by Renée Rosen
Her father’s eyes misted over as he nodded, still shaking Red’s hand. “I wish things had ended differently,” Leeba heard him telling Red. “For all of us. She wasn’t a bad woman. Just set in her ways.”
“I know that. I know how hard this has been on your family,” said Red. “I’m sorry about that.”
The look on her father’s face was one Leeba knew well. It was that thin smile and that tilt of his head that said, All is forgiven, all is understood.
Leeba watched as Red turned to her aunt next, offering his condolences. When he extended his hand to her, Aunt Sylvie didn’t accept his gesture. Instead she reached up on her tiptoes and hugged him. Leeba’s chest rose up as her heart opened wide. This was something she’d never expected to see. It was as if now that her mother was gone her father and aunt could finally let Red into their lives.
“Take care of our Leeba,” she heard her aunt say. “She loves you so.”
Her father and aunt stayed downstairs and visited with everyone until one by one people said their good-byes and left. It had been a long day. Leeba was drained. It was quiet now with just her and Red left in the basement.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For talking to my father and my aunt. I know, after everything they’ve said and done, that couldn’t have been easy.”
He put his arms around her and said, “I don’t have a problem with them. After all, we’re—what’s the Yiddish word for family again—mishpokhe?”
He’d pronounced it flawlessly. Leeba bit down on her lip and nodded. Then she began to laugh, until the laughter unexpectedly changed over to tears, like snow turning to rain. Red held her while she cried. Ever since her mother had passed she’d been pushing the sadness down, realizing that she’d been waiting for the right moment to break in Red’s arms.
• • •
It was the end of January and they’d just finished moving into 2120. Leeba was exhausted. Her back hurt and her arms and legs ached from lifting boxes and pushing furniture around.
As she made her way up the sidewalk heading for home she thought about her mother, something she’d been doing a lot lately. She still couldn’t believe she was gone. She had spent the past three weeks saying to herself, A week ago at this time my mother was still alive . . . Two weeks ago at this time . . . Three weeks ago . . . Sometimes when she least expected it, the grief walloped her and without warning her chest would squeeze tight as the tears escaped down her cheeks.
When Leeba arrived home that day, the mail had already been delivered, stuffed inside their mailbox. She shuffled through the envelopes: the telephone bill, the gas bill, a direct mail advertisement and . . . a letter from the Illinois Department of Public Health. Her heart began to race. She ripped open the envelope, read the first line and sank to the floor.
We regret to inform you that your request for adoption does not meet the requirements . . .
What requirements? No, they weren’t rich, but they both had jobs. Red was working at WGES. She was at Chess. They could provide a stable environment for James. But the Department of Public Health didn’t see it that way.
If they’d been a white couple adopting a white child or a Negro couple adopting a Negro child it would not have been an issue. Leeba crumpled up the letter and remained on the floor, shaking with anger until she felt her legs could hold her up.
One month later, at the end of February, she and Red found a bigger apartment in Hyde Park that they could afford. It wasn’t anything grand, but it was a definite step up from where they’d been living and it gave them more space. Finally an apartment big enough for a piano, and a second bedroom for James.
Maybe he couldn’t officially live with them, but Leeba and Red decided that even if the state wouldn’t let them adopt him, the court couldn’t stop them from opening their home to him whenever he wanted to be there, and it couldn’t order Leeba and Red not to love James as their own.
• • •
It was the middle of March and snowing. Leeba got off the El and walked the few blocks from Cermack to Michigan Avenue, trudging through the slush, negotiating her way around patches of ice. It wasn’t even eight o’clock when Leeba stopped into Blatt’s and ordered three coffees, which she took across the street to 2120.
Little Walter’s Cadillac was parked right out front, smoke puttering from the exhaust. Always the first to arrive, he sat inside, smoking a cigarette, fiddling with the radio. She knocked on the window and motioned for him to follow her.
She knew Walter was still drunk from the night before and had probably just finished at some club a few hours ago. Leonard and Phil had learned the hard way that if they wanted to record with Walter they had to do it first thing in the morning. He might still be tanked, but if they didn’t catch him then, he’d be passed out until it was time to get up and go to his club gig again.
“Rough night?” she asked, handing Walter his coffee.
He shook his head. “Somebody took a shot at me. You believe that shit?”
“Coming from you, yes.” She handed the coffees to Walter and reached in her pocketbook for the keys. “Walter, wherever you go, someone’s getting shot at.”
“Yeah, but they never get me,” he said, grinning.
“Thank God.” She unlocked the door and flipped on the lights. The new space was a palace compared to the place on Cottage Grove. There was an impressive lobby and just beyond that were Leonard’s and Phil’s offices, with smaller offices down the hall from them, one of which belonged to Leeba.
Walter slumped into a chair in the lobby and drank his coffee while Leeba went down to the basement to wake Chuck Berry. A hit record on his hands and his new song “School Day” rocketing up the charts and he was sleeping on the floor at the studio. The Fairview, a roominghouse, was right next door, but Chuck didn’t want to pay the ten dollars to stay there. Instead when he was in town he stayed at Chess or at Phil’s house in Highland Park, sharing a room with his son, Terry.
