Born Blue (6 page)

"A heart attack? How old were she then?"

"Seven. She was just seven years old. You're not supposed to die of a heart attack at seven years old, are
you?" Mama Shell looked at me, waiting like she wanted a answer from me.

I didn't have one. I sat back again and let go my breath. Didn't know why, but I were glad she died. Guess I didn't want to see no café au lait daughter of Daddy Mitch.

Mama Shell put her head down on her arms, so she were talking to the floor, and said, "I want my little girl back I just want my little girl."

I didn't know if she were talking 'bout me or her own child, but I didn't think it mattered to her. She just wanted a little girl, any little girl, but I couldn't be little no more. I knew too much.

I
HAD ME SOME
new friends in middle school but they wasn't close like Harmon been. Never could keep a friend longer than a couple of weeks, anyway. Anytime I got me a new friend, I'd feel all singsongy inside thinking this time it gonna last and we gonna be best friends forever. But we always ended up fighting soon enough, and it weren't never my fault, neither. Weren't my fault their toys and stuff were made cheap and broke easy, and I just give Lizzy a little push and she falls and breaks her wrist like I pushed her hard, when I didn't. It were always something like that, where I got the blame for it all. Didn't matter, anyway, 'cause didn't need no friends; I had my Etta and Odetta and Aretha.

The new friends in the middle school be different. They like little puppies trottin' after me, wantin' to be round me 'cause I looked grown and 'cause I got this voice and 'cause I just as sassy-assed as they come. They
thought I were acting cool. Weren't just the girls yappin' at me, neither. Boys was wanting to be round me and touch me all the time, especially the seventh graders. They was always telling me how pretty I be, that I got pretty eyes and pretty hair, but they wasn't looking at my face or head when they sayin' it—they looking at my tits.

I felt funny with them looking at me, so I smacked their faces when they got their eyes where they didn't belong. They come on after me, anyway. Acting sassy like that, and singin' the way I could sing, got me more friends and attention than I ever got before.

Then Mama Shell got it into her mind that she wanted to move. She told Daddy Mitch she be desperate to move.

"We've got to get out of here," she said, crawling up to Daddy Mitch, who were sitting on the couch. "I don't know what I'll do if we don't move. We've got to go soon, Mitch. Things are getting too hot around here. You said so yourself. Come on, Mitch, let's go." She whined and tugged at his shirtsleeve. "Let's get out of here."

Daddy Mitch pushed her off him and said, "Shell, I can't just leave. I got business here, good business."

"But you said the cops were sniffing around. They're sniffing around! We've got to move, Mitch."

Any time Daddy Mitch come home, Mama Shell would get on him 'bout movin', so Daddy Mitch didn't
come home. Mama Shell said one day that we was just gonna have to move without him, but we never did. I agreed with Mama Shell, though. I didn't see no cops sniffin' round, but I seen how dangerous Mama Shell been acting at the mall. She weren't careful 'bout stealing stuff no more, and a couple of times some salespeople caught her, but she managed to sweet-talk her way out of it. I got nervous going into the stores with her. I were sure some mall guard were gonna haul her off to jail one day.

I tried finding excuses not to shop with her, like sayin' I wanted to go look at books or something I knew she didn't like. She'd let me go off, and I'd just wander round tryin' on lipstick and perfume samples and callin' up Mama Linda on the pay phones and never getting nothin' but lots of ringing and ringing. But one time at the mall I heard singin'. There were a whole group of people singin' gospel music, and I told Mama Shell I had to go listen. "You go on and shop," I said, "and I'll meet you at the food court."

I didn't wait for her to agree with what I said, 'cause I were just drawn to the singin'. I run off down the mall, following that music.

I found the group in front of the food-court fountain. They was standing spread out in rows up on a couple of stands, and they was singin' and swayin', and all the people was black and dressed up nice—the men and boys in suits and the women and girls in dresses.
There was chairs set up in front of them, and didn't look like I had to pay nothin', so I sat down to listen to the music.

