by Renée Rosen
Shortly after that he started playing at juke joints in Zachary, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi, and even up in Clarksdale, where a lot of folks went to make a name for themselves before heading to places like Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago. Now it was his turn to try his luck, see what he could make of himself.
Red craned forward and saw all the picnic baskets in the Jim Crow car. They called this train the Chicken Bone Express because the colored passengers brought food on board since they weren’t allowed in the dining car. His stomach growled and he was sorry his mama had left that food back home. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone hungry, though. He’d been raised on hunger pangs; he and his sisters would go out to the pump, cup the water in their hands and drink as much as they could hold just to fill the empty ache in their bellies. He leaned up against the window, gradually drifting off, and as the miles ticked by and the distance between him and Merrydale grew, he fell into a deep sleep.
Lost in that slumber he was a young boy again, sitting on the front porch of his granddaddy’s cabin. He was begging the old man, who’d lost nearly all his teeth but could still sing, to teach him the guitar. Red had made himself a diddley bow the year before, but there was only so much sound he could get out of a piece of wire nailed to a board. He wanted his granddaddy to teach him the blues.
The first time he held the guitar and mimicked the E7, A7 and B7 chords his granddaddy just taught him, the old man smiled, letting nothing but his pink gums show.
“Put your hand up here, son.”
Red did as he was told, pressing his seven-year-old palm against the old man’s. Even then his fingers were long, nearly as long as his grandfather’s.
“You got the hands of a bluesman. You protect them hands, boy. Don’t be lettin’ nothin’ happen to ’em. With them hands you always be able to make money. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t you go tellin’ your mama I’m teachin’ you the devil’s music . . .”
The train whistle blew and Red woke with a start, his hands still tucked beneath his thighs, guarding them even as he slept. He opened his eyes and saw the flashing red lights of the crossing gates as the conductor came down the aisle, calling, “Now approaching Memphis Central Station. Memphis, this stop.”
Red was stiff when he stood up. The smells of creosol and smoke blasted him in the face as he stepped down off the train. He had a half hour before they would be leaving again and he was starving. Across the street from the station a green and red neon sign for the Arcade Restaurant caught his eye. He dodged the streetcars and automobiles and went to the colored entrance around the back, where they had a couple of nicked-up tables and some folding chairs. There were mops and brooms leaning against the wall next to a bucket of gray sudsy water. He saw the front room, where the white folks ate, with its big blue and tan booths and stools at the counter that spun all the way around. He moved up to take a closer look at the jukebox—a big bubbler flashing colors as it spewed out Tex Williams’s “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette).” Red was fascinated. They didn’t have fancy places like this back home. He was tapping his foot to the music, breathing in the smell of grilled onions and barbecue.
“What you looking at, boy?” one of the waiters called to him.
Red froze up, that prickly feeling rushing up his spine.
“Stay back. We don’t need no trouble here. Go on now”—the waiter motioned with his hand—“get back where you belong.”
All that marvel from moments before vanished, like someone had just turned off the lights, shut down the music. Red saw the way that waiter was staring at him. He’d seen that look before. The first time was when he was six or seven. Little Reggie Smalls was walking with his mama when he stumbled upon a nickel in the road, its shiny edge glinting in the sunshine. There was no one else around who might have dropped it so he slipped it in his pocket. Moments later they passed a candy store and he wanted to get some chocolate, that nickel weighing heavy in his pocket. He started for the door, but his mama grabbed his arm.
“You can’t go in there,” she said.
“How’s come?”
She crouched down and looked him in the eye, her voice sounding annoyed, as if he should have known better. “’Cuz you’re colored and that store’s for whites.”
“You mean I can’t have no chocolates just because I’m colored?”
“That’s right.”
But it wasn’t right and before his mama could stop him, he had pulled away from her and marched inside the store. The woman behind the counter gave him a surly stare through a pair of glasses riding halfway down her nose. “We don’t serve no niggers in here, boy.”
As an adult he knew that couldn’t have been his first brush with prejudice, but still he’d always remember that incident as the very moment he became conscious of his skin color and aware of how others—mostly whites—saw him as inferior. Now he was a grown man, standing in the Arcade Restaurant, and nothing had changed. And he knew being tall as he was did him no favors. They were scared of a six-foot-four Negro, but didn’t they know he was scared of them, too? They had the law on their side. All he had was dark skin.
Another man, with a toothpick parked between his lips, came and stood next to the waiter. Soon a third man with a fat stogie joined the other two. Part of Red wanted to challenge them, but defiance had been beaten out of him long before. As a young boy he’d learned the hard way that giving a white man the wrong look—a poorly timed sigh, a smirk, a roll of his eyes, anything that might have been interpreted as questioning a white man’s authority—was enough to get his hide whipped. It was easier, safer, to turn and walk away.
He hurried back to the train station, ignoring the rumbling in his gut. But three hours later, when the man sitting across from him on the train pulled out a barbecued sandwich, Red watched him like a dog begging for table scraps.
