by Renée Rosen
Her eyes, still defiant, were locked on the kid’s. He leaned in to kiss her and a second later he jumped back, his hand pressed to his mouth. “Fuckin’ bitch bit me.” He drew back his hand to slap her and that was when Red lunged forward.
The others were on him at once. Someone kicked Red in the stomach and he doubled over, gasping for breath, while someone else clobbered him over the back of the head and he collapsed to the ground.
“Red—”
He heard Leah calling to him and when he looked up he saw the blond kid pull out a switchblade. In a blur he came charging toward Red like a madman. Red pushed himself up off the ground and raised his hand, trying to grab the guy’s arm. But his aim was off just enough that the top of the knife sliced Red from his palm to his middle finger.
At first he didn’t feel a thing. For a split second he thought he was okay. Maybe the blade had only nicked him. But then he saw the blood. It was everywhere. He grabbed his left hand with his right, a spurt of crimson gushing through his fingertips from a deep gash in his palm. He was still bent over when something sharp came down on the back of his head. He felt himself starting to fall and heard his attackers howling as they tore out of there.
The last thing Red remembered before he passed out was Leah rushing toward him.
• • •
The switchblade severed two tendons in Red’s left hand. Seventy-nine stitches and three months later Red found himself alone in the apartment one afternoon, sitting on the davenport, clenching and unclenching his hand, wincing from the pain. His joints were stiff and he’d lost the feeling in at least two fingers. The feeling in the third came and went. He opened his fist and stared at the huge scar running across his palm and up to his fingertips.
He reached for his second whiskey of the day and thought about the gigs he’d missed and the tour with Little Walter that had been canceled. He’d lost about fifteen hundred dollars just on club dates alone. Chess had given up on ever getting him back into the studio to cut another record and Red felt guilty about letting the brothers down, especially since Leonard had paid for all his doctor bills. Red glanced at the garbage, which Leah had asked him to take out. Later, he said to himself as he thought of ways to salvage his career. He still had his voice, but he couldn’t see himself singing without playing. It was the guitar that gave his voice power. The two were connected for him. He thought about doing some songwriting, but he played by ear; he couldn’t write or read music or do arrangements like Leah and Willie Dixon could.
In his rising panic, all Red could hear was his granddaddy’s warning: Protect your hands, son. Protect your hands. But he’d been protecting his wife and that had just cost him his career.
He polished off his drink and slammed the empty glass down on the table. He looked at his guitars lined up along the wall, calling to him. When the stitches had first come out he remembered trying to play the Gibson, thinking electric would be easier. But his fingers wouldn’t cooperate and he sounded like shit. He missed the feel of his Stella but hadn’t been able to touch her since the accident. But she was eyeing him now, like a neglected lover. He took another swig of whiskey, this time straight from the bottle, and went over and picked her up. He could still strum and pick with his right hand, but his left hand was numb and stiff. He couldn’t feel the strings, couldn’t work the neck beneath his fingers. He could see exactly where to place his fingers, but he couldn’t get them to move there fast enough. After trying for a half hour, he became so disgusted and so discouraged that he threw his Stella across the room, almost busting her up.
The radio was playing and, sure enough, Aileen’s song came on. He turned it off. He must have heard “Jealous Kinda Love” a half dozen times already that day. He needed air and went out on the wooden porch with his bottle. He sat there drinking, smoking, watching the world he once felt a part of moving along just fine without him.
The sun was starting to set when Leah came home. He heard her calling for him. “Red? Red?”
He didn’t answer at first. He couldn’t. He just needed a few more moments before he’d have to pretend he didn’t resent his wife. Rationally he knew none of this was her fault. He’d told himself that while she may have cost him his career, he’d cost Leah her family. Other than her aunt and sometimes her father, Leah had hardly spoken to them since he’d married her. But still every time he looked at this woman he loved, he relived that night, remembered her eyes filling with fright, the thugs circling around her, her suitcase flung onto the grass. He saw the blade and the clean cut in his flesh—he swore he saw down to the bone just before the blood rushed in. And then his world began falling apart.
“Red?” she called again. “Are you home? Where are you, baby?”
“Out here,” he said, blowing out a big sigh, trying to get himself right.
“There you are.” She was all smiles when she poked her head out the kitchen door. “What are you doing out there? It’s getting cold.” She stepped outside and joined him on the porch, sitting beside him like she sometimes did in the summertime. But it was fall now. The leaves were turning; the winds were picking up. Her curls blew into her eyes as she buttoned her sweater, hugging herself to keep warm.
“So on my way home I got this idea for a new song for Aileen,” she said. “You know how everybody’s surprised to hear that voice coming out of a woman? It just popped into my head: ‘Little Woman, Big Voice.’” She sang him a line or two and stopped when she saw him sigh impatiently and reach for the whiskey bottle. “Okay, well,” she said with a frown, “I can tell you’re not in the mood for this.” She got up and went back inside.
He stayed out on the porch watching the lights come up, feeling like a heel. He was proud of her, but she’d never know it, because he was also jealous. He couldn’t help but feel that way. He didn’t know how to get beyond it.
