Moonwalk -
Chapter One -
Just Kids With a Dream
Chapter One - Just Kids With a Dream
Chapter Two - The Promised Land
Chapter Three - Dancing Machine
Chapter Four - Me And Q
Chapter Five - The Moonwalk
Chapter Six - All You Need Is Love
PART 3
To be continued...
Mom came to the door and gave us the thermos and the sandwiches she had packed. I remember her telling me not to rip the dress shirt she had packed for me after sewing it up the night before. Randy and I helped put some things in the bus and then went back into the kitchen, where Rebbie was keeping one eye on Dad's supper and the other on little Janet, who was in the high chair.
Rebbie's life was never easy as the oldest. We knew that as soon as the Motown audition was over, we'd find out if we had to move or not. If we did, she was going to move South with her fiancee. She always ran things when Mom was at night school finishing the high school diploma she was denied because of her illness. I couldn't believe it when Mom told us she was going to get her diploma. I remember worrying that she'd have to go to school with kids Jackie's or Tito's age and that they'd laugh at her. I remember how she laughed when I told her this and how she patiently explained that she'd be with other grown-ups. It was interesting having a mother who did homework like the rest of us.
Loading up the bus was easier than usual. Normally Ronnie and Johnny would have come to back us up, but Motown's own musicians would be playing being us, so we were going alone. Jermaine was in our room finishing some of his assignments when I walked in. I knew he wanted to get them out of the way. He told me that we ought to take off for Motown by ourselves and leave Dad, since Jackie had taken driver's ed and was in possession of a set of keys. We both laughed, but deep down I couldn't imagine going without Dad. Even on the occasions when Mom led out after-school rehearsals because Dad hadn't come home from his shift on time, it was still like having him there because she acted as his eyes and ears. She always knew what had been good the night before and what had gotten sloppy today. Dad would pick it up from there at night. It seemed to me that they almost gave each other signals or something - Dad could always tell if we had been playing like we were supposed to by some invisible indication from Mom.
There was no long good-bye at the door when we left for Motown. Mom was used to our being away for days, and during school vacations. LaToya pouted a little because she wanted to go. She had only seen us in Chicago, and we had never been able to stay long enough in places like Boston of Phoenix to bring her back anything. I think our lives must have seemed pretty glamorous to her because she had to stay home and go to school. Rebbie had her hands full trying to put Janet to sleep, but she called good-bye and waved. I gave Randy a last pat on the head and we were off.
Dad and Jackie went over the map as we drove away, mostly out of habit, because we had been to Detroit before, of course. We passed Mr. Keith's recording studio downtown by City Hall as we made our way through town. We had done some demos at Mr. Keith's that Dad sent to Motown after the Steeltown record. The sun was going down when we hit the highway. Marlon announced that if we heard one of our records on WVON, it was going to bring us luck. We all nodded. Dad asked us if we remembered what WVON stood for as he nudged Jackie to keep quiet. I kept looking out the window, thinking about the possibilities that lay ahead, but Jermaine jumped in. "Voice of the Negro," he said. Soon we were calling roll all over the dial. "WGN - World's Greatest Newspaper." The Chicago Tribune owned it.) "WLS - World's Largest Store." (Sears) "WCFL . . ." We stopped, stumped. "Chicago Federation of Labor," Dad said, motioning for the thermos. We turned onto I-94, and the Gary station faded into a Kalamazoo station. We began flipping around, looking for Beatle music on CKLW from Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
I had always been a Monopoly fan at home, and there was something about driving to Motown that was a little like that game. In Monopoly you go around the board buying things and making decisions; the "chitlin' circuit" of theaters where we played and won contests was kind of like a Monopoly board full of possibilities and pitfalls. After all the stops along the way, we finally landed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, which was definitely Park Place for young performers like us. Now we were on our way up Boardwalk, heading for Motown. Would we win the game or slide past Go with a long board separating us from our goal for another round? There was something changing in me, and I could feel it, even shivering in the minibus. For years we'd make the drive over to Chicago wondering if we were good enough to ever get out of Gary, and we were. Then we took the drive to New York, certain that we'd fall off the edge of the earth if we weren't good enough to make it there. Even those nights in Philadelphia and Washington didn't reassure me enough to keep me from wondering if there wasn't someone or some group we didn't know about in New York who could beat us. When we tore it down at the Apollo, we finally felt that nothing could stand in our way. We were going to Motown, and nothing there was going to surprise us either. We were going to surprise them, just like we always did. Dad pulled the typewritten directions out of the glove compartment and we pulled off the highway, passing the Woodward Avenue exit. There weren't many people on the streets because it was a school night for everybody else.
