The Mighty Miss Malone (23 page)

He blinked six or seven times and when his eyes came open he looked lost and befumbled.

I put his hand in mine.

The harmonica man started playing “Shenandoah.”

“Do you know that song?”

His head was wobbling back and forth and I wasn’t sure if he was saying no or getting ready to swoon.

I said, “It’s about a Indian princess who hasn’t seen her husband for seven years.”

I sang a little.

He said, “You sing beautiful.”

Wow! He
was
befumbled!

“You should hear my brother, now that’s a real singer.”

I helped him up and we carried the dishes back to the camp.

As bad as things were for me, they were much worse for
him. I still had my family, and like Mother always says, without a family you’re nothing but dust on the wind.

I hoped he’d find kindness somewhere, but even with my exploding imagination, I couldn’t figure out where that would be.

Later that night a few people were still sitting around the big fire, talking and laughing softly.

Pieces of wood crackled and hissed. I started counting the seconds between each snap.

Mother had left for her night job and I looked to see if Jimmie had fallen off yet. There hadn’t been any of the twitching or soft whining he does most nights, but that didn’t really mean too much, especially since I knew he’d found work earlier. If the job had been a tough one he’d climb under his blanket and sleep without fighting against it too hard. But not tonight, he was looking right back at me.

“Something wrong, sis? Can’t sleep?”

“No, Jimmie, I’m doing fine, I was just about gone. You?”

“I’m fine. I was hoping that mouth organ man was gonna play, but it looks like he’s through.”

I said, “He played ‘Shenandoah’ earlier, your song. Could you sing it for me, just once?”

“Sure, sis.”

Jimmie sat up. He says singing is like eating and serious thinking, things that shouldn’t ever be done whilst lying down.

He took three deep breaths, held the last one, then sang, “
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see thee …,
” and you would have put your life on the line believing him.

He waited, shook his head and sang more. I closed my eyes. I imagined him getting taller and taller.

Jimmie’s slowness when he’s singing is all part of settling into the song. It was the same thing Father did when he told us stories back home in Gary. I’m not saying anything bad about her, but Father’s way is
so
different from the way Mother tells stories.

With her it’s like we’re in a race, like she’s scooped us up and is flying with us to “
…  they all lived happily everafter.
”

When Father would tell the same story things were easier, slower. It didn’t take much to see yourself dropping bread crumbs right along a trail, or hear yourself scheming right along with High John the Conqueror, or feel yourself riding a golden horse behind Sir Lancelot with your arms wrapped around his
waist and your cheek surprised at how cool the armor on his back was.

Hearing a story from Mother is like you’re looking at the story from inside that boxcar. Things are swooshing by so fast that it wouldn’t pay to get too interested or curious about any of them. With Father it was like you were strolling along a road, holding his hand and stopping whenever something caught your fancy.

After a long sigh, Jimmie was through. I opened my eyes. He had shrunk back to his normal size and dropped down his shoulders and was hanging his head.

He said, “Sweet dreams, sis.”

A gentle tap-tap-tap came from the wooden frame of the door.

Jimmie jumped up. With his right hand he swiped the gingham curtain aside. He dropped his left hand behind him and my breath caught. He was holding another long, open straight razor!

He deepened his voice. “What do you want?”

A man said, “Hello, sonny, we wanted to have a word with your sister.”

“You can have a word with me first. What do you want to talk to her about?”

“It’s her voice, we—”

Jimmie butted in. “Why? We ain’t being loud, y’all couldn’t have barely heard us.”

Four or five people laughed, and they were kind laughs but Jimmie’s body tightened. I came up behind him and pulled the razor away. I closed it and held it against my leg.

It was the harmonica man who’d knocked. He said, “No, sonny, no complaints, far from it.” He looked at me. “Evening, missy, how are you?”

There were six or seven men and women. Three of them were white. They all smiled at me.

I stepped in front of Jimmie. “I’m fine, thank you, how are you?”

The man pulled his hat off and said, “I’d have swore
I
was doing just fine up to a few minutes ago, then I fount out I was doing something terrible wrong.”

He opened his hand and showed me his harmonica. “I thought I owned ‘Shenandoah.’ Thought I played it like it was me what wrote it. But tonight you took that song right ’way from me and made it so’s I seen how it’s supposed to be done. As of tonight I’m signing it over to you! You are spectacalar!”

People called out, “Amen!” and, “Hear, hear!”

A woman said, “Child, do you have any idea what kind of gift you have?”

“That’s right!”

“A pure gift.”

“But it wasn’t me singing, it was my brother, my big brother!” I don’t think a prouder sentence has ever crossed my lips. I stepped aside so they could see Jimmie. “We tell him all the time that there isn’t anyone else in the world with a voice so beautiful.”

The harmonica man said to him, “I played all over this country and I ain’t never heard nothing like that in my life. Now,
I
ain’t trying to boast, but I used to travel with Bessie Smith, and—I don’t mean to disrespect her none, but she ain’t half the singer you is. Not half. Not on her best day.”

He reached his right hand toward Jimmie. “My name’s Zeke Greene, folks call me Saw-Bone Zee, and it’s a true honor to make the acquaintance of a brother musician like you, sir.”

Sir
!

It’s horrible what one tiny word can do to you. You can talk yourself into believing that you’re tough, then one tiny three-letter word gets said and smashes everything apart.

Sir
!

