Memoir
Memoirs
ME, WHOOPI, AND A STORE IN WEST HOLLYWOOD (1986)
I usually didn’t go to West Hollywood. As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t much there. But that afternoon I went. The year was 1986, during my L.A. years.
It was a Monday, one of my days off. I got with my buddy, Richard who was also off on Mondays, and we decided to check out some stores along Melrose Avenue, in West Hollywood. I liked cool clothes and so did he—we usually spent our off-days checking out the hot, chocolate eye candy we saw hanging out on the streets and at Venice Beach, but this day we decided to start off with a little shopping.
Driving along Melrose Avenue, a few stores caught our attention, so Richard parked, and we walked up Melrose, checking out the merchandise. We had a great time, as he and I always did when we hung out together.
Things were fine until we came to a certain boutique. I can’t recall the name of the store, but it was very trendy and had nice men’s outfits.
We went inside and was immediately met by a smiling young man with effete mannerisms, and a lick of reddish blond hair across his forehead… okay, a West Hollywood twink.
“Hello. How may I help you?” The young man spoke with a smile, his eyes locked on our eyes.
“We’re just looking.” I answered and Richard nodded a ‘thank you’ to the young man.
Richard and I walked through the store looking at merchandise. However, we noticed the young man trailed us. He didn’t assist any other customers in the store, but he trailed the only two black persons in the store. Not only that but he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped every item Richard and I touched.
Richard looked at me, shocked. Richard whispered, “are you seeing this?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
After a short while of the young man trailing us and ‘diligently’ wiping off merchandise we touched, I confronted him. We got into a heated argument. The yelling was so loud that the manager came over.
“I’ve been trying to help them,” the young man yelled, “and they just keep touching things with their dirty black hands!”
Well, at that very moment Whoopi Goldberg and a group of her friends entered the store. When Whoopi heard the young man’s comment, she yelled (in that unmistakable Whoopi Goldberg voice), “Aw HELL NO!”, and stormed out of the store.
The other customers gasped. The young man was removed from the floor and the manager effusively apologized to us. Then he rushed to the door, I assume in hopes of catching up with Whoopi.
To this day, I wonder if Whoopi Goldberg recalls that day with me, her, and a store in West Hollywood.
It was a Monday, one of my days off. I got with my buddy, Richard who was also off on Mondays, and we decided to check out some stores along Melrose Avenue, in West Hollywood. I liked cool clothes and so did he—we usually spent our off-days checking out the hot, chocolate eye candy we saw hanging out on the streets and at Venice Beach, but this day we decided to start off with a little shopping.
Driving along Melrose Avenue, a few stores caught our attention, so Richard parked, and we walked up Melrose, checking out the merchandise. We had a great time, as he and I always did when we hung out together.
Things were fine until we came to a certain boutique. I can’t recall the name of the store, but it was very trendy and had nice men’s outfits.
We went inside and was immediately met by a smiling young man with effete mannerisms, and a lick of reddish blond hair across his forehead… okay, a West Hollywood twink.
“Hello. How may I help you?” The young man spoke with a smile, his eyes locked on our eyes.
“We’re just looking.” I answered and Richard nodded a ‘thank you’ to the young man.
Richard and I walked through the store looking at merchandise. However, we noticed the young man trailed us. He didn’t assist any other customers in the store, but he trailed the only two black persons in the store. Not only that but he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped every item Richard and I touched.
Richard looked at me, shocked. Richard whispered, “are you seeing this?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
After a short while of the young man trailing us and ‘diligently’ wiping off merchandise we touched, I confronted him. We got into a heated argument. The yelling was so loud that the manager came over.
“I’ve been trying to help them,” the young man yelled, “and they just keep touching things with their dirty black hands!”
Well, at that very moment Whoopi Goldberg and a group of her friends entered the store. When Whoopi heard the young man’s comment, she yelled (in that unmistakable Whoopi Goldberg voice), “Aw HELL NO!”, and stormed out of the store.
The other customers gasped. The young man was removed from the floor and the manager effusively apologized to us. Then he rushed to the door, I assume in hopes of catching up with Whoopi.
To this day, I wonder if Whoopi Goldberg recalls that day with me, her, and a store in West Hollywood.
THE YEAR OF SUN AND MOON (1972 - 1976)
PART 1
The Night I Met the Moon
You could say 1972 wasn’t the best year to come out, but that was exactly the year I came out. It was the year I realized that all those years growing up stupefying over the handsome men I saw in the town where I grew up and watching handsome men on TV was more than just something that simply ‘occurred’. By 1972, at the age of eighteen, I concluded that I liked men. But just what that meant beyond occasional trysts with buddies, most of whom, to my knowledge were not gay, but were comfortable enough with our relationship to engage in a ‘little discreet fun’, was unclear. Beyond those occasional hookups I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with the depth of feelings I had.
Coming out to family and friends was a pretty easy thing. For the most part, my family took the news in stride. My mother and one of my siblings at first questioned if I really had to accept that part of myself, but after further discussion with them they defaulted to the rule of love that my family firmly believed in. We were taught to have respect for things we may not quite understand as long as there was no malicious intent. My parents were world-wise enough to know that my being gay was in no way malicious, or ‘evil’. So, their questions about the stance I was taking took a back seat to the fact that life was full of mysteries and above all else, that they loved me. And that was that.
I was to find out, many years later when I was in my 40’s, my parents already knew I was gay before I told them. My father noticed it first and told my mother (according to my mother he said ‘Douggie is going to like boys’). That was in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s, according to the account my mother gave me. Maybe my father saw how enthralled I was as a kid, sitting in front of the black and white TV screen as I watched Hugh O’Brien, or Clint Walker stand shirtless before me (there were no leading black images on TV back then— so thank God for Billy, the rugged cinnamon colored man who stayed across from us who, clueless to him, became my first crush).
My mother said my being attracted to boys was something she and my father accepted as fact and nothing more. Back then there wasn’t much understanding of same-sex attraction beyond anecdotal information, which wasn’t always grounded in fact, and the experience of seasoned souls. I’m fortunate that my family and friends simply saw it as a fact of life.
PART 2 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
Fact of life. That was pretty much how everyone I told about my attraction to men responded. I’m sure if I had pressed it over a wider cast of people I came in contact with I would have gotten more hostile responses because that was the way of the world back then in the early 1970’s. But within my circles it simply didn’t matter that much. It was just a fact of life, though no one I knew was able to prepare me for the life I was to live.
Most of my buddies accepted homosexual sex as just that, a fact of life, even to the point that several of them confided that they had experience with it themselves and some even admitted they may even do it again if they decided (and some did, thank God for my sake).
By 1974, with the weight of the secret I had been carrying around finally lifted from my shoulders, I started my life as a young man feeling free. The only thing was, what did that freedom mean? You see, I knew who I was sexually, but I didn’t have a clue about what I should do with what little I understood of this new me. After all, in the early 1970’s, understanding sexual orientation was new. It had only been about 24 years since Alfred Kinsey first published his studies on sex and those studies were not widely known by the average person. So what we knew was experiential, anecdotal. Again, I’m blessed to have been with people who were on the right side of understanding life.
So there I was, in my early years of adulthood, a man! A man without a clue of who I truly was able to be.
PART 3 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
At the time I was working at a TV and radio station as a driver/messenger. It was a fun job, driving around Cincinnati in the cars the station leased. Every year they leased the sleekest luxury cars for us to drive for delivering video tapes, audio recordings, and chauffeuring big name celebrities who appeared on some of the shows at the station. We’d meet stars like Bob Hope, Diahann Carol, Nancy Wilson, Jerry Lewis, Phyllis Diller and many more, picking them up at their hotel rooms and rushing them around town in long fancy cars.
Life was good. Good enough that I had my own apartment and my own car. Not bad for a twenty-year-old just starting out.
Even my love life was rolling along the way I wanted: no serious commitments, just friends with bennies. I mostly dated women because to my knowledge, they were the most accessible. I simply didn’t know there was ‘fertile grounds’ where I could meet guys. I had no idea there was a gay community. Was I naive? Yes. But hey, we only know what we know. Besides, I had my stallions to turn to whenever I especially felt the need to be with a fine brotha. They were the guys I call mikondo men, from the Swahili word for currents, mikondo. Those were the guys who just flowed with the currents of life. No headaches, no trippin’.
I’d contact one of the guys and see if he was on for hooking up and then whichever one was game, came over. Sometimes we hung out a little, one of us driving around while the other rode along listening to music by artists like War, The Temptations and KC and the Sunshine Band on the 8-track. Hanging out for a bit before going back to one of our apartments and putting on smoother music like Donny Hathaway, Grover Washington, and Roberta Flack before spending the night together. Of the ‘buddies’ I had, Melvin was the one I liked the most because we seemed to vibe easily. He was tall, slim and had a light complexion that turned red whenever he blushed at a compliment I gave him. He always laughed and his eyes twinkled as he would say, “Doug. Man, you just like embarrsin’ me.” And he’d turn red and then we’d sit in his car, having a drink and something to eat as ‘Mr. Magic’ rose from the car’s stereo and played against a growing evening sky. Then we would go back to his place or mine and enjoy a nice night together. Of course, as it was with the other guys I spent time with, much of this depended on whether or not they weren’t ‘womaned up’ for the night and was out for a little man on man fun (oh, those mikondo men!). So, I was good. Life was good. Except for the loneliness that was beginning to grow inside of me.
PART 4 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
After a couple of years living my ‘good life’, an emptiness began to set in. I wasn’t sure what was causing this emptiness, but I knew it was leaving me feeling lonely and sad. I think I did a pretty good job at covering up what I was feeling. I joked around with friends and laughed a lot with family, but deep inside I was becoming more and more lonely, more and more sad as days went on, so joking around, laughing and working a lot became my medicine.
During my second year on my job at the TV station a young lady started working there. Her name was Donna. We became tight and eventually formed a non-commitment sexual relationship. At the time I saw Donna as just another person to have fun with. Little did I know Donna would change my life.
PART 5 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
“Wanna go somewhere with me?” Donna was being her usual impetuous self.
I listened to her over the phone. I was relaxing in my apartment watching TV. It was a quiet spring night after a long day at work, so I was not up to having anyone dropping by for a visit, and especially from someone with Donna’s personality. Donna and I always had fun and she was cool, but she was always up for adventure, and this was a night that I was not up for adventure. The way I saw it, adventurous nights were for the weekends. This was the middle of the week: go to work, come home, listen to my albums while eating dinner, then watch TV until I fell asleep after Johnny Carson’s monologue. No adventure. None at all until the weekend. That was how I liked spending my weeknights.
“Where to?” I asked the question while wanting to kick myself in the butt for simply not saying “Nope.”
“Let’s go over to a friend of mine’s house. I need some smoke.”
