Born Blue

  I sat down careful 'cause everything hurt, especially my tits, leaking out milk, but weren't enough to give any relief.

  The girl pulled my hair back gentle and combed it, bit by bit. I bent my head forward and let her pull at my hair, and it never hurt 'cause of how little-bit by bit she did it.

  "Why don't you come home with me," the maid said after we been sitting saying nothing to each other for a while.

  I kept my head bent and she kept combing.

  "I don't even know your name, and you don't even know mine," I said.

  "My name's Rosalie—Rosalie Brown." She brung her long hand forward over my shoulder, holding it like she wanting me to shake it.

  I touched it and it were warm, and I saw how at the bottom of every fingernail, just around the bottom of the nails, were black skin even blacker than the rest of her skin—little shiny patches of the blackest skin. I held her hand and didn't want to let go.

  She shook my hand in hers and asked, "What's your name?"

  I held on to her hand. "Leshaya," I said. "Leshaya? Leshaya what?"

  "Don't have no last name. I be just Leshaya, like Odetta be just Odetta. Never had no last name."

  Rosalie Brown squeezed my hand in hers, and I held on.

  Chapter Thirty

  ROSALIE LIVED IN a small green house, with a mama and three brothers and four sisters. All them living together bunched up in this little room and that little room—and there Harmon had a house so big, lots of the rooms stayed empty most of the time.

  Rosalie's mama said welcome to me, but she pulled Rosalie off to the bathroom and wanted to know why she bringing another stray cat into the house. Seemed Rosalie every now and again bringing someone home from the hotel. Her mama didn't sound too happy 'bout me, and if I had anywhere else to go, I woulda gone right then, but I were dyin', so I just sat at the kitchen table and let everybody stare at me. We all could hear what the mama saying to Rosalie, 'cause no one else were talking.

  Rosalie told her mama a bit of my story, about me just having a baby and being sick, and her mama come out the bathroom and put her hand on my head. "You feeling all right, baby?"

  "No, ma'am," I said.

  And she said, "I should say you're not! Rosalie? Why didn't you tell me? We need to get this girl down to the hospital."

  I got to stay at Rosalie's. We spent all night down at the hospital, waiting—in this room with no air to breathe—for my turn to see a doctor. We sat with screaming babies and whining kids and cranky parents till finally somebody called my name.

  The doctor seen me for two seconds, then give me all kinds of stuff to dry my milk out and cut the fever and stop my bleeding. He said he wanted to see me again in two weeks, but after that miserable night, I figured dyin' were fester and sweeter.

  For all the days I lived with Rosalie and her family, I didn't remember but three of their names: Rosalie, 'cause she the one that brung me home; Myra, 'cause I went to school with her for a while; and Cliff, 'cause he were eighteen years old and way good lookin', like Rosalie. I kept my eyes on him so much, he told me to quit staring, but I knew he liked it, 'cause he were always standing in my way.

  I slept on the floor in the girls' room. I had a thin mattress that rolled up and fit under one of the beds in the daytime. Every night someone woke me up—stepping on me to go to the bathroom.

  I didn't hardly never see Rosalie, 'cause she worked at the Holiday Inn in the day and went to college at night. She studied every chance she could. Didn't never see a body work as hard as she did. Everybody had jobs to go to in that family—'cept the little ones and Cliff—and Rosalie's mama said if I were gonna live with them, I needed to get me a job, too.

  Myra wanted me to work with her at The Coop, a restaurant college kids hung out at. I thought 'bout my baby, Etta, and told her I couldn't be wasting my time chopping veggies at no restaurant, I had to get me a job singin'.

  "Know where I could get me a job singin' soul music, jazz, the blues, that kind of thing?" I asked.

  "Talk to Cliff," she said. "He hangs out at a place that's got a band like that They call themselves 'Kind of Blue.' I haven't never heard them play before, but they do some gigs round and about"

  I were happy to talk to Cliff. He were sitting in the one chair in the house that weren't pulled up to the kitchen table. I come up to him, stepping over the two little ones playing at his feet, and sat on his lap.

  "Girl, get off my legs. You're too heavy."

