Soulacoaster Read online

  That was the day that I fell in love with Lucious.

  Two weeks flew by.

  It was a Friday night and the rent was due. Mom was short on cash. Lucious was supposed to pay his share, but he wasn’t home; he’d gone out with the boys.

  My mother convinced the landlord to give us another week. I was glad 'cause I was tired of hopping from house to house every time our money was funny. We called the landlord the Monster. Seemed like the Monster was always on our tail.

  Saturday came, and my mother was still looking for Lucious. She was boiling mad. Sunday we went to church, and when we got back, Lucious was still a no-show. Mom was boiling even more.

  Monday evening he showed up.

  “Where you been?” she asked.

  “Out.”

  “Any fool knows you been out. But out where?”

  “Don’t matter,” said Lucious.

  “You right, it don’t matter, long as you got your rent money.”

  “I don’t.”

  “What you mean, ‘I don’t’?”

  “Can’t you understand English, woman? I don’t means I don’t.”

  “That ain’t gonna cut it.”

  “Gonna have to.”

  “Gimme your share of the rent.”

  “Can’t give what I don’t got. Besides, I’m tired of talking.”

  Lucious stormed out, but Joann Kelly wasn’t letting him off that easy. She wanted her money. She reached for his wallet, he pushed her away; she scratched his face with her fingernail; he kicked her, then ran out to his car; she ran after him. Lucious got into his car and slammed the door, but my mother’s dress got caught in the door. Lucious took off, dragging her down the street. Me and my brother Bruce chased the car, jumping into it, beating on Lucious to stop. The car stopped; Mom was banged up and bruised. With all the screaming and carrying on, somebody had called the cops who arrived soon after.

  “Who hurt this woman?” they wanted to know, looking at the black-and-blue marks up and down my mother’s arms and legs.

  “No one,” she said. “I just hurt myself.”

  Cops looked over at Lucious. “Sure you don’t want to press charges?” they asked.

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  MR. BLUE

  In one of the neighborhoods where we lived when I was a kid, there was a man named Mr. Blue. My mother always liked him ’cause during the summer he’d put us in his car, drive us out to the country, and show us how to pick fruit. Mr. Blue bought us skateboards and bicycles. Mr. Blue was cool.

  On this particular morning, Mr. Blue came by, saw that I was by myself, and told me to come over to his place; I followed him over. When we got there, he said, “Help yourself to the watermelon in the fridge.” The melon looked good, so I helped myself to some. Meanwhile, Mr. Blue went to the bathroom and took a shower. I didn’t think nothing of it. When he came out, he was wearing a robe loosely tied around the waist.

  As I finished my melon, he told me to come into his room.

  “When I was a little boy 'bout your age,” Mr. Blue recalled, “I had me an uncle who paid me a dollar to rub on his dick. Shit, I’d take that money and buy me all kinds of candy.”

  At this point Mr. Blue pulled out his penis and started rubbing it with grease. It looked like a monster. The last thing I wanted to do was rub it.

  “Well, sir,” Mr. Blue said, “a dollar ain’t what it used to be. But five dollars ain’t nothing to sneeze at. If I give you five dollars to rub on .. .”

  But before Mr. Blue could say another word, I was running out the door with his voice trailing after me. He was shouting, “If you know what’s good for you, boy, you won’t say nothing to no one. Say a word and I’ll cook your goddamn goose!” Later that night I was talking to my good friend, Sam. The thought of what happened with Mr. Blue was bothering me to a point where I couldn’t think of anything else. I was scared to say anything, but I just couldn’t hold it back.

  “Hey, Sam,” I whispered, “if I tell you something, promise you’ll never tell anyone?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s about Mr. Blue.”

  Sam immediately cut me off. “You, too?” he asked. Sam told me that Mr. Blue had tried the same stuff on him. We vowed never to say anything to anyone.

  A month later, I was putting together another cardboard house in the backyard. This time I got real curtains. I got it tricked-out so pretty I wanted my girlfriend Lisette to see it.

