Glow Read online

  That night in my suite, Greta is demanding encores of her own. I’m giving, giving, giving, loving, loving, loving, riding high and riding low, riding Greta into the land of pure ecstatic pleasure, where nothing can stop us, not even the light of morning sunshine that creeps in our room and casts a golden glow over her voluptuous body, this German angel sent to welcome me into the womb of her funk-loving motherland.

  Renewed and ready to take on whatever awaits me in Reagan-land, I don’t need a handful of quaaludes to get back on the 747 home. After taking Europe by storm, I can keep the plane flying on the fuel of my energy alone. There’s no way I’m gonna fall outta the sky. No way I’m ever gonna fall.

  “That ‘Standing on the Top’ song you did with the Temptations,” says my manager soon as I land, “that jam is tearing up the charts.”

  I think back to when I was a teenager running the streets of Buffalo while listening to the Temptations on my tinny transistor radio. Never thought I’d be the one who’d help put them back on top. Yet that’s exactly what I’m doing.

  “You got the Midas touch,” says my publicist. “That ‘Fire and Desire’ you did with Teena Marie is the bomb.”

  Teena’s my protégée, a deeply soulful white girl with a voice big enough to scare off the baddest sista. Teena’s become a star.

  “Your star’s so bright right now,” says a friend, “all you gotta do is shine your light—shine it on anyone—and you create another star.”

  “You’re the one keeping the lights on at Motown,” says my business manager, referring to the label where I’ve been recording since 1977. “You’re the whole fuckin’ franchise, baby.”

  I’m rolling up these compliments and smoking ’em like joints. I’m snorting ’em like they’re blow. The compliments are getting me higher than the actual weed and cocaine that I’m ingesting in massive quantities. On Monday I see myself as Ivan the Terrible. On Thursday I’m Alexander the Great. On Saturday I’m Napoléon Bonaparte.

  The world is about to crown me emperor. I will rule. I will exceed whatever meager dreams I once had and move into the real of immortality. My funk will transform the material into the eternal, the conventional into the cosmic. The planets will resonate with these rhythms coming outta me. The universe will bounce to the beats of my Stone City Band.

  I’m above earthly notions like right and wrong. I’m above the danger of human mistakes. As long as the hits keep coming—as long as I keep hitting the dope, as long as my people keep hitting me with the news of my success—I will fear no evil.

  They say Jesus died when he was thirty-three. Well, I was taught to love and respect Lord Jesus. And when I was thirty-three, I worried that would be the year when I, like the Savior, would meet my worldly end.

  But now I’m thirty-four. I’ve endured the hardships. I’ve paid my dues so I can spread the news. My news is all good and getting better every day.

  I’m where I need to be.

  I’m in charge.

  I’m it.

  BROTHA GURU

  I’ve met a man in Folsom State Prison who talks about the Me Monster. I call this man Brotha Guru ’cause that’s what he is. If you ask him if he’s a Christian or Muslim, he won’t say. All he says is, “You ain’t gonna define me by no category. You ain’t gonna limit me to no label.” Brotha Guru has darkish skin and says he’s a mix of many races, including African-American. He won’t specify what went into the mix except to say, “A little bit of everything.” “I am,” he says, “whatever you want me to be.” He’s short and solidly built, but he doesn’t show off his muscles. At the same time, there’s no ignoring two tattoos written up and down his forearms in bold black ink. The right one says ANARCHY and the left one says DISCIPLINE. Ask him what that means and he says, “I’m the meat in the middle.” Ask him how he wound up doing hard time in Folsom and he says, “Following the Me Monster.” Brotha Guru likes to break down the Me Monster.

  “The Me Monster,” he explains, “ain’t hiding in no closet. He ain’t lurking around the corner waiting to mug you. He’s inside you. He is you. He ain’t all of you but he wants you to think he is. He wants you to think he’s the only thing that makes it safe for you to walk through the world. He telling you that the bigger he gets, the more food you feed him, the safer you are. But that’s a lie. He ain’t taking care of you at all. And even though he’s acting like he’s your champion—your cheerleader, your biggest fan—he’s really your murderer. The Me Monster wants to see you dead.”

