by Renée Rosen
“I only got a few minutes before my break’s up,” Aileen said. “You are not gonna believe this.”
Aileen was talking way too fast and too loud, going on and on about Muddy and his band and all his gigs. Leeba was only half listening until Aileen mentioned the guitar player.
“. . . You know the one. The real tall one you like, that guy down on Maxwell Street.”
“You mean Red? Red Dupree?”
“That’s him. He’s playing second guitar now in Muddy’s band. And he’s got that harp player with him, too. Now, Muddy says that boy’s trouble, always acting a fool . . .”
Aileen was still rambling on, but all Leeba could think about was seeing Red perform. She could just look at him. Listen to his music. Maybe go up during his break and say hello. Maybe talk to him, get to know him. Maybe they’d become friends. Maybe more . . . Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
With that tidbit of information an otherwise rainy fall day had just turned bright.
SEVENTEEN
• • •
“Got My Mojo Working”
RED
Red got up on stage at the 708 and looked out past the spotlights, blinding hot circles of blues, yellows and whites. Through the clouds of smoke the audience slowly came into focus. He’d been in Mud’s band for almost six weeks now and they’d played all over town, places like the Flame Club, Theresa’s Lounge and Silvio’s. Muddy pulled in larger crowds than Red and Walter were used to, but it didn’t shake him. No, Red watched the way everybody locked onto Muddy and it only made him that much hungrier to have those eyes on him.
Red figured he was paying his dues, playing in Muddy’s shadow, and he wasn’t complaining. He wasn’t even complaining about not playing on Muddy’s records. Muddy said the people at Aristocrat, Leonard and his partner, didn’t want to record him with a full band because it would be too expensive.
So Red made do with gigging. But it was hard work. The night before, after their final set, Red had stumbled back to his room, kicked off his shoes and flopped down on the mattress just as the sun was coming up through the torn blinds. He’d barely shut his eyes before he had to get back up and head to the brickyard. It was grueling, but he was making money now. Playing with Muddy put an extra sixty-five or seventy dollars in his pocket every week.
The 708 was packed that night and Red eyed the audience. The only place he knew that was rowdier and raunchier than the 708 was the Macomba Lounge. Red was playing rhythm guitar on “Mean Red Spider” and held his pick between his lips until Muddy turned the guitar lead over to him. Then Red launched into his solo, measured at first before building to a frenzy, his fingers playing higher and higher on the neck. Otis Spann came in on piano, pounding the keys hard and rocking back and forth so much that Red thought the bench legs were gonna bust on him. Big Crawford’s fingers were swollen plump as prunes from slapping his upright; and Little Walter, menace on the stage, swept from one end to the other, drawing on his cross harp.
On the next tune, “Screaming and Crying,” it was Muddy who really let loose. Red saw the sweat glistening on the man’s face, the spit bouncing off his microphone as he sang. There was a group of women in the front row and he was playing to them, coming on to them, bumping and grinding his hips. He was teasing the hell out of them, making them swoon with each thrust in their direction. When Otis took the piano solo Muddy turned his back to the ladies. He winked at Red as he reached for a bottle of beer resting on the stool, corked it with his thumb and gave it a good shake. Then Muddy opened his fly, tucked that loaded bottle inside his trousers. When he turned back around he let those ladies have it, shooting a spray of beer foam all over them. They were cheering him on, licking the suds off their fingers. That was how they finished the first set of the evening. Red couldn’t figure how Muddy was going to top that.
While they were on break Muddy cozied up to those ladies, their skin still shiny wet with beer. When it came time for their next set, Otis had to call him back on stage. Twice. They were in the middle of one of Muddy’s hits, “I Feel Like Going Home,” when Red noticed Muddy’s woman coming into the club. That would straighten Mud up right quick, because Aileen wouldn’t stand for his flirting.
She had a white girl with her—that girl from Aristocrat Records. Half the crowd turned to look. They weren’t used to seeing whites in a place like the 708 and especially not white women. He hadn’t realized before how tall she was and yet she walked with her shoulders stooped forward. She seemed more self-conscious about her height than her skin color.
When they finished the set, Red and the rest of the band sat at a table near the stage. Aileen came up and flung her arms around Muddy and kissed him hard, practically lapping up the sweat coming off his face. She had it bad for him and Red wondered if she knew about Muddy’s other women—Sallie Ann down South, Geneva up here, and he’d lost count of the ones in between.
Red, at the far end of the table, was startled when Aileen’s friend leaned over and said, “Red Dupree, right? We’ve met before. At the radio and record store and then at Aristocrat.”
He was surprised that she spoke to him, let alone remembered who he was. “Yes, ma’am. I remember.”
“‘Ma’am’?” She laughed. “Please, my name’s Leeba.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I mean Leah.”
“Not Leah, Lee-ba. With a b.”
“Lee-ba? What kind of name is that?”
“Polish.”
The only Polish people he knew were a handful of store owners in Jewtown and the guys from the brickyard. They all spoke with such thick accents it was hard to understand them. But she wasn’t like that. “You’re Polish?”