They had some good singers up there, real good. Hearing them singin', and seeing the small audience holding up their arms and swayin' and sayin'
amen
made me want to go up on that stage and sing, too. I wanted to show them how good I sung. The feeling were so strong in me it made my throat hurt, like a song got twisted and stuck halfway up my windpipe. I never got to sing no real gospel at my school, and Mama Shell and Daddy Mitch didn't go to no church. I bad wanted to get up there and sing. Hearing them singin' felt like I was back with Doris and Harmon, sittin' in church. If I closed my eyes I could pretend I were with them again. And maybe it were 'cause I been thinking 'bout Doris and Harmon that I noticed one dude, standin' the third row back, who had eyes just like Harmon's. They was big and round with way-long eyelashes, and they had that same too-sweet look in them the way Harmon's did. He were a big old thing, though, tall and heavyset in his body, with wide shoulders. He'd grown out of his suit, too. I saw that when he come forward and played the trumpet His shirt cuffs showed too much, and his shoulders looked like they gonna bust through the top of the sleeves any second. He didn't look comfortable. His face were all sweaty, too, but his playin' sounded good. I couldn't keep my eyes off him, and I noticed he kept snatching looks at
me. The second time he played the trumpet, when he got done and were about to go back to his place in the rows, the music leader held out his hand like he introducing the trumpet player and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Harmon James."

I jumped up out of my chair, forgetting where I were, and shouted out, "Harmon!" Other people stood up, too, and clapped, but I pointed at him and shouted his name again. "Harmon!" I weren't thinkin' right In the middle of their show, I pushed out of my row of chairs and ran onto the platform and grabbed my Harmon. I guess people thought I be crazy, 'cause they pulled me off him, but I shouted, "It's me, Harmon. It's Leshaya."

Harmon backed away. He was lookin' at me hard but shakin' his head no, like he didn't know me. Then I remembered. He didn't know Leshaya.

"I mean, it's Janie," I said. "Harmon, it's Janie from the stink house! Remember? Patsy and Pete? Harmon, it's me." The whole time I were saying this, the gospel singers was holding me back, away from my Harmon. I could feel tears on my face, and I kept sayin', "Harmon, it's Janie. It's Janie."

It seemed like forever before he finally said "Janie?" like he understood. Then, at last, at last, we was huggin' each other and crying with each other, and Harmon wanted to know where I been, but the music leader said Harmon had a show to finish. Me and Harmon said we sorry, and I got down off the platform. The people in the
chairs clapped, and I noticed a big crowd had filled in so that all the chairs was taken and more people was standing in bunches behind them.

I didn't want to sing no more after that. I just wanted to talk to Harmon, and they was words caught in my throat instead of song. I thought the singin' never would end, but it did, and me and Harmon got back with each other. I were crying and hugging him, and he were doing it, too, to me, and in between all that, I told him where I been and what happened, and he told me how good his life be with his mama and daddy and how he got a baby brother now.

Strangest thing besides seeing him all big and chunky were his talkin'. He didn't talk like me no more; he talked smooth like his parents. He talked like he readin' out of a book. He told me he sung with his church and played the trumpet in a high school band, and hearing him, my aching in my throat come back and I were longing for a wad of bread.

"Listen to you, Harmon. You sound all—all different. You so happy and smilin'. Ain't never seen nobody as smilin' as you before."

"I'm doing really well," he said, nodding his head too much. He kept on nodding while looking me over, and he said, "You look so different. You look older than I do now. I can't believe it, Janie."

"It Leshaya now. I named myself after Doris's girl who died. You know her girl died?"

Harmon bowed his head like he prayin'. "Sure," he
said. He looked back up at me, and his eyes shone happy and sweet even though he sounded sorry. "Doris moved a couple of months after her daughter died. Moved way out to Wisconsin. I had a different caseworker the rest of that year, and then I didn't need one anymore because Mama and Daddy adopted me."

We kept talkin' long as we could, and we traded addresses and phone numbers, and I warned him how we might be movin' 'cause Mama Shell always talkin' 'bout it. I told him 'bout my singin' and how music were still the best thing in the world to me. "Still ain't nothin' better than singin' my heart out," I said, and Harmon nodded too much again, like he were thinking so many thoughts, he forgot he were doin' it.

