. . . I couldn't stop him . . .
John's second song that day, Come Back to Me, used a musical lead-in from Honesty, and then they all did an instrumental track called Space and Time. It all felt like an old-school jam session where the music never ended, producing three great songs in one long day.
John sang real calmly on Come Back to Me, as if he wanted to sweet-talk the girl back into his life:
Then, on Space and Time, he filled in with subtle teases of passion:
After the studio session, I walked John to his car and was proud of him. He really knew what the hell he was doing with his music regardless of what was going on in his life. He obviously could handle the stress a lot better than I could. But when we arrived at his Mercedes-Benz, he had another fat blunt of weed rolled up and ready to be smoked.
I said, “John, I think we both need to cool out with the weed, man. That shit is becoming a crutch.”
John flat out ignored me. He climbed into the driver's seat of his car, closed the door, and rolled down the window to look at me. He smiled and said, “It's Philly time,” with the blunt and his car lighter in hand. He lit up and immediately started smoking.
What more could I say? I asked him, “You want me to drive, man?” It was close to ten o'clock at night. We had all been in the studio since early that morning, making new music, listening to it, and mixing it down for tapes to take home. Everybody wanted an original copy of the studio session as if it would be legendary. John didn't need to be driving and smoking after all of that. I wanted to be around him a little longer that night anyway. We needed to talk.
He said, “Get on in and drive then, man. I can get my smoke on better that way.” He climbed over into the passenger seat, and I got behind the wheel of the Benz. But instead of talking about John's need to get high, I asked him if he had read any more of his fan letters recently. I needed to get him thinking more positively about the audience he had inspired.
He grinned, holding down the weed smoke. He let down his passenger side window to blow it out.
He said, “Man, after we put out that Nobody's Perfect song, I've been gettin' a thousand fuckin' letters a day. I can't even answer that shit no more. I was letting Tangela read some of them for her kicks.”
I laughed at it. “They all want you to write songs for 'em, hunh?” I asked him.
He nodded and said, “Yeah, man. Like I'm a photographer now, and everybody wants me to snap their picture. I'd mess around and run out of film trying to do that.” I had no idea where I was driving, I was just cruising on Delaware Avenue past the clubs and the warehouses of South Philadelphia.
John asked me, “Do you ever get real horny when you high, man?”
I started laughing again. I said, “Of course. But it depends on what frame of mind I'm in.”
He nodded and said, “I know. Sometimes I want to fuck, sometimes I don't.” Then he smiled. He said, “Sometimes I just want my dick sucked. You ever heard that Eddie Murphy song Put Your Mouth on Me? Me and Tony were tripping off that song one day,” he told me with a cough and a chuckle. The weed smoke was sinking deep into his lungs, and into his mind. That weed was strong, too! I could smell it. I was tempted to even try some of it. But I had to ignore the temptation and retain my sanity that night.
I wanted to tell John to get his act together and chill with all of his success, but the boy was still able to make great music! What if he was the perfect gentleman who didn't smoke or anything? Would that make him a better musician? I seriously doubted it. Most people who worked with him didn't see his smoking as a problem. He didn't seem to respond to it the way I did. Weed only made John seem more mellow and talkative.
He looked out the window and said, “You feel like picking up some girls tonight at one of these clubs, man?”
I didn't. I said, “Nah, man, let me just enjoy this ride for a while. This the first time that I've driven it.” I tried to get his mind off of the girls by talking up his car, you know. I had left my car parked near the studio.
John got slick on me. He said, “I'll let you drive the girls to my crib. Then you can drive them back home.” He said, “Hell, man, I'll let you hold the damn car. You should buy one yourself, really. They only cost sixty thousand in cash. You got the money.”
I laughed it off. I sure did have the money. We weren't even twenty-two yet, and both of us could afford to buy luxury cars with all cash.
Nevertheless, we were riding around talking about picking up girls at nightclubs like any other twenty-year-olds would do. The money didn't change your mentality at all. In fact, the money made us think more that we deserved to be treated special.
I said, “John, aren't you tired by now, man? I mean, we've been inside the studio all damn day .”
He said, “So what? I ain't tired. Let's go get some girls.”
“Come on, man, let's just chill tonight. You need to clear your mind.”
“I don't feel like chillin' right now, D. I've been chillin' for weeks now. Fuck that chillin' shit! Let's go get some girls, man.” He was persistent about it.
I found my self wishing that Tangela was back around again. Damn!
I took a deep breath and tried to ignore him.
John said, “Maybe I should try to fuck a white girl now. What do you think about that, D? I heard they love giving blow jobs. And swallowing , too. I want to experience that, man.”
I finally got fed up and said, “John, you need to get a grip, man. You need to get a grip on things. Seriously! ” I told him. We were both getting out of hand. Way out of hand!
John just looked at me and smiled it off. He said, “That's what I'm trying to get, man, a grip around my dick. You can't feel me on that, D? I'm horny right now, man. I'm just being honest about it.”
I said, “Well, you need to start learning to control some of that shit, man. The smoking, too.” I may as well have been talking about myself.
John put out his blunt and got mad at me. He yelled, “Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do, man? Make music and then go home and go the fuck to sleep? You tell me! You're the manager!”
He said, “But that don't mean I'm gon' listen to that shit, though.”
I said, “Just learn to enjoy what you got, man. A lot of people would loveto have the talents that you have, John. And you act like you don't even appreciate them.”
I said, “You need to go back and listen to your own song.”
