As pigeons skedaddled over the tiled roofs of Paris, Raoul was bleeding from the nose and mouth, his hands bloodied with the blood of others. Three French hoodlums had attacked him, ruined his amplifier and threatened his guitar, but Raoul was not one to give in easily, especially while they shouted, “Sale Arabe, sale noir! Dirty Arab, filthy black!” This made Raoul furious. He knew he had a knife in his leather jacket. But where? They laughed as they tried to break his fingers, but Raoul Johnson miraculously got out of their hold and found his knife. “Sale Arabe, sale noir, enh,” he seethed as he jabbed at them. Dirty nigger rang in his ears. He protected his guitar as best he could.
He was worried lest these hooligans follow him from the Métro station at Les Halles to the Twentieth Arrondissement where he lived with his parents Baker and Raschel. But the fellow with the stringy brown hair didn’t budge when Raoul pulled the knife. The other two laughed some more.
“Isn’t it just like a filthy Arab to have a knife?”
Suddenly Raoul lunged forward and slashed his sharp blade through the cheek of one of the blond bigots. Then he was ready for the other two. As they backed away, he grabbed his guitar and boarded the Métro. His hands were covered in blood, but his guitar was safe. I’ll have to stay away from Les Halles for a while. He decided again to speak frankly with his parents about his desire to move to the States. As the train zoomed down the tracks he improvised his own rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s long-fingered electrified psychedelic bluesy rock. That’s the sound of the future! He kept telling his father this, but Baker Johnson, whose jazz combo was a Paris institution, would hear none of it. Nonetheless, he would have to listen to his battered son this night.
Raoul’s mother, Raschel, was Genya’s daughter. He had grown up hearing of how his grandmother Genya had battled against the Nazis in Paris and how Raschel’s sister Bruria fought for the independence of Algeria. Raschel busily tended to her wounded son, all the while asking questions about the brawl. How many? What names did they use? How had he succeeded in fighting them off? She was proud of him, three against one! Just as Raschel finished wrapping Raoul’s torso, her husband’s key rattled the door.
Raoul jumped away from Raschel’s protective care and ran up to his father. “Papa, I’m so glad you’ve come. I was attacked tonight by three dirty Frenchies. They tried to break my fingers. They called me ‘sale Arabe, sale noir’! How can I be both, Papa, a filthy Arab and a filthy nigger? I was born here. I’m a Frenchman, just like they are, I told them and I cut them, all three!”
Raschel was piqued. “No, you are not a Frenchman just like them. You are black, American, Arab, and Algerian. You must carry yourself like that. Always, mon fils.”
Baker set down his trumpet case, embraced Raoul, and sighed, “Son, I settled here to escape what you just went through, but it looks like racism just keeps showing its ugly face. But you’ve got to stop carrying that knife. That will land you in a French jail for a very long time. Now give it to me.”
Raschel cried out, “You’re leaving him with no protection.”
Baker said, “I’m leaving him with a future. That’s what I’m doing. So you beat them, three to one, huh?”
“Oui, Papa. They didn’t get a chance to touch my guitar.”
“That’s my man, that’s my man, Raoul, but no weapons.”
“What revolution was ever successful with no weapons?” Raschel scoffed.
Raoul was often totally confused by his parents’ conflicting ideas. He grabbed his instrument and took refuge in his room where he could still hear Raschel and Baker accusing each other. Raoul put on his headphones and pumped up the volume on his electric guitar. He’d heard this dispute all his life. Black, American, Arab, and Algerian. He didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere.
On Chicago’s South Side the crowd at the Regal was as wild as the ticket: Sly and the Family Stone, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, and, opening for them, the Walker Family Band. Tokyo looked vampish in her sequined stockings, head feathers, and mini-mini dress. Abbott and James were in Temptations-style two-toned tails. Leading the band of twelve musicians, they rocked the house, but it was clear that Tokyo was the real star. Her brothers were just her sidemen. She had the power over the people that night. With her renditions of Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Justine “The Bells” Washington, even Billie Holiday and Dakota Staton, it was Tokyo the crowd wanted, and she knew how to work them, too. She had done her studying and it had done her well. She cruised through a medley of the group’s local hits, but it was her song they wanted, and she knew how to sing it. In flaming red satin and stiletto heels, Tokyo approached the footlights barely whispering; the whole hall silently attentive. Then she belted out a note like Etta James, and launched into the party groove that everybody had been waitin’ for, “Jump Up!” Number 12 on the R&B charts with a bullet.
“Jump up,
You been givin’ me the runaround,
Jump up,
But I got no time for none of your messin’ round,
Jump up,
I’m tired you tryin to put me down,
Jump up,
Listen to what I’m throwin’ down,
You’re through tellin’ me what to do,
Cuz I’m through with you!
