Within minutes, we went to work. We played for hours. At some point, after Alvin showed me the intricacies of his system, he told me about how he had produced Cissy Houston while her daughter Whitney stood on a milk crate singing background. On Alvin’s bookshelf, I noticed a Playbill from the early 1970s of the original Broadway production of The Me Nobody Knows. I told him I had been in the revival. He asked me if I knew Tisha Campbell. Are you kidding me?
Crazy small world.
I asked Alvin if I could use his phone. I called Tisha and said, “There’s someone here who’d like to talk to you.” I put Alvin on and heard Tisha scream, “Alvin!” It was fun to listen to them catch up after so long. After Alvin hung up, I said, “Why don’t we write a song for her? I really believe in her voice. Maybe we can put some tunes together that would help her get a deal.” The Reggie Lucas thing had never come to fruition, but I knew Tisha had “it.”
A few days later, in the middle of working with Alvin on Tisha’s song, I said, “Yo, can we take a break to watch The Jeffersons?” He said, “Sure, why?” When I told him why, he was amazed I hadn’t mentioned who my mother was earlier. There was no reason to, I said; now there was. The next day, I called Mom to say I’d finally found a place to stay. She wanted to know where and with whom, and immediately asked to speak with Alvin.
We were watching The Miss America Pageant. “Alvin, my mom wants to speak with you.” He got on the phone, introduced himself, and respectfully answered all Mom’s questions. He gave her his phone number and address and assured her that he didn’t do drugs and that he would look out for me. When he convinced Mom that I was staying in a sane and safe place, she sounded relieved. Alvin handed me the phone, and I told her I’d be in touch. As we hung up, the winner was crowned. It was Vanessa Williams.
I learned that before I came to live with Alvin, his roommate had been Jean-Michel Basquiat. Alvin said that Jean-Michel and I had similar energy. I hadn’t met the painter, but I knew his work well enough to understand that Alvin was giving me major props.
Alvin and I completed our song for Tisha. It was called “Love Is the Only Key.” Tisha came by to cut a demo right there in his tiny apartment. There was barely room for the three of us to move. Alvin and I played all the instruments and sang background. Tisha brought it home with a brilliant lead vocal.
So, I got my wish of making music for Tisha. Unfortunately, nothing happened with the tune. As far as I’m concerned, it was a hit in an alternate universe. Tisha leaned more into acting instead and ultimately landed a huge role costarring with Martin Lawrence on Martin.
* * *
While still living at Alvin’s, I happened to glance at a cover of TV Guide featuring the cast of The Cosby Show. I pointed to Lisa Bonet and calmly said, “I’m gonna marry that girl.” Alvin laughed. The Cosby Show was at its height of popularity, presenting a vision of upper-class Black life that Reagan’s America was willing to embrace. Father Cliff Huxtable was an obstetrician; mother Clair was a lawyer; and the kids, except for one, were straight arrows. That “one” was Denise, played by Lisa. Denise was different, and I knew, just by watching the show, that Lisa was different as well.
I’d spent a lot of my life hanging around sitcoms. I knew the genre demanded broad comedic skills. Its masters—Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Red Foxx—found ways to humanize stereotypes: a whacky housewife, a frustrated bus driver, a junkyard owner. Supporting cast members usually didn’t demonstrate the complexities of the central characters. But on The Cosby Show, the reverse was true. Denise/Lisa was the most fascinating family member. She stood apart and seemed to be living some secret inner life. She had a come-hither magnetism that drove boys and men mad. She was a bohemian dreamer wrapped in mysterious allure. I wanted to solve that mystery—or at least get close to it.
But how in the world could that ever happen?
SHOCK
The ninety-nine-dollar People Express had dropped me back in L.A. I got off the plane and drove over to Cloverdale to grab some things. Dad didn’t hear me come in. Mom was in Nassau visiting Esau. Walking down the hall, I could hear Dad talking on the phone in his bedroom. I can’t tell you why, but something about the tone of his voice made me walk toward his door to listen in.
I started to make out what he was saying:
“Baby, baby…”
I inched closer and closer. I knew he wasn’t talking to my mother. I had never heard him call her “baby,” and if he had, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been in that tone of voice.
I continued eavesdropping and heard him say, “I can’t hide the last fifty thousand.”
I stopped breathing. My throat went dry. My heart started racing. I stayed frozen in place, listening to every word of his conversation. My ears caught fire. The more he talked, the more I realized he was talking to a girlfriend. I couldn’t make out every word, but I definitely got the gist: he was cheating on Mom and supporting his mistress with Mom’s money.
I went beyond anger. I was on the verge of exploding. The first thing that came to my mind was the gun Dad kept hidden in his closet. I know that’s crazy, but that’s how I was thinking. He was betraying my mother, the woman who honored and loved him with all her heart, the woman who’d stood by him through thick and thin. All the fury I’d been feeling for my father since I was a little boy, two decades of pent-up rage, erupted inside my head. I wanted to kill him. Right then and there, I wanted him dead.
It was only the grace of God that checked that instinct. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day that I had spent praying to the Lord of love came to fruition in that very moment. I couldn’t ignore the words that God spoke to me then. They couldn’t have been clearer.
Don’t do it.
“Thank you, God,” I said silently. I went back to my room, picked up the phone, and made a call.
My cousin Esau answered.
“Esau,” I said, “please put Mom on the phone.”
Mom heard that I was alarmed, but I couldn’t tell her why—not now. I had to do it in person. I asked her to buy me a ticket so I could fly to Nassau that very night. She kept asking why. I said, “You’re gonna have to trust me. It’s an emergency. And if you don’t send me down there, somebody might die.”
I could hear Mom’s voice trembling with fright as she said, “I’ll call you right back with the details.”
A few hours later, I was on the red-eye from LAX to Miami. Flying across the country, I found thoughts flying across my mind: Why would he? How could he? How dare he! Who is she? What does she look like? How old is she? How long has it been going on? What makes him think he can get away with it? That son of a bitch. That asshole. That cheater. All this time, trying to be a Hollywood big shot, only to live off his wife’s success, only to end up double-crossing the woman who means more to me than anyone.
I landed in Miami. A sudden storm meant the prop plane to Nassau was delayed. I tried to sleep in the airport waiting area. But sleep wouldn’t come. The thoughts wouldn’t stop. I stared out at the pouring rain. Lightning streaked the sky. Then the sky gave way to golden sun as the rain turned to a gentle shower. I thought of Grandma Bessie. When it was sunny and raining at the same time, she always used to say, “The devil is beating his wife.”