Bo Johnson.”
“You good, Baby Ruth?” I asked from my seat at the piano.
“I’m good, Benny,” she said, and the folks on the other side of the glass got quiet. Esther hadn’t said much, and she hadn’t warmed up or sung anything down, but she began like she’d done at the Mosque, talking to her audience.
“This is a story about my daddy, the best heavyweight boxing champion in all the world, and the woman he loved,” she said into the mic. “They called him the Bomb.”
She snapped four times and sang, acapella, right on key.
“He was born in Harlem, and he ruled the streets. He was the meanest man that you’ll ever meet . . .”
And we were off and running.
We sang everything they hadn’t already heard—“Chicken,” “Pandora’s Box,” “No Shoes,” “Cold,” and “Let’s Say Hello”—but when we sang “Dark Heart,” and Alvin, Money, and Lee Otis sat silent, listening to me and Esther, her voice caught, and I thought she was going to break. I should have known better. The emotion in her voice didn’t detract. If anything it made the song better, though the whole thing was so personal I couldn’t look up from my keys. I let my hands do what they needed to do, sang my part, and professed my love, pretending it was only Esther who could hear me, who could hear us.
Of course it wasn’t. The figures on the other side of the glass waited until the last note faded, and then Berry spoke into the microphone.
“You got more?” he asked, his voice gravelly.
“I think we’re done,” I said, clearing my throat in commiseration.
“Well, we’ve heard enough,” Berry said. “We’ve heard more than enough. We just didn’t want it to end.”
We took a break, and I gave the secretary, a young woman named Mary, some money to order sandwiches for the whole place as well as a cake for Lee Otis’s birthday. Berry and his sister herded me and Esther into Berry’s office and closed the door, shutting everyone else out. I didn’t look back to see how anyone felt about it. Berry sat back in his chair, his hands clasped loosely in his lap, his feet wide, his eyes distant. Mrs. Edwards sat too, and Esther took a chair beside her. I couldn’t sit. I leaned against the wall instead and shoved my hands into my pockets.
“You know we got to be better than everybody else, don’t you, Lament?” Berry said softly. “Everybody gives me a bad time . . . says I’m trying to make my artists look like happy Negros, all shined up and sweet, no trouble at all.”
I didn’t comment, and he kept going.
“But people don’t want to hear trouble in their music. Everybody’s got their own troubles. They want to hear hope. They want to feel good. They want to dance. I can’t help anyone—not my artists, not my family, not this company—if I don’t push hard and demand a certain standard. We gotta be better than everyone else,” he said again. “I’m creating a movement here. And people can laugh and mock and tell me I’m just a crowd-pleaser. Hell yes, I am. That’s what good music does. It pleases. The eyes. The ears. The soul. And people come back for more of what pleases them.”
“I don’t know how pleasing we are,” Esther said softly, and I moved to stand behind her chair, putting my hands on her shoulders. Berry and his sister watched the interaction, and Berry blew out a pent-up breath.
“Well, you’re trouble. No doubt about it. You two together in there . . . this whole place about went up in flames. I can see why they put you in jail. It’s a public safety issue,” he said, but he’d started to laugh.
“I can’t believe they put you in jail,” Mrs. Edwards whispered, shaking her head. She wasn’t laughing. Her jaw was tight and her eyes were hard.
“Sammy Davis Jr. is married to a white lady,” Berry said. “Pearl Bailey married Louie Bellson—best white drummer I’ve ever seen. You won’t be the first interracial couple in showbiz.”
“But you can’t get married here,” Mrs. Edwards said. “If that’s what you were wanting to do.”
“Are there laws against it?” I asked. In some states there were. In many states there were. Money was right about that.
“Not color laws. But at least one of you has to be a resident of the county. You aren’t. In Chicago, you just need some identification that says you’re older than eighteen and