How Sweet the Sound

by Vanessa Miller

  Sallie put her hand to her forehead, rubbed it, blew out a long-suffering breath and then said, “I don’t want to upset you, but Nicoli told me he was leaving town.”

  “What do you mean? How could he leave town without saying good-bye to me?”

  Rolling her eyes, Sallie blurted, “From what I heard, he ran out of town with some nightclub floozy while dodging bullets from a gangster that he owed gambling money.”

  Shar figured the gangster was Mr. Marson and that Nicoli probably still owed him, since he kept on gambling. Shar knew that with the irresponsible way Nicoli would gamble away money and drink like a fish, she was better off without him. But her heart still ached for the man who had won her heart simply by smiling at her. Now he was gone, and she would be forced to get through these days without her voice and her man. “I’ve got nothing and nobody, and I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore,” Shar whispered, trying not to strain her voice.

  “What do you mean, what are you supposed to do?” Sallie stood up and boldly strutted over to Shar’s bed. “You are going to do what we women been doing since the beginning of time—get up from this sick bed, dust yourself off, and keep on moving.”

  Turning onto her side and pulling the covers up over her shoulder, Shar said, “How can I keep moving, Sallie? You hear how my voice sounds. If I can’t sing, what on earth am I supposed to do?”

  Sallie leaned closer to Shar as she said, “Now, gal, I done told you that we don’t do no pity parties around here. That beautiful voice of yours ain’t gone nowhere. Let it rest, and God will bring it back.”

  Shar wished she could believe that, but Sallie didn’t know what she had been doing with the voice God gave her just before she got herself knocked over the head. And Shar was too embarrassed to tell how she’d laid her morals down and stood on a stage dressed like a lady of the night and sang to a bunch of liquor-filled men.

  God must be punishing me, Shar thought as she brought her hands to her face and poured out tears of regret . . . tears of sorrow . . . tears that wished she had never laid eyes on Nicoli James and all his big dreams and sinful ways.

  Sallie put her hand on Shar’s arm and lightly rubbed her arm. “Hush, chile, it will be all right.”

  She kept crying, even as she wiped the tears from her face, trying to dry her eyes and turn a stiff upper lip to her troubles. She wished she could just take Sallie at her word. But so much had gone wrong in her life that Shar didn’t know what to believe anymore. “How, Sallie? How can anything ever be right again?”

  Still rubbing Shar’s arm, Sallie had this faraway look in her eyes as she said, “Life has a way of beating up on us so bad that we ain’t never gon’ find a way around them invisible fists. But if you trust God, I know you’ll find a way.”

  Sallie sounded as if she knew exactly how Shar was feeling, as if she’d had her dreams and her heart ripped out a time or two and was still there to tell about it. But the problem Shar had was that she just didn’t know if she truly trusted God anymore.

  But she was grateful for Sallie, so she wiped her face again, gave a weak smile and said, “Thanks for being here for me, Sallie. I’m so glad I have you in my life. My mama’s not here with me, but you have filled her shoes. I’ll never forget your kindness to me.”

  Removing her hand from Shar’s arm and getting tough again, Sallie wagged a finger at Shar. “Girl, can’t nobody replace your mama. That’s why I’m taking you home.”

  Did she hear right? Could it possibly be true? Was this nightmare truly coming to an end for her? “How can I go home? Don’t we have a few more cities to go to?”

  Sallie shook her head. “I already talked to the choir members. They are packing their belongings now. We’re just waiting on you to get well enough for the journey.”

  When Shar first started working with Sallie, she had been terrified of the woman, thinking that she was just mean and surly. Although Sallie had some rough outer edges, she was plenty soft on the inside. Shar smiled for the first time in days. “I’m going home.”