  “Your playhouse is like a real house, Rob,” she said.

  We sat on the little rug I put over the grass and pretended to be watching a TV that wasn’t there. We pretended we were married. Lisette kissed me on the cheek. I kissed her back, and the puppy love started to grow. We were both ten.

  That night I dreamed of Lisette. We lived in a house like you see on television, with a white picket fence, a backyard, and a swimming pool; afterwards we were riding in my fancy car to a fancy restaurant where the rich folk eat. I woke up happy. Beautiful dream, beautiful Lisette.

  I had an idea for my playhouse. I decided to take some cushions off Mom’s bed, put them on the grass, and pretend it was a couch. Me and Lisette would sit on the couch together and act like husband and wife. The pillows were pink, Lisette’s favorite color.

  I grabbed the pillows and carried them outside. When I got to the yard, I saw that the playhouse door was ajar. Even stranger, I heard Lisette’s laughter and playful voice. When I looked inside, I saw my friend Sam on top of Lisette, kissing her and trying to pull her pants down.

  “Get outta here!” I screamed at Sam. “Get away from my girl.” But Sam wasn’t budging, and neither was Lisette. I couldn’t control my fury, so I jumped on Sam. He was stronger than me; he pinned me down and gave me a good licking.

  To retaliate, all I could do was scream at the top of my lungs: “You told me not to tell anyone, but I’m telling everyone! I’m telling how Mr. Blue messed with you! You said it was a secret, but it ain’t a secret no more 'cause I’m yelling it out! Mr. Blue messed with Sam! Mr. Blue messed with Sam!”

  My sister heard me screaming and told my mom, who was shocked. She didn’t know about Mr. Blue. She called the cops, and they showed up at Mr. Blue’s door. We never saw the man again.

  JUMP SHOT

  There were times when I had to get out of my house. There was too much noise, screaming, arguing. There were too many people having sex.

  A bike ride was a great escape. By the time I was 11 or 12 years old, I rode my Huffy bike all the way from 34th Street to the Sears Tower, at the time the tallest building in the world, on South Wacker Drive.

  When I got near, I’d look up at that awesome skyscraper and think, It’s gonna fall on me! Crazy as it sounds, I’d get scared. But I wouldn’t run. Rather than back away from the tower, I’d get closer. I’d get right underneath it. I’d challenge it and say, “Sears Tower, I dare you to fall on me. I dare you to scare me anymore. You ain’t nothing but steel and concrete. You might be some kind of symbol of this city, but one day I’m gonna be a symbol. I’m gonna stand for Chicago; one day I’m gonna stand as tall as you.”

  I remember that day like it just happened: It had rained the night before and, riding my bike down Martin Luther King Boulevard, the morning mist felt fresh on my face. Inside my head, I was hearing music; music was drowning out the rest of the world. Music was my shield and protector. It was a blessing and a burden. It was heavy on my head when I was peddling down to the playground to hoop with my pals. Like a lot of kids, I was dreaming of playing in the NBA like Dr. J.

  Folks said that the South Side of Chicago was rough. But I never fooled with the rough guys. They didn’t bother me, their business didn’t interest me. I wasn’t afraid of the streets. Hearing gunshots, for example, was no big thing. Been hearing them my whole life.

  But this gunshot was different. This POW! rang in my ear, and suddenly I felt something hit me in the chest. My head went woozy, and I couldn’t control the bike. Then everything got crazy an
d strange. It was like I was leaving my body. In slow motion, I saw myself falling off the bike. My vision went blurry, and I saw people running towards me. Before long, my mother was running up to me, along with my sister and brothers. I heard them in an echo, saw them in a fog.

  “Robert’s been shot!” my mother shouted.

  “My baby’s been shot!”

  I closed my eyes and lost consciousness.

  When I woke up, I was in the hospital. My shoulder was hurting something fierce. Mom was sitting next to me, holding my hand. “Rob, God is good. God spared your life, baby,” she moaned.

  “What happened?”

  “You got shot, son.”

