Windy City Blues Page 6

  But that never happened because while the girls were down on Maxwell Street, Aileen’s father had been killed in an accident at the steel plant where he worked. That changed everything for Aileen.

  Leeba paused outside the radio and record store, noticing that the sign—“Radios—TVs—Records—Parts—Sales—Service”—was crooked. She stepped inside the cramped store, a hodgepodge of new and used instruments hanging from hooks on the pegboards along the walls. Near the front window, her eyes landed on the store’s one true prize: a used baby grand. A Bösendorfer. She knew the handcrafted instrument had taken eleven months to make, two months longer than the making of a child. The previous owner had taken good care of it, having it tuned twice a year. The only flaw was a scratch on the fallboard, something etched in the black lacquer that reminded her of a lightning bolt. Abrams said he’d sell it to her for six hundred dollars and she’d been saving her money ever since, vowing that one day this magnificent instrument would be hers.

  While Abrams was with a customer, Leeba circled around the baby grand using a soft cloth to clear traces of dust that had accumulated from the morning. She caught her reflection in the raised lid, her dark curly hair visible in the wood’s luster. After dusting the piano keys, setting off a trickle of notes, she couldn’t resist playing a few chords.

  “Leeba!” Abrams scolded her. “Back to work.” He was an impatient, barrel-chested man with a glass eye that stared lifelessly from the socket. Leeba never knew where to look when he spoke to her.

  She went to the front counter, shoved the unneeded step stool out of her way and retrieved a radio from the top shelf where it was awaiting repair. She wrote up the ticket for that and another one for a record player. When she finished, Abrams had her alphabetize sheet music and sort screws and vacuum tubes for the repairman.

  Later that afternoon while she was replacing a violin string, a deep voice broke her concentration.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, mind if I plug in my amp here?”

  Leeba looked up—and up, up, up. He was well over six feet tall. Then the rest of him came into view—dark eyes, dark skin the color of cinnamon. He held a power cord in one hand and a guitar in the other.

  “Would that be okay with you, ma’am?”

  “Tell him it’s twenty-five cents,” Abrams shouted over.

  The guitar player set the cord down and when he reached in his pocket and gave her a quarter his hand brushed against hers—or maybe she only imagined it had.

  He went back outside after plugging in his amp, and she stood by the front window watching him. He had a long, square face, and his lips had a pinkish cast to them. She thought he was attractive, but once he started with his guitar he became exceptional. She’d never seen anyone play up so high on the neck, finding his home along the tenth, eleventh and twelfth frets, close to the sound hole. He kept his eyes closed and each string he picked and every chord he hit registered on his face, eyebrows inching up on the high notes and lips pursed firm on the lower ones. Then he began to sing with a low, gravelly growl of a voice that practically vibrated inside her chest.

  After that it was hard to focus on work and Leeba found excuses to stand near the doorway and watch him. He had a harmonica player with him, a shorter, younger guy who performed stunts, squeals and rhythms on his tiny mouth harp that she didn’t know were possible. That music made her want to move her body, made her forget about her miserable job, and that she only had a dollar and a quarter to last till payday. When she was listening to them play, she wasn’t thinking about anything other than how good their music made her feel. She was still standing watching him when the guitar player looked back in her direction. She felt herself blush and had to turn away. She already knew that she would fall asleep that night picturing his face.

  • • •

  The following Sunday the guitar player was back. And he was back again the Sunday after that. Every Sunday for almost a month he came into the store, said hello, paid his quarter and handed her his cord. He seemed shy and polite until he started playing. She saw the way music transformed him. When he played he became charismatic, displaying the kind of confidence that couldn’t be faked and couldn’t be taught.

  She lost track of time watching him, but she couldn’t help herself. She knew white girls, especially white Jewish girls, weren’t supposed to be attracted to Negroes. Maybe that was part of his appeal. Like the new tighter skirts she wore, knowing her mother disapproved of them.

