The story starts here
As Sam turned the corner outside her door, Lucinda heard his footsteps come to a halt. She listened carefully as she suspected the worst. She closed her eyes as she heard what she feared. Sam’s voice say, “It’s been a long time, Charlie.”
As Sam turned the corner outside her door, Lucinda heard his footsteps come to a halt. She listened carefully as she suspected the worst. She closed her eyes as she heard what she feared. Sam’s voice say, “It’s been a long time, Charlie.”
Charlie was there, right outside her door. Damn! Lucinda opened the small drawer to the vanity and stuffed the business card way in the back. When she turned around, her pianist stood in the door, brow furrowed, glaring at her as though he were trying burn a hole in her forehead.
“Stop looking at me like that, Charlie,” she snapped. When he didn’t move so much as a muscle, she let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, how much did you hear while you were skulking around out there?”
“Enough.” Charlie was a man of few words. He could play a piano until it smoked, but he probably said less than a hundred words a day. He was a big man, his appetite for food only bested by his appetite for music. A toothpick perpetually stuck out of the side of his lips, and he always smelled of aftershave and sweat. From the moment Ben Webber had taken over Lucinda’s career, he had sworn his allegiance to the man. He never liked Sam. Even though he hadn’t seen Sam for 15 years, hadn’t even mentioned his name in that amount of time, he had remained acutely aware of his reputation. “Saw him come in here. Thought I better hang close.”
“Oh, for God sake, why do you and Ben think he’s some kind of a threat? He may be an ass, but he’s not dangerous. I can take care of myself, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. I was hangin’ close to protect him from you.”
Lucinda smiled and rolled her eyes as a soft chuckle broke from her throat.
“When you gonna tell Ben about this?” he asked.
The seriousness came back to her face. “I’m not. And neither are you,” she said firmly.
“Lucinda, you and me, we’ been together a long time.” He was obviously choosing his words carefully. He looked at the floor and removed the toothpick from his mouth and studied it, too embarrassed to look at her as he spoke. “You’re like my kid sister.”
“Charlie…”
“No. Listen. Sam ain’t what he makes himself out to be. I hear things.”
“Charlie…” She stopped short when she realized she was raising her voice. She walked over to the door and shut it to keep out any other prying ears. She turned to her friend and whispered in an almost frantic tone. “I know. You think I haven’t heard the same stories about Sam? I’m not afraid of him. But we are talking about Columbia Records. Co-Lum-bee-yah!” She separated each syllable as though pronouncing it slowly and distinctly might help him to grasp the intensity of her point. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It’s Sam. Sam. Don’t that mean nothin’ to you?”
“Everyone seems to think that I can’t take care of myself. That I can’t make my own decisions about my own career. Well I can! I need to find out for myself if I have what it takes to be on top. I’ve paid my dues in this business, and dammit, I want my shot!” she said, poking her index finger at her own heart for emphasis. “ All I want to do is meet with these guys at the hotel tomorrow, just to talk. I swear I won’t sign anything without talking to Ben, and I won’t leave you behind. You and me are a team, and we’ll stick together no matter what happens. If they take me, they take you, too.”
“I ain’t interested.”
Lucinda took a deep breath and put a gentle hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You’re lying,” she said quietly. “You can’t tell me that you would turn down this opportunity if it were offered to you.” she ran her hand down his massive arm and took his huge hand in her tiny fingers and squeezed hard as she looked into his eyes with that doe eyed look that always melted his heart. “Please keep my secret, Charlie. I need you to trust me on this.”
Charlie looked down at Lucinda’s dress, noticing it for the first time. “As I recollect…” his southern accent drew each word out long and lazily. “You made some decisions about your career in the past that didn’t work out so good. If it weren’t for Ben draggin’ you back down to earth, you’d be in some pretty dark place right about now.” He looked in her eyes, searching for some sign of recognition to his words. “Do I have to remind you of the evening gown incident?”
Lucinda shuddered. He had to bring that up again. She’d never live it down.
***
In December of 1963 Ben had gotten Lucinda booked to play the Black and White Ball at the Plaza Hotel on New Years Eve. It was the most significant booking of her short career thus far. This was no smoky little dive that smelled of old tobacco, spilled beer and body odor. This was the Plaza. Shiny waxed dance floors and golden chandeliers, white tablecloths and waiters in tuxedos and polished shoes, the smell of Gardenias and expensive perfume. She had been chosen to share the stage with some of the biggest names in the business, and it would be the most exciting night of her life. She was going to be showcased as an exciting newcomer along with some Italian trumpet player named Chuck Mangione. There was no place to go but up. Ben had kept his promise. He had protected her from the wolves and moved her career in the right direction.
