All About Eva (17 page)

The 747 Airbus thundered down the runway at La-Guardia Airport and up into a sunny, blue sky. With the city spread wide beneath me, I performed my usual ritual of blowing New York a kiss, and bidding it a fond farewell, for now.

While just about everyone in the world, including Vance, was making plans to go to D.C. for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration, I was headed in the opposite direction to Chi-Town, home of Minnie Riperton, Chaka Khan, George Daniels, Etta James, Jennifer Hudson, Bernie Mac, Chess Records, R. Kelly, Kanye West, Garrett Popcorn, Harpo Studios, Harold's Chicken, and the infamous Cantrell family.

I made up my mind on the way to Chicago not to tell my family any of what I had been through for the past two months. They were hardly a bunch who read four to five newspapers every day, or who kept the television tuned to CNN 24/7, so there was a good chance that they didn't even know what had happened with Donovan.

Not saying that ignorance runs in the family, just that when life is an everyday struggle, then survival tends to be your primary focus and concern. So if they didn't know, I sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

I flew coach, of course, which was a hot disaster, but luckily it was a short flight, around two hours and twenty minutes.

O'Hare Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world, but was especially so that day because everybody and their play cousin was traveling for the Christmas holiday.

The weather in Chicago looked warm and sunny, but it was the end of December, so I knew better. Mother Nature was being deceptive that day because the weather looked a lot warmer than it actually was, so I had bundled up accordingly in anticipation of the brutal Chicago hawk.

That morning before I left for the airport, I called Uncle Booney and told him what time to come pick me up from the airport.

“All right, baby doll. I'll be there with bells on!” he had said, but wouldn't you know that it was Gwen who showed up instead?

It had been almost a year since I last saw her, but there she was, dressed in the flashiest outfit she could find, looking like my big sister instead of my mom.

“There's my baby!” Gwen said.

As we exchanged hugs, I looked over her shoulder and noticed a local news crews.

“What the hell is all that?” I asked, and then got my answer when news reporters shoved microphones in my face and asked, “What can you tell us about your time on the run with Donovan Dorsey?”

“Were you complicit?”

“What did you know and when did you know it?”

“Can you explain why there are several offshore bank accounts in your name, to the tune of seventy million dollars?”

“No comment!” I said, retrieving my luggage from the baggage carousel.

I looked at Gwen and knew instantly that somehow, someway, she was in on the whole thing. “Did you call these people and tell them I was coming?” I whispered.

“Not all of them, but there is a reporter from
Hue Magazine
that's willing to pay big money for the exclusive rights to an interview with you.”

Same old Gwen. Always working every angle in hot pursuit of the all-mighty dollar.

So much for not letting them in on my little secret.

Irritated, I snapped, “Where are you parked?”

“Wait a minute, aren't you gonna talk to the people?” Gwen asked.

“Are you freaking kidding me right now?” I asked. “What part of the ‘no' and ‘comment' didn't you understand?”

“Well, if you're not gonna talk to them, then I sure as hell am,” she said out of the corner of her mouth like a ventriloquist. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, but my daughter is fatigued from her flight and won't be answering any questions after all, but I would like to invite everyone who's watching down to the Sugar Shack nightclub to see me perform, from now until the fourteenth of January.”

Disappointed, the cameramen turned their lights off and were ready to pack up, but one reporter was apparently determined not to leave without some sort of “story” and urged his cameraman to keep filming. He did so, reluctantly.

“You're a performer?” asked the reporter, who I couldn't believe was actually taking notes.

“Oh, yes, ma'am, I've been performing all my life,” Gwen said, hamming it up. “Would you like to hear a little taste?”

The reporter had no sooner said “Please” when Gwen launched into her rendition of the Stephanie Mills classic “If I Were Your Woman.”

Gwen can sing, there's no doubt about that, but in the middle of Southwest Airlines terminal B was neither the time nor the place.

I didn't know where she had parked, but I walked away and left Gwen to her one-woman show.

An odd-looking man with a jughead and Harry Potter glasses trailed behind me. “Excuse me, Eva, I'm Larry Nichols with
Hue Magazine
. Can I have a word with you for a moment?”

“No, sir, you cannot. . . .” I said.

“But I talked to your mother, Gwen, and she said you would—”

“I don't care what she said, I'm not interested—so kick rocks, dude!”

“Well, she has my number in case you change your mind.”

“Thanks, but I won't be,” I said, and turned around when I heard a smattering of applause.

Gwen had wrapped up her “little taste” and was bowing and blowing kisses as if she were the celebrity she had always wanted to be, instead of the best backup singer who never made it big. Over the years, my mother has sung background vocals for most of the legends in the game, including B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and even Ike Turner for a short time after Tina wised up and left his ass. Gwen's dreams of solo superstardom have eluded her at every turn, but that doesn't keep her from trying and hoping that the next two-bit gig will be the one that will finally land her a recording contract.

“You know, I really didn't appreciate that,” I said, once we were finally all settled in Gwen's Chrysler Fifth Avenue.

“What? I thought it was fun!” she said, checking her reflection in her Fashion Fair compact and rubbing lipstick off her teeth.

“As a mother, what would possess you to try to pimp my story out to the media?”

“Well, ain't that about some ungrateful-ass shit? Hell, I figured that I was doing you a favor,” said Gwen. “I mean, you do need the money, don't you, or is it true what they say about you having some stashed somewhere for a rainy day?”

I swallowed my exasperation. I couldn't believe that she had gotten started already. “If that were true I wouldn't have been living from pillar to post for the past month and a half.”

“And speaking of that, why haven't you called me, girl? I've been worried sick about you!”