Chuck was curled up on a mattress, his long, lush hair tucked inside a hairnet. She doubted Elvis Presley was sleeping at Sun Records. The two of them, Chuck and Elvis, had been taking turns at the top of the R&B charts. Elvis Presley had the edge on the pop charts and Leeba wondered if that was only because he was white. Elvis’s contract had recently sold to RCA for thirty-five thousand dollars. Chuck’s contract could never have commanded that kind of money and all on account of the color of his skin.
“Chuck? Chuck?” She gently shook him and he rolled over onto his back. “Time to get up. Everybody’ll be here soon.”
“Why, thank you very kindly for the wake-up.”
He was the cheeriest person in the morning. And always sober. Never touched a drop of liquor. “Here’s your coffee. Just the way you like it.”
“You’re good to me, Miss Leah. You are good to me.”
She went back upstairs to find that Idell, the receptionist, and Carri, the new secretary, were already there, the two of them hovering over a birthday cake.
“I’d get rid of that if I were you,” said Leeba.
It was March 12, Leonard’s fortieth birthday. And if ever there was a reason to celebrate, it would have been then, but Leonard wouldn’t hear of it. He had made everyone promise: no cake, no gifts, no cards, no nothing. He didn’t want to give himself a kenahora and tempt the gods.
And yet he tempted them every day. Despite his doctor’s orders, he was back at work full-time and back to his cigarettes and coffee. He was behaving as if the heart attack had never happened. Revetta screamed at him about it. So did Leeba and Phil. It did no good.
“I mean it,” said Leeba. “He’ll pitch a fit if he comes in here and sees that.”
After they’d served Leonard’s cake to Walter, Chuck and the other office workers and disposed of all the evidence, Leeba went upstairs to the second floor and turn
ed on the lights. It was a beautiful studio with a control room that had a big picture window that looked out onto everything. She went into the separate rehearsal space just beyond the studio and sat down at the piano and began working out some glitches in a new song. She was halfway through the first verse when Aileen showed up, surprisingly on time.
“Look at you,” Aileen said, dumping her pocketbook on top of the piano. “You cut your hair.”
Did I? Leeba reached up and touched her curls, remembering. “About a month ago.”
“You mean to tell me it’s been that long since I’ve seen you?”
“Actually, it’s been longer.” She hadn’t seen much of her friend since her mother’s funeral.
“How’s the new apartment? Keep waitin’ for y’all to invite me over.”
Leeba held her tongue. She had lost count of how many times she’d asked Aileen over.
“Y’all been so busy lately with the adoption and all. How’s that going, anyway?”
“It’s not, remember? It didn’t go through. I called and told you about it.”
Aileen looked confused and then put on like she was searching, trying to jog her memory. “Oh, that’s right, you did tell me. But you got James living at your new place now, right?”
“We have a room for him. But no, he’s not living with us. We’re not his foster family.” She didn’t even know why she was bothering to explain. She could already see Aileen’s attention drifting away.
“Do you believe it’s snowing out?” Aileen reached into her pocketbook for her cigarettes. “It’s supposed to be springtime.” She picked a fleck of tobacco off her tongue. “You seen Muddy around here lately? I’m worried about him,” she said, lighting her cigarette, hopping from subject to subject. “He’s been acting all strange lately. Like he don’t wanna be bothered by no one. If he don’t get another hit record soon I don’t know what he’s gonna do.”
“Well, why don’t we focus on getting you another hit record,” said Leeba, playing the opening chords of a new song she’d written, called “The One That Got Away.” She’d convinced Leonard and Phil to let Aileen record it instead of Mimi Cooke. And not only because she wanted to help her friend out, but because she sincerely thought the song was better suited for Aileen’s voice. “They want to record you next week.”
So the two spent a couple hours rehearsing and when they emerged from the back room they found all the other artists had gathered in the office for another day at Chess Records. The musicians enjoyed hanging out there. It was like a fraternity house. They sat around playing cards or shooting the breeze throughout the day, gradually replacing their coffee with whiskey and bourbon. When they got hungry they went across the street to Blatt’s and came right back and played music and waited for the numbers to post for the latest R&B charts. It seemed that the only time they left was to go to their gigs around town.
There were so many new musicians and new producers hanging around, too. On the weekends, Phil and Leonard brought their sons, Terry and Marshall, down to the studio. Sometimes Phil brought his daughter, Pam, with him before he took her to her ballet class and for lunch at the Pickle Barrel in Old Town. There was a sense of family there, and now with her mother gone, Leeba needed that feeling of belonging more than ever. But as in any family everyone didn’t always get along.
The following week they were getting ready to record Aileen’s new song. Leeba was in the control booth with Leonard and Phil. The tiny room was thick with smoke from all the cigarettes going. The musicians were in the studio, tuned up and ready to record “The One That Got Away.” All they needed now was Aileen. She was late and when she did finally show up she had that boozy, haven’t-been-to-bed-yet look in her eyes.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she mumbled, popping her head into the control booth. “Couldn’t be helped. Could not be helped. I tell y’all it just could not—”
“Just get in there and do the damn song.” Leonard shook his head, disgusted.
