Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [77]
But it would be a place where my friends could come and really relax and enjoy themselves—sleep if they wanted to sleep, and eat if they wanted to eat.
And I’d run that kitchen myself. I might not actually cook everything, but I’d oversee it and taste it and see that it’s my kind of cooking and that it’s straight. I used to laugh when Mom talked about having her own place, but look at me now.
I could have had a dozen clubs in my time, but I’d always have been fronting for something else. Even today there are promoters willing to get behind a club of mine. But I wouldn’t take somebody else’s money even if they were fool enough to give it to me. I’d always be scared someone would come in and plant some stuff in my place, have me raided and busted.
Besides, it would have to be proven to me that it was mine, all mine, before the law would let me sing in it. And I would have to know it was mine before I could sing in it anyway.
Although people sometimes act like they think so, a singer is not like a saxophone. If you don’t sound right, you can’t go out and get some new reeds, split them just right. A singer is only a voice, and a voice is completely dependent on the body God gave you. When you walk out there and open your mouth, you never know what’s going to happen.
I’m not supposed to get a toothache, I’m not supposed to get nervous; I can’t throw up or get sick to my stomach; I’m not supposed to get the flu or have a sore throat. I’m supposed to go out there and look pretty and sing good and smile and I’d just better.
Why? Because I’m Billie Holiday and I’ve been in trouble.
Louis and I have made plenty of miles together, by train, plane, every kind of way. But I’ll never forget one night when we were coming in by plane from the Coast.
When we took our seats in this big fancy air liner I knew the man next to me was going to cause a scene. I could just smell him. He started fidgeting and peeking and staring at me and Louis. He made it perfectly clear he wished he’d taken the train where he wouldn’t have had to sit next to no damn Negroes.
I didn’t pay any attention. This has happened to me too many times. But it bothered Louis.
We hadn’t been out thirty minutes, when one of the engines caught fire. Before long the whole wing was blazing and everybody thought we’d had it.
You should have seen this dicty neighbor of ours. He got religion in a hurry. He wanted to hold Louis’ hand. He wanted to be nice. He even wanted to say he hadn’t meant to be nasty, he was sorry and couldn’t we all pray together?
Louis had been a preacher when he was fifteen and he was ready to go along. I flipped.
“This man didn’t even want to sit next to me until he thought he was going to die,” I told Louis.
“You die in your seat, mister,” I told him, “and we’ll die in ours.”
We rode out the fire someway and made the airport.
When we got on the ground, the man was so ashamed of himself he cut right on by Louis without even speaking.
“Mr. McKay,” I told him, “you’ve had your lesson today. Some people is and some people ain’t, and this man ain’t.”
That’s the way I’ve found it, and that’s still the way it is.
Chapter 23
Dream of Life
I guess every Negro performer dreams of going to Europe. Some of them have gone over and never come back. Ever since I got to be a name I had thought about it too. People like Coleman Hawkins, Marie Bryant, Adelaide Hall, June Richmond and the Peters sisters had gone over and loved it so much.
Especially after six years of exile from New York clubs, with no police cards, it got to be a big thing. I used to bother Joe Glaser about it and John Hammond, Leonard Feather, everybody.
So in 1954 when the deal was actually set, and then when Fanny Holiday, my stepmother, signed those papers and I was finally able to prove I’d been born in Baltimore so I could get my passport, I still didn’t believe it.
The troupe included Beryl Booker and her trio, Red Norvo and his group, and Buddy De Franco. Leonard Feather