Cookie used to dance in the Maxwell Street Market, on the vacant lots where the blues bands play. She wasn’t a performer; she spent most Sunday mornings hustling beer, cigarette lighters, and often her body to anyone who’d buy. But in the afternoon, after she’d accumulated enough money to buy her fill of alcohol, she’d sometimes prance out in front of the Maxwell Blues Band or the Black Knights Blues Band and careen, walleyed and gap-toothed, through the crowd.
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What finally drew my attention to her dancing I’m not really sure. Some of the people who dance down on Maxwell are remarkable; with a bit of training and a few breaks, they could easily become professional hoofers. Cookie was somewhat ungainly, even when relatively sober. Maybe that’s what made her stand out. Whatever the reason, one Sunday morning as the band played some funky soul standard I noticed how she moved: she was doing the same steps they used to do in my high school in the 60s, and to the same music.
Someone’s little girl, wild in the streets, dancing to the tribal drum of the 60s–it used to be a romantic image. For a lot of us, it still is. That’s what filled me with such an eerie combination of nostalgia and dread as I watched Cookie dance through her decline. When I first noticed her seven or eight years ago she was already in serious trouble; she had an alcoholic’s puffy, water-laden appearance, the veins on her wrists and arms bulged amid sores and scars. But her friendliness and good nature never flagged, she seldom looked dirty or hungry, and on a good day she was almost pretty.
She surprised everyone by coming back to Maxwell this spring, in better shape than she’d been in for years. She’d gained some weight back, her clothes were clean, she seemed mentally alert despite her drinking, she’d even had her hair done. She’d always retained a sense of dignity, and when she nearly tore some guy’s head off for trying to snatch up her dress in public, I admired her spunk and began to wonder if she might still be able to summon the strength to turn her life around. She said she was living somewhere on the south side.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/John Booz.
