Yolonda's Genius

by Carol Fenner

  “That there’s some pretty fine sound, kid,” said the sparkly cowboy behind Andrew. “You blowin’ some good stuff outa that little harp, man.”

  Interrupted, Andrew turned to look at the cowboy. But, almost immediately, the guitar by the chair drew his eyes down. “You have to be big to play that,” Andrew said. He smiled at the sparkly cowboy, raised up the Marine Band harmonica in a salute. I don’t have my case either.

  Yolonda seemed drawn, too, by the cowboy. She closed in on him.

  “My little brother is a child prodigy,” she announced. At least she didn’t say genius again. Andrew’s dislike for that word surfaced briefly.

  “Believe it!” said the sparkly cowboy. “If I ain’t mistaken, he was audiatin’ a little just then. Who’s he studyin’ with?”

  Audiating. Yolonda did that, too — used words that closed you in a box.

  “I was not,” he muttered into the harmonica. Then he played, I was not, I was not!

  “Okay. Okay,” said the sparkly cowboy.

  Andrew was surprised. He never expected a stranger to answer the things his harmonica said — not with words anyway.

  “He’s not studying,” said Yolonda. “He needs to study. He needs a teacher for a genius. Know anyone?”

  There was that word again.

  “Is he playin’ tonight?” asked the cowboy.

  “No,” said Yolonda. Andrew saw that she looked startled. “We’re lost children.”

  The sparkly cowboy laughed. “This kid ain’t lost, sister. You don’t look like you lost either. Sure he ain’t with one’a the groups?”

  “He oughta be,” said Yolonda. “Maybe he oughta be going out on that stage — instead of some others around here.”

  Why is she so mad? wondered Andrew.

  Then the sound of his sister sharpened even more. “We’re looking for Koko Taylor. We’re looking for B. B. King. I need to talk to somebody who can listen to my genius kid brother.”

  Andrew could suddenly hear his own heart. Was that why they were here?

  “He’s worth listening to, awright,” said the cowboy. He smiled down at Andrew. Andrew felt a scary warmness flooding through him.

  His sister glared at the sparkly cowboy. “There’s a lot of stuff he needs to learn, and he needs the best kind of teacher to show him.”

  The cowboy had half a smile looking at Yolonda.

  Yolonda said, “Takes more than a fancy suit to play great blues. Great blues musicians don’t need a whole lot of glitter.”

  Whole lot of glitter, played Andrew on the Marine Band harmonica. He gave it a mean edge like Yolonda’s voice had right now. He was trying to figure out the heavy pushing that came from her like the push that came from big trucks — the trucks that broke up cement. He played the cement-breaking truck. Then he mixed in the bustle and short snap of voices in the corridor. He sent the sound out to meet the music that drifted back to him with the faint burning buzz of the crowd. He played the sudden silence of his sister and the sparkly cowboy.

  Well, thought Yolonda no problem getting Andrew to play. He’s on fire tonight.

  Andrew stopped playing, but the listening stayed in his eyes.

  “You are right about your kid brother, gal,” said the cowboy, leaning toward Yolonda and looking her straight in the face. “But you don’t have to be jealous of my pretty costume.”

  Yolonda glared. “I want the right people to hear my brother,” she said. “Somebody’s got to see what he is besides me.”

  Then the cowboy musician did something that startled Yolonda into silence. He smiled; he put his arm around her powerful shoulders and he gave her a midge of a hug.

  “You got a gift yourself, girl,” he said. “It comes in a mean sorta package, but it’s a gift all right.”

  Yolonda glared at the cowboy. But no words, big or small, came to her mind.

  “Well, hello there, Davie Rae,” said a voice behind them — a silver voice, resonant and smooth as a deep bell.

  Yolonda turned and saw someone as familiar as her father. She stared. Her mind scrabbled for facts — then knew. It was Mr. B. B. King, the Blues Boy himself. He looked like a real person.

  “Whatcha got there? New band member?” B. B. King cocked his wide, smiling face at Andrew. He wore glasses, not like in his pictures.

  “Maybe so, Beeb, maybe so,” said the cowboy musician. “He gotta have a tutor. Know anyone wantsa take on a pro-gidy? A pro-digy — whatever?”

