How Etta James Saved My Life

This is the factual tale of my first heartbreak.

 I am taking some liberty with changing the names of some characters. Mostly because I am a starving artist and I can't pay anyone.

 So I had long lost all of my juvenile chubbiness and was a tall muscular 6ft 4 and a  quarter. Yes, I want my quarter inch.

 I had a pretty nice car, I made pretty good money, and I was dating a goddess.
Whom we'll call Belle.
 Belle had hair that was inky black, eyes that looked like the sun trapped in a jar of honey, and her skin was a creamy beige.
  Like coffee with just a little too much cream.
 At the time she was the most exotic and beautiful creature, I’d ever seen.
 True, I was just a kid from small-town Mississippi, but I thought she was perfect. 

So, when she decided to break up with me it was devastating. Not only did she break my heart but she crushed my ego.
She had discovered that she liked women as well.
 My world shattered.

 I couldn’t eat.
 I couldn’t sleep.
 I couldn’t bathe.
I was growing the Moses beard.

 I had banned all visitors including my inner circle.
 Even my then best friend Jarrod.

 There was a dirt silhouette in the fetal position on my sheets.
 I wouldn’t have had the words to talk to anyone. 

Of course, Jarrod wasn’t on board with me not talking. After seeing that I wouldn’t speak to him or anyone in my clique he decided to get me some help.

 I spent enough time with Jarrod to know how the conversation went.
 Right down to the deep sniff I’m sure he took before he spoke. Even though he would take a deep sniff before speaking, Jarrod always seemed to be talking through mucus,  

“Say Ma, you need to come to get him. He’s going to die!”

 My mother was in New Orleans and knocking at my door in exactly the four and 1/2 hours it took to drive from DeKalb to New Orleans.

 My mother was my first love, in the way, that all little boys moms are, but I had no idea how to explain the depth and breadth of my heartache.
She couldn’t kiss this and make it better, no amount of rubbing my hair was going to make this right.

 Because I could not or would not eat, I had gone from 298 lbs. solid, to 189 lbs.
Yup, I lost an entire human being.

 So when my mother tapped on my door I am sure she was surprised by my appearance. I shuffled to the door as she knocked. Opening it just enough to lean against its edge. My mom took one glance, gasped and covered her mouth with one hand reaching to stroke my hair with the other.
“Oh, baby!”
She exclaimed her love, shock, and concern evident in the short phrase.

 I didn’t realize it then but my mother wasn’t just seeing the wretch that having my heart shredded had produced.
 She was seeing her baby, who’d been premature and sickly.
 Her baby who had been clinically dead twice and survived, and my brother who had died six years earlier.
 I moved away from her loving touch, I wasn’t ready to be soothed.
 “Mama,”
I said uttering words that I meant at the time but I definitely wouldn’t say now.
 “Mama, I can’t. I don’t have any kick it. I don’t want to talk!”
Her eyes had adopted the near teal they turned whenever she was hurt physically or emotionally.

 I was too selfish to give in.
 It was about my pain, and I  didn’t want to talk.

 So I closed the door and staggered back to my filthy sheets.
 Before I could curl back into the fetal position I heard another knock at my door.
This one was more insistent and filled with authority.
 Either it was the police or my dad.
 Seeing as how I had just closed the door on his wife, I figured it was safe to assume it was the latter.

 My Fathers gruff western action hero voice drifted through the door
 “Boy”
he began.
Then suddenly his tone softened.
“Michael, open the door son.”
 I opened the door.
My father is only 5’9” but somehow it seemed like he was much bigger than me at moment. “Daddy,”
 I said struggling to keep my voice from cracking as I pulled the door open.
“I don’t want to talk.”
 My fathers soft Hershey chocolate orbs refused to get moist.
 He pulled a cracked and worn cassette tape from the pocket of his overcoat.
 Growling softly this mans man said to me.
 “I don’t want to talk either. Take this.”
He said pressing the old cassette into my hand.
“Listen to it"
 he whisper-growled.
 “And let it hurt till it heals.”

