. . . his singing filled him up with joy . . .
The last act to perform in the talent show at A&T that night was a four-member rap group from East Orange and Newark, New Jersey. They used this old-school Run-DMC beat and rocked the crowd out of this world! It was an all-out party in the aisles! And each rapper had his own tight flow to the beat:
My older brothers loved that Run-DMC song and they had played it around me a lot. Obviously, the booming beat got the nineties crowd excited too.
Harrison Auditorium went off: “HO-O-O! HO-O-O! HO-O-O!”
I guess that's why the New Jersey group wanted to go last. They knew what that beat would do. Sure enough, the rap group edged John out with the judges and won first prize.
I didn't know how John would take it, but I was prepared to pump him up. He did a hell of a job, but whenever you have judges in the way, it's ultimately out of your hands. True art can never really be judged by a few people anyway. Each artwork needs to be judged on its own merit. It was an apples-and-oranges kind of thing that night.
Anyway, I looked at John after they announced the winner, and he wasn't fazed at all.
I said, “You think you should have won, man?” I wasn't sure myself. It was a real close call. That New Jersey group had set the place on fire!
John looked at me and said, “I did win. Did you see how the crowd responded when I sang up there?”
He had a point. I nodded and smiled at him.
He said, “Black people will always go off for a dance song. Every culture gets excited about dance songs. But when they respond to a love song like that, then you know you got something.”
I was impressed! John was becoming a real performer right before my eyes. Then a bunch of people rushed him as we tried to make our way out the door with his equipment.
“Don't worry about that, Loverboy. You did good.”
“Yeah, you did good, man.”
“Yo, keep singing, man. Just keep singing.”
“Did you write that song yourself?”
“Yeah, that song was beautiful.”
“Well, you can sing that song to me any night, Loverboy. You da man.”
They were calling him “Loverboy” as if it was his name. Big Joe had started something. It took us a while to get back to the dorms. Plenty of people had something to say. John had never gotten that much attention in his life! I was happy for him. To tell the truth, though, I didn't make much of it. I was actually thinking more about myself and how I needed to shine on the football field in the homecoming game that Saturday against Alcorn State. John had inspired me.
When we finally made it back to the dorms, a little after ten o'clock, John asked me what I was doing for the rest of the night. I guess he was still charged from the whole experience and the attention that he was getting.
I was already getting tired of it, so I told him that I had some homework to finish, and we went to our separate dorms.
I walked up to my room and laid out on my bed, dreaming about grabbing an interception and running it back for a touchdown against Alcorn State's famed quarterback, Steve “Air” McNair. I was five foot eleven, 190 pounds, and a solid cornerback. I just happened to have two seniors in front of me in starting positions. But I couldn't even rest in peace that night before other football players started banging on my door, talking about John.
“Yo, your boy can sing, man? Is he gonna try to get a record deal? I would. I mean, Loverboy can get much trim if he keep singing like that, D. He ain't no bad -looