by Renée Rosen
One by one they slid off the car hood, the brothers darting their cigarettes to the ground. The music in the church had stopped. There was no piano, no singers, just barking dogs, horns honking in the distance and the preacher delivering his sermon. The junkyard lost its sanctity and Leeba found herself back in a land of broken headlights and shattered windshields. Her friends had things to do, and Leeba was left with a long day to fill all by herself. Jacks, solitaire, her jump rope, a library book, the piano—she contemplated her substitute playmates.
Leeba left the brothers to stack tires and headed toward the bus, shuffling along in Cousin Eli’s shoes. They were a size too small for him and a size too big for her, but her mother wouldn’t spend the money for a new pair. Why, when those are perfectly good? Leeba polished and buffed them, but still they looked like boys’ shoes that didn’t fit. It was bad enough that she was taller than the other girls, taller than the boys, too. In the fifth grade she already stood five-four and she wasn’t done yet. Other mothers urged their children to stand up straight, shoulders back. But fearing her height would scare off the boys, Leeba’s mother never corrected her for slouching, her torso sunk in like a C. And even then she still towered over her classmates. Her father said her long legs were a fluke. Even the men in her family—on both sides—struggled to reach five-seven.
Twenty minutes later the bus dropped Leeba off in a section of Chicago called Lawndale. The Groskis lived over there on a shady, tree-lined street where everyone knew everyone else. Their house in the center of Karlov Avenue was a simple four-flat with a brick exterior. They had the first-floor apartment, three rooms for the four of them: Leeba’s parents; her younger sister, Golda; and her. Compared to how they’d lived in the shtetl, their village in Poland, this was a castle. Uncle Moishe, Aunt Sylvie and Cousin Eli had the apartment across the hall.
Leonard and Phil Chess lived in the building next door on the second floor. Leeba’s mother was the only person who still referred to them by their Polish surname, Czyz. She called the parents Cryla and Yasel instead of Cecile and Joseph. They never corrected her, but the boys, Lejzor and Fizsel, were quick to remind her that they only answered to Leonard and Phil. The Chess family had come over in 1928, a year before the Groskis, but to Leeba they were true Chicagoans who had American names and ate hot dogs and spoke English, their accents beginning to fade as beautifully as a setting sun.
Leeba entered the small foyer to the building where the wallpaper curled away from the corner seam. The hallway smelled of boiled cabbage. Her mother was cooking again. Leeba wiped her big shoes on the welcome mat with Shalom running across the burlap in black Hebrew letters.
“Leeba, iz az ir?” her mother called out when she opened the front door.
Leeba saw the tips of her mother’s pink slippers poking out of the kitchen alcove. “Ya, Mama, ikh bin heym.”
Yiddish was the only language spoken in the Groski home because Leeba’s mother had never learned English. She claimed she had no use for it, whereas Leeba found it a necessity, even if confounding. When was a kernel something that got caught in your teeth and when was it an army officer? Words like choir, knife and gnat—even more puzzling. She wrestled with words in her diary, in the poems she wrote, in the little songs she made up. She mentally rehearsed each time she spoke, wanting only to sound American.
With the church music fresh in her head, Leeba went into the living room and sat at the piano. It was a secondhand upright with keys as yellowed as an old woman’s teeth and an F key that stuck in humid weather. Her father had splurged on the piano after her teacher at Theodore Herzl School realized Leeba could play by ear. If she heard a song enough times she could play it back note for note. How her fingers knew which keys to strike she didn’t know, couldn’t explain. From the age of ten Leeba had taken private lessons at the J.P.I., the Jewish People’s Institute, on Douglas Boulevard. But even before that she had taught herself to play “Stormy Weather,” “Sitting on Top of the World” and other songs she’d heard on the radio.
