Читать книгу Officer Clemmons - Dr. François S. Clemmons - Страница 12

AFTER THE BRUTAL FIGHT BETWEEN MY PARENTS, Great-Grandmama Laura Mae hatched a plan that she decided to reveal only to the other women in the family.

“I been listening to the radio and prayin’ to God and thinking,” she said. “I’m tired of these no ’count men, and Willie Son’s the wors’ of ’em all. My baby Inez is near ’bout well and ready to move on. I been thinkin’ about goin’ far ’way from here! Maybe, goin’ up north somewhere. Tryin’ to settle down. Maybe, we could get jobs in one of the factories and work and save some money and build a house for ourselves. We don’t need no mens to do that.”

Every eye in the room was on her. Everybody was listening, but nobody said a word. Then, just as suddenly, came shock and doubt. Confused questions were thick in the room. They had just gotten to Tuscaloosa, and now Great-Grandmama Laura Mae was talking about going somewhere else? They weren’t ready to think about packing up and moving on. They hadn’t even settled down here yet. If the suggestion had come from anybody else, they would have all been laughing and howling, holding their sides, covering their mouths, and slapping their thighs in ridicule. But this suggestion had come from our matriarch—leader of the clan herself—and therefore could only be taken very seriously. So, they agreed and began saving up as much money as they could, which Great-Grandmama Laura Mae squirreled away in an old tin can she kept hidden in her room, concealed by layers of clothes and knickknacks.

Time flowed from days to weeks, from weeks to months, and then to the first year. My daddy regretted deeply what he had done. He really did love my mother and wished to be reunited. However, Great-Grandmama Laura Mae prevented him from finding my mother and talking to her at every turn.

In his efforts to woo my mother back to him, daddy gave money for my mother, my brother, and me to my aunts and to the other ladies of the house. He didn’t know it, but the money he gave to the ladies wound up in Great-Grandmama Laura Mae’s tin can, saved toward their secret trip up north. My daddy didn’t know he was helping the plan to be rid of him forever. In his heart, he felt he had changed. He didn’t go out much anymore and had practically stopped drinking. He wanted to show my mother that he could be the upright, gentle, loving man she had married.

When the women saved five thousand dollars, they decided it was finally time to announce their plan to the men. It was followed by doubt and shocked silence. The first question was “Where y’all goin’ get duh money?”

“We done already saved duh money, from you and you and you and everybody here,” announced Great-Grandmama Laura Mae, pointing to everyone in the room and silencing the doubting curious. For most of the men in the room, it wasn’t a horrible thing—just not their idea! The men were accustomed to feeling as though they were leading and not being pulled around by their noses. How could all of this “money saving” have gone on without so much as a hint of it to them? It just didn’t make sense.

They were prepared, however, to take full advantage of an attractive idea. Many of them had harbored fantasies of going north to get away from the racism oozing out of the schools and businesses. But just as the men were becoming used to the idea and throwing suggestions back and forth, someone asked, “Where Willie Jr. and Little Buttercup?”

The entire assemblage fell silent. All eyes were on Great-Grandmama. Something was definitely wrong. My cousin Cindy Lou spoke up.

“Willie Son was here. He took them home, he said. He said to tell Aunt Inez he wanted to talk to her and to come home and tend to them if she wants to.”

My mother gave out a shrill cry and collapsed, sobbing, “Bring my babies back. I want my babies! God have mercy and don’t let him hurt my babies. Somebody help me to get my babies back!” She got up and lunged for the door. Some of the men restrained her and told her they were going to my daddy’s house to get us back.

Several possible plans of action were being entertained and debated when Great-Grandmama Laura Mae came out of her room. No one had really noticed when she left the front room to go to her room and get her pistol. She emerged and said, “I’m goin’ to get my great-grandbabies. I’ll be back.” Of course, the rest of the family followed her down the street.

As they approached my old home, everyone could see my daddy standing at the top of the porch looking at them defiantly. He was holding my brother and me, restraining us from running to jump into my mother’s arms.

“Give me my babies,” my mother screamed. “Please don’t hurt my babies. I’ll do anything you want, just let my babies go!”

“I want you to come home and be my wife again, Inez. I love you very much, and I’m sorry for what I did. Cain’t you give me another chance?” Willie Son pleaded.

“You done had plenty enough chance,” Great-Grandmama Laura Mae responded. “I’m not goin’ to let you do to my grandchile what you did before. Let my great-grandbabies come home now. I’m not goin’ to play with you, Willie Son. If’n you don’ let my babies go, Willie Son, I’m goin’ to shoot you.”

“Aw, shut up, you meddlin’ ol’ lady. Why don’t you mind your own business and leave my wife to me?” my daddy said.

“If’n you had treated Inez like a wife, she would still be with you. But you forgot who you were—just a man—and had to attack my baby for some stupid jealousy. I’m not going to stand for it. If’n you don’t let my great-grandbabies go, I’m goin’ to kill you, Willie Son, and I mean it. Let those babies go!” She was furious.

Then Great-Grandmama Laura Mae reached for her pistol and the crowd fell away. She aimed and shot one round that hit my daddy square in his shoulder, and he collapsed on the porch, releasing my brother and me.

Great-Grandmama Laura Mae walked slowly up the steps, her gun pointed at him the whole time. She looked at him and said, “I’m not goin’ kill ya, ’cause you my babies’ daddy, but I want you to know dat if you ever come ’round my house again and messes wid my babies, I’ll kill ya. I’m bound on dat and ya haves my word.”

Great-Grandmama Laura Mae stared at the wounded Willie Son and turned away. She put her pistol back in her bosom and descended the stairs.

A siren could be heard in the distance. Someone had reported the shooting. In just a short while, my daddy would be recuperating in the same hospital as a year ago, looking at the same four walls and asking himself the same question, “Why me, O Lord?”

THE NEXT DAY, GREAT-GRANDMAMA LAURA MAE SENT the men to purchase tickets for the first contingent to take the train to Ohio. That group was to include my mother, my brother, my little sisters, and me. We were to leave immediately. Great-Grandmama would come along later, she said.

In Youngstown, Ohio, the cars were faster, and the noise was louder. There were a lot more people around, and I wasn’t allowed to go out alone. I was enrolled in kindergarten. I didn’t have any friends, nor was I looking for any. At school, they didn’t think I could talk, or at least, not well. I chose to be silent. I had my own world of rules and regulations: success with no failure. In my mind, I spent my time with Granddaddy Saul, singing and minding his cane and letting the world go by. I moved away from the pain I carried from Alabama—the violence and the hurt.