  “You really think my ego wants to kill me?” I ask.

  “Shrinks call it self-destructive behavior,” says Brotha Guru. “I just call it what it really is—suicide.”

  I scratch my head. I’m not sure I agree.

  “You’re a smart motherfucker,” Brotha Guru tells me. “But I’m guessing that you’re too smart for your own good. I’m guessing no one could ever tell you shit. You had all the answers. Hell, you wouldn’t even be listening to me if you weren’t behind bars. Took these bars to convince you that your shit stinks like everyone else’s. I suggest you start listening to someone besides the Me Monster.”

  “I’m listening to you, Brotha Guru.”

  “That’s all I got to say today. If you wanna meet in the yard tomorrow we can get talk more. I wouldn’t mind hearing more about your life. Have you started that book you been talking about?”

  “I have.”

  “How much you written?”

  “First few chapters.”

  “They any good?”

  “You tell me. I’ll start reading ’em to you tomorrow.”

  GOOD ROCKIN’

  The excitement of the music was always there. It was there in Mom’s records. It was there when I heard the voices in the dark night coming off those records—Dakota Staton talking about the “late, late show,” Billie Holiday looking for her “lover man”—but the excitement got all over me on the night that Mom took me on her numbers run.

  Mom was sweeter than sugar and the light of my life. I never have or will love anyone more. She was also smart as a whip. She had to be. She had to house and feed eight kids on her own. That’s why she worked as a cleaning lady by day and ran numbers by night. She kept her two day jobs because they were a good cover for her gig for the Italian Mafia, the major crime force in our hometown of Buffalo, New York. As a numbers runner, she didn’t make big bread, but enough steady bread to keep us from starving. She had twinkling eyes and a loving nature. She cared for her children like a mama bear cares for her cubs. Don’t even think about messin’ with any of her kids. And even though she was tiny in stature and had this little overbite that could make her look naïve and harmless, she was neither of those things. Mom was one of the toughest ladies in iron-tough Buffalo.

  Because my dad had walked out, Mom was all I had. So naturally I wanted to be with her every minute of every day. When she asked me on a Saturday if I wanted to come with her, my little heart started beating like crazy. I practically started to cry, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  “Just keep quiet,” she said, “and do what I say.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  It was one of those freezing Buffalo nights, with snow falling heavy and fierce wind howling off Lake Erie. Mom had me bundled up in wool. I slipped twice on the ice. The bitter cold had me shivering. When we reached the nightclub, Mom had me hide inside her big overcoat. I loved that. I felt so protected, so secure. Once inside the door, I loved feeling the heat of the room with the chatter of the people and the clanging of glasses and musicians warming up their instruments. In a back room, Mom took off her coat and then showed me where I could hide under a table behind the bandstand. “Stay here until I come for you,” she said.

  I stayed. I watched. My ears blew up. My eyes popped out. I was so excited I nearly peed my pants. I was so happy I nearly started screaming. I couldn’t contain myself.

  “Star time!” said the emcee, a tall fat cat with slicked-back hair, lime-green suit, banana-yellow shirt, skinny black tie,
and pointy-toe mirror-shined alligator shoes. “This little lady is tearing up the country from coast to coast with hits like ‘Roll with Me, Henry’ and her latest, ‘Good Rockin’ Daddy.’ All the way from Hollywood, California, let’s meet and greet the hottest star on the scene, she’s bad and she’s mean, ladies and gentleman, bring her out with a big Buffalo round of applause, for your viewing and dancing pleasure, Miss Etta James and the Peaches!”