  “Who shot me?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Years later, after I’d had some success, BET was doing a show about where I grew up. As I was showing the director and the film crew around the ‘hood, we ran into the guy who shot me. He’d gone to jail for what he’d done and he talked about it on camera. It was all good. Then he handed me a demo tape to check out, to see if I could do anything for him!

  But back then I was only worried about one thing.

  “Will I be able to shoot the ball?”

  “Doctor said you’ll be fine. They can’t take out the bullet ‘cause it’s too close to a nerve. If they touch that nerve, it could paralyze the whole half of your body. So they’re gonna leave it in there. They say the tissue will grow up around the bullet. The blessing is that the bullet didn’t hit your head or your heart. The blessing is that God has beautiful plans for you, baby.”

  “But will I still be able to make my jump shot?” I had to know.

  Three weeks later, I was back on my bike, pedaling over to the playground to work on my jump shot. Because of the bullet in my shoulder, my shot was off, and I wasn’t happy; I was frustrated and I cried about it because it hurt like hell when I tried to lift my arm. But I really got scared when I started shooting funny. I wanted my jumper back. More than anything in the world, I wanted to feel that sweet power of the ball going in the hoop. The pain didn’t matter. How could I go through life without a killer jump shot?

  “There are more important things in this world than a good jump shot,” my mother told me when I got home.

  “Like what?”

  “Like music. You were born to sing songs, not shoot basketballs.”

  I didn’t dare talk back to her, but in my mind, I was thinking, I gotta get my jump shot back. My jump shot was all I had. How else could I get out of the ’hood and take care of my mother?

  HOPE

  Some kids were scared of the streets—and with good reason. Some kids were scared of the playgrounds, where the bullies and gangbangers acted like they ruled the world. But none of that scared me, not even after I was shot.

  Instead, I was scared of the classroom, scared of being called on, scared of everyone learning that I couldn’t do what they could do—read and write. No one wanted to learn more than me, and no one seemed more troubled. The minute the bell rang, I ran out of school like a bat outta hell. I couldn’t wait to get to the playground and find me a game of basketball.

  One day when I was 11, on my way to hoop, me and some of my homies got cornered by thugs looking to steal our lunch money. I wasn’t about to get messed up over lunch money, so I gave ’em my change. One homie, though, refused. It s my goddamn money,” he said. Without even hesitating, two of the gangbanger slashed his face with a broken whiskey bottle. That’s when I knew that I’d made the right decision. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the playground, working on that jump shot that still wasn’t right.

  Every year when we were growing up, there was an amazing event called the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic. Coca-Cola had a float. McDonald’s had a float. Jesse Jackson had a float. Entertainers waved at the people, singers sang, musicians played, and there was funky music, good food, and good times.

  We looked forward to the parade every year; it was our Disneyland—like Walt Disney was coming to us. You got to see all kinds of celebrities if you were lucky.

  Everyone—Mom, Grandma, all the aunties, uncles, and cousins—would start out early setting up their little chairs and crates with their cards and beers and wait for the parade to come by. It was an all-day free party right out in the street.

  The parade started at 35th and King, and when we lived on 40th and King, me and my brothers would follow the parade all the way to the end. I went to all the barbecues and picnics and looked at all the floats; I saw all the performances. I was inspired by the parade, I got to see a lot of artists who performed on floats—New Edition, Bell Biv Devoe; everybody wanted to be in the Bud Billiken Parade.

  Years later, when I was about 15 or 16,1 sang for Lionel Richie. He was performing at the parade that year and somebody had told him that I could sing and write songs. He asked them to bring me over to meet him, and he asked me to sing him something I wrote. I can’t remember what the name of the song was, but Lionel Richie offered me $500 on the spot to give him the song. Now at that time I was so broke I couldn’t even pay attention, and $500 was a lot of money, but even back then I knew that my work was worth more than that, so I turned him down.

