Born Blue (10 page)

The whole rest of the choir stopped singin', and Brother Grouch turned round and stared at me with such surprise in his face I wanted to laugh. I didn't, though. I belted out the chorus and filled the church with my voice. I saw that the jazz band come stick their heads in the door to see who be singin', and ol' Harmon, he just stood with his mouth hanging wide open like he was waitin' for a dentist to come along and yank out all his teeth.

When I finished singin', the choir people clapped and
106
Brother Grouch bowed to me, but I didn't have no use for them. I looked to the door, where Mark were standing, and I said, "So can I sing with your band?"

Mark were nodding his head like he thinkin',
Yeah, she be all right.

I turned back to Old Grouch and said, "Too bad for you I too young, ain't it?" Then I marched myself off and went out with my new band.

I
RODE WITH MARK
and them to the Pizza Hut to grab some food while Harmon did his choir practice. We talked 'bout what songs I could sing, and this one dude they called Jaz got excited 'cause he wrote some songs he thought I'd be good at singin', and he give me a tape of his music to take home with me.

We rode back to the church after we ate and talked, but weren't no cars parked in the lot, so they give me a ride home.

Soon as I walked in the door all the Jameses jumped out at me and started asking me questions 'bout where I been and why didn't I call and let them know what I were doing, and I slammed myself up against the door, I were so surprised.

Mr. James said, "Didn't you understand Harmon was to take you home? He had no idea where you were."

And I lied and said, "But I told Harmon where I were gonna be. He just trying to get me in trouble."

Harmon sucked in his breath and said, "You're the one who's lying." Then Air. James said that were enough, no arguing.

Mrs. James said, "In this house we let each other know where we're going to be so no one worries about us."

I said, "You was worried 'bout me?" And they said they was worried sick.

It felt good to think that they was worried sick, 'cause I seen how they liked worrying over Harmon and Samson and giving out hugs and sweet words. But seemed more like they was worried mad over me, 'cause I didn't get no hugs and they said I wasn't allowed to go off with Mark and them ever again.

I said that weren't fair, 'cause I didn't know 'bout the rule to let people know where you at. "And anyway," I said, "I already told you, I told Harmon I gonna go get something to eat."

Mr. James said, "We won't get into who said what From now on you always let us know where you're going to be. But it won't be with Mark's crowd. We don't want you involved with them."

I said, "I just want to go to the church and sing. What be wrong with that?" I looked over at Harmon, who were standing with his head bent low so he could look careful at the dirt in his fingernails, even when there weren't no dirt to see. I said to him, "Tell them, Harmon, how I got to sing. Tell them 'bout that."

Harmon looked up from staring at his nails and shrugged. He looked back down at his nails.

I pointed at them and shouted, "You all against me! You don't want me to have any kind of dream." I cried real tears and they stood watching me. I said, "I gonna be a real famous singer someday. I gonna sing with Etta James. I got to sing." I got feeling hysterical about it, and I said again, "I got to sing!" I shouted it. "I got to sing! It's all in the world I ever wanted, and you won't let me 'cause you hate me. You can't wait to get rid of me. Well, you rid of me now, so there! I ain't stayin' when you all hate me."

I tried bustin' outta their circle, but Mr. James and Mrs. James held on to me, and they said I got to calm down and talk things out rationally 'cause that's what a real family does. Well, we went talking for hours into the early morning 'bout if they gonna let me sing in the jazz band or not. They said if I so bad wanted to sing, then I should be happy to sing in the choir, which I woulda been if I didn't hear the jazz band. If I sung in the choir, I'd just be singin', but if I sung in the jazz band, then I be practicing for Etta and for going to that fancy Muscle Shoals town to get famous—but I didn't say none of that. I said, "That music fit my soul. I belong to that music and it belongs to me." And that were true, too.

Finally, Mrs. James agreed I could go if Harmon be willing to take me and watch over me like I be some baby. So I got to go, and Harmon spent the time he had to wait for me doin' homework and giving me sad feces when he didn't like the saucy way I were acting with the band. I told him how I
gotta
act that way 'cause that's
how the famous singers do it in Muscle Shoals. He said I weren't no famous singer, yet, and I said, "That just shows what you don't know, Mr. Harmon. I'm on my way more 'n' more every day."