He grinned and started singing the chorus to Unappreciated:
Maybe that wasn't a good idea for him, to think about somebody missing love, with Tangela gone. I was hoping that he wasn't thinking about her, but I knew that he was. He just hadn't said it out his mouth yet. But all of his actions proved it.
I shook my head against my better judgment and said, “All right, let's go to the club then, man.”I did it just so he could forget about Tangela.
John got all excited and said, “ Now we talkin'.”
I had just made a deal with the devil. I spun the car around for a U-turn and went back to the club area to park. We weren't even dressed for an outing. Or not as sharply as I would have liked us to be.
As soon as we approached the front door, people started to notice.
“Ay, that's Loverboy,” this cool brother said.
John nodded to him and said, “Yeah, what's up, man? I'm out here to get my groove on. I'm human, too.”
The brother laughed and said, “I can dig, man. Get on down.”
“Yeah, that's what I plan to do up in here,” John told him.
Everybody in the line started laughing. But I knew that the weed was making him talk like that. I wondered if they could smell it on him.
The guards at the door noticed John, too.
“I love your music, man,” this big bouncer brother told him. He said, “Keep representing old-school love.”
John smiled at him and said, “Yeah, I will.”
We got in the club, and people continued to speak to us.
This girl smiled and said, “Hey, Loverboy. When you gon' write a song for me?”
“As soon as we make some sweet music together,” John responded to her.
She was caught off guard by it. She came right back at him and asked, “Well, what are you doing tonight?”
She wasn't one of the finer women in the room, so I hoped that John would sidestep her, to be honest about it. She was only a five, and there were plenty of eights and nines in the room. I could have pulled a seven myself, so I wasn't trying to let John go out with a five.
I pushed John along and smiled at the girl. I told her, “We have a long day tomorrow.”
She asked, “Well, who are you?” She had stars all in her eyes, as if she was waiting for me to announce myself as a famous band member or something.
I said, “I'm just the manager,” and slipped away.
The next thing I knew, the DJ was giving John a shot out on the microphone before playing Tonight Is Yours. And that about did it. My hope of us staying incognito was gone.
People started crowding us and shit, and girls wanted to dance with him. John was loving all of the attention.
He said, “Hold on, y'all. One at a time, one at a time.”
He was getting himself spun around left and right with me in the middle, trying to direct traffic away from him. Finally, some of the bouncers helped us out of the jam.
“He's a good guest, people. Let 'em breathe. Let 'em breathe,” the bouncers were saying.
We hadn't hired any bodyguards or anything at that point. We were still two young country boys, believing that we could just show up and be ourselves.
Anyway, John ended up dancing with three girls, all eights and up, and he was pitching strongly to them as I stood nearby.
“What are y'all doing later on? Y'all all together?”
“Why, what's going on? Is there another party somewhere?”
John said, “Yeah, at my house. Invitation only.”
“Who else gon' be there?”
John said, “ Me, us, and whoever else y'all want.”
I started smiling and shaking my head.
“I don't know,” one of them responded. She was the cutest, a mid-nine with one of those short haired Toni Braxton looks, without the thick nose.
The other two were more mature looking and willing to go.
“You gon' offer us a couple of drinks first?”
John said, “Yeah, y'all get what y'all want.”
You could see the jealousy and envy all over everyone's faces as we moved to the bar area with escorts. The two older women ordered drinks on John, as if they were only using him for his money, but the ToniBraxton girl just wanted to talk to him. I nosed in on her conversation.
She asked him, “So, where do you live?”
John said, “Up in the suburbs of Chestnut Hill.”
She got excited and said, “I have friends who live up that way. Off of Stenton Avenue?”
John nodded and said, “Yeah. Why, you want to visit your friends? We could call them before we leave.”
She grinned and said, “Yeah, because they would never believe who I was with. I can hear them now, ‘Loverboy who? The singer? Yeah, right! ’”
John said, “Well, we'll just pay them a visit then.”
She said, “But I have to go to work tomorrow. How long do you plan on having me up?”
Oh my God! I started getting a hard rock. Girls just didn't realize what they were saying sometimes. Maybe I was taking it the wrong way.
John said, “Don't worry about that. The Benz'll take you home as soon as you're ready to leave.” He looked at me and said, “This my boy Darin, my manager. I trust him with my life, and he'll drive you back home safely whenever you're ready.”
I nodded and smiled to her. I said, “Yeah, I'd do that.”
The other girls overheard it and asked, “Who's gonna drive us back home?”
I figured that somebody had a damn car there that night!
I said, “Y'all all caught taxis over here?”
“No, but we don't feel like driving either. Don't y'all have a stretch limo or something?”
I said, “Not for just going to the club. But it's enough room for everybody to fit in the Benz though.”
“Well let's do that then.”
When we left, it looked as if John was pairing up with the ToniBraxton girl and the other two were just tagging along for the ride. So I made sure to keep them company.
“So you're the manager?” they asked me on the way to the car.
“Yeah.”
“And how much money do you make?”
John was with the right girl. The Toni Braxton girl wasn't asking about the money.
When we made it to the car, John sat in the back with his new friend, and I drove up front with one of the other two girls.
She took one sniff of the Benz and asked, “Do y'all get high? I wouldn't think that y'all would be the type of guys to get high. Maybe drunk but not high.”
I was thinking, John is high right now. Way high!
I asked them, “Why, because John sings love songs?”
They started laughing and said, “Yeah.”
The Toni Braxton girl, riding in the back with John, said, “That getting high stuff is overrated if you ask me.”