Jump up,
Right now like I’m tellin’ you,
Jump up,
You’re through tellin’ me what to do,
Jump up,
Wait, wait, here’s the breakin’ news,
I through messin’ around with you,
I’ll dance all night, dance all night, dance all night if I want to!
Jump up,
Come on everybody now,
Jump up,
Up on your feet and party down,
Jump up,
I’m gonna show you how,
To dance all night, dance all night, dance all night if you
want to!”
While her brothers led the eight-piece backup band in synchronized choreography, Tokyo was shakin’ and bakin’, kickin’ her taut muscular legs as she slithered from one side of the stage to the other, seductively tossing her head forward so her cluster of curls fell over her eyes just so. The song she had written after a petulant tantrum, thrown when her parents wouldn’t let her go to a party near the projects, had become a defiant teenaged anthem of sexual rebellion. When they finished, the crowd wouldn’t let ’em go. They shouted “Amen” and “Go girl” till the lead act in the wings was getting impatient. The teenager threw up her hand and sang ever so sweetly into the mike, “Now way-ay-ait uh minute . . .” An encore of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout” left the audience roaring for more.
Waiting in the wings was a white girl with curly hair and hippie clothes. She tried to catch their attention. Tokyo and James ignored her, but Abbott stopped to listen. “My name is Bethany Cooper,” she said. “I represent one of the anti-war groups. A week from now we’re having a coalition of all the anti-war groups to stage a citywide rally. Will your group play? ‘Jump Up!’ That song could be powerful.”
Abbott began to feel uneasy. He was against the war, but had planned on going if called. “I understand your position, Bethany, but I’d have to check with the whole group before I give you an answer.”
“All right, that’s fair,” Bethany smiled and followed him.
Abbott went to walk into the dressing room, but found it locked. “Open this damn door, y’all. I got to talk to you two.” Abbott heard some noises and repeated, “Open this damn door or I’ll break it down!”
Abruptly Tokyo opened the door, her nose powdered with cocaine. James was straightening up the mirror and razor blades where they were cutting the rock. Abbott knocked James out with no compunction. He shut the door in Bethany’s startled face and grabbed up all the drug paraphernalia he could find. Then he took his sister’s face in his hands and wiped it clean. By now Tokyo had begun to weep, her frail body shaking in her big brother’s arms.
James pushed himself up from the floor. “You don’t understand, man, she needs that snow. She can’t stand all the pressure, the press, the money. I was helping her, I swear.”
“Some help you are, now look at her, an ordinary dope-fiend! Come on, Tokyo, I’m taking you to get some help.”
“But, Abbie, we’re booked solid. The agents will—”
“Did you hear me, James? You did this, now you clean it up.”
Abbott got Tokyo out of her stage makeup and into some street clothes. They went swiftly out the stage door toward his VW bus, where Bethany was faithfully handing out anti-war pamphlets. Once Tokyo was in her seat, Abbott started the bus. He asked seriously, “Tokyo, is there any more of that coke on you? I have to have an honest answer.”
Tokyo shifted her eyes a little. “Maybe a little,” she said meekly and reluctantly handed over the last of her stash to Abbott, who threw it out the window.
“You’ll be fine, angel. Don’t worry about a thing.”
“But what about the tour, Abbie? We got a hit. Did you hear that crowd?”
“Don’t worry about the tour. You’re going to get well.”
“And just where am I supposed to do that?
“Don’t worry about that either. Uncle Jesse and Aunt Mabel will be happy to see you.”
“Oh no! Let me out this car!” she said, her knee spasmodically jerking. “Well, can I at least have a drink?”
Abbott thought a minute and figured maybe some alcohol might bring her down from the agitated high she was on. He was still on the South Side, so he slipped into a corner store and picked up two bottles of Cuervo Gold Tequila, then he was back in the bus. He’d gotten two go-cups and poured one shot for Tokyo and one for himself. “All right, easy now,” he said as he watched his little sister start to guzzle her drink as if she were already a seasoned pro. “Not too much. We’ve got a long way to go.” He thought of all the things he could have said to James and Tokyo, that the only freedom for black people was liberation and they were busy enslaving themselves to cocaine and booze. But he could hear Tokyo sardonically replying, “How you gonna be liberated when you’re headed for the white man’s army?”
He tried not to focus on his low draft number. Focus on a battle you can win. He needed to get Tokyo to Alabama. If she could stay clean for six months, maybe she could learn to live another way before she returned to the stage. “Springtime in the South will do you good,” he said as he looked over at her. She had already nodded off, her mouth open and her head leaning against the pane.
