When I left home: my story (2015)

After I Left Home

Night Shift

Was I discouraged by what happened at Cobra? I’d have to say no. I was just a guitar-playing fool, happy to be making a few dollars singing my blues while building up a reputation in a town of killer gunslingers. I remember asking Muddy why John Lee Hooker didn’t stay in Chicago.

“When Johnny came through,” said the Mud, “he cut something for Chess called ‘Walkin’ the Boogie.’ But then when he looked around and saw all the guitar men ’round here, he boogied on back to Detroit. Johnny didn’t wanna be around all these heavy-hitters.”

That made me say, “Maybe I should go to Detroit.”

“Oh, no, son, you doin’ right here. Matter of fact, the Wolf was asking about you. He done heard you can play.”

“Where’s he playing?”

“Silvio’s. I don’t like waking up early, but if you really wanna hear something, get there when the night shift from the slaughter house gets off. That’s when the Wolf really starts to howl.”

“What time is that?”

“He says the best tips come in around 7 a.m. Everyone’s happy’cause they through working. They ready to start drinking. Friday morning, when they get those paychecks, that’s when it really gets to moving.”

“I’m going.”

“But if Wolf asks you up there to play, be careful. Play, but don’t play too much. He don’t like no one to outshine him. And if you outshine him too much, he don’t mind punching you upside your head. You know that song he sings called ‘Evil’?”

“I’ve heard it.”

“Well, that’s the Wolf. Willie Dixon says he wrote it. Maybe, but Wolf, he done lived it.”

I got to Silvio’s just as all-night workers were coming through the door. They were ready. I was ready. Howlin’ Wolf was already up there, and just as night was turning to day, he was singing a song called “Break of Day.”

He was sitting down while he was singing, but that didn’t keep him from singing strong. After he did “Moaning at Midnight,” he stopped singing and started saying, “I know you been working since midnight, and that means you been moaning since midnight, and that means you tired of hearing me moaning, so I’m gonna shut up and give you something you can smoke. Gonna give you some of this here ‘Smokestack Lightnin’.”

“Smokestack Lightnin’,” one of Wolf’s famous songs, got wild. You ain’t lived until you come to a club in Chicago fresh in the morning with everyone high on hard whiskey and heavy blues. The men are ready to let off steam. The women are as wild as the men, women who ain’t shy about drinking and showing you that good meat rolling over their bones. Some of them women wanna dance with you and some wanna take you home. Some love the music and some love the musicians. But just about everyone is feeling that life may be hard, but life’s a helluva lot easier when the blues is blasting with Howlin’ Wolf telling you that he’s “Sitting On Top of the World,” ’cause, baby, he sure is.

Seeing I brought my guitar that morning, Wolf asked me up to play. Wolf’s regular guitarist, Hubert Sumlin, is the one of the best, so I wasn’t gonna play too much, especially in light of what Muddy said. I played to highlight Wolf, not draw attention to me, and that made Wolf real happy. He let me stay on stage.

During the break Hubert took me aside. “Hey, man,” he said. “if the Wolf wants to take you on the road, it’s okay with me.”

“I ain’t interested in taking no man’s gig,” I said.

“I’m tired of how he gets drunk and mean. If he don’t think I’m playing right, he’ll try to beat up on me like I’m one of his women.”

I looked over at Wolf. He was a giant of man. Wasn’t no one I wanted to fight.

A week later Wolf came to hear me at Theresa’s.

“You ain’t half bad,” he said after the set, “and I’m fed up with these motherfuckers in my band. You wanna go on the road with me?”

I thought about how much I loved this man’s music. And then I thought about my health.

“No, thank you, sir,” I said. “I got some gigs coming up here in town.”

My first out-of-Illinois gig was down the road in Gary, Indiana. It’s only twenty-five miles away on a tollway where you could drop in a bottle-top and the pay-gate would think it’s a dime. After Pittsburgh, Gary was the second-biggest steel-mill city in America. In the fifties Gary was working twenty-four/seven. Far as gambling, liquor, and women went, it was wide open. You’d see cats shooting craps and playing blackjack everywhere. Cops couldn’t care less. Once they got their payoffs, they’d go nap in their squad cars. Strange to say, but women weren’t allowed to sit at the bar and order a drink. They’d have to be seated at tables. But if you was riding around in your car and stopped at a light, damn if a woman wouldn’t try to jump in and get you to fuck her for a few bucks.

