Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [7]
“You ain’t got no father,” she used to tell me. “I work so hard. Please don’t make the same mistake I made.”
She was always afraid I’d end up bad and there would be nothing she could say. She never hit me when she thought I was doing something bad. She would just cry, and I couldn’t stand to see her cry. I didn’t want to hurt her, and I didn’t—until three years before she died, when I went on junk.
But back then I was worried what this old bitch might tell my mother. So when she told me she thought I was doing the thing with those boys and I wasn’t, I picked up a broom and beat her until she agreed to tell my mother she had never seen me doing nothing with the boys.
The boys were doing it, though. And they were looking for some girl who would. And I could tell them who. The one who was always a sure thing was the saintliest girl on the block. She always kept saying she was going to be a great dancer; meantime she was doing it, not only with the boys but with all those women’s husbands.
But she was always so damn proper and saintly, this Evelyn, she wouldn’t say “Bon Ami” if she had a mouthful. But because my mother had made a mistake, everybody, including Cousin Ida, was always raising hell with me.
I went back to Baltimore a few years ago when I was playing the Royale Theatre. I drove up in my white Cadillac in front of the house where Evelyn used to live. I parked it where the junk wagon used to sit. This saintly bitch who was going to be a big dancer was still living there. She had six kids and none of them by the same father and she was still funky and greasy. The kids lined up in the street and I bought them ice cream and gave them fifty cents apiece. They thought it was a big deal and I was a big star.
Evelyn always kept a young cat in the house and she had one that day, young and brown and good-looking. He leaned out the window, pointed to one of the six kids, and said, “This one is mine.” I never forgot that day. These were the people who used to worry me and Mom to death about going bad.
There were other things I missed when I went into the scrubbing business full time. I used to love to go to the five-and-dime store in Baltimore and buy hot dogs. They never used to wait on Negroes there. But they’d sell me a hot dog because I was a kid and I guess they could use the business if nobody was looking. But if they caught me eating that hot dog before I got outside on the street, they’d give me hell for cluttering up the place.
I used to love white silk socks, too, and of course black patent-leather shoes. I could never afford them. But I used to sneak in the five-and-dime and grab the white socks off the counter and run like hell. Why not? They wouldn’t let me buy them even if I did have the money.
I learned to crawl in the back way at the movies to save the dime it cost going in the front way. I don’t think I missed a single picture Billie Dove ever made. I was crazy for her. I tried to do my hair like her and eventually I borrowed her name.
My name, Eleanora, was too damn long for anyone to say. Besides, I never liked it. Especially not after my grandma shortened it and used to scream “Nora!” at me from the back porch. My father had started calling me Bill because I was such a young tomboy. I didn’t mind that, but I wanted to be pretty, too, and have a pretty name. So I decided Billie was it and I made it stick.
All the time Mom worked in Philly and New York she used to send me clothes given her by the white people she worked for. They were hand-me-downs, sure, but they were beautiful and I was always the sharpest kid in the block when I was dressed up.
My mother knew I didn’t like it much living with my grandparents and Cousin Ida. She didn’t like it any better. But the only damn thing she could do about it was work as hard as she could up North and save every nickel. So this is what she did.
After Pop went on the road with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, he just disappeared. Later he got a job with Fletcher Henderson