Windy City Blues

by Renée Rosen

  He was going back to another meeting the next evening and she contemplated joining him. But he didn’t invite her, and she sensed that he needed to go alone. Red was rediscovering the self-respect he’d lost as a young child. She had to let him go on that journey by himself.

  • • •

  Another month came and went and so did Leeba’s monthlies. “I don’t think I’m ever going to have a baby,” she said, looking upside down at Aileen, feeling all the blood rushing to her head. She was in her apartment, standing on her head, her legs propped up against the wall.

  “Tell me again, how’s that supposed to make you have a baby?” asked Aileen.

  “I read about it in Reader’s Digest. Something about standing on your head makes it easier to conceive.”

  “Is that the same article that told you to eat all them yams?”

  “Yeah, well, that didn’t work. Obviously.”

  “How long you gotta do that for?” Aileen asked as she lit a cigarette and blew the smoke toward the ceiling.

  “Almost done.”

  After a few more minutes Leeba lowered her legs and sat up leaning against the wall, faint stars filling her vision.

  “Ain’t we a pair,” said Aileen. “I’m trying not to get pregnant and you’re trying everything you can think of to have a baby. You ever think maybe you’re trying too hard?”

  “I can’t help it. I want a baby. I can’t imagine my life without a child in it.”

  Once she felt steady enough to stand, Leeba patted her hair back in place and reached for her pocketbook and keys. “Well, shall we?”

  It was a Monday morning and they were on their way down to Chess to work on a new song. Chess had put out a couple more records with Aileen; one was a song that Willie Dixon had written but the rest were all Leeba’s. None of them had performed the way “Jealous Kinda Love” had. They didn’t even chart in the R&B top one hundred and Leeba knew Aileen was feeling desperate for another hit.

  As they walked toward the El platform, they came to a red light and Leeba noticed a group of boys across the street hanging around outside a pool hall. They were all in their teens except for one. Leeba took a second look at the littlest of the boys, almost comical with his head bent trying to light a cigarette. When he straightened up she saw that it was James.

  “That’s him,” she said, gesturing with her chin. “That’s the boy Red was giving guitar lessons to.”

  “You mean the little thief who lifted that twenty out of your wallet? C’mon, I’m gonna set him straight—”

  “Whoa.” Leeba stopped her, looping her arm through hers. “Forget it. That money’s long gone. It’s been a month since he took it. Besides, Red’s done with him.”

  “Little brat!” Aileen shouted through her cupped hands.

  James heard her and his head shot up. He looked in their direction, his eyes locking onto Leeba’s. Up until that moment she’d been angry about the money and, despite Red’s feelings, glad he was out of their lives. But just then she saw that he was only a child, a misguided, innocent child, lost in this world. She felt strangely protective of him and he seemed to sense this because he kept staring at Leeba until one of the older boys shoved him so hard he was knocked to the ground.

  “Ha! Serves him right,” said Aileen.

  Leeba wanted to go over to him, but feared Aileen would make a scene.

  “Ain’t he supposed to be in school now anyway?” she asked.

  “I think James only does what James wants to do. Nobody’s looking after him. I don’t know what happened to his parents. I think he lives with his grandmother.”

  “She sure has her hands full, don’t she? C’mon, our train’s coming.”

  Leeba followed Aileen to the El and went about her day. But when she came home from work she found James sitting in the hallway outside their apartment door, his knees propped up, his head cradled in his arms.

  “Are you looking for Red?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer and she heard Sophie on the other side of the door, her nails scratching against the floor and her tail thumping the wall as she whimpered at the sound of Leeba’s voice. She asked James again if he was there for Red.

  The boy said no and when he lifted his head she saw that he had a black eye, a real shiner.

  “Oh my gosh, James, what happened? Who did this to you?” She crouched down beside him and went to touch his face, but he shrugged her away like the tough guy she’d first met. Leeba stood up. Obviously he didn’t want her sympathy. She wasn’t sure what he wanted. There was an awkward moment of silence and she saw his lower lip tremble. “James?”

  “I’m sorry I took that money from your wallet,” he said as he began to cry outright. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled bill and a handful of coins. “All I got is two dollars, but it’s yours.”

  “Keep your money,” she said. “But don’t ever steal from me or anyone else again. You understand?”

  The boy nodded as he shoved his money back in his pocket. She waited, but he didn’t say anything. His lip was still trembling. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor and didn’t look like he was going to.

  “James,” she said after another long silence, “is there something else you want?”

  He looked up at her and dragged his arm across his eyes to wipe the tears. “Can I come play with your dog?”

  • • •

  That night Leeba set an extra plate at the table so James could join them for dinner. When Red came home from another one of his meetings and saw James playing with Sophie on the floor, his face lit up. Between his meetings and finding the boy there, it was as if someone had shined a light on Red’s life. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him so happy.

  When it was time to eat, Leeba and Red exchanged a look when they saw the way James gobbled down his stew, sopping up the gravy with a heel of bread, gulping down a tall glass of milk.

  “Is your grandma a good cook?” Leeba asked, dishing out more stew for him.

  “My grandma done passed.” James licked the back of his spoon.