  On one Sunday Aileen happened to be in the store when the guitarist showed up. Leeba was standing off to the side with Aileen, who was pretending to be looking through the record bins, when they saw him walk through the front door.

  “Lordy be,” Aileen said, splaying her hand across her heart. “That is one long drink of water.”

  “Shh.” Leeba gave her an elbow jab.

  They heard Abrams coming up front and Leeba darted back behind the counter while Aileen flipped through the records. “I’m shopping,” she said to Abrams. “See?” She held up a 78 as proof.

  “Feh.” Abrams swatted his hand through the air and muttered, “Troublemaker.”

  Leeba’s pulse was racing as the guitar player made his way up the center aisle with his electric Gibson in one hand, his cord in the other.

  “Mind if I plug in my amp?”

  “Give it here.” Abrams cut in front of Leeba and took over. “That’ll be twenty-five cents.”

  Her heart sank as the guitar player politely paid Abrams and headed back outside. She waited, while her world stood still, hoping he’d turn back around. Just once. Just for a split second. But he didn’t.

  The week passed with her anticipation growing and on the next Sunday the guitarist came into the store asking again if he could plug in his amp. Abrams was nowhere in sight and so when he reached in his pocket for a quarter she stopped him.

  “This one’s on me.” She smiled.

  “Why, thank you, ma’am.”

  “Your music’s swell,” she said.

  “Well, thank you again, ma’am.”

  He started to turn away and, not wanting him to leave yet, she blurted out, “How did you learn to play like that?”

  He stopped, puzzled, as if he wasn’t sure she was talking to him.

  “Your guitar,” she said, pointing to the Gibson in his hand. “Who taught you to play like that?”

  “Oh. It was my granddaddy. He taught me to play.” Again, he started to turn away.

  “How old were you?”

  “I’m sorry?” he said, despite there being nothing to apologize for.

  He was obviously uneasy talking with her and she wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t interested or because she was white. “I was just wondering when you started playing—how old were you?”

  “Oh, um, about six or seven.”

  “Six or seven. Wow.” She leaned forward, planted her elbows on the counter and butted her chin against the heels of her hands. “You were really young when you started, huh? Did you ever study professionally?”

  “Me?” He cracked a smile as if the suggestion was absurd. “Nah, after my granddaddy got me started I pretty much taught myself. I play by ear.”

  “Really?” She straightened up, delighted to have found some common ground. “Me, too.”

  He was about to say something—what, she’d never know, because the harp player banged on the storefront window.

  “Well, I gotta get out there,” he said.

  “I really do think your music’s swell.”

  “In that case I’ll dedicate our first song to you. What’s your name?”

  “Leeba.”

  “Nice to know you, Leah. I’m Red. Red Dupree.”

  She didn’t have the heart to correct him and followed him to the front of the store. Standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, she watched him dash off a guitar lick
before he said, to no one in particular, “This one’s for Leah.”

  “Leeba!” Mr. Abrams shouted. “Go help them.” He pointed to a young couple circling the Bösendorfer. The woman had a lemon yellow pocketbook hanging off her wrist and a matching ribbon in her hair. “But don’t talk price,” Abrams said to Leeba. “That’s my business.”

  Leeba felt imposed upon, and as she went over, she was offended by the way the woman glided her fingertips across the lacquered lid of her piano, leaving a trail in the fine dust that was ever present in the old shop.

  “It’s for our daughter,” explained the husband. “She’s starting to take lessons.”

  “We thought we’d surprise her,” said the wife.

  “That’s quite a surprise,” said Leeba. They’re going to give this magnificent instrument to a child—a beginner? “But if she’s just starting to play,” said Leeba, “you don’t need anything this elaborate. You could save a lot of money by going with an upright and—”

  “Leeba!” Abrams flapped his arms. “Gey avech. Go away.” He shooed her off and addressed the couple. “You’ll have to forgive that salesgirl. She doesn’t know from good pianos. And this right here”—he tapped the Bösendorfer’s lid—“is one of a kind. How much you want to pay? No offer too small.”

