Clifford's Blues (11 page)

Saturday, August 1, 1936

It's like party time. The Olympic Games began today in Berlin. And the band was driven to the
Lebensborn
club, which is in one of three connecting mansions way off the Dachauerstrasse between Dachau and Karlsfeld on the road that leads into Munich. It must have taken us close to an hour to get through the woods to the place. It was strange seeing people going about their business as we looked out of the rear of the truck. It's summer, so the women wore light dresses, kids played in the parks, the men wore no coats. We were feeling like special people. We hadn't had to drill, and the sergeant in charge of us said we'd have all the food and beer we wanted when we got to the club. “Just the way musicians ought to be treated,” he said. We didn't say anything, but we certainly agreed. We were silent because you never know when these guys are bullshitting you, setting you up for a billy club on the head or hands or kneecaps. We knew we couldn't fuck up. This was too good an arrangement to do that.

We had been reading about the Olympics and how the Americans had a track team with some colored boys on it. Gossip had it that all the freak bars had been reopened in Berlin and the signs against the Jews had been taken down.
Juden Unerwuenscht
. Well. They were still rounding up people, those damned Nazis. They brought a bunch of Gypsies into camp just a couple of weeks ago. I can't imagine what they ever did. They're supposed to not have much to do with people who aren't Gypsies. Most Europeans don't give two shits about them; treat 'em just like colored people back home.

The sign at the door of the building we went into read
Nisten von Gluck
. If what we'd been told and heard about the
Lebensborns
was true, that was sure right. Love nest, yeah. Legal prostitution, we'd heard, only no money was involved. The Nazis were providing free pussy to the
SS
. The girls only had to be “real Germans,” blond, no mistake, or the next best thing to it. Of course, the
SS
were supposed to be the cream of the crop. I guess the Nazis didn't want to stir that cup too much and turn up all those people like Dieter Lange. We guessed there were a lot of rooms upstairs in the “Nest of Happiness” (we called it the Pussy Palace), but we had a large room to practice and play in, a place where we could rest between sets, and a kitchen with a big table where we'd eat. The icebox was filled with food. We'd be under guard at all times and driven to and from the camp whenever we had to rehearse or play. The hours were going to be long on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, but it beat putting up with Dieter Lange and Anna and their who-struck-john. Looks like old Bernhardt is my angel now, so Dieter Lange better not fuck with me.

The piano is smaller than the one in Dieter Lange's house, but it's brand new, probably from some poor Jew's store. I thought I knew a lot of crooks in Storyville. They stole things and ran away. These Nazis, now, they just take stuff from right under your nose and dare you to say anything: “Gimme that! What? You don't like it?
BANG!
”

Thursday, August 27, 1936

Now there's a war in Spain. First Italy and Ethiopia and now Spain. Civil war. I liked Spain. I guess Werner's prediction is going to come true, but right now the Games are what everyone's still talking about.

When I saw his pictures in the papers and magazines, I thought Jesse Owens was the most beautiful man in the world. He looked like a black eagle or a voodoo spirit rushing down the track. He's won four medals and set records all over the place. (I'd set some, too, if they just gave me a little running room.) Of course, with all this Aryan superman shit, the Germans were not too happy that this black boy did so well. There are more papers and magazines around the “Nest of Happiness” than back in camp, where you have to hustle and scheme to get them and then they're days, even weeks old. I smuggled a letter out to the
U.S.
Olympic Team, Berlin, to Jesse Owens. I thought he would get my letter and because he was so famous and because the Nazis were putting the best face on everything, he might be able to demand my release. I imagined that a long, official Mercedes-Benz would drive up to the camp, that the guards would click their heels and salute, and that the American ambassador, Mr. William Edward Dodd, and Jesse Owens would get out and go right to Eicke's or Karl's office (Eicke is now also the inspector of all the camps), and when they came out I'd be sent in and Eicke or Karl would apologize and I'd drive away with Jesse and the ambassador. The fact that Mr. Dodd was from North Carolina wouldn't have mattered a bit. But the Games are over and at thirty-six I'm too old for this kind of daydream.