  20

  Home Again

  1937–1940

  Coming home didn’t make all of Shar’s troubles go away. Her mama was still in the hospital while Shar and her daddy was trying to come up with the money for her needs. She hadn’t been able to find any day work when she arrived home, so Shar was singing in a club that Rosetta recommended her for. Sallie had been mostly right about Shar’s voice coming back. She could sing, she experienced cracking every so often, but the folks in the nightclub were too drunk to know the difference. And Shar didn’t care enough to work the imperfections out of her voice. She was no longer singing for the Lord, so all the joy she’d gotten from singing was now far from her.

  She was at the hospital visiting her mama, so she tried to take her mind off of her troubles. The nurse had just wheeled her mother’s bed outside so that she could get some fresh air. Shar had no understanding of how fresh air could cure tuberculosis, but she guessed it was the poor man’s cure.

  “Girl, why are you standing around gawking at me? Don’t you have some songs to sing somewhere?” Marlene said with a hint of a devilish grin on her face.

  Shar hadn’t told her mama where she was singing at these days, and she didn’t plan on having that conversation until her mother was good and well. But Shar was happy that her mother was in a joking mood. She’d been so fearful when she’d first seen her laying in that hospital bed, looking thin as a rail and coughing up her lungs. She smiled back at her mother. “Seems like you’re feeling better this morning.”

  “I’ll be better when these doctors stop poking and prodding on me.”

  “Stop giving them a hard time, Mama. I need you to get better. I’ve been terribly worried about you.”

  Marlene’s body racked with coughing, as she tried to lift herself from her bed.

  Shar jumped to action and helped her mother lift herself. She put a cup in front of Marlene as her mother spit out the gunk she’d coughed up. Breathing heavily, Marlene stretched back out on her bed. A colored nursing assistant rushed toward them. She looked over Marlene and then said, “I think you’ve had enough air today, don’t you?”

  Marlene nodded.

  The woman turned to Shar and said, “You might want to let her rest. You can come back later on, okay?”

  Her mother looked so frail and so ill all of a sudden, that Shar wanted to object to leaving her for even a moment. But her daddy had made her promise not to tire her mother out when she spent time with her at the hospital. He wanted his wife to get as much rest as possible while she could; they had no idea when the hospital would throw her out because of the cost of her treatment.

  Grabbing hold of her mother’s hand, she squeezed it. “I’ll be back later on, Mama. You go get some sleep.”

  Marlene tried to squeeze her hand back, but the pressure was a little weak. “Go home and practice your singing. You need to get back on the road instead of sitting around here worrying about me.”

  Shar averted her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere until you get better,” was all she said about that.

  The nurse rolled Marlene’s bed back into the hospital, and as Shar stood watching her go, a tear trickled down her cheek. So many colored people were denied access to hospitals when this epidemic first hit Chicago. But thanks to Provident Hospital and the visiting Nurse Association that had been trained at this colored hospital, her mother was receiving care. The hospital wasn’t free. Provident relied on fees paid by patients, donations, and welfare reimbursements from the government. Shar might not be willing to tell her mama how she was making a living these days, but she was thankful that the earnings helped pay down the hospital bill they would now have to contend with.

  As she left the hospital, she slowly walked home, kicking around street rocks as she thought about how life had taken her on so many twists and turns that she hadn’t expected so early in life. She turned twenty-one that day, October the eleventh, and her mother hadn’t even
remembered to wish her a happy birthday. But Shar wasn’t upset with her mama, not with all she was going through. She knew that if her mama had been in better health she would have baked Shar a yellow cake with white icing and her father would have sang happy birthday to her in his soft baritone voice.

  But the world wouldn’t stop rocking just because it happened to be Shar Gracey’s birthday. No sir, that wasn’t the way things worked for her family. No, even on sunshiny days, the Graceys still seemed to find the rain.

  “What you moping around like that for on such a beautiful day like this?”

  Shar lifted her head as she stepped on the porch of the poor excuse of a home she shared with her parents. Her father was in the doorway holding a slice of pound cake with a matchstick in it. “What’s this?”