I’d learned not to cry or even get angry when all sorts of calamity befell us. I’d learned not to take it personal when people barked at Mother and Jimmie and me about walking across their property, I knew how to swallow the sadness that would wash over me when Father used to come home and we could tell by the way he worried the brim of his hat when he asked how we were doing that there’d been no work. I thought I could control it all.

And then this man called Jimmie “sir” and all my hardness melted away.

It was wonderful that these people liked Jimmie’s singing, but horrible too because I was still at the mercy of someone else’s words. And Mother had told us so many times that that’s something neither me nor Jimmie can afford to let happen, that we should take everything someone says, good or bad, with a grain of salt.

Jimmie took the man’s hand. “My name’s Jimmie Malone, sir.”

“Pleased to meet you, I take it you’re a natural, you ain’t had no training?”

Jimmie looked surprised. “They can train someone to sing?”

“Not like what you done. That cain’t be taught, that’s from inside.”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“You mind I ask how old you is?”

“I’m seventeen years old, sir.”

With Jimmie, lying was just like singing, they both came natural to him.

“I knowed you was older than you look, ain’t no kid gonna sing like that. From your singing I see you’s a full-growned man.”

Jimmie had hardened his heart twice as much as I had mine, but from the look that came over him I could see that when it came to those words
he
was totally lost.

Jimmie said, “You used to travel around with Bessie Smith? Really? You got paid to play with her? Cash money?”

“I ain’t gonna say it always worked out that way, but that was the idea.”

“And you really think I sing good as her?”

“I didn’t say that, I said you’s
better’n
her, raw, but better. With a little work y’all wouldn’t even be playing in the same ballpark. Son, if things was the way they use to be you could make you some money traveling, might’ve even got someone to make one ’n’em Victrola recordings of you singing.”

“Naw!”

“I said if things was the way they
use
to be. Ain’t a whole
lot of cash out here now for nothing. But if anybody was gonna rake in the little bit there is it’d be you. You got a true gift, son.”

One of the women said, “Young man, can you and Zee sing a couple of songs? It’s late, but tomorrow’s Sunday so won’t be no work nowhere.”

I said, “Go on, Jimmie! Mr. Zee, do you know ‘Motherless Child’?”

“You ain’t gonna be able to name no spiritual I don’t know. Young man, you up to giving these folks a little happiness?”

Jimmie slipped his feet into his brogans.

He said, “I ain’t never sung with no one playing a instrument, don’t we have to practice some first? How’m I gonna know when I’m suppose to come in and when I’m suppose to be quiet?”

“Don’t worry none ’bout that. It’s my job to know when to blow and when to shut up.”

I pulled on my shoes. Me and Jimmie were smiling like a couple of Cheshire cats on Christmas Day in Gary.

I said, “We’ve enjoyed your playing ever since you came, sir. I told Jimmie and Mother that right along with Miss Toland, our Sunday school piano player back in Gar— back in Lancaster, you were the best musician I’d ever heard.”

I slapped Jimmie’s head. “We told you you were great! And you just didn’t believe it!”

As we walked toward the fire Mr. Zee put his hand on Jimmie’s shoulder. “When you working with other musicians you got to know your part. If it all come together right it’s like that stew they made for supper. Everything blended just right.
Waren’t too much of any one thing. When you and me play together, I’m suppose to make sure ain’t too much mouth organ and too little you. You the meat in the stew, I ain’t nothing but the salt.”

There were about seven people still at the fire. Some were leaned up against each other close to sleep.

Mr. Zee sat on a stump. “What key you sing in?”

Jimmie said, “Key?”

The man smiled. “Hum the first bit of ‘Shenandoah’ again.”

Jimmie did.

Mr. Zee blew some notes that blended in real nice with Jimmie.

He said, “It’s on you, young man, ‘Motherless Child.’ ”

Jimmie was staring into the fire, waiting until he was good and ready.

Some people started giving each other sideways looks, thinking he’d chickened out.

After the longest while Jimmie took a deep breath.

The gooseflesh jumped through my palms as Jimmie sang:

A woman yelled, “Yes, Lord!”

Mr. Zee brought the harmonica in, and it was a perfect match for Jimmie’s whispery voice.

A man said, “Testify, brother!”

Mr. Zee’s playing danced around Jimmie’s words and reminded me of something. In Gary on Friday nights, after dinner, a lot of the Mexican people and the black people would go to the church hall for storytelling.

I was shy when I first met the people from Mexico. They didn’t look like us and they didn’t look like white people. They had skin like ours and hair like white people’s, only lots stronger and darker. They spoke a different language too.

Father was the best American storyteller, and a woman named Senior Rita Morales was the best one from Mexico. Miss Morales was a small-boned woman but when she spoke she was like Jimmie, she seemed to grow. She’d use her hands, and if she was talking about a star she’d reach up and gently pluck it. Then she’d look in her hand, like the star was resting there. If you followed her glance you could see it too, you could even see a shadow on the ground underneath.

Some superstitious Americans stopped coming because they said Senior Rita Morales was hypnotizing everybody, and who knew what she’d have folks doing once she got their minds?

Mother pooh-poohed them and said Senior Rita Morales was someone who could have words do magical things.

Miss Morales told the stories in her own language and in English both, and you could still understand everything! Even if you didn’t know the word, something about the way she’d unfold her hands, or the way she’d smile, or the way she’d look at you when she talked let you know what she meant. If you waited it would come.