“This is the middle of the week, Donna. We gotta be at work tomorrow.”
“See? There you go. Stop being a drag, Doug. We won’t be out for long. C’mon.”
I thought about it as she prodded over the phone. Finally, I gave in.
“Cool. I’ll be there in a sec.”
A short while later we were in Donna’s car. I had wanted to drive my car so I could have some say as to when I wanted to leave her friend’s house, but she insisted that I was wasting time standing outside her car discussing the matter when she was already sitting in her car with the engine running.
“Negro, get in the damn car,” she said.
“You’ll like Rodney. He’s cool,” she said as she drove down the street. She knew I preferred to stay in for the evening. “I just want you to meet some of my friends. They all cool. Cool as fuck. All of ‘em.”
Wanting to introduce me to her friends didn’t sit well with me because I wasn’t one for ‘making new friends’. If it happened, it happened. But setting up ‘friend dates’ was a turn off. I’m not sure why I gave in to Donna’s persistence that evening. Maybe the loneliness ate at me more than I wanted to admit. “Okay,” I mumbled. And with that said, we sailed through the night streets listening to Donald Byrd on the eight-track.
Donna always drove like a bat out of hell, so it didn’t take us long to make it to her friend’s house. We pulled up to a large brick foursquare house. It was like many of the gracious old homes in the Evanston neighborhood of Cincinnati, and except for the light from the porch lamp, the house was dimly lighted from inside. I looked at the house and wondered what in the hell was Donna getting me into now? However, I knew she wasn’t crazy— cunning as a fox, but not crazy in the way that she would get us involved in any shit.
PART 6 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
“C’mon,” she said, and we got out of the car and walked up the steps that led onto the porch and rang the doorbell. From inside I heard footsteps bounding down the stairs and in an instant the large door opened to the vestibule.
“What’s up!” Rodney stood aside as Donna and I came inside. Rodney was a striking guy with a very handsome face. He was of average height with a strong athletic physique that showed from the tank top he wore, and he had a dark complexion that appeared as a deep onyx color in the low light of the lamp that shone from the living room that sat off from the vestibule. Donna introduced he and I to each other and after the greetings he took us upstairs, he, bounding effortlessly, two stairs at a time, up the stairs ahead of us.
We headed up to the third floor of the house. It was an expansive attic like room that was Rodney’s own apartment dwelling in the large house.
“We have to do this before she gets back.” Rodney spoke as he led us into the space and closed the door.
“Yeah. I know Gladys don’t like us smoking in her house,” Donna said.
“She gets on my damn nerves, always complaining— ‘stop stinkin’ up my house with that shit!’”, Rodney said, imitating his mother with mocking disdain. “Gets on my damn nerves. I can’t wait to get my own damn place”. We all laughed but I had the feeling he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon because from the looks of his room, he was well situated. In the large space he had a sofa and coffee table, which was littered with seeds and a plate and glass that he’d used earlier. There were two chairs in the room: one large and upholstered in leather, and the other, a plastic chair that was meant for seating in a garden. Across the room was Rodney’s bed, king size, of course, and near the bed was an entertainment stand on which sat a color TV and an elaborate stereo system. Along the bottom shelves of the stand and all along the floor, leaning against the wall of that side of the room were albums that led along the wall where they stopped at a small refrigerator in a corner. I’d never seen someone who lived at home have such an elaborate space that they could claim as ‘theirs’. On our way home that night Donna explained to me that Rodney was an only child and that his mother worked at General Motors and never married. “She lavishes that mothafucka with everything! Shit, why not?” Donna would comment as she drove me back to my apartment that night.
Rodney had been watching TV before Donna and I arrived, and the TV continued to play. “I got some good ass shit,” Rodney said as he closed the door and followed us into his room. “Let me turn this shit off,” he said as he headed towards the TV.
“Nah, leave it on,” Donna said. “Maude. Man, she cracks me up the way she reads people. Especially when I’m fucked up.” But Rodney turned the TV off anyway and turned on his stereo. The music filled the room. It was low and oozing with the call of love songs that became background to our conversations as Donna spread out the weed and picked through it, removing seeds. I sat beside her on the sofa and Rodney sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. There was a lot of conversation that night about everything: politics, street life, celebrities, and music. However, it was our love of music that bound us that evening.
After Donna rolled a joint, she took a hit. She leaned forward to hand it to Rodney, but he told her to let me hit it first.
“He don’t smoke,” Donna said. “He square as fuck. Here,” she said as he took the joint from her. He quickly studied me, then took a huff. The look ended with a ‘Then why is he here?’ questioning look.
“I ain’t got nothing against it,” I said, reclaiming myself. “I just don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
“Well, I got some beer in the fridge. Go ‘head, get one.”
I got the beer and sat back down on the sofa.
We all continued talking, but I couldn’t help feeling that Rodney was sizing me up. Many thoughts came to my mind as to why he was sizing me up, but the first was that he was also sleeping with Donna. It was pretty much understood that Donna didn’t belong to anyone. She created that impression the first time she came on to me that day at work when I walked into the office where she worked in the traffic department. In a sea of mostly white women and only one other black woman, Donna immediately stood out with her long slim frame, caramel complexion and large afro. She looked like the large afroed sisters that graced all of the black ads in the ’60’s and ’70’s. Our eyes met and I immediately shied away from her consuming stare. I was never comfortable when it seemed someone may have a sexual or romantic interest in me, and it usually took time for me to feel at ease. I think for an introvert like myself, such interests always seemed a bit invasive— until I’m ready to open up. I spoke to her that day and she spoke back. As I left the office, she got up from her desk and followed me into the hallway.
“I just want you to know, you wearin’ them pants, dude,” she spoke as she looked me up and down. “And they showin’ yo’ goods. You know y’all brothas be workin’ those goods in those pants.”
I blinked in surprise.
“Aw, I ain’t like those other women you might be used to,” she said. “I see what I want, and I go for it. No ties here.”
“Okay. Cool,” I replied.
“Well, I gotta get back in there,” she said. "I don’t think some of them hags in there like me and I don’t wanna get fired.”
“You’re new here, aren’t you? I don’t think I seen you around the station before,” I said.
“I been here about three weeks. But we’ll see each other. You can bet on that.”
Donna kept that promise and she and I began sleeping together whenever we felt like it and had the time. So, it would be no surprise that Rodney may be another one in her ‘stable’ as she called her collection of male consorts.
PART 7 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
“Oh. Donna! Me and Tony had a ball in New York City!” Rodney chopped the air excitedly with his hands as he spoke.
“I know ya’ll did!” Donna said as she released a cloud of smoke from her mouth. “I’m surprised Gladys let you go.”
“Aw you know, she love her some Tony.”
“Yeah. She does.” Donna nodded her head before continuing. “You know, that’s one place I ain’t been. I really wanna go there one day.”
“What about you, Doug?” Rodney asked as he took the joint from Donna. “You ever been to New York?”
“Nah. But I know I will someday.”
“You’ll like it. Both of you. And the music they play in the bars and the clubs! Ain’t none of that lame ass shit like they play here.”
“Top forty, shit…” Donna said with a dismissive air.
“Right. Nah. They be jammin’ up there!” He was becoming more excited with his high and could hardly sit.
“Put somethin’ on!” Donna exclaimed, now equally excited. “Put somethin’ on!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Put somethin’ on, man!” The excitement was contagious.
Rodney jumped up from the floor with the power of a large cat and went to the stereo. A few shuffles through some of albums and soon the turntable was loaded. The music started to play; a sudden blare came from the large speakers. I sat up straight from where I had been almost lounging on the sofa. The music. The energy! The beat!
“… You know you make me wanna shout, I believe
You know you make me wanna shout
Makes me wanna (I believe)
You know you make me wanna shout
Makes me wanna shou-ou-ou-ou-ou-out!
(Makes me wanna shout, I believe)
(Makes me wanna shout, I believe)
(Makes me wanna shout) …”
“Who the hell is that!” I yelled, energized!
Rodney was already dancing in the middle of the floor. “This is Why I Believe in You, by The Supremes!”
In no time we were all dancing, high from beer and smoke and music. Rodney and Donna knew the lyrics to the song, but I didn’t— at least, not at first, but in no time, I was singing along with the refrain. We danced and sang, and as we did, I noticed that Rodney was different. I was confused by what I was seeing, a man with a muscular athletic build moving around the room with a mix of power and grace, at times elegantly waving his arms and twirling to the music. However, confusion immediately gave way to understanding and the three of us danced all around the room…
“Makes me wanna, makes me wanna
Sing it, makes me wanna
Sing it louder, makes me wanna
Sing it, makes me wanna
Sing it louder (I wanna holler)
Sing it, sing it louder (I wanna holler, I believe)
Oh, oh-oh-oh-oh! Yeah, yeah!
Who! (who!)…”
It was nothing like The Supremes I heard ten years earlier. Man, this music jumped! It jumped! And we danced! It felt as though the three of us moved up to, into and through each other. We danced. We danced. We danced! Shaking the floor like I’m sure we wouldn’t have been able to do if Rodney’s mother was home.
All during our visit with Rodney we listened to music— priding ourselves in knowing the cryptic lyrics of early Earth Wind and Fire songs (before EWF fell into the ‘disco’ craze of the mid to late ’70's) and talking and dancing more, with Rodney showing us the latest dances he picked up along his travels with Tony. By the end of the evening, we were completely satisfied.
Donna dropped me off at my apartment, gave me a quick kiss. “We’re gonna be wasted tomorrow if we don’t get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” I laughed.
“Okay. See you tomorrow!” And she sped out of the parking lot.
Before falling to sleep that night, I knew I would see Rodney again.
PART 8 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
The Night I Met the Sun
Donna stopped by the office where I worked at the station to make sure I was still going with her to the party she had invited me to that night. I told her I was, and she looked at me once again before leaving the office. “You for sure? ‘cause I know you.” She looked at the other guys who worked in the office of transportation and deliveries, “He’ll say one thing and then when it’s time, he’ll be like, ‘Nah I changed my mind’.”
My co-workers nodded as they agreed, “Yep. Yep.”
The guys in the office had been talking about the incident involving one of our co-workers before Donna came into the office. It had been broadcast all over Cincinnati by the news: ‘Young man found naked and bleeding in the snow along a street.’ The news reports withheld his name, but we knew him, our co-worker, Joey. We visited him after he got out of the hospital and he told us the story, how he went to a concert and was offered a ride home by a group of guys at the concert. He accepted and on the way the guys began asking him “If it was true about black guys.” Then they assaulted him, stripping him naked, taking turns with him before stabbing him in his knees with a screwdriver and leaving him on the side of a dark street in a bank of snow. The guys in my office were hurt and angry not only at the guys who assaulted Joey, but at Joey because we always warned him about wanting to hang out at rock concerts and especially about hanging out with white people. “You have to watch’em, man. Can’t trust ‘em.” But Joey always told us we were wrong.
