Soulacoaster Page 9
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Neice pointed to the back of my pants. I was in such a hurry that I hadn’t torn off the toilet paper that was sticking out the back of my jeans.
I ran back to the bathroom and, first thing, opened the medicine cabinet to see if there was poison. I was ready to kill myself. But there was no poison, just aspirin and bandages. I straightened myself out and got ready to face Neice’s folks again. This time I made sure there was no toilet paper hanging out my backside.
“I guess I’m just a little nervous,” I said to Neice’s grandmother.
“We noticed,” said Neice’s mom.
THE CHITLIN BUCKET
Street performing is as old as America itself. History tells us that founding father Ben Franklin performed his poetry on public streets. A lot has changed since then. When I came of age in Chicago, if you wanted to street perform, you had to pay for a license.
When I saw the number of people that I could draw by singing, I got serious about my street act. I took it so seriously that I even got a license from the city so I could perform legally. I knew I could draw even more folks if I used my old broken-down keyboard—the old Casio that Willie Pearl had given me. Thanks to Miss McLin’s hard-core and disciplined training, I could sing a cappella or sing while playing the keyboard. I also understood that it was all about location. With a better spot, I’d make better money. I found one of those spots in downtown Chicago at a busy El station at Randolph and Jackson.
I wanted my best friend, Big L, to go with me. At first he didn’t want to come to watch my back because it felt a little awkward; he was one of those who thought street performing was like being a bum. But because Big L was my best friend, he didn’t want to turn me down, so he did it. I had to motivate him by showing just how much money I could make.
I played at Randolph and Jackson for as long as I could, but singing over the noise of the cars, the buses, and street sounds made me very hoarse, very quick. I decided that underground, in the subway, would be a better spot because there was an echo underground and the acoustics gave my voice a better sound—reverb. The only problem was when I started to sing a lyric that I really wanted people to hear, if a train was rolling into the station, it made a lot of noise. I couldn’t sing over the noise of an incoming train, so I decided to play it off and act like I was really jamming that part of the song. Then as soon as the train stopped and it got quieter, I would bring my voice up to give the illusion of continuing the song. No one could tell that I had stopped singing. The minute the train passed, I was right back into the song on cue without ever missing a beat.
I learned to read the crowd quickly. For instance, sometimes there would be a lot of white people down in the subway, and I didn’t want to sing something they couldn’t relate to, so I started writing songs that felt like country or pop—trying to capture the spirit of their culture. And it worked. And sometimes there’d be a lot of black people riding the train, so I would sing songs that I knew they would relate to—“Ribbon in the Sky,” Stevie Wonder; “A Song for You,” Donny Hathaway; and even some songs that I wrote myself.
Money was coming in steady and strong, and I began to develop something of a following, but even back then—even when I was nobody—I had some haters.
“You ain’t no better than a beggar,” a neighborhood singer said. “You’re just a street beggar, that’s all you are.” I knew he was jealous because, even though he wanted to, he couldn’t really sing. He had a voice like a wounded frog. Besides, even as a teenager, music was like life to me, beyond restrictions or someone else’s labels.
“All singing’s begging. What do you think Teddy P’s doing when he sings ‘Turn Off the Lights’? Or Marvin Gaye. What’s Marvin doing when he’s singing ‘Sexual Healing.’ They begging. Ain’t no harm in begging, brother.”
“Your begging don’t get you much more than a cheeseburger.”
Didn’t Mom always say to turn lemons into lemonade? Well, I didn’t know if McDonald’s sold lemonade, but they sure sold Big Macs. People loved their Big Macs. And the underground spot where I was singing was just below McDonald’s.
Right above the subway stop that I performed under was a McDonald’s. People of all colors would come down to catch the train and a lot of them would have McDonald’s bags in their hands. So I started singing about McDonald’s, about how “when your day is through, McDonald’s is the place for you.” I figured if I wrote a McDonald’s song and sang it as the people with McDonald’s food came down, not only would they pay me, but I knew they would get a big kick out of it and go home smiling. I made up lyrics about the icy Cokes and the apple pie, the Chicken McNuggets and the tasty fries. And it worked—every time I would bust out with the McDonald’s song, the people would drop more and more money into my bucket.
Things were looking up down in the subway. Before long I had enough money for a new keyboard. I’d gone from a baseball cap to a paper bag to a chitlin bucket within a month of street performing. People started hearing about me and started catching the train from that spot just so they could see me perform. I started making so much money that people started to notice; when I say “people,” I mean the pickpockets down in the subway.
I used to see them trying to pick people’s pockets all the time; and they never knew that I saw them because when I street performed, I would always wear black sunglasses like Stevie Wonder—it was a part of my act. So they didn’t know I saw them, till one day I had made so much money that my chitlin bucket was overflowing with 10s, 20s, and one-dollar bills. Suddenly the thieves started turning their attention towards me, slickly but not wisely. I noticed it and told Big L that we had to watch these guys. He told me he was aware of it. I continued to sing.