Singin' and hein' in the band was all I could think 'bout. Didn't wanna go to no school or do no homework or clean no bedroom, neither. I just wanted to sing and sing and sing. Sometimes when I were practicing with the band, I sung like some kinda wild woman, and I knew I blew the whole band away. I could see lights dancin' in their eyes soon as I got singin'. I could feel the energy pick up in their playing, and when we finished a real red-hot song like that, we was all sweatin' hard. I loved it! Lord, I loved it like nothin' else. We would sing and play the whole afternoon away, and I didn't never notice the fading light or the storms sometimes building up in the sky, till the sky burst open and the rain flooded the muddy path to the main building of the church. I just felt the music like a storm inside me, and I sung it out 'n' wrung it out, and Lord, it were better than breathing. I didn't never want to do nothin' else but sing. I wanted to sing out my soul till it run dry.

And one time, after a real good session where I sung one of Jaz's quiet songs and we all got sad and mellow with it, I rode home silent with Harmon, and I thought,
So what if I cain't never get Harmon's parents lovin' me the way they do Harmon and Samson.
Didn't matter, 'cause I weren't gonna stick round much longer, anyway. Family life and rules wasn't for me. Soon as Etta come to
Muscle Shoals I were gonna take off outta there. I were meant to be a famous singer. I were meant to be travelin' and singin' and nothin' more. I knew, 'cause the only time I felt life be worth strugglin' with were when I be singin'.

One night when I were supposed to be doin' homework, I sneaked into Mrs. James's dressing-room closet and got me out her two evening gowns. I been in there before, just looking at what she got, and I seen them there, and I knew I'd have to come back and get them and try them on. They was long all the way to my ankles, and one were black and cut low in the back, and the other were white and come all the way up in the front with gold fitting round the neck like it be a choker necklace. The dress were almost just like the one I dreamed I would wear when I sung for Etta. Were so sexy looking on me the way it hugged my body, I couldn't stop looking at myself and thinking about that Jaz dude who be in the band.

Weren't just some of his songs that were hot. Jaz had a wild look in his eyes and a kinda hot-sauce energy when he moved that excited me every time I looked at him. His eyes was set real deep in his head, and his dreads and eyebrows hung heavy over them. He had a nose that looked like he used it to bust open doors, maybe some heads, but he had a pretty mouth with lots of curves to it. Were the prettiest thing 'bout his face besides his skin. He had the prettiest, sexiest skin I ever seen. Were more beautiful than Doris-skin, even. I just
all the time wantin' to touch him and feel that warm brown skin on me.

When Jaz played his keyboard and I got singin', he could get me feelin' so wild inside it changed my voice and in some songs I had that raging, soul-bleedin' sound going that just heated up the whole band. Standing in that gown and watching myself in the mirror while I were thinking 'bout Jaz got me feeling so hot I had to he down. I climbed onto Mr. James's and Mrs. James's bed and stared up at the ceiling. Then
boom!
The door slammed open and in come Samson and Mrs. James behind him. I sat up fast and got off the bed.

Mrs. James stood looking at me, and I stood looking back, and we neither one of us said nothin'. Samson come up and touched me and said, "Pretty." He pulled at my dress, and Mrs. James said for him to go on and get Harmon to give him a bath in the blue bathroom tonight, and Samson run back out the room, and me and Mrs. James stood staring again.

"I just wanted to see how I look in a dress like this, 'cause when I singin' I gonna wear a long gown and—"

Mrs. James waved her hand in front of her face, closing her eyes. "I don't want to hear it Please, get out of my dress."

"Yeah, sure." I quick untied the back and pulled it off of me, and she turned her back to me while I got my own clothes on.

Mrs. James said, "When you've hung my clothes back up, meet me in your room and we'll talk."

When I got to my room Mrs. James were sitting in a chair with the pile of clothes and puzzles and stuff that had been in the chair, heaped on her lap. I grabbed some of it and said, "I were just gonna clean this up." I went to the closet and dumped it in there. Then I turned round again, and Mrs. James said for me to sit down. She said it like it hurt to push the words out between her teeth.

I sat down and Mrs. James's face went all soft and funny like she gonna cry all the sudden, and I looked away 'cause I didn't like seeing that kind of thing.