Dad was a little nervous about whether our accommodations would be okay, which surprised me until I realized the Motown people had picked the hotel. We weren't used to having things done for us. We liked to be our own bosses. Dad had always been our booking agent, travel agent, and manager. When he wasn't taking care of the arrangements, Mom was. So it was no wonder that even Motown managed to make Dad feel suspicious that he should have made the reservations, that he should have handled everything.
We stayed at the Gotham Hotel. The reservations had been made and everything was in order. There was a TV in our room, but all the stations had signed off, and with the audition at ten o'clock, we weren't going to get to stay up any later anyway. Dad put us right to bed, locked the door, and went out. Jermaine and I were too tired to even talk.
We were all up on time the next morning; Dad saw to that. But, in truth, we were just as excited as he was and hopped out of bed when we called us. The audition was unusual for us because we hadn't played in many places where they expected us to be professional. We knew it was going to be difficult to judge whether we were doing well. We were used to audience response whether we were competing or just performing at a club, but Dad had told us the longer we stayed, the more they wanted to hear.
We climbed into the VW, after cereal and milk at the coffee shop. I noticed they offered grits on the menu, so I knew there were a lot of Southern people who stayed there. We had never been to the South then and wanted to visit Mom's part of the country someday. We wanted to have a sense of our roots and those of other black people, especially after what had happened to Dr. King. I remember so well the day he died. Everyone was torn up. We didn't rehearse that night. I went to Kingdom Hall with Mom and some of the others. People were crying like they had lost a member of their own family. Even the men who were usually pretty unemotional were unable to control their grief. I was too young to grasp the full tragedy of the situation, but when I look back on that day now, it makes me want to cry - for Dr. King, for his family, and for all of us.
Jermaine was the first to spot the studio, which was known as Hitsville, U.S.A. It looked kind of run-down, which was not what I'd expected. We wondered who we might see, who might be there making a record that day. Dad had coached us to let him do all the talking. Our job was to perform like we'd never performed before. And that was asking a lot, because we always put everything into each performance, but we knew what he meant. There were a lot of people waiting inside, but Dad said the password and a man in a shirt and tie came out to meet us. He knew each of our names, which astounded us. He asked us to leave our coats there and follow him. The other people just stared through us like we were ghosts. I wondered who they were and what their stories were. Had they traveled far? Had they been here day after day hoping to get in without an appointment? When we entered the studio, one of the Motown guys was adjusting a movie camera. There was an area set up with instruments and microphones. Dad disappeared into one of the sound booths to talk to someone. I tried to pretend that I was at the Fox Theater, on the rising stage, and this was just business as usual. I decided, looking around, that if I ever built my own studio, I'd get a mike like the one they had at the Apollo, which rose out of the floor. I nearly fell on my face once running down those basement steps while trying to find out where it went when it slowly disappeared beneath the stage floor.
The last song we sang was "Who's Lovin' You." When it ended, no one applauded or said a word. I couldn't stand not knowing, so I blurted, "How was that?" Jermaine shushed me. The older guys who were backing us up were laughing about something. I looked at them out of the corner of my eye. "Jackson Jive, huh?" one of them called out with a big grin on his face. I was confused, I think my brothers were too.
The man who had led us back said, "Thanks for coming up." We looked at Dad's face for some indication, but he didn't seem pleased or disappointed. It was still daylight out when we left. We took I-94 back to Gary, subdued, knowing there was homework to do for class tomorrow, wondering if that was all there was to that.
� 1988 Michael Joseph Jackson - Moonwalk
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