Your Blues Ain't Like Mine

"Your Blues Ain't Like Mine" is what I should have told S.P. I was thinking about what he said to me while he rattled off all the things I don't have. Like a good job, car insurance, a driver license, my own apartment, and on and on. He asked me what I was doing 10 years ago and I said I was a cocktail hooker at The Muckelshoot Casino. I didn't get a chance to add that I also was heavy into using drugs and alcohol at the time. His reply was, see you're moving backwards. What kind of Shit is that. You don't know me like that Homey!!! The devil is gone give me my shit back!! S.P. said that he had gone through a lot, a lot more than I had because he is 11 years older than me, and how his Mom and Sister had been through a lot but they still keep their head up and smile. Yeah, but I bet you they cry in the middle of the night when no one is looking, like I do! He asked me 'why would I want to be with someone like that?' I replied 'So why are you even talking to me right now!! Goodbye! and I hung up the phone. So when I told him ( a couple of days later)I was reading "Your Blues Ain't Like Mine" he got kinda quiet. That conversation made me cry for a long time. I need someone in my life who can make me feel good about me. I no longer use drugs and I no longer drink myself into a stuipor because I can't deal with what life throws at me. That should make me feel good, right? I forgot, I also quit smoking them nasty ass cigarettes. No more stank ass smoke in my hair and in my clothes. No more worrying about having enough cigarettes to get me through the night.

I guess I'm giving him too much power over me. My feelings are hurt very easily by him. I will take my power back starting today!!!!! Good to get that out.

Often, women sing the blues. Sometimes we get so involved in each trying to sing our woeful tune with more volume and passion than the other, that we forget about the commonality of our blues and the commonality of the source of our blues. Rather than fuss and disagree about whose blues is the worst, we should realize that although our blues ain’t exactly the same, we are all hiding our faces and crying. by authur Bebe Moore Campbell


Following is the core story of the book "You're Blues Ain't Like Mine" by Bebe Moore Campbell:

Lily has dropped out of high school to marry Floyd. Floyd owns a pool hall that the colored people in the community regularly frequent. Lily is a young mother and a dreamer. Often she takes her baby to the train station to sit and dream of leaving Mississippi and going to some far away place like Memphis, Tennessee. It is at the often deserted train station that Lily meets and shares dreams with Ida.
Ida is a struggling young colored woman who also has a child. Ida dreams of going north and of making a better, and an educated, life for herself and for her child. By exchanging their stories and dreams, Lily and Ida realize their similarities and spiritual kinship, although they are as different as black and white.
The singing of the colored people, as they work in the fields, provides a comforting backdrop for Lily while she keeps house. Lily has a fascination with colored people and the music of their lives. One morning Lily awakens feeling aroused and manages to awaken Floyd and persuade him to take her to town with him. When they get to town, Floyd buys Lily the toilet water and lipstick she wants. Then he instructs her to stay in the truck while he takes care of some business.
Lily disobeys Floyd and walks curiously toward the pool hall that Floyd owns; it is full of colored men. She happens to peek into the pool hall where a fifteen-year-old black child from the north, Armstrong, is showing off by speaking French. Lily and Armstrong make eye contact. They are both amused; then she hurries out the pool hall. Later, a colored man who works for Floyd in the pool hall tells Floyd that Armstrong was talking French to his wife Lily. Floyd doesn’t quite know how to handle the situation. So he curses and threatens Armstrong and tells him to get out of his pool hall. When Floyd returns to his truck, he slaps Lily for getting out of the truck.
When Lily sees Ida at the train station that night, Lily is still quite upset about everything. Lily confides in Ida. When Ida learns who the colored boy is, she is especially distraught. The boy is a close family friend. Lily tells Ida not to worry, that the skirmish is over and that the boy is not in danger.
Still, Ida runs directly to the boy’s grandmother’s house. She is comforted when she learns that the boy is leaving on a bus to go away to school the next morning, and Ida persuades herself to believe her friend Lily that Armstrong is not in danger.
Earlier that same night, Floyd’s father and brother learn about what happened at the pool hall. They persuade Floyd that they must make an example of the boy, and they go with him to “handle” the situation. Although Floyd pulls the trigger, they all participate in the brutalization and the fatal shooting of the boy. Floyd later tells Lily that he killed the boy for her.

"Tryly Engaging.. Campbell has a storyteller's ear for dialogue and the visual sense of painting a picture and a place... There's a steam that keeps the story moving as the characters, and later their children, wrestle through racial, personal and cultural crisis."

-Los Angeles Times Book Review

I am almost done with this book (only 150 pages to go) and I really don't want it to end. When I heard Mrs. Campbell had passed away November 27, 2006, I collected all of her books. The next one I will read by her is "Brothers and Sisters." I know it won't let me down.