“Not if you buy the right kind of weed, girl,” the other girl in the back with them responded. She added, “And it smells like y'all had some damn killer in here!”
They started laughing right before a green Ford Explorer rolled up beside us and started blowing the horn loud. They were trying to run me off of the damn road. I had just started driving.
“What the fuck is his problem?!” the girl in the passenger seat yelled across me at the wheel.
I stopped the car to avoid an accident. One guy jumped out of the passenger seat, and another jumped out from the driver's side.
They ran up to the car as if we had done something to them.
“AYEESHA! What the fuck are you doin'?! You try'na play my boy like that?! GET THE FUCK OUT THE CAR!”
I asked, “Who is Ayeesha?” I was watching to see if any of these guys had a gun, because they were sure acting crazy like it.
The Toni Braxton girl spoke up and said, “Oh my God! They are so fuckin' pressed! I don't go with him no more.”
Her girls asked, “That's Nick and them?”
Ayeesha said, “Nick ain't even with them. That's Mark and Craig. Nick probably out with some other girl anyway. He ain't ready to be settled down, but him and his friends are always sweatin' me and shit.”
I said, “Well, tell them guys something.” I didn't need John in the middle of that. He had just recorded another hit song.
John's crazy ass climbed out of the car, so I had to climb out with him.
He asked them, “What's up, man?” He wasn't asking in a fighting way, he was just asking.
The lead guy said, “That's my boy girl, man. You not taking her with you. You ain't fuckin' wit' her like that.” I guess they knew who John was.
Ayeesha climbed out of the car behind John and said, “I don't fuck with Nick no more like that. I can do what I want to do. And y'all need to stop following me the fuck around, too.”
These guys were older than us, bigger than us, and definitely badder than us. And I'm not going to lie, I wanted to jump right back in that car and drive the hell out of there, but John was outside like a damn fool already.
I lied and said, “We were just giving them all a ride home. She's not by herself. It's all love.”
The lead guy looked at me and said, “Do I look like a fuckin' fool to you, man? You ain't driving them home. They got their own car.”
The other girl in the backseat said, “We were having car problems,” and started laughing. It was all a game to them, but John and I didn't need that kind of fun.
Ayeesha said, “Whatever,” and went to get back inside of the car before one of the guys tried to grab her arm. John reacted and tried to shield her from him.
“Motherfucker, if you don't get the fuck out of my way, you gon' make the news tonight. I swear to God! She don't play my boy like that.”
I inched up to get closer to John, and the other guy inched up to get closer to me.
At that point, I was thinking, Fuck this girl! We need to just get the hell up out of here!
I said real calmly, “Look, all of this is just a big misunderstanding. We just met Ayeesha, and we didn't know she had a boyfriend. So y'all can take her home.”
Ayeesha said, “No they can't either. I'm not going anywhere with them. And I don't have no damn boyfriend.” She was really being defiant, and at John's expense.
I said, “Well, you're gonna have to explain that to him, because we have to go now.”
Ayeesha looked at me and said, “So what are you trying to say? You don't want me to go now?”
I was on the spot. I said, “It would make things a lot less complicated if you didn't.”
John said, “But she wants to go,” still talking with his wrong head.
I said, “That ain't our problem, John. She don't belong with us.”
Ayeesha got the message and climbed out of the car.
She said, “Aw'ight, well, fuck it then.” But she didn't climb into their Explorer. She started walking the streets. John's crazy ass took off behind her.
“Where are you going?” he asked her.
“Yo, just leave her the fuck alone, man. Like your man said, it ain't your problem,” the other guy told John.
John ignored him. He asked Ayeesha, “You need to call this guy up on the phone and talk to him about it.”
The lead guy said, “She needs to get in the jeep and go the fuck back home. That's what she needs to do. Out here acting like a hoe.”
Ayeesha heard that, and it started a brand new argument. She stopped and marched right back to us in the street.
“Acting like a fuckin' hoe? ” she repeated. “Why, Craig, because I wouldn't let you fuck me? Let's talk about how you tried to push up on me that night.”
The girls in the car started laughing, and Craig backed down, looking guilty as sin.
He said, “Aw, girl, don't even try that shit. I ain't never try to push up on you. You out here trying to make a fuckin' scene.”
She said, “Yeah, right. We know it's the truth.”
The other guy looked at Craig and asked, “You tried to push up on her, man? That's foul.”
I guess he wasn't even giving his friend the benefit of the doubt, but I didn't care. I just wanted us to be gone already.
I said, “Let them work that out, John. Let's go, man.”
John said, “Nah, man, let's just drive her home like we started to do. We can work it out when she gets home. But we don't need to be all out in the street with this.”
I took a deep breath and looked to see if anyone else would make a move.
Ayeesha said, “Well, I'm going home,” and climbed back into the Benz. “Fifty-sixth and Master, Darin,” she said, using my name. Hell, I didn't even know Philadelphia like that.
Craig said, “All right, watch what happens,” and started to walk back to his driver side door.
I didn't know if he was going to get a gun or what, but I got John into the car, and jumped behind the wheel to speed off.
They sped down the street after us in the Explorer, and my heart started beating like a rabbit's. I was thinking that we would either be shot at or run off the road and into a damn pole or something. Luckily, we had green lights, so I floored that Mercedes-Benz and we took off way ahead of the Explorer with more horsepower.
The girl sitting up front with me screamed, “Damn, this shit can go !”
I saw a sign that said I-95 South, and I whipped a right turn, jumped dead on the highway, and I kept flooring the car until we were out of sight and flying down the road.