At Dachau things go on exactly the same, except this
Lebensborn
business. Who back home would believe I have a band? Not much of a band, but I suppose the guys in it haven't caused any problems in camp, so Bernhardt picked them, even though there are probably greater musicians here. Today, while workers were fixing up the dance floor and the bandstand, Bernhardt said we could play blues, but we shouldn't call them that because, of course, they were
Entartete
. “But get ready for the times, Cleef. Get used to them and you will survive, okay? Make up new names for the old numbers, understand?” I asked like what. He said, “Something fancy, French, see. Like, you won't say ‘The Man I Love' but—ah—” He snapped his fingers.
“L'homme que j'adore,”
he said. “I heard that somewhere. Just make up titles, and when you sing, change some of the words. You're no
dummkopf
, Cleef. You know what you have to do. No
Neger Musik
.” I got the point. I asked if he could get me some scores—stuff from Benny Goodman, since we had this guy who doubled on clarinet and flute, and some stuff from Ellington, since he featured a lot of trumpet with Cootie Williams. That way I could use the guy with the French horn as a soloist. I could make up the rest. He said he could. He was rubbing his hands and smiling. He called for a couple of cognacs and we drank as I listened to the band going every which-a-way.

Drinking with Bernhardt was like drinking with the gangster who owns the place you play in. You're always glad when he leaves. I had enough problems. This band was not going to sound like anything Freddie Johnson or Willy Lewis could put together in Amsterdam or Paris. I hoped it would sound bad enough for Bernhardt to give me some people who he'd let play brass, and more reeds. But he'd made it sound like this was it and I wasn't going to be fool enough to push for more. So I set up my front line:

Clarinet/flute. This is Ernst, a joker who looks evil all the time. Tall and thin. Moves slow like if he doesn't, something will snap loose. He's heard Benny Goodman, but not Barney Bigard or Garvin Bushell. Got a tough, pure sound, like for a symphony, which is where he played. Ernst is a Red.

The boy on harmonica, Oskar, is a Green. Got quick eyes. Scratch your nuts or flick a cigarette and Oskar's watching. I hear he played while a buddy worked the street crowds, picking their pockets clean. Seen people like him all over Berlin. Can't read, either. Short, and even though he has to keep himself clean like every other prisoner, he looks dirty.

Moritz is a Pink. He plays the violin. Like Ernst, he reads music. Chubby fellow. Moody, and we can all see that he thinks his shit don't stink, even if he is in Dachau. A couple of days ago when we took a break from practicing, he came up to me and said, “How did you get
that?
” He cut his eyes to my green triangle. “Who do
you
belong to?”

I told him right quick, “Shut up, faggot,” and for a minute there he looked confused.

“Sorry,” he said, but he didn't mean it. I walked on away. Sum-bitch trying to fuck up my play just 'cause
he
couldn't get his
own
arrangements together.

Teodor's a Red. Says he could play trumpet if they gave him one instead of the French horn (which is all they had in the storage where they keep things from prisoners who've died or were freed and left in a big hurry) because he's a pretty good “Hotter,” he says. Yessir, they've all heard of hot jazz and think because I'm colored I've got to be good. Teodor's got good jaws; it's just the damned horn that gives off the soft, round sound. And he's a little slow on the tonguing, but he can sure carry the back line without trouble, and read, too.

First time I ever saw accordions in a band was here in Europe. Not my idea of a jazz (okay, swing) instrument, but hell, I stuck Alex in the back line because I didn't know where else to put him. He doesn't read, either. Like Oskar, he's a Green. Probably worked the same swindle Oskar did—but maybe with a monkey and a tin cup to help. He can do some crazy things with that Hohner, though.

Fritz is the guy on cello; he's a Red. He's always apologizing. If he plays
doo
instead of
daa
, he hears the mistake if no one else does and apologizes. He apologizes for wanting to speak to you or even if
he
gives you a cigarette. He can saw, though, and read his ass off. I let him do trombone parts.

On the side there's me, piano and vocals, Franz on the drums, and Sam on guitar. Franz is a Black—a vagrant, an antisocial, a race defiler, whatever they want you to be—and behaves like a drummer. Shows off too much; likes to rap hard with his sticks on the high-hat. Told him to make some brushes somehow, someway. But he's tough, got good control, can pick up when the rhythm's falling apart. Takes good direction, because, of course, he thinks I know it all. And he's heard of Zutty Singleton and Big Sid Catlett and Cozy Cole. Does some cute things on the snare.