I HAD BEEN SHELTERED ALL MY LIFE AND WARNED TO BE wary of strangers. Now the rules were different. My daddy had been considered a friend, indeed, an intimate family member. He was someone I knew, yet he had proven to be very dangerous. I now had recurring nightmares of my parents fighting. My dreams conjured up the dangerous kitchen knife that my mother used in her fight against my daddy, and gradually it took on a life of its own. The knife would fly through the air, and the rising blood would be everywhere, threatening to drown me. I would wake up in a cold sweat, struggling to breathe. Sometimes my mother would wake me up and sit with me to hold and calm me. She said that I was howling and singing “nonsense songs,” thrashing about. Because of those dreams and memories, even to this day, I’m wary of knives. As a child, I would insist on breaking my food into pieces with my hands, or with a fork, but never with a knife. My mother knew why and didn’t insist. Sometimes she would cut up my food for me. Some people thought she was spoiling me. But she and I both knew that she was making it possible for me to relax and behave in a normal way. When I had to do chores, like cleaning up the kitchen, she would always wash the knives herself. I was in my late teens before I reached a point where I could peel potatoes and cut up vegetables without starting to shake. Today, it would be called PTSD, but back then it had no name—it was just something I had to manage and overcome.

DESPITE MY ROUGH BEGINNINGS, YOUNGSTOWN—A bustling, dirty steel town of 150,000 people—started to feel like home fairly quickly. The streets were a combination of cobblestone and pavement, generally well kept. Streetlights worked, and the garbage was picked up regularly. It was easy to find out which neighborhoods were safe for a black boy at night. I knew exactly which churches welcomed me and my music. Even the movie theaters had a section for black people upstairs and white people downstairs. Though this was supposed to be the North, I learned about racial segregation well above the Mason-Dixon Line. One of the black neighborhoods in Youngstown was called The Bottom, and it went under the Oak Street Bridge as far as the East Side, on past McGuffey Boulevard. If I stayed in those areas, I was safe. We eventually wound up on Meadow Street, which was centrally located in The Bottom. There were lots of other kids to play with and a playground nearby where end-of-summer concerts were hosted. Even at my tender age, I was given a prominent part and sang and danced in all of them.

IF THINGS HAD CONTINUED LIKE THAT, I PROBABLY would have been a very happy preteen, but my mother met and started dating Warren Boswell. His effect on all of us was noticeable immediately. I wish I could say that he was ugly and old, and loud and raucous. He was none of these things. He was an introvert, whose worst qualities came out when he drank too much, which, unfortunately, was too often. He was what you call an ugly drunk. When he was sober, you hardly knew he was in the house, except that he played a harmonica. You could hear it all over the house, gently playing what to me sounded like country and western tunes. He was not a well-educated man, but he took pride in reading the newspaper daily and watching the news on television every evening. Right from the beginning, my mother spent a lot of time doting on him: cooking for him, dressing him, and kissing him.

He was of average height, with black wavy hair and about my complexion. In many ways, he looked just like Daddy. We had such high hopes and expected him to be the presence that our real father never was. But we had one idea, and my mother had another. Looking back, I think she was trying to make up for the loss of my daddy. With him, her dreams had never come true. Maybe she would have a second chance with this man, who eventually became my stepfather.

Before long, my mother announced she was pregnant with my baby sister, Lawanna, and that Warren was going to come and live with us. I was jealous. Nobody had asked me how I felt about him. Nobody had asked me if she should marry him or get pregnant. It was all stated as a fact. I probably would have been fine with the whole thing, but nobody had asked. My mother started spending more and more time with Warren and excluding us kids. It was easy to conclude that we would be left out as long as he was around.

I began to look for activities away from home. I sang all over the neighborhood for civic organizations, ladies’ groups, luncheon clubs, Kiwanis meetings, and even schools. The bonus was that some of them paid me, and I enjoyed my independence.

In the same way, I began to enjoy school. I decided to interact with the teacher and other children. Maybe I would have fun if I entered into the day-to-day business of the classroom instead of constantly retreating into my world with Granddaddy Saul and the cane.

But I thought about my Great-Grandmama Laura Mae almost every day. I also thought about my aunts and uncles and cousins, and especially about my Aunt Emma. Mama said she was sick. She and Great-Grandmama Laura Mae would be along later. I didn’t ever think about my daddy. I didn’t miss him. Mama told me he was trying to find us, and if he did, we’d have to move again. I hoped he’d never find us.

MY COUSINS BELONGED TO THE MT. CARMEL BAPTIST Church on Oak Street, and we soon became regular members there too. In the early days, I met two of the most important musical influences in my young life there: Mrs. Jonathan Butler and Reverend Obadiah Rhodes. Mrs. Butler was the superintendent of the Sunday school and sang alto in the regular church choir. She loved my baby voice and encouraged me to sing from a tender age. She coached me on the hymns and spirituals and would sing them with me often. At home, Mama would encourage our singing for the Lord, and we would all join in. Poor Willie Jr. couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket with a lid on it! But he loved singing as much as I did, and nobody had the heart to tell him he couldn’t stay on key.

My family was a traditional Baptist, God-fearing one. And even before I truly understood what homosexuality meant, it was drilled into my brain that those men were wrong in the eyes of God.

One Saturday morning, my mother told us to wash up and dress in our Sunday best. My cousin Johnny Mae was getting married at Mt. Carmel. I’d never been to a wedding before. Everyone was excited, and the music was great. We sang along, and I enjoyed the steady parade of familiar faces marching down the center aisle to their seats, everyone dressed up in their finest outfits. Even people who didn’t go to our church were there.

When I saw Johnny Mae coming down that aisle all dressed in white, my heart nearly stopped! I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the whole world. Even though I was only five years old, I knew that one day I would wear one of those dresses and look just as beautiful as my cousin. Later, when I told my mother my idea, she slapped me on the behind and told me not to be silly. “Boys don’t wear wedding gowns,” she said, and rolled her eyes at me. I tried not to show how disappointed I was and kept asking if I could be an exception. But she emphatically refused. She and the church found my deepest desires to be unacceptable.

Still, I found solace in the church. As I got older, I took on more and more responsibilities. I eventually became the choir director. By the time I was twelve, I had learned to read music at the Christ Mission after-school program. Rev. Obadiah Rhodes, our pastor, loved my singing. I seemed to have a gift for pleasing him and most of the ladies of the church. When I sang a solo, which was often, women and men alike would shout and throw canes, fans, hats, and purses around. People attributed all kinds of spiritual anointments and God-given gifts to my ability to deliver a song. I was singing for the Lord!

Knowing that “the hand of the Lord was upon” me made all the difference in the world to me. This knowledge gave me a power of concentration and single-mindedness that has stayed with me all my life.

THROUGHOUT GRADE SCHOOL, I WAS ENCOURAGED BY my teachers and given lots of extra attention. I gained confidence musically, and my grades were pretty high. I not only got along with the other students, but also at some point I realized that I was, indeed, popular and a teacher’s pet. It seemed they doted on the one that needed the most help and encouragement. I was teased a lot for that.