“And where was I supposed to call you at, since you don't believe in cell phones, and the last time I talked to you, you were headed to Las Vegas for a gig?”

“That ain't no excuse, you could have called Mama Nita's house—you know Booney is always there,” Gwen said, taking my hand. “But that's okay, you home now! You can get your life back on track and forget all about that bullshit back in New York. I know Jayson Cooper is gonna be so happy to see you.”

“Kyle said that same thing, but life happens. He's probably married with a bunch of kids by now.”

“I don't think so, because he asks about you all the time. He's got a good job down at the hospital, you know.”

I laughed long and hard at that one. Did I mention that my mother was an amateur comedian as well?

“What's so funny about that?” asked Gwen. “A good man is a good man, no matter what he does for a living. That's what's wrong with you young girls out here today. Every man you meet can't be Donald Trump, you know.”

“Wow, no you didn't,” I said. “This coming from a woman who once told me to marry well, and repeat as often as necessary.”

“Now, you know good and well I didn't tell you that, and God can strike me dead right now if I'm lying.”

I hoped that God wouldn't strike her dead at that moment, because there was no way for him to get Gwen without getting me too.

Now that Gwen is older and it's time for her to get somewhere and finally start to settle down, she is starting to see the error of her ways and wants props where props are not due, or deserved.

She knows damn well she was a lousy mother, but in order to make herself feel better, she has resorted to rewriting history and making herself out to be a saint in her own eyes.

In Gwen's new and improved version of events, she was a selfless, nurturing, dedicated mom. And not the type who packed up and left town without a word of good-bye to anyone, chasing the rainbow wherever some two-bit gig, or sapsucker she'd met in a nightclub, led her, which was usually some dead-end town where there was no pot of gold in sight.

While Gwen jabbered on a mile a minute trying to defend her mothering skills or lack thereof, I tuned her out and watched the world I used to inhabit go by.

Not much had changed on the West Side, except there seemed to be more liquor stores on every other corner, overpriced check-cashing joints, more abandoned homes, and boarded-up buildings where thriving businesses used to be.

After years of saving money from numerous side hustles, including doing hair in the kitchen, to selling her infamous gumbo for a dollar a bowl, Mama Nita finally moved out of Cabrini-Green almost ten years ago, and into her current K-town neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, which truthfully wasn't much better than the projects. “K-Town” was nicknamed such because all of the streets that run through the adjoining neighborhoods start with the letter “K”—King, Keeler, Kilpatrick, Kostner.

The area has always been infamously crime ridden, but at least Mama Nita had a tiny parcel of land that she could call her own.

And the four-bedroom bungalow-style house on Eighteenth and Keeler was the best-looking house on the block.

We might have been poorer than most when I was growing up, but my grandmother was a stickler for cleanliness and a firm believer that whatever you had should be kept immaculate and well maintained at all times.

As we pulled up, I was glad to see that even with her Alzheimer's someone was making sure to maintain her standards.

It had been a year since my last visit, only that time, Donovan had come with me to visit my folks. And now, just like then, all of my immediate family was there to greet me. The group included my uncle Booney, my sister Pam, and her two daughters, Olivia and Kelly.

“There she is!” said Pam, hitting me with a flying hug, while my six- and eight-year-old nieces hugged me around the waist also. We walked inside the house.

“Girl, what's this I hear about you getting caught up in some gangster shit?” asked Uncle Booney.

“Hel-lo!”
Gwen said, pointing to the kids as a reminder that they were present.

“My bad, my bad!” Booney said. “But did you make off with all that money like they said you did, girl?”

“Don't believe a word of it, it's all hearsay,” I said, giving him a hug, and then quickly changed the subject. “Look at you, though! Looking like a ray of sunshine!”

My mother's older brother was as flashy as ever in one of his signature polyester outfits. This one was a bright yellow, bell-bottom jumpsuit with a butterfly collar, and it was putting a serious hurtin' on my eyes.

“Hey, niece, you know me. Doing what I do as only I can do it.... Don't let the smooth taste fool ya!”

“You sho'nuff got that right!” I said, speaking Booney-ese. I shook my head, tickled by the fact that no one had yet been able to convince him that multiple gold chains, chest hair, and butterfly collars were no longer fashionable.

The laughter died down as I looked around and noticed that the house looked and felt sad.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and there were no Christmas lights in the windows and no nativity scene in the front yard. The only thing to give away that it was Christmastime was the sad-looking Charlie Brown pine tree propped up in front of the bay window, with not even one present underneath. It was worse than a Charlie Brown tree, because it was artificial and didn't fill the house with the wonderful scent of fresh pine, which to me was the whole point of having a tree.

It was depressing, especially in light of the fact that Mama Nita loved the holiday season and usually went all out, even on a meager budget. Clearly, what the house, and those of us who loved my grandmother, needed was her love and personal touch.

“Where's Mama Nita?” I asked, setting my bags on the floor.

“In bed,” Pam said. “That medication she's on has her sleeping almost half the day.”

“How is she doing?” I asked.

“The Alzheimer's is still progressing, and getting worse every day,” Gwen said, with uncharacteristic concern for someone other than herself.

“Well, I'm going to go peek in and say hi,” I said, causing everyone to object all at once.

“When she's sleep, it's best not to disturb her,” said Pam.

“Yeah, and besides, she comes and goes so much that she probably won't even recognize you.”

We all chatted and caught up with each other for a couple of hours, until later that night, Pam dropped Olivia and Kelly off with their father, then she, Uncle Booney, and I went down to the Sugar Shack to watch Gwen do her thing.

The Sugar Shack is a neighborhood blues and jazz joint over in Englewood. The club has no frills whatsoever, but it is still the place to be for live music and the best BBQ ribs in Chicago.