Born Blue

by Han Nolan

  The taxi left me off in front of a big house with lots and lots of lawn. It were dark out, but there was plenty of lights on the walk leading up to the house and plenty more lights on in the house. I took my time getting to the front door 'cause I thought maybe I be at the wrong place. Once I got to the door I felt too scared to ring the bell, so I went round to one of the windows and peeked in. I saw a pretty living room with lots of cushy-lookin' chairs with flower covers and velvety curtains on the windows, and it looked real warm and comfy in there. Didn't see no people, so I went to another window. I peeked in at the kitchen and saw Mrs. James wiping her hands on a towel and Mr. James and Harmon at the kitchen sink, doing dishes, and the little brother standing on his chair, holding his arms out for his mama to pick him up. I got the right house. I went back to the front and real quick, before I turned chicken and run off, I rung the doorbell.

  Mrs. James answered it. She had the little brother in her arms.

  "Hello," she said. "May I help you?"

  I felt like I were in a store with Mama Shell. The salesladies was always following us around and asking could they help us. We always said no and looked annoyed at them, hoping they'd take the hint and go away, but at Harmon's house I smiled big and said, "I come to see Harmon." I held out my hand. "I Leshaya. I knew Harmon when he be at the foster home with Patsy and Pete."

  Mrs. James stepped back to let me in. "Yes, Harmon said he met you a couple of months ago, at the mall in Birmingham. Come in, come in." Then she turned round and called to Harmon. "Harmon, someone's here to see you. Someone special."

  Mrs. James had a singsong voice. I could see already why Harmon be happy living with her. And she were all dressed up like she just come from Sunday church, too.

  I stepped into a large hallway that had a high, high ceiling with a gold-colored chandelier hanging down from it. The hallway had a pretty rug, too, with all these colors in it. It reminded me of a picture I seen of a stained-glass window once. I were afraid to step onto the rug, in case I had something dirty on the bottom of my shoes, so I stepped off to the side, set down my pack and my laundry bag, and waited for Harmon.

  Harmon come into the big hall, and he saw me and ran right to me. He hugged me, and I wasn't scared no more.

  "Leshaya!" he said, remembering my name. "Mama, it's Leshaya."

  They brought me into a room they called the library 'cause it were full of books, and it had comfy chairs in it, too, only these were shiny-striped-covered, instead of flowers. I sat down, and Harmon sat next to me, and Mrs. James and Mr. James and the little brother they called Samson sat across from us.

  Mrs. James said to me right off, "Leshaya, I hope you can spend the night with us tonight," and her voice were so polite and friendly.

  I said, "Yes, ma'am, I can. I come here to live. I come here to live with my brother, Harmon."

  Mr. James and Mrs. James looked at each other, and they didn't know what to say, I could tell. I squeezed Harmon's hand and he patted my leg.

  Then Mr. James said, "I think your own parents would miss you very much. If you've run away, I know they're worried about you. Could I call them and let them know you're here, safe, with us?"

  "They ain't my parents, first of all, and second of all, they in jail. Maybe they in jail for kidnappin' me, and maybe they in jail for dealin' drugs. But anyways, they in jail, and my mama Linda put them there. She said yesterday she were gonna pay Daddy Mitch back 'cause he wouldn't hand her over no heroin, and she way addicted to heroin. She so addicted, she traded me off for it. But Daddy Mitch said yesterday he tired of the deal, and Mama Linda could take me back, but she didn't want me. So see, I don't got no parents. Alls I got in this whole world be Harmon."

  Mrs. James said, "Oh my!" and reached out for Mr. James's hand. Little Samson come over to me and put his head in my lap. He had big eyes like Harmon, and his eyelashes be way curly. He were pretty, with pretty black skin, darker than everybody else's. I petted his head 'cause he were so pretty. He looked up at me and laughed, then he run back to his mama.

  Mr. James said, "Well, we don't have to decide anything tonight. Harmon, why don't you show Leshaya the guest bedroom."

  We all stood up, and Mrs. James asked me did I eat and were I hungry. I said I hain't eaten since noon that day, so she run off to the kitchen to fix me something, and Harmon took me up this wide, long staircase that had paintings hanging off the walls on either side of it. We walked down a long hallway to my room, and the hallway were wide enough to have furniture in it, tables and chairs and things.