He eventually drifted off to sleep only to be awoken by the train whistle and the bells at another crossing gate. Red had no idea how long he’d been out. He was still pulling his surroundings into focus when he looked over and saw an older woman squatting down in the aisle relieving herself over a bucket. He turned away and couldn’t look at her the rest of the ride.
By the time they reached Illinois he’d gone stiff again with the aches of a man twice his age, not a twenty-five-year-old. The sun was starting to set and he could see the lights of Chicago coming into view. And to think he thought Memphis was big. Here there were more train tracks than he’d ever seen in one place, a whole tangle of them crisscrossing each other. And the grain silos of the countryside had given way to smokestacks spewing dark clouds billowing into the sky. There were water tanks on the rooftops and the buildings were getting taller and closer together block by block.
By the time he stepped off the train at Chicago’s Central Station that night, he didn’t know which way to turn. The only thing familiar was that smell of creosol hanging heavy in the air. Even at his size he felt small up against the city, especially when he gazed at the giant clock tower outside the station. People bumped into him, rushing toward their friends and relatives, their arms opened wide. Red felt a twinge of homesickness. No one was there to meet him. He was on his own. And scared. This journey he had dreamed of for so long was now real and all he could think was, What have I done? If he had any sense he would catch the next train home.
Instead, he was swept along with the crowd, caught in the wash of the city. Just outside the station a couple of men in fancy suits with rings on almost every finger called out with promises of cheap rooms for let. Red took them to be shysters and kept walking. But he didn’t know where to go, so he turned around and ended up back at the train station. That was where he’d sleep his first night. He didn’t see signs that said “Coloreds Waiting Area” or “Whites Only,” so he found a wooden bench toward the back, tucked his suitcase underneath and folded himself up l
ike a stepladder. He woke cold and disoriented in the morning with his hands tucked deep inside his pockets, Stella at his side.
At least there was a bathroom in the station and again he didn’t see any signs for “Coloreds” or “Whites Only,” so he ventured inside and ran some water over his face and tried to clean himself up. His stomach growled and he was queasy from hunger, like when he was a child, living on cornmeal and salted potatoes. He needed food, maybe then he could think straight. He didn’t have more than a hundred dollars—all the money in the world to him, but it wouldn’t go far in a city like this. He had to get a job, find a place to stay.
He stepped outside, thrown off again by the city’s welcome, a roaring thunder coming from the streets and sidewalks. Dirty and gritty. And where were the trees? The grass? The only green he saw was on the buses and taxicabs that clogged the roads along with the cars, one right after another. He gazed up at the skyscrapers, wondering if it was true that they swayed when it got too windy. All he knew was that nothing in Chicago stood still. Everything was in motion like an amusement park ride. He wanted to get on board but didn’t know how. It was all going too fast.
A man selling city maps for a nickel apiece strolled up and down the sidewalk and called to Red, “Get your map of Chicago right here.” He had a big gold tooth in front and wore a brown suit and a sharp fedora with a blue feather rising from the band. “Everything you need to know—right in here—just five cent is all I’m asking.”
“No, thanks.”
The man came closer. “Where you from, son?”
“Merrydale, Louisiana.”
“Louisiana, huh. What’s your name?”
“Red. Red Dupree.” It was the first time he’d said it out loud.
“You look like you could use some food, Mr. Red Dupree.”
“Need a place to stay, too.”
“Got any money on you?”
Red plunged his hand in his pocket, felt the lining, a handful of coins and a modest fold of bills worn to the texture of felt. “Not much.”
“Then what you need to do is get yourself to Jewtown.”
“Jewtown?”
The man pulled out a map and splayed it out flat against the brick wall. “You take this here road straight like this, see?” He traced his finger over a thick line on the map. “That’ll take you right to Jewtown. You get anything you need there and you can get it cheap. You want food, clothes, a place to stay, you name it—it’s in Jewtown. You need a woman—you need a drink—Jewtown’s the place. And you’re in luck. Today’s Sunday and Sunday’s the busiest day down in Jewtown. And, son”—he gave Red’s guitar a thump with his knuckles—“you know how to play this thing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you get yourself to Jewtown and go make yourself some money.”
“How do I do that?”
“You’ll see. Just go on now. Go.”
Red thanked him—for what, he wasn’t sure—and as he was leaving, the man flashed that gold tooth and said, “Now, don’t be forgettin’ your map. You gonna need this here map. Just five cent is all I’m asking.”
Red reached into his pocket and gave him a nickel before he started on his way, walking down Roosevelt Road. The green fields of Louisiana were long gone, replaced by dried-out grass peppered with trash. The dusty dirt paths of home had turned to paved streets. There were traffic lights and horns honking, brakes screeching. People sat on the stoops of storefronts and gathered outside the pool halls, liquor stores and laundromats.