  Leeba felt betrayed and sick at the thought of the piano selling. Abrams had promised it to her. She went back up front to watch Red Dupree, half listening to the music, half to Abrams’s haggling. When the husband refused to go above five-fifty the couple left pianoless.

  As soon as they were out the door Abrams stormed up to Leeba, sputtering mad. “What is wrong with you? You cost me that sale, you imbecile.”

  Imbecile? She was in no mood to be yelled at and turned away.

  “I’m talking to you,” he said, spinning her back around. “Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you all right,” she snapped. “You’re screaming at me.” She’d never talked back to him before and maybe she spoke up that day because she knew she had another job waiting for her with Leonard. Or maybe she’d just had enough. How dare he break his word and try to sell her piano out from under her?

  “One more move like that,” he said, “and you’re finished. Kaput. You hear me?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “There won’t be a next time because you and I are kaput. I quit—you hear me?”

  FOUR

  • • •

  “Chi-Baba Chi-Baba”

  LEEBA

  The smell of Chanel No. 5 lingered in the air long after Evelyn Aron left the office, heading to the recording studio in her red convertible. Leeba had been working at Aristocrat for a month, ever since she quit her job at the Maxwell Street Radio and Record Store. She was making eighteen dollars a week now—three dollars more than she’d made with Abrams. On her first day Leeba told Evelyn that she played piano and did some songwriting, but Evelyn had been more interested in Leeba’s typing skills.

  Even so, Leeba found Evelyn fascinating. Smart, clever, so beautiful, so American. She got weekly manicures and wore red lipstick that rivaled her hair color. She dressed in tailored clothes and had diamond earrings and strands of pearls. She kept an extra pair of shoes tucked under her desk and Leeba would have tried them on had Evelyn’s feet not been so tiny.

  Leeba found it hard to believe that Evelyn was only four years older than herself. At twenty-eight Evelyn had already been through two husbands and owned a record business, although, except for the upright piano and the stacks of Billboard and Cash Box magazines lying around, nothing there suggested music. The office was just a storefront on Cottage Grove Avenue, but still it was a business and Evelyn owned fifty-one percent of it. Leonard had the rest.

  After Leeba reconciled the checkbook, organized Leonard’s expenses and scheduled Evelyn’s beauty parlor appointment, the telephone rang for the first time that day.

  “Aristocrat Record Company.”

  “I need you to do me a favor.” It was Evelyn. “I’m over at the studio with Leonard and we forgot the contracts. Can you bring them to us at Universal?”

  Universal Recording was in the Civic Opera Building downtown and there was a time when Leeba would have been too intimidated to venture there by herself. But here she was boarding the Lake-Ashland El at Garfield Boulevard like any other Chicagoan. She got off at the Clinton Street stop and walked the rest of the way along Wacker Drive, proud of how she’d learned to maneuver her way around the city, sorting out the tangle of elevated railroad tracks and bus routes, the many streets and boulevards that fed into Chicago like veins to the heart.

  She arrived at the Civic Opera Building. Inside, it was as ornate as a church, adorned in marble and gold. The Universal Recording studio was in a more modest section of the building, in the office tower on the forty-second floor. Leeba’s ears popped on the elevator ride up.

  She stepped into a lobby with a wall of framed gold records: “Peg o’ My Heart” by the Harmonicats, Vic Damone’s “You Do” and Al Morgan’s “Jealous Heart.” She was standing in the very place where those hits were recorded, thinking that behind each song, a voice had been plucked from obscurity. One day they were driving trucks or busing tables and the next day—bam—recording stars. And then there were the songwriters who created those lyrics and melodies that were so infectious and unforgettable. She was fascinated by the talent scouts who roamed the countryside and city clubs looking for that sound, that special something. Leeba was sure Aileen had it. So did that guitar player, Red Dupree. So did countless others she’d seen on Maxwell Street. The city was bursting with talent and she’d often wondered what determined who made it and who didn’t.