  “She did?” Leeba was shocked. He said it so matter-of-factly. She fought the urge to take James in her arms.

  “When did that happen?” asked Red.

  James shrugged and dug into his second bowl of stew. “Um, ’bout six months ago.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” said Leeba, studying James’s ratty clothes, his dirty fingernails.

  “Who’s looking after you now?”

  “A foster family.” He took another mouthful of stew. “This sure do taste good. My foster mother don’t cook.”

  “Not at all?” asked Leeba.

  “Nope.”

  “What do you eat, then?” asked Red.

  The boy cocked his head to the side, thinking. “Um, potato chips, soda pop, sometimes caramel corn . . .”

  Leeba brought her hand to her mouth and looked at Red.

  “Do you like it there with your foster family?” Red asked.

  James shrugged again, kept on eating.

  “Do you have any aunts or uncles? Any cousins? Any kin at all?”

  He shook his head.

  Leeba set her fork down. She hadn’t realized just how alone this kid really was. Without a proper family, he’d end up like those hoodlums he hung around with.

  After dinner, Leah packed up some leftovers for him and Red walked James over to his foster home. She stood at the door watching them and wondering if that foster family was more interested in the money they were getting from the state than in looking after James.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  • • •

  “Rock and Roll Music”

  LEONARD

  Six weeks after they recorded “Maybelline,” Leonard was finally ready to release the record. It was July and hot as hell. They threw op
en the doors and windows and the office was still a goddamn steam bath.

  “I got those records all boxed up for you, Dad.”

  Leonard looked up at his son. Marshall’s eagerness to please stabbed him with guilt. He was thirteen and had his choice of going to summer camp or working down at Chess. He chose Chess.

  “What should I do now?” Marshall asked, hovering over his father’s shoulder.

  “Go to lunch.”

  “Lunch? It’s not even ten o’clock.”

  “I don’t know—go get the shipping labels ready.”

  “Sure thing.” Marshall smiled and sprinted out the door.

  Leonard got up from his desk and wiped the sweat creeping down his neck as he walked into Phil’s office. Leeba was already in there; the two of them were discussing Berry’s record.

  “So what’s the latest from the lawyers?” Leonard asked Phil as he slumped down on the couch.

  “They want us to change the spelling of Maybelline. So I said fine, we’ll replace the i with an e. And they said okay.”

  “That’s it?” Leonard was surprised.

  “That’s it. They said if we spell it e-n-e the cosmetics company can’t say a word.”

  “And what about the trade ads?” he asked Leeba, moving on to the next subject.

  She glanced over her notes, stalling. She seemed distracted, tired. The day before, the two of them had grabbed coffee at Deutsch’s. They were reminiscing about ice skating together as kids, playing tetherball and hide-and-seek and how frosted Phil got when he couldn’t find them. They were laughing, clowning around, having a good time, until a woman showed up with a baby stroller. Leeba took one look at that infant and burst into tears. Thinking he could lighten the mood he’d told her she could have Marshall, but that had only made her cry harder.

  “Leeba?” said Phil. “Nu? The trade ads?”

  “Well,” she said, still leafing through her notes, “we haven’t reserved space yet for the release of ‘Maybellene,’ and”—she flipped through the pages some more—“we said we wanted to promote Muddy’s ‘Mannish Boy.’ We have a full-page advertisement set for that—two columns.”

  “Okay,” said Leonard, “so what we’ll do is divide it up. Half will promote Muddy and half will introduce Chuck.”

  “But you can’t do that to Muddy,” said Leeba. “He’ll be furious.”

  “Mud’s a big boy,” said Leonard.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” said Leeba. “I noticed a mistake on the copyright application for ‘Maybellene.’ I don’t know what happened, but it came back with Alan Freed as the co-songwriter along with Chuck.”

  Leonard looked at Phil, as if to say, Do you want to explain this or should I?

  Leeba leaned forward, her brows hiked up. “What’s going on, Lenny? I know when you’re up to something. What are you doing?”

  “Look,” said Phil, “it’s very simple. Freed’s the biggest deejay in New York and with his name on the copyright we’re guaranteed the song will get more attention.”

  “It’s business, okay?” said Leonard.

  “And Freed is going to get paid for Chuck’s work? That’s not right.”

  “It’s right if it gets us airplay on the station with the highest ratings in the country.”

  “But what about Chuck? Does he even know about this?”

  “Don’t you worry about Chuck,” said Leonard. “Chuck Berry’s gonna make out just fine.”

  • • •

  It had been a hell of a lot easier when Alan Freed was in Cleveland. New York in August was no picnic. Leonard was sweating through his shirt as he jostled through Times Square making his way to East Fifty-eighth Street to the WINS radio station.

  Leonard had known Alan Freed since his days as a deejay at WAKR in Akron. Freed liked race music and jazz and had started gaining a following of white kids who defied their parents and listened in. The son of a bitch thought he’d invented the wheel when he started calling race music “rock ’n’ roll.” But Leonard had heard that phrase long before Freed said it on the air. His musicians had been singing about rocking and rolling since before the Aristocrat days and now Freed was taking curtain bows, hailed as a genius for coming up with it.