  "I am not," I said. "I know you liking it I know you like what I got"

  Rosalie's mama called out from the girls' room, "That's enough of that kind of talk! Didn't we just spend another long day down at that hospital with you, Leshaya, and you fussin' the whole time? You leave my Clifford alone!"

  Me and Cliff laughed, and he set his hand on my thigh like he weren't even thinking 'bout what he was doing, but I could feel heat in his hand. It burned so hot it 'bout melted me down to the floor.

  I leaned against him and said, "Cliff, I heard you know 'bout a band called Kind of Blue. I wanna sing with them."

  He put his other hand on my lower back and rubbed it round and round. "Yeah? Well, they already got a singer."

  I run my hand up his chest. "Not like me, they don't."

  "Listen to you! You so full of yourself."

  I nodded and moved his hand up higher on my leg. "I am 'bout singin'. Who they got, anyway? Cain't be nobody too good."

  "That's what you think," he said, sliding his hand all the way up my leg.

  "Yeah, that's what I think."

  I made sure me and Cliff got on way good, and one day he took me to his friend Jay's house and told him I wanted to sing with the band.

  Jay were a goofy-lookin' guy, with a long, hook nose and a big, big Adam's apple poking out his neck, and first thing Jay said was, "She's white."

  And I said right back at him, "Ain't white, just light And my daddy be blacker 'n you, that's for sure."

  Jay stuck his goofy face up to mine, leaning over to do it, making me lean away 'cause he had marijuana breath. He said, "You're pretty, but you're pure vanilla, and we're not a mixed band. Anyway, we already got a singer." He stood up and flicked Cliff on the arm. "Man, what you doin' bringin' her around?"

  "Bet you a thousand dollars I can sing better than whoever you got," I said.

  Jay tilted his head at me. "Where you gonna get a thousand dollars?"

  I crossed my arms over my chest 'cause that's where his eyes kept looking. "Singin'. I been paid plenty for singin', so you gonna hear me or not?"

  Cliff nudged the dude. "Won't hurt to listen."

  Jay squinted his eyes up at Cliff. "You got a thing goin' with her? This girl that hot natured?"

  He didn't wait for Cliff to say nothin'. He put his arm round Cliff's shoulder and pulled me by the hand over to his other side so he could put his hand on my ass and squeeze it. Then he said, "Why didn't you say so? Sure, I'll give her a listen. Might be someone could use her, some other band or something, seein' how she's so hot-blooded ready to sing."

  I weren't sure what all he meaning, but I knew he weren't just interested in my voice. I stepped away from the two of them, turned round to face them, and I said, "You the band that's gonna want me, and I'll sing for you, but that's all—period. That is, if you good enough, Mr. Ugly."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  DIDN'T TAKE LONG before Rosalie's mama sorry she took me in. She were all the time getting calls from school saying I been ditchin', and when she tried to get me to say where I been, I told her every kind of lie, and she knew it. She were smart, that one, but she liked the money I brung in, and that's what mattered most. Maybe if she didn't like it so much, she woulda seen I spent most of my time out with Cliff, but she liked being blind about the two of us. Seemed Cliff were the only one of mama's older children who didn't work regular. Rosalie said he couldn't concentrate well enough to hold down a job for long. His mind was always wandering off the job, and his body was always following.
>
  I told Cliff if I got in Jay's band, he could be my manager. Every singer's got to have a manager, and since Cliff thought I were the most special thing to ever come into his life, I figured it would work out real fine, and it did—for a while.

  Of course I got in Jay's band. The second him and the others heard me, Kamay were out and I were in. Kamay were the drummer, Tank's, girlfriend. After I come along, she still hung round the band, anyway, while Tank played drums, and now and again she played keyboard. Sometimes she sung with me or sung one or two songs on her own, but didn't matter to me, 'cause she weren't too good. Her bad singing just made me sound even better, and after I'd had my Etta, weren't nothin' my lungs couldn't do to a song. Were like givin' birth were some kinda strength-building exercise for the voice, 'cause, baby, I could melt it, burn it, smoke it, pipe it, and sink it! I could set the whole band on fire, the way I sung my songs. I could turn a mellow crowd into a rowdy mob and then set them down again, so mellowed-out they cain't walk I mean, I had that kind of power.