  The bedroom were like all the other rooms in the house, way big. It were so big, I think Mama Shell's whole house could fit inside the one room. It were so big, it had a sofa in it and a large chest for clothes and another one that opened and had a TV inside. It had a wide bed and the bed were gold. Harmon said it were a brass bed. I hopped on it, bouncin' and laughin', and I said, "No wonder you actin' so happy all the time, Harmon, livin' in a place like this. I think for the rest of my life I gonna be happy, too." I lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. A brass chandelier hung down above me. The bulbs was shaped like candle flames. "Yeah," I said. "I gonna be happy the rest of my life."

  Chapter Fifteen

  I SLEPT LATE the next morning. Didn't have no school to go to and weren't no cars or tracks rolling past the house, wakin' me up, neither, so I slept. When I come down to the kitchen, were Mr. James sitting at the table, with little Samson standing on the chair next to Mr. James, saying he wanted a cookie.

  When Mr. James seen I come awake, he stood up and told me to come on in and eat something. I sat down and ate me some toast and a orange, and drunk down a little bit of my glass of milk, but then little Samson spilled the rest of it all over the table and floor. I waited for Mr. James to smack little Samson upside his head, but he didn't never do it. He told the boy to fetch him a sponge and they both cleaned up the mess, Mr. James soaking up the milk, and little Samson standing on a set of steps set next to the sink and squeezing out the sponge. Back and forth little Samson go, and I sat watching, waiting for the smack that never come.

  Then Mr. James told little Samson to run on and get out his puzzles and when he got them all put together, Mr. James would come out to the den and take a look.

  Samson swung on my arm and laughed. Then he run out the room, I guess to do like Mr. James said and play with his puzzles.

  "How old he be?" I asked when little Samson were gone from the room.

  "He's three. His birthday was last week He's full of mischief, that one, but very bright."

  "You think Harmon be bright?"

  Mr. James smiled and I saw his big white teeth. I had forgot about his big teeth. "Yes, Harmon is a smart boy, too," he said. "They're different, though. Harmon gets As, sometimes Bs, in school. He studies hard, but he's got a head for the arts and he's more spiritual. That Samson's going to be a scientist or a doctor. He likes puzzles and machines and computers. He's very curious."

  I could tell how Mr. James were proud of both his boys, 'cause of the way he puffed up his chest and held his head so high up, and I thought how I wished someone be talkin' proud 'bout me like that. Then right away I thought how I hated Harmon. Were just this mean thought that come and fill my head, and the sad other thought went away.

  Mr. James were starin' at me funny through his glasses, and I knew he had asked me something that I didn't hear.

  "What?"

  "I said, 'How about you? What do you like?'"

  I sat up straight, actin' proud for my own self, and I said, "Singin'. Ain't nothin' better I like than singin'. I gonna be a singer like the ladies, Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald and Aretha Franklin and them. You know them?"

  Mr. James laughed, and his laugh sounded like everything else in that house—happy, like music.

  Before he could answer me, I asked him if he be related to Etta James, 'cause I always wanted to know.

  He said, "No, but I've seen her. I heard her sing years ago. Is she your favo
rite?"

  "Yes, sir. I sing most like her, I think. You really met her? What were she like?" I moved closer to him and touched his arm. He didn't seem to mind, so I touched it t 7 again. I wanted most to touch his eyes 'cause they what seen Etta James, but I were scared to do it. I were 'fraid he smack my hand away.

  Mr. James said, "I didn't meet her, really. I just heard her sing."

  "Same difference," I said. "If you watchin' her and hearin' her sing, you meetin' her. Wish I was alive back when she were singin'."

  Mr. James took his arm away and blinked at me. "But she's still singing," he said. "She's still recording. Didn't you know that? Sometimes she even comes down here, to Muscle Shoals, to record her music."

  I couldn't take in what he were saying to me. "What? What you say?" I asked. I stood up.

  Mr. James nodded.