“I am.” She jiggled the ice in her glass and took a sip. “And what about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. Where are you from?”
Why did she care where he was from? And why did she get up from her seat and come sit closer to him? He could tell she was tipsy, one drink away from something she’d regret the next day.
“Well?” She tilted her head and one of her curls fell across her cheek.
If she was a colored woman he’d say she was making a play for him. If she was colored he’d know what to do. But she was making him nervous, self-conscious. He watched her swirling the ice in her glass and the more he looked at her the more he appreciated her features, the dark eyes, strong nose, perfect skin, and the way her curls framed her face. She was a different kind of pretty, the kind that snuck up on you.
“Aren’t you going to tell me?” she asked. “Where’d you come from?”
“Merrydale.”
“Merrydale? Where’s that?”
“Louisiana. Not too far away from New Orleans.”
“Oh.”
There wasn’t anything more to say after that. She got quiet and so did he. She was still looking at him, though, and he cracked, turned away. But from the corner of his eye he sensed she was still watching him.
“Aileen told me you were playing in Muddy’s band now,” she said before she leaned in closer and whispered, “I think you should be the bandleader.”
“You’re gonna get me in trouble with the boss if you keep talking like that.” He laughed, forgetting himself for a moment.
“Well, it’s the truth.” She took a long pull from her drink, tilting the glass back, the tip of her pink tongue tickling the ice cubes. “I think you should audition for Leonard and Evelyn.”
“I already gave them my demo. Long time ago.”
“Yeah, but your demo doesn’t do you justice. And they’re going for a different sound now. Leonard wouldn’t have even recorded Muddy back then. I think you should come in and play for them. Live. No demo. No Walter. Just you and your guitar.”
Muddy came up and slapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, man. We’re on.”
They were playing “I Can’t Be Satisfied” and Red l
aunched into another solo, giving Muddy’s slide guitar a break. Red closed his eyes as his fingers were plucking and strumming. He felt the sweat collecting on his forearms and trickling down the back of his neck. He was drained and exhilarated, giving up every part of himself for that song. People were clapping and that was when he opened his eyes, searching through the audience, past the paisley swirls of smoke up near the lights, until his sight landed on the girl. She smiled at him or he thought she did. He wasn’t sure.
She stayed until after the last set and even lingered for a few minutes after Aileen had left out the side door with Muddy. Little Walter said something to her, but her eyes held on Red. She was still watching him even as she reached for her pocketbook and began drifting toward the door. But then, just when he thought she had gone, he saw her walking back, heading straight toward him.
“Come by and see me some time at Aristocrat,” she said. That was it.
He was too stunned to remember his response, but he’d never forget the way she turned back around at the door and this time when she smiled, he knew it.
EIGHTEEN
• • •
“Something’s Got a Hold on Me”
LEEBA
Leeba rolled over, squinting at the daylight streaming through the bedroom window. She heard some commotion outside her room but couldn’t be bothered with it. Her head felt heavy, her eyes burned, her mouth was as dry as dirt. Snippets from the night before floated back to her. Why did she have that last drink? Ah yes, she was nervous. She tried to recall her conversation with Red Dupree but drew a blank. The only part she remembered was telling him to come see her at Aristocrat.
She was thinking about all this when she heard her mother shout, “Du zaist nit ir brengen az in do.”
“Don’t you bring what in here?” Leeba asked as she pulled on her bathrobe and went out to the living room. Her mother was glaring at a deliveryman attempting to wheel an enormous box into the apartment.
Turned out to be a television set. A ten-inch Emerson in a handsome wooden cabinet. Leeba had won it, the grand prize for a contest she didn’t remember entering. Her mother had almost refused to accept it, but before she’d let Leeba leave for work that day, the two of them—her mother like an ant lifting twice her body weight—rearranged the living room furniture to make space for it.
That night when Leeba came home from work, the TV was blaring and there they were, four in a row on the davenport, her parents, Aunt Sylvie and Uncle Moishe, eyes glued to The Texaco Star Theatre. Light from the TV screen flickered across their faces.
“Come see this,” her father said, scooting closer to her mother and patting the cushion.
She squeezed in beside him. The others, even her mother, who couldn’t have fully understood everything since it was in English, stared ahead, engrossed. But Leeba, still nursing her hangover, couldn’t focus on the program because she couldn’t stop replaying images from the night before. What had she said to Red Dupree? Did she make a full confession? Tell him she dreamed about him? She cringed and vowed to never drink bourbon again.
A commercial came on for Band-Aids that showed a housewife applying the adhesive strip to an egg, demonstrating how effectively they would stick to the skin. Her mother and Uncle Moishe found this fascinating. Both of them inched forward as if to get a closer look. Leeba glanced around, noticing her father’s half-built model airplane waiting for him on a sheet of newspaper covering the dining room table. After the television program was over Leeba excused herself, went into her bedroom and immediately fell asleep.
The following night when she came home from work everyone had already taken their places on the davenport and once again her father made room for her and patted the seat cushion beside him. While the others watched Kraft Television Theatre, Leeba watched the future unfold. Here she would sit night after night, growing old, with her parents and relatives growing even older, watching television shows with the volume up too high.
