Born Blue (12 page)

We made up our minds to find us a place to stay, so we asked some guy at a gas station where we should stay and if he knew where we could find the recording studio where Etta James sung or where people be playing jazz or blues music anywhere in town, and he said we come to the right place, 'cause he were a musician himself.

"I play guitar," he said. He took a cloth he had in his back pocket and wiped at his counter. "I got a band."

I said, "I heard all these famous people come up here like Etta James and Percy Sledge and Aretha Franklin. Where they be at? I don't want to sing with no gas station worker. I be a
real
singer."

Jaz give me a nudge like for me to shut my mouth, but I were too disappointed to act nice.

The dude behind the counter just kept wipin' over the same clean spot, smiling to hisself like I didn't say nothin'. "We made a CD," he finally said, like it no big deal, but really, I could see that he thought it was. "R & B stuff mostly, some jazz, some blues. You got a CD?"

"No," Jaz said, "we don't." He reached into his pocket and pulled out our tape of the band. "We made this, if you want to hear us."

The dude shook his head and kept wiping the counter. "Go on over to the Dragon, the Chinese restaurant a block away, and ask for Jimmy. He'll let you play your tape, and you can hear our CD. If you think you're any good, you can jam with us tonight. Jimmy will tell you. Go on over to the Dragon."

I were gonna ask again 'bout Etta James and where her studio be at, but then the dude said, "Jimmy'll tell you where Etta James records her music. He knows everyone. He knows all the greats."

We walked over to the Dragon and told this old bald-headed Chinese man who come up to us how we come lookin' for Jimmy to hear his CD. He said he be Jimmy. And me and Jaz give each other the look, 'cause who ever heard of a Chinese person calling hisself Jimmy?

He lead us through the dark red-walled restaurant to the kitchen and through the kitchen to a little office stuffed with shelves and papers and kitchen supplies. He said we could come inside. We come in, and a old Chinese lady with a million wrinkles on her face were sittin' at a desk, writing something on a computer, with a stack of them take-out cartons all flattened out, piled up on both sides of her computer. All that stuff round her made her look like some tiny doll, like my Doris doll, only Chinese. Jimmy said she were his wife, Elaine, and Elaine bowed her head at us and went back to writing like we wasn't there. Jimmy pushed a button on his CD
player and music come on. It come out loud, and he quick turned it down even though he didn't have no customers out front or nothin'.

They sounded way good, just like professionals, but weren't no singin', weren't no Etta James. I asked him did he know 'bout her—where her studio be at and when she comin' back—and he said he would draw us a map of how to get to the studio where Etta James recorded "Tell Mama," but he didn't know when she be coming back down. He said, "Lynyrd Skynyrd here now. Jimmy Buffett be here next month, maybe, but no Etta James."

I didn't want to sing for no Lynyrd Skynyrd. I were thinking I didn't want to sing at all, I were so disappointed. Then Jaz pulled out his tape from his pocket and said for Jimmy to listen to our band, but I didn't pay much attention to any of that. I stared at the old lady with all the wrinkles on her face and thought how I wanted to go someplace and cry.

I heard Jimmy ask, "Who be singer?"

I lifted my head and said, "Me. I am."

He nodded and stared back at the floor. Didn't look surprised or nothin'. He listened through another tune, then he said, "You good here and there, but you uneven. Keyboard good, sax okay, but drums, trumpet, they weak. I like first song best."

Jaz nodded and said, "Yeah, that's mine. I wrote it."

Jimmy said, "I play differently if I do keyboard for that."

"What's wrong with the way we got it?" Jaz asked.

"Too smooth, too mellow. Listen to words. The sound all wrong. Come tonight and I show you. You jam with us. I draw you map."

Jaz got all excited 'bout that, like we was invited to sing with a famous band, but even though they was good, ain't never heard of them, so I didn't care none.

I let Jaz and him do the map thing. Weren't interested in maps, just singin', and I didn't like how this Jimmy dude said nothin' 'bout my singin'. It burned me good him sayin' nothin'. Right away I didn't like him, and I wanted to get back at him, say somethin' nasty.

When they got through with the mapmaking and they straightened back up from where they been hanging over the desk, I said to Jimmy, "Maybe you say that 'bout the keyboard being wrong 'cause you jealous 'cause we better 'n you and your band."