I found a home at a club owned by two brothers, Fred and Jay. They had the F&J Lounge that sat on the corner of 15th and Adams in the heart of Gary’s party district. It was bigger than any blues club in Chicago. I’d say it held 150. I’d mainly work there weekends, when, in two nights, I could make as much as $60, more than a whole week’s work at Theresa’s or the 708.

I’d started with a band that included Harold Burrage on piano, Jack Myers on bass, and Fred Below, the best shuffle drummer since the shuffle began. I also took two horns and a guy who danced with a Cobra to remind everyone to buy our songs on Cobra Records. I did my usual bit of starting out playing on the street and slowly working my way inside.

Gary loved blues as much as Chicago, and if anything, they were wilder with the feeling. I got so popular that the gig became regular. Even B. B. came in one night to hear what all the commotion was about.

I slipped into a routine that the owners really liked: I got the Mud and the Wolf and even Little Walter to come out and play late sets. They’d do three or four songs with my band, I’d slip them a ten, and they’d jump in their car to go back to Silvio’s or Mitch’s Jukebox Lounge for their regular gigs. That way Gary got the best of Chicago.

We got paid at the end of the night. Brother Fred, one of the owners, had this talent for reaching into the front pocket of his shirt and fishing out exactly the amount he owed, whether it was three tens or two twenties. This one time, though, he went to pocket, fished out the bills and, when he handed them to me, said, “I got something extra for you.” He did the same thing with Harold Burrage.

We figured he was giving us an extra dollar, just to show appreciation, but when we looked at our bills they said “$1,000.” I counted those zeroes at least four times and every time came up with three. A thousand dollars. Never had seen a thousand-dollar bill in my life. It was like seeing a woman with two heads or a cat with two tails. Didn’t know what to make of it. Harold had the same reaction.

Fred smiled. “Ain’t from me. It’s from”—and here I’m gonna make up a name—“Wanda.”

“Who’s Wanda?” I asked. “And why she giving us this money?”

“Wanda’s one of the best workers in Gary,” said Fred. “One of the prettiest. She looking for some guys to take of care of her, and y’all got chosen.”

“I ain’t sure what that means,” I said.

“Me either,” said Harold, who was also not real wise in the ways of street women.

“Means be here tomorrow,” said Fred.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” I said. “Indiana’s dry on Sunday.”

“F&J is a private club on Sunday. Invitation only. Y’all are invited.”

Come Sunday Harold and I drove back to Gary. We wearing our $30 suits and curious as all get-out about what’s gonna happen. F&J was locked up, but when we knocked on the door Fred was right there.

“Gents,” he said, “the rest of the committee is here.”

“Committee?” I asked.

“Just come on in and have a seat.”

A big table had been set up in the middle of the club. Eight pimps were sitting there. Their suits had to cost $100. Next to them were twelve or thirteen fine-looking females. Some of them had long legs and skirts hoisted up high. Some of them had big beautiful breasts practically busting through their blouses. Some of them were on the plump side, but pleasingly plump. None of’em was even close to ugly.

Wanda, the prettiest of all them, with jet-black skin and blazing brown eyes, came over to me and Harold. She let us know we were the ones.

The pimps ordered lots of liquor and a ton of food. The whores sent out for a special cake. The check was piling up. I tapped Harold on the shoulder and signaled for him to meet me in the men’s room.

“What the hell’s happening?” I asked. “What we doing here?”

“We eatin’ with a gang of pimps and whores, that’s what we doing. Liquor’s good and so is the food.”

“Who’s paying for all this?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t know.”

“Maybe that’s why Wanda done gave this money. Maybe we supposed to pay.”

“Maybe.”

“You think we should?”

“I ain’t thinking,” said Harold. “I’m just feeling like I died and gone to pussy heaven. You do the thinking.”