She got her talent from her father, who had played in a klezmer band back in their shtetl. He still held concerts at their Lawndale home, where neighbors—all of them from the Old World—gathered in their living room to drink schnapps from mismatched shot glasses while Leeba played the piano. Her father accompanied her on violin and Uncle Moishe on the clarinet. Leeba was the center of attention those nights, relishing the admiring looks, the praise, savoring every moment before the song ended and everyone’s focus went elsewhere. She knew that this—being able to play like she did—was the one thing that made her special. It was the tradeoff God had given her for being born too tall and with the curls that some called “Jew hair.”
While Leeba sat at the piano, the gospel music from earlier played inside her head as her fingers instinctively found the notes, sounding out the melody for “Jesus Gave Me Water.” She played that song over and over until her mother called her to dinner, where the rest of the family was already seated at the table, waiting on her. The usual chatter while they ate was lost on Leeba, who still heard the music playing inside her head.
Afterward, she stood next to her mother at the kitchen sink, drying the dishes while her mother washed. Golda was in the living room listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio while her father sat at the table building a model airplane out of balsa wood, the smell of airplane glue heavy in the air. While he assembled the pieces, Leeba’s mother complained about the schwartzes who had moved to Lawndale.
“It’s the Glucks’ fault,” her mother said. “How could they have sold to Negroes?”
“What I don’t understand,” her father said, pressing two glued sections together, “is why they would want to live in this neighborhood to begin with.”
Golda, aptly named for her golden hair, so silky smooth it captured the light in ways that Leeba’s never would, came and stood in the doorway. “Does that mean the schwartzes will go to my school in the fall?”
“But you don’t need to mix with them,” her mother said. “You stick to your own kind. You, too,” she said to Leeba as she tugged the dish towel off her shoulder. “I am so angry with those Glucks for putting us in this position.”
“What position?” asked Leeba.
“Never mind. Dry.” Her mother handed her another plate. “I still can’t believe it. Schwartzes in Lawndale.”
The next day Leeba walked down Fifteenth Street to see what all the fuss was about. After listening to her parents, she, too, wondered why a Negro family would want to live in the heart of a Jewish community, where synagogues and kosher butchers graced nearly every block. She turned down Kostner Avenue, a street lined with modest two-flats and factories.
When she arrived at the Glucks’ old house, Leeba saw a cluster of young boys from the neighborhood up on their tiptoes, looking through the windows, hands cupped about their eyes, faces pressed to the glass. A peep show could not have been more captivating.
“Look at that radio.”
“They have a phonograph player, too.”
“Hey,” Leeba called to them from the sidewalk. “What do you think you’re doing?”
One boy grinned, big, toothy and proud. “We’re watching the schwartzes.”
“Get away from there.” Leeba ran up on the grass to shoo them off, knowing that she, too, had gone there to “watch the schwartzes.” It had seemed like an innocent adventure until those boys held up an ugly mirror. To cover her shame she posed as the protector, shouting louder this time, “Go on now. Get away from there. Leave these nice people alone.” As the words left her mouth she bought into her own posturing, feeling superior, even a bit virtuous.
But the boys were defiant and didn’t budge until they heard the jingle jangle of the Good Humor Man pedaling his bicycle truck down the block, his handlebar bells trilling. The boys raced toward the curb, circling around the cart, digging into their pockets for coins.
Leeba was still on the lawn when the front door swung open and the newest resident of Lawndale stepped out on the porch. She recognized her right away: the singing angel from the gospel church. She was about Leeba’s age and even prettier up close, with fine, delicate features, her hair every bit as curly as Leeba’s.
A woman came out on the porch behind her, barefoot and dressed in a floral housecoat, her wiry hair pulled back in a plain gray kerchief. She started toward the steps, her toes teetering over the edge, her brown skin cracked white around her heels.
“Mama, go on back in the house.”
The woman was already on the first step.
“Go on now, Mama. Back inside.”
That time she listened and moments later Leeba saw her hovering near the window, watching.