The old man bowed at me and said, "Maybe so. You decide tonight." He smiled like I paid him and his band a compliment, and that burned me even more.

The old man took us back through the restaurant, going through the kitchen first, where good sizzlin' smells was smokin' round the place and a dude dressed like a TV chef were shaking veggies in a pan as big as me. When we got to the front door, Jimmy patted Jaz's shoulder and said, "See you tonight—eight o'clock." Then he took my hand and held it in both of his. He bowed and said, "Young lady, it great honor to meet you. You have powerful gift. Use it well." He looked into my
eyes, and I nodded, and it felt like I were making some kind of binding promise to him.

We left the dark restaurant and stepped out into glaring sunshine and walked back toward the car. My legs was shaking. Ain't never kept no promise before.

THINGS JUST GOT
worse that afternoon when we followed Jimmy's map to the studio where Etta James recorded her music. Turned out it weren't nothin' to look at. No great big building, no lights, nothin' shiny or pretty or nothin'. Were a ugly building with ugly curtains in the ugly windows so you couldn't see into the probably ugly studio. We couldn't even get inside 'cause they was recording a group I didn't never heard of before. We drove on to a drugstore called Trowbridges, 'cause Jimmy said they had good chili dogs there, and Jaz ate four of them while I had me another Coke and tried not to let Jaz know how disappointed I still were 'bout everything. How were I ever gonna get famous in a dump like this?

We hung out the rest of the day at the river. I sat sayin' nothin', but Jaz wouldn't shut up, 'cause he were excited. He couldn't wait to jam with Jimmy's band, and he said he loved how the town be like something outta
the past. He said it be like time stood still in Muscle Shoals, and I said that were exactly what be wrong with it. It done stayed still so long, it up and died.

Jaz said he were so turned on by the river and the atmosphere of the place, he just had to write 'bout it. He grabbed some paper and a pen from his car and started writing songs right there, with me sittin' next to him with my heart breakin'.

Some people come along on tubes, floatin' like it be fun sittin' on them tubes in the river. I saw them go round this corner of trees and disappear. I couldn't see or hear them no more. There they was all going along, all innocent like, till they round that corner, and I were just sure they found they come to the edge of that river and dropped off into nothin'. Even though I know from school how the world be round and not flat, I were just as sure as sure that they all dropped off the edge out there. So later, when I laid down in the grass, I made sure I were for enough away from that riverbed. Me and open water still wasn't friends, and I had to fight my thoughts hard not to keep thinkin' 'bout drownin'. I couldn't stop remembering that time I were drownin' in the Gulf of Mexico.

When Jaz got through with his songwriting, he lay back with me and sighed like he just so pleased with hisself. Then Jaz seen my arms and he rubbed at them. See, all this wet air were just hanging there all round us, invisible, 'cept on my arms. It left spit in the hairs on them. I liked him touching me. I snuggled up close to him on
the grass, 'cause it were colder down by the water, and lay my head on his shoulder, my face facing in, looking at his. He run his hand up and down my back, resting it sometimes on my ass, and I got this achy thrill-chill feeling between my legs. Were the first really good feelin' I'd had in a long, long time.

WHEN SEVEN-THIRTY COME
, we left the restaurant where we was eatin' fried catfish and hush puppies and headed out to the place Jimmy said for us to meet. Jaz had me reading the map Jimmy made, and I weren't good at directions, so I told him to take a right when I should have said left, and we didn't find out we was going wrong for 'bout fifteen minutes. Jaz swore at me and turned Shirl round, and we got right again.

We come to the house long after eight, and right away we could hear music. I looked up through the dark at the upstairs windows, and I saw the lights on. They glowed from the two windows like them soft lights be made from the sound of the sweet, warm music I heard playin'. Like it be music that make the lights come on—not electricity. I saw them lights and heard that music, and I started to feel a little better. We climbed up the stairs that run outside the building and knocked on the door. No one answered, so Jaz just opened the door and we walked inside. Right away I seen all these people through all this cloud of smoke, and there was all kinds of amplifiers and microphones and all this recording
stuff. Ain't never seen a setup like it The whole thing got me feeling jazzed. I just couldn't help myself.

