Velbert “Vox” Henderson | The Velvet Hammer

A storm is weighing heavily on Velbert Henderson, though he’s currently being serenaded by a beautiful lady. Sarah Vaughan is the spirit, lifting his; 1948 vintage, a genie unbottled, summoned to the present, through the conjuring of black glassiness and grooves. He imagines he can feel her breath on the side of his face as she sings of the wisdom of a Nature Boy and the audacity of daring to love with no guarantee of love in return. He likes this version just as much as the Nat King Cole version, but he’s not falling for the hoodoo. He’s lived long enough to know that records stand the test of time, but love — lasting or even being found — he’s not so sure.

Tonight Velbert has a nagging taste for something sweet. It’s unusual, the craving, in a man so disciplined. His life-long, guilty pleasure is beignets, but he hasn’t had them, or a taste for them, since leaving New Orleans and all that left him. So, 24-year-old Sassy will have to do — the sound of her warm cocoa, thick, heavy on the cream.

Listening to her is dreaming. He imagines her an angel singing — a capella, no less; the sound of it landing like a secret, a merciful white lie, each note a wisp of sweet nothingness blown from a dandelion, floating in his direction, wish intact. He’s tempted to make one — a wish – but he’s too smart for that, making wishes and whatnot. Wishes are collectibles gathering dust, unanswered prayers, fool’s gold at the ends of rainbows.

Known on air as “Vox” Henderson, his friends call him “Vel.” Friend is a strong word. He has few of them, and none in Beacon. A new and instantly favorite deejay at WDRK, Velbert’s only been in Beacon City for a year. In a town that boasts more than its fair share of Peculiars, Velbert is classified as Human.  He had no say in the matter but it makes him no difference, since he has his own definition of human that he’s not sure even he fits. Bugs him that the opposite of Peculiar is human, but, in spite of himself, he’s biased.

Since becoming a popular radio personality 8 years ago in Chicago, he’s prided himself on working smarter than hard, keeping it cerebral; no callouses, headaches, heart attacks. There are better places to work up a sweat than a 9 to 5. Jazz is a tougher sell than popular music these days and this station, though the oldest and best in the town, is a smaller fish than his old station in the Windy City. He had to hit the ground running in Beacon, cultivate other lucrative pursuits, multiple streams of income no less averse to traditional banking than the Payola that previously padded the mattress. To his mind, the IRS is a jealous ex with no need to know his current and very personal affairs.

Things grow under the belly of damp things like Beacon. Crime — way past adolescence — is fully grown and old enough to assign expiration dates to unsuspecting lives. So Velbert hit the ground running, alright, but on his toes. In addition to running numbers from the comfort of his office chair at the station, where he breaks neither a sweat, nor his pride he also brokers information, which is often encoded and shared on the air in an auditory game of hidden in plain sight.

Steady, informative, entertaining, improvisational, as needed, Velbert Henderson is a tribal drum. Even the movements of the Beacon police have been broadcast right under their (often crooked) noses.

In addition to the regular slate of programming on the station, Velbert brings his own sudsy contribution to the soap opera-like happenings of Beacon, a wakeful city that occasionally sleeps, but only does so with one, moonlit, teary eye open.

Born and raised in New Orleans, he’s street-wise but refined. He speaks, dresses, and lives by any means necessary — and necessarily well. On his own since age 15, he’s a kind-hearted hustler with mostly good intentions. Only deals in crime that pays. Has a preference for the victimless variety. No beggar, he does the choosing. But he has his limits and his secrets, and a survival instinct he’s, so far, been unable to shake. Never gives anybody a chance to hang a red light on him.

Charismatic, self-assured, introspective, observant, Velbert Henderson rarely makes the same mistake twice. To his observation, mistakes get you killed.  After a few, brief, early years of being on the wrong side of one deal or another, he can certainly give or take a beating, if he’s caught off-guard, and these days, he isn’t. Anyone who’s ever intended to do Velbert harm has had to look him in the eye. He insists.  It’s a lesson he learned the hard way back home in New Orleans as he sat in a beautifully appointed, unseasonably cold parlor redolent of warm pastry.

