Diary of a Blues Goddess by Erica Orloff Read Free Book Online Page A

salon. All she wanted was the perfect daughter. What she got was me.
    I pierced my ears five times before I was thirteen, doing them at home with a cork, a needle and Damon's pep talk to steady my shaking hand. I was hell-bent on being a singer, living my life in rebellion, being like Nan. My father was a jazzman; he played the bass, and from what I remembered of his playing, he was very talented. He was also an alcoholic. Sundays were spent tiptoeing around the house while he slept off his hangovers. Mom pretended he was just "tired."
    I adored him anyway.
    Dad taught me how to "phrase" a song by playing endless records, he and I together in the den, the stereo spinning old 45s and 78s and ancient albums with dust all over them. He never seemed happy to me, except when we were playing music—especially Gene Krupa and Jess Stacy, Duke Ellington and Etta James.
    He left my mother and me when one of his old musician pals came to New Orleans with a moderately successful jazz quartet, in need of a new bassist. He departed, first for the Chicago blues scene, and then for the Blue Note in New York City, with the Buster Keys Quartet, promising to return home "soon," and sending money along the way. He wrote me postcards, which I still have in an old shoe box in my room. He was the only person who made me feel beautiful:
     
    Angel, I'm doin' fine in NYC. When you come visit, we'll go to the Empire State Building and touch the sky.
    Stay beautiful and keep on singing,
     
    Love, Your Father,
                                     Dad
     
    He signed each card that way. He was a dreamer who believed we could touch the sky and talk to God. We could speak to heaven and listen for ghosts in the attic. He was everything imaginative. He was the blues. He was the music. He was everything my mother wasn't.
    But after a while, both the postcards and the money stopped.
    My mother's reaction to this wasn't anger or rage, hurt or tears of abandonment. Instead, she focused all her energies on creating this fantasy of perfection—and making sure I didn't become a singer. That I didn't abandon her, too. And my reaction to her reaction was to try my hardest to infuriate her.
    My father had left behind his blues record collection, which was enormous and still lines special shelves I had built for them in my room. I played his music over and over and over again. Sometimes the same song tirelessly. I did it to feel close to him. I did it to hurt her for driving him away with her picture-perfect ways. Etta James's "At Last" was their song. So what else would an angry adolescent do but play that song morning, noon and night. Music has always been my weapon and my refuge.
    At first, I was certain Dad was going to come back. When he didn't, the blues were already part of me. I played them, then, because they reflected how I felt about adolescence—it was like one long, angst-ridden blues song.
    I was never quite sure if I succeeded in hurting her. Besides piercing my ears, I wore dark black eyeliner and bleached my hair blond, though it fried to a vague orange. I stayed out past my curfew every weekend night.
    I was sullen from the moment I woke up, staring through hostile eyes as she cooked me pancakes with raisins set in them to make little happy faces. Yet she never yelled at me, never grounded me. She kept smiling and cooking and cleaning and ironing, refusing to show how much I was breaking her heart—just like he did. As long as I wasn't hanging out with musicians, she seemed content that it was all "a phase." She didn't want to risk pushing me away. She even let Damon sleep over at our house, knowing, I think, he was my only friend. A lot of the time, I convinced myself the only person holding me back from going to New York City and finding my father was Damon. Later, Damon and I had an elaborate fantasy about going to New York together. He'd be a top fashion designer, and I'd sing with my father's band.
    When I was