  I always wanted to be on a float performing like the groups that were famous back then. I would be in the crowd following the floats and waving. In 2011,1 felt truly blessed to be the Honorary Grand Marshall of the oldest and largest African American parade in the country. As my float rolled down King Drive, I pictured my mother sitting in her chair with the rest of the family and her friends watching the parade go by, as she had for so many years; I wished she could have been there to see her son wave to her.

  I always loved music and I always loved basketball. In those days when I was hooping, you could always find me at Washington Park, Madden Park at 33rd, or King Drive. Madden Park was where the big boys hooped. The older guys were much stronger than us kids and they played harder; they banged! I always wanted to play with them. I never wanted to play with the guys my age. I knew if I played with the older guys, my game would get tighter. So I’d call “next,” meaning we got the next game. But once we got on the court, we regretted it, because the older dudes didn’t play. They were rough; they didn’t care nothing about our age; they were out to win at any cost. They hit hard. I saw many shoulders dislocated, knees shattered, heads smashed on concrete.

  I got banged up so hard I couldn’t help but be nervous, but I knew the only way to get over that was to keep on playing. I missed a lot of shots. I threw the ball away more times than I could count. Sometimes the bigger guys literally took the ball out of my hands. They frustrated me until I was ready to quit. But I never did.

  One day after a rough game, this older guy came up to me and said, “You know what you’re doing wrong, young fella?”

  “Yeah; I’m missing a lot of shots. I’m throwing the ball away, and they’re taking it from me.”

  “It’s more than that,” he said. “You’re chasing the game. You’re not letting the game come to you.”

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  “Well, you need to know, Bro. You need to stop forcing your shots. You gotta find your groove.”

  “Will that get me points?”

  “It’s not about shooting the ball in the basket,” he said. “It’s about being positive.”

  Dude had an interesting way of talking, so I kept listening. Plus, he saw I had something; he believed in me. His name was Robert Reid. The other guys called him Hope. At that time, Hope was on his way to becoming a neighborhood legend because of his street ball skills. His mother and my mom were very close; she lived right across the street from us.

  Hope was slim and smooth-talking; he was about 14 years older than me, about five-foot-eight, with a face like Dr. J. Later, when I watched him on his Robert Reid All-Stars team, I saw he had Dr. J’s moves. Hope was a great point guard. He invited me and Bruce, whose hoop skills were sharper than mine, to his place.

  Hope schooled us. He had reels of NBA
films. As we watched the movies, he pointed out subtle moves we had been missing. He talked about going with the flow.

  “Finding the flow,” Hope said, “is everything. The game’s got a flow, and you got a flow. The art is to let those two flows flow together.”

  Hope knew I was into music, so he kept making musical comparisons.

  “There’s a righteous rhythm to every movement,” he explained. “It isn’t something you create. The rhythm’s already there. You tap into it. You ride it. You let it take you where it wants to go.”

  Hope was a beautiful guy. I could feel that his mind was elevated, even though I couldn’t do everything he suggested. For example, he said that rage always hurts. Well, if I was in a close game and someone tripped me on purpose, I went to rage; didn’t know any other way.

  “Control that rage,” advised Hope. “If you don’t, rage will control you. When rage is in charge, your game falls apart.”

  I knew that was right. I’d seen it happen, but I was still no good at controlling my fits of rage. I got less angry, though, when Hope showed me how to finesse my jump shot.

  After I got shot, Hope helped me work on getting my jump shot back.

  “You fighting that shoulder injury,” he said, talking about that bullet lodged in my body. “Don’t fight it, work with it.”

  Hope is one of my best friends to this very day. I still respect his wisdom when it comes to basketball. It was because of Hope that I started developing and strengthening my shoulder. Hope helped me rediscover my game. Bruce and I used to practice the moves that Hope taught us in the backyard. First we nailed a bottomless crate to a pole, then we moved on up to a bike wheel that we took all the spokes out of, and then we moved on up to a rim. We called it Planet-Dunk-A-Lot. After playing for hours, we went over to 42nd and State for the best foot-longs on the planet—Polish sausages smothered with onions, flaming hot barbecue sauce, and a mountain of fries.

  It was all good.