Then out of nowhere one of the three guys that I knew was a pickpocket ran up to us real fast, snatched the bucket, and kept going. My glasses immediately flew off my face—I think it was from the speed of me getting up to chase him. Me and Big L ran so fast after this guy that we got close enough for me to catch the back of his leg and sweep-kick his ass. He fell down, and Big L started punching him. My money was flying everywhere, and I was trying to collect it all—the guy had fallen down onto the tracks. I turned around to see Big L jumped down onto the tracks after him. I remember yelling out really loud: “Don’t touch the third rail!” because I had heard that the third rail is the track that could electrocute you, killing you instantly. Big L got back up on the platform, and the pickpocket ran straight down the tracks like Speedy Gonzales—out of sight.
After that I went to K-Mart and bought a big rope, and for the rest of my street-performing career, I tied one end of the rope to the chitlin bucket and the other end to my right ankle, figuring that if anybody else tried to take my money, they were going to have to take my ass right along with them. It never happened again.
I had another memorable encounter when the street was my stage—with the police. It was raining really hard that day. I had brought a chair and, of course, my keyboard, and I was ready to go. Although it was raining, it was Friday, and I felt sure the sun was going to shine on me because it was payday: that’s when I made most of my money. Anyway, as I was singing and minding my own business, I had my black shades on and people were dropping bills in the bucket by the second. Business was booming … until all of a sudden, two cops walked up outta nowhere and said to me: “All right, Stevie, let’s go.”
My first thought was to act like I was blind—that’s what they thought, so why not play along with it? But honesty took over. I took the glasses off and said: “What’s the problem, officers?”
“You need a license to perform on the streets.” So I showed them my license, but for some reason, they took me out of the subway and straight to police headquarters on 22nd Street. The police put me through all sorts of bullshit. The bottom line was that I was in my rights. I had my license. They had to let me go, but they said that if I ever tried to set up in that spot again, they’d keep chasing me away.
I sang it with so much soul, folks just had to stop and listen. It was then that I discovered the true power of my voice because that day I made more money than I had ever made as a street performer.
DON’T LOOK BACK
When I finally got up nerve to tell Miss McLin that I couldn’t read, write, or even spell, she told me about people who were brilliant, who had come before me, paving the way for people who were handicapped in some ways. She’d talk about Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder and how they were blind and overcame their disability and that the world loved them and their music in spite of that.
She would even go further back and talk about how Beethoven was deaf, but still he heard music and was one of the greatest composers ever. She even revealed a secret of hers, that she had had an operation on her hands and how it did not stop her from continuing to play the piano and composing music that is still sold today. Those inspiring examples gave me the hope that I needed. They were the light at the end of the tunnel that I had yearned for since the discovery of my disability.
“If they did it, Robert,” she’d say, “then I know you can do it.” And for the first time in my life I believed it.
My mom taught me how to fall in love with the future.
“Don’t fall in love with the present or the past, Robert,” she used to say. “If you do, you’ll stay in the present or you’ll be stuck in the past. And if you learn to love the future, then you will get to the future.” That’s why I still keep my eyes on the future every day.
I believed everything that my mother told me, and I trusted Miss McLin’s predictions about my future—most of the time. When she told me, “One day, Robert, you’re going to be one of the greatest writers of all time,” I listened. I wanted to believe. But with kids still laughing at me, it was really hard.
Once I started street performing and making money, though, there was no going back. School kept getting harder. School felt like something I could never conquer. School meant shame and humiliation. School just made me feel downright bad. I was no longer on the school’s basketball team, so my on-the-court skills no longer mattered. Performing made me feel that I was worth something. The streets had become my stage, and my audience was willing to pay me.
I didn’t want to face my teachers, the other students, or especially Miss McLin. I didn’t want to tell them I was a street performer ’cause I knew they’d look down on that. So I stopped going to class. In spite of Miss McLin’s best efforts to keep me in school, I quit—just like that. Instead, I started heading for the subway station where I could sound more like James Ingram than James Ingram; more like Jeffrey Osborne than Jeffrey Osborne. I could sound like anyone, I could be anyone and feel like a million bucks. There were no tests to fail, no books to intimidate me, no judgmental looks from stuck-up students who mocked me because I couldn’t do what they did.
My street following was getting so strong that if I found that another street performer—say a sax player—got to my spot before me, I could afford to give him $150 to get him to move to another location; $150 was more than he made in two days. Meanwhile, I could make $150 in two hours.
I hustled and printed business cards, then passed them around. The cards advertised that I could sing at weddings, at birthday parties, even at funerals. I was hired to entertain at all kinds of events, including stripping at women’s bachelorette parties.