In a town with such a complicated criminal hierarchy as Beacon, things — like fingers and situations — can get “sticky,” so he maintains a long and loving relationship with a very special .38 he jokingly refers to as his lawyer. Suffice it so say, he never leaves home without “counsel.”

Wits and street smarts to spare, he’s managed to remain neutral when possible. Still being a bit of a mystery to the more restless natives has worked to his advantage. Velbert has no enemies — and intends to keep it that way.   Though he’s loyal to no one in particular, he’s got a soft spot for Peculiars, roots for underdogs as a general, if unspoken, rule. Mistaking Velbert’s kindness for weakness, however, would be a costly miscalculation.

Martinis dirty. Scotches neat. That’s the philosophy. Velbert lives “dirty” enough to be clean in every other aspect of his life – clean shaven, light-drinker, ruthlessly organized. Even his apartment is impeccable. He appreciates fashion and knows the value of owning designer suits, by owning, he means wearing. Velbert’s clothes never wear him. Outside of the gym, he’s never seen without a tie. He’s slim-waisted and barrel chested, with a wide stance, accentuated by a strong-shouldered boxer’s physique. More than one golden gloves victory put money in his pocket as a younger man. Now, at 35, he cuts a fine figure – a Fine Brown Frame, so-to-speak.

To see Velbert is to experience all 6’4” of him. Arguably caramelized into being, he’s a tipsyfying, buttered scotch of a man, slathered in a light, even coating of melanation, at the core, a confection, made of sweet, hot sauce that has cooled — and hardened over time – his skin (like his voice) sinfully smooth, uninterrupted by facial hair or wrinkles. His lips are an entirely different and often-discussed matter, as his otherwise hard features are softened by them. The contrast is as striking as the man himself.

Women watch him as he walks by — usually away— knowing there’s something behind that swagger, something even more captivating than his scent, but he isn’t one for lingering, for extending, or wearing out welcomes. His signature cologne, Moustache, by Rochas  leaves women wanting more – more lemon verbena, more honey, more vanilla, more Velbert. He seldom obliges.

He moves as if he hears a song – something soft, slow, and painfully dark; definitely an instrumental, as outside the studio, Velbert is a man with need of few words. His movements are slow and deliberate, as if Billie Holiday is singing Don’t Explain to herself in the mirror and he’s standing behind her, not wanting to ruin the moment, not needing to be heard. There are so many things that he chooses to leave unsaid and he only asks questions to which he knows the answers.

Anyone who has ever kissed Velbert would absolutely tell – but he’s never kissed or been kissed, not in Beacon.

The singlular love of Velbert’s life was Jeannette Domingue, a Peculiar from a well-known New Orleans family — but her father had denied 19-year-old Velbert her hand in marriage, swearing that he would never allow his daughter to marry one of Velbert’s “kind.” He has never been sure if it was his color, his station, or his “human-ness” that was unacceptable to the Domingues.

On his darkest nights he listens to “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” . . . and still wonders. Regardless, Jeannette married the man of her father’s dreams a mere three months after Velbert was denied the honor. It would have been easier had she been dragged down the aisle, or had shed a tear; but there was a willful stride, an undeniable glow and a loving gaze between the bride and groom that made Velbert lose faith in his own existence as he pressed his face to the church window, staining the glass, swallowing down the aftertaste of what he’d thought to be his future.

Tonight, for the first time in sixteen years, he’s craving beignets. Strange. He’s not so much as tasted one since leaving home and wandering so far, not since staring at a plate of them a lifetime ago, as he was denied Jeannette’s hand. Jeanette never spoke, never protested.  Rather than meet Mr. Domingue’s gaze, Velbert had stared at the beignets — the sweetest thing to be found in that bitter moment. He remembers thinking that they must have still been warm, because the powdered sugar, like him, had melted a little at the edges.  That day would be the last he ever failed to meet another man’s gaze.

