Yolonda's Genius (11 page)

Yolonda talked her momma and aunt into letting her out of the taxi with Andrew at the Grant Park corner. She said she wanted to show him the gardens of blooming roses. But she really wanted to walk by the backstage entrance of Petrillo Music Shell with her little brother. She hoped some musicians would be unloading their instruments.

“Wait till
after
the light,” warned her momma. “Don't jump the gun. Do
not
cross until the traffic stops completely.”

“Yes, Momma,” said Yolonda wearily.

“And
no
food, Yolonda. Your Aunt Tiny has that
all taken care of. Save your money and your appetite.”

“Yes, Momma,” said Yolonda.

Cars were parked bumper to bumper along the miles of sidewalk. Long rows of portable toilet booths sat on either side of busy Columbus Drive. “Chicago's finest” — blue-uniformed police — were everywhere, directing traffic, sitting on horses or on three-wheeled motorcycles, standing about in chatting groups, eyes watchful.

Yolonda found that her technique for dealing with crowds returned with no trouble at all. Right shoulder forward, Andrew protected behind her big body — “Hold on to my shirt!” — Yolonda set a pace and marched ahead. She marched against the flow of movement so that people could see her coming. The crowd parted like the Red Sea.

There were no musicians unloading backstage at the band shell. Disappointed, Yolonda stood around, holding Andrew's hand. He watched the parade of people going by. Yolonda watched the hospitality tables that barred the backstage entrance like a prison gate. The banner above said
MAYOR'S OFFICE OF SPECIAL EVENTS
. A yellow-and-white striped awning shielded the tables where polite hospitality ladies checked the IDs of backstage visitors. Nuthin' doing here. Waste of time.

Behind the tantalizing food tents marched Yolonda with Andrew. Steak tacos, barbecued ribs, roasted corn in burned and crackling husks — she could sort out each one by its odor.

They passed a washboard band zipping and clinking its music. Among them, a wasted, once-pretty girl, wearing a filthy yellow dress and a loose, vacant smile, slapped sound from a washboard hung around her neck. Her blond hair hung in lank, dirty strands.

“Acidhead,” muttered Yolonda, wishing briefly for a camera. Most pictures of druggies were of black people. Andrew was gaping, but it was the washboard music that interested him, not the girl. She dragged him past. Right now they needed to get their hands stamped to enter the public seating area.

Yolonda managed to insert Andrew and herself in the middle of the long line thick with people waiting for hand stamps. It didn't matter that they already had their seats saved. You had to have your hand stamped
BLUES
.

Aunt Tiny and her momma were surely already seated. Tiny had smuggled in a hamper filled with food and cold drinks. Hampers and coolers were forbidden in the seating area. But Tiny always knew most of the security guards, usually Alpha fraternity brothers on summer vacation. She said
they would never look under the big blanket and pillows she carried hiding the hamper.

Holding their stamped hands up so as not to smear the wet
BLUES
ink, Yolonda and Andrew looked for their seats. The public seating area seemed different jammed with people. Eleventh row, center aisle. Aunt Tiny was hard to miss, her great behind spread gloriously across two pillowed seats. Their momma sat up high, her neck craning around looking for her children. Tiny handed each of them a ham sandwich when they sat down. Their momma blew out a sigh and relaxed.

There was a group just coming onstage to do their stuff, young guys with zipper haircuts and a skinny girl singer in a red fringed dress, hoop earrings the size of her head. She held the mike and snapped her fingers as she sang. Yolonda ate her ham sandwich and longed for another. Checked Andrew's. He was still eating.

“How 'bout tuna salad, baby?” Aunt Tiny could read her mind. She was holding out a fat wrapped square and a fresh napkin.

When her appetite was curbed, Yolonda began to think about her plan to get Andrew next to the right blues musicians. The group onstage was too young. They couldn't know much or swing much weight. A
name
musician was what she needed — someone important, someone their momma and
Aunt Tiny would pay attention to. Someone to back up her ideas about a music coach or a special school for Andrew.

“Lemme see the program, Momma?”

“Please,” said her mother.

“Yeah, please?”

Yolonda checked through the program carefully. Later in the evening, Fontella Bass would perform with the Oliver Sain Band. She was a name; so was Oliver Sain.