Sam is a Gold/Red, a Jew, and really works on the gitbox, feeding light-line rhythms in case Franz falls off. Got a strong wrist like a banjo man. Franz acts like colored, tries to talk like colored, because he speaks a little English. Everything is “Man” this and “Man” that. A real wish-he-was hepcat. Sam is calm and careful; he tries to stay out of everybody's way, but he gives the impression that if you push him, you can only push so far.

Saturday, August 29, 1936

I thought by now that every Jehovah's Witness in Germany was in a camp, but yesterday the Nazis had another big roundup. Maybe now they have them all.

We're sounding as good as we possibly can. With what I have to work with, it'd take a miracle to sound better. Some of the local
SA
men brought in a bundle of black dress shoes and black tuxedos (no navy blue or plum-colored ones), white shirts and black bow ties. Probably cleaned out two or three haberdashers. “This isn't going to be a bumshow,” Bernhardt keeps saying. “No one wants to dance to a band dressed in gray prison suits. You must look smart!” Our bandboxes are red, white, and black, the Nazi colors. The red, gold, and black, the German national colors, are sort of in the background these days. The bandboxes also have some of that glitter dust on them. I hope someone takes pictures so The Cliff will have something to remember when this business is all over. “Cliff Pepperidge and His Wittelsbachers.” The Wittelsbachs came even before the Counts of Dachau, they say, and everyone loved them. That was a long time ago.

Anyway, we start in two weeks, when all the work on the place will be finished—the rooms, the restaurant, the lounges, the dressing rooms. Ah—a-one, a-two, one, two, three, daaah!

Wednesday, September 2, 1936

“It's the new law,” I heard Anna tell Dieter Lange this morning. “Lily told me. Every
SS
man is to make four babies, if not with his wife, with some other woman.” She laughed.

Monday, Sept. 7, 1936

Fire! Man, what a fire! It was Friday morning. I was still sleeping, the wonderful smell of hung hams and sausages in my nose, when I first heard the sirens; they were close, not like the ones over in the camp when a prisoner's escaped, or tried to, and everyone's hauled to the Appellplatz. No, these were close. Outside, I saw when I ran upstairs and looked out the window, there was that early morning fog that's so wet and cold it stings when you first go out. “Fire! Fire!” I heard, and then I saw, boiling through the fog, a busy, black bunch of clouds. From upstairs I heard Dieter Lange shouting,
“Brand? Wo?”
I heard him clomp to his own window; then I heard Anna's footsteps. They went to the window, too. I ran back downstairs and pulled on pants, jacket, and shoes, by which time Dieter Lange was hollering, “Cleef! Cleef!” I am sure we ran out together with different feelings. He wanted to see what was happening to a fellow
SS
officer; I wanted to see these invincible bastards burn up. We ran down the street into the fog and smoke through which I could see these big flames licking at the gray sky. More sirens and the fire trucks, but I could see from where we stopped that fire trucks could not save Winkelmann's house. Dieter Lange and the other men grabbed hoses, shouted to each other, hauled the hoses this way and that.

We calfactors grabbed, too, and shouted and waved and pointed, but, really, we weren't doing anything except letting ourselves be moved as the firemen and the
SS
moved. “Burn!” I heard a guy I didn't know mutter, “Burn!” He wasn't the only one. “Good!” I heard, and “Take that, cocksucker! Sonofabitch!
SS
!” These were whispers that ran like radio broadcasts for those who were tuned in. And the flames were jumping out of Winkelmann's—Winkelmann, who came to Dieter Lange's for the parties, Winkelmann from Dusseldorf, with the skinny, buck-toothed wife with the high-butt behind. We could see the
SS
consoling Winkelmann, and the
SS
wives, still in robes, hair flying everywhere, gathering around his wife. I never loved a smell so much in my life as I did then, of wood, plaster, tarpaper, and things I didn't know, all burning up. Little bits flew away from the house and sank down through the fog and smoke to the ground, or on calfactors and
SS
alike. Fire. It showed us they could be destroyed. I think we had come to believe they couldn't. What a splendid smell.