It was April. Abbott got his sister out of harm’s way in the nick of time. That summer grim-faced police with helmet shields and bullhorns and trucks stacked with troops in battle fatigues, their rifles drawn, patrolled the city’s broad avenues, flying glass crackling under their feet, everywhere fire and the ricochet of bullets. Beneath busted streetlights, preachers and civic leaders pleading with people to go home. The mayor screaming, “Shoot on sight!” (A command never rescinded.) Whole blocks ablaze, the hospital floor so slippery with blood, the mop couldn’t sweep it up fast enough. The jails couldn’t keep track of the scores of looters, the stores picked clean, the alleys strewn with plunder—shoes, liquor, pork chops, radios, cigarettes, and busted canned goods snaked through them. Futile sirens and false alarms screamed from all directions block to block, the fire hoses’ white arcs of water like spit in the wind. From the South Side neighborhoods of Woodlawn and Inglewood to the West Side communities of Lawndale and Humboldt Park, Black Metropolis was ablaze. And through the broken panes of project windows, Tokyo Walker’s number one hit “Jump Up!” bellowed with new meaning.
Alelia arrived from Birmingham just as Tokyo was on her way there. Alelia had decided to stay with her aunt Cinn and uncle Lawrence while she finished her studies at the University of Chicago. Her uncle, who was on the faculty, convinced her that a history degree was a wiser choice than folk music. Her parents, having already lost Joshua, thought her increasing militant style too dangerous for her to stay in the South. As Ma Bette would say, “Out of the fryin’ pan into the fire.” She wound up more often on the streets of Chicago than in class. She found the Chicago-style architecture invigorating and the style of the people even more fascinating. She loved the museums and long strolls down Michigan Avenue. That’s where she made her spending money. With tie-dyed hand-cut tee-shirts, embroidered bell-bottoms, and a cup, she camped out on the steps in front of the Art Institute, mixing all kinds of popular folk songs with those she had written herself. In between song sets, she passed out anti-draft and anti-war flyers. Some folks smiled, others spat at her as unpatriotic. To some, a freedom fighter, to others, a traitor.
Her activities worried her aunt Cinn to death, until Lawrence reminded his wife of her own youthful street-singing stint as Madame Butterfly at the five and dime. He championed his niece’s commitment, and when she led a campus protest rally, he brought the whole group deep dish pizza.
When she’d first arrived Alelia had looked for traces of her mother, Memphis, in Cinnamon, but couldn’t fathom any. Alelia imagined that her mother’s house would be jumpin’. Cinnamon was constantly, quietly poring over operatic scores or giving private voice lessons in search of the next Leontyne Price. Her aunt was bewildered and annoyed by her vegetarian foods and her back-to-nature white friends, who conserved water by not flushing the toilet. Occasionally, Cinn tried to tell her about her mother. How she saw Memphis being born, their singing group, the Mayfield Sisters, but then Cinn would drift off. She didn’t have many pictures. A group shot from the wedding. No recent ones. Lawrence stayed out of it. “I like studying our people’s history in a general sense,” he said, “not specific.”
So Lia sang on the streets of Chicago and found a kind of family there. She thought she’d find an ally in Abbott or James, but James was desperate without Tokyo and the band. And Abbott would soon be off to the war. She got Abbott alone once in a café off Madison. Low draft number or not, she had to convince him that he had alternatives.
“Abbie, how can you consider killing people you don’t even know?”
“There is nothing for me to do but get these white folks off my back. They shot Malcolm, they shot Joshua, they shot Fred Hampton.”
“Abbie,” she interjected, “they did not shoot Malcolm. Two black men did. You can’t blame all white people for—”
“How can you say that, Lia, when your own brother was gunned down before our eyes?”
The question stunned her. My brother, my beautiful brother . . .
“If I stay here, they’ll shoot me, and I them,” Abbott continued. “I have no choice, Lia. If I’m just another nigger for their cannon fodder, so be it. All I want is to play my horn, and I don’t want to do it in jail.” Only then did Abbott look up. Lia had not been listening. “It’s all right. Joshua’s all right,” he said, softening. “Nobody can hurt him now. And I’mo be all right, too! Grand-Nana says I got the luck. Mah Bette done marked it so!’ ” he joked, capturing his great-grandmother Dora’s inflection. “Come on . . .” he coaxed his cousin to smile. “There’s a big AACM concert tonight, you know.” At Lia’s look of ignorance, Abbott took on his father’s stern professorial tone, “Art Ensemble of Chicago? Only the cutting edge of avant-garde jazz, born and bred on the South Side. We could still get tickets. I got a few weeks of freedom left and I wanna make the best of it.”
Alelia thought a moment and said, “Only if you promise to come see Richie Havens and Taj Mahal with me.”