Even back then I felt that whatever I did, I had to do it creatively. So when I stripped, I had to tell a story, or create a fantasy, because I had learned enough about women—by listening to women most of my life—to know they needed to escape reality sometimes. So I’d come out as Darth Vader. I’d put on the black mask and the black robe. When I dropped the robe, I’d be wearing nothing but my little patent-leather drawers. Because I had a body—I was ripped real good—women went crazy. Then I’d go from Darth Vader to Luther, singing, “Don’t you remember you told me you loved me, baby … baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, baby.”
My voice gave me an advantage over all the other strippers working. Some might have had better bodies, but when I started singing, it was a wrap. Some people thought I could dance as good as I could sing, and stripping paid well. The money was rolling in, but so were the threats. I was naive about the strip party scene. It was controlled by big-time thugs who weren’t about to put up with some freelance kid dressed up as Darth Vader cutting into their profits. After about six months, the threats became so aggressive that I recognized I’d better stick to singing in the subway stations.
Meanwhile, financially, I became my mother’s biggest helper—a beautiful blessing. I loved seeing the smile on her face when I gave her money. It made me happy to arrive home with three bags of White Castle burgers and the rent money. I was a bona fide breadwinner. Instead of an imaginary brick box filled with secrets, I got a real metal cashbox where I kept my money. Soon I was paying the bills and saving hundreds of dollars—and I was still a teenager.
Then something happened that broke my heart. My metal box was stolen, and everything I had worked so hard for—all my savings—disappeared. I didn’t know who did it, but obviously it was someone in our house. I didn’t want to start accusing anybody, so the easiest thing for me to do was just to move out.
When I moved into the YMCA downtown, close to some of the spots where I street performed, I had a single room with barely enough space for a bed. I’d sit up all night playing my keyboard and writing songs. Drug dealers, hookers, and pimps lived up and down the hallways and right across the hall from me. You had to share a bathroom and use a public phone. I didn’t care. I was in survival mode. I kept a box of cereal, a carton of milk, and was good to go.
Lonneice hung in there with me. She was my girlfriend, and she believed in my dreams. While I sang in the streets, she worked as a cashier at an Amoco station. We were in this love thing together.
What could go wrong?
NEVER ENOUGH
How do you get to be a man when you got no man to show you what it means to be a man? You look around you. You see what the other guys want. You see how the other guys do. What I saw was that all the guys with the most swag all had more than one woman.
In grammar school, the girls looked at me as someone who couldn’t even read.
In high school, even when I started singing, the girls who knew me from the classroom remembered I could barely get through a sentence without stumbling all over myself. I heard them laughing. I saw their smirks. All that rejection shit hurt.
But Neice showed me love. Neice was true. Lonneice should have been enough.
But with this newfound success, my pride started blowing up, and my ego took over. Ego started filling up all those holes of youthful insecurity. Ego made me think that one girl wasn’t enough. Ego made me want to taste every single flavor.
Ego had me thinking I was all that. I was slim, cut-up, and strong. I went from playing on the streets to performing in clubs, where Ed jump on top of a giant speaker and start singing and stripping at the same time. I liked showing off my voice and my body.
Ego had me following a shorty to her crib because she said her roommate didn’t mind. Her roommate was real friendly, too.
Ego had me freaking.
Neice had me loving.
Ego said, “Go crazy.”
Neice said, “Go easy.”
Ego said, “The more the merrier.”
Neice said, “It’s you and me, Rob.
It’s all about you and me.”
Neice said, “Rob, let’s go out to Baker’s Square and get that delicious coconut cream pie we love so much.”
Neice said, “Let’s live happily ever after.”
My mother said, “I love Neice.”
Neice said, “I love your mother.”
Neice and I started talking about moving in together.
We were moving on up, we were styling, we were happy.
It was all good.
ABDUCTED BY MY GIFT
Sometimes I feel like I’ve been abducted by my gift—kidnapped and taken away to a musical place never to be found again. Music possessed me in a way that sometimes scared me. It kept growing inside me. Everywhere I go, everywhere I turn, and everything I do, the lyrics and melodies are always right there—constantly reminding me that there is no escape.
Sometimes I feel like music has made love to me. And sometimes I feel like music just had sex with me. I feel I am pregnant by music; and it is the father and mother of my child. And there will be no denying that. One day I was riding in a car with one of my homies, who was a drug dealer. He had a brand-new Mercedes-Benz; matter of fact, he had several nice cars. He was older than me and I looked up to him, not because of his line of work but because he believed in me. He always told me that I would be big and have it all.
He would protect me from the gangbangers because we played basketball for money in the ’hood and we would win a lot. Believe it or not, I had a sweet jump shot man me. When we would win sometimes, the other guys did not want to pay up. They would try to lie and say that I traveled or that I was cheating. That would always happen close to us winning the game, or on the game-winning shot itself. And my partner would always make sure nothing went down and that we got paid.