I recognized that some of the kids were jealous of my special status, so I always downplayed it. I even downplayed it with my siblings. I continued to work hard, but I stopped telling my friends how I did on exams, and I never showed off a high mark on returned papers. I sang as best I could, and I studied often. I became adept at avoiding any confrontations.

From grade to grade, I grew in confidence and performance. I never let myself say that I was special, but I knew that I was. If I had been a weaker person, my stepfather’s growing anger would have turned me around, but the more he drank and the meaner he was, the stronger I became.

My mother seemed to ignore all of it, as though it wasn’t happening. The first time he reached out and struck me, everything stopped. He said I had a “smart mouth.” I said I was just telling him the truth. The second time, he knocked me down. It only took me a second for me to realize that telling the truth was dangerous. My mother always sided with Warren and further solidified his superior status in our home. It goes without saying that things were never the same again between us after that.

Warren’s continued cruelty was a major factor in my decision to spend as much time away from home as possible. Nobody seemed to notice that I was staying after school with the choir director more and more. I learned every song from memory that my junior high music teacher would give me, and I started playing the clarinet. I started behaving one way at home and completely differently in school. I was so outgoing in school, it was maddening. At home, I fell into such a silence that often nobody knew I was around. I hid behind books: classics, poetry, romantic Western novels, Rin Tin Tin, other dog stories, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The local librarian became my best friend. Often, she suggested new books that I should read.

All of this was superseded by my study of the Bible. I quietly searched for some saving force that could take my stepfather out of my life. I leaned heavily on the Old Testament and the fire-and-brimstone God who had rescued Israel from Egypt. People saw me reading the Bible all the time, but seldom did they ask me specifically what I was reading. I struggled with the knowledge that I had grown to hate my stepfather, but I figured God would forgive me because I had given my heart and my talent to singing sacred Christian songs in praise of Jehovah and Jesus Christ. Nobody was perfect.

Even though I carried a copy of the Bible small enough to fit into my book bag, I wasn’t thinking about the Bible all the time. Sometimes I would surprise myself when I realized I was thinking about boys. Nobody ever mentioned anything about being gay or straight, but I did hear sermons from time to time that laid out, in detail, what the preacher would call an abomination in Sodom and Gomorrah—men sleeping with men.

I wondered over and over if this warm feeling in the pit of my stomach for one of my buddies was sinful. I dared to bring the subject up several times with a couple of my friends, who quickly told me to put it out of my mind. It was not a subject that was supposed to be discussed, even among friends. Well then, whom was I supposed to discuss it with? I already knew that I could not divulge this secret to my brother and sisters. So, I prayed and kept this warmth to myself.

I DIDN’T NEED A HIGH IQ TO NOTICE THAT MOST OF THE students in my class at Hayes Junior High School were white or Jewish even though the school was supposed to be integrated. Of the 1,300 or so students, ethnic groups were all about evenly divided: one-third white, one-third Jewish, and one-third black. I later learned that the school system utilized a track system, which was based partially on race and family economics. All the students in my class were white. All thirty-three, except for me. I was in the second track most of the time. Sometimes I was in the first track. In my view, it was unfair, and I often wondered how the officials in the public school system could justify their decision to segregate most of the black students.

This kind of subtle, systematic racism continued through junior high school and into high school. Because of my love of music, I continued to play in the band and sing in the choir. When my voice began to change, the kind junior high school music teacher, Miss Williams, insisted that I attend choir anyway and learn all the music until I could sing with the group again. Eventually, I went from boy alto to young tenor. I was hoarse a lot, but the period didn’t last very long. In addition to singing in school, I also sang on variety shows and in talent contests and earned the nicknames Blue Bird and Moon River.

Without my parents’ knowledge, I helped to start a rock ’n’ roll singing group of six guys called The Jokers. We would practice on the walk home from Hayes Junior High or when we got to my friend Hiawatha’s house. His parents didn’t mind our singing at all. Our group only lasted three years, but it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. I became more aware of the songs of Ray Charles, Frankie Lymon, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Coasters, Sam Cooke, and many others.

Hiawatha was dark, handsome, and six feet tall even in junior high. I felt he had a sweet baritone voice and even sweeter lips. I could have sung with him forever. He had a good sense of rhythm, as we used to make up routines like The Temptations or Gladys Knight & The Pips. We’d move the furniture around his room so we could master the routines easier, and we’d sit in his room and listen for hours while his mother cleaned the house or cooked dinner. His daddy was a bus driver, and sometimes I’d run into him when I rode the Elm Street bus.

All of us guys would imitate the records. We’d put on a record and pretend we had microphones, or tie our heads up in do-rags, and move around like the Edsels or The Coasters or Little Anthony and The Imperials. I used to pretend that I was the lead singer. I wasn’t surprised that I could do it.

Sometimes it was just Hiawatha and me, and I’d put on Dinah Washington or Etta James and sing just like them. Hiawatha loved it when I acted like Dinah Washington or Ruth Brown. He’d laugh real nice and say, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” and then he’d smile some more and say, “Do it again!” And I would.

Hiawatha was an only child, and his parents doted on him. They were always telling him that he was special, “even though he was black.” I used to listen to the way they talked to him and silently wished that my mother and stepfather would talk to me the same way. After a while, I realized that even though he was a really good singer, he was not very bright in school. In fact, he was worse academically than my brother, so I often helped him with his homework. He had terrible handwriting; I helped him with that. In a short time, his grades improved, and he began to enjoy studying. Partly because of that, his parents welcomed me into their home often.

In Hiawatha’s room, as we sat or lay close on the bed, I’d imitate Ray Charles and Frankie Lymon. He’d sing lead on The Drifters’ songs or on The Coasters’ songs. We harmonized easily. He had a rich, low voice already, and I still sang high.

During those times, I realized that while I was singing like Dinah Washington or Ruth Brown, I was feeling very easy and “natural,” like my mother or any woman. I didn’t pretend I liked any girls, and I didn’t want to hug or kiss any girls. I imagined myself walking “down the aisle of love” in my wedding dress, like my cousin, Johnny Mae. I was feeling really happy. When I sang then, I knew that my songs had feelings and not just pretend emotions. I was, for those few sweet moments, Mary Wells with her two lovers, like The Marvelettes, asking Mr. Postman for “a letter for me.” Those were the kind of songs I could sing when I was walking home by myself or in my room with the door closed and nobody told me to act “regular” or not to act “like a girl!”

When Dinah Washington and Brook Benton came out with their famous duets, like “Baby, You’ve Got What It Takes,” and “A Rockin’ Good Way,” I, of course, sang Dinah’s part and Hiawatha sang Brook’s part. It seemed as natural as anything to me. I knew right away that all of this was very different from church. Singing with Hiawatha made me feel sexy, and I sometimes looked longingly at him and wondered what if we could hold each other like Brook and Dinah did? What if we could kiss sometime like in the movies? But nothing ever happened, even when I slept over and we were in the same bed. He was warm and comforting next to me, but he always turned his back to me and went to sleep.