Leeba walked her out to the studio and adjusted the mike stand for her. Aileen was teetering and at one point Leeba thought she might fall. Once she got her balance, they got started, but the session was a disaster. On the first take Aileen slurred the words. On the second take she forgot them altogether.
“Fuck.” Leonard slammed his fist to the console. “She’s a mess.”
“Let me talk to her,” said Leeba.
“You can’t talk to her. She’s a goddamn junkie.” He turned to Phil. “Let’s get Mimi down here. We’ll rehearse her this morning and lay it down this afternoon.”
Everyone but Aileen cleared the room and Leeba was apologizing to the musicians as she stepped inside the studio.
Aileen lumbered over to a folding chair and practically fell into it. Her chin was on her chest, her eyes barely open. Leeba saw the fresh markings on her arm.
“Just let me rest—just for a minute,” said Aileen. “And then we’ll do this song. We’ll do it real good.”
“The session’s over.”
“Already?” Aileen lifted her head, tried to smile, but it seemed too much to manage. “How’d it go? How’d we do?”
Leeba slapped her hands to her thighs. Leonard was right. There was no talking to her when she was like this.
An hour later Mimi Cooke arrived at Chess and that afternoon they recorded the song that Leeba had written for Aileen.
• • •
After the session with Mimi was over, Leeba went into her office and called the Department of Public Health. Their adoption request had already been denied so she and Red had applied instead to be James’s foster parents. They’d filed all the paperwork and now Leeba was getting the runaround. Finally the switchboard operator put her call through to a caseworker.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Dupree, but it looks like they’re going to reassign James to another foster home.”
“But why?” Leeba heard the rustling of papers over the phone.
“Hm, let’s see . . . It just says ‘unsuitable.’ I am sorry, Mrs. Dupree.”
Leeba slammed down the phone just as Leonard came into her office.
“Easy does it there,” he said.
Leeba was staring at her hand still resting on the telephone receiver. She was shaking she was so angry.
“You better do something about Aileen. She’s always been off her rocker, but this new crap with the dope”—he shook his head—“it’s gotta stop. She’s gotta dry out.”
“I know,” she said, her eyes tearing up.
“Hey, c’mon now. It’s okay. We’ll find a way to get her off the booze and the dope.”
“That’s not it.” She broke down and sobbed.
Leonard pulled up a chair. “Then what’s with the waterworks?”
“I’m sorry.” She caught the tears on the backs of her hands. “It’s this whole foster parent business. They just turned us down. I don’t know what more they wanted. They sent a social worker to our apartment and it was like being interrogated. They grilled us about how Red and I met, how long we’d been together, about our families, our incomes. It was like we were on a witness stand. And after all that they still denied us. I don’t know what to do.”
“Get yourself a lawyer and fight it.”
She laughed sadly. “Easier said than done. We can’t afford a lawyer.”
“Maybe you can’t, but I can.”
“Leonard, no. I couldn’t let you do that.”
“Why not? You didn’t get a Cadillac, did you? Consider this your Cadillac.”
FORTY-FOUR
• • •
“See You Later, Alligator”
RED
Red stood before the shelves of records, organized by blues, jazz, country, classical, Polish, Irish and on and on. He’d been working at WGES for about a year and a half and had gone from sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms to overseeing t
he record library, pulling music for the disc jockeys and helping them inside the studio.
At the moment he was having a hard time concentrating on the records he was searching for. They’d just come from meeting with that fancy lawyer that Leonard had hired for them and found out that their appeal to become foster parents had been denied. They were at the end of the road and Leah was devastated. So was Red. He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut.
He heard someone coming down the hall and looked at the clock. Ten minutes till showtime. He forced himself to focus.
Steve Daniels, the morning deejay, was finishing up his show, playing his last song of the day, “See You Later, Alligator” by Bill Haley and His Comets. Al Benson had five minutes till airtime when Red came into the studio with a couple dozen records, all the songs the Old Swingmaster wanted to play on his R&B show: Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I Do,” Fats Domino’s “Valley of Tears,” Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s “Ain’t Got No Home,” a few Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley hits, too. Nothing from the Wolf or Little Walter or even Muddy was in the lineup.
The last time Red saw Muddy play was almost six months ago at the Flame. It was a Saturday night, not more than a handful of folks there to see the guy that once packed theaters and concert halls. Before he went up on stage Muddy was flirting with some girl, Lucille, who looked barely old enough to be in there. Aileen stood by, watching the whole thing. She was a mess, pounding whiskey, drunk out of her mind. Muddy went up on stage, but he looked like he didn’t want to be there. He hardly played that night. He sang, but aside from a lick here and there he let his sidemen carry the show, giving all the leads to Jimmy Rogers. Not long after that, Wolf—who was playing small gigs now, too—told Red that Muddy had quit playing guitar altogether. Red wondered what would have happened to his career by now if he hadn’t hurt his hand. Would his music be fading like it was for his friends?
Steve Daniels grabbed his hat off the coat tree in the corner of the studio. He gave Benson a pat on the shoulder and waved good-bye to Red, who was cuing up the first record on the turntable, Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk.”