When he eventually came inside and sat next to her on the davenport she shot up and stood by the window, the neon lights outside flickering, playing off her cheeks.
“Did you look for work today?” she asked.
“No.” And it wasn’t just that he hadn’t looked for work; it was the way he said that “no.” It was out there, sinking through the air like it was made of lead.
“Why not?” she said, her own voice taking on an edge this time. “Because you’ve been too busy drinking?”
He threw his head back and closed his eyes. “You gonna give me grief now, too?”
He saw her glancing at the overflowing garbage that he’d neglected to take out, at the empty bottles lying around, the crumpled-up packs of cigarettes. He saw the disappointment on her face and nothing stung more than knowing he’d let her down. But he couldn’t get out of his own way.
“Did you at least remember to feed Sophie?” she asked. “Did you at least walk her?”
“Nope.” There was that tone again. It just came out that way.
She grabbed the dog’s bowl and slammed it on the counter. “What are you doing to yourself, Red? You’re a mess. You’re falling apart.”
“Then why don’t you just go ahead and quit me.” He was pushing her away with both hands, but he couldn’t stop. “Go find yourself a white man, some rich Jew boy, and make your mama happy.”
“You’re drunk. And you’re pathetic.”
“And you don’t get it, woman. I can’t play no more.”
“So that’s the sum of your whole existence—that guitar? Those six strings?” She pointed to his Stella lying on the floor where he’d thrown her earlier. “You can’t just give up on everything else.”
“I’ve got no choice.”
“Yes, you do. You can fight back. And if you won’t fight for yourself then at least fight for me. For us.”
“I’ve got no more fight left in me, baby. I’ve lost it all.”
“Well, you better find it.”
He shook his head, looked away.
“There’s the door,” he said. “All you got to do is walk on through it.”
But she wouldn’t budge. With tears running down her pale face, she watched him take another slug of whiskey.
She didn’t get it and he couldn’t make her understand. He wasn’t anything without his guitar. When people had seen him play, they’d looked at him like he was somebody. They showed him respect just because he could do something with that instrument that they couldn’t. That was the only way for a Negro to cross out of the South Side of this town—of this world. That was how you blurred the divide. Without his guitar people would think of him as nothing but another dumb nigger and Red Dupree knew it.
• • •
He woke up the next morning with his head feeling like it weighed fifty pounds. Red had been so out of it he hadn’t even heard Leah leave for work. He stumbled into the kitchen, squinting at the light coming through the window. He got some aspirin and a cup of coffee. Sophie was whimpering at the door, so he walked her, came back and read the newspaper. He halfheartedly looked at the want ads: Experienced Toolroom Foreman, College Grads, Die Designers, Experienced Sheet Metal Template Makers. The only thing that seemed remotely promising was an opening at Moore Brothers’ Shoe Factory. No experience needed. Fuck it. He was a bluesman, not a shoemaker.
He traded up his coffee for something stronger and lazed around till noon, facedown in a puddle of pity. When he’d finished off all the whiskey in the house, he headed to the liquor store around the corner for more.
He knew he shouldn’t have been spending money on booze. He hadn’t worked in months, hadn’t brought in a dime. He was broke, down to his last few dollars. If it weren’t for Leah, he would have starved. They were living off her salary and the money Chess paid for her songs. There was a little money in a savings account, but that was hers—the money she’d saved for her Bösendorfer piano, and he wouldn’t touch that.
As he was coming down the sidewalk a colored kid, not more than seven years old, stopped him. “Hey, ain’t you Red Dupree?”
Red turned around. The kid was standing in a pair of bib overalls and a ratty coat, clutching a one-string diddley bow.
Red was in a foul mood and kept walking.
The kid jogged up alongside him. “You is Red Dupree, ain’t ya? Man, I got all your records. I think you’re the greatest bluesman who ever lived.”
Red stopped at the crosswalk and glanced at the boy. “Where’s your mama at, boy?”
“I ain’t got no mama.”
“Who’s looking after you?”
“I look after myself.” The kid mugged with his chin raised.
Red shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood for this.
The boy must have sensed that, because he dropped his tough-guy act. “I live with my grandma right over there,” he said, pointing down the street.
“What’s your name, son?”
“James, but you can call me Curly. That’s my blues name.” He strummed his diddley bow. “Will you learn me somethin’?”
The kid held the rickety instrument out to Red. It wasn’t too different from the one he’d made himself, the one he’d brought to his granddaddy when he wanted to learn the blues all those years ago.
The boy was still holding out the diddley bow. “C’mon, man.”
“Nah, I don’t play anymore. You go find someone else to teach you. Go over to Jewtown, find someone there to help you.” Red brushed past him.
“Jewtown?” the kid called after him indignantly. “Why should I go all the way to Jewtown when you right here? What’s the matter, you scared old Curly here’s gonna show you up?”
Red ignored him and kept going. He felt bad walking away from that kid. A few months back, Red would have jumped at the chance to help him—the kid had spunk—but Red had nothing to offer him, nothing to offer anyone.
