev Bouget and I've thoroughly enjoyed sharing this great writer with you. Until next time, thanks for joining me for Selected Short Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivianne Woodward, and Magdalene Wrobleski. The readings are recorded by Miles B. Smith. Our mix engineer for this episode was Jennifer Nulsen. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.