We got introduced round, and turned out Jimmy were way older than everybody else, and the only Chinese dude. Seemed everybody treated him like a king even though he didn't play much, 'cause he were more like their manager.

They was all, like, in their twenties 'cept for me and Jaz, but even Jaz be almost eighteen, and they was all kinda dirty lookin'. Some had bare feet, and a couple of dudes didn't wear no shirts, and one lady guitar player named Colray or Tolray—didn't know which—she had a champagne glass tattooed on her boob, which you could see 'cause she wore her shirt so low you could see most everything.

They was a different kind of band from Mark's band. They noisy between songs and smokin' this and that and drinkin' beer and taking lots of breaks, and the guys was all flirting with me and the lady guitar player. They let me sing, and like always, soon as I got singin' I got feeling so fine. I forgot all 'bout runnin' off from the Jameses and how the town be so rinky-dink and how there weren't no Etta James waitin' for me to sing and weren't no way I gonna all the sudden be famous. I sung, and everything just felt all right again.

One dude howled when I got done singin' my soulful song, and that made me so happy I sung them one of my ragin' songs, and man, I got feelin' hot and steamy after that one. I got shakin' it, and all them in the band was
touching me here, there, and everywhere, and passing me dope and I just kept shakin' it and drawing on the dope like I been doin' it for years, and I got feelin' better 'n' better. They said I had a powerful voice that gonna bring the house down like a earthquake. They gave me a beer and I drunk it, sure, like I always drink beer when I sing. I heard beer took getting used to, but I liked it straight away. It were like when I been sucking on my bread ball too long before I chewed it down and swallowed it. It had a bready kind of taste, so I had me another beer and sang with this dude who tucked his chin way in when he sung. I tucked my chin in, too, and got myself a cramp in my neck, so I didn't do that no more.

The singin' and jammin' was more fun than I ever had in my life. Dudes was coming up to me and playing in my ear and the lights from the ceiling flashed gold off the trumpets and gold off the sax—all those lights, all the sounds, my singin', the beer, the dope, dudes touchin' and rabbin' me, more singin', more beer, lots of great riffs back and forth from the drums to the sax to the keyboard—and me, I'm
hot.
I'm so hot I'm burnin' up the place. My throat's on fire, my body's lit, and I'm dancin' 'round the room and rubbing myself up on Jaz, then movin' and groovin' with Victor from the gas station, then moving back to center to sing like I never sung before.

We jammed all night, and when Jimmy left, round 'bout two in the morning, someone turned down the lights and brought out some big cookies, as big as my
hand. Someone else passed round cocaine powder on a plate, and someone else brought out whiskey and more beer and cola and set it on a table with the cookies. Well, I tried this, and I tried that, all 'cept for the heroin someone were shootin' up his veins, then I puked in the toilet and lay on the floor. When they started playin' again, I stayed layin' there and let the sound come up at me through the floor, beating against my back—pound, pound, pound—like the drum hammer was beating the rhythms on my body and my heart were beating with the drums and the room were swirling and red lights was flashing till I got laughing, laughing hard till I cried. Then, don't know what come over me, but I got screaming. I screamed my lungs raw. Someone got down on the floor and put his hand on my mouth to stop my screaming. He got down on top of me to stop my screaming. He come down on top of me, and I stopped screaming. And I wanted what he give me, every bit of it.

I
WOKE UP CLOSE
to noon, squinting in the sunlight coming through the two windows. I sat up and saw Jaz standing over me, with my clothes in his hands. He handed them to me and I put them on, staying under the blanket I had over me till I finished dressing. When I moved, I could feel my every bone and muscle were deep sore, and my head so tender, it felt like it made of glass and been shattered with a hammer.

Jaz bent over and reached for my hand. He helped me up and we tiptoed on out of the sour-smelling room filled with all the sleeping bodies. I looked back at the spot where I were sleeping and saw the body that been laying next to me. Couldn't see his face. Couldn't see nothin' but a lumpy, body-filled blanket.

"We need some coffee," Jaz said, when we got to His Girl, Shirl.

"Do we?" I said. I felt so sick, didn't want nothin' in me—nothin'!