More and more, I became aware that this music and the closeness of my buddy was sexy. Rock ’n’ roll was sexy. At first, I thought everyone felt the way I did. One day while singing and feeling sexy, I pulled him close to me and rubbed our crotches together. I pretended that we were grinding. I’d seen other guys do this with girls during the slow dances at socials. But Hiawatha let me know that grinding was really reserved only for “chicks.” There were certain things we fellas could discuss, but we really wanted to get the girls alone to grind and do the rest. I didn’t know what “the rest” was, but he talked about it so matter-of-factly that I pretended I did. I wanted to continue to be able to be close to him.

Hiawatha seemed to say all the right things about what men felt and what I was supposed to be happily learning to do. I just couldn’t tell him that I was far more interested in him than any of my girl friends. I never wanted to call girls up and whisper to them on the phone or hang out with them and sing. I much preferred the two of us alone. But he was constantly reminding me that our singing was to attract the girls. He said that women would love us for being able to sing and look cool. He also said it would make me popular with the boys because they would be jealous of the way the girls felt about us. I thought about that for a long time.

“Singing can do all that?” I asked.

“Sure, man,” he answered confidently. “You can have a different girl every night.”

He silenced me with his enthusiasm. I couldn’t possibly explain to him how little his proposal interested me. Never could I imagine spending the night with many different women. I’d be satisfied with one handsome guy like him. He was tall and dark and moved with a confidence that I found very attractive. I didn’t need any women in my life as long as I could hang out with him every night. I kept singing, but it was clear to me that we were singing for very different reasons.

BY THE TIME I WAS SIXTEEN, I HAD LEARNED TO TAMP down my feelings for the same sex, but I was still making discoveries of a different nature: a whole new fascinating, musical world I’d never even known existed. I loved pop music, but for a long time, I didn’t tell my mother or any church members because I felt that they would scold me and object. One day, some of the parents of my fellow singers went to my mother and begged her to permit me to sing pop music publicly with The Jokers. They were obviously persuasive because she didn’t explode or try to punish me. I was greatly relieved when she finally agreed.

During that time, I started to fully appreciate everything from Motown to gospel to traditional spirituals and hymns. All of us in The Jokers were black: we were the Motown crowd, and I sang the high parts, of course. The Jokers played a couple gigs out together, and sometimes we would even make five dollars per person, per gig. But it was mostly just some of my buddies hanging out and having fun. We even bought red matching outfits to sing together in! But I had to leave my clothes at Hiawatha’s house because I didn’t want my family to know I bought them, and I certainly didn’t want them to see me in them. I knew they would tease me mercilessly.

Additionally, I gradually let it be known to the church ladies that I was interested in singing secular classical music, and not just fundamentalist Christian music. Ironically, these same grand old church ladies stepped in to help me out on other occasions. They even gently urged my mother to let me go to Stambaugh Auditorium to hear a recital by the famed mezzo-soprano Betty Allen, who was from the Youngstown area. She sang exquisitely, and my fate was sealed.

Betty sang loudly, without a microphone. I could hear her voice everywhere—in front of me and in back of me. I knew that my voice, even when I sang like a woman, sounded nothing like that. But the vibrations through my body thrilled me. You could have exploded dynamite in that seat, and I would not have moved for the rest of the concert. I didn’t even venture out of the auditorium during intermission. I decided that one day I was going to sing at Stambaugh Auditorium, and I wouldn’t use a microphone either.

After the concert, I was lucky enough to get a backstage introduction by Mrs. Gamble, one of the sorority ladies.

In every way, Betty Allen was bigger than life. I shall never forget the smooth brown powder makeup on her face and the rouge on her cheeks. She also had two pretty red combs in her full head of hair, one on each side near her ears. When she extended her hand to me, I saw her bright red polished fingernails. They were so long! I was swallowed up in her big smile.

Mrs. Gamble introduced me, saying, “This is our little François. He’s in high school and wants to be a singer like you.”

“Well, what do you sing, young man?” she asked.

“I sing spirituals like you.” I didn’t dare say more.

“Well, I’m sure you sing them very well. Keep up the good work, young man. I’ll be looking out for you now.” She was holding my hand the whole time! Finally, I was able to ask her for her autograph. She signed my program, To François, the young singer from Youngstown, my hometown. See you in New York.

I will never forget the kind, encouraging things she said to me. For the rest of my life, I hung on to the special words uttered to me by a total stranger at an important time during my development. Years later, I was able to connect with Betty Allen in New York City, and she proved to still be just as generous and supportive. She was very instrumental in bringing many black singers from all over the boroughs of New York City together to rehearse at the Harlem School of the Arts. Later, we were transported en masse to Berlin, Germany, to sing at the Theater des Westens in the history-making, all-black, complete version of George Gershwin’s stunning production Porgy and Bess, as directed by Götz Friedrich.

AS TIME WENT ON, I SAW WHAT I WAS BEING TAUGHT IN church and frequently in school were not enough to fully satisfy the growing artist deep inside of me. I wanted more than the vocational life frequently pushed toward me, or the church singing my mother wanted for me. There was something powerful and real outside of Youngstown, and I was going to get at it. Maybe my family, my church, and my school weren’t going to help me get it, but I’d find a way. So help me God, if I had to leave walking, I was going to leave Youngstown.

By this time, it was very clear that Aunt Emma and Great-Grandmama Laura Mae were not going to come to the city to live. Aunt Emma had cancer, and Great-Grandmama Laura Mae had stayed down south to take care of her. I was disappointed, but I didn’t feel I could do anything to change it, so I kept singing. Anytime I felt deep disappointment or hurt, I moved even more deeply into my music. Every opportunity I saw, I got out of the house to sing.

I still had a couple of years left to go before I could graduate high school, so I tried to make the best of it.

One of my buddies from the school choir, Mickey Wolsonovich, had a rough second-tenor voice that helped carry the section for the weaker guys. We tenors could be a tight-knit group as we struggled together to sing high notes, learn the new music, and hold our own with the rest of the sections. We used to hang out at Mickey’s house all the time—it didn’t matter that I was the only black kid.

One day Mickey had to go to the Ukrainian Orthodox church to be altar boy for an hour during mass. He invited us to come along. None of us were Catholic, but we all felt that it would be okay to just sit in the pews and wait for him to finish. When we arrived at the church, everyone headed for the rear pews to sit and wait. One of the priests came over to us and asked why we were there. He seemed to be speaking directly to me.

“We’re friends of Mickey’s and we’re going to wait for him to finish so we can all sing together,” we all said.

The priest looked directly at me and said, “You don’t belong here. Why don’t you go home or wait outside?”