I told him about Mama Shell and Daddy Mitch and about school, but I left out everything about how sassy-assed I acted, 'cause I could tell Harmon were real fine and wouldn't approve of the way I been acting. That left me with a sadness 'cause we always been close, and not telling about all of myself put a space between us that weren't there before. Couldn't help it, though. I wanted him to be proud of me, so I stood straight with my feet together and my hands behind my back, and 'cause his voice were soft and quiet, I made mine that way, too.

Then the music leader come by and said we had five minutes before they had to start for the buses in the parking lot. I grabbed Harmon, and he hugged me and said, "I love you, Leshaya. I love you even more than the ladies."

I cried all over his shrunken suit, and he said good-bye and I said good-bye and I told him how I loved him, too, even more than the ladies. But when I watched him walk away from me, I knew I were lying. I still loved Harmon, but I loved the ladies most.

I DIDN'T SEE MAMA SHELL
sneakin' up on me. I were still waving at Harmon's back when she come along and near sent me up through the skylight she scared me so. "Who's that you're waving at?" she said. "He someone from school? Are you meeting boys at the mall? Is that why you've been slipping off every time we go shopping?"

"No, ma'am. No, it ain't. I promise."

Mama Shell smacked my head. "You don't promise. You're lying. I saw you with him. I saw you practically climbing all over him in front of everyone. Now, come on."

Mama Shell dragged on my arm through the mall and through the parking lot, and even though I could have fought her off and run, I didn't, but I didn't say nothin' 'bout finding Harmon, neither. She were so paranoid already, I knew she would think Harmon gonna go tell the police 'bout her stealing me. She didn't say
nothin' while we was driving home, but when we got inside the house she smacked me 'bout the head awhile and told me I better keep away from those bad boys and I better make sure they keep their hands to themselves. I let her hit on me a bit, 'cause it didn't hurt and she needed something to do to get out her anger. Then she told me to get out of her sight, so I run off to my room. I grabbed up my Doris doll and my headphones and turned on my tape of Etta James and let her singin' cut through the layers of me. I let her music cut down to my soul. I took a deep breath and let it out, and everything felt all right again.

After a while of listening to Etta and then Billie Holiday and Odetta, I felt safe enough inside to think 'bout my meeting with Harmon. He were so different but the same, too, when I thought 'bout it. He grown up big, but so did I. His voice were all polished off, like he a teacher. That made me feel funny, like we didn't come from the same place no more. He were the one taught me to speak, and then he went on and changed his voice on me. And his voice were so soft and kinda high-pitched. I couldn't imagine a voice like his ever yelling at nothin'. I could see how good and fine a boy he'd grown to be, too, and bein' with him, I felt like who I been weren't good enough.

The ladies never done that to me. They never changed on me. They just sang. I knew they gave me the most important thing in my life. They gave me their voices and their songs. Weren't nothin' better in the
world than that. If I could sing all the time, if I could be like the ladies and sing for my living, sing for all my life, well, wouldn't matter if I didn't turn out so good as Harmon. Nothin' else in the world would matter if I could sing and people would listen. Ain't nothin' else in the world like singin'.

I
ALWAYS FIGURED
I would live with Mama Shell and Daddy Mitch till I were all grown up, but when I been still just twelve years old, my time with them come to a end, and I didn't never see them again.

I guess the beginning of that story happened when Daddy Mitch moved his business into our house. He and Mama Shell carried boxes and bags of stuff down to the basement one afternoon, and when I asked what be goin' on, Mama Shell looked up at me with her firecracker eyes and said Daddy Mitch were moving home and we was gonna see a lot more of him from now on.

Daddy Mitch said, "Don't you come snoopin' round down here, though. Hear what I'm sayin'?"

"Yeah, Daddy Mitch, I hear, but what's all that you carrying down them steps?"

"None of your business. You keep out, and things will be real happy round here."

"Yes, sir," I said.

I don't know 'bout happy, but they was busy. People was always stopping by to see Daddy Mitch. They wasn't always the best-looking people, neither. Some fancy dudes dressed in suits would come and strut on through the house like they owned it, but much more come all ragged out, like they bums off the street. If Daddy Mitch be out when they come, then they all shaky and nervous, pacing round back of the house and checkin' the road to see if Daddy Mitch be comin'.