  Etta James came out in a fishtail sequin-sparkle gold dress. She had a blond wig on her head. Her skin was light and her body was buxom. She wore purple eye shadow and long eyelashes. I thought she was beautiful. One Peach was to her left, the other to her right. They were dark-skinned ladies in black dresses with wide smiles. I also thought they were beautiful. It was all a vision of beauty like I had never seen before. And then when Etta started singing, the vision became an epiphany.

  Her voice had a growl that I felt deep inside my body, in my stomach, under my skin, up and down my spine. It wasn’t that her voice was strange. I recognized it as the voice of my mother and a hundred women I had known growing up. It was the familiar voice of my neighborhood. But because she took that voice—that raw, honest, supercharged voice of real ordinary life—and put it to music, I saw the ordinary world turn exciting and new. It was that moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy leaves black-and-white Kansas and goes to Technicolor Oz. Etta James took me to Oz. Crouched under that table, taking in her every move, relishing her every note, I discovered an excitement that I had to possess, an excitement that would change everything about me, drive my life, and turn me upside down.

  I also saw something else that would forever shape the boy who became the man who became the artist himself. I saw that music—the power of Etta’s voice—made everyone happy. I saw that the music made everyone want to drink and smoke. And the drinking and smoking—the beer and wine, the cigarettes and the reefer—were all part of the music, part of that other world that Mom was showing me.

  Mom moved through that world with grace and style. That’s one of the reasons I loved her so much. She wasn’t afraid of that world. She worked in that world. She carried those betting slips from customer to customer, she did her job of working the underground lottery for the underworld bosses with the same slick efficiency as when she ironed our clothes or fixed our fried eggs for breakfast.

  “You liked the music?” she asked me when she was through making the rounds and ready to move out of the club.

  I was so happy I couldn’t even speak.

  “I see it in your eyes,” said Mom. “Your eyes are smiling.”

  When Mom saw how deeply the music penetrated my soul, she made a habit of taking me with her when she had to run numbers at the nightclubs. I got to know the Royal Arms, the Pine Grill, and the Bon Ton.

  In those days Buffalo was still alive. The Bethlehem Steel mill was going 24/7. There were jobs in the black community. There was action. There was music. And not just rhythm and blues. There was jazz, sophisticated modern jazz, that Mom heard and loved. She gave that love to me. She’d sneak me into clubs to hear Miles Davis when John Coltrane was his sideman. I got to hear Wes Montgomery play guitar and Jimmy Smith rip up the Hammond B3 organ. I got to hear cats like big-baritone Arthur Prysock sing “Misty” and doo-woppers like the Moonglows sing “Sincerely.”

  Before I turned ten, I knew where I wanted to live—in those clubs—and I knew what I wanted to do—make that music. Outside the music, the world was boring. But inside the music, the world was magic. Mom had brought me inside, and inside was where I was determined to stay.

  Don’t know why my daddy decided not to stay with us. My memories of the man are cloudy. I see him as a handsome dude. He liked to boast that he had Indian blood running through his veins. At night he’d slip a woman’s stocking over his head to keep his process in place. Sometimes he and Mom would go out at night. When they came back, she’d be crying. He didn’t like to hear her crying, so he beat her. Seeing him slap around my mother, sometimes even punch her with his closed fist, got me crying and swearing that the minute I got big enough I’d grab a butcher’s knife and slit his throat. The happiest moment of my childhood came when he left and never returned. Mom never mentioned him again—not for the rest of her life.

  Strange to think that he gave me his name—and nothing else.

  I was born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. on February 1, 1948, the third of eight kids. Brother Carmen came first, then sister Camille. Mom was only thirteen when she had Carmen with a man we never met. Camille also had a different dad than us six younger kids. His name was Homer, a half-white, half-black dude, a serious drunk who, when Mom kicked him out, got deep into drugs and disappeared down the back alleys of Buffalo.