  Leeba waited in the lobby, watching people coming and going, moving in drum kits and amplifiers, microphones and reel-to-reels. A young man stood near her, guitar in hand, his case freckled with nubby putty-colored stickum where some decals once lived. Leeba saw the studio owner, Bill Putnam, coming down the hall, talking to a young man trailing behind him with a notepad in hand.

  “Nah,” Putnam was saying, “we can’t record there. There’s too much reverberation. We’ll end up with an echo of the echo . . .”

  Leeba recalled what Evelyn had said once about the lengths to which Bill Putnam would go to capture a particular sound. He’d been known to sneak musicians and recording equipment into the ladies’ room so he could bounce the music off the marble floors and walls. He used to ask Evelyn for Wet Paint signs from her husband’s store so he could tape them up along the hallways to keep people out while they recorded.

  Leeba waited until the receptionist led her back to the studio. Evelyn, Leonard and an engineer were in the control booth seated in front of a plate-glass window that looked out onto the studio. This was the first time Leeba had been in a real recording studio and it was nothing like Bernard Abrams’s booth at the back of his store. The engineer wore headphones as he dialed a series of knobs to the left and to the right. Stray coffee cups and smoldering ashtrays were stationed around. A big reel-to-reel machine on the far wall was going around and around, recording the Sherman Hayes Orchestra, all clustered together on the other side of the glass.

  “Stick around,” Evelyn said to Leeba. “You can get all the paperwork signed.”

  Leeba sat on a stool in the back, watching Evelyn, who had taken charge of the session. After another series of takes Evelyn spoke to the engineer about sound levels and phrasing. She guarded the speaker button, her lacquered nails resting on top of it. “Let’s do another take,” she said to the engineer.

  He nodded and pushed a second speaker button. “This is ‘Chi-Baba Chi-Baba,’ take eleven.”

  Leonard didn’t like take eleven, twelve or thirteen and it was a good thing that Sherman Hayes and his orchestra couldn’t hear what he was saying inside the control booth. Leonard reached for the lyric sheet. “C’mon, Evelyn. ‘Chi-Baba Chi-Baba’? These guys are a joke.”
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  “I thought you said you weren’t going to say anything.” She glared at him. “What happened to ‘Just let me come watch. I just want to learn more about producing.’ What happened to that? Honest to Pete,” she said under her breath, “times like this I question why I brought you on board.”

  “Because you need me, remember? If you’d get your motherfucking head out of your tuchas you’d know that.”

  “Enough.” She pounded her hand on the console. “If you must speak, please refrain from sounding like a drunken sailor.”

  Leonard got up and sat off to the side, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Evelyn was ready for another take. The orchestra started again, getting two measures in before she stopped them.

  The engineer adjusted his headphones and said, “I think they need to tone down the saxophone and the trumpet. The clarinet, too.”

  “I think it’s the tempo,” said Leeba.

  Evelyn spun around, eyes narrowing.

  “I’m sorry”—Leeba said with a shrug—“but the tempo’s too slow.”

  “She’s right,” said Leonard, back on his feet. “It sounds like a goddamn funeral march.”

  “It’s supposed to be a fun song,” added Leeba. “And they’re treating it like a ballad.”

  Evelyn folded her arms across her chest. “Well, I see you both have it all figured out. Tell me, Leeba, is there anything else, with all your vast recording experience, that you’d like to add?” Evelyn turned to Leonard. “And what about you? I suppose you want to tell me how to do my job, too. We had an agreement. You do the sales and distribution and I handle the production.”

  “Whoa”—Leonard held up his hands—“I’m not saying another word. Scout’s honor.” With a cigarette scissored between his fingers he crossed his heart and looked at Leeba while he crossed his eyes, making her burst out laughing.