  We had a regular gig at Osprey's Downtown, where the college crowd hung, and on weekends we sometimes drove up to Birmingham or over to Montgomery to do some music at the clubs and bars they got there. I had me a fake ID so I could get into the clubs, but Jay give me a chaperone, anyway. My chaperone were supposed to see that I didn't get no alcohol or nothin'. His name were Bob, a fat white dude with long greasy hair and dirt tinder his nails. He always wore BO-smellin' T-shirts under stinkin' plaid shirts that wouldn't button over his big old belly, so he left them open. He were so tanked his own self, he never knew what I were dippin' into, and before I knew it, I were trying all kinds of junk and finding my "Ecstasy" in pills and thrills.

  Cliff always come along wherever the band go, and he were more my chaperone than Bob. He tried to get me to be careful with what I took, telling me I shouldn't just grab at whatever going round, but I couldn't help it. And I were careful with the heroin, only smokin' it—never shootin' up. I told him he didn't understand the way musicians had to be. I said, "It part of what I got to do to get out there all the time and sing my soul out. Cain't do that without some kinda help. It too scary, know what I'm sayin'?"

  "Yeah, baby, and I'm just sayin' be careful 'cause there's some bad junk goin' round." Cliff put his hand on my back and rubbed it 'cause he knew it got me relaxed. Man, that dude could melt me down fast.

  "Okay," I said, turning round to face him and run my hands over his chest. "Okay, Cliff. I hear you."

  But I didn't, really. I never knew what kinda wild I had growing in me all my life, till those two years singin' with Kind of Blue. By the time I were fifteen, I were out of Rosalie's house and me and Cliff was living in with Tank and his new girlfriend, Val. We shared us a couple of rooms in a house near the college campus. We wasn't there much, but when we was, we went crazy-wild. We got music screaming against the walls and windows, and crowds of people stuffed in on top of one another, bumpin' and grindin', poppin' and smokin', and whatever fell to the floor, we was down on our knees, licking it up like we was dogs.

  We tore that place up good before the cops finally come one night and we got took down to the jail. Me and Cliff stayed there two nights before Rosalie come bailed us out, but she said it were the first and last time she gonna do it, and if she'd known I were gonna be so much trouble, she'd a left me in the hotel.

  I had to spend at least half the money I stole from Daddy Mitch's shoe box to pay for what we tore up at the house, and that put me low on money, 'cause all the new money we made in the band got spent on junk and a place to sleep for the night.

  Me and Cliff laid low for a bit, and Cliff give me another lecture 'bout watchin' myself, like I some kinda child.

  I said, "Don't need to be watchin' myself with you round, 'cause you all the time doin' it for me. It gettin' so I cain't breathe on my own. We ain't joined at the hip, you know."

  "I'm just caring about you, baby," Cliff said, using this so-sweet voice like he some darlin' pet. "You need someone to care for you. If I didn't watch out for you, you'd been dead by now. Didn't I keep you from going to the mountains?"

  Every time Cliff wanted me to slow down and do what he say, all he got to do were bring up the trip to the mountains. Jay and Tank and some other people we didn't never know planned up this trip. They was all gonna camp out on top of Blood Mountain in Georgia. I weren't never in Georgia or in mountains, where Tank said you was up so high a cloud could come floating right past your nose. I was bad wantin' to go, but Cliff said were too many gonna be piled in the car already, and he thought it would be nice if him and me could be alone for a change. I planned to go on, anyway, and say nothin' to Cliff 'bout it, but when time come to go, they all took off before I got to the meeting place. The weather were bad going up, with thunderstorms and tornado warnings, and the car hydroplaned, flipped over, skidded off the road, and hit a couple of trees. Tank were the only one to survive the crash, and he said everybody were so high he were sure didn't nobody feel a thing when they crashed and died. His own leg got busted up bad, but he didn't know it till he crawled out the car and found he couldn't stand up.

  I were gettin' tired of Cliff always bringing that story up in my face every time I wanted to try something new he didn't like. I said once to him, "That were just a freak accident. You just a scaredy baby. Cliff, you a scaredy baby, you know that?"

  Cliff moved in on me the way he do, rubbin' my back and all, and said, "I am when it comes to you. You act like you don't care if you live or die, sometimes. But I care. You're my Leshaya, aren't you?"