  “You thought I forgot, didn’t you?” Johnny Gracey asked as Shar walked into the house. “Now just sit down at the table and let me light this match so you can make a wish.”

  Shar was practically giddy as she sat down. “Mama didn’t remember that it was my birthday, so I thought for sure you had forgotten because she has to remind you about everything.”

  “Girl, hush, your mama ain’t the only one around here with a good memory.” Johnny set the cake in front of her. He then sang, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you, my sweet little girl, happy birthday to you.”

  Shar smiled. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “How old are you? How old are you?” he continued singing in that soft baritone, looking to her with expectation in his eyes.

  Shar knew her father wanted her to sing-song, “I’m twenty-one years old.” But she couldn’t bring herself to try even such a small riff. If her voice cracked while she tried to sing, her father would immediately want to know what happened to her. It was enough that he knew she was singing in saloons. He didn’t have to know of the other hardships that had befallen her while on tour. “I’m twenty-one, Dad, you know that,” she said in her regular voice.

  Johnny gave her a puzzled look, but he didn’t question her. He just pulled the match out of the cake and scratched it against the wood table leg. As the match lit, he put it back down in the center of her slice of cake. “Now, blow that out and make your wish.”

  Shar closed her eyes, quickly trying to come up with a wish. She wanted to beg God to get her out of these nightclubs and to fully restore her voice, but with her mama being in the hospital and needing a healing, Shar felt selfish requesting anything

  for herself. So as she blew out the makeshift candle, she wished for health, strength, and long life for her mama. “There, I blew it out.” She then kissed her father on the cheek, “Now let me eat my birthday cake and then I’ll help you with the house.”

  Johnny grabbed his tool belt and hammer. “It’s your birthday. You stay right in here and rest and I’ll get the house done.”

  Shar shook her head as she watched her dad grab some wood blocks and head out to the porch. He was a hardworking man, taking odd jobs wherever he could and then still coming home and working on their raggedy old house, trying to get the draft out so that his wife wouldn’t get sicker just by simply coming home to a drafty home.

  Shar was so thankful that her daddy remembered her birthday, but she wasn’t going to dally long. She would eat her piece of cake and then go help so he could get to bed on time tonight. Her father had been so happy for her to go off with Thomas Dorsey and sing in a group the way he had wanted to do, but he had never been able to. So, he’d let her to go off and live his dream. While Shar had been excited to go, leaving had caused her daddy to become the sole supporter and caregiver for her mother. He was worn out from the weight that had been placed on his shoulders, and Shar planned to do everything in her power to ease some of his load.

  After eating her cake, she changed into a pair of old work pants that she used to wear while helping her mother with the wash. By the time she came out of her room, her daddy had finished boarding up the porch. He then walked back into the house with a bunch of plastic under his arms. “What are you going to do with that?” Shar asked.

  “Got to close up some of the draft that’s coming through these useless windows.” Johnny threw all the sheets of plastic on the floor except one. He pulled out his hammer and a few nails and began tacking the plastic to the window pane.

  “What do you need me to do?” Shar wasn’t about to stand around twiddling her thumbs while her dad did all the work.

  Johnny pointed toward the back of the house. “Bring those rugs that I laid on the back porch in here and start putting them against the walls in the kitchen.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.” Shar got to work, helping her daddy in his quest to decrease the drafty feel of the old house. The rugs were all tattered, worn, and torn. Shar imagined that her father had been scouring trash bins all over town in order to get his hands on enough rugs to lay around the house.

  She got down on her hands and knees and placed half of the rugs against the wall and the other half of them on the floor next to the wall to block the draft blowing into the house from outside. The draft wasn’t so bad right then, in mid-October; however, within the next few weeks it would become unbearable. So she moved along the floor, placing one rug after the next against the wall.

  “I like the sound of that,” Johnny said as he turned away from the window he was tacking plastic to.

  “Huh? You like the sound of what?” Shar asked with furrowed brows.