John was laughing his ass off. “Damn, I'm glad you driving, D. I couldn't have done that shit.”
I was pissed off at his ass, but once we were in the clear, I started laughing nervously myself.
I asked Ayeesha, “So, where is Fifty-sixth and Master? Is that in West Philly?” I knew a little bit about Philly, I just needed help in getting there.
Ayeesha said, “I'm not going home now. I just told them that. They don't need to know my business. They don't tell me his. ”
I started smiling, knowing the deal. Guys were some hypocritical motherfuckers.
John asked her, “But that's where we need to drive you later on, though?”
Her girl in the back answered, “No, my car is still down at the club. You can drive us back to the car, and I'll drive her home.”
She laughed and said, “Because we don't want y'all gettin' back into it with Nick and his boys.”
I smiled and said, “Thanks.”
We made it out to John's place in Chestnut Hill, and the other two girls were all into checking out the house. I followed them around making sure they didn't steal anything or start casing the joint for later. I just didn't trust them, and I felt far from sexual that night. It was too much going on in my head. But I was interested in what John was up to with Ayeesha when they disappeared into his master bedroom. I just couldn't help myself. I mean, in just a few years, John was the one with all of the stories, and I had become the eager listener. So I was all ears again as soon as I drove his car back to him at close to six in the morning. I had driven all three girls back to Delaware Avenue.
I woke John up and said, “So what went down in here, man?” I realized that he had boned Ayeesha already. Her girls even talked about it openly in the car on our way back. They had both fallen asleep and taken catnaps on John's leather furniture inside of the living room. I guess the alcohol that they drank had done it to them.
John just smiled at me, not even opening his eyes when I asked him. He didn't even walk out of his room to say bye when Ayeesha left that morning.
He said, “I turned her out, man. I turned her out.”
“You turned her out how?” I asked him.
John was incoherent about the whole thing that night, but I pieced it all together after he told me.
Once we got inside the house, John was still feeling horny, and he wanted Ayeesha. She was still older than both of us, at twenty-three, but she could pass for eighteen, and she had this young, spirited attitude about her. And not only that, John had gone through drama out on the street that night to even get the girl home.
So he ignored the other two girls and left them up to me to entertain.
He asked Ayeesha, “You want to see my room?”
She smiled at him and said, “I don't know if I should. Is the party in there? Where are all the other people?”
She knew damn well that it wasn't that kind of a party. But she had that tease thing going on that just made a guy want to work harder for it.
John asked, “You want to stay out there with them, or do you wanna go with me?”
Ayeesha paused for a minute. Then she smiled and said, “I'll go with you.”
They walked into his extra large master bedroom that had plenty of mirrors and black furniture that Tangela had picked out, including the kingsize water bed.
Ayeesha smiled and said, “A water bed. I've never been on one before.”
John said, “Like you said with the weed, water beds can be overrated.”
“For real?”
“Yeah, they move too much,” he told her. “I'm thinking about getting rid of it.”
“Why?” She went right over to it, took her shoes off, and melted down into it.
John joined her there with his shoes still on.
He asked her, “Do you want it? I'll have it delivered to you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Nah, I'm for real. Then you can think about me every time that you're on it.”
She melted again and said, “Awww, that's so sweet. I guess you really are a Loverboy, hunh?”
John grinned and said, “That's what they call me.”
She got curious and asked him, “So, did you get that name before or after you started singing?”
He said, “After. Nobody paid me any attention before.”
John was just straight-up honest like that. And once you got to his level of popularity, girls seemed to love that truth serum shit. John couldn't get away with that shit when he was still a nobody at A&T. Girls were some damn hypocrites, too.
“Were you lonely?” she asked him.
He said, “That's where all of my songs come from. I'm still lonely. I always feel like I'm one girl away from heaven.”
The thing that took me out was how girls thought John was gaming when he would say things like that, but he wasn't. That was just who he was. He was a romantic, and he never really faced that fact, he just used it. It was that innocence about him that got to people. That shit would never work for me.
Anyway, Ayeesha cuddled up all close to him on the water bed and asked him, “Why do guys smoke so much? My old boyfriend was into that smoking stuff, too.”
John said, “It's hard being a guy.”
She responded, “Like it ain't hard being a woman. I'm tired of hearing that shit from guys. Y'all don't even get periods.”
John asked her, “Are you on it right now?”
“On what?”
“Your period?”
She laughed and said, “No, why?”
“Because periods can get in the way.”
“Get in the way of what? We're not doing anything.”
John said, “We're not?”
Ayeesha shook her head and said, “No, unless I want to. And I haven't made up my mind yet.”
“But you're thinking about it, though?”
She shook her head and said, “Guys are all the same.”
John said, “That's why they call us guys. But women still have babies, right? So y'all fuckin', right? We all fuckin'. It's just a matter of who we choose to fuck.”
Ayeesha couldn't stop from laughing. “Oh my God.”
“What?” John asked her.
She said, “What happened to your finesse as a Loverboy?”
He said, “I got finesse. But it's in the singing. I save my finesse for the real stuff. Unless I'm singing to you.”
She said, “Well, sing to me then.”
John opened his mouth real quietly and sang:
Ayeesha laughed and said, “Is that a new song you're working on? That's nasty.”
John said, “No it's not. It's creative. You want to take your clothes off as badly as I do. It's natural.”
She said, “I just met you, though. I don't have feelings for you like that.”
