Jazz and upset writers.

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Charles Yager

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(Summer, Harlem, 1920s)

Charles stared blankly at his typewriter. He had written only two words. The words 'the time...' Sprawled across the white paper, mocking him to the brink of madness.
It was all because of party upstairs. The jazz music was still going, the loud thumping noise that shook his ceiling and screams of joy and drunkness.
He took a robe and tied it swiped it over his pajamas. He fixed his dark brown hair and his glasses.
Charles marched angrily upstairs and soon met the pounding door that held that party.
He knocked, exactly three times. No more no less.
 
Both arms rested on the armrests of the chair, the glass of wine held loosely in her upraised right hand, breathing.

Sandra considered herself a woman of class. Social drinking wasn't beneath this definition and she did it with grace. She wore a frilled skirt, black with a tasteful split up the right leg that stopped just above her knee with a casual white blouse. Her hair was dark and worn short, just above her ears, kissing the nape of her neck. Honey brown eyes and tanned skin: these were the only factors keeping her from much persecution as a colored woman. The white blood of her mother was strong enough to blend with that of her "nigger" father.

The knock was faint. She nearly dismissed it as an attack on the coffee table in demand of another round. Under the blare of the trumpet and the beat of the drum, the sound was all but nonexistent. Sitting in the armchair nearest the door with her legs drawn together and tilted to the left and ankles crossed, she doubted anyone else misheard the sound beneath the smooth hum of the alto sax.

Knowingly, she rose to her feet, as the actual host would not be there to greet the newcomer. Opening the door with her free hand, she stood with a small, red smile of greeting, expecting another soul casually dressed to join them. She didn't anticipate a dissheveled young man in his sleepwear to be outside with a less-than-happy expression on his face.

"May I," she started slowly, confusion creeping over her small features, "be of some assistance, sir?"
 
Charles took a deep breath. "Surely you could stop your whole... Party. by any chance?" His passive aggressive voice faded under the loud trumpets and drunk flapper girls. He peeked even into the room then looking back at her. His eyes met others', it was either runny makeup of dial eyed pupils of young men.
"Your whole get-up has been going on from night to dawn!"
 
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Sandra put some of her weight onto the door in order to look over her right shoulder at the party-goers. The glance was brief but absolute. The tan skinned woman gave him a sympathetic look. "I have no say over the party, sir," she apologized. "But the liquor and wine are on their last rounds. Two more and they should be filing out. Though, I can't promise they'll leave quietly, I'm afraid."

She looked back again before returning her attention to the disheveled man. "Would you care for a drink to relax?"
 
"No... I don't mess around with bootleggers. That's like paying with wooden dimes." He said, fixing his glasses.
The smell if alcohol and the music permeated his skin.
 
"These old dusty bones of ours don't get any younger, sir," she said. "All you want is to relax. And to be honest," she said, taking a leisurely sip of her wine. "Wooden dimes build dreams of earning real ones. Don't be such a pessimist."
 
" I'll have a drink, but I need to speak to whoever hosts this party." He retorted.
 
Sandra gracefully righted herself and opened the door with a flourish, smoothly turning around to snag a glass of wine from the last passing tray. She handed it over to the man.

"His name is George," she told him. "He should be manning the bar."
 
Charles wasn't really fond of this sort of stuff but he took a small swig, biting his lip.
"Thank you," Charles said as he pushed through to the crown and to the bar.
"Can anybody direct me to George? I'm looking for that fool." He said from the bar.
 
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