Yolonda returned the program, excused herself, and hurried out of the public seating area. Outside on East Jackson, the crowd had thinned some. She hurried up the street to the stage entrance behind Petrillo Music Shell.

Beneath the yellow-and-white awning, there were no black ladies guarding the performers' entrance. Just white ladies. Which one was more likely to let her get past? She studied them. White people were usually easier to con than black people. But these ladies didn't look as though they'd give an inch.

Yolonda sat on a bench to watch. A brass plaque set into the back of the bench said it was dedicated to Nat King Cole.

She watched reporters check in with the hospitality ladies. A guy delivering foil-covered trays was waved through. Food for the stars, thought
Yolonda. She kept her eyes peeled for openings. She had to get Andrew backstage where, somehow, an important musician would hear him play. First things first.

The whole area was tight with security guards wearing
SWEET HOME CHICAGO
T-shirts. Most of the security people were black men and women. No getting past them.

Maybe, thought Yolonda, I should hang around until Fontella Bass and Oliver Sain appear. But she felt a dull hopelessness come over her. She couldn't see any real opening.

Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe nuthin'.

She bought herself an ear of roasted corn, holding it away from her so that the butter would drip on the ground as she ate. She finished it before heading back to her seat and carefully wiped from her face any traces of food. Good thing, too. When she got back to her seat, her momma's eyes raked across her face, up and down the front of her T-shirt, checking for crumbs, for mustard.

“Where have you been all this time, young lady?”

“Just wandering around,” muttered Yolonda.

Her mother gave one of her sighs. “Well, sit and listen for a while. You can wander around back in Grand River. Here you got live blues to pay attention to.” Yolonda sat.

Then sun began to drop behind the great narrow buildings. Thousands of windows lit up, tall slices of yellow on every floor. The evening grew cool. Yolonda listened to Old Johnny Shines onstage, his drowned voice rising from Louisiana swamps. Grown-ups blew soap bubbles, iridescent spheres floating out over the crowd. Thousands and thousands of listeners cheered wildly after each song.

A pink moon came up in the pearly gray sky. Tall Taj Mahal came onstage with his red cap, country stance, and stubborn sway. He knocked out blues on his big guitar, diggin' earth, moaning out his song. The crowd moaned. Swayed.

A chubby woman, black as coffee beans, danced drunkenly in the aisles. Security guards warned her to settle down. She ignored them, chin stubborn, arms waving. Her blouse kept riding up and a little roll of fat would spill out over her pants. Once she fell down. After that she really got going, high-stepping, hips swimming through the air. The guards, one on each side, took her away up the aisle, still dancing, stepping on their feet.

Night insects swam in the corridors of light sent from great spotlights onto the stage. And the blues spilled from the musicians.

Onstage with a lively group, John Hammond, a handsome white guy, had looked placid as an underwear manikin. Then he began to sing, his gui
tar across his lap, harmonica attached to his collar. “Oh, you may bare my body — my bodeeeah . . .” Wow, lotta heat, thought Yolonda. Lotta heat for someone looking straight and chilly as a snow cone.

Yolonda began to imagine Andrew onstage playing his harmonica. Maybe she could accompany him on the piano. The audience would scream and clap wildly.

The sky grew dark blue behind the moon that was now yellow as an egg yolk. Then on came Fontella Bass and Oliver Sain, and they pulled Yolonda into the excitement swelling through the listening crowd.

Fontella Bass was wearing a white dress fringed all around below her hips, the skirt so narrow it hugged her walk into tiny doll steps beneath her big, shapely form. “No matter, no matter, no matter, no matter,” she wailed, “no matter what you do . . .” The fringe on her dress swayed against her broad movements.

Oliver Sain pulled sound through a saxophone like a magician pulling a handkerchief through a ring. “Ain't no sunshine when I'm blue . . . ,” sang Fontella Bass.

And the crowd went crazy when she finished. Even Aunt Tiny rose, chanting, to her feet. “Do it, girl. Do it!” Standing and stomping, clapping and whistling, sixty thousand people begged for more.

The MC wore a straw hat and a vest over a little pot of a stomach. “Is this the finest blues in the world? Let's hear it, Chicago! Is this the finest blues city in the world? You know what I'm talking about this evening? You know? You know?”