She thought about how normally, on a night like tonight, she would have been with Aileen, but her friend was spending all her free time now with Muddy. Leeba caught herself thinking about Avrom Yurzel and wondering if she’d done the right thing by not pursuing the relationship.
The next morning before she left for work Leeba saw that her mother had moved her ironing board into the hallway so she could watch the TV, which depressed Leeba more than she could say. There was no programming on at seven in the morning, just a screen with a test pattern that her mother watched while she ironed. Leeba felt a rare tenderness toward her and went over and kissed her cheek.
Her mother was startled by the gesture. “What was that for?”
“Just because. I’ll see you later tonight.”
Her mother didn’t say anything more. She just went back to her ironing, back to the TV test pattern. As Leeba made her way into the office she had a feeling the TV she’d won was going to take over their lives and that her father would never again build another model airplane.
When she got into the office she was thankful that it was quiet there that day. Leonard and Evelyn were at Universal Recording for a Five Blazes session that once again Leonard was paying for out of his own pocket. Leeba glanced at the ledger, wondering if they had enough money for that week’s payroll and upcoming royalty payments. She closed the book and organized a stack of bills, making lists of what needed to be paid and what was past due.
She was still sorting through everything when she looked up and felt her heart skip. Red Dupree was coming through the front door. Yes, she’d told him to come see her, but she’d been drunk and bold that night. She never expected him to follow up on it and yet just a few days later here he was. Now she didn’t know what to do. She stared at the guitar in his hand, her heart hammering, the blood rushing through her ears.
“You said I should come on by. So I came to play for them.” Red gestured with his guitar.
“Leonard and Evelyn aren’t here right now.”
“Hm.” He glanced at his guitar. “Okay, then. Well, another time.” He started back toward the door.
“No, no—don’t leave.” She got up from her desk. “You can wait for them. They should be back soon. Come—sit. Want some coffee? A Coca-Cola?”
He set his guitar down and shook his head, but she got him a bottle of soda pop anyway. He took off his jacket and as she handed the bottle to him she couldn’t keep from staring. She thought him magnificent. He stirred her, and those fantasies of him kissing her, touching her, made her flush. She wondered if it showed, if she was giving herself away. She gestured and he took the chair opposite her desk, tucking his hands beneath his thighs.
“What is it that you do around here?” he asked.
“A little bit of everything. I call deejays and make sure they’re giving us the airtime they promised Leonard. I talk to the distributors—make sure they’re getting the records in the jukeboxes and the record stores. I do a little songwriting here and there,” she said, hoping to show him they had something in common. “Nothing that they’ve recorded,” she explained. “At least not yet . . .” Now she worried that she was rambling. “But mostly I keep Evelyn and Leonard from killing each other.” She laughed self-consciously, sensing him drifting from her, his eyes looking everywhere, at everything but her. “Are you okay?” she asked, feeling desperate to reel him back.
“What?” He glanced at her, almost startled, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Is everything all right?”
He didn’t respond and she watched him take a sip of Coke, his Adam’s apple moving up and down with each swallow. There was a long silence and each time he let his eyes meet hers, he grew shy and turned away. She seemed to be making him nervous. But he was making her nervous, too. Why—out of all the men in this city—did she have to want him, the one person she could never have? But the thought of touching him—just once. To know what it felt like to be
in his arms—just once. To kiss him . . .
“So,” he said setting the bottle down, “you say you do some songwriting.” He gestured to the Wurlitzer upright in the corner. “Do you play?”
She nodded.
“Well, then, c’mon now.” He got up and walked over to the piano. “Play me one of your songs.”
After some mild protesting she went over to the piano and he stood with his elbow on the lid. When she played the intro of a song, the look on his face made her stop. “What?” Her fingers froze in place. “Is it that bad?”
“No, no.” He laughed. “I just didn’t take you for a blues player, that’s all. C’mon now, keep going.”
She played another stanza and stopped. “How am I doing? Any pointers?”
He thought for a moment. “Well, yeah,” he said, laughing again, “I got a pointer for you. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but there ain’t no blues players by the name of Leeba. We have to fix that. What’s your last name?”
“Oh, if you don’t think Leeba sounds like a blues name, wait till you hear this—it’s Groski.”
He made a smacking noise with his lips. “You gotta change all that. See now, my real name’s Reggie Smalls, but that sounds flat to me, so I changed it to Red Dupree. Change your name, change your life.”
“So what should my blues name be?”
“Hmm.” He studied her face as if setting eyes on her for the first time. She felt vulnerable, exposed. It made her self-conscious. He was taking her in and it unnerved her.
“Well,” he said, “if it was up to me, Leeba Groski, I think I’d call you Leah. Leah Grand.”
“Leah Grand.” She tried it on. “Leah Grand. Leah Grand.” She chanted it aloud, spinning the name inside her head. It sounded sophisticated, confident, American. She liked it. She liked it very much. Change your name, change your life.