“Don’t mind her,” said the angel. “She get like this sometimes.” The girl pointed to the children gathered around the man in the white uniform. “Who’s that?”
“The Good Humor Man.”
She crinkled up her forehead, confused. It occurred to Leeba that this girl had never seen a Good Humor Man in whatever neighborhood she came from.
“He’s selling ice cream.”
“How much do it cost?”
“A nickel.”
The angel turned and disappeared inside the house, closing the door behind her. Leeba felt ashamed, trespassing on this girl’s lawn. She headed toward the curb where the boys were licking and slurping as their ice creams melted, dripping onto the pavement. Leeba had no money to spend on something like that. She had no extra money, period. Her weekly allowance had been cut back to a quarter since the Depression and she’d already spent her money the day before on 78s of Bing Crosby and Duke Ellington at the used record store.
She was about to head for home when the front door opened again and the girl came running down the lawn.
“Can I have one of them ice creams?” She handed the Good Humor Man a dime and turned to Leeba. “Ain’t you having none?”
“I don’t have any money.”
The girl looked at the change resting in her palm and handed Leeba the nickel. “Well, here—”
Leeba hesitated. It seemed like such a grand gesture and she felt undeserving, especially given her motives for being there that day.
“Go on now, go get yourself an ice cream. You pay me back later.”
The girls sat side by side on the curb and while they ate their treats Leeba said that she’d heard her outside her church the day before.
“How’d you learn to sing like that anyway?” asked Leeba.
The girl shrugged. “Just born to me, I guess.” She looked down and Leeba worried about her cousin’s shoes until the girl glanced up, indifferent, as if she hadn’t noticed.
After they’d finished their ice cream Leeba brought her new friend, Aileen Booker, home so she could repay her for the ice cream.
As they came through the doorway Leeba’s mother stepped out of the kitchen. “Vas iz das?” she asked, running her hands down the front of her apron, her eyes narrowing on Aileen.
Leeba explained about the ice cream and her mother shook her head, muttering as she went to the Maxwell House canister on the counter where she kept spare change.
“Is she mad?” Aileen whispered so softly she practically mouthed the words.
“Oh, don’t worry. She can’t understand you. She doesn’t speak English.”
“Oh.” Aileen paused for a moment. “Well, then, what do she speak?”
“Yiddish.”
Aileen made a face.
“Polish,” said Leeba, which didn’t appear to be much more of an explanation.
Leeba’s mother fished a nickel from the canister and handed it to Leeba. “Give this to her and don’t take money from her again. You understand?”
Leeba knew by her mother’s tone that she was in trouble for something. She just didn’t know what.
“Now send her on her way,” her mother said. “She doesn’t belong here.”
But Leeba didn’t want to send Aileen away. Other than the Chess brothers, Leeba didn’t have any friends, let alone a girl friend her age. Leeba never fit in at school, teased because of her height, her accent, her hair, the schmatehs her mother made her wear. Aileen hadn’t flinched at any of that—not even her shoes—and that alone won Leeba’s unconditional devotion.
Later that night while Golda slept, hogging the covers on her side of the bed, Leeba listened to her parents through the thin walls.
“What can we do about it, Freyda?” her father was saying. “You want she should have friends and now she does.”
“But a colored one?”
Leeba heard the bedsprings squeak and the thud of her father’s heavy feet hitting the floorboards. “We can’t tell her not to play with the girl.”
“But you didn’t see her. She’s dark. We can’t have Leeba running around with her.”
Knowing that her mother didn’t approve of Aileen made this budding friendship all the more appealing to Leeba. Defiance was her weapon, the only way she could retaliate against her mother favoring Golda. For Golda there was money for shoes. For Golda there was everything. She was the family beauty, the child to hang one’s hopes on, not the tall, gangly daughter with the wild curls. Leeba reached under the bed for her notebook and pencil and scribbled the start of a poem in the dark: A nickel for a friend / A small price to pay . . .