The crowd whistled, cried out. “Yeah, yeah! Awright! Woo! Git down!” They went nuts, waving hands, leaping up, dancing in the aisles. Police and security guards grew grim faces. “Yeah, yeah, yea-ah!”

They'll never come back on and play some more, thought Yolonda with disappointment as Fontella Bass and Oliver Sain came back only to bow again. They are escaping right now. And I'll never reach them with Andrew anyway so what's the point? But at that moment, something happened onstage that set Yolonda's mind whirling.

The MC cried out, “While I have your attention . . .” Much laughter at this. “While I have your indulgence . . .”

A backstage assistant came forward carrying a tiny little boy. He handed him to the announcer. The boy, maybe three years old, had blond wispy curls and he was weeping.

“We've got a little lost boy, here. Momma and Poppa? You out there?”

The entire crowd went silent. Then, as if from one heart, they sighed and cooed. “Ooooooooh!”
cooed the crowd. “Aaaaaaaaw!” sighed the crowd.

The little blond boy stopped crying and wiped his hand through his hair. Cocked his head. Looked at the crowd.

“Aaaaaaaaw!” sighed the crowd.

Look at that dumb little kid, thought Yolonda. Didn't do nuthin' to get all that recognition but get himself lost.

And there it was. The plan.

It simmered and bubbled inside Yolonda. Her spirits lifted. Her heart began to race. A plan had come to her at last.

 

Yolonda had always loved the softness of Sunday morning sounds in Chicago, the absence of traffic bustle. But she couldn't hear much of anything from Tiny's high apartment when she woke the next morning — even with the windows open. She leaned her head from the window. The little park below was empty except for an old man on a bench. The day was blossoming, cool and bright.

“We're gonna need jackets in Grant Park this evening,” sang Aunt Tiny from her dressing room. “You know — that wind off the lake.”

Yolonda decided to go down to Grant Park a little earlier to save the seats. She'd have an even better pick of spots. Besides, she needed to case the grounds.

“I'm off to pin the seats,” she hollered to Tiny — to her mother — whoever was listening. She grabbed a granola bar to munch on the way.

The public seating area was almost empty — just a few rows were marked out with paper bags over backs of chairs or tape running along the seats. She pinned the yellow chenille half bedspread across five seats on the same center aisle but in the sixth row this time.

She bought red beans and rice with Louisiana sausage at the Bayou food tent. Breakfast. She sat on the Nat King Cole bench to work out her moves for the big plan. She ate slowly, savoring the mealy mash of beans and rice in her mouth, biting off chunks of the sausage she speared with the silly plastic fork.

Now that she had a basic plan, things she observed fell right into place like water into a waiting bucket. There were only a few ladies under the yellow-and-white awning this early. They were casual and chatty, drinking coffee from plastic cups and nibbling Danish. Two of them were well-dressed black women. They all seemed easy and pleasant now in the light of Yolonda's plan — even helpful — no longer the fierce protectors of big-time musicians.

From her jacket pocket, Yolonda pulled out the folded program.

Tonight on the big stage of Petrillo Music Shell there would be some blues big-timers she recognized and some she didn't. Koko Taylor, Yolonda remembered, could drive the blues right through your body with her big voice and her gold teeth flashing. Little Willie Littlefield was on the program, and someone named Davie Rae Shawn. The great B. B. King would wind up the evening.

Yolonda imagined that backstage before their performances big-time musicians chatted with one another, admired one another's costumes, exchanged trade gossip, sat in flower-filled dressing rooms on comfortable couches. They nibbled on whatever treats were brought in on foil-covered trays. Maybe they drank champagne back there. They would be relaxed, waiting until someone knocked on the door and said something like, “Five minutes, Ms. Taylor. Five minutes, Mr. King.” Then the big-time musicians would toss down the last of the champagne from their fluted glasses, pick up their instruments, smooth down their sequins, and sweep onto the stage.

Sometime, somehow, during that relaxed time was when they must discover Andrew Blue. It had to appear to be an accident. First things first. First get past the yellow-striped awnings into the
inner sanctum. The big plan would do that.

Yolonda needed to know where lost kids went when they were lost. If kids were lost, they didn't know anything, least of all where to go to get found. Then what did they do? They probably cried until someone noticed.

Yolonda remembered the unified sympathy of sixty thousand people when the tiny blond-haired boy had been brought onstage.
Aaaaaaaw
.