“I’m gonna pick up the tab,” I said.

“Good, man. You do that.”

We went back to the table, and when the check came, I saw it was nearly $300. Never saw a check that big before. But I had my thousand-dollar bill. I pulled it out and laid it on the table. Next thing I knew Wanda was slapping me across the face.

“Nigger!” he screamed. “You green as a pool table and twice as square. Daddy never pays for his baby’s meal. Baby takes care of Daddy.”

She stuffed the thousand back in my pocket and brought out her own money. There was no arguing with Wanda.

At the end of the evening she invited me and Harold back to her house. Turned out she had three little kids.

“I know you guys are new at this,” she said, “but that’s why I want you. All the other Big Daddies ’round here be robbing and thieving their women. You two don’t look like no robbers or thieves to me.”

“No, ma’am,” I assured her. “But neither is we good at the kind of work you want. We just musicians.”

“But you know how to protect a woman.”

“Wouldn’t want no one to harm you, that’s true,” I said.

“And you know how to get a woman out of a jail.”

“That just takes money.”

“I got the money,” said Wanda, pointing to her purse.

“Well, then, you don’t need no one to do what you can do yourself.”

“You telling me no?” she asked with a little tear in her voice.

“I’m telling you, Wanda, that you don’t need to waste your money on me and Harold here.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Harold.

“I’m speaking the truth, Wanda,” I said. “We gonna give you back your money because you wasted it with us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Harold repeated.

“Come on, Harold,” I said. “We ain’t gonna take no money that we don’t deserve. You’ll find someone who can do this job. Lots of men know how. We don’t.”

Funny end to this story was a few months later it was the week before Thanksgiving and the F&J was jammed. Between sets, I seen Wanda come in wearing this skin-tight red dress. She was looking fine. Came up to me and said, “Hey, baby, I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner and wondering if you’d come by.”

Being so far from my Louisiana home, I was much obliged.

“Sure thing,” I said.

Thanksgiving was a lovely day. She cooked a turkey just like her mama from Mississippi had taught her. She made the biscuits from scratch. The greens and sweet potatoes had me thinking of my mama. Her kids were well behaved and sweet as they could be.

After dinner we talked about the kind of life she wanted to have once she put enough money away. She wanted to buy a house back down South. She wanted to make sure her kids graduated high school. She talked to me like I was family. I didn’t make a move on her to have sex. I knew she’d had enough sex from enough men. She didn’t invite me over for sex. She didn’t want sex; she wanted a friend.

Wasn’t that I didn’t want sex. I did. But being careful kept me from chasing anything crazy—or at least that’s what I thought. I’d been living in Chicago many months—maybe even a year—before I got me my first little piece. Happened at the Squeeze, the same club where the man walked in with his wife’s head in a paper bag.

Cute little gal came over to me. I appreciated that because I was no good at making the first move.

“Been watching you for some time,” she said.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“But I’m just wondering one thing. It’s a personal thing. Mind if I ask?”

“Go ahead.”

“I wanna know you if you make love as wild as you play that guitar.”

Naturally, the question excited me. Right then and there my blood started to rise.

“All I can say is that I do my best,” I said.

“Well, my style is wild.”

“I like wild,” I assured her.

“But I also get a little rough beforehand. You know what I mean?”

“Not exactly, but I’m willing to find out.”

“If there’s some fighting first, the fucking gets better.”

No woman had ever come on to me and used the word “fucking” before. The word got me even more excited.

“In the name of love,” I said, “I’ll do a little fighting.”

When we got up to her room, though, turned out she was all talk. She’d been drinking so long that she fell right to sleep. Being a gentleman, I didn’t wanna wake her. Got in bed next to her and fell asleep myself. Was the middle of the night when I felt this whack! across my back. Damned if she wasn’t whipping me with my own belt. She hit me so hard my back was bleeding.

“You ready to fight?” she asked, all smiles.

I was hurting, and I wasn’t about to take this shit lying down. I went for her, and she was happy.

“Now,” she said, “you’ll see what real fucking is all about.”

She wasn’t wrong.