Personally, I thought Joey saw hanging out with white people as a way out of The West End and to a better life, and especially having a white girl friend as a signifier of success. He went to great extremes to be well-liked by everyone at the station but being liked by our white co-workers always seemed to give him an extra boost in confidence. He delivered the mail to offices, and I found out when I stood in as temporary mail carrier that he even performed for the white managers. “Doug. Joey always gave us a little Soul Brother dance when he came through. You don’t do that,” one of the white men said as I delivered his mail. “Yeah, give us a little of that Soul Brother thing… whooo, yeah!” another white guy said, caricaturing black men. “Nah. I don’t do that,” I said. And as I walked away, I thought how no one asked how Joey was doing. That bothered me just as much as it bothered me that my thoughts of him recovering from the assault never went without the sexual thoughts I always had about him.
“Doug. Man, you know, you can be pretty indecisive,” Stan said in response to Donna’s comment. He was our supervisor.
After Donna left the room, the guys scooted their chairs up to me.
“You gittin’ that, ain’t you?” Brian said.
“Man don’t ask him that,” Stan said. “But I would like to know…”
I smiled and dipped my head.
“Ahhh! Pay up,” Brian said as he stuck his hand out to Stan and another co-worker, Phillip, who sat back in his chair and laughed.
PART 9 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
Meeting the Tofauti
Eight o’clock was when I arrived at Donna’s apartment. The party was to start at nine, and Donna was nowhere to being ready, so I sat in Donna’s living room dressed for the party and waited for her to get ready, listening to her talk as she made herself up and I watched TV.
“You gonna like them.” She called out from her bedroom. “I know you don’t get into hanging out with too many people but trust me. You gonna like them. They cool as fuck,” she said, this time her voice coming from the bathroom as she applied makeup.
“Uh huh,” I replied absentmindedly. I knew that she understood how much I liked being by myself, in the worlds I created for myself, instead of interacting with folks— for the most part. I had a friend or two, but most of all, my family was a close-knit group of souls that gave me most of the fun and laughter and conversation I needed whenever I needed it. So, listening to Donna’s attempt at convincing me to open up to going to this party was in line with being around Donna, the all-out extrovert.
There was, however, a deeper reason I accepted Donna’s invitation to the party. Rodney was one of the persons throwing the party, and since that night that we hung out with Rodney, I had become mystified with the way he seemed to live his life. He lived in such contrast to the way I lived, even though I saw that we had so much in common. It became clear to me that night at Rodney’s house that he was gay. But unlike me, Rodney didn’t seem to lug around his homosexuality like a weighted sack, the way I did. That was why he stayed on my mind often since I met him and enjoyed that evening with he and Donna. Sometimes I even drove down the street where he and his mother lived hoping to run into him again, but I never did.
So, that Rodney explicitly told Donna to make sure I came to the party excited me because I wanted to see more of this interesting, exuberant life he led. Therefore, I was more fascinated than anything, and ready to make it to the party.
The party was in the Findlater Gardens Apartments. At the time in 1975, the Findlater Gardens Apartments, a public housing complex originally built for whites only, had only recently begun allowing black folks to live there; as a result, most of the white folks moved out and to the suburbs (taking advantage of federal home loans that were often denied to black folks).
Donna and I drove up Dutch Colony Drive, a street that winded up a slight hill through the older public housing complex of Winton Terrace until we saw the colonial style town homes of Findlater Gardens with its nicely manicured lawns opening handsomely before us under a deep summer’s night sky.
“Right here,” Donna said. I pulled to a stop. I drove Donna’s car because she had a cooler looking Cougar compared to my hotrod looking Impala. As I parked along the curb, Donna and I saw the open door to the townhome and heard the music and voices coming from inside and around from the back yard of the house. A quick thump of excitement jumped in my chest because everything I beheld reminded me of that night at Rodney’s but multiplied. At the same time, I wondered just what the experience would be like.
“This is nice,” I said, nodding my head.
“It’s Tony and his mother’s house.”
PART 10 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
We got out of the car and walked up the walkway. Before we got to the door Donna touched my arm. “You know Tony and Rodney go together, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Yeah. And both of their mothers are there… just so you can understand the dynamics.”
“Okay.” I said the words with as much cool as I could muster but the fascination inside of me grew even more.
“All really cool people,” she said as she knocked on the storm door.
Through the glass of the door, I saw a gathering of afroed men and women in the soft light of the living room, their dark hues moving in the light of lamps. They were laughing and talking lively. A man answered the door and immediately he and Donna greeted each other.
“Donna! ‘ey! What’s up!” The man greeted Donna as he opened the door.
“Cecil! What’s up!” Donna returned the greeting and the two of them hugged as she stepped inside. The man appeared to be a bit older than Donna and myself, maybe in his early thirties. He was kind of tall and bent a bit to embrace Donna. “Cecil, this is Doug.”
Cecil and I greeted each other, and I took in his handsome, dark, and bearded face.
After we were inside of the house Cecil called his wife over and she and Donna called out to each other and hugged.
“Girl, I haven’t seen you in a bit!”
If I recall, her name was something like Marsha or Carmen. She and Donna spoke a bit before Donna introduced me.
I stood to the side as Donna and Marsha talked and I took the room in. So many people. Men and women, laughing and talking and even howling with laughter at something someone said in one of the many conversations going on in the room. I watched them while hopefully not appearing to do so. I’m not sure what I expected to see. Maybe I expected to mostly see effeminate men, maybe men and women cloistering off from each other, but never what I was seeing that night: a house full of black folks of all ages and all types laughing and enjoying each other’s company.
It didn’t take long to have someone pull Donna and me into a conversation. Donna stood beside me letting me take the seat near the sofa. She was ready to mingle and knew I’d found a spot to plant myself. After a while of the group talking about the former president being busted in the Watergate break-in (“That nigga’s done for”, “Nah man, the Republicans got his back. He’ll still be around”, “Don’t look like it”), Donna decided to slide away and leave me on my own.
“At least he got us out of ‘Nam, one of the women said.
“Nah, we was chased out,” her husband said. He looked at me. “You serve?”
I answered him but at the same time I couldn’t pull myself from his eyes. They looked into me instead of at me and twinkled a bit from his coffee brown face as he continued to look into me. I looked at him with his hand on his wife’s thigh and his eyes in mine. “Wasn’t old enough,” I said, looking back into the space he’d created. “Missed it by a couple years or so,” I ended.
“I’m just glad he made it home,” his wife said.
“Me too,” the other woman said of her partner who sat with her.
We continued talking about many things until I had to get away from the space the man had created. It felt very intimate and while I enjoyed it, I didn’t know what to do in it.
PART 11 ~ The Year of Sun and Moon ~
I excused myself and went to look for Donna but didn’t see her. I understood that she knew many of the people at the party, so it was up to me to make myself feel comfortable. The conversations did just that. They were lively, funny and full of insight. At first, I was a bit confused by some of the people I met. Some of the women as well as the men seemed to express interest in me like the man sitting on the sofa had done that was clearly sexual, their eyes looking into me as if to piece together possibilities. It wasn’t the women that confused me, but it was some of the men because they were very masculine brothas whose looks of interest in me caught me off-guard. In time I would learn that a man’s masculine behavior didn’t necessarily signal his sexual tastes as I thought it did back then.
Until that evening, the guys I messed around with never held those looks in their eyes. Eyes that expressed interest in knowing more about me; and some of these men at this party were with their women, so yes, it was all confusing that night. But once again, just like that evening at Rodney’s house, confusion gave way to new understanding and in no time, I felt at home.
It was during one of the conversations that I learned that Tony was a Metro Bus driver. Some of the people there were his co-workers as well as co-workers of his mother. I never learned much about her other than Tony and her, as well as the rest of his family, were very close.
PART 12 ~ Conclusion of The Year of Sun and Moon ~
Drinks were passed around a lot and the faint smell of weed drifted from unseen places within the house. There was music playing, but it was low so as not to impede conversation. Isaac Hayes’ mellow voice and music floated through the rooms. From the kitchen I saw even more people standing around under the bright light, talking and laughing. Every now and then I saw Donna’s large afro appear as she talked with the many people she knew. It gave me comfort to see her since she I hadn’t seen Rodney yet and she was the only familiar person there.
From the distance there was more music playing. It was music that was louder and rose in chorus with a roar of voices and constant chatter. It pulled my attention because I knew that was where the real action was going on. In the back yard. After a bit more time in yet another conversation I was having, I made up my mind to make it to the back yard. I did so, weaving my way through the people in the living room and kitchen, stopping off for a drink along the way, until I made it to the storm door that led out to the back yard. I stood at the door in stunned amazement. The yard was full of people! The lights that were strung along the yard lighted the yard in the night under hues of reds, greens, blues and yellow. And the music was beating! Man was it beating! The speakers were large and sat on stands along the house and moved everyone to dance.
“Excuse me.” A voice came from behind me. I realized I was standing, blocking the doorway, staring like a fool. “You goin’ out?”
“Oh. Yeah,” I said, and I stepped out into the sea of music, and laughter and dancing.
The aroma of barbecue rose in the night air from a large grill and along a table where people were fixing plates. I immediately made my way to the table to fix a plate. I was ready to eat and having a plate would give me something to have in my hands when my drink was done.
The music jumped and people danced. Men and women danced together, men and men danced together, women and women danced together. I’d never seen anything like it before! They were all ages. I saw Rodney dancing with an older woman as The Ohio Players’ song, ‘Fire’ was playing:
“Got me burnin', burnin', burnin'
Got me burnin', burnin', burnin' (Yeah)
Got me burnin', burnin', burnin' (Yeah)”
Rodney saw me and threw up his hand as he called out to me. I saluted back and moved to the music in the wave that swept the back yard.
Donna came over and pulled me into the crowd of dancers as Earth Wind & Fire came on:
“We are people, of the mighty
Mighty people of the sun
In our heart lies all the answers
To the truth you can't run from…”
As we danced, she told me the woman Rodney was dancing with was Tony’s mother. She then pointed out Tony. He was a tall, good-looking man with a caramel-colored complexion. He was older than Rodney, in his early thirties, while Rodney was in his early 20’s like Donna and I were. Tony was dancing with an older woman as well, who I found out was Rodney’s mom. I finally got a chance to see Gladys.
The DJ went right into Earth Wind and Fire’s instrumental, ‘Caribou’ and everyone went wild. Everyone around me was dancing. I was in my space now, and I danced, I danced a lot, some with other people, but often by myself.
Suddenly, the DJ called out over the speakers, “Tony! Rodney! For you!” Faith Hope & Charity’s ‘So Much Love’ blared from the speakers and everyone cleared a space in the yard so Tony and Rodney could dance with each other.