“We have to put a stop to this,” her mother was saying, making Leeba pause her pencil. “What will people say?”
“It’s not so geferlech, not the end of the world. Would you rather she run around with the Chess brothers the rest of her life?”
ONE
• • •
1947–1950
ONE
• • •
“So Many Roads, So Many Trains”
RED
All he brought with him was a suitcase held together with twine and his guitar—a secondhand Stella that he’d traded his pocketknife for when he was sixteen. That summed up his possessions as he rode the Greyhound from Merrydale to the train depot an hour outside of New Orleans. Everyone back in Merrydale knew him as Reggie Smalls, but an hour later, by the time he boarded the colored entrance of the Illinois Central train, he was Red Dupree. Change your name, change your life. “Red Dupree” had the sound of a real bluesman and that was what he was determined to become. A real bluesman.
It was only April but already hotter than a smoke pit, especially inside the train car. Red was six foot four, and when he sat down on one of the wooden seats his knees were nearly up to his chest. He was riding in the Jim Crow car along with the rest of the Negroes. The other cars had nice upholstered chairs that reclined all the way back, but those were reserved for the white folks. Same was true for the only bathroom on board.
Red’s legs were already cramping up and he was only an hour into his trip. There wasn’t any room to stretch out, so he had no choice but to keep himself folded up, his hands tucked under his thighs for safekeeping, a habit he’d formed years before. As the train barreled through Yazoo City, Greenwood and Glendora, he looked out the window thinking those towns were all the same. The same lone gas pump at the filling station with another nameless colored man, old before his time, waiting in the hot sun for a customer to pull up. The same plantations that by fall would be nothing but cotton bolls, needing to be picked. More miles of track, more swamps and plantations. He saw men and women gathering corn and pecans, some cutting sugar cane. He could almost feel the sweat running down their backs and those cloth sacks getting heavier by the handful. Being a sharecropper was a dog’s life and he wouldn’t miss it at all.
He couldn’t say the same for his mama, his sisters and the rest of his kin. It was hard leaving them behind. His mama had been so upset when they’d gone to the Greyhound station that she forgot the fried chicken and corn bread she
’d packed for him. Oh, how she didn’t want to see him go, especially since he was the only man in the family now. The year Red turned ten his father boarded a train heading north and never came back. Red had grown up on the spot after that. His father left them with no money and little food. Even with his mama and sisters taking over in the fields, Red had to do more than his share. Not wanting to quit his schooling, he’d get up at three in the morning, shovel grain in the buckets for the mules, clean the grub hoes and do his other farmwork before heading to class. He reeked of sweat and manure and no one wanted the desk next to his.
When Red’s train arrived in Clarksdale, some passengers got off and others came on board. An older couple took the two seats across from him. She had tight gray curls sticking out beneath her hat, her white gloves clasping her pocketbook. Her husband had a cane, his dark brown fingers opening and closing around the curved handle. She smiled, asked Red how far he was heading.
“Chicago, ma’am.”
“Chicago, huh? Ain’t never been up to Chicago.” She adjusted her hat and made a shivering sound. “Heard it get mighty cold up there in the wintertime.”
“That’s what they tell me, ma’am.”
People warned him about the snow and the cold, but he didn’t care. Chicago was the place to be. It was where everyone said he ought to go. Enough people say you got a gift and you start believing them. That was what happened when he began playing his guitar. One day Red was sitting on the porch fooling with a Robert Johnson song he’d heard on the radio, “They’re Red Hot.” He was just messing around when the neighbors started coming over, clapping and dancing. More and more folks joined in and even the stray cats that lived under the risers came out, lying on the grass watching. When Red realized he was the one drawing them all in, he was astonished. They had gathered around to hear him. That unleashed something inside him, something he didn’t even know was there. He’d always thought of himself as a shy kid, but no more—that guitar in his hands was a power, a passport that he hoped would open the world to him.