  “Prodigy, Davie Rae. Prodigy,” said B. B. King. “Lemme hear the kid, Davie; lemme hear him do his stuff.”

  “Thought we might throw him to the crowd,” said the Davie Rae cowboy, and he winked at Yolonda.

  Davie Rae? Davie Rae Shawn? Yolonda winced. He was featured on the program. Must be somebody special. She groaned. What had she said to him? Well, what of it? He liked her, she could tell. And he’d noticed Andrew’s playing. And now — what had he said? Throw Andrew to the crowd? Wait a minute. Wait just a minute!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  There was no stopping things now. She had set something in motion and it was all suddenly moving too fast. She couldn’t even slow it down. Musicians with instruments were coming and going in the corridor.

  Yolonda tried to make herself as small and innocent and lost-looking as possible as she followed Andrew out onto the vast stage. The lights were so hard and bright that she winced.

  She certainly couldn’t let Andrew march out with Davie Rae Shawn all by himself. Her brother had turned his face inquiringly to Yolonda when this Shawn guy had said, “That’s a good name for a harp man, Andrew Blue.” He had put his hand against Andrew’s back to guide him onstage. “You’ll be a whole different intro for the boys. They need t’be shook up every so often.”

  Was Andrew actually going to introduce the band? How? Did Shawn want him to talk? Or play? Did he just want to get sympathy from the crowd with this cute little black kid standing there?

  As if pulled by an invisible string, Yolonda kept pace behind Shawn and Andrew. She hung on to the lost-child routine. It gave her a reason for being there. Now that she actually stood on the stage, it seemed as big as an airfield. She couldn’t see anything except a wall of lights. But there was a grim and horrible roar from the darkness beyond the footlights and the overhead spots — like a great, writhing monster. The monster gave off a shimmering energy as it continually changed its shape. Yolonda became small and lost without even trying.

  The microphone sent the MC’s voice out over the monster, which paused in its writhing.

  “We have here two lost children,” said the MC.

  Davie Rae Shawn eyed Yolonda.

  “Two lost kids — but their loss is our gain, folks.” The MC waved his arm toward Andrew. “This little dude here, I’m told, is a mean harp man. Two lost kids — one found musician. Somewhere out there among you folks is a worried momma.” There was a murmuring in the crowd. “Just hang in there, momma. Your kids are safe.”

  Yolonda groaned. A crazy-mad momma would be more accurate. She tried to peer through the sheet of light.

  “Now — without further ado, lemme also introduce you folks out there to a me-e-ean young guitar man come all the way from the big state of Texas. Folks, let’s give a Chicago welcome to Davie Rae Shawn!”

  The monster beyond the lights began to howl and whistle. Yolonda could feel the energy come in a rush toward them, and she instinctively braced herself. Part of her thought, This Shawn guy must be Big-time big-time. Another part wondered where in the monster of movement and murmurings were her momma and Aunt Tiny.

  Davie Rae Shawn leaned into his own mike. “Don’ you worry, Mrs Blue Your kids’re safe. An’ y’all out there — y’all gonna hear some new kinda sounds. How ’bout it for li’l Andrew Blue!” And the cowboy musician dove into his guitar and shot out some crazy chords.

  Yolonda felt a thrill of fear and hopelessness wash through her. Andrew was little. There was nothing more she could do now. He was a little six-year-
old kid with a Marine Band harmonica on a stage for giants, and he was on his own.

  “And what would you like to play for us, Mr. Andrew Blue?” asked Davie Rae. He swung a microphone down until it was level with Andrew’s head. Then he stepped back and fastened his guitar over his shoulder.

  Yolonda saw the sax man moisten the reed of his saxophone. She pulled in a deep lungful of Chicago air.

  “This is Yolonda,” said Andrew, and the mike tossed his little-boy voice out to the crowd: “This is Yolonda.”

  At first Yolonda thought he was introducing her, and she blew out her breath in shock. The whole campaign of her own conniving seemed dreadful, and she hung suspended for a long and terrible moment as Andrew, like a slow-motion dream, lifted the harmonica to his lips.

  He played a few warm-up chords, testing the sound as it was sucked into the microphone and thrown into the dark lake of people. He paused, listening to it, surprised.