  "She—she still livin'? She still alive? She singin'? Etta James? Etta James who sing "Stop the Wedding" and "Baby, What You Want Me to Do?" and "Tell Mama"? That Etta James? My Etta James?"

  Mr. James laughed and nodded again. He nodded, and were like magic what it do to me. I just crumpled to the floor like all my bones gone soggy and couldn't hold me up no more. I cried. I cried with my face to the floor, and Mr. James tried to lift me up, but I be too limp for him to get a good hold of me. It seem to me that all my life my body been stiff with a kind of fear, a kind of waiting for something. It filled up my insides, that fearful waitin', but when I found out Etta James still be livin', my whole insides changed, everything round me changed. I could feel it. All the sharp edges of myself turned soft. It felt like the floor beneath me wasn't there no more. Felt like I were floating, and when I lifted my head to look at Mr. James, he were floating, too, first here, then there, floating.

  Mr. James got down on the floor with me, and 'cause he so tall, it were a long way to go. He patted my back and said, "Shh," and "Shh," and after a while, I stopped crying and I sat up and I got a smile on my face.

  Mr. James said he would find out if anyone knew when Etta James would be recording in Muscle Shoals again, and maybe he could take me up there.

  I wiped my eyes. "Up where?" I asked. "Where be Muscle Shoals?"

  "Muscle Shoals? It's right here in Alabama," he said. "Didn't you know that? It's up in the northwestern corner of the state, near Florence. Ever hear of Florence?"

  I shook my head and my head were floating and so were Mr. James. We just kept floating.

  "Muscle Shoals is famous. A lot of big hits have come out of there."

  "Etta James in Alabama? For real? How you know that? How you know 'bout Etta James?"

  "I did some legal work for a friend of mine who records up there. He knows her. He's a fan, too."

  Etta James alive and singin' in Alabama! I weren't floating no more, I were spinning!

  Chapter Sixteen

  I KNEW IF ETTA JAMES could come to Alabama and record her music, then anything be possible. I could for sure become a famous singer my own self someday. I figured I could go to Muscle Shoals and sing for Etta, and she would help me get famous.

  Mr. James said he wanted to talk with me about something else, but I couldn't hear nothin' 'cause my head so full of Etta James. I kept asking him questions. I wanted to find out everything he knew 'bout her and 'bout Muscle Shoals and her coming there and when he gonna find out if she coming again. "Maybe she through comin'," I said. "Maybe we missed her forever. How do you know we ain't missed her? You ain't makin' this all up, are you?"

  Mr. James answered my questions, but he said he wanted to talk to me about something else. I weren't listenin' 'cause I didn't want to stop spinnin' and I knew what he wanted to say were serious, 'cause his voice were serious, and if I listened, the soft, fuzzy, happy feeling inside me would go hard again.

  Finally, he took my hands and said, "Leshaya, please listen to me. We've got a social worker coming to the house in about a half an hour, and I think we should talk about it before she gets here so you know what to expect."

  I pulled away from him and stood up. "You just said you was gonna take me to see Etta James. You just said it! Now you sayin' you givin' me away. You givin' me back to Patsy and Pete. Well, I ain't goin' back there to that ol' stink house. I'm goin' on. I'm leavin', and I can get to that Muscle Shoals on my own, 'cause I got money."

  Mr. James got up off the floor, holding on to his back like it hurt to unfold hisself. "Leshaya, you won't be going back to Patsy and Pete, I promise you," he said.

  "A promise don't mean nothin'."

  "It does in this house," he said, and the way he said it, I believed him. I sat back down at the kitchen table, a nice, fat round table made of real wood that wouldn't give way when I dug my fingernails into it.

  "Leshaya, they'll probably assign you a caseworker. Someone who will look after your interests. Someone just for you, who can see that you get the best possible care with the best family for you."

  "But you the best family. You the best family I ever seen. You be like The Cosby Show family. You ever seen The Cosby Show on TV? You be like that And Harmon be here. He my only brother I got."

  Mr. James nodded. "That's nice that you think of us that way, Leshaya. Let's just wait and see what the social worker has to say. Then we can go from there."

  Mr. James talked smooth and real careful like that.