  Through the years Leonard had brought a lot of songs to Alan and had paid him well in exchange for airplay. Of course, now that he was in New York the price of entry had gone way, way up.

  Leonard went into Freed’s corner office. He had gold records on one wall and a credenza lined with crystal decanters of liquor. Freed was in a leather wingback chair with a view of Manhattan visible through the window over his shoulder. Leonard sat opposite him in a chair he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get back out of.

  After they shot the breeze for a few minutes, Leonard put “Maybellene” on the turntable. As soon as he dropped the needle, Leonard saw the look come over Freed’s face. It was love, and Leonard knew it wasn’t just because he was sharing the writing credit for the song.

  From the very first time Freed played “Maybellene” on his all-white station, listeners were calling up requesting it. Even Leonard didn’t realize the torrent that had been unleashed. Chuck may have been a good ole Midwestern boy, but he had that hillbilly twang going for him and Leonard knew “Maybellene” would get some attention down South, but what he hadn’t counted on was the rest of the country going nuts for the song, too. Deejays could barely keep up with the requests, playing it ten or more times in an hour.

  Two days later when Leonard returned to Chicago, Leeba handed him a stack of papers. “Orders,” she said. “Everybody wants the Chuck Berry record.”

  Leonard called every record presser from Memphis to Los Angeles, trying to fill all the orders coming in. They were working fourteen-hour days just to keep up with the demand. Even Marshall came down to help. They ordered in pizzas and sandwiches and packed up boxes, cranked up the addressograph machine and slapped each one with a shipping slip and a label.

  They were in the middle of all this chaos when Muddy came into the office one afternoon. He flipped up the grease-spotted pizza box lid, checking under the hood. “Thought we had us an appointment today, Leonard. I’m here to talk about my new record.” Muddy examined a cold slice of pizza before dropping it back in the box.

  “Gonna have to wait, buddy.” Leonard had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, one eye squinted. Even through the smoke he saw that Muddy was offended, especially when he picked up one of the 78 discs.

  “Chuck Berry, huh? You mean to tell me y’all ain’t got time for me on account of this?” Muddy tossed the record back on the pile and left without saying good-bye.

  Leonard knew Muddy was sore and apparently so was Revetta. He got home that night and after Marshall went to bed, she stormed into the kitchen and stood at the sink, her back toward Leonard, counting off all his fatherly failures. He’d missed Elaine’s ballet recital the day before, forgotten to leave something under Susie’s pillow from the tooth fairy, hadn’t gotten Marshall home on time like he’d promised. And most of all she got on him about not taking better care of himself.

  “You don’t eat right. You don’t sleep. All you do is drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. You’re working yourself to death, Len.”

  He took it for about five minutes before he snapped. “You want me to buy that big house in Glencoe? You want to move to the suburbs, get the kids in better schools? Well, it ain’t cheap. This is what I gotta do. I’m doing this for you—for the kids.”

  “That’s a load of crap.” She spun around, her fingers twisting up a dish towel. “This isn’t for me. It’s not for the kids. It’s for Shirley and you know it. Everything you’ve ever done has been for Shirley.”

  He was shocked, suddenly warm and light-headed. He felt behind him for the counter, needing to grip something to steady himself. Of course Revetta knew Shirley from the old neighborhood, but s
he had never mentioned her before.

  “You think I don’t know?” she said. “I see the credit card statements. I see all the bills from Saks for your suits and your ties, your shoes and your hats. And I know there’s only one reason why you go there to shop.”

  “I’ve never laid a hand on her.”

  “I didn’t say you did.” She bunched up the dish towel and threw it on the countertop. “But you can’t stand there and tell me you’re not still trying to prove something to her—or to her father.”

  Leonard hung his head. He had no defense.

  “I’ve always known I was second best,” she said. “I knew that when I married you. But don’t insult me now by lying to my face. I’m not stupid, Leonard.”

  • • •

  The next morning when Leonard got in his car the radio was playing “Maybellene.” Everywhere he went he heard that song: in the stores, on kids’ transistors. He’d play a game with himself, going up and down the dial on his car radio to see how many times he’d hear the song between his house and the office. The record so far was seven times.

  By September “Maybellene” had hit the top of the Billboard charts. The day Leonard saw it in the trade magazine, Muddy came to him with a big chip on his shoulder. He had his own copy of Billboard in his hand. He’d seen the charts, too. Through the years he’d learned how to read enough to be able to decipher what he saw in the trade magazines.

  “Looks like your man Freed is a big fan of Mr. Berry’s. Lookee here.” He eyed the chart. “Looks like he’s playing a lot of crap, too. Pat Boone’s number nine with ‘Ain’t That a Shame.’ And if you ask me, ain’t that a shame that they’d let Pat Boone record Fats Domino’s song.”

  Leonard laughed until Muddy turned the next page and there was the full-page ad they were running for Chuck Berry with a little photo of Muddy and a mention touting his new record, “Trouble, No More.”

  “Now, Mud”—Leonard got up from his desk and walked over to him—“you gotta under—”