Born Blue (19 page)

"Do this be mine?" I asked, like Paul be still in the room.

The cover said
Music Theory and Composition for the Beginner.

I opened it up, and already I knew everything on the first page, 'cause of what Paul taught me. I set the book down. I went to the only closet in the apartment and fished round and got me out a pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt of Paul's and put them on. The jeans was big and long but fit okay if I rolled them up and cinched a belt on. The T-shirt was big, too, and it had red writing on it:
INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS.
I hugged myself in the shirt, put on some Albert Collins,
from Paul's blues section, and sat on the couch with my book.

I fell asleep studying, not 'cause it were boring but 'cause I hadn't been to sleep for most of two nights and two days straight. When I waked up, it were quiet in the room 'cause the record I were playing been long over. I jumped up and put it back on again. Never did like silence, and anyways, I didn't hear much of the album the first time through.

I looked in the fridge for what to eat. I found me some cheese, so I ate that and went back to studying with my music book.

Sometimes when I looked up to think 'bout what I just read, I looked round at all the other books in the room and I kept thinking how in just another minute I were gonna have to get up and see what all them other books be about. But I didn't do it, 'cause I were 'fraid. I were 'fraid that them books be just like Paul—full of words I don't know and weren't never gonna understand.

When Paul come home that night, he come in almost bouncing with his walk. He had a sack of Chinese take-out food in his hands.

I said, "You actin' like you happy."

Paul set his sack on the counter. "Meeting went well," he said. "Plus, I
got
a call from Mick. We should be hearing our song on the radio before the end of the month, and he's looking into getting us a gig in New York City."

I jumped up and hugged him, and he hugged back
real quick, then set me away from him. He caught sight of my clothes and said, "Those are mine," real matter of fact, like he were just taking it in and not accusing me of stealing or nothin'.

I said, "Yeah. Look how far I got in your book." I held up the music book and showed him the paper I used to write stuff on. "See how I made my musical notes like yours. I remembered how you said you don't make little circles and fill them in, 'cause that were armerturish."

"You mean
amateurish.
Yeah, go on."

"So, see, I just did little smudges. And see, this is F and then A, then C, then E. That's the notes on the spaces, and here's E-G-B-D-F, for the notes on the lines."

Paul looked over my pages, kinda smiling. Then he said, "Now, why don't you play that over here on the keyboard?"

"Really? How do I do that? I kinda poked at it a bit today, but no sound come out from it, even when I turned it on."

Paul went to the keyboard set up beneath a couple of windows and showed me how to hook the keyboard up to the amplifier. Then he showed me where to find middle C and how playing notes on a piano be just like saying the alphabet, only there be only seven notes that just play over and over, A-B-C-D-E-F-G and A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

He helped me curve my fingers just right when I pushed them down on the keys and showed me how I
should hold my wrist up off the board the way a professional do. He said, "Might as well learn it right the first time." Then when I done it a couple of times, he said I were just a natural at music.

I played it again, then skipped every other note like he said to do. Then I played notes C-E-G all together, which be a chord, and it sounded so pretty, didn't wanna never stop and eat no Chinese food. My stomach were upset from all the cheese I ate, anyway.

That keyboard were wild. I could make it sound like a whole band be in the room playing A-B-C-D-E-F-G with me, just by pressing a button on the side.

Paul let me play at the keyboard while he heated back up the Chinese dinner. Then he said I had to come eat so I would have energy to learn more things the next day, and he said I needed to get good sleep, too, so my brain would work right. "You can't learn well if your body isn't fed right and you don't get enough sleep," he said. And he didn't say nothin' all night 'bout me leaving and living somewheres else.

I
DIDN'T EAT MUCH
of my food. First I didn't want to 'cause I wanted bad to get back to playing the keyboard. Then I knew that I were gonna be sick, so I left the table and hung out in the bathroom half the night Getting sick tired me out so bad I fell asleep till I got sick again.

Paul got up with me and wrung out a washrag for me to wash my face with, and he said it were probably all the drugs I been taking going through my system.