“I've got so much love
In my heart for you
And it's the way you love me
That makes me feel the way I do…”
As I watched Tony and Rodney dance with each other and saw the love they had for each other and the love everyone at the party had for them, I realized I was in a place, existing as I’d never existed before. The rest of that night I watched everyone dancing. Heard them all laughing. And overhead the night sky rose deep and full of stars.
It was around two a.m. when the party ended. By then, everyone had petered out. There was a lot of hugging going around as everyone said their ‘goodbyes’. Donna asked if the hosts needed help cleaning up.
“Honey, this’ll wait ’til tomorrow,” Tony’s mother said.
“Yeah. Because I’m ready to get some sleep,” Gladys said. “I ain’t no spring chicken like I used to be!”
Tony and Rodney thanked the last of the guests that were going out of the door. Rodney brought Tony back into the kitchen where we were all standing around the kitchen table.
“This is Doug,” Rodney said.
Tony shook my hand. “We met briefly. But hey. It’s nice to meet you. And definitely feel free to come by anytime.”
“It was good meeting you, Doug,” his mother said, and Gladys agreed. Letting out a big sigh, she went on. “Well, I’m going to bed!”
“I set up your favorite room, Gladys,” Tony’s mother said to her.
“Girl, you know how much I love that room… So peaceful. Thanks.” And the two of them left.
Rodney and Tony walked Donna and me out to the car and saw us off.
“What do you think?” Donna asked as I drove back to her apartment. The radio was playing low to a slow, soulful tune.
“I really had a nice time,” I replied. “A great time,” I said, correcting myself.
“Told you they’re cool people. All of the people there.”
I shook my head. “Yeah.”
That night I woke up, quietly awakened by thoughts that rose in my mind of the night I had experienced. I lay in the quiet, peaceful darkness and recalled the night. Donna slept calmly beside me. I looked at her and silently thanked her for introducing me to the people I would come to call my community of *tofauti people-- my distinctive people. Then I looked out into the dark, peaceful night and I saw the sun.
(*Tofauti, Swahili word for distinctive. *Päto, Yoruba word for distinctive. African words I use in lieu of LGBTQ, etc.)
(Memoir appears in my book, 'A River Runs Beneath Us: Voices and Writings of The Griot Book Project)
THE CHRISTMAS PLAY (1962)
My mother’s words were gentle but stern: “Douggie, you have to take your time and think about what you’re saying. Don’t just say words. Think about what you’re saying.”
But I couldn’t because the whole thing didn’t make sense to me. After all, who was Amahl and what were ‘night visitors’ anyway?
It was the holiday season of 1962 and my teacher, Miss White, and some of the other teachers got the crazy notion that I should be in the grade school’s production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors”. I had been given the part I was to say, but none of it made sense to me and I was having a difficult time remembering my lines. So that night my mother and I sat in the kitchen and went over my lines. From the living room I heard “The Rifleman” coming on TV, the sound of Chuck Connors firing his Winchester, ‘pow pow pow pow pow pow’ and the announcer: “The Rifleman. Starring Chuck Connors”. That was one of my favorite shows and I was about to miss it because of a stupid play.
“Stop looking in there at the TV and pay attention,” my mother warned. From the living room I saw my brother and sister turn and look into the kitchen, then return their gaze to the TV set.
It was two days before the play and the few lines I was given still weren’t sinking in. Suddenly I was hungry, and I was tired even though we ate a hearty dinner an hour or two earlier, and it wasn’t late. “You’re not hungry,” my mother said. “Momma, I really am.” I whined and lay my head on the kitchen table. “I’m really hungry and I’m getting tired.” My mother told me I couldn’t have anything to eat until later and that I’d better get my head up off that table. I sat up, and we went over my lines a few more times until, finally exhaustion set in on my mother and she advised me, “You’re going to be the only one in the play who don’t know his lines. And when everyone turns and looks at you to say your lines, you’re going to be so embarrassed, right there in front of all of those people.” She got up and walked away. She knew she had given me a punch to the chest with her warning. She got up from the table and just walked away. SHE WALKED AWAY! I couldn’t believe it! She actually walked away! I’m not sure where she went, either into the living room or maybe upstairs (you know, just to really get to me). I knew I had to learn those lines.
The night of the play was cold and crisp. I walked beside my mother down the hill towards the elementary school. She didn’t say much about me knowing my lines except, “Douggie, I hope you remembered your lines.” “Yes ma’am. I think I remember them.” “Well, I hope so.”
When we walked through the door of the gymnasium where the play was to take place, I gasped. I never knew our gymnasium could look so neat! The middle of the gym floor had been transformed into a manger and all about it were mounds of hay and cardboard huts. That’s when I knew that this was the big league! Real theater was in the works here, so I knew I had to deliver— which made me nervous, and I had to pee.
“Go ahead and get ready,” my mother said. “I’ll be in the hallway until they let the audience in.”
I ran off to the restroom. After using the toilet, I hung out with the other boys in the restroom (which also served as our dressing room). We joked around and wrestled each other like we always did until Mr. Garret came in and scolded us.
“You’re acting like little heathens!” Mr. Garret barked as he waved his hands dissuasively through the air. Like all of our teachers, Mr. Garrett ensured our behavior was emblematic of pride and what was possible in a Negro city with a Negro school system. The eyes of outsiders were and would always be on us in expectation of failure. We quickly stopped horsing around. Mr. Garret was the music teacher. He was a stern man with a lithe frame and lean face with prominent cheek bones, and wavy hair. Like so many negroes, he definitely had ‘some Indian blood in him’. “Now stand up and act like gentlemen,” he said. This time he waved his hands delicately through the air. “Start getting dressed.”
Some of the guys were there to help us get into our costumes and made sure we looked the way Mr. Garrett told them he wanted us to look. In a half-hour the show was on.
It was a packed house that night. As the cast walked into the gymnasium, we slowed and stood in awe of the number of people in the bleachers and of the set and the gel-colored lights that spread along the floor. Yep. Showtime! Big ‘Showtime’!
As usual, the program began with the audience singing ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’, which was the Negro national anthem and was sung at the opening of all school events in Lincoln Heights. Finally, the evening went on with all the actors doing their parts. Some couldn’t remember all of their lines and I saw the looks on their faces. That could be me soon. I moved past the sudden fear that gripped me and became enthralled with the production that was unfolding before me, amazed at what we were doing. Even Charles sang his solo in a voice that was so strong and clear that it left me with my mouth hanging open — I never knew Charles could sing like that.
Finally, the time came. The group of villagers walked forward. As one of the villagers, I walked with the others, but my knees shook. One by one each villager said his and her part. The words from their mouths moved along the line of actors and I watched as each line was spoken and how each moment moved closer and closer to when I was to say my lines. My knees buckled slightly, and I looked into the audience to find my mother’s face. The gymnasium was dark, and the stage lights blinded me a little, but I think I saw my mother’s face and she was smiling at me with confidence. I now felt capable and when it came time to do my lines I spoke them. I can’t remember what I said, but I said it. And the moment was over.
The rest of the play was a success. Everyone stood and filled the gymnasium with applause, and we bowed and bowed again to thunderous applause from these Afro American parents and teachers who worked so hard to build this little town and this school which held within it these brown and black babies; and after it was over and the actors changed back into their street clothes, we headed for home.
As my mother and I walked up the hill she held my hand. “Douggie, I’m so proud of you. You did really well!” I looked up at her and the smile on her face told me that whatever happened, if I got my lines right or kind of right, that she loved me and she was proud of me. Together we walked up the street. The night air was crisp and cold, and the stars were bright. (Photo: Lincoln Heights Elementary School, my elementary school)
(Memoir appears in my book, 'A River Runs Beneath Us: Voices and Writings of The Griot Book Project)
But I couldn’t because the whole thing didn’t make sense to me. After all, who was Amahl and what were ‘night visitors’ anyway?
It was the holiday season of 1962 and my teacher, Miss White, and some of the other teachers got the crazy notion that I should be in the grade school’s production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors”. I had been given the part I was to say, but none of it made sense to me and I was having a difficult time remembering my lines. So that night my mother and I sat in the kitchen and went over my lines. From the living room I heard “The Rifleman” coming on TV, the sound of Chuck Connors firing his Winchester, ‘pow pow pow pow pow pow’ and the announcer: “The Rifleman. Starring Chuck Connors”. That was one of my favorite shows and I was about to miss it because of a stupid play.
“Stop looking in there at the TV and pay attention,” my mother warned. From the living room I saw my brother and sister turn and look into the kitchen, then return their gaze to the TV set.
It was two days before the play and the few lines I was given still weren’t sinking in. Suddenly I was hungry, and I was tired even though we ate a hearty dinner an hour or two earlier, and it wasn’t late. “You’re not hungry,” my mother said. “Momma, I really am.” I whined and lay my head on the kitchen table. “I’m really hungry and I’m getting tired.” My mother told me I couldn’t have anything to eat until later and that I’d better get my head up off that table. I sat up, and we went over my lines a few more times until, finally exhaustion set in on my mother and she advised me, “You’re going to be the only one in the play who don’t know his lines. And when everyone turns and looks at you to say your lines, you’re going to be so embarrassed, right there in front of all of those people.” She got up and walked away. She knew she had given me a punch to the chest with her warning. She got up from the table and just walked away. SHE WALKED AWAY! I couldn’t believe it! She actually walked away! I’m not sure where she went, either into the living room or maybe upstairs (you know, just to really get to me). I knew I had to learn those lines.
The night of the play was cold and crisp. I walked beside my mother down the hill towards the elementary school. She didn’t say much about me knowing my lines except, “Douggie, I hope you remembered your lines.” “Yes ma’am. I think I remember them.” “Well, I hope so.”
When we walked through the door of the gymnasium where the play was to take place, I gasped. I never knew our gymnasium could look so neat! The middle of the gym floor had been transformed into a manger and all about it were mounds of hay and cardboard huts. That’s when I knew that this was the big league! Real theater was in the works here, so I knew I had to deliver— which made me nervous, and I had to pee.
“Go ahead and get ready,” my mother said. “I’ll be in the hallway until they let the audience in.”
I ran off to the restroom. After using the toilet, I hung out with the other boys in the restroom (which also served as our dressing room). We joked around and wrestled each other like we always did until Mr. Garret came in and scolded us.
“You’re acting like little heathens!” Mr. Garret barked as he waved his hands dissuasively through the air. Like all of our teachers, Mr. Garrett ensured our behavior was emblematic of pride and what was possible in a Negro city with a Negro school system. The eyes of outsiders were and would always be on us in expectation of failure. We quickly stopped horsing around. Mr. Garret was the music teacher. He was a stern man with a lithe frame and lean face with prominent cheek bones, and wavy hair. Like so many negroes, he definitely had ‘some Indian blood in him’. “Now stand up and act like gentlemen,” he said. This time he waved his hands delicately through the air. “Start getting dressed.”
