Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [9]
After a couple of days in a cell they dragged me into court. Mr. Dick got sentenced to five years. They sentenced me to a Catholic institution.
I’ll never forget that place. It is run by the Catholic sisters, the kind who never go outside the four walls. When you go in they give you a blue and white uniform and a saint’s name. I drew the name of St. Theresa. There were about a hundred girls there, mostly for stealing and hooking from school. But they knew I was there on account of a man, so they all looked up to me as some kind of a big shot.
When you did something against the rules at that place, at least they didn’t beat you, like Cousin Ida had. When you were being punished you got a raggedy red dress to wear. When you wore this dress, none of the other girls were supposed to go near you or speak to you.
I’ll never forget the first girl I saw wear the dress. She was a real wild one and she was alone in the back yard, standing on a swing. She kept swinging higher and higher, shouting and hollering, swinging higher and higher. She worked so hard she was puffing and huffing. And the kids stood around watching her, all eyes.
The Mother Superior tried to keep the kids moving and break up the crowd of gawking girls. The girl in the raggedy red dress just kept on swinging and screaming. I guess she figured as long as she stayed up there on the swing no one could touch her. The Mother Superior looked at her, then she turned to a group of us and said: “Just remember, God will punish her. God will punish her.”
In a few seconds there was a terrible jerk. As she swung to the highest point she could make on the swing, the chair broke and the girl flew through the air, over the fence, screaming as she sailed through the air. Then there was a terrible thud and then nothing. When they found her, her neck was broken.
The first time I wore the red dress was at Easter. My mother came to visit me and she brought a huge basket, two fried chickens, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and all kinds of things. Because I had the red dress on, the sisters gave my basket to the other girls and made me sit there and watch them while they ate it.
But this wasn’t punishment enough. They wouldn’t let me sleep in the dormitory with the other girls. Another girl had died and they had her laid out in the front room. And for punishment they locked me in the room with her for the night. Maybe it was the girl who broke her neck on the swing. I don’t really remember. All I knew was I couldn’t stand dead people ever since my great-grandmother had died holding me in her arms. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stand it. I screamed and banged on the door so, I kept the whole joint from sleeping. I hammered on the door until my hands were bloody.
The next time my mother came to visit me I told her if she ever wanted to see me again she better get me out of there. I guess she knew I meant it. And I did. Anyway, she and Grandpop got a lawyer. Some rich white people my mother was working for helped her out too. According to the judge, I was supposed to stay there until I was dead or twenty-one. But they finally got me out.
I went back there once years later, when I needed some proof I had been born before I could get a passport to go abroad. I came back to see the Mother Superior.
I had told the government people about being born in that hospital in Baltimore where