I said if that be true, then he better get me something to sniff fast 'cause I didn't want to be sick no more. Were worse than when I were pregnant.

Paul got scared I were gonna sniff on his shaving cream or something, so he come with me back to the couch and waited in the dark with me till I fell off asleep.

Next time I waked up, I saw Paul come out die bathroom with the towel round his waist and that fist hole in
his chest. I watched him go to his closet to get out clothes from it, and I got up from the couch and snuck over behind him. When he turned round I touched his chest.

Paul sprang back from me like I touched him with a hot fire poker. "What are you doing?" he said, and his voice had a real angry sound to it.

"What that hole be? How you breathe with that deep ditch in your chest?"

"I breathe fine. I was born this way. There's nothing wrong with me."

"'Cept that be ugly."

"Thank you very much." Paul turned away from me and went for his bedroom.

"Rest of you be okay, though," I said to his back.

He turned back round at me. "Every body has its flaws."

"Mine don't," I said. I lifted my arms up like I wearing some fine evening gown, but I were still wearing his big Interlochen T-shirt.

He couldn't see nothin' of my body, but still he said, "Hah! I beg to differ!"

"What's so wrong with the way I look?"

"For one thing, you have that drug addict's pallor."

"Ain't no addict. I'm just kinda sick Haven't had nothin' since the party."

"Well, your skin's yellow."

"That be 'cause I part African American."

"Impossible." Paul turned away and laughed on into his bedroom and shut the door.

I stomped over to the door and pounded it. "Ain't impossible if it true, asshole!"

He called out. "You have hair so blond it's almost white, and it's baby fine, and your eyes are blue.
And
your skin, when its color is not drug induced, is most likely so fair as to be translucent. You haven't a single African American feature."

"I got full lips and a great ass!" I shouted at the door.

"My lips are fuller than yours, and your ass isn't so great"

"Didn't think you was lookin', anyway, Boy Scout" I went from the door and sat down at the keyboard. I turned that sucker way up, flicked on the band sound button, and played my chord.

Never in my life did I see a body shoot outta his room as fast as Paul come flying outta his. He grabbed my hand off the keyboard and shook my wrist so hard, I expected to see my hand dropped off at my feet.

"
This
is
not
a
toy
!" he said. "You treat my belongings with respect or you get out of here. Everything in here I worked hard to get It's my whole life in here—my whole life—and I take my life very seriously. You understand?"

I blinked up at him. His hand were still gripping my wrist. I said, "Yeah, I understand good. Never met nobody else before who know what I been feelin' all my fife
'bout singin'. Never met nobody loved music way I do, 'cept you."

He let go my hand.

I looked down at the keyboard. "Sorry what I done. Won't do it again. It give me a headache, anyways." Were the first time I ever felt sorry 'bout anything.

I
WERE GOOD
and sick all of that first week I stayed with Paul. I knew if I had me some heroin or something, I'd be fine for a time, but didn't feel like leaving the apartment and goin' on the hunt for it. Paul said if I got into drinkin' or drugs at his place, I were outta there fast. I told him threats didn't work on me, so if he wanted me gone, he had to just go ahead and say so.

One night, when I come awake and seen him staring down at me, I rolled onto my back and asked, "How come you lettin' me stay here, anyways?"

He went over to his keyboard and poked at it. Then he said, shrugging his shoulders, "I like teaching you music. You catch on fast, and you're so into it. I like that." He turned and looked back at me. "You're such an enigma to me. I can't quite figure you out."

I thought
enigma
be a bad insult, but he said it meant I were like a puzzle to him. All I could think of when he said that were them puzzles little Samson James had in
his playroom. I liked to sneak them things up to my room at Harmon's and play with them, so I guess Paul were kinda playing with me. He were playing at being a music teacher, but I didn't mind 'cause I were learning good stuff, so I didn't take no drugs or nothin'. I didn't want to get kicked out.