Maybe lost kids just stood and called, “Momma. Momma!” over and over. Something Andrew would never do even if he were lost. Yolonda sighed. There were some hitches in her big plan. She'd better get started.

She finished her beans and rice, dumped the plate and fork into a trash bin. Surveying the ladies under the awning, she chose a short blond, the one who seemed to be doing the most talking.

“Excuse me,” she said in her intelligent-but-modest voice.

The talkative lady turned.

“Where would a lost child go to get found?”

A smile lit up the lady's face. Good choice, thought Yolonda. This woman was a people helper.

“Any police officer can help, dear. Are you looking for a lost child?”

“No, uh . . .” Yolonda stalled. Her brain flashed
and shifted through a number of answers until she came to the right one. “No, just want to know what to tell my little brother.”

The helpful lady nodded. Maybe she'd had a little brother once. But the other ladies looked at Yolonda none too warmly. One of them had narrow eyes that regarded her with mistrust.

Yolonda lifted her head gracefully and said in her superior voice, “In the event that he strays — this evening — when the crowd becomes impermeable.” She let the last word hang in the air.

The narrow-eyed woman tilted her head in surprise, and then her face sort of caved in. “Make sure he knows how to spell his last name, young lady,” she said. “And knows his address — including zip code.”

Inside Yolonda grinned. Outside she kept her face closed and cool. “How can you tell when a child is really lost?” she asked. “I mean if he doesn't say anything.”

“Oh,” laughed one of the women, “you can most always spot them. They have desolate faces. They keep looking around.”

“And they clutch whatever they're carrying,” offered another woman.

“Their eyes all huge. They look terrified”

All the women were helping now, even one sitting at a table by the entrance.

“Lots of times they don't cry until you ask them if they've lost their mother. Then it's Niagara Falls.”

The talkative woman said, “There's a temporary police post right across the street — right under the trees there.” She pointed past the beer tent at the end of the block. “Lost children are taken there.”

Not onto the stage?

“Wouldn't they bring him out on the stage?” asked Yolonda, her plan teetering in her head.

All the women stared at her.

“He's so little. It might scare him.”

“No,” snapped the narrow-eyed woman. “No, that's a last resort. If nobody comes in a couple of hours to claim the lost child, then they might bring it onstage.” The woman smiled a tight, satisfied smile at Yolonda.

Yolonda used her polite, cool voice: “Thank you very much,” and turned to leave. “This is very helpful information.” She gave them all a short smile and a short wave.

She headed up the street, shaking off the eyes of the hospitality ladies, which she was sure were fastened to her back. There were fourteen long blocks back to Tiny's apartment house, but Yolonda resisted the urge to stop at Fanny Mae's for an ice-cream bar to accompany her long walk. She wanted to get back in time to talk Aunt Tiny into doing a quick number on her hair.

That afternoon, she took more care than usual with dressing, selecting a jumper and a lace-collared blouse instead of blue jeans and her favorite yellow T-shirt. She was glad now that her momma had made her bring the jumper. “It makes you look more your age, not like some teenager.”

Tiny had given Yolonda a frame of springy curls around her face and pulled the rest of her hair back into a thick braid. The braid was good. Yolonda thought it helped make her appear even younger. Looking into the mirror, she made her eyes go big. She tried for innocence. She tried for terror. She tried looking helpless like a lost child would look. Helpless was impossible; she only looked gooey. Terror was pretty good, but Yolonda didn't want to give the impression that someone was after her. She tried for a mixture of innocence and terror. The hair helped with the innocence.

Usually Andrew left his pipe at home when he went out anywhere, but on this Sunday he was surprised when Yolonda tied it around his neck with a thin ribbon. “Why don't you let me carry the Marine Band case?” she suggested. She was wearing a skirt, he noticed. It had big pockets. “That way your harp will fit in your pocket better.” Andrew agreed. It felt better not to have to walk with a great big bulge digging at his hip. But he
kept his hand over the harmonica there in his back pocket.

Aunt Tiny knew the taxi driver who was waiting outside her apartment.

“Big crowd tonight,” he commented to Aunt Tiny.

“We got B. B. King,” said Tiny proudly, as if she owned him. “And Koko Taylor. Going to be a heavy night tonight. Hope we don't get trampled.”