  “You’re humming. You and your mama used to do that all the time while you worked. Well, your mama used to do the humming while you sang. But it has always sounded good to my ears.”

  Shaking her head, Shar told him, “Daddy, everything I do sounds good to your ears.”

  “You better believe it. You’re my baby girl, and I’m right proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Daddy,” Shar said with a big ol’ grin on her face. She liked knowing that her father was proud of her. As she started to turn back to her job, she caught a glimpse of her dad’s face as it contorted a bit and he grabbed hold of his chest.

  Shar jumped up and ran over to her father and just reached him as he began to stumble and fall. Grabbing hold of him just before he hit the floor, Shar started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, what’s wrong?”

  His eyes bulged as if trying to burst out of his head. He tried to speak as he clutched at his chest, but then his eyes closed and his body went limp.

  “Oh God, no, no, no. Don’t let this happen.” She grabbed hold of her daddy as tears blurred her vision. “Daddy, please don’t leave us here without you. Please wake up.”

  Shar realized that she couldn’t just sit there begging her father to wake up. She had to do something . . . had to get some help. She gently placed her father on the ground and ran out of the house looking for somebody, anybody who could lend them a hand.

  21

  We did it,” Nettie said with excitement oozing out of her as she closed the door behind the young educated couple who’d just walked out of Landon’s office.

  “Yeah, we got the ten people we need for our housing program, but we still don’t have enough money.” Landon stood and paced the floor, a look of concern etched across his face.

  “Calm down, you’re acting like more of a nervous Nellie than I do. The money will come. God wouldn’t let you get this far without making a way to see you to the finish line. Isn’t that what you preach to us all the time?”

  Landon stopped pacing and stared at Nettie. She was right and he knew it. He preached faith and nothing less to his congregation, so he needed to maybe sit down and reread the notes of one of his sermons so he could calm himself. “You’re right,” he finally said. “Trust God and the money will follow. That’s how we’ve been able to keep the doors of the church open, and that will be the way we get our people good quality housing.”

  Nettie gave Landon an atta-boy shove to the shoulder. “Now you’re sounding like the confident pastor that I know.”

  “I guess I just ne
eded someone to remind me that I’m not in this alone.”

  “You are never alone, Pastor Landon. God is with you, and I will always be here fighting this good fight right by your side.” Nettie’s eyes glowed with longing as she said those last words.

  Landon was beginning to feel uncomfortable. His office was small, so they had no choice but to be standing in close proximity of each other. He gave her comment a curt nod and then retreated behind his desk. “Thank you for your kindness, Sister Nettie.”

  “Not at all,” Nettie said as she sat down in the chair in front of his desk. “But my mama don’t seem to think I’m being kind to you. She says you’re just falling away . . . just skin and bones. And that it’s my responsibility to see that you get a good meal every now and then.”

  Landon caught the playful lilt in Nettie’s voice and played along. “I think your mama is on to something. I just might be adding a line about feeding the pastor to your job description.”

  They both laughed.

  Then Nettie said, “No need to add it to my job description, Pastor. My parents would consider it an honor if you would eat dinner with us a few times a week. And you know that my mom’s fried chicken is the best thing this side of heaven.”

  Patting his stomach, Landon agreed. “Of this I am well aware.”

  “Well then, you need to come and get yourself a plate. Tonight she’s making meatloaf and mashed potatoes. And I know how much you love meatloaf.”

  Landon’s stomach picked that moment to growl.

  Nettie arched an eyebrow.

  Landon said, “Let me finish working on my sermon and then I’ll walk you home so I can sample Mrs. Johnson’s famous meatloaf.”

  Grinning from ear to ear, Nettie stood and walked toward the door. “Let me get out of your way so you can get your sermon done. I have some typing to do anyway.” As she put her hand on the doorknob the door jerked open, and Nettie jumped back.

  “Pastor, pastor, I’m sorry to bother you, but we need you down at the hospital quick and fast,” Deacon Monroe said as he rushed into the office, hat in hand.