These days he looks as if he can see through things, through people, even, without trying — or caring. He has a nearly imperceptible scar over his left eyebrow — the origin of which is another secret that he never reveals and doesn’t care (or is it bother?) to recall; and his face is punctuated by overcast blue-gray eyes not resting, but lying in wait beneath copious lashes and a bold outline of jet-black brows.

His hair, the color of mink, is always cut low, with just a hint of waviness in the crown. In the last six months, a shock of gray hair has woven itself into his left temple. Velbert doesn’t care. To his eye it makes him look not older, but frozen, icy. That suits him fine. The essence of cool — his jawline the only hint of “squareness” about him — Velbert’s smile is a rare and disarming feat of animation.

Naturally and professionally silver-tongued, Velbert “Vox” Henderson unassumingly boasts a roar of shivers for a whisper, but that gravelly voice — the sound of something cut just deeply enough — is the least of things. Not one of his myriad admirers cares that he may be a devil – one among many, in Beacon. Evenings at midnight, after tucking in their households, WDRK’s dedicated female listeners turn up their radios, or place their ears close to the voice that meets them mid-air, coaxing them toward the bedsheets with a phantom kiss goodnight. So what they have to share it. Each knows that’s she’s not the only one. Among them, they divide the collective sorrow in his being gone by morning. 6 AM to be exact.

It’s 6:00 now, and as his signature sign-off tune, Here’s That Rainy Day, sails through the air coaxing raindrops from Beacon’s endlessly-cloudy sky, he’s already making his way through the alley behind the station, mouthing the words to himself between long drags on a PallMall.

Maybe I should have saved those leftover dreams . . . 

His swagger, sure and casual as it seems, speaks volumes. “I have places to go and people to see, but I want for nothing and need no one,” it muses.

Here’s that rainy day they told me about. And I laughed at the thought that it might turn out this way. 

As if he were dancing, he sidesteps a puddle with two quick steps, shoulders back and rolling, as if punching his way through life — with and in spite of punches — but never breaking a sweat or losing breath, chest forward, never looking back as he taps ashes away from the half-smoked cigarette and continues to mouth the words, pretending not to see the shadow of a man overhead, to his left. Both Velbert and the song continue . . .

Where is that worn out wish that I tossed aside, after it brought my love so near. Funny how love becomes a cold rainy day. Funny that rainy day is here.

Heavy-hearted and drenched in morning rain, the sun is making a valiant effort to rise over Beacon City. Up ahead to the right, next to the dumpster behind Phoenix Chinese Eatery, is a scruffy man, 5’8″-ish, younger than Vel, but looks as if he’s lived longer than well.  He’s an early bird, always out gathering first morsels of sun. Velbert hands Lacey — that’s his name — a cigarette, grabs the pearl-wrapped silver lighter from his suit pocket, pauses for a second, hand rested on his chest, as if he’s checking where his heart’s s’posed to be, then, like every morning, leans in, looks Lacey in the eye, and lights it for him with a flourish — slips a neatly folded twenty in his hand, which Lacey refuses, every morning, before relenting. Velbert figures it’s the least he can do, seeing as both of them are homeless. At least Velbert’s got a house — someplace he could call home, for the hell of it. A quick glance between the two of them, and Velbert’s back at that dance that he calls walking — the sun, half-baked, hitches a ride on his shoulders, threatening to warm his neck. Velbert doesn’t want to be warmed just yet and lifts his collar.

“’G’night, Lace.”

“Mornin’ Vox.”

Frank Folds is on a fire escape, two flights up, on the left. Velbert sees him.  Always does. The so-called Paper Hero’s been watching him for weeks now, wondering if Velbert can or will be an ally.

As of yet uninterested in choosing sides, Velbert has been watching Frank watch him, and wonders when Frank will ask . . .