Everybody laughed at the thought of Aunt Tiny being trampled. Andrew stored the bursting sound of their laugh to play later.

When they got to Grant Park, Aunt Tiny walked right up to the front of the big long line. She didn't slide to the middle of the line the way Yolonda did. Aunt Tiny smiled her wide, sweet smile, at one of the big men guarding the entrance.

“Hello, Eddie,” she said. She gave him one of her smothering hugs.

“Hi, gorgeous!” The man liked the hug. He hugged back. He had huge arms and a big, warm smile, too. If you were big like this Eddie man, thought Andrew, or like Yolonda, you didn't get your breath stuffed back in by Aunt Tiny's hugs.

Andrew was pushed through the gate first, ahead of Yolonda. Today, the stamp was purple. Bleeding purple ink across the back of his hand were those reading marks. Andrew noticed the big
B
for
bongos
—
B
for the
Blue
of Andrew —
B
for
blues
. With surprise he understood the runny purple stamp.

“
B
for
blues,
” he said softly.

“I know all these college boys” bragged Tiny. “Most of their mommas come to one of my shops. Good boys.”

She smiled at another tall, strong-muscled guard wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up tight against his wide upper arms. Yolonda muttered to the top of Andrew's head, “Hunk! Oh, what a hunk-o”

Their momma carried her camera with the long lens. At their seats she sat and focused on the stage. “I bet I can pick up the hair on B. B. King's upper lip with this thing,” she said. “Color film at one thousand speed. Won't even need a flash.”

Aunt Tiny began to offer around food from a big hamper. Yolonda took a piece of chicken and a napkin. Andrew wasn't hungry, but he thought of the big arms on the guards and how the Eddie man had hugged Tiny back, so he chose a croissant.

While he took bites, Andrew watched the crew on the great big stage, where they were setting up instruments. A grand piano was rolled in and uncovered. Drums were set in place.

There were lots of noises. Andrew knew that
soon the music people would come out onto the stage. They would look so little up there and there would be a hush-hush around them and then there would be a signal. And Andrew remembered that, like when insects stop singing all at once and the grass goes quiet, all of a sudden like that, the noises would pause.

The music people would reach up with their instruments or reach down to them and pull sounds to them and out through their horns or their guitar's or the piano. They would push sound into bright pictures or smooth it into long paths. The noise would become a special shape that was wonderful to follow.

Andrew checked for his harmonica, safe in his back pocket. Yolonda looked at him and smiled, patting her pocket where he knew the case sat amid her supply of malt balls. Then his sister went back to looking at a creased paper filled with pictures and reading.

Just then a music man came on the stage. Aunt Tiny said very loud, “Go on, Jimmy Rogers, go on.”

The Jimmy man had a guitar. He sang, “Got my mojo wukin'.” The crowd clapped and laughed. “Got my mojo wukin'.” The crowd sang with him. “Got my mojo wukin'.” The crowd stood, hundreds of pointing fingers jabbed at the stage. “Got my
mojo wukin'.” The crowd cried out, “Mojo wukin'!” Some people got up and danced in the aisles.

Andrew was just about to pull out his harmonica and join the tumult of sound when Yolonda grabbed his hand. “Come on,” she said in an urgent voice. “Got your Marine Band?” Andrew nodded. She guided him carefully past Aunt Tiny.

“What a time to leave,” said Tiny.

“Yolonda. Where are you off to now?” snapped their momma. Andrew could play that short, tight sound.

“Bathroom break,” said Yolonda. No arguments there.

Andrew felt the waves of Yolonda's energy propelling them up several aisles and out the security gate. He didn't have to go to the bathroom. Through the crowded street they marched. Yolonda took big long steps. They weren't going to the bathroom after all. A journey, thought Andrew with a mixture of excitement and worry. Are we ever coming back?

Yolonda was singing under her breath “Got my mojo wukin'.” At the end of the street, his big sister guided him to a bench near a row of tables under a yellow-and-white awning. She sat him down. “This is a lucky bench, Andrew. This is our lucky bench.”

Andrew wiggled on the bench, trying to feel the luck. He listened for the sound of luck.

His sister was talking, still in her urgent voice. She had so many voices, and Andrew had a place on his harmonica for most of them. This voice was like the sound of the wind that pushed against you on a roller coaster.