Abbott rolled his eyes, but nodded yes. His huge Afro bobbed in the wind like the smooth jazz rhythm of Ramsey Lewis’s left hand. There were things Alelia and Abbott shared. They sometimes quibbled about Johnny Taylor or Stevie Wonder, not bitterly but with humor, about what black music should sound like and why. In the days and weeks before Abbott was deployed, they wandered South Side Chicago jazz clubs and West Side blues bars, cruising through smoke and sawdust. One night, the blues guitarist Buddy Guy, seeing Lia’s guitar case, invited them to sit in. Alelia took in a good deal more of what she thought folk singing was that night. She decided while listening to Guy’s meteoric chord changes and his wailing plaintive call, conjuring all that she knew and loved of the South and her journey in a riff, that the blues was in fact the penultimate folk music, music of the folk, acoustic or not. She heard, too, in the mournful trepidation of Abbie’s horn, a foreshadowing of his coming orders to Vietnam.
Tokyo was on a wholly separate journey, as was James, now her manager. Tokyo is becoming an R&B star, “Jump Up!” still toppin’ the charts. James has become a businessman. Abbie’s becoming a soldier. Joshua’s gone. Where does that leave me? Alelia had a dream that night that she walked toward the east, toward the morning sun and jumped into it. When she awakened she had made a decision, the same decision her great-aunt Lizzie had made so many years before, Paris! In Paris was her destiny.
All Alelia had to do was find an empty corner and begin to sing and francs dropped into her guitar case like manna from heaven. She was staying in a hostel which suited her needs and was meeting people at an alarming rate. One day she walked through the Tuileries Gardens and four handsome Senegalese fellows stopped her and invited her immediately to a nearby café, where they were soon joined by some Haitians, Congolese, and Ivorians for a grand salon. Though everyone spoke French, there were several side conversations in Swahili, Mende, Hausa, and various patois. Lia thought the African students delightful, though a bit aggressive. She decided to sing, using her guitar for both accompaniment and shield. Her performance was such a hit, the group insisted she accompany them that evening to a Martinican nightclub. “Il y’a une bande superbe, qu’il faut que tu l’écoutes et qu’ils t’écoutent à toi aussi! Quelles mains splendides, et cette voix—si belle ta voix!” they told her. “There’s a great band, which you simply must hear and they must hear you! Viens, viens avec nous, c’est la première fois que tu fréquentes la boîte! Le Club, viens! Come!”
Just before her night out on the town, Alelia made up her mind to go to see her mother and her great-aunt Lizzie. My very own mother after all these years! Memphis would see her and they would talk, no matter what. The bright sun belied the nervous tension in Alelia’s soul. After changing at the hostel, she grabbed an album Abbott had given her by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Les Stances à Sophie. She would ask her mother’s opinion. A prop to ease their first encounter.
Memphis was house-sitting at Lizzie’s apartment near La Place de l’Opéra, that much Cinnamon had told her when she gave her the address. Alelia had done her best to look nice. She put henna on her hair and she had done her chestnut eyes in exotic colors. In a pastel striped A-line mini-sundress, she rang the bell labeled Mayfield. When the buzzer rang and the door opened with no questions, she simply walked in. The doorman momentarily glanced up from his newspaper and went back to reading. The wrought-iron elevator door was exquisite but the ride was very, very slow. As she went up floor by floor she felt herself sweating, her mouth dry, but she and her guitar finally made it. Alelia knocked delicately on “Appartemente #8,” the entire eighth floor. Without so much as a “Who is it,” the door swung open onto the most opulent of environs. Velvets, silks, and oriental rugs, mahogany tables, mother-of-pearl inlaid chests, a grand piano, a harp, and wonderful light. The woman who opened the door, Memphis herself, took one look at Alelia, grabbed her and held her tight. “Alelia, child,” she whispered, “I knew you’d come for me one day.”
Memphis stepped back from the bewildered Alelia and made a full circle around her, eyeing every aspect of the young woman. “My, you are just as Cinnamon told me, a wholly new creation and so lovely.”
Alelia thought she should say something and blurted, “Mama, I’m a singer.”
Memphis smiled and made her way to an easy chair near a decanter of burgundy. She gestured to Alelia to take a seat and have a glass with her. Alelia could hardly find her seat in the chair she was so busy looking at the photographs on the wall—Mayfield Turner with all the jazz greats for decades, from Louis Armstrong to Josephine Baker, Brick Top, Bud Powell; literati—Langston Hughes, Baldwin; heads of state—wearing Ike’s helmet, standing on her tiptoes with de Gaulle. It was Lizzie’s collection, half a century of memories. She set down her untouched drink on a finely carved glass table and just sat there staring at Memphis.