Some of the guys were there to help us get into our costumes and made sure we looked the way Mr. Garrett told them he wanted us to look. In a half-hour the show was on.
It was a packed house that night. As the cast walked into the gymnasium, we slowed and stood in awe of the number of people in the bleachers and of the set and the gel-colored lights that spread along the floor. Yep. Showtime! Big ‘Showtime’!
As usual, the program began with the audience singing ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’, which was the Negro national anthem and was sung at the opening of all school events in Lincoln Heights. Finally, the evening went on with all the actors doing their parts. Some couldn’t remember all of their lines and I saw the looks on their faces. That could be me soon. I moved past the sudden fear that gripped me and became enthralled with the production that was unfolding before me, amazed at what we were doing. Even Charles sang his solo in a voice that was so strong and clear that it left me with my mouth hanging open — I never knew Charles could sing like that.
Finally, the time came. The group of villagers walked forward. As one of the villagers, I walked with the others, but my knees shook. One by one each villager said his and her part. The words from their mouths moved along the line of actors and I watched as each line was spoken and how each moment moved closer and closer to when I was to say my lines. My knees buckled slightly, and I looked into the audience to find my mother’s face. The gymnasium was dark, and the stage lights blinded me a little, but I think I saw my mother’s face and she was smiling at me with confidence. I now felt capable and when it came time to do my lines I spoke them. I can’t remember what I said, but I said it. And the moment was over.
The rest of the play was a success. Everyone stood and filled the gymnasium with applause, and we bowed and bowed again to thunderous applause from these Afro American parents and teachers who worked so hard to build this little town and this school which held within it these brown and black babies; and after it was over and the actors changed back into their street clothes, we headed for home.
As my mother and I walked up the hill she held my hand. “Douggie, I’m so proud of you. You did really well!” I looked up at her and the smile on her face told me that whatever happened, if I got my lines right or kind of right, that she loved me and she was proud of me. Together we walked up the street. The night air was crisp and cold, and the stars were bright. (Photo: Lincoln Heights Elementary School, my elementary school)
(Memoir appears in my book, 'A River Runs Beneath Us: Voices and Writings of The Griot Book Project)
CARNIVAL (1961)
Every summer St. Rita’s School for the Deaf held a festival to raise money for its students. The festival was held on the bucolic grounds of the large school and was attended from all the towns near Evendale, Ohio, where the school was located.
From the newly constructed highway that we rode along as we came from grocery shopping on Fridays, I saw the Ferris wheel and the lights of the carnival. The year was 1961; I was six years old and acted every bit of a six-year-old boy as I pounced on the back seat of our car.
“Daddy! Daddy! Momma! We goin’ to the festival?”
My older brother and sister chimed in their agreement. My little sister bounced up and down beside us in the back seat as she looked out the window at the brilliance of the grounds. At first my father chuckled, then he answered that he would take us there.
“When?” My older sister almost demanded. That was her way, even at eight years of age. We called her Miss Bossy.
“Um…” My father sought a date in his head.
“Sunday,” my mother said. “We’ll take you Sunday.”
“Sunday,” my father agreed. To be honest, I think my father had other plans for one of his off days, but he couldn’t tell four rambunctious kids ‘No’.
Two nights and one half of a day, I held onto the breath that would let out a ‘whoop’ when I would run across the festival grounds. Finally, Sunday came, and my older brother and sister and I went through the whole Sunday routine: Morning Sunday School, then back home where we changed out of our Sunday clothes and ran amok in the neighborhood until my mother came home from church and fixed Sunday dinner. The entire time of going through the routine, it was going to the festival that stayed on my mind.
Finally. Sunday evening. My father gathered my older siblings and me together, told my younger sister that he would bring her ice cream back to settle her disappointment at not going with us. She was only three, and since my mother would not be going because she wanted to stay home with my infant brother, my parents felt only the oldest of the children should go.
My father pulled our car into the lot of the school and festival. I was kneeling up in the front seat (seat belts weren’t installed in cars then). I watched the long blue hood of our Buick move along the lot and into a parking space. In a heartbeat after my father put the car in park, my brother, my sister and I were out of the car and ready to roll!
“Hold my hand, Douggie,” my father said. I had a reputation for being rowdy. I wanted to run and whoop like I saw in my head the previous night, but at the same time I’d always enjoyed holding onto my father’s strong hand and the security it gave. My brother, who was the eldest of us, three years older than me, walked a little ahead of us with my sister by his side. He was always the silent leader.
Once we were on the festival grounds my father gave my brother some money and my brother bought tickets for he, my sister and me to ride the rides. I immediately wanted to ride the carousel. I even had the horse picked out that I wanted to ride. We rode the carousel, and as it went around, I watched my father each time my horse came by him. He waved and continued to talk to another man. There wasn’t anywhere my father could go where he didn’t know someone.
After we got off the carousel, my brother insisted we get on a ride that was like saucers that spun and whirled. My sister agreed and they took me by the hand and walked up to the attendant.
“Three,” my brother said, and the attendant took our tickets.
The attendant came around and locked down the arms of the cars and walked back out front. My brother, my sister and I were bouncing with joy. We looked at the kids in other cars who were also bouncing with joy.
After a bit, the attendant came back around and began undoing some of the restraints and telling some of the kids they had to get off. He came to us.
“You’re gonna have to get off.” He spoke matter of factly.
We were confused. Maybe we’d bounced too much… maybe…
Disappointed, we walked back to the entrance and as we were at the entrance, we encountered our father who was yelling to us.
“Get back on that ride!” “Get back on that ride!” He was angry.
My brother, my sister and I stopped. We didn’t know what to do. It was then that, looking around we saw that the attendant, a burly white guy with ruddy cheeks, had removed all the black kids from the ride in order to let a group of white kids who came on the line get on the ride.
“You hear me? Get back on!” This time my father had made his way to the entrance to the ride.
I was so confused. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it appeared my older siblings did. Now my father and the attendant were arguing. I became afraid because I knew how hot-headed my father could be and didn’t want him to get in trouble. I began to cry. My sister put her arm around me, and my brother told me to “shut up!”
In no time, my father was surrounded by three white policemen who demanded he leave the fairground. Now my father was arguing with the policemen. Suddenly, my sister cried out, “Daddy!”
The sound of her voice caught my father’s attention and pulled him from his rage.
“Let’s go!” My father roared like thunder and led us from the grounds of the festival. As we walked to the festival entrance, I looked back at the other black kids who had been removed from the ride as they waited for a chance to get back on the ride that spun and whirled.
(Memoir appears in my book, 'A River Runs Beneath Us: Voices and Writings of The Griot Book Project)
From the newly constructed highway that we rode along as we came from grocery shopping on Fridays, I saw the Ferris wheel and the lights of the carnival. The year was 1961; I was six years old and acted every bit of a six-year-old boy as I pounced on the back seat of our car.
“Daddy! Daddy! Momma! We goin’ to the festival?”
My older brother and sister chimed in their agreement. My little sister bounced up and down beside us in the back seat as she looked out the window at the brilliance of the grounds. At first my father chuckled, then he answered that he would take us there.
“When?” My older sister almost demanded. That was her way, even at eight years of age. We called her Miss Bossy.
“Um…” My father sought a date in his head.
“Sunday,” my mother said. “We’ll take you Sunday.”
“Sunday,” my father agreed. To be honest, I think my father had other plans for one of his off days, but he couldn’t tell four rambunctious kids ‘No’.
Two nights and one half of a day, I held onto the breath that would let out a ‘whoop’ when I would run across the festival grounds. Finally, Sunday came, and my older brother and sister and I went through the whole Sunday routine: Morning Sunday School, then back home where we changed out of our Sunday clothes and ran amok in the neighborhood until my mother came home from church and fixed Sunday dinner. The entire time of going through the routine, it was going to the festival that stayed on my mind.
Finally. Sunday evening. My father gathered my older siblings and me together, told my younger sister that he would bring her ice cream back to settle her disappointment at not going with us. She was only three, and since my mother would not be going because she wanted to stay home with my infant brother, my parents felt only the oldest of the children should go.
My father pulled our car into the lot of the school and festival. I was kneeling up in the front seat (seat belts weren’t installed in cars then). I watched the long blue hood of our Buick move along the lot and into a parking space. In a heartbeat after my father put the car in park, my brother, my sister and I were out of the car and ready to roll!
“Hold my hand, Douggie,” my father said. I had a reputation for being rowdy. I wanted to run and whoop like I saw in my head the previous night, but at the same time I’d always enjoyed holding onto my father’s strong hand and the security it gave. My brother, who was the eldest of us, three years older than me, walked a little ahead of us with my sister by his side. He was always the silent leader.
Once we were on the festival grounds my father gave my brother some money and my brother bought tickets for he, my sister and me to ride the rides. I immediately wanted to ride the carousel. I even had the horse picked out that I wanted to ride. We rode the carousel, and as it went around, I watched my father each time my horse came by him. He waved and continued to talk to another man. There wasn’t anywhere my father could go where he didn’t know someone.
After we got off the carousel, my brother insisted we get on a ride that was like saucers that spun and whirled. My sister agreed and they took me by the hand and walked up to the attendant.
“Three,” my brother said, and the attendant took our tickets.
The attendant came around and locked down the arms of the cars and walked back out front. My brother, my sister and I were bouncing with joy. We looked at the kids in other cars who were also bouncing with joy.
After a bit, the attendant came back around and began undoing some of the restraints and telling some of the kids they had to get off. He came to us.
“You’re gonna have to get off.” He spoke matter of factly.
We were confused. Maybe we’d bounced too much… maybe…
Disappointed, we walked back to the entrance and as we were at the entrance, we encountered our father who was yelling to us.
“Get back on that ride!” “Get back on that ride!” He was angry.
My brother, my sister and I stopped. We didn’t know what to do. It was then that, looking around we saw that the attendant, a burly white guy with ruddy cheeks, had removed all the black kids from the ride in order to let a group of white kids who came on the line get on the ride.
“You hear me? Get back on!” This time my father had made his way to the entrance to the ride.
I was so confused. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it appeared my older siblings did. Now my father and the attendant were arguing. I became afraid because I knew how hot-headed my father could be and didn’t want him to get in trouble. I began to cry. My sister put her arm around me, and my brother told me to “shut up!”
In no time, my father was surrounded by three white policemen who demanded he leave the fairground. Now my father was arguing with the policemen. Suddenly, my sister cried out, “Daddy!”
The sound of her voice caught my father’s attention and pulled him from his rage.