As he walked along he heard music in the distance, growing louder as he passed a sign that said “Maxwell Street—Open-Air Market,” but saw nothing for this Jewtown place. He thought he had to be getting closer when he came across a string of stores: Shapiro’s Saloon, Hattie Rubinsky’s Grocery Store and Siegel’s Butter and Eggs. A lot of Jewish-sounding names, thought Red, but still not a single sign for Jewtown. At the next intersection he looked down Canal Street, where garment stores lined the street, dresses and trousers hanging from nails along the torn awnings. At Clinton Street he found still more canopied storefronts. He’d given up on finding Jewtown and turned down another street filled with three- and four-story buildings all butted up against one another, each with a storefront on the bottom. As Red came to a crowded intersection at Halsted and Maxwell Streets he saw makeshift tables crowding the sidewalks, piled high with everything from hacksaws to radios, all of it for sale.
Everywhere he looked there were whites and Negroes—all together, like it was no big thing. That would take some getting used to up here. It had been pounded into his head early on that he was to move silently through the white world, never causing trouble or calling attention to himself. That set up a tug-of-war in his mind, challenging his dream of being on stage and hearing his music on the radio. He had to remind himself that he wasn’t trying to be Louis Armstrong or Charlie Christian or any other Negro musician playing for white audiences. He wanted to be a bluesman playing for other coloreds, and that was different. That was okay.
Red saw a man sitting on a wooden milk crate with a banjo, along with a man playing a washboard and another fellow blowing on a jug like it was a bass. It reminded him of a scene from back home. People were clapping and singing along and tossing money into a bucket near the banjo player’s worn-down boots. And all the while, white men lined the sidewalks, calling out to folks, trying to sell them socks and umbrellas, nuts and bolts and fishing gear.
The smell of smoky sausages wafted past Red. He hadn’t eaten since he’d left Merrydale and whatever was cooking and wherever it was coming from, he was going to find it. He ventured deeper into this Maxwell Street market, discovering different kinds of music on every block: jazz, swing, boogie-woogie.
There was one musician putting out a sound so wild, so unlike anything he’d heard before, that Red had to stop. It was coming from a young man playing a harmonica—a blues harp—but playing it in a way that Red had never heard before, letting out a string of wah-wah-waaahs. Cupping his hands around the harp, he was drawing and blowing, his cheeks puffing way out and then going concave as he inhaled, hitting notes that seemed like they were arising from inside him. That was a powerful sound coming from such a slight, scrawny-shouldered kid. Red figured he couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. No one was paying attention to him, but Red stood transfixed. And though he couldn’t really spare it, he reached in his pocket and tossed a few coins into the boy’s empty cigar box. Anyone who could play like that deserved it.
The harp player nodded and Red hung around for one more song before he went off in search of food. People were waiting in line for something called a Maxwell Street Polish. A man in a grease-stained apron stood behind a grill that looked like a fifty-five-gallon drum sawed in half, with smoke rising up from the hot coals. He wielded a pair of tongs and Red watched him turn the thick sausage links before he grabbed a bun, smeared it with mustard and plunked a sausage down inside, topping it off with a heap of grilled onions. Red took his place in line and ordered one. Setting his suitcase down, he swung his guitar around by the strap so that it lay flat against his back and with one bite almost half the sausage was gone. The explosion of rich, hot food in his mouth made him hungry for more and he was already thinking of ordering a second one.
“Easy, now. You gonna get yourself a case of indigestion eatin’ that fast.”
Red looked up. It was the harp player. He noticed that he had a scar above his left eyebrow.
“You know, you the first person to hit me all day.” He shook his cigar box, rattling Red’s tip.
Red took another bite of his sausage and nodded. “You’re good, man. You’re real good. Who taught you to play like that?”
The young man laughed and gestured toward Red’s suitcase. “You new here, ain’t ya?”
Red nodded again and licked the grease off his fingers. “Just got to town. Maybe y
ou can help me. I’m looking for Jewtown.”
The harp player burst out laughing. “Where the hell you think you are? This here is Jewtown. Maxwell Street—all these here streets—they all Jewtown ’cuz Jews own just ’bout every store around here.” The young man dragged his shirtsleeve over his forehead to clear the sweat, and when he did, Red saw that he had a gun tucked down in the waistband of his trousers. “So you play guitar?”
“Huh? What?” Red was distracted, thinking about that gun.
“I asked about your guitar playing, man. C’mon now, show me what you got.”
Red hesitated for a moment, finished the last bite of his sausage and licked his fingers, drying them on his pants. He reached in his pocket for a pick and placed it in his mouth while he brought his Stella around to the front. Holding the neck and feeling those strings beneath his fingertips was like meeting up with an old friend. Red played a few strings and reached over and adjusted the tuning pegs before pulling off a riff that made the harmonica player’s eyes open wide.
“Damn,” was all he said when Red played another riff and then another.
When Red began to sing an old Skip James tune, “Hard Luck Child,” the harp player pulled the harmonica from his breast pocket and joined in.
When they finished, the harp player said, “Man, you in the pocket. I’ll tell you what—first thing we gotta do is get you an electric guitar.”
“Why do I need that?”
“This here’s Chicago—ain’t nobody gonna hear you without an amp. And then you and me, we gonna play down here together.”
Red wasn’t sure if he was offended by this kid’s pushiness or grateful for it. His pride said he was the adult, he should be the one calling the shots, but he was too tired, bewildered and overwhelmed by the newness and bigness of Chicago to take the lead.