Then she out of the blue said, "Leshaya, you've been in my room before."

I said, "No, I ain't. Why you think that kind of thing?" I picked up one of Samson's puzzle pieces off my bed and tossed it a bit in the air and caught it.

"Some of my things are missing, Leshaya, and I believe you took them."

I tossed the puzzle piece up again and caught it I said, "Weren't me. Probably Harmon took your stuff. He steals my things all the time. He were always doing that at Patsy and Pete's."

Were like she didn't hear me at all. She said, "Some of my jewelry—a ring and two necklaces—are missing, and a little black purse and a pair of black stockings. I'd like them back"

Well, how she could tell them things was missing when she had a whole mess of that same kind of stuff in her room, I don't know, but I said I couldn't say where
them things got off to 'cause I never seen those things she talking 'bout before. I tossed the puzzle piece up again but missed catching it on the way down and it landed on the floor. I left it there 'cause Mrs. James were staring at me again.

Don't know what she were staring at, but I just waited her out, and finally, she give up and say I stole her stuff again. She kept pushin' at me to see if I would change my story, and then Harmon come in the room lookin' wet from giving Samson a bath, and when he saw what were going on, he stood leaning on the wall, with his hands behind his back, staring at me like I be some stranger he never seen before.

Mrs. James never yelled at me, and she didn't hit me, neither, but I could tell she were angry, anyway. She had a look so cross it 'bout made my heart stop dead, but I didn't change my story, 'cause I were stronger than her. So I won and she finally left, telling me first how I'd better clean up the mess in my room.

Harmon stayed in my room and watched me toss everything into my closet and pull up the top cover of my bed to make it look made up.

Harmon watched till I got done, then he said, "You'd better give her back her things, Leshaya."

I turned my back on Harmon and looked at myself in the mirror. Were a gold mirror like I figured they got all over the place in Muscle Shoals. I liked seeing my face with gold round it like that. I could see Harmon, too, in
the mirror, standing all pudgy-faced and sad-looking behind me. I said to him, "What makes you think I took them things? Don't you trust me?"

"Who else would take them? We've never had anything disappear until you moved in with us."

Harmon's cheeks was all puffed out and his lower lip curled up like he gonna cry.

"Maybe they just gone missin'. Ever think of that?" I said, grabbing my hair and holding it back in a ponytail so I could see my face better.

He said, "My sterling silver pocket watch that's engraved to me from Mama and Daddy is missing, too. I always keep that in my top drawer. I always know where everything I own is. Everything. I check every day to make sure my important things are still where I left them because I don't want to lose them. They're special to me, Leshaya."

I stood up and come over to where Harmon were standing, and I said, "Well, I never seen your watch or your mama's things. So anyway, how you think I'd look with black hair? Or maybe some dreads?"

Harmon's big old girly eyes filled with tears, and he said, "Stupid." He wiped his eyes, and I let go my hair and sat down on my bed. I didn't mean to be hurtin' Harmon exactly, 'cept he were always thinking he right 'bout everything. He so sure I stole his and his mama's stuff. They like a gang, the four of them. They like a special club. They all hang together on everything, and it were always against me. I hated every one of them.

Harmon said, "I'm really disappointed in you, Leshaya. You don't know how much you've hurt Mama. She's let you live here with us, and you go and take what belongs to her. Think about how she must feel. Think about us for a change, not you. You're always thinking about you—what you want, how you've got to sing so I have to drive you all over kingdom come, and how you should have the last slice of cheesecake, and go first when we all play a game. You're always thinking about yourself."

I jumped up from the bed and glared right at Harmon. I all the sudden hated him most. He sounded just like Mr. James talking and not like my old Harmon at all.

I said to him, "Yeah, I do always think 'bout myself. 'Cause who else gonna think of me first? Who else, Harmon? You think you so special now you got a mama and daddy. You think you so better 'n me just 'cause of that, but it don't mean nothin' at all. It ain't important I already had four mamas, counting yours, and they nothin' special. Singin' what's special. You got no talent or nothin'. You cain't even play trumpet all that good. Nothin's more important than having a big talent and being famous. You just gonna be nothin' but something small someday, but I'm gonna be big. I'm gonna be real big. And I ain't waitin' round for it to happen someday. I'm talon' off soon, so you don't got to worry."