John kept his cool and said, “You got feelings for this guy who has his boys out looking for you tonight, though. Don't you? You got feelings for him.” He was using a slick psychology on her.
She said, “I've known him for a while. He just . . . he just don't know how to act sometimes.”
John said, “I know. Those kind of guys never know how to act. But that's who women love. And I try to write songs to heal everyone, but y'all keep going back to the same shit. Y'all just gon' make me a rich man, that's all.”
John came back to Ayeesha and said, “But you need healing tonight. And you think that other guy is gonna heal you? Do you? Do you really?”
Ayeesha thought about it and said, “No. Probably not.”
“That's what I'm sayin',” John told her.
Ayeesha added it up. She said, “So, you're saying that you can heal me tonight? Is that what you're saying?” She still had a smart grin on her face as if it were all a game.
John said, “I can tell that you need a strong orgasm. You probably haven't even felt it done to you right.”
Ayeesha got serious and said, “No, I can't say that. I've had it done right. Just not in a while, because he's been getting on my nerves lately.”
John said, “I can see that,” and began to touch her ever so softly.
Ayeesha could feel it, and she couldn't fake it like she wasn't curious.
She said, “I don't even believe that I'm thinking about this right now.”
John asked her, “What are you thinking about?”
He had been hard and soft several times that night while scheming to get laid, but when she touched him in the right spot, the response to that was immediately readable.
“You're ready, hunh?” she asked him.
“You're not?”
“I'm not gon' say.”
John said, “You want me to lock the door? I don't want you to be embarrassed by anything.”
She said, “Umm . . . yeah, go lock the door.”
At that point in the story, my rock started to rise, too, because I knew John was about to hit it.
He walked back over to the water bed after locking the door, so that we couldn't walk in on them, and he and Ayeesha went on about their business as if we weren't even inside of the house with them that night.
She said, “You can't come inside of me like raindrops, because I'm not taking anything. And that's dangerous for you anyway. For both of us. So I need some protection.”
John had a whole barrel of that. He got up and got some without a word. He slipped back onto the bed with her and sunk his tongue into her mouth.
“Mmm, I wasn't expecting that,” she moaned to him.
He said, “You want to take my clothes off?”
She smiled and said, “That's different. All right. Hold still.”
John held still as she pulled his shoes, socks, pants, and boxer drawers off. Then he closed his eyes with his hands behind his head and let her study his full rise.
John told me, “And then I felt her lips and her small tongue stroke across my dick, man. And I was like, ooh. That shit felt good, man. She had a nice, wet tongue.”
I said, “For real? She went down on you like that, without you even asking her. I thought she said that wasn't safe,” I reminded him.
John said, “You think I was gonna open my mouth and ruin it, man. Shit, I wanted my thing sucked. And she did a good job, too.”
I asked, “All the way?” meaning to a climax.
John shook his head. “Nah. She wanted to make sure she got hers, you know. So when she stopped, I put the condom on, and then I just pushed all the way up inside of her and just sat on that G-spot, man. And she was going crazy. She came like four times.”
He said, “If you hit that right spot with girls, man, you don't even have to do that much work. You just make sure you stay on that spot, and they'll do most of the work themselves.”
I asked him, “Did she have a good one?” I still couldn't help myself.
John said, “It was all right. But I turned her out, though. That was my main thing. I wanted to prove that I could outfuck her old boyfriend. I even hit her from the back when she went to wash up in the bathroom. I had her up against the sink, and she was holding it all in so y'all wouldn't hear her squealing.”
I said, “Man, they fell asleep after a while. But they teased her on the car ride back to Delaware Avenue, though. So you gon' keep her?” I asked him. I wanted him to find stability again instead of sleeping around.
John paused. He said, “I doubt it, man. I mean, she was all right but . . . I had more fun gettin' her. She going back to that dude anyway. That's why she blew me like that. She just wanted to go crazy for a minute. She know she ain't got no future with me. It was just medicine for her. I told her that. She needed a healing.”
He said, “ All girls need that healing. They need the freak to just crawl up out of them every once in a while. Tangela taught me that, man. And she's right. She said, ‘Every woman wants to be unleashed, but it just takes the right guy to be able to do it.’”
I asked him, “And you think that you're that guy?”
He said, “That's why they call me the Loverboy.”
John was more sick in his head than I was, equating sex to healing. Tangela had sunk deeper into him than what I had thought.
If anyone needed healing it was John. The whole thing about him being lonely was true. He had never had a real girlfriend, and TangelaAustin was in and out of his life like a dream. John had even lost his closeness to his mother. If you want to even call their relationship close. And then he had never known his father. He had never even met him or seen what he looked like. That shit had to be lonely. The music and the power that it gave him were the only things that John had. That and his friendship with me.
As for me, I had to deal with my own need to dominate. I was raw with women because I didn't know how not to control things. Even with John. I was losing it because I couldn't control what he was doing. After all, I was the manager, right? So we both needed healing.
Like a typical control freak, I got desperate and called Tangelain New Jersey before Christmas, trying my best to get her thinking about John again. I could never catch her at home, though, and I always got her answering machine. I left her a message telling her that John could use a telephone call from her or something, if just to say hello. And I sent her a copy of the jam session that we did in the studio. I wanted her to hear the new music that we were putting together, and the powerful songs that John had written inspired by her. I even went out on a limb and asked her if she wanted to go to the National Music Awards show with us in early March of 1996.
John was sure to be nominated for the best new male artist of the year award for 1995, and they had asked him to perform his latest pop hit, Nobody's Perfect. I figured that Tangela would have found at least some sentimental value in that. That song and the video had launched her career as a player in the music business.