  "Yeah," I said, but I weren't too happy sayin' it.

  A few weeks after we got out of jail, we hooked up with Marty and Marnie. Marty be the one who took over leading the band after Jay died, and Marnie be the college girl he were sleepin' with. We moved into a apartment with them.

  Weren't long before we was up to no good again. I could wild it up all day with pills and dope and gettin' it on, and still sing all night long. My voice just got better and better.

  Cliff said I needed to be on a schedule so I could come down off of whatever I be on after I sung. He said I needed to get me some sleep.

  But I didn't never wanna sleep. I told him, "I got me a schedule. I don't do heroin till after I sing, 'cause it takes me down too far. That's my schedule. You don't like it, get outta my life."

  I got to sayin' that kinda thing lots to Cliff after a while, 'cause I figured I were keepin' him in heroin and weren't no way he was gonna lose his honey pot. And Kind of Blue was gettin' known, too.

  Marty got us a gig in Mississippi where all the gambling joints be. We stayed there a month, playing at the Shambala Club. And that joint were classy. The floors was picked up and washed every night, so you wasn't walking on sticky stuff and smellin' stale beer all over the place every time you come in the door, like most places we played at. Cliff didn't like the place, though, 'cause he were always having to watch me, and the place were too crowded to keep a good watch.

  I were always slipping out with someone, leaving him to come find me if he could. It got to be kind of a game with me. One time he come in on me and a guy named Leslie rollin' round on the floor of this hotel room together, and he 'bout broke the dude's neck before the guy cut himself free of Cliffs nasty grip and run outta there with only his briefs on.

  I shouted at Cliff, "You don't own me! You cain't run my life the way you been doin'. You got to stop it now."

  Cliff shouted back, "You get some clothes on!"

  His eyes looked fierce, like he 'bout to break my neck, so I did like he said. I pulled on the first thing I come to, which turned out to be Leslie's pants and way too tight for me. It felt like my stomach cut in two pieces with them pants snapped in on it.

  Cliff looked at me sucking in my gut. He flopped down on the bed and said, "What am I going to do?"

  "'Bout what?" I asked, moving toward him just a little.

  "About you. Why you doin' this to me?"

  "Ain't doin'
nothin' to you. I were doin' it to Leslie," I said, trying to make it funny.

  Cliff looked up at me with his round eyes, and they was all watery. He said, "Do you try to hurt me on purpose? Is that it?"

  I shrugged and searched the floor for my shirt. I found it and quick put it on. Then I let go my sucked-in stomach and the snap bust open on my pants. That felt lots better.

  Cliff said, "Don't you love me anymore?"

  I shrugged again and said, "Ain't never said I loved you."

  "But you do. You do love me." He leaned forward and grabbed at my hand, but I stepped back, and he didn't get it "Leshaya, I love you." His voice got trembling, his eyes all soft-lookin' 'cause they watery. "You know that, don't you? I love you. You're so, so pretty. I've never heard such a beautiful voice. You're special. You need special lovin'. Who else is going to love you the way I do? Who else is going to take all your abuse?"

  "Lovin' the way I look and how I sing and holdin' me back the way you do ain't lovin' me, Cliff," I said. "Love is knowin' my soul, knowin' me deep down to my soul, and lovin' all the dark corners of it. Ain't nobody ever gonna love that, 'cause ain't no love there, not for you. Ain't no love for you in my soul."

  Cliff left me and the band that night, and didn't never see him again.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ON MY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY my life changed. The change maybe started sooner, but weren't till on my birthday that I knew it be happening for sure. That's the day I gone up to Muscle Shoals to record my first song. Mick Werner, a big-deal producer who goes around discovering people, caught our band playing in Mississippi that month we was there, and then he come to Tuscaloosa to hear us again. We noticed him right off 'cause he didn't look like no one else hangin' round the place: too clean-cut He were a rich-lookin' dude, too, wearing a dark suit with a white T-shirt that didn't look like Fruit Of The Loom brand, and a shiny gold watch he were always checking. Even his bald head were shiny, like when you rich, everything got to shine. We saw Mick every now and then for three months. Then one night between sets he asked to talk to me private, and said he were interested in me making a recording for him.