But money was still tight, and there was still the matter of her attire for the evening. The famous Black and White ball was nothing to take lightly. Not only would she be a performer, sharing the stage with Miles Davis, Peggy Lee, and Louis Armstrong, but she’d also be a guest at the most coveted New Years Eve Party on the Eastern Seaboard. Her gown had to be exquisite. But everything she saw as she shopped was way too expensive. Her only recourse was to buy a McCalls sewing pattern and elicit the help of her neighbor to construct a dress of her choosing.
But while window shopping on her way to pick out a pattern, she saw the dress in the window of the Macy’s store. The dress. The only dress that she could possibly accept under these circumstances. It was perfect. All white with a full flirty skirt and a black sash that tied on the side. It was all satin and lace with a dainty neckline and long delicate lacy sleeves. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen, and she knew she had to have it.
There was only one on the rack in her size. She went into the dressing room and slipped into it and stared at herself, mesmerized by how elegant she looked. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. She slipped the tag out of the sleeve, looked at the price and grimaced.
“God, forgive me, just this once,” she prayed. With that, she gently folded it under her winter coat and slipped her pants and sneakers back on. Lifting the curtain of the dressing room, she saw no one who might question her, and walked out of the store.
She hadn’t reached the street before a hand clamped on her shoulder from behind.
After a quick bail hearing, Lucinda made her one phone call to Charlie. Ben, Charlie and few of their buddies had been sitting around Charlie’s apartment playing five card stud. When Charlie picked up his phone Lucinda’s voice was chattering frantically away on the other end.
“Charlie, thank God you’re there. Listen, I’m in Jail on West 35th street. You gotta come bail me out. Can you get a hundred together? I’ll pay you back. You gotta come get me. But you can’t tell Ben. Promise me you won’t tell him. Charlie? Charlie, are you there?”
Charlie had taken the phone away from his ear and was staring at it as though it were an alien clasped in his fist. He knew what he had to do. There wasn’t even a question, though he didn’t like it. He placed the receiver back to his ear and said “sit tight, Kid. You’ll be outta there in a few hours.” Then he hung up. He reached into his fridge, grabbed a couple bottles of beer and quietly and calmly returned to the table and plopped one of the bottles of suds in front of Ben. He sat down across from him and picked up his cards. “Ben,” he said, “I got good news and bad news for you.”
Ben’s eyebrow raised.
“The good news is, I got nothing. Not even a lousy pair.” He tossed down his cards as he watched Ben eagerly reach for the mound of poker chips in the center if the table. “The bad news is…”
Lucinda shared a small cell with a couple of street walkers and a woman sleeping off a three day drinking binge. She sulked alone in the corner as she waited for hours for Charlie to bail her out. It would be just like him to leave her there for a half a day just to teach her a lesson. She still couldn’t believe she had tried something so stupid, but she had yet to shed a tear over it. She was too angry with herself for that. But for now she just had to find a way to keep all this from Ben.
Hearing footsteps down the narrow hallway housing the cells, she perked up along with everyone else to see if it were her turn to get sprung. The police officer stopped at her cell and unlocked the door. “Hastings, you’ve made bail. Follow me.”
Good old Charlie!
Relieved, she scrambled to her feet and fell in line behind the cop as she scurried to keep up with him. But curiously, he passed the door leading to the station and went straight for a small room. When he opened the door, he stepped aside. Lucinda peered into a large interrogation room with only a metal table and 2 chairs. On the table sat a large white cardboard box, and standing behind the table was Ben, holding something in his hand. In a chair at the end of the table sat a strange white man she had never seen before wearing a grey bowler and an expensive houndstooth coat. He seemed to be troubled, like he would rather be anywhere else but here.
Lucinda cautiously stepped inside the room, as the door slammed behind her and she heard the click of a locking mechanism. She snapped her head back at the door, and then back at the two men in the room. The other man wasn’t a police officer. Could he be a lawyer?
Ben grabbed a chair, moved it out from under the table and into the center of the room.
“Oh, Ben! Ben, I’m so sorry. I never meant to…” she glanced in the direction of the stranger. ”Who… who’s he?” she asked nodding toward the stranger.
“I’m so sorry. Where are my manners? Baby, let me introduce Mr. Eugene Greenberg. He’s the general manager of Macy’s department store.”
Oh… God! Lucinda’s heart stopped beating for a moment.
“After I made a few phone calls and found out what the charges were, it took me all afternoon to track him down and convince him to drop the charges against you…”
Lucinda felt herself smile as she took a breath of relief. Leave it to Ben! Her husband was the most brilliant man on the planet!
“…under the condition of course that you were punished to his satisfaction.”
She looked down at Ben’s hands, and focused on what he had been holding. In his hand was a rather large wooden hairbrush. She gulped.