“Why don’t you take out your instrument and sing, child? Let me hear you.”
Alelia mustered a small smile and glowed. She took her guitar from the case and tuned it, cleared her throat, and adjusted her lanky frame to the plush velvet divan. She sang Nina Simone’s “Safronia” and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” Then she threw in a blues song ’bout the 1927 flood that hit New Orleans. Memphis closed her eyes and felt her daughter’s voice seep through every vein of her body. What more could a mother ask for than a child of conviction and a creator of beauty? Then Memphis moved to the piano and played a few notes from “La Vie en Rose.” Immediately she and Alelia sang together and the spirit of Piaf filled the room. Memphis jumped to her feet shouting, “Brava, brava! Come, you must have dinner with me.”
“I can’t tonight, b-b-but soon, yes!”
“Yes, darling, and Lizzie will join us. She’ll be back in Paris in a couple of days. Your Aunty Liz will love you!”
With that said, Alelia soberly took her leave, hugging her mother like a newborn with tiny warm tears welling in her eyes.
Later that night she met her new friends Mamadou, Zaid, Doudou, and Malik and off they went. She’d seen small cobblestone streets in Charleston, but it was nothing like Paris. The group turned off a thoroughfare into what Alelia surmised was an alley and stopped abruptly, as if they had arrived somewhere and were looking around to find it. Just as she began to question the rashness of her actions, her newfound friends pushed open a thick wooden door that looked like the entrance to a cellar and were met with damp intense heat and rhythms that were irresistible. Down, down, down they went, many, many stairs, around curves and into a darkness that approached Zaid’s skin tone, Alelia simply trusting this was the right thing to do. At last she caught sight of figures dancing, the moves ever so sensual and so familiar her face brightened.
The Africans spread out like fireflies in search of partners. Alelia headed toward the sound. In every sense of the word, the music was live! She had to get closer. She wiggled and smiled her way through the sweating crowd, meandering through what seemed the entire African Diaspora, and came upon the wildest-looking band she had ever seen. It was like Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies, only they were black and French. Alelia couldn’t stop smiling. She was especially taken by the guitarist who sang “All Along the Watchtower” and played like a genius.
Raoul Johnson was angry that night and he played with fury. His father Baker and he had just had a huge row over his wanting to quit his studies and leave France “to find himself.” “First you say I’m not Algerian. Then you say I’m not French. I can’t be American. I’ve never been there. I’m black, you can look at me and see that. You think it’s safer for me in a Paris subway than one in New York?” he ranted. “I don’t want to be everybody in the world. I want to be someone from somewhere!” He played one of his own compositions to close the set, “Another Dienbienphu for You,” he said in English. The crowd, only there for dancing, barely heard him, but Alelia did. During the band break, Alelia, who was not shy, asked Raoul in her best Parisian French if he’d care for a drink, which he slyly agreed to. “A song like that deserves a toast,” she said with a seductive Southern accent. Raoul’s smile widened. Not hard to look at and she’s American!
“You know, you’re quite remarkable on that guitar,” she said as they sipped on two Belgian beers. “I play, too, but folk songs, anti-war songs.”
This intrigued Raoul. He was truly delighted by a woman who knew something about who she was and about the music. They had another beer, and soon Alelia had him looking for one of Tokyo’s pop hits on the jukebox. Though Raoul’s band played till daylight, Alelia waited and danced with many strangers, her body taking on whatever African beat was set. Raoul was plotting. He was a man. He was Baker’s son.
After the band had been paid and had packed up, Raoul asked Alelia where she was staying. When she told him a hostel, he laughed and said gently, “Not tonight.”
Raoul walked Alelia to a presentable pension where they got a room. Though the sun had risen, the full moon was still rising in their souls. Raoul asked her to sing something as he began to undress her. A bit taken aback, she protested she hadn’t brought her guitar. He offered her one of his. She softly sang Miriam Makeba’s “Thula Thula Mama.” Raoul’s body melted as if the lullaby were for him. He took Alelia in his arms and lifted her to her feet. Naked in the austere pension, they were a kaleidoscope of passion. Eventually they found themselves against a wall, the table, the bed, the floor, lust without boundaries, more a coming together of seekers. They felt they’d been looking for each other all their lives. Two separate journeys became one. They could make music and they could make love in secret humorous unmasked ways. Alelia vowed to herself she’d never leave Raoul’s side and he promised to never let go of her. And they didn’t.
Alelia joined Raoul’s band. She worked on her own songs and began studying the electric guitar—she’d finally realized the power that Tokyo loved. Living their lives in the moment, they were excited and at peace. In a week they had already set up house and decided they should meet each other’s family. Raoul’s mother gave them her blessing. Alelia impressed her as a fighter who was joyful. They laughed a lot. This is a good woman for my son, Raschel thought. Baker, still smarting over his son’s belligerence, was taciturn much of the evening. Raschel told her grim-faced husband to get over himself. “Your son has found his American, whether you like it or not.” Not wanting to further irritate Raoul’s father, Lia said very little about her family.