  I didn't say nothin'. I looked round for something softer to dig my nails into besides the table. Weren't nothin' but my plate from breakfast with a orange peel on it I got digging at that and Mr. James stood up and said, "Let me clear that away for you."

  I watched him take my plate to the sink. He acted like he a woman the way he do the dishes and fix me breakfast. Daddy Mitch never touched a dish 'cept to throw it.

  "How come you ain't at work? Don't you go to work?"

  "Yes." Mr. James laughed. "I go to work. I'm a lawyer. I have my own practice." He finished rinsing the plate and set it in the dishwasher. He turned round. "I'm lucky. I have two offices, one downtown and one here at home. Today, I'm at home so I can be with you and Samson."

  "Oh. So you got any more bread?"

  "Sure." He got out the loaf of bread and set it on the table. "Have all you want. I'll get you some milk to go with it."

  I smiled and dug my hand into the bag and pulled out a slice. I pulled off the crust and ate it. Then I rolled the rest of the bread up into a ball and dropped it into the sugar bowl they had sittin' out on the table.

  "Oh!" Mr. James said, like he just touched something that give him a shock. He quick set down my glass of milk and reached for the sugar bowl. "We don't want to do that," he said.

  "Yes, we do," I said back. "You ever suck on a ball a sugar bread before?"

  Mr. James sat down with the bowl still in his hands. "Other people will want to use this sugar," he said.

  "They can. I weren't gonna take it all. Go on, you have that piece and I'll make me another one. I can eat bread all day long."

  "No." Mr. James set his hand down on mine that were already in the bag. "You have this one and I'll make my own."

  "Really?" I took my bread ball out of the sugar and popped it in my mouth, and I were smiling so wide were hard to keep my bread tucked into my cheek.

  Mr. James said, "Now, to really make this tasty, I'm going to spread some butter on mine."

  "Butter! You'll ruin it!"

  Mr. James had this teasing kind of look in his eyes, almost sneaky-looking the way he grinned and shifted his eyes while he were making his bread ball. He spread it thick with butter, tore off the crust, rolled it into a ball, and dunked it into the sugar. Then he popped it in his mouth, and I waited for his reaction.

  "Mmm, delicious!" he said, and his mouth were still chewing on the bread. He finished swallowing all of it and rubbed his hands together. He had skinny strawlike fingers.

  "I haven't had sugar in years. That was superb. You're a good cook, Leshaya."

  "But I didn't make it, you did."

  "Ah, but you came up with the
idea. That's more important."

  I smiled and felt giggly inside myself. I made more bread balls and ate them. Mr. James said one be his limit, and he didn't have no more. He said I got a bottomless pit for a stomach the way I could put away all that bread and sugar. He let me eat all I wanted, so I kept eating. Then I saw my glass of milk just sittin' there gettin' warm, and I knocked it over on purpose. It got all over Mr. James's pants, and he sprang up from the table.

  "You did that on purpose!" he said, and his brows was pulled tight together, he were so angry.

  "No, I didn't It a accident, I swear."

  Mr. James clenched his face hard, so his jaw muscles poked out his face. His voice sounded choked when he spoke. He told me to get the sponge and clean up the mess while he changed his pants. And I did like he said, smiling to myself, 'cause he didn't hit me or nothin'. Were just like I be Samson or Harmon. Just like I be his own girl.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE SOCIAL WORKER come, and she were a skinny white lady with a nose that turned up so much, every time I looked at her I could see straight through her nose holes to the inside of her nose. I couldn't keep my eyes on nothin' else when I looked at her, so I looked at the kitchen table and felt myself go hot in the face like I were blushing about it.

  Mr. James went to check up on Samson and left me alone with the white lady. She wanted me to tell her my story of how I come to be at the Jameses' house and how my life been goin' so far.

  I told her my life been goin' okay, but now I wanted to stay with Harmon. I wanted to live with his family. She kept writing stuff down on the paper she had on a clipboard, shaking her head and lifting it to look at me a second, giving me a shot of her nose insides, then back to the clipboard. She said to me, "Naturally, it's best if you live with a family of your own race."

  I nodded. "That's right, and they my own race. My daddy were African American. My mama said so, so that's okay. You gonna be my caseworker?"