As John, Tony, and the band finished up the final songs for the new album, to be released in February 1996, I figured we could use some downtime. After all, it was Christmas season, so I asked John at his house if he wanted to fly home to Charlotte with me and hang out with our folks before the new album release and award season rolled around.
He shook his head and said, “Nah, man. I'm staying up here.”
I said, “You not gonna at least spend Christmastime with your mom, man?”
“She ain't called me about it.”
I said, “Well, call her for a change.”
“And say what?”
I said, “‘Hey, Mom. This is your son, John, up in Philadelphia. I miss you. And I was wondering if you wanted anything for Christmas.’”
John started laughing. He said, “‘Yeah, boy, you can take your narrow behind back to church for Christmas and ask the Lord for his forgiveness.’”
I said, “What's so wrong with the church, man? We grew up in the church, John.” It was as if the church and Sister Williams were both rolled up into one, and John wanted to defy both of them. But I didn't see why it had to be that way. We needed the church in our lives again. Both of us!
John said, “The church is filled with a bunch of blind people, man. Sheep being led around by the shepherd.”
I said, “And what are you doing when you take the stage with your singing?”
John smiled at me and started laughing, catching on to my point. He was a shepherd his damn self.
He said, “I'm not going back home, man. I don't feel like it.”
“So, what are you gonna do up here in Philly then? You not gon' hang out with Tony. Tony's spending more time with his girl now, or making beats for rap acts.”
John said, “Shit, I don't need Tony all the time to have me some fun, man. I know how to get around.”
I didn't trust John's “getting around,” but I wasn't staying up there in Philly for the holiday season, so John was just going to have to be by himself.
I said, “All right, man. Suit yourself. I'll just see you around next year then.”
John said, “Try to call me on New Y ear's Eve, man. I want to see if I can bring the new year in right.”
I asked, “Bring the new year in right how?” Was he talking about getting busy again?
“With a big house party or something,” he told me. I didn't like the sound of that, but I had to let it go so that I could go home.
I got a round-trip plane ticket and flew home. My whole family met me at the airport, including both of my older brothers. They were all proud of me and of John and his music.
“So, John really decided not to come home for Christmas?” they all asked me.
I said, “Well, he's not here. So unless something changes and he shows up, he's made up his mind.”
I knew my father and I would have a conversation alone before that night was out. He had that look of urgency in his eyes. I went to him at the house that night and asked him what was on his mind.
He asked me, “How are you holding up?”
I took a breath and tried to level with him. I said, “This is a hard business. It's hard trying to keep John's emotions together and my own. One day we're making great music and everything is going great, the next day he's miserable and everything is falling apart. And then the pressure falls right on me.”
I didn't want to include anything about the girls and the drugs. I wasn't a damn fool. I kept thinking that it was just a phase that John and I were going through. Tonyseemed to be coming out of that phase himself. He had a steady woman, and he was getting high less and less as he got busier with producing rap music.
My father nodded and said, “If you guys are not in school, then I understand that there's a lot of time spent doing nothing. Maybe you need to make his schedule a little more busy, and have John doing more community events that would keep his spirits up.”
He smiled at me and said, “You know, like celebrity baseball games and such. Don't they have those things all the time?”
I grinned. My father was right. We weren't really in the loop with community functions. Outside of just making the music, I was busy trying to chase John around and make sure he didn't ruin himself. Getting him busy with activities outside of just making music was a good idea. It was also a good idea to keep myself active.
I told my father, “You know what? That's a good idea, Dad. I mean, I've always gotten those kinds of phone calls, but since John wasn't really hearing me a lot of times, I just let that kind of stuff slide. Well, now I'll just throw his name in the hat and make him do it.”
My father grimaced and said, “He hasn't, ah, been listening to your suggestions? I mean, you're the manager, right?”
People made it seem as if I really could rule with an iron fist or something. I didn't want to say that John didn't listen to me at all, because that would have been an overstatement, but he had sure broken me as far as what I could expect from him. I had let things go once I began to get high with him. And I surely couldn't tell my father that.
I took the middle ground and said, “It comes and goes. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he just wants to make his own moves. Which is understandable, because he's the musician, and I'm not. This is his career.”
I tried my best to give John the benefit of the doubt in my father's eyes.
He said, “Has he been in steady contact with his mother?”
I smiled. My father was asking me to share a lot of complicated truths with him.
I said, “Nah. They have something going that . . . I just can't understand it sometimes.”
“She's not happy about what's going on with him?”
I said, “I don't know. I haven't spoken to her since John tried to buy her that house in Lake Norman.”
My father grinned and said, “Well, you know you can't buy people's respect down here in the South. That bullshit with the money may work up north, but it don't work down here. If people don't like what you're doing in the South, they won't want your money. And then some of 'em will take your money, and then talk about your ass in church.”
We shared a laugh. I told him, “You know that's right.” I said, “But John doesn't even touch most of his money. He just wanted to buy his mother a good house, and she turned him down.”
My father looked at me sideways. He said, “A ‘good house’? In Lake Norman. Shit, that ain't no damn ‘good house.’ That's a mansion. She ain't wanna be up there with them folk. And I don't blame her either. The South is a hard place to change.”
He said, “So, what are you doing with your money?”
“I barely touch mine either,” I told him. “Especially since John is always treating. So I've been studying stocks and bonds and stuff for both of us to get into.”