Raoul was a mite nervous at meeting Memphis and Lizzie. He was shocked to learn that Lelia’s Aunty Liz was the legendary Mayfield Turner. Her mother Memphis, too, was popular all over France, if more for her aplomb than her singing. But when they arrived at the Place de l’Opéra apartment, the housekeeper gave Alelia a letter. “My Dear Daughter,” Memphis had written in a large lazy jagged scrawl, “We didn’t know how to reach you. Tokyo has been nominated for a Grammy Award and for the first time in decades Aunty Liz and I are headed for the States. Please try to make it. The whole family will be there. All my love, M.” The envelope was stuffed with cash. Alelia was devastated, standing there in the new dress she had bought for the occasion. Raoul consoled her. There was enough money for both of them to fly to New York.
Raoul wanted Alelia’s last night in Paris to be African, Antillean, and Arab. They went from Moroccan to Mauritian restaurants, they sat in with a Congolese band, and they drank Jamaican Red Stripes. When they were actually emotionally incapable of dancing any more, they left for the airport to jump the first flight they could find. They were in love no matter what.
While Alelia was having the time of her life in Paris, Abbott had been in Vietnam’s living hell. He constantly dreamed of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, yet he’d become what the army wanted, a good soldier. But he was a good soldier with an ax to grind. He kept seeing black and Latino youth manning the front lines while their white compatriots were in the rear. When he was finally discharged, Abbott went to New York City to play music. He went to Slug’s, the Five Spot, the Vanguard, the Blue Note, and made the loft scene where cutting-edge artists had ensconced themselves. Vampin’ with Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Sam Rivers, Mongo Santamaría, Mario Bauza, Orquesta Broadway, and Willie Colon, Abbott tried everything.
He got a small one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side with the tub in the kitchen, but he didn’t care. He had his costume ready for Sun Ra’s Arkestra as well. As fellas made their way to New York from Chicago, St. Louis, and Oakland, Abbott made friends with the new guard—Chico Freeman, Joe and Lester Bowie, Abdul Wadud, Sunny Murray, and Phillip Wilson, the new band of troubadors, challenging the generation before, even as they studied them. The scene was hot. Livin’ was not. Playin’ music all night, he was a cabbie by day, a gypsy.
He was terribly proud of his sister, Tokyo, though, who had stayed clean and had one number one R&B hit after another. She was the darling of Chicago-based Ebony and Jet. Even Billboard had to acknowledge her dynamic ascent. Abbott finally forgave James, who had become a respectable record executive. All was well, plus Alelia was coming home.
The greater Mayfield family had taken adjoining suites at the Waldorf Astoria, where Tokyo was staying for the awards ceremony. The staff there felt she was one of their own. Cinnamon was at a loss for words. She’d never really known her daughter in her child’s own element, though she could have. It was probably her fear for her daughter that had distanced them—the wild tales of Tokyo’s life left Cinnamon no shelter for her grief. But now all was well. Tokyo Mayfield Walker was a nominee for the best R&B album of the year and she was sober. Cinnamon’s heart was gleeful and light. Lawrence, too, was moved by the qualities of his daughter’s voice and her studied style. All those years next to the record player with his daughter close by had paid off. Even in her most rambunctious blues, he could hear the Nancy Wilson or Betty Carter albums he cherished. Yet she’s barely touching her talents! Lawrence had nothing but confidence in her.
Before the record label’s reception for Tokyo, Cinnamon presided over a private pre-Grammy gathering for the family so that all the Mayfields could be together for the first time in many years. Memphis and Lizzie’s appearance alone was reason enough. Cinnamon had never approved of Alelia’s being left with Jesse and Mabel in the South, but she had said nothing, fearful of her cousin’s biting tongue and ambition. When Memphis absconded for Paris and moved in with Lizzie, she had said nothing again. Now with the two of them returning, she didn’t know what to say. After all, Cinnamon had never fulfilled her operatic dreams, while Memphis had lived the jazz life she quested. If it was at the expense of her daughter, it’s none of my affair. Then again, maybe it was for the best. Mama El rescued me, and Jesse and Mabel were there, not just for Lia, but for my Tokyo, too. Losin’ their own child, healin’ someone else.