“Let’s go!” My father roared like thunder and led us from the grounds of the festival. As we walked to the festival entrance, I looked back at the other black kids who had been removed from the ride as they waited for a chance to get back on the ride that spun and whirled.
(Memoir appears in my book, 'A River Runs Beneath Us: Voices and Writings of The Griot Book Project)
THE NIGHT WE BURNED DOWN THE HOUSE OF DAVID (1977)
We were pulling into port in Newport Rhode Island. It was an unexpected change to our deployment because the admiral suddenly decided he needed to see his ‘lady friend’ before we headed out to sea. That was the word circulating around our ship. No one was happy, but the admiral was the admiral, so what could we do?
Three days in Newport, so why not make the best of it? I was off duty for those three days. So was Tony. So was Kenny. Even Jerome was off and even decided to go ashore with us. We were surprised because the slightly older, world-worn Jerome usually chilled onboard. He’d been enlisted longer than Tony, Kenny, and me, had seen it all… all the ports, kicking it with various trade from port to port, so he chilled these days onboard and read books.
“Child, I hope it’s some fine brothas in Newport,” Tony said as he and I joined Kenny who met us outside of his berth, cool as ever. “Yeah,” Kenny said in his Harlem-cool voice.
“Doug. Kenny. Guess y’all ain’t going out with us,” Trap said as he looked at Kenny and me. Kenny and I hung with both crowds, the gay and the ‘them not so’, as we used to call the guys who weren’t gay. There definitely were gay men on our ship, even though it was still ‘against military regulations to be homosexual’, and this was before the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy that would come years later. At that time, simply being known as homosexual meant expulsion, though being known meant actually having been caught in a same-sex act or admission to it. For the most part, it was the ‘straight’ guys from urban areas that had no problem with the guys who were seen as gay. But those shipmates from small town, southern and ‘middle America’ had to come around to reality. Trap was definitely of the ‘them not so’ group and who didn’t care if you were gay. He was a big guy. Large, brown and muscled with a closely trimmed beard and close-cropped Afro (our fro’s couldn’t exceed three inches in height), and both his beard and Afro always shone and smelled sweet from Afro Sheen.
“Nah Kenny said.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Trap said as he grinned at Tony.
“Oh fuck you, Trap,” Tony said. Then he and Trap laughed, and Trap playfully and gently mugged Tony upside his head. The large, macho Trap and the smaller, effete Tony cared for each other. They were from the same neighborhood back in DC and their friendship carried on to their time in the Navy.
Tony, Kenny and I made our way to the berth where Jerome stayed. “I’m almost ready, Jerome said.” He was rushing from the shower.
“Girl, hurry up,” Tony said.
“I am.”
The three of us waited outside of Jerome’s berth. In a bit he came out. Our mouths fell open. We’d never seen Jerome out of uniform. But not only that, he had a large woman’s fur coat draped over his arm.
“Oh!” I gasped.
“It’s my mother’s. She let me have it.”
“Okay….” Kenny said, and the four of us headed for the deck.
Word rolled through the ship that not only was the much-revered Jerome leaving ship, but that he had a woman’s fur coat. By the time we made our way to the deck, a bunch of our shipmates lined up to see what Jerome would do. It was a cold and windy day as each of us saluted the Officer on Deck and headed down the gangplank. When the OOD saw Jerome and the fur coat, he smiled and shook his head. One by one the four of my crew walked down the gangplank. Once on shore Jerome turned and looked up at the ship. All along the edge of the ship near the deck guys gathered and waited, eyeing Jerome. Jerome looked up at them looking down at him, and in a dramatic gesture he swung the fur coat in the wind and draped it over his shoulders. The guys hanging over the ship broke into applause and yelled his name, “YEAH JEROME”! and whistled their approval. And with that bit of theater the four of us got into one of the taxis waiting along the dock.
“You guys come off The Mount Whitney?” the driver asked. He was a husky Italian American guy.
“Uh, huh,” I said as I sat up front. My buddies always put me up front with the drivers because they felt besides Kenny, I was the one who could ‘pass’, and I was more talkative whereas Kenny was so cool he rarely spoke to strangers.
“So where you guys wanna go?” the driver asked. He began to name various bars where he informed us we could find “some hot broads. Colored ones and white ones!”
My buddies and I fell silent as we searched for a way to let this imperceptive taxi driver know what we were out for that night. Finally, an exhausted Tony leaned over the front seat. “Honey. We want men.”
Our heretofore clueless taxi driver suddenly broke out, “Oh! Then you guys want The House of David!”
The House of David was on a narrow, winding side street. Its lights winked at us from the night and half-light that fell along the street. There was no sign out front, as there usually weren’t for gay bars back then for the sake of anonymity. The only light was the faded light that came through the window and a beer sign that blazed in the window. From outside it looked like a small joint.
“Do we wanna go there?” Tony asked. “Looks kinda seedy to me.”
“Looks okay to me,” Kenny said.
I added, “Me too.” It was the kind of place I tended to like if there was to be no dancing. For dancing I needed space, and lights, and booming music. But that evening a comfortable bar was fine. A cool space and cool people. Besides if this was all Newport had to offer, then that was that. I was about to ask the driver if this was all there was when Jerome spoke up.
“It’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
“Okay,” Tony said as we disembarked from the taxi. “I don’t wanna have to pop a bitch.”
We walked up to the door of the bar and heard music and laughter coming from inside. Someone, a man, shrieked in a high voice.
“Yep, this is the place,” Tony said, and we went inside.
When we stepped inside heads immediately turned to us before going back to the drinks and conversation before them.
Inside, The House of David was a bit larger than I expected: there was the bar, and adjoining the bar was a room that was somewhat larger and open and held small tables where guys sat and talked and laughed over music that was coming from a corner table where a man played records on an aged record player. The music was pumped through speakers that were mounted along the walls. From the ceiling various colored lights came on and off in the best attempt they had at attaining a dance club atmosphere.
After we got drinks Tony, Kenny, Jerome and I sat at one of the tables.
“I think we’re the only black guys in here,” Kenny said.
“No. I saw one or two,” I said.
Tony turned around, scanning the bar, “How did they look?”
“Mm mm,” I shrugged. “I didn’t stare them down.”
With a click of his tongue, Tony schooled me. “Girl, you should always check ‘em out. Always.”
We sat for a while listening to the music and watching guys dance under the feeble ‘disco’ lights.
“Music’s lame,” Kenny drawled. “So is the dancing.”
“Get used to it. You’ll be in a lot of places like this,” Jerome advised. “You just make the best of it. Besides, you’ll usually find you’ll have a good time if you let it all just happen.
We nodded in agreement and continued to take in the bar and throw back our drinks, getting one serving after another.
After about an hour since we got there the DJ announced that there would be a dance contest.
“I know you’ve all been waiting for the dance contest. Well, let’s see what you can do! We’ll do a couple of songs and then, David and Richard will pick out the best dancer. Oh— by the way, David says whoever wins will get a bottle of champagne!” A man who was standing beside him held up the bottle and waved it in the air. And with that, the dance contest began. As the music played the four of us politely watched couples dancing on the small dance floor. Some men held each other and danced while some couples moved about and waved their hands wildly through the air. Kenny, Jerome, Tony and I politely sat to the side and glanced at each other with looks that said ‘Child, I do not do Abba’.
Then, seemingly out of the mundane, there was the sudden thunderous beat of a drum, and an electric piano and heavy bass as Bonnie Pointer’s ‘Free Me From My Freedom’ came on. I jumped up because I loved that song! That was MY Song! “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I said to anyone, anyone sitting at my table. “That’s my jam.”
“Mine too!” Jerome said with more excitement than I’d ever heard from him.
Jerome and I went onto the dance floor and started dancing. We were the only black guys on the dance floor and quite possibly the only black guys any of the guys in the bar had ever seen dance together, by the way everyone looked our way.
“When I asked you for my freedom….
Little did I know…”
Bonnie started to sing, and Jerome and I got into the groove. The song took me over as it usually did, and I could see it had the same effect on Jerome. We danced our asses off as the song went on. Then I saw how much attention we had and recalled that it was a dance contest. “Let’s get that champagne,” I said to Jerome and Jerome nodded with a grin. Midway through the song I whispered to Jerome, let’s give ‘em The Gangster Walk.
And without missing a beat, Jerome and I broke into The Gangster Walk. We knew we had to give to these guys who probably had never seen ‘hood dancing’ before. We Gangster Walked through the rest of the song. Jerome turned his back to me and I raised my arms just so he could fit into the space of my chest and ‘rocked’ (gangster walked) together, lowering ourselves to the floor and slowly back up again.
When the song ended and the judges made their decision, it was with no doubt that Jerome and I won the contest and the champagne. Since we couldn’t take the champagne back onboard our ship, we broke open the bottle and shared it with the other guys in the bar.
That was a night I remember so well because that was the night we burned down The House of David.
Three days in Newport, so why not make the best of it? I was off duty for those three days. So was Tony. So was Kenny. Even Jerome was off and even decided to go ashore with us. We were surprised because the slightly older, world-worn Jerome usually chilled onboard. He’d been enlisted longer than Tony, Kenny, and me, had seen it all… all the ports, kicking it with various trade from port to port, so he chilled these days onboard and read books.
“Child, I hope it’s some fine brothas in Newport,” Tony said as he and I joined Kenny who met us outside of his berth, cool as ever. “Yeah,” Kenny said in his Harlem-cool voice.
“Doug. Kenny. Guess y’all ain’t going out with us,” Trap said as he looked at Kenny and me. Kenny and I hung with both crowds, the gay and the ‘them not so’, as we used to call the guys who weren’t gay. There definitely were gay men on our ship, even though it was still ‘against military regulations to be homosexual’, and this was before the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy that would come years later. At that time, simply being known as homosexual meant expulsion, though being known meant actually having been caught in a same-sex act or admission to it. For the most part, it was the ‘straight’ guys from urban areas that had no problem with the guys who were seen as gay. But those shipmates from small town, southern and ‘middle America’ had to come around to reality. Trap was definitely of the ‘them not so’ group and who didn’t care if you were gay. He was a big guy. Large, brown and muscled with a closely trimmed beard and close-cropped Afro (our fro’s couldn’t exceed three inches in height), and both his beard and Afro always shone and smelled sweet from Afro Sheen.
“Nah Kenny said.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Trap said as he grinned at Tony.
“Oh fuck you, Trap,” Tony said. Then he and Trap laughed, and Trap playfully and gently mugged Tony upside his head. The large, macho Trap and the smaller, effete Tony cared for each other. They were from the same neighborhood back in DC and their friendship carried on to their time in the Navy.
Tony, Kenny and I made our way to the berth where Jerome stayed. “I’m almost ready, Jerome said.” He was rushing from the shower.
“Girl, hurry up,” Tony said.
“I am.”
