Free Born Blue by Han Nolan

years ago. Is she your favorite?"
    "Yes, sir. I sing most like her, I think. You really met her? What were she like?" I moved closer to him and touched his arm. He didn't seem to mind, so I touched it
t
7 again. I wanted most to touch his eyes 'cause they what seen Etta James, but I were scared to do it. I were 'fraid he smack my hand away.
    Mr. James said, "I didn't meet her, really. I just heard her sing."
    "Same difference," I said. "If you watchin' her and hearin' her sing, you meetin' her. Wish I was alive back when she were singin'."
    Mr. James took his arm away and blinked at me. "But she's still singing," he said. "She's still recording. Didn't you know that? Sometimes she even comes down here, to Muscle Shoals, to record her music."
    I couldn't take in what he were saying to me. "What? What you say?" I asked. I stood up.
    Mr. James nodded.
    "She—she still livin'? She still alive? She singin'? Etta James? Etta James who sing "Stop the Wedding" and "Baby, What You Want Me to Do?" and "Tell Mama"?
That
Etta James?
My
Etta James?"
    Mr. James laughed and nodded again. He nodded, and were like magic what it do to me. I just crumpled to the floor like all my bones gone soggy and couldn't hold me up no more. I cried. I cried with my face to the floor, and Mr. James tried to lift me up, but I be too limp for him to get a good hold of me. It seem to me that all my life my body been stiff with a kind of fear, a kind of waiting for something. It filled up my insides, that fearful waitin', but when I found out Etta James still be livin', my whole insides changed, everything round me changed. I could feel it. All the sharp edges of myself turned soft. It felt like the floor beneath me wasn't there no more. Felt like I were floating, and when I lifted my head to look at Mr. James, he were floating, too, first here, then there, floating.
    Mr. James got down on the floor with me, and 'cause he so tall, it were a long way to go. He patted my back and said, "Shh," and "Shh," and after a while, I stopped crying and I sat up and I got a smile on my face.
    Mr. James said he would find out if anyone knew when Etta James would be recording in Muscle Shoals again, and maybe he could take me up there.
    I wiped my eyes. "Up where?" I asked. "Where be Muscle Shoals?"
    "Muscle Shoals? It's right here in Alabama," he said. "Didn't you know that? It's up in the northwestern corner of the state, near Florence. Ever hear of Florence?"
    I shook my head and my head were floating and so were Mr. James. We just kept floating.
    "Muscle Shoals is famous. A lot of big hits have come out of there."
    "Etta James in Alabama? For real? How you know that? How you know 'bout Etta James?"
    "I did some legal work for a friend of mine who records up there. He knows her. He's a fan, too."
    Etta James alive and singin' in Alabama! I weren't floating no more, I were spinning!

Chapter Sixteen
    I KNEW IF ETTA JAMES could come to Alabama and record her music, then anything be possible. I could for sure become a famous singer my own self someday. I figured I could go to Muscle Shoals and sing for Etta, and she would help me get famous.
    Mr. James said he wanted to talk with me about something else, but I couldn't hear nothin' 'cause my head so full of Etta James. I kept asking him questions. I wanted to find out everything he knew 'bout her and 'bout Muscle Shoals and her coming there and when he gonna find out if she coming again. "Maybe she through comin'," I said. "Maybe we missed her forever. How do you know we ain't missed her? You ain't makin' this all up, are you?"
    Mr. James answered my questions, but he said he wanted to talk to me about something else. I weren't listenin' 'cause I didn't want to stop spinnin' and I knew
what he wanted to say were serious, 'cause his voice were serious, and if I listened, the soft, fuzzy, happy feeling inside me would go hard again.
    Finally, he took my hands and said, "Leshaya, please listen to me. We've got a social worker