Born Blue (16 page)

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.

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.

"You mean me and the band or just me?" I asked.

He said, "Your band isn't a good fit They're mediocre. They won't get out of the South with their sound, but you could. With the right music, the right backup, you could make it, Leshaya."

I dumped Kind of Blue right then, right there. Didn't go back to tell nobody I were leavin', I just quick packed up my stuff and left At long last my day had come.

I went to Atlanta, Georgia, and stayed with Mick at the fancy Ritz-Carlton hotel downtown. He introduced me to Paul, lead guitarist in my new band.

Paul were twenty-one, just outta college, tall, white, and real serious-lookin'. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that made his eyes look like a couple of M&M's, but when he took them off, when he got tired, I could see he had big eyes—big, deep, mud brown eyes. For white, he were pretty good-lookin' behind them glasses, but he never laughed or smiled, and were a long time comin' before I ever seen him lay down his guitar.

Turned out Paul wrote music. He already had a CD out with just instrumentals on it This time he had written a couple of songs that needed a singer, and Mick said I were the perfect one. He wanted me and Paul to record those songs together, and he'd see where that got us. He said he thought we could really go somewhere, make big money.

I looked over at Paul, who were sitting at the table they got in Mick's hotel suite, pickin' at his guitar and sucking on a grape he pinched from a big basket of fruit
sitting in the middle of the table. The dude didn't even look up when Mick said we could really go somewhere. I wanted to jump up and down on the bed and kiss Mick's feet for what he were telling me, and Paul just picked at his guitar like he were making up a new tune right there in front of us. I figured the only thing that would get this dude excited be if his guitar be on fire, which were a tempting idea to me, but turned out something else got him excited—me, and not in a good way. Plenty of times I were ready to quit and go on back to Kind of Blue. Turned out Paul were a perfectionist. A pain-in-the-ass perfectionist!

Only way I could learn his song were if I listened to it, 'cause I ain't never learned to read music.

The dude were pitchin' a fit all over the place for that. "You can't read music?" he said, flopping his hand on the side of the chair like he just giving up on me right there, before even hearing me sing. He looked over at Mick with this give-me-a-break attitude, like he knew Mick made a big mistake getting me for his music.

"What's wrong with that?" I said. "Plenty of famous singers and guitar players cain't read music. Maybe you stink singin', so you don't want me to hear. Maybe you stink playin', too!"

Mick stepped in between us and settled us down and made Paul sing and play his song.

Didn't take me long to learn it, and I thought that would impress Paul, along with my voice, but forget that. He gone ballistic 'cause my phrasing weren't right
Then my attack weren't right. I weren't giving it the right sound—the right
delivery,
he called it—and I weren't "coming in right on the beat"

"Lookit, asshole," I said, "give me a second or two to learn it, why don't you. I got the stupid-ass tune down, so give me a break."

"I could give you a year and you wouldn't have it!" He pulled off his glasses and glared at Mick. "She's not right She'll ruin it. Look at her, she's high. She on something? I don't want her singing my song. She doesn't even get it"

"Who wants to?" I said. "All them big words and rooty-tooty poetry stuff. The song ain't got no soul to sing. How can I deliver what ain't there? All you got is a tune. You ain't goin' nowhere, and you nothin' without me singin' your song, but baby, you just lost your chance."

I tossed his rooty-tooty song on the bed, flipped my ass, and made for the door.

Mick hurried to grab me and pulled me back. "Don't be childish," he said. "If you want this, you'll have to work for it, both of you." He gave Paul the eyeball. "Leshaya, dear, you're good but rough. And you're right—you don't know the song yet"

"A hour ago you was actin' like I be the greatest singer since Billie Holiday, and now I'm shit? I don't gotta take this. His song be garbage, anyway." I tossed a look Paul's way, and he were studying his sheet of music like his own words be foreign to him.

"Yeah, you writin' your words like you in a English class," I said to him, going over to where he sittin'. "Stop trying to be so college, and get real. You got to get out of your head and into your heart." I stole that saying from Rosalie, who said Cliff were always in his heart and never in his head. Even though I stole the thought, it were true 'bout Paul. Were like he wore his brain on the outside of his head, the way you could see he were thinking too hard all the time.

Paul give me a hard stare, and Mick come up behind me and said, "All right, now, come on and sit down." He put his hand on my back and moved me toward the chair. He sat down between us two and looked at us both. "You two need each other to make this work Now, I'll have someone come in to coach Leshaya, and Paul, you can look over your words tonight, maybe smooth it out a bit before you leave for the Shoals in the morning."

"The Shoals?" I asked. "He be goin' up there tomorrow? You said two weeks. You said in two weeks we be goin' up to record."

Paul said, "The band's going up tomorrow to record the rest of my music. We only need you for a couple of songs."

Mick nodded. "That's right. Paul will be back, though, and the two of you can practice together. Then, Leshaya, you'll go up with the band and record the songs."