When her own daughter Tokyo appeared in a stunning black and beige beaded, form-fitting, backless gown, Cinnamon was speechless. This time she had nothing to say because her child simply looked too gorgeous for words. Why, she has the glamour of Dorothy Dandridge, imagine that! Her rambunctious child had become a woman. Her rebellious teen was now a firecracker femme fatale, exhibiting all of her grandmother Lizzie’s startling sensuality and charisma.
“Tokyo, you’ve got to win tonight! You look like una bella donna, a true diva. I’m telling you, sweetheart, this is your night!” She grabbed her daughter up in her arms ever so tightly. At the same moment Lawrence swept them both in his arms and kissed Tokyo on the forehead, whispering, “You’ve got it all, baby. You make us proud.”
Toyko burst from her mother’s arms, loudly beseeching, “Everybody, have some champagne and somebody get me some sparkling water, please.”
With a clamor at the door, Elma and Raymond walked in with Sissy and her college-bound twins. The last of her generation of Mayfields, Sissy had settled in Minneapolis right after college and married a real Irishman to go with her father’s invented one. While one son had the straight hair and countenance of a young Abraham Lincoln, the other had started to dred his spiky blond locks. “Pray for me, sistuh,” she said, hugging Cinnamon tightly. “Would that college were five dollahs a semester again.” Sissy had never gone into music. “Too much competition in one family already,” but the younger of her fraternal twins played a beautiful piano and was more interested in music than college. Unbeknownst to her, he was very anxious to talk to his famous cousins.
Out of the corner of her eye Tokyo spied Elma and Raymond walking in, looking almost angelic in appearance, Raymond in a powder-blue tuxedo and Elma in a finely crafted crepe gown of navy and a shock of silver hair. They approached Cinnamon first, which left Tokyo free to greet Alelia and Raoul, who had entered just behind them. The young women were so excited they barely caught their breaths in their conversation, but Tokyo did catch, “And this is Raoul.” Before Tokyo got a chance to assess her cousin’s beau, Lia was on the move, pulling her young man along. “Have you seen my mother?” she asked, her eyes scanning the room.
“No, Aunt Mabel and Uncle Jesse aren’t here yet.” But that’s not what Lia meant.
“Oh, my God, that’s right! Your mother is here, your other mother, but no one’s seen her yet,” Tokyo replied, catching up with the couple. Yeah, I’m getting a Grammy, but it would be nice to have a date. “Raoul, it’s so good to meet you,” she said, taking his hand and speaking loudly. “I understand you and Leelee have been doing some interesting things together in your band. I can’t wait to hear about them. And I would love to meet some of your band members.” If any of them look like you. “Get a little intercontinental conversation goin’.”
Alelia put her arms around both of them and smiled benignly. “He’s French, Tokyo, not hard of hearing. Come on, Rah. You have to meet all the mothers. I have three.”
In the meantime Abbott had wandered in, sucking on a saxophone reed like a Tootsie Roll Pop. When he saw his sister with Alelia and Raoul, he stopped in his tracks and whistled. That Alelia and Raoul were possessed of another aesthetic was obvious. Alelia’s dress was a strapless golden chiffon thing, clinging to her body like fairy dust, and Raoul’s Nehru jacket put all the tuxedos and cummerbunds in the room to shame. They were definitely together. In both senses of the word.
Abbott was ever so proud of his sister. “I knew you could make it, baby,” he said to Tokyo as she approached him. They hugged while Alelia came over to introduce Raoul. The Frenchman’s English was startlingly fluent.
Alelia walked over to Cinnamon and Lawrence with Raoul in tow. “Aunt Cinnamon, Uncle Lawrence, this is Raoul. I sing and play with his band now.”
Never before had Cinnamon seen Memphis in Alelia, but noting Lia’s new, slightly French accent and the cut of her dress, Cinnamon felt herself blushing. This wasn’t Memphis, but this was surely Memphis’s daughter, svelte and sensual in ways she would never be. Cinn had gone all out for her daughter’s celebration and already she felt dowdy, her cultured reserve sinking into awkwardness, her broad shoulders and hips suddenly too wide for the room. Lawrence felt the sudden tension in his wife, and understood once he glimpsed Alelia.
“Oh, Uncle Lawrence, it’s so good to see you again! This is mon cher, Raoul. I’m sure you all will get along. He’s quite the jazz historian, though that’s not what we play.”
“Well, I’m delighted, Raoul. We must get together in Chicago. Alelia, you are coming to Chicago?”
“Uncle Lawrence, we’re going everywhere. Raoul wants to see America, even the South.”