 Looking back, I realize how strong my Father had to be to ride home, 4 plus hours listening to my mother fuss about abandoning “Her baby.” 

I examined the cassette, it was obviously well used but the writing on it was clear. ‘Etta James Her Greatest sides.’

  I had never examined this artist before, but although I wouldn’t admit it then, my father’s, wisdom had never let me down. 

 Somehow I summoned the strength to put the tape into my stereo and let it play.
 My heart was closed for business.
Shut down tight, this melody wasn’t going to breach these walls.
 She didn’t even try.

 No, this singer whispered to my soul, intimately.
 She snuck in a back way, through my rhythm.
She growled and strong-armed.
 She didn’t ask, she told.
"Tell Mama" she commanded, while calling me, Daddy.

 I couldn’t do anything other than obey.

 When I doubted that this woman could possibly gauge the depths of my agony, she said:
“Trust in me!”
So I did.

 Over the next couple days, I listened to the intense hurt, the unfair treatment that this poor angel had undergone, and I stopped being selfish.

 I wanted to “Stop the wedding” and make the object of Etta's affections realize he had made a mistake.

 I felt each lyric.
I knew what it was like to want to lose your eyesight rather than watch that person walk away!
So I emptied my ashtrays and straightened my sofa, just as Etta had done and I got out of bed.

My Father had been right again.
 It had hurt until it healed.
 It’s now three weeks later.

 I’ve bought new clothes to fit the smaller me.

 I’m working again and back to hanging out with my friends.

 I’ve bought two more Etta James cassettes and I listen to them in my car.

 Well, this particular day I had picked Jarrod up from his overnight job and we had been all over the city.
By this time Jarrod is tired and falling asleep in my car.
I still want to “hang.”
 I spy a little hole in the wall club with Dr. John and friends on the marquee.
 I am a fan so I wait for a break in the median and make a U-turn.
 “Say bra, this bout to be rolling! Are you coming?”
 Jarrod yawned, snorted in viscously and said.
“Say woe, I need like 15 minutes ya heard me? I’m gonna take a power nap, then I’ll be right there yeah.” 

So I left my snoring road dog and went inside.
When I got into the smoky little, Cabaret, I found out who his friends were and one of those friends was the late great Etta James.

 I bullied my way to her.
Her Security staff couldn't have stopped me if they tried.
 Starstruck I said the first thing that came to mind.
“I love you, so much Miss James.”
She looked at me and giggled, as though the pain had never touched her.

 Staring into her eyes I said,
 “Every time I hear your music I want to find the Son of a bitch that hurt you and whoop his ass!” That made her laugh, and she said:
 “Anit you just the sweetest Lil baby.”
 Needing her to know the depth of our connection I said:
 “You saved my life!”
I had her full attention and she touched my hair.
 “It’s a good thing too, child. You is too pretty a motherfucker to be dying.”
 I was her servant.
“Baby what’s your favorite song?”
 She deigned to speak to me, a mere mortal.
 “My favorite song is "I’d rather go blind", but the song that saved my life is ‘Waiting for For Charlie."
 I parted ways with her.
  Not before I volunteered to be her bodyguard, her response and ensuing events are a whole other story. 

The performance goes on and She blesses the audience at this little juke joint.
 She sang. "At Last" and "Sunday Kind of Love."

 Graced by an angelic voice we all gave her our rapt attention.
 I felt special, part of an elite group. 

When she performed "I'd rather go blind", she literally pointed to me.

 Well, just when I felt that I couldn’t feel more  exceptional, more singled out, I heard her gravelly speaking voice say;
“Now I don’t usually perform this song, but this song here is for the pretty motherfucker who said my music saved his life.”

 And she sang "Waiting for Charlie."

 In all the excitement I lost track of time and my friend Jarrod. 

 Jarrod wandered into the club as the show wrapped up. 

Oblivious to how earth-shaking the night had been, he asked through a yawn.
“Aye round you wanna go to We never close?”