The three of us waited outside of Jerome’s berth. In a bit he came out. Our mouths fell open. We’d never seen Jerome out of uniform. But not only that, he had a large woman’s fur coat draped over his arm.
“Oh!” I gasped.
“It’s my mother’s. She let me have it.”
“Okay….” Kenny said, and the four of us headed for the deck.
Word rolled through the ship that not only was the much-revered Jerome leaving ship, but that he had a woman’s fur coat. By the time we made our way to the deck, a bunch of our shipmates lined up to see what Jerome would do. It was a cold and windy day as each of us saluted the Officer on Deck and headed down the gangplank. When the OOD saw Jerome and the fur coat, he smiled and shook his head. One by one the four of my crew walked down the gangplank. Once on shore Jerome turned and looked up at the ship. All along the edge of the ship near the deck guys gathered and waited, eyeing Jerome. Jerome looked up at them looking down at him, and in a dramatic gesture he swung the fur coat in the wind and draped it over his shoulders. The guys hanging over the ship broke into applause and yelled his name, “YEAH JEROME”! and whistled their approval. And with that bit of theater the four of us got into one of the taxis waiting along the dock.
“You guys come off The Mount Whitney?” the driver asked. He was a husky Italian American guy.
“Uh, huh,” I said as I sat up front. My buddies always put me up front with the drivers because they felt besides Kenny, I was the one who could ‘pass’, and I was more talkative whereas Kenny was so cool he rarely spoke to strangers.
“So where you guys wanna go?” the driver asked. He began to name various bars where he informed us we could find “some hot broads. Colored ones and white ones!”
My buddies and I fell silent as we searched for a way to let this imperceptive taxi driver know what we were out for that night. Finally, an exhausted Tony leaned over the front seat. “Honey. We want men.”
Our heretofore clueless taxi driver suddenly broke out, “Oh! Then you guys want The House of David!”
The House of David was on a narrow, winding side street. Its lights winked at us from the night and half-light that fell along the street. There was no sign out front, as there usually weren’t for gay bars back then for the sake of anonymity. The only light was the faded light that came through the window and a beer sign that blazed in the window. From outside it looked like a small joint.
“Do we wanna go there?” Tony asked. “Looks kinda seedy to me.”
“Looks okay to me,” Kenny said.
I added, “Me too.” It was the kind of place I tended to like if there was to be no dancing. For dancing I needed space, and lights, and booming music. But that evening a comfortable bar was fine. A cool space and cool people. Besides if this was all Newport had to offer, then that was that. I was about to ask the driver if this was all there was when Jerome spoke up.
“It’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
“Okay,” Tony said as we disembarked from the taxi. “I don’t wanna have to pop a bitch.”
We walked up to the door of the bar and heard music and laughter coming from inside. Someone, a man, shrieked in a high voice.
“Yep, this is the place,” Tony said, and we went inside.
When we stepped inside heads immediately turned to us before going back to the drinks and conversation before them.
Inside, The House of David was a bit larger than I expected: there was the bar, and adjoining the bar was a room that was somewhat larger and open and held small tables where guys sat and talked and laughed over music that was coming from a corner table where a man played records on an aged record player. The music was pumped through speakers that were mounted along the walls. From the ceiling various colored lights came on and off in the best attempt they had at attaining a dance club atmosphere.
After we got drinks Tony, Kenny, Jerome and I sat at one of the tables.
“I think we’re the only black guys in here,” Kenny said.
“No. I saw one or two,” I said.
Tony turned around, scanning the bar, “How did they look?”
“Mm mm,” I shrugged. “I didn’t stare them down.”
With a click of his tongue, Tony schooled me. “Girl, you should always check ‘em out. Always.”
We sat for a while listening to the music and watching guys dance under the feeble ‘disco’ lights.
“Music’s lame,” Kenny drawled. “So is the dancing.”
“Get used to it. You’ll be in a lot of places like this,” Jerome advised. “You just make the best of it. Besides, you’ll usually find you’ll have a good time if you let it all just happen.
We nodded in agreement and continued to take in the bar and throw back our drinks, getting one serving after another.
After about an hour since we got there the DJ announced that there would be a dance contest.
“I know you’ve all been waiting for the dance contest. Well, let’s see what you can do! We’ll do a couple of songs and then, David and Richard will pick out the best dancer. Oh— by the way, David says whoever wins will get a bottle of champagne!” A man who was standing beside him held up the bottle and waved it in the air. And with that, the dance contest began. As the music played the four of us politely watched couples dancing on the small dance floor. Some men held each other and danced while some couples moved about and waved their hands wildly through the air. Kenny, Jerome, Tony and I politely sat to the side and glanced at each other with looks that said ‘Child, I do not do Abba’.
Then, seemingly out of the mundane, there was the sudden thunderous beat of a drum, and an electric piano and heavy bass as Bonnie Pointer’s ‘Free Me From My Freedom’ came on. I jumped up because I loved that song! That was MY Song! “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I said to anyone, anyone sitting at my table. “That’s my jam.”
“Mine too!” Jerome said with more excitement than I’d ever heard from him.
Jerome and I went onto the dance floor and started dancing. We were the only black guys on the dance floor and quite possibly the only black guys any of the guys in the bar had ever seen dance together, by the way everyone looked our way.
“When I asked you for my freedom….
Little did I know…”
Bonnie started to sing, and Jerome and I got into the groove. The song took me over as it usually did, and I could see it had the same effect on Jerome. We danced our asses off as the song went on. Then I saw how much attention we had and recalled that it was a dance contest. “Let’s get that champagne,” I said to Jerome and Jerome nodded with a grin. Midway through the song I whispered to Jerome, let’s give ‘em The Gangster Walk.
And without missing a beat, Jerome and I broke into The Gangster Walk. We knew we had to give to these guys who probably had never seen ‘hood dancing’ before. We Gangster Walked through the rest of the song. Jerome turned his back to me and I raised my arms just so he could fit into the space of my chest and ‘rocked’ (gangster walked) together, lowering ourselves to the floor and slowly back up again.
When the song ended and the judges made their decision, it was with no doubt that Jerome and I won the contest and the champagne. Since we couldn’t take the champagne back onboard our ship, we broke open the bottle and shared it with the other guys in the bar.
That was a night I remember so well because that was the night we burned down The House of David.
THE SILENT COMPANION
“… I recalled having an eventful day in that car… My father looked confused. “You weren’t born when we had that car.”
I remember that car so well. But my parents said they sold the car two years before I was born.
And yet, the memory of riding in the car is so vivid. It was a light green 1949 Chevy, brown interior with brown ribbed cloth material for the seats.
All of this I recounted to my father one day when he and I were reminiscing about the cars our family had owned. I was around seventeen at the time, and sitting around with my father talking about cars was common. He loved cars. He was a mechanic and trucker with the famous Red Ball Express during WWII, so yeah, cars and mechanics were always on his mind.
But that evening took an odd turn.
“Daddy, what year was that light green Chevy we had?” I remember feeling the kind of ‘oh yeah’ moment a person has when they find an opportunity to bring up something that had been on their mind. After all, I recalled having an eventful day in that car.
My father looked confused. “You weren’t born when we had that car.”
Well, I was just as confused as he was because I remembered the car so well.
I went on to describe it to him.
“Yep, that was how it looked. But we sold that car before you were born. And we don’t have no pictures of it.”
We had no photos of any of the cars we owned, though looking back, I wish we did.
To make sure he wasn’t mistaken (or ‘goin’ crazy’ as he always put it), he called to the next room where my mother was. “You remember that ’49 Chevy we had?”
My mother came to the doorway of the living room. “Yeah.”
“Didn’t we get rid of that before Douggie was born?”
“Oh we got rid of that when Elaine was born.”
Elaine was my sister who was two years older than me.
“But I remember it,” I said. Once again, I described it, and this time even down to a small ‘L shaped’ tear in the front passenger seat.
“That tear. I did that with my umbrella one day when I was rushing out of the rain,” my mother said.
The room was silent as the three of us exchanged mystified looks.
Then we hunched our shoulders and continued the day.
I know I rode in that car. However, it was that incident, like another experience I had when I was ten years old (‘The Visitation: 1964’) which showed me that all around us are silent companions.
I remember that car so well. But my parents said they sold the car two years before I was born.
And yet, the memory of riding in the car is so vivid. It was a light green 1949 Chevy, brown interior with brown ribbed cloth material for the seats.
All of this I recounted to my father one day when he and I were reminiscing about the cars our family had owned. I was around seventeen at the time, and sitting around with my father talking about cars was common. He loved cars. He was a mechanic and trucker with the famous Red Ball Express during WWII, so yeah, cars and mechanics were always on his mind.
But that evening took an odd turn.
“Daddy, what year was that light green Chevy we had?” I remember feeling the kind of ‘oh yeah’ moment a person has when they find an opportunity to bring up something that had been on their mind. After all, I recalled having an eventful day in that car.
My father looked confused. “You weren’t born when we had that car.”
Well, I was just as confused as he was because I remembered the car so well.
I went on to describe it to him.
“Yep, that was how it looked. But we sold that car before you were born. And we don’t have no pictures of it.”
We had no photos of any of the cars we owned, though looking back, I wish we did.
To make sure he wasn’t mistaken (or ‘goin’ crazy’ as he always put it), he called to the next room where my mother was. “You remember that ’49 Chevy we had?”
My mother came to the doorway of the living room. “Yeah.”
“Didn’t we get rid of that before Douggie was born?”
“Oh we got rid of that when Elaine was born.”
Elaine was my sister who was two years older than me.
“But I remember it,” I said. Once again, I described it, and this time even down to a small ‘L shaped’ tear in the front passenger seat.
“That tear. I did that with my umbrella one day when I was rushing out of the rain,” my mother said.
The room was silent as the three of us exchanged mystified looks.
Then we hunched our shoulders and continued the day.
I know I rode in that car. However, it was that incident, like another experience I had when I was ten years old (‘The Visitation: 1964’) which showed me that all around us are silent companions.
THE VISITATION (1964)
|
He asked me if I knew Oscar. I told him no. He said Oscar was my uncle and that he had just entered the room.