Anyways, for a long time, I were just too tired and too sick in my stomach to do nothin' but hang over the toilet, then go sleep on the couch. The second week, though, I got to feeling lots better, but I still never left the apartment, and I still went asleep a whole lot, too. Paul said my sleeping rhythm were off 'cause I were sleeping in the day and up prowling like a burglar all night long and that I needed to force myself to stay awake more in the day till I got a good rhythm going again. Didn't tell him how I never had a good sleep rhythm in the first place, and I didn't say how it weren't just old drugs running through me making me sleep so much, neither. I were sleeping all the time 'cause for once I didn't feel like I had to keep lookin' left and right to see what shit be coming at me next. Ain't never known what safe felt like 'cept when I been close to Harmon or smokin' heroin. Heroin were the only thing wrapped me up close and safe, till I come to Paul's.

Safe at Paul's felt warm and snuggly, laying on the couch under the sun yellow blanket Paul give me, and good music playing, and Paul coming home with hot food to eat And even though Paul were real picky about
everything, including something called MSG that he didn't want sitting in his food even when it be invisible, Paul felt safe, too. He were always thinkin' 'bout me, wanting to teach me music stuff, and giving me vitamins to take every morning. He let me wear his clothes, and he made sure I be comfortable sleeping on the couch, and especially, he let me play all his music.

After I got over being sick, all I wanted to do were sleep nice and warm and deep, then wake and play music on the keyboard, or study my theory book and listen to records. Paul give me more and more music books to learn. Seemed there weren't no end of learning, when it come to music. Of course I couldn't keep all his books he give me—they was just for borrowing, he said—but I liked how he trusted me. He trusted me with all his stuff and never checked to see what were missing from his apartment, neither.

For the next couple of weeks, I worked on learning music, and when Paxil come home from work, we first ate whatever dinner he brung home, then he checked over what I learned in my theory book and what I worked on in the piano books he had got out for me to play. Sometimes after that, we went to a friend of Paul's place to practice with his band, 'cause on weekends Paul and them played at coffeehouses and clubs. And Paul kept reminding me, like I was mental, that if I was gonna sing with his band, I had to stay straight and not mess with any drugs or alcohol.

I weren't planning on messing with nothin', but I got tired of him always saying I might, like any minute I gonna get high, so I said, "You cain't be bossing me round. Without me, you ain't got a band. Mick ain't gonna do no New York City without me. Anyways, a band ain't no good without they bein' high. Ain't never heard of a one that weren't playin' high."

Paul said, with his face getting hot red, "You want to sing in the band, you stay clean, period! Don't think you can't be replaced, because you can."

I stayed clean for a while, but then three things happened kinda all at once.

First, Paul told me to keep my eyes and my hands off Jed, the drummer, 'cause he were trouble.

Well, if someone tell me don't look, all I can do is look. I never woulda even noticed Jed in the back with all his drums round him if Paul hadn't said don't, 'cause he were a white dude and I ain't usually interested in white.

Turned out Jed were a binger. He went on binges of drinkin' and druggin' and gettin' it so bad, he couldn't even perform, and they had to cancel gigs 'cause of it. That's why Lisa did drums when we recorded up at the Shoals: Jed were on a binge.

I told Paul to lose the guy if he couldn't perform. They was plenty of other drummers in the world. But Paul said Jed were his old, old friend from home, and they go way back. He said that like going way back
meant something important, but way I was lookin' at it, were just a lot of bad history between them and they was both better off without each other.

Anyways, when Paul weren't looking, I were checking out Jed. The dude kinda had a big head, made me think of a horse's head 'cause of his chestnut hair and chestnut eyes and the way his teeth looked all the same size—big. He wore his hair real long and were like girl's hair, the way it shined. He looked real tall sittin' at his drums, but when he stood up he were just average, so most of his height musta been in his body. I gave the dude the sexy shoulder, and he winked back at me. That's all it were, at first, just flirting stuff.

Then come the second thing that happened. Paul got a call from Lisa, and he invited her to come stay for the weekend.

I heard what he were saying on the phone and when he hung up I said, "Where's that bitch gonna stay? Ain't no room for her here. Ain't barely room for me."