Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

only wanted to hear that new music coming up from New Orleans, jazz she called it. The madam said it made her customers want to tap their feet and move their bodies and that’s what she wanted—men to keep moving their dollars out of their pockets into hers.
    A.C. looked up as John walked toward the concealed doors but didn’t break a chord in his rendition of the Memphis blues. As good as the piano man was, John sided with Miz Zeola. Tonight he didn’t want his poker players crying into their bourbons-and-branch over some woman gone to another man. He wanted their minds fixed on straights, full houses, and aces over queens.
    “Game’s ’bout to start.” John leaned over the top of the upright. “Can you give us a little bit of that jazz music?”
    A.C. stopped and pulled down his lit cigarette from the top of the piano. He narrowed his already small eyes at John and went back to playing the blues. John gave a half-smile and pushed open the picture-frame concealed door and walked into the smaller of the two smoke-filled poker rooms.
    He took a quick survey of the occupants while nodding his polite good evenings. Two men looked up from the liquor Miz Zeola had so generously poured for their wait.
    “You here to play?” The dark-skinned speaker, dressed in a plaid shirt and striped pants, had obviously spruced himself up for the evening.
    “Miz Zeola’s wants to know if you needs yo’ drinks freshened? Two mo’ players will be here directly. I’m the pot man.” John took in the look of the other player without letting him see his eyes shift in the man’s direction.
    While the fellow had on a starched white collar and the beginnings of a suit, the second player didn’t look much more prosperous than the first. Since John’s promotion three weeks ago, his cut of the cash put in the gamblers’ pot had gone from a straight five dollars to a dollar per player and ten cents on every dollar in the pot. The trouble was he was still assigned to the small games where a big pot might be forty dollars with a top of six players. That gave him ten dollars a game, but in the three weeks since Zeola had changed the rules, games like that had been hard to come by. Still, his newfound wealth was enough to move him out of the storeroom and up to the second-best room on the top floor of Miz Brown’s rooming house.
    Without waiting for an answer, John walked over to the small round table set up as a makeshift bar and picked up the opened bottle of bourbon and the branch water sitting nearby. He splashed the dark liquid into the men’s glasses, three quarters full. He topped each off with just a few drops of the branch. Both players nodded their approval, and the one in the starched collar slapped John on the back, just as the trick door pulled open.
    “Whoo whee, look at that purty checkered suit the pot man’s got on.” Pete, one of Zeola’s long-standing regulars, stepped into the room.
    When he wasn’t building fake columns in the whorehouse parlor, Pete did carpenter work for the white folks who lived on the outskirts of Nashville. Pistol Pete, as he ordered the girls to call him, came in about every two weeks for servicing and a poker game. He was a loud talker but a small-time player. John nodded his good evenings to the newcomers.
    “I brought me a friend from Memphis. Git him one of them drinks, pot man, and don’t skimp on the liquor.” Pete pulled out one of Zeola’s straight-backed chairs as he pointed to the new man.
    John reached down deep to pull out his best meek expression as he lifted two glasses off the liquor table and poured each almost to the top with bourbon.
    “Pot man, here, is from the country. Way out in the country, the girls tell me.” Pete swigged down half the glass in one gulp.
    John guessed this was not his first drink of the evening.
    “This here’s Bubba.” Pete started to slur his words.
    “Pleased to meet you, Mr…. er.” John held out a hand to the newcomer who reached to shake it to loud laughter from Pistol Pete.
    “Whoo whee. That’s how you know they is from the country. Manners fallin’ all over theyself.” Pete finished off the glass and handed it to John.
    The first two players exchanged nervous looks as Bubba sat down. John was certain he saw the starched-collared one pat at the pocket where he kept his watch.
    “Let’s get this game on.” Bubba’s liquor glass remained untouched. “Name’s Johnson. Who’s dealin? Anybody but Pete.”
    All eyes