Just as Lia said that, in walked her adoptive parents, Jesse and Mabel, straight from Alabama, that was the unavoidable conclusion. Mabel’s dress fit a bit too snugly and Jesse’s tuxedo was obviously rented. Alelia ran up to them and smothered them with hugs and kisses. She was so engaged in greeting them she forgot about Raoul for a moment, but not for long. When she realized she’d lost track of him, she quickly turned, thinking he must not be far away, but she was mistaken. James had Raoul in the eye of his video camera, interviewing him about God only knew what. The family had remained suspicious of James ever since Tokyo’s addictions became public. Even after he had started his ascent in the music industry, he had a ways to go before he could redeem himself with the family. That’s one of the reasons he decided to hide behind the camera—that way he could talk to everybody and control the conversation. Only Tokyo had really forgiven him. She rushed over to embrace him and started jabbering into the camera, as if they were children again, fooling around, putting her nose right up to the lens.
Suddenly the room quieted. James panicked for a second, thinking all eyes were on him again, judging him. Then there was a real “Ahhh,” the kind one hears in Hollywood, accompanying a trance-like turning of heads toward the door. There she stood in all her glamour, Lizzie Mayfield Turner, the myth of the family in living color and in person. She seemed to embody the very essence of Paris in appearance, in a tight black sequined gown with a train and a full ostrich boa, her platinum wig perfectly coifed. And with her, looking nearly as alluring, was Memphis. Alelia’s eyes lit up, glistening. Elma downright started bawling, tears streaming down her heavily powdered face. Her sister and her daughter had come home.
“Good evening, everyone,” Lizzie announced, playing for James’s camera.
Elma and Raymond, Jesse and Mabel, Tokyo and Abbott almost ran over each other trying to get their taste of the great Aunty Lizzie. There were plenty of hugs and kisses for everyone. In a crowded moment with her mother, Alelia took the opportunity to introduce Raoul. While niceties were exchanged in French, Memphis couldn’t keep herself from staring at the young man. There was something very familiar about him, something in his eyes and carriage. Then she saw the joy in Alelia’s face and embraced the young couple, inviting the rest of the family to celebrate the coming together of the late-twentieth-century Mayfields.
As Cinnamon looked on, her self-image tottered. She smarted at these interlopers, and didn’t know which one she found more irritating. I’m giving this party. This is our suite! What are they doing comin’ in here acting like they’re runnin’ things. From behind, Lawrence put his arms around his steaming wife and nestled his chin on her shoulder. “Ever sing a union song?”
She laughed despite herself. He looked at his wife adoringly, “You got three beautiful kids and you got me! That’s not bad.”
Although there was little time left before the group had to leave for the official reception, Jesse felt compelled not only to pray for Tokyo to win, but also to invoke the names of Ma Bette, Eudora, and seemingly the rest of the entire Mayfield line who had passed through this life.
James roamed with the camera to capture every moment: Alelia, Raoul, and Memphis; Lizzie primping over Elma’s hair; Raymond pontificating with his daughter-in-law Mabel on building a new church; Abbott circling Tokyo, trying to ease her to the door.
Cinn went up to Memphis and took a deep breath before she spoke. “You know I owe you an apology, Memphis. All these years I been mad at you, but I had it all wrong. I should be thanking you, Memphis. For the best thing that ever happened to me. If it hadn’t been for you runnin’ off with Baker, I never would have found my wonderful husband.”
“Comment?” asked Raoul. “Did I hear someone say Baker? My father is named Baker.”
“Baker Johnson?” the two women asked simultaneously. Of course, that’s why he looks familiar. Taratata! Lizzie, who had observed the interchange, jumped in, “Hmph, hmph, hmph. Seems some kinda way, Mayfields always gotta have a trumpet playuh in the family.” With a tap to her crystal champagne glass, she called everyone to attention. “I have come from across the waters to deliver a secular benediction. Tokyo Walker will be walkin’ away with this award tonight!”
Jesse lifted his glass, then sobered for a moment, missing his son Joshua and his grandmother Dora, who had passed three years before. Just yesterday . . . Oh, Nana, I wish you had lived to see this. Feeling their presence with him, Jesse felt a calling to jump in with Psalm 95, “Oh, come let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.”
Virtually on cue, Abbott voiced an Ayleresque crescendo imitating his saxophone. Cinnamon in spite of herself slipped in, lilting an improvised melody, sounding very much like a spiritual, “And we haven’t forgotten where we all come from . . .”
With some laughter the clan shouted in unison, “Sweet Tamarind, South Carolina! And Ma Bette Mayfield! To the seventh generation!”
For a moment, their eyes met, Lizzie and her pal, a mother and daughter. Memories danced between them. So many years lost, so many years ago/ Too many years lost, too many years ago . . . Bent over giggling and laughing, sportin’ capes of velvet and coats of fur, tweed jackets and pea coats, the family left for the party. But just as she was walking to the door Memphis got the last words to James’s camera, “Slavery leaves telling marks lasting generations, still every word out of our mouths is a song.”