My father grinned and said, “That's good. 'Cause remember, you still owe us some schoolin' and a degree. That was our deal.”
He said, “But that John sure is making some hits with his music. It seems like every time I turn around, he got a new song out. He even got me listening to the radio now.”
My father was excited about John like everyone else was. He said, “And I'll tell you another thing, that damn Big Momma song had a whole lot of churchwomen talking about it.”
I said, “Uht oh. I told him not to do that song. And it's called Tonight Is Yours. ”
My father said, “They call it Big Momma, and when people talk about something as much as these women have in church, that means that they really like it. Somebody was finally singing about their behinds.”
I broke up laughing again. I wondered how Sister Williams was taking all of that talk.
I asked, “Does Sister Williams hear them talking about John?”
My father looked at me funny again and said, “Of course she does.”
I said, “Well, what does she say about it?”
He said, “She ignores it and prays.”
I just shook my head. Sometimes I really couldn't argue with John's sentiments of the church. Praying wouldn't always change things, especially things that needed immediate fixing. John needed some love, and his mother was holding out on him.
I made sure to pay John's mother a visit at her house that week to talk to her about her son. I had bought an extra large Christmas card for John, and I drove all around Charlotte getting old friends and teachers of ours to sign messages of love to him to let him know that he didn't need to feel as if he was alone in the world. Plenty of people loved him whether he made good music or not.
When I arrived at Sister Williams's house with the Christmas card in hand to show her, she opened the door and hesitated to let me in.
She said, “Yes, Darin.”
She looked even older than the last time I saw her. She stood at the door with new gray hairs on her head, still strong-willed and rigid. I felt like lying and telling her that John was there with me just to see what she would do.
I said, “May I come in and talk to you. I have a Christmas card for John that we've all been signing.”
She backed up and let me in. I immediately handed her the card to take a look at it.
She smiled, seeing some of the names of our teachers at Garinger High School, and some of the music teachers that John had over the years.
“I bet Mr. Haynes is praying for John, too, now,” she said to herself. She wasn't really talking to me.
I followed her into the living room, where she sat down on old, well-kept furniture. She still had John's younger photos all around the room, but nothing recent.
I asked her, “Would you like me to send you some recent photos of John, Sister Williams?” I had plenty of great photos of John from different press packets and interview shoots.
Sister Williams frowned at me and said, “I only want pure pictures of John.”
I said, “We have plenty of those. John takes a lot of good pictures.”
She ignored me and continued to read the card and the signatures.
I said, “It would be great if you could sign that for John or send a personal card of your own to him. That big gap in the middle there is for you. I wouldn't let anyone else sign there until you had signed it,” I told her.
To my surprise, Sister Williams stood right up and got a pen to sign it with. I was so happy about that that I was tempted to leave without saying another word.
Then she asked me, “How is he doing?”
I stammered with the truth on my mind inside of a religious woman's house. Crosses, candles, and Bibles were everywhere! More than when John still lived there.
I said, “Ah, well, he, he's doing good. Pretty good. Yeah.”
I felt like a lying fool. A sinner. And I was. I had some praying to do myself. But would I do it?
Sister Williams said, “Has he chosen a church to worship in in Philadelphia?”
I said, “Well, not yet, you know. It's a whole lot of different churches up there. Philadelphia is a big city, you know. Much bigger than Charlotte.”
I was digging myself deeper into a sinful grave.
She looked at me and said, “So, you're telling me that my John hasn't gon' to church at all? In two years ?”
What could I say? I hadn't gone to church either.
“Well, we've just been really busy with the music career and everything.”
“You could never be too busy for the Lord, Darin. What kind of foolishness are you telling me? Don't you come in here and disrespect my house with this foolishness. ”
Boy, I wanted to get out of there badly! But I was trapped.
She asked me, “Now you tell me what kind of lifestyle he's living with all of this money and these songs with no Lord in his life, Darin. You tell me what kind of lifestyle he's living. Is he giving back to the Lord for his talent?”
She really wanted an answer, too. I sat there ready to pop like a popcorn kernel in a microwave. She was really grilling me. If John was living a good life, I could have taken it, but since I couldn't say that he was, I was in deep doo-doo. I just kept finding myself in the middle of John's life, every way that I turned.
“Ain't nobody perfect, Sister Williams,” I found myself saying. I was quoting John. It was the only thing that came to mind.
At that point, she was ready to dismiss me.
She stood up with the card extended to me and said, “Nobody said they perfect, Darin, but we all live each and every day to get closer to the Lord. And I don't see John doing anything but getting farther away from his grace. And I'm not gonna stand for it !”
She said, “So you take this card and you give it to him.”
I don't know what got into me at the moment, but out of the blue, I spoke up and said, “John just wants to know who his father is. That's all. Can the Lord tell him that?”
I didn't know how I expected her to respond, but when she took a few breaths and remained calm, I was rather surprised by it. I guess I was expecting her to go off the handle like she usually would do. In fact, I was trying to make her go there on purpose, because I was just frustrated.
She looked at me and said, “Darin, when John is ready to face the Lord, then he'll be ready to know.”
I was confused. I wanted more than that, but she was so peaceful about it that I thought about leaving it alone.
I forced myself to respond anyway. I said, “Well, I think he needs to know right now. It's tearing him apart. How can a guy walk around all these years and not know who his father is?”