He kept walking and when he passed a bum on the street with his hand out, Red realized that could easily be him if he didn’t turn himself around. Used to be he’d ignore those panhandlers, pretending not to see them and not giving them a second thought after they were out of view. He didn’t wonder where they’d sleep or what garbage can they’d eat their dinner from. He didn’t wonder because he didn’t care. And he realized with great shame that he’d treated those poor souls just as heartlessly as many whites down South had treated him. Truth was that each of those broken people had fallen from someplace higher. Everyone had a story. Red was in the middle of his own. And oh, how different the world appeared when you were on the bottom looking up.
He went into the liquor store and got stuck listening to the bored clerk complain about hoodlums in the neighborhood. Red knew all about them. He didn’t want to hear it. After those punks had attacked him, Red had gone to the police, but they’d done nothing but file a useless report. Red knew that if he’d been a white man, they would have gone after those thugs. The clerk kept talking for ten or fifteen minutes before Red made his getaway and walked out with a bottle of Old Grand-Dad. He was half tempted to open it and drink it straight out of the paper bag.
He turned the corner on his block and saw that same kid, James or Curly, only now he was sitting right on the stoop in Red’s doorway.
“When you gonna learn me to play?” he asked, holding out his diddley bow.
“I’ve already told you, I don’t play anymore. Now go on home.”
But the kid didn’t budge. Red stepped around him, went up to his apartment and slammed the door. He pulled the bottle from the brown paper bag and guzzled down a few good gulps. He turned on the radio and there was Al Benson, the Old Swingmaster, cuing up Aileen Booker’s “Jealous Kinda Love.” Red snapped it off and chucked the radio across the counter, watching it hit the wall and explode into fragments. The sight of what he’d done shocked him. He froze, short of breath.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He stared at the pint of Old Grand-Dad, hating how much he needed it. He was shaking with anger and self-loathing, and suddenly knew that if he didn’t destroy that bottle, it would destroy him. Before he could take another drink he hurled it against the wall and sank to the floor. He bawled like a baby, his chest heaving as the tears streamed down his face. He was done. Ruined. Exhausted and ashamed. And down there on his knees with no one else to turn to, he turned to God. He talked to Him, begging for His mercy, praying to find some purpose for his life.
Red didn’t know how long he was on the floor praying and crying. Could have been five minutes. Could have been an hour. But when the tears subsided, he found that he was surprisingly calm. The fury inside of him had burned itself out and now he saw a clearing in the fog that had eluded him these past few months. Whether the insight had come from God or from somewhere inside him, he couldn’t say. But for the first time since his injury he knew what he had to do and had somehow found the wherewithal to do it.
He pushed himself up off the floor, grabbed the newspaper and checked the address in the want ads. Twenty minutes later he found himself outside the Moore Brothers’ Shoe Factory, looking at a sign in one of the windows that said “Now Hiring.” Red went inside, where he found a white man with a pink pockmarked face and a thick middle. Red told him he was there for the job.
The man looked up from his clipboard and said, “What’s your name, boy?”
He hesitated, thinking maybe it was time to go back to calling himself Reggie Smalls.
“I said, what’s your name?”
But he couldn’t. Reggie Smalls didn’t have a woman like Leah Grand. No, he couldn’t go bac
kward, erase the person he’d become up North, so he cleared his throat and said, “Red. Red Dupree.” Foolishly, he thought the man might recognize him. And he would have if he’d been a Negro. But this guy had no idea who Red was.
“Here’s the rules—” The man looked back at his clipboard. “You start at six in the morning. For every minute you’re late, we dock your pay. You get fifteen minutes for lunch.” He took a sniff. “And no booze, ya hear?”
“Yes, sir.” His ego protested at the thought of doing menial labor again, but he needed the work if he was going to save his marriage. And his life. “When can I start?”
“Tomorrow. And don’t be late.”
Red hesitated for a moment before he said, “Yes, sir. Tomorrow morning. Six o’clock. I’ll be here.” He left the shoe factory knowing that he’d just taken the first step back toward salvation.
When he made it home the sun was starting to set and that same kid was there on his stoop with his diddley bow. It was like he’d been waiting all this time for Red to return.
The boy looked up but didn’t say a word. He just held out his homemade instrument.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Red said to him. “I’ll be right back.”
He went inside and grabbed his Stella, then went back down the stairs and out the front door.
“Here—” Red thrust his Stella into the boy’s hand. “It’s yours.”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. His mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. He set the diddley bow down and hugged Red’s Stella like an old friend. It was too big for him, but that was all right, he’d grow into it.
“You come back here tomorrow around this same time,” said Red. “I’ll teach you a thing or two.”
THREE
• • •
1955–1956
THIRTY-THREE
• • •
“Maybellene”
LEONARD
Leonard sat at his desk twisting the radio knob. Up and down the dial, he heard “Shake, Rattle and Roll” on one station, then “Sh-Boom” on another. The sound was changing. Hell, everything was changing. No one was calling it race music anymore. Now it was R&B—rhythm and blues. Even the market and the audience were changing. Every day Leonard talked to another distributor claiming they couldn’t stock R&B records fast enough. And according to them, it wasn’t just coloreds listening anymore. It was all those white kids defying their parents by discovering what Leonard and Phil had tapped into years before.