I thought about it, aware of the room we were in, small and crowded with tattered books and old newspapers. The furniture on which we sat had seen its day. Bishop Nickerson sat behind his desk, a large wooden one. There was so much on his desk, but the only thing that stood out to me was a large book and a tin of smoking tobacco. “You sure?” Bishop Nickerson asked. Nodding my head I told him, “Yes sir. To the best of my knowledge.” “Well he just entered the room and he’s telling me he’s your uncle.” I moved around a bit in the lumpy old chair I was sitting in, feeling my hands move across the cracked leather, and I glanced at the door that had been closed, then to the corner behind the bishop. Nothing. “Okay,” Bishop Nickerson said. Then he turned a bit to his right and spoke to the invisible guest, “Guess you got the wrong place Oscar.” The bishop said this with a laugh and I laughed too, more out of relief. But I was there for a reason and I wanted results. After all, hadn’t I been brought there by my father because of a drawing I had shown him and the story behind the drawing? It was a sketch of a dream I'd been having off and on for almost ten years since 1964. And now, here it is, 1974 and once again-- the dream. It was a dream in which I awoke in my bedroom with a stranger sitting across the room from me. I recalled looking for my older brother who shared the bed with me, but he wasn’t there, just me and the stranger, a boy, sitting in a high back wooden chair staring out the window with his back to me. In the dream I can recall getting out of bed and walking to the boy who, by his stature, appeared to be my age at the time. As I walked up to him I saw what held his attention. Outside of the window were brilliant lights of orange and yellow that danced against the window and filled the sky. I stood a bit behind the boy and stared at the lights in awe. I remember that neither I, nor the boy had been frightened by the display of lights because there was no sense of danger just fascination. It was as if the lights were somehow connected to our being there. But to the boy it seemed as if it was more. The boy sat in silence, his feet dangling from the chair, looking ahead transfixed by the lights as if the lights were relating to him, as if there was a silent conversation going on between them. I wanted to see who the boy was, so I leaned around to look at his face and suddenly I was snapped back to only seeing his profile. I tried again and was back to my original position. No matter how hard I tried to look at the front of the boy’s face I found myself back to only seeing his profile. It was there the dream ended. The dream haunted me for years, recurring once or twice a year from the time I was a child to becoming a young man. Now I was nineteen, just a month from turning twenty years old and needed some answers. I'd heard about Bishop Nickerson from my family and the wondrous things he could do, but I doubted them. There had been times when I'd been invited to meet him, but me being a young college student, a rational thinker, I always turned the invitations down. But that Saturday afternoon, the day after having another glimpse of the dream I went to my father with the drawing I made. My father felt it was time for me to meet the bishop. So there we were, the bishop and me, sitting in the small crowded office that smelled of warmth, leather and old books. “So tell me how things are going with school,” the bishop asked. He asked the question partly out of interest with my life, but also to fill time until a revelation came. I sat back and looked at him. He was a short man, maybe five-two, with a complexion the color of coal, a fleece of silver woolen hair cut close to his head and shocking crystal blue eyes. “School’s alright, I guess.” “You guess?” He laughed and shifted himself on the old seat pillows he sat on to raise him to his desk. “You’d better be sure!” he remarked. “College is a good thing. We need more of our people in college.” “Yessir,” I remarked. I could hear my father out in the sanctuary of the small church cleaning and setting up chairs for service the next day. Bishop and I talked a bit more about what I had been doing with my life besides school. I told him only things I wanted him to know because I was beginning to learn to be cautious about the fact that I liked men. I wouldn’t tell him that, of course. After a while of talking the bishop stopped and looked across the room. “You sure you don’t know an Oscar? He’s still standing here and he insists he’s your uncle.” This time I thought more about it. Had either of my parents ever mentioned an Oscar in their stories? I couldn’t remember that name ever being mentioned. “Call your father in here,” Bishop Nickerson said. I called my father who came into the office. The bishop asked him the question and my father thought and rubbed his chin. “Can’t say I do.” “What about Sister Cooper? She didn’t have a brother named Oscar?” “No. Nope,” my father said, shaking his head. “Well you really got the wrong office,” Bishop said to the invisible man to his right. We all had a laugh and my father went back out into the church. A few minutes later, as Bishop Nickerson and I continued talking, my father tore through the door. “Oscar!” He stood with a bright face and his eyes were full of tears. “I forgot about Oscar! He was my older sister’s husband. He died--” Bishop Nickerson held up his hand. “In 1932.” “Yeah,” my father said, suddenly remembering. “He always said I was his favorite brother-in-law. My sister was much older than me, so Oscar was like a father to me. My daddy died when I was real young, so I can’t recall too much about him. But then my sister married Oscar and he became like a father to me.” The bishop nodded with a smile on his face. “Oscar’s laughing. He remembers that too.” My father went on. “I remember me and him used to sit on the back porch; him in his favorite rockin’ chair with me at his feet every mornin’ and watch the sun rise and we would just talk.” My father continued with the memories coming back. “And he always plowed the field with…” “His left suspender unbuckled,” the bishop and my father said together. “That’s Oscar,” my father said. He went on to tell how Oscar had contracted cancer, and how he, my father would sit with him on the back porch knowing that Oscar would be leaving him soon. “And one morning, while was sittin’ on the porch watchin’ the sun rise Oscar’s hand slowly dropped beside his rockin’ chair. I got up and looked at him, and then I went in the house and woke everybody up to tell’em Oscar was gone.” “Thanks Brother Cooper,” Bishop Nickerson said. “That’s all we need now.” I watched my father leave the office. I was stunned by the revelation. It was all there: morning, the wooden chair like Oscar’s rocking chair, the boy watching lights almost the color of a sunrise and a ten year old boy (my father would have been ten in 1932). I looked at the door my father had just closed, my mouth open, and then I looked back at the bishop. “Now he’s talking to me,” Bishop Nickerson said as he listened to Oscar. “He said what happened to you that morning wasn’t a dream. That he came into your room to visit you.” “But why?” “He says you remind him so much of your father that he just wanted to talk with you.” The bishop commenced to tell me what happened that morning. Oscar had come into my room and woke me. He said Oscar didn’t wake the physical self, but he woke my spiritual self so the two of us could spend some time together. I asked what Oscar had shown me, and the bishop said things that I shouldn’t remember. It was why I can only remember flashing lights instead of what he showed me outside of the window. And in answering why the boy in the chair, who was obviously me, would never let me see his face, the bishop said whenever a person sees someone in a dream but can’t see his or her face then the person is the dreamer. I was the boy in the chair. Time went by as the bishop told me things that Oscar was telling him. Things about me, and how I should not live in fear and that I would travel many places and meet many people in my lifetime, and to trust and have faith because things would be all right. Then with a twinkle in his eyes, Bishop Nickerson listened more to Oscar, and then Bishop Nickerson turned to me. “Oh, and Oscar says that thing you’re struggling with? You’ll be okay.” I left the bishop’s office that day stunned but feeling so happy that all I doubted had been replaced with hope and most of all, with faith. As my father and I drove home he didn’t ask me anything. He knew it was all said. (2011, Doug Cooper Spencer... Photo/Cover Design by Gregory Cooper Spencer) |
Dancing for Your Life (June 14, 2013)
The little fella was a good dancer. He looked like he was no more than four years old, maybe five at the most. His moves were pretty good, none of that flinging and shaking stuff a lot kids do at his age. One look and you could tell he was used to dancing.
I watched him as I sat on the plaza relaxing after a long day at work. It was a mild sunny day and the evening sun drifted towards the edge of the city. An occasional breeze swept the plaza spraying water from the fountain on the dozens of people who had come out to enjoy the evening causing some of them to laugh and scurry from the reach of the spray. Kids ran helter-skelter around the large fountain chasing each other, or rather it seemed they were more in a mad dash towards freedom in the evening air than to actually catch the person ahead of them. On the stage a DJ spun music as people sat in chairs at café tables talking and nodding their heads to the music he played.
I had sat along the side of the plaza so I could get a full view of the scene and there beside me the little boy danced. Like the other kids, the little boy wasn’t on the plaza unattended. A bit behind me his mother sat fanning herself and watching him. “Aw git it Rayshaun,” she called out as the little boy grinned up at her and continued to dance his heart out.
“He’s good,” I said, turning back to the woman, but she just looked at me in silence with eyes that were so stoney that it was enough to make me mind my own business. I turned away.
The boy danced as the DJ mixed. I could see his small face glistening from a sheath of sweat and there were beads of perspiration that began on his forehead and ran down along his dark brown face. He danced with his eyes locked on his mother who pushed him on, “That’s momma’s baby! Aw git it!”
After a few more moves the little boy’s attention was pulled away from his mother to the kids running across the plaza circling the fountain laughing and splashing water at each other. He stood for a few seconds gazing at them. Then a look of fascination came to his eyes and he took a few steps towards the children. His steps were tentative and full of caution as he inched away from his mother and towards the other kids.
Suddenly his mother yelled, “Git, yo’ ass back here!” Her voice was so loud and demanding that it caused the boy’s small body to jerk to a halt. He turned around and studied his mother who was now leaning forward in her chair, her eyes glaring at him, and then without further hesitation he went back to the very spot where he had been dancing. The DJ mixed another cut and the little boy started up his dance once again. He grinned hopefully as he danced and watched his mother.
(2013, Doug Cooper Spencer... Photo/Cover Design by Gregory Cooper Spencer)
I watched him as I sat on the plaza relaxing after a long day at work. It was a mild sunny day and the evening sun drifted towards the edge of the city. An occasional breeze swept the plaza spraying water from the fountain on the dozens of people who had come out to enjoy the evening causing some of them to laugh and scurry from the reach of the spray. Kids ran helter-skelter around the large fountain chasing each other, or rather it seemed they were more in a mad dash towards freedom in the evening air than to actually catch the person ahead of them. On the stage a DJ spun music as people sat in chairs at café tables talking and nodding their heads to the music he played.
I had sat along the side of the plaza so I could get a full view of the scene and there beside me the little boy danced. Like the other kids, the little boy wasn’t on the plaza unattended. A bit behind me his mother sat fanning herself and watching him. “Aw git it Rayshaun,” she called out as the little boy grinned up at her and continued to dance his heart out.
“He’s good,” I said, turning back to the woman, but she just looked at me in silence with eyes that were so stoney that it was enough to make me mind my own business. I turned away.
The boy danced as the DJ mixed. I could see his small face glistening from a sheath of sweat and there were beads of perspiration that began on his forehead and ran down along his dark brown face. He danced with his eyes locked on his mother who pushed him on, “That’s momma’s baby! Aw git it!”
After a few more moves the little boy’s attention was pulled away from his mother to the kids running across the plaza circling the fountain laughing and splashing water at each other. He stood for a few seconds gazing at them. Then a look of fascination came to his eyes and he took a few steps towards the children. His steps were tentative and full of caution as he inched away from his mother and towards the other kids.
Suddenly his mother yelled, “Git, yo’ ass back here!” Her voice was so loud and demanding that it caused the boy’s small body to jerk to a halt. He turned around and studied his mother who was now leaning forward in her chair, her eyes glaring at him, and then without further hesitation he went back to the very spot where he had been dancing. The DJ mixed another cut and the little boy started up his dance once again. He grinned hopefully as he danced and watched his mother.
(2013, Doug Cooper Spencer... Photo/Cover Design by Gregory Cooper Spencer)