She gave me some wicked eyes and hollered, “You show some RESPECT in my house, YOUNG MAN! Mind your DAMN MANNERS! ”
I didn't feel like hearing that drama, man. So I took the card and headed back for the door, ignoring the rest of Sister Williams's tirade. I felt sorry for John. I felt sorry for both of them. I felt sorry for me for being in the middle of it. It just didn't make any sense, praising the Lord while ignoring your own flesh and blood. Did I lack faith? Was I wrong? I mean, I wasn't saying that John and I were right, because we were not, and I admitted it. John even admitted it in his songs and everything. But hell, man, how could his mom be that unforgiving?! She wouldn't even allow an open conversation! Was she right to be that way?!
I opened up the card when I reached the rental car that I was driving, just to see what she had written. Right there, as large as day, Sister Williams wrote, “GET CLOSE TO THE LORD! YOU SHALL KNOW HIS NAME!”
I shook my head and couldn't believe it. She had just ruined a perfect idea. John wouldn't want that right in the middle of his damn card. But I was tired, man. I was tired! So I took that shit right to the post office to mail it to John and let him take it however he was going to take it. It was his crazy mother, not mine.
When I got to the post office, it was taking forever to get to the front of that line in down-home Charlotte. I kept changing my mind back and forth over whether I should mail the card off to John or just forget about it.
God dammit, I wish this line would MOVE! I was thinking to myself. I was the only one who looked concerned about the molasses-like speed in there. I guess I had gotten used to the hustle and bustle of the North, especially with all of the people in and out of the music business.
Before I could get all the way to the front of the line with the card in hand to mail off, someone yelled out, “Hey, nigga! What up, dawg?”
I was standing there embarrassed, thinking, Damn! That's the South for you. I didn't even turn around to see who it was.
The next thing I knew, the guy was all up in my face in the line, standing six feet five and as wide as the sunshine, like in Loverboy's song Tonight Is Yours.
It was Big Joe's country ass from North Carolina A&T's football team. He was the first person to ever call John “Loverboy,” at the homecoming talent show that night years ago. He wasn't slow to remind me of that either.
He said, “Nigga, that Loverboy is blowing AAHHPP! I tell niggas all the time, I say, ‘I named that nigga. He went to A&T with us, dawg. That nigga, FOLKS!’”
He grabbed my hand as proud as he could be and said, “Darin, it's good to see you, dawg. You motherfuckers are representin' for the dirty SOUTH like that, NIG-GA!”
I was beyond embarrassment! I mean, I wasn't ashamed of my Southern roots or anything. Nor was I politically correct with what I said all the time, but DAMN! Big Joe was all up in the middle of the post office with that shit.
I said, “Let me take care of this mail, man, and I'll talk to you outside. All right?”
Big Joe nodded his head and said, “Yeah, nigga, come on wit' it. We need to talk about thangs, dawg. I wanna be a bodyguard.”
I just wanted to run the hell home and climb under my bed! That shit was ridiculous. You would think that a college education would refine that country shit. We weren't out in the damn sugarcane fields hollering profanities under the heat of the sun anymore. SHIT!
I mailed the Christmas card off to John, happy to leave that place, and walked outside to face Big Joe again.
Before he could even open his mouth to me, I said, “Joe, I understand that you're excited about what's going on and you're happy to see me and everything, man, but we gotta watch our language in certain arenas . . . dawg.” I didn't want to put down my brother, I was just trying to bring him up a bit. Joe had always talked like that in the locker room. However, we were not in the locker room anymore.
He smiled like a giant-size teddy bear and said, “Aw, my bad, dawg. I'm just happy to see you, man. I mean, I've been thinking about y'all lately. Loverboy need a bodyguard don't he? That nigga ain't never had no weight on him.”
I laughed. We could actually use a traveling bodyguard by that point in John's career. He was definitely at that level, and he still wanted to test the street life. But then again, Big Joe needed to calm waaaay down before we could hire him for that kind of a job. He still had that attack-mode football energy in him. That would get us into more trouble than not having a bodyguard.
I asked, “Well, what have you been doing with yourself, man?”
He said, “I was playing arena ball in Florida for a minute. But that shit wasn't paying no real money, man. So I tried to sign on with a couple of NFL practice teams or something just to get my daughter something to eat. You know what I mean? I was still trying to do the football thing. That's why I'm in Charlotte now. I was with the Panthers camp for a minute.”
Obviously, Big Joe could talk straight. He was just a little excited with me, that's all. He was a defensive lineman, and they tended to get excited like that. I understood it. So I gave Big Joe a business card.
He said, “I'm gon' call you up, too, man. I'm serious about the bodyguard thing. I mean, I named your boy. And now y'all using it. LOVERBOOOY!”
I laughed and said, “Yeah, I hear you, man. We gon' talk about it.”
When I hit the church that Sunday morning with my family, I was swarmed by everyone who was interested in John's music or music of their own.
“Well, when is he doing a show back home in Charlotte?”
“I got a young cousin who can sing. Can I give her your number?”
“Boy, I really have some issues with that Big Momma song. I'm not saying that I don't like it, I'm just wondering where his head was when he wrote it.”
“Is John working on a new album yet?”
“Is he gonna sing any good gospel music?”
“Has he settled down with a nice girl? I got a good niece I could introduce him to up in Greensboro. She's just as sweet as she can be. And smart, too.”
My older brothers were laughing their behinds off.
They said, “All of this for a momma's boy who could barely walk a girl home from school when he lived here. Funny how things change.”
I said, “Yeah, tell me about it,” and kept on laughing. But Sister Williams was not a part of the fun that day. She kept her distance and continued to ignore everything. I just couldn't reach her.