  I was third born. Then came Roy, Cheryl, Alberta, William, and Penny. We were cramped into a small apartment in the Willert Park projects for low-income/no-income families. Mom kept the place spotless. She also made sure we went to church. She thought the Catholic church would put us in a higher stratum of society. And if we joined the church, we’d get to go to Catholic schools that were, in Mom’s view, better than the public schools. I understand Mom’s thinking: she wanted to advance her children. Just as she was willing to run numbers to keep us in food and clothing, she was willing to bypass the Pentecostal churches where she was raised to put us in a religious setting she saw as more cultured. She also liked how the priests and nuns were strict, just as she had to be strict with us.

  Like most kids, I hated strict. I was naturally wild, and it took a lot to keep me in check. That was sister Camille’s job. Because Mom was either out on her day gig or running numbers at night, Camille was the enforcer. Sister was small but strong as an ox. She didn’t mind using muscle to keep us in line. There was always a line of boys looking to make it with Camille, a sexy lady with good hair. In the ghetto good hair meant waves, not kinks.

  My own kinky nature was there early. For all I know it was there at birth. Maybe Mom saw it and thought by putting me in Catholic school the nuns could cure me. For a while I walked the straight and narrow and even became an altar boy. That didn’t last long. The streets were calling and so were older girls. I was nine or ten when Nancy, a fourteen-year-old girl, called me down to a basement in an abandoned building. She was the teacher, and boy, was I the eager student! I learned my anatomy lesson in a hurry. She was quick to show me how the parts fit together. I didn’t understand ejaculation, and just before coming I pulled out and ran to the bathroom. I thought I was about to piss.

  “Hell, no!” she said. “Get back over here. You ain’t through.”

  I did what I was told. Her screaming got me a little scared until I saw it wasn’t pain screaming, it was pleasure. Can’t say that I experienced that much pleasure. It was more like an initiation rite. Nancy invited me back down several times, and each time, intrigued by the phenomenon of inserting myself into a girl, I became better at pleasing her and, in due course, pleasing myself. As a preteen, I was well on my way to becoming a man—at least in the fine art of fucking.

  Fantasies and fucking went together. The more I fucked Nancy, the more I imagined I was fucking someone else—say, a woman in her twenties with a wide booty and big titties. The nuns at school saw me looking over the girls. They saw my lascivious nature and tried to scare me.

  “Sex is for older people,” said one of the nuns when she caught me playing with myself behind the playground. “Sex is for married people. God doesn’t like it when kids touch themselves and think about sex. Those thoughts disrespect God and his son Jesus Christ. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Are you going to do it again?”

  “No,” I lied again.

  “Good,” she said, “but to make sure you don’t here’s something to remind you.”

  With that, she took a ruler and whacked my hand.

  That night in bed I touched myself again, thinking about
what it would be like if the nun was wearing nothing under her habit.

  My own bad habits got worse—talking back in class, cracking jokes, never bothering to do my homework. I was a quick learner, though, and one of the priests, Brother Timothy, took an interest in me.

  “You have an exceptional mind, James,” he said. “But you lack discipline.”

  “What’s discipline?” I asked.

  “Making yourself do things you don’t want to do.”

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t want to do discipline.”

  “That’s just the point. Without discipline, there’s no achievement.”

  “What’s achievement?”

  “Getting things done. Finding a way through the world.”

  “Making money?”

  “Yes.”

  “My mom makes money.”

  “She has discipline. She’s a hard worker.”

  “She’s good at math. She can add up figures in her head. She never forgets a number.”

  I was about to tell the priest that of all the number runners in our neighborhood, Mom got the most respect from the Mafia because she never made mistakes. Better sense, though, told me that the priest didn’t need to hear those details.

  “One of the beautiful things about the Catholic Church,” said the priest, “is our confession. Through confession we can purge ourselves of bad deeds and thoughts. With a clear mind, discipline is much easier to attain. Have you been to confession, James?”

  “Not yet. I don’t know what to confess.”

  “Everything you’ve done wrong.”

  “And that’ll make it easier for me at school?”