  Then Andrew drew his harmonica from his mouth and put it back into his pocket. From the neck of his shirt, he pulled out the little wooden pipe. He placed his fingers, his mouth against the pipe and, like a proper beginning, he blew his waking-up song. But different. Such sadness in it. Sweet and clean and sad the sound sailed out over the crowd, out over Lake Michigan to join the boats rocking at their moorings. The sound hovered still when Andrew dropped the pipe and reached for his harmonica. The monster beyond the footlights waited, hypnotized.

  We are all covered with light, thought Andrew, like angels in Bible pictures. His listening reached through the lights. He could hear the great breath and motion of thousands of people out there in the dark beyond. The microphone bending down was mojo. And he knew the sky was there and that insects fluttered in tunnels of light sent onto the stage. Glimmering in the distance were the great buildings of Chicago’s skyline.

  The lights were warm on him and a cool breeze wafted across him, cooling — warming — cooling. Andrew closed his eyes, his mind stretching out to his sister at the edge of the stage. She had cried in front of the police people. Now something unfamiliar came to him from Yolonda. It made him uneasy. Then he knew. Yolonda is afraid, he thought, and the idea was so awful that he felt for a moment as if he were falling. No!

  No. This is Yolonda. And he told them — all those people out behind the lights — “This is Yolonda.”

  He had to play his morning wake-up song — to gentle the mike, call his sister back. To let the sadness go. After that, he needed his harmonica. For the mike — for the big voice like a giant.

  The feel of the wood and metal in his hands, against his mouth, steadied everything. Shapes of sounds he had been thinking about for weeks fell together. He pushed his breath into them.

  Yolonda walking, a steady, strong beat — great big moves, slow, making waves of air pass by. Yolonda eating a chocolate éclair — full mouth — soft and happy. Yolonda reading to him, voice purring around the big words. Yolonda dancing. This is the sound of Yolonda’s body — large, gobbling space, powerful and protecting — great like a queen, frightening everyone with a scowl and a swelling of her shoulders.

  Behind Andrew came a whisper of snares as the drummer joined the song of Yolonda.

  Then Andrew played a sweet, rich sound, smooth as Yolonda’s skin, dark and shiny as her eyes. The bass viol began a soft thumping, and the guitar came in deep.

  Andrew felt his sound carried up and out over the dark lake of people. Farther out, the greater Lake Michigan held the moon. Andrew played the moon. The sparkly cowboy was humming softly along with his guitar. The saxophone and now the piano joined together behind Andrew, carried him up and up. The dark sky had no end.

  So Andrew slipped his harmonica into his belt and put the pipe to his mouth. He played a high, wrenching note. Then he blew a long note that leaned and spread — a single note that seemed to reach back through hundreds of years. Yolonda. Big Sister! Big queen in the world.

  The guitar of Davie Rae Shawn picked up the theme, joining Andrew. Yolonda. Sister! Queen in the world!

  Yolonda found her mouth open. The monster had loosened and separated itself into faces of people, hands waving, cheering and clapping. Several flashbulbs sent out shocks of light. She sure hoped her momma’s astonishment had worn off soon enough for her to be getting this on that one-thousand-speed film.

  “Andrew Blue!” announced Davie Rae Shawn into the microphone, reminding the crowd. Andrew listened for a moment to the cheering. He waved his Marine Band harmonica at them. Then he walked across the stage, small shape against a sea of partially lit faces, a tiny fish, swimming sure and confident to his big, oh-so-big and grand whale of a sister. He put his small hand in her large one and looked out into the crowd.

  The crowd kept up a furious applause. “Yeah, awright, yeah!”

  Yolonda’s mind was swimming. What next? But she nodded her head faintly in acknowledgment at the crowd — the way she’d seen the queen of England do at a parade in her honor.

  The MC chortled into the mike. “Is this the finest blues city in the world? Let’s all give a round of applause for a brand-new Chicago musician — Mr. Andrew Blue!”

  How dumb, thought Yolonda. The crowd was already clapping their hands off. Besides, Andrew didn’t belong to Chicago. They lived in Grand River. Then, through the noise and all the strangeness, her good instincts took over. It was time to go. Leave ’em hungry, she thought.