I didn’t know what to say. I sat there as he stared, waiting for me to move. I looked at the others, and none of them would let their eyes meet mine. Slowly, I got up, practically in tears, and shuffled reluctantly for the nearest exit. No one else moved. I knew exactly what that priest had meant. That’s the way it was in Youngstown. Nobody had been so direct before, but I knew my place and didn’t try to fight it. I never set foot in that church again.

I went on home and didn’t mention to anyone what had happened to me. I knew my mother or stepfather couldn’t do anything, so why make a fuss? I just tried to wipe it out of my mind and get on with my life.

But I had trouble talking and singing with the guys the next time I saw them in school. I knew that they had let me down, and they knew it too. I moved my seat in choir and only spoke to them when I had to. Regardless of what they were thinking, they never mentioned the incident again. I never forgot it. We hit a racial divide that was too painful for me to renegotiate. They were part of the white world, and I was part of the black world. In spite of what some of my other close white friends did or said, I always knew what could happen if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so I carried a wariness inside of me that they did not.

I wasn’t wrong. When I was a junior it happened again—this time with my buddy Albert. Albert was in the bass section in the choir, and we enjoyed harmonizing together from time to time. One Friday night, Albert mentioned that there was a party at the VFW out on Midlothian Boulevard.

“Have you ever been there?” he asked.

I hadn’t ever heard of it. Albert described it as a big crowd of people from all over—maybe some students from school—with beers and dancing: a lot of fun.

That sounded fine to me, so I agreed. There was a huge parking lot surrounding the VFW, already half full. The action was coming from a dilapidated old two-story brick building.

We parked a little way away and headed for the entrance. We walked in rhythm to the deep thump, thump, thump coming from inside that got louder as we neared the entrance.

When we got to the door, Albert knocked. The bouncer opened the door a crack and looked at us. I could smell the cigarette smoke and feel the visceral rush of the music as the vibrations shook the building. The sound was vintage Little Richard.

“How much is it to get in tonight?” Albert yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth.

“Five bucks for you,” yelled back the bouncer, “but your buddy can’t come in. Tell him to come back on Wednesday, Nigger Night!” His voice was harsh as he directed his refusal toward me. Someone from inside, a guy about thirty wearing tight jeans, came over and looked over the bouncer’s shoulder. He joined in the bouncer’s explanation.

“Yeah, nigger boy, this ain’t Nigger Night. Check with your people and come back then. There’s no niggers allowed here tonight!”

By his body language, I could tell that he wasn’t even talking directly to me. He was yelling to Albert to tell me, as though I couldn’t hear or understand the meaning of his words because of all the noise. It had never occurred to me or to Albert that blacks and whites didn’t go to the VFW on the same nights. We stood there dumbfounded. I could tell that Albert wanted to go in. He had been planning on it for several days. I didn’t want to spoil it for him.

“Look, Albert,” I said, “why don’t you take me home, and you can come on back and do your thing. I don’t need to go in there tonight.” I was already headed back for the car. It was too far to walk home, or I’d have offered to let Albert stay and gone home alone.

When Albert caught up with me in the parking lot, he was all apologies.

“I’m really sorry about this, man,” he said. He was earnest. “I didn’t know. Let’s get out of here. We can head back to my place. I didn’t want to go there anyway.”

We sat in silence in the car. I didn’t feel that it was Albert’s fault, but he was white. I was sure that nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He said as much.

I knew that it wasn’t just the VFW that discriminated against blacks. I heard the older folks talking, and I knew that it could happen all over town. It could happen in any white church, at my school, at certain community functions—like plays where blacks didn’t audition because we knew we’d never be cast as anything except a maid or shoeshine boy. We also didn’t go to the Northside swimming pool or the downtown YMCA. There were neighborhoods that were traditionally white and others that were all black. This brand of racism was not new to me. It was found all over the city, all over the state and country. One just swallowed and moved on.

Although Albert protested, I insisted that he take me home. As I got out of the car, he yelled, “Hey, man, I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”

“Yeah, see you on Monday,” I answered, desolate. As I walked into the house and up to my room, I knew that I was somehow a second-class citizen. He was my buddy, but he wasn’t able to do anything about what had happened. This knowledge caused me to feel rage, a very different kind of rage than when I was angry with my parents. I was enraged enough to not want to live in the United States, to want to get away from it all. I didn’t want any white friends. I wondered how I could manage that and finish my education. If I kept thinking about what had just happened, I wouldn’t be able to work or practice or sleep. It was paralyzing.

I sat down, but I couldn’t pray. I was mad at God too. My eyes glanced around my bedroom and rested on an old clarinet that I hadn’t played for a while. I picked it up to try to forget what had just happened. After a few lame phrases, I heard banging on the ceiling downstairs and my stepfather’s irate voice yelling at me.

“Stop that damned noise! It was nice and peaceful around here till you got back and started your noise. Stop that noise before I come up there and shove that damned clarinet down your throat.”

Now my rage had a more immediate and visible enemy. I could hate him and know that one day I would do something about it. I was going to leave this tormentor and his house—this whole stupid town—and go as far as I could go. It was a bit more difficult for me to leave this country. That I’d have to work on, but I could distance myself from Warren.

Nothing like what had happened that night ever happened when I was with my black buddies. We just knew where to go and where not to go. We knew that we weren’t going to change Youngstown, and we weren’t trying. We wanted to be survivors. That meant not rocking the boat.

Back in school, Albert handled things very differently than Mickey. He kept referring to the incident and mentioned that he had told his parents.

“Would you come over and talk with Mom and Dad about it? I want them to know what happened. I’m not going to the VFW again. They’re dead set against it. They made me promise. I wish you’d come over and talk with them sometime.” He was serious.

I wanted to talk with them, but I felt that the real issue was talking to the actual racists who ran the VFW. Somebody should talk to them.

MY TICKET OUT OF YOUNGSTOWN APPEARED IN THE form of two unlikely people: Ms. Mary Lou Phillips and Professor Ron Gould. Mary Lou Phillips first met our family through Warren’s mother, who needed to get approval for social security. (Aid for the Aged is what it was called in Ohio at the time.) Mary Lou came to the house to interview Warren and my mother to find out as much info as she could to qualify Warren’s mother for Aid for the Aged. During one of Mary Lou’s home visits, I came home from school and my mother introduced me as “my son François, who sings.” She asked Mary Lou if she would like to hear a song. I certainly wasn’t shy about singing, so I ended up singing a few songs for her right there in the living room. Mary Lou was impressed, and immediately suggested that I meet the organist-choirmaster from St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ron Gould, and maybe take some voice lessons with him.

I waited to take my cue from my mother. This singing was not for the Baptist church, and I could just hear her saying “No!” Well, she surprised me and said I should do it if I really wanted to. The deal was set, and Mary Lou promised to be in touch with me soon to confirm a starting date. I was a bit suspicious of this white church, St. John’s, but I was willing to give it a try. I wanted to learn to sing better.

