1. Jazz


    Date: 12/9/2015, Categories: Straight Sex, Author: Sisyphus, Rating: 5, Source: LushStories

    Blame it on mom. She was a jazz freak and I grew up hearing Billy Holiday, Anita O’ Day, June Christie, Ella and Louis, you name it. “ The cats,” she called them. She knew all the words and she’d sing to the records, snapping her fingers, looking at herself in the mirror, moving her hips. I remember sitting on the floor, holding the record jackets, looking at the pictures on the front then up at mom singing to herself. She sang when she did dishes or was dusting around the house. I can still see her holding a dish and washing it over and over while she sang, “ When you wish Upon a Star ” or “ Stormy Weather .” I can still hear her sing, “ it’s raining all the time, ” moving her head from side to side while I sat on the floor, playing with my Raggedy Ann doll. I remember how she’d laugh at me when I came to her holding one of her Billy Holiday albums and I’d say, “Billy on, Billy on.” She’d say, “Ginger, baby, you’re going to be a jazz singer when you grow up.” She’d put the record on and I’d sit on her lap and listen to Billy singing, " Blue Skies ” and “ All of Me, why not take all of me. ” The record was scratchy and worn out. I could tell how much Mom loved those records. So did I. Mom wanted to be a singer but got knocked up by some guy I never knew and had me. She worked at different jobs, dropping me off at Charlene’s Day Care then picking me up on the way home. I remember Charlene, a big fat black woman. She laughed a lot, especially when she’d hear me sing jazz ...
    songs while I played. I’d sing, “ How High the Moon, ” or my favorite, “ A Tisket a Tasket a little yellow basket.” I sang it just like Ella and even did some scat singing, doowy-doowey,dee, dee, doo.” Charlene would say “Chile, where you learnin’ dem songs?” The other kids in the group sang nursery rhymes and songs like, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” I remember singing that song, but I’d jazz it up, standing in front of them, moving my hips from side to side like mom, and say, “Sing it like this, Twinkle… Twinkle…” and I’d snap my fingers and sing it fast, changing the notes so it had some feeling and pizzazz. I know mom wanted to be a jazz singer but had to work to put food on the table. That’s when she’d say, “I’d be a jazz singer if I didn’t have to put god damn food on the table.” Her saying that made me feel sad and awful like it was my fault she couldn’t be a singer. That’s probably why she drank so much and would fall asleep drinking and smoking in her chair listening to Billy or Sarah. I used to see her when I woke up in the morning, sound asleep in the chair with the needle from the record player clicking and clicking. I’d turn it off and put the record back in the album, then wake mom up and tell her it was time to get up and go work. And I had to get to school, something I hated, by the way. The drinking got worse and she didn’t sing like she used to. Her long brown hair was getting gray and she no longer wore colorful scarves around her neck or even seemed to care ...
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