  She took Andrew’s hand, turned. She didn’t shake off the thousands of eyes that were certainly fastened to their backs. Andrew tucked his harmonica into his pocket, the pipe under his shirt.

  Yolonda paced their exit — slow, but not too slow — toward the giant stage’s shadowy wings, where she could see lights winking from Mr. B. B. King’s glasses. One thing this girl has down, she thought, is timing.

  They left Chicago late that night, after hearing Mr. B. B. King play an amazing final set, after hustling through the still-cheering crowd, lugging Aunt Tiny’s hamper and pillows. Their momma had packed the car earlier that day. They rushed through last-minute checks for scattered things in Tiny’s apartment, rushed through hugs and promises. Their momma needed to get home to prepare for work the next day. Her usual hurrying state had returned.

  From the time they left the crystal twinkle of Chicago lights, during the whole three-hour drive, Yolonda’s brain whirled, carrying the night’s events in her head like objects in a tornado:

  Her momma’s face, filled with joy and scolding, as she rushed up East Jackson Street to claim her children.

  “Didja get any pictures?” Yolonda had put her momma on the defensive before she could start a tirade. “And Mr. B. B. King wants you to call him.” She let that land like a bomb.

  “Yolonda, you are an astonishment,” said her momma, “and you try me to the teeth.”

  A reporter from the Sun-Times had halted their exit to get “a close-up of the kid” and some information from their mother. There was nothing for their momma to do but go with the flow. Aunt Tiny kept turning to people, bragging about “my nephew — that itty-bitty boy child.”

  The hum of their car mingled with the sounds in Yolonda’s dozing brain. Mr. B. B. King’s silver voice: “. . . doesn’t have enough of the hunger in him — or the hormones, yet — to blow the range of the blues. Got the sad though, Miss . . .? Yolonda, you say. Well, Yolonda, he’s rare. A thinker. And he has the touch, the gift. Girl, he really has the gift! But he’s a thinker. Jazz, maybe. Intellectual like that. Or classical. Does he read music?”

  Andrew had told Mr. B. B. King, “I’m learning the Mickey Mouse feet.” And Mr. B. B. King had laughed and laughed before he explained to Yolonda what Andrew meant. I should have known, thought Yolonda.

  All the way home, through the foggy sleepiness that came and went, she checked (or dreamed she checked) her pocket for the card with B. B. King’s number on it.

  “Have your folks call me, Yolonda. I’d like to keep track of this young man.”

  The great gloomy weight h
ad lifted. She could share Andrew with everybody now. She couldn’t wait to tell Shirley about Andrew and the Chicago Blues Festival.

  An image of Shirley marching away with the loops of rope over her shoulder shot briefly into her mind.

  I have the whole summer, thought Yolonda. Shirley would love to hear about Davie Rae Shawn and B. B. King and all. About Andrew and the glory of being onstage. Blow by blow she would tell Shirley about the workings of her big plan. After they made up, of course.

  Briefly, her mind wrestled with face-saving approaches. Then she thought, I don’t have to do that. Better to start out on the right foot, even if it’s harder. Best friends should trust each other.

  “I’d like to apologize . . .” she would begin.

  THE CHICAGO MUSIC FESTIVALS

  My husband and I have been going to both the jazz and blues festivals in Chicago’s Grant Park for over ten years. For the purposes of the book, I have lumped together some of the happenings at both festivals, but I chose the blues festival to focus on because, although I think Andrew’s music might lend itself better to jazz, June was a better month, from the logistical standpoint of the book, for them to return to Chicago.

  I have also lumped together the festivals as they have been experienced by me over the years. Changes in methods of crowd control, times of concerts, schedule of musicians, and the mayoral administration make each festival somewhat different. What may appear to be questionable facts are the facts as I have gathered them over many years. I was more interested in capturing the overall feeling of the huge free festivals in Grant Park in all their sprawling splendor.

  I saw the girl who became Yolonda with her little brother onstage between sets at one of the early jazz festivals. She looked too big, too old, and too competent to be a lost child. She stayed in my mind, her face unsmiling and only a little intimidated by the enormity of the crowd looking at her.