My life changed drastically from the moment I met Professor Gould of Youngstown State University and St. John’s Episcopal Church. Neither he nor Mary Lou were much older than I was, but their experience and world outlook was so vastly different from mine that sometimes I felt I was trying to communicate with aliens. They were both white and probably had never been discriminated against because of their color. I wondered if either of them could ever understand how wounded I’d felt at the VFW and the Ukrainian Catholic church.

I trusted them, but at the same time, I didn’t trust them because we were so different. Yet, we shared so much through our love of music and the arts that I felt charmed and even entranced at times. It started out very professionally on a weekly basis, with Mary Lou paying for my voice lessons with Ron.

On Wednesdays, I was allowed to leave half an hour early from school and take my voice lesson at the church with Ron. He was a wonderful coach who taught me how to sing my first Schubert, Bach, Handel’s Messiah, etc. Eventually Ron and his wife, Marsha, started inviting me to come home after the lesson for dinner. They didn’t have children and served as a combination of big brother, sister, and parents for me. They lived within walking distance to my house, and Mary Lou didn’t live far either. I could always go over to their houses to get away from fighting at my own home. They provided a sanctuary.

Within several months, my lessons increased in frequency to several times a week after school and sometimes on weekends, depending on my school studies and activities. Even though I grew up in the black Baptist Church, I reluctantly gave up conducting my Baptist church choir at Mt. Carmel and began singing in Ron’s Episcopal church choir. I explained that I was leaving simply because I needed the money, and Mt. Carmel couldn’t provide a weekly salary. My parents would never give me an allowance, so I had to earn my own money. Meanwhile, St. John’s hired me as their tenor soloist and paid me twenty-five dollars per Sunday, no small chunk of change in those days. It paid very well for a high school student.

Ron and Mary Lou’s influence gradually replaced the home and church life I had grown up with. Ron seemed to be an expert on Italian, German, and French vocal music, especially for the tenor voice. Although I was studying Latin in school and was going to study French later, I didn’t have a clue about how to sing any German, French, or Italian language songs. Mary Lou was an encyclopedia about popular performances, performers, and musical theater. Sometimes when the three of us were together, I spent the whole time listening and trying to figure out exactly what they were talking about. I would come away from our sessions feeling ecstatic and “high.” Fortunately, they were natural teachers and spent hours and hours explaining to me America’s musical traditions and our relationship to world music. Mary Lou especially loved reggae and jazz.

She was the first person to explain to me that American Negro spirituals were the foundation of all American music. It took a while for that to sink in. I had never heard that the slaves did anything of significance except work themselves to death on the plantations in the South and in white folks’ homes in the northern states. How could they have known anything about music? I wondered.

“Slave songs were work songs, because the slaves were required to sing while they worked. They turned this horrible condition into a great song repertoire,” Mary Lou explained. “I hope you’ll always sing these songs, which you already sing so well. One day you’ll do many concerts like Roland Hayes or Paul Robeson. Except I’m hoping you’ll be able to do more in opera too. I think you have the flare for drama. You just need the right training.”

Ron agreed. “We’ll work on that more and more in the oratorios. That’ll prepare you to do lots in opera. You must learn to let your voice teach you. I’ll help you to listen to yourself. You mustn’t sing heavy arias for your lyric tenor while you’re young and still developing. I intend to start you with Handel’s Messiah and eventually get to Bach’s wonderful Passions. I’ll see to it that you’re ready before you go away to college.”

This kind of talk exhilarated me.

In a town like Youngstown, blacks and whites did not traditionally mix like this. We were becoming friends, though I was still suspicious and sometimes fearful. I was afraid that they would eventually stop talking to me and reject me because of my skin color. How could these white people know so much about black music and black people? Why were they so eager to share this treasured knowledge with me? Nobody had ever spent so much time on my education. Certainly not my parents.

I gained a new level of confidence and polish under Ron’s tutelage and nurturance. He paid a lot of attention to detail and wouldn’t let me get away with any sloppiness. We would repeat a phrase a hundred times until he was satisfied that I was doing it correctly with the right color and inflections to the words. In many ways it wasn’t hard for me. I had youth and stamina on my side. I worked until he said it was enough. I never complained, and he never gave up—it was his way of showing love and discipline. I needed both. It was clear to everyone that we had found something deep and special in our relationship. We began to have long conversations at dinner about what it took for a serious career in music.

For the first time, I seriously considered a college education with a major in music. Previously, my parents had urged me to take up tailoring or plumbing—a trade, so that I would always have a good job. I was always fond of cooking and had even considered becoming a chef.

There’s no telling what I might have gotten into if I didn’t have my faith and my love of music.

MEANWHILE, MY HOME LIFE CONTINUED TO DISINTEGRATE. My older brother and I continued to drift further apart—he was interested in boxing, and I hated violence. He and my stepfather butted heads, and before long, they were challenging each other physically with my mother trying to play referee.

My stepfather had managed to get into the steel mills as a laborer when he was barely seventeen and had stayed there all his working life. He went to the army for three years and returned to the mills right where he left off when he was discharged. He managed to stay sober during the weekdays, but he always found a bottle for the weekends.

The drunker he got, the more abusive he was toward my mother, and my brother had had enough. It all came to a climax one evening after dinner while I was upstairs in my room with the door closed, trying to study for a biology exam the next day. The noise downstairs became too raucous to ignore. My mother and sisters were trying to separate my stepfather and brother, who both seemed focused on a battle to the death. They were straining and cursing at each other as though they were outside in some alley. I tried to break up the fight, but I wound up being the punching bag. I put my hands over my head and fell to the floor. After I took a couple of solid kicks, I tried to get out of there but was unsuccessful. I was not being disciplined by a parent but beaten up by a man who had been trained to kill by Uncle Sam. His three years in the military were not wasted. If it weren’t for the rest of my family, he could have killed me. The last thing I remember was a kick to my head over the right ear.

I only barely recall being dragged across the floor by my brother and my mother and hearing my stepfather cussing. I had done the unforgiveable. I had challenged him in trying to help my brother in the fight. I didn’t move as my mother and several of the neighbors dabbed my bleeding head with towels. I tried to talk, but my mouth was full of teeth and a fat tongue, so I stopped. I just sat there and let them minister to me. Part of me wondered which was worse: being beat up by your stepfather or being thrown out of a white church for being black. I wouldn’t have chosen either one, but my fate had generously given me both.

My brother ended up moving out, and several months later, he joined the army. I watched it all with confusion and anger. How could my mother allow this man, my stepfather, come into our lives and cause such havoc? At home, I became an introvert who walked on eggshells; I didn’t ask any questions and never offered any information. It seemed too dangerous to even be happy. I suffered the indignities of occasional hits and kicks from my stepfather and mostly stayed away from home. I usually spent extra time at school with my music teacher, or with Ron and Mary Lou.

During this time, I was also spending more and more time away from the formal church, and I discovered that I still had a sense of my inner life and anointment; those gifts that had been so highly praised during the services at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church were still in me. My ability to turn a phrase and deliver the heart of a song didn’t disappear. I loved music-making just as much as ever. I decided to try praying. It was reassuring to know that that Unknown Something that filled my church work was still with me.

Day after day, I would become still and call forth the wondrous sense of rightness and calm. So much for the church and formal Christianity. Meditating actually gave me courage to continue, on my own. This knowledge freed me more and more to be the true person I was, emerging from within. It was months and years before I was comfortable knowing that the God I loved and served actually was everywhere, that I could access Him anywhere and everywhere. What did this mean for me and my role in the church? Was this sense of transcendence also present in Schubert or Beethoven songs, within operatic arias, and paintings, and dance—all which often left me feeling hypnotized? I had to do some serious thinking about this. I did not take any of these questions to my mother or pastor. I needed to live alone with them for a while.

When I look back on that early spiritual awakening, I realize that I was separating myself from any formal dogma or church. In my humility, I still struggled with the fact that I carried a powerful spirituality that had nothing to do with any organized religion. I treated all religions the same but also found no fault with agnostics, atheists, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Mormons, Baha’is, Buddhists, Religious Scientists, Earth Goddess Worshipper, Sikhs, Taoists—all manner of expressions were fine with me. Time and time again, people wanted me to be a judgmental, fundamentalist Christian singer who hated a lot of regular people, and I just couldn’t do it. I was not there. It is not who I am. My message is simply one of inclusiveness and love. Period.

Despite this, my relationship with Mt. Carmel was about to be shattered.

Judging from all the talk, everyone around me was having sex. But I wasn’t. So I dared to think that a few other people, like my sisters, were also “pure.” After all, frequently when I went to church, they went with me. I blithely went along believing in the best of everybody because I was still a virgin. In my limited experience, sex never solved any problems. It seemed to create problems, especially for people who were not married to each other. In my opinion, sex was polluted and involved girls. I still hadn’t solved the problem of being gay. I did not want to be intimate with girls.

I had read enough of the Bible to know all about adultery and fornication. If I could have physically washed my mind, I would have, but abstinence would have to suffice for me during those turbulent teenage years. I sincerely felt that my brother and sisters were as committed to purity and abstinence as I was. The fact that I was so naïve didn’t really register with me until I was in school and heard several of my classmates talking about the fact that my fifteen-year-old sister was pregnant. I didn’t know anything about it.

In spite of everything I heard, I really knew little or nothing about sex and still believed on some level that the stork was a central character in the process of procreation. I wanted to believe in the stork. It seemed so wholesome and magical. This other stuff about petting and grinding that I heard people talking about, especially Hiawatha, seemed messy and complicated. Over the years, I had not changed my mind. I was a stubborn Taurus who wanted to be clean and wholesome and angelic for God, so I clung to my fantasy.

Gossip and rumors are crafty demons that have immense power to ruin people’s lives. They are often found in the least likely places.

My friend Elaine Logan pulled me aside and stage-whispered that the students were talking about the fact that my sister, one of the twins, was pregnant.

“How do people find these things out?!” I lashed out. “And who is spreading such scandalous gossip?” I was outraged. I lived with my sisters and hadn’t seen or heard the first hint of one of them being pregnant. I promised Elaine that I’d ask at home about this just as soon as I could get to my mother.

It wasn’t long before the sordid facts and all the horrific details were out. It read like a cheap soap opera, and I was profoundly saddened and shocked. It involved the new pastor at Mt. Carmel. It seemed that while I was spending so much time at the church singing, the new pastor was making another kind of music with both of my sisters. Only one became pregnant. Whatever he had said to my mother to justify his actions was never clear to me. My mother and stepfather kept me at a distance and would only discuss superficial details in my presence. There was no lawsuit or accusations of statutory rape. The pastor left town and moved back to Chicago; I never saw or heard from him again. The whole situation was so foul to me that I became even more silent and introverted. I was so disillusioned that I never went back to Mt. Carmel again.

I agonized over the obvious questions: How could God have allowed this to happen? Whose fault was it? What should or could have been done to prevent it from happening? How come one sister became pregnant and not the other sister? For days I silently raged against this God whom I loved so much. Again, in my life, someone whom I trusted implicitly, an authority in the Church, had betrayed me, to say nothing of my sisters’ profound betrayal at his hands. On some level, I was also asking, How could my sister not have known something like this could happen? I hated the Bible; I hated the truth; I hated Christianity! So this was what sex and procreation was all about. I didn’t want anything to do with it and vowed even more strongly to remain a virgin. All my illusions about the stork and fairy tales were utterly shattered. I was being forced to grow up.

I remember hearing Nina Simone sing this mournful song:

Trouble in mind, I’m blue

But I won’t be blue always

. . .

Let that 2:19 train

Ease my troubled mind!

I was troubled and blue too. Worse, I was a singing basket case of rage and confusion. I wanted to protect my sister from the scandal and gossip of nosy neighbors and false friends. My helplessness added to my pain and sense of worthlessness. Being a big brother had no special power or perks in this case. Over and over, I questioned my value to the family, to myself! Where were Great-Grandmama Laura Mae and Granddaddy Saul when I needed them? I wished I could just disappear.

My mother and Warren forced my sister to give up the baby, a little boy, for adoption. My sister didn’t want to give him up, and it caused a tremendous rift in the family. After the pregnancy, my sisters were taken out of my mother and Warren’s home and sent to live with a black Islamic family. Mary Lou Phillips was the caseworker; the girls told their stories to Mary Lou, and Mary Lou reported the situation to the authorities. I was always welcome to go over and see them in their new home. There were times when I tried to salvage my sisters’ lives and ambition. I tried to get them to focus on school, but it was hopeless—I felt like I was talking to a wall. Over the years, we slowly drifted apart; the whole ordeal changed my family forever.

And speaking of change, I was at Elaine’s house when I got the call that took my breath away. My mother didn’t say much, just that Great-Grandmama Laura Mae had died quietly the night after her eightieth birthday gathering, amidst her family. The funeral was to be held next week. We weren’t going to attend. After all these years, Mama was still afraid that we would have trouble with my daddy.

Great-Grandmama Laura Mae loomed as a powerful bigger-than-life legend in my mind, a giant. Her death affected me profoundly. I had felt she’d just live forever. Why should a legend die? Why should the passionate and powerful queen of my youth die? I felt her death disconnect me from my past. I felt abandoned and on my own even though I hadn’t seen her in more than ten years. Elaine’s family—the Logans—offered their sympathies and her father, Reverend Logan, even snuck me a drink of whiskey out of an oddly shaped brown bottle from some secret location. I cried while I washed dishes and wrestled with my thoughts. Later, I went for a long walk with Elaine. I tried to share with her the meaning of my Great-Grandmama Laura Mae’s death. She had been the foundation, the bedrock of our family, and now it felt like we’d lost our mooring.

I STARTED WRITING POETRY IN MY SOLITUDE. I WASN’T very good, but I found a way to express my pain. I continued to spend a lot of time away from home and joined the after-school creative writing club. James Baldwin was all the rage then, and I read all his writings. His voice echoed my sentiment on national issues concerning race and power. It was whispered that he was gay, and I wondered how he could be such a great writer and be gay. I really didn’t know of any other gay people or writers. According to the church, being gay was a sin. It seemed like even thinking too openly about being gay was a sin. I wondered if Baldwin had already done what I wanted to do. If he were around, I could ask him what it felt like to be with another man. What it would be like to take a man out on a date, to make love, to talk on the telephone. I wondered if I’d ever know. If he was openly gay, did he have a special friendship ring from another man? Did they live like a couple? How did people treat them? I knew he used to preach. What did God have to say about all that? Was he still a Christian?

In the creative writing class, beyond reading novels and essays, we read our own work in class and offered polite criticism. I was too sensitive to talk or write in any real depth about my emerging sexuality or the racism I had experienced. I did write about my family and my estrangement. I could talk about that.

I didn’t date very much, just enough to keep the guys from teasing me. Just like Hiawatha had said, I was very popular because of my singing and girls seemed to be constantly trying to get my attention. I was set on being a virgin when I married and dating cost money; I preferred to spend my money on music. I was in love with the new black prima donna soprano Leontyne Price, and I bought my first opera recordings of her and William Warfield singing duets and arias from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. For the most part, I avoided those insistent girls and kept to my buddies and my studies.

I studied regularly with Professor Gould and began to prepare myself for a liberal arts education with a major in music. Ron often asked me if I wanted to teach music, but he made it clear that I was good enough to be a performance major. My high school music teacher, Mr. Miller, echoed that opinion. I was good enough to be a member of the boys’ octet, which performed at school and throughout the community. I considered this valuable experience training for my career, and I took the responsibilities very seriously. Mr. Miller would often turn the choir or the tenors over to me to teach song parts. I didn’t play the piano very well, but I could always play the tenor part in anthems and hymns. I would check the lax or marginal boys who were there often just for show. Even though I developed a good sense of humor, I took myself very seriously when it came to learning music. Many kids knew it and groaned when I took over the choir. Privately, Mr. Miller used to talk to me about taking it easy with the guys. But when he wanted the job done, he called on me. He often told me that I was better at teaching music than he was because I sang all the parts. I set the bar pretty high for the other students and showed them that if they were serious about singing, we could have the best choir in the state. When we went to the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Inc., (NATS) state singing contest in Columbus, Ohio, we received the highest rating every time. That kind of success was infectious, and many of the students tolerated my strictness because they liked the acclaim. I also got the highest rating for my solo singing.

DURING MY SENIOR YEAR, THINGS CAME TO A HEAD FOR me with my stepfather at home. I had the habit of sneaking out of the house on evenings to attend performances at Stambaugh Auditorium. My parents’ refusal to permit me to attend these exciting events seemed arbitrary to me. Most of my friends could go, and I felt resentful that I couldn’t. There were touring opera productions or the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra in concert. These were very wholesome events and a great joy to me. One day when I tried to sneak back into the house without disturbing my parents, my stepfather was waiting for me. It seemed I had been missed early on after I had left, and no one knew exactly where I was. My stepfather didn’t say very much, but the look in his eyes told me how much he disapproved. He began to beat me with a belt; I suffered under his vicious blows until he was finished. I just stood there; I didn’t cry out or try to defend myself. The worst part was my mother never raised an objection. As I went to my room, I decided I would leave home. I was too old for this kind of humiliating discipline and would not allow myself to be treated this way again. For several months I could feel the physical effects of that beating. I didn’t have a clue where I would go, but I had had enough of him and that house.

I spoke to my buddy Elaine of my dilemma, and her reaction was fast and helpful: “Come stay with us! My mom and dad love you, and I’ll explain to them what happened.”

The next day, Elaine said that her parents wanted to talk with me after school. I was so nervous that I almost didn’t go, but Elaine insisted. Her parents were in their fifties and seemed more like grandparents to me than parents. They were kind and patient and listened to all I had to say. It occurred to me that Grandmama Laura Mae might look like Mrs. Logan . . . and I liked her even more for that reason. She seemed to be very wise and never in a hurry. Elaine was lucky to have a mother like that.

We discussed the circumstances of my family situation thoughtfully. It was finally agreed that I would bring my things on Saturday and become a member of their family for as long as I needed to stay there. Elaine would come by in the car. For the first time in months, maybe years, I began to relax. I slept that night knowing I would soon be free of the anxiety and stress that had become my daily family life.

When Saturday came, I got up early, gathered my things together, and stayed out of sight of my parents. I kept watching and listening and kept the door to my room closed. I turned on the radio to cover any noise. Dinah Washington was singing “Unforgettable.” Nobody seemed to notice anything unusual. I prayed that they would leave the house before Elaine arrived so that I wouldn’t have to fight or explain where I was going. After a while, I finally realized that their voices were gone. I heard the car drive down the side of the house and out to the street. I ran to the bathroom to see them turn left and head off. I instinctively felt that they would be gone for a while. I quickly called Elaine. Mrs. Logan told me that she had already left to pick me up. What timing!

Life in the Logan household had a really different energy and shape than our house. Everyone went to bed early—no exceptions! Everyone got up early because Mrs. Logan said so. She never called to me twice. I didn’t want to do anything to change my good relationship with her. So I went to bed early and got used to being awakened whenever she called. However, I was rarely up before I had to be. I liked my sleep, but I also liked the attention. It was like someone wanted me to get up and be with them and share in family things. I ate breakfast with the whole family. Whatever Mrs. Logan cooked was fine with me. I helped cook and often washed the dishes. It was the least I could do considering how kind she was to me. Elaine’s brother and sister were happy with this arrangement! There were no loud voices or fights. I seriously wondered if Reverend and Mrs. Logan ever had an argument. To me, their relationship was perfect. I was always treated fairly and kindly by everyone, including Prentiss, their only son, and Malvina Louise, their youngest daughter, who was quite a live wire. She loved popular music as much as I did, and we used to listen to Motown in secret.

There was no smoking, no drinking, and no dancing. Mrs. Logan had laid down the law. I was given my chores and expected to study hard after school and go to church every Sunday. So what else was new?

The dancing part was the hardest for me. I loved to jitterbug and do the twist. Both Elaine and I were pretty good at it. It was the one forbidden thing I kept doing, but only when the Logans were away or I practiced at my other friends’ houses. Elaine kept our secret. She was like a sister to me and helped me to learn the new routines.