Now she saw what was happening here. This was a nightmare. She wanted to run, but the door was locked. She looked at Eugene Greenberg. He looked like a kindly older gentleman with wise, pale blue eyes behind coke bottle glasses. There wasn’t the satisfied smirk of vengeance in his eyes, only that of compassion. She couldn’t be angry with him. She looked back at Ben who was experimentally slapping the back of the hairbrush against his palm.
“Um… is...is there anything I can say to get out of this? Anything at all?” her voice trembled.
Ben nodded. “Sure there is, Baby.”
Lucinda placed a hand over her heart and breathed. Thank God, he was giving her an out. An apology? A promise to never do anything like this again? Sign a statement that says she’ll never go into Macy’s again? Whatever it was, she’d do it.
“All you have to say is that you’re innocent. That you were arrested because of a misunderstanding. That all of this is a huge mistake. And I’ll believe you.” He flipped the hairbrush in the air and skillfully caught it at the handle. “I’ll back you up a hundred and ten percent, and we’ll fight this thing together. I’ll believe you because… you’d never lie to me.” His eyes locked with hers. “Right?”
This wasn’t an out. This was a guilt trip and she was trapped inside. She felt herself gasp for air, and then let it out in slow, broken spurts. “Right.” She whispered. She moved her eyes around the room and caught the sight of something she had missed. There was a huge mirror embedded in the wall. She had seen enough episodes of Dragnet to know what that was. It was a two-way mirror. She could only see her reflection, but anyone on the other side could actually see into the room without her seeing them. A tear spilled out of her eye onto her cheek. “Ben, can’t we do this at home? Please?”
“I’m afraid not. Mr. Greenberg has to get back to work, and I promised him we wouldn’t take up the rest of his evening. Let’s get this over with, okay?” Ben didn’t look angry. He looked sad, hurt, disappointed… and backed into a corner.
Lucinda began to cry. She leaned against the door and wrapped her arms around her body. Ben knew that she wasn’t going to cooperate. She never had in the past, and he didn’t expect it this time. He walked over to her and lifted her off her feet moving her horizontally so that she was face down under his arm. She began to sob almost hysterically. Ben carried her over to the chair and sat down, placed her over his lap and wrapped his arm around her waist so that she couldn’t move. She faced the two way mirror and looked up, imagining the entire New York Police Force watching her from the other side. She felt Ben’s fingers in the waistband of her polyester pants as they were yanked down past her cheeks. She clenched hard as she waited for the first blow.
CRACK!
The hairbrush came down on her backside with a resounding echo that reverberated off the walls of the empty room. Lucinda howled as the pain blossomed to every nerve ending in her body. Before she had time to recover…
CRACK!
The other cheek took a blow more painful than the first. Lucinda’s body bucked and her face contorted in lines of unadulterated agony.
CRACK!
They were coming more fast and furious as she tried desperately to roll off Ben’s lap, but as usual, there was no budging so much as an inch. All the kicking and screaming and struggling only exhausted her until she reached a point of complete resignation. She lay limp, drained and prostrate like a rag doll while Ben mercilessly administered forty blows to her bare bottom in full force. Her tears formed a puddle on the interrogation room floor, as the screaming stopped and was replaced by pitiful sobs.
When Ben was through, he lifted her waistband back to her waist before he stood her up. Lucinda’s knees buckled and she gingerly slid to the floor in a heap and cried at the feet of her husband with her face in her hands.
Ben moved to the other side of the room and whispered something to Mr. Greenberg that Lucinda couldn’t hear through her sobs. The two men shook hands, Ben handed the offending hair brush to him. Mr. Eugene Greenberg tapped on the mirror, and the door was unlocked and he left the room.
Ben came back over to Lucinda and sat on the floor in front of her, crossing his legs in his good pants as he waited for her to calm her hysterics. When she had quieted down a bit he said, “There was one more condition to Mr. Greenberg dropping the charges against you.”
Lucinda looked up. Oh, God, what more did the man want? To cut off her hand? Maybe her first born? She lifted her head out of her hands and waited for the bad news. Ben reached for the large white box on the table and placed it gently in front of her.
“I had to buy the dress you tried to steal.”
***
Lucinda pushed the memory of that day aside and shook her head. “C’mon, Charlie. I was a stupid kid then. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“And sneakin’ around, having secret meetings behind your husband’s back with a man he can’t trust… this makes you grown?”
Lucinda regarded her giant friend for a moment. “Charlie, you’re probably the best piano player in the business. Haven’t you ever just wanted… more?”
Charlie placed the toothpick back in his lips and turned to walk out of the room. “When you gonna be satisfied with all that God gave you?”
"When God gives me what satisfies me."
“Will you keep my secret?” she called after him.
Charlie turned back and eyed her for a moment. “That’s some dress. You wear that dress on stage tonight, if I know Ben there’ll be hell to pay.” He turned his back and walked away. “See you at lunch.”
To be continued
To be continued
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