Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [34]
“It just don’t make sense,” I told him. “This is the damn South.” But Artie didn’t want to give in. He was unhappy. I was unhappy. Finally we compromised and agreed I would come out on the stand and sit just before my numbers.
I could smell this sheriff a mile off. I told the cats in the band he was looking for trouble.
“He wants to call me nigger so bad he’s going to find a way,” I told them. And so I bet Tony Pastor, Georgie Auld and Max Kaminsky two bucks apiece he would make it.
He did.
When I came on, the sheriff walked up to the raised bandstand; Artie’s back was to the dance floor, so he pulled Artie’s pants leg and said, “Hey you!” Artie turned around. “Don’t touch me,” he hollered over the music.
But the sheriff didn’t give up so easy. I had money riding on what he would do, so I was watching him real close. So were the cats I had the bet with. They were keeping a free eye on him. He pulled Artie’s leg again. “Hey you,” he said.
Artie turned around. “You want to get kicked?” he asked him.
Still the old cracker sheriff didn’t give up. Back he came again. “Hey you,” he said. Then he turned to me and, so loud everybody could hear, he said, “What’s Blackie going to sing?”
Artie looked like it was the end of the world—and the tour. I guess he thought I was going to break down and have a collapse or something. But I was laughing like hell. I turned to Georgie, Tony, and Max, put my hand out, and said, “Come on now, give me the money.”
We had another big scene like this one time in St. Louis. We were scheduled to play the ballroom in one of the biggest hotels in town. The man who hired us just leased the ballroom from the hotel. But this day, of all days, after two months of one-nighters and a chance to sit still for three whole weeks, we were rehearsing and in wandered this old cracker who owned the hotel, the city block, the works. He was older than God and hadn’t been seen around there in ten years. But he picked this day to come shooting around in his wheel chair to look over his property.
Naturally, the first thing he saw was me. And the first thing he said, was, “What’s that nigger doing there? I don’t have niggers to clean up around here.”
Artie tried to tell him I was his vocalist, but he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t saying anything but “nigger.”
So I stepped in and said, “Man, can’t you say nothing else? I’m tired of being called nigger.” Besides, I knew I could whip him.
Tony was so sore and red in the face, I didn’t know what he might do, when this old cracker ordered Artie and him and me and all of us out of the hotel. If you’ve got one of those Italian boys like Tony in your corner, they’ll go to hell for you and die for you. If one of those cats loves you, I’m sorry, you’ve got you a buddy-boy.
So with Tony beside me I walked up to this old cracker and stared him down.
“Listen,” I told him. “Artie Shaw has been very nice to me. I know you don’t even have niggers clean up your hotel. But I’m a Negro or whatever you want to call me, and I’ll make you a bet. You let us open in this damn ballroom, and if I don’t go over better than anyone else, you can throw me and Artie and all of us out. You want to take the bet or don’t you?”
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to take it. But he didn’t want to scoot off in his wheel chair either. There were quite a few spectators on the scene, and people began saying he was a drag if he didn’t take the bet. So he did, and we opened.
I knew that night I had the future of the whole band riding on me, so I really worked. First I did “I Cried for You.” Then I followed with “Them There Eyes.” And then I finished with a thing called “What You Gonna Do When There Ain’t No Swing?” Swing was the thing then.
When I ended the number I held onto the word “ain’t,” then I held “no.” Then I held my breath, thinking the jury was out and wondering what the verdict would be, and I sang the word “swing.” I hadn’t got the word shaped with my mouth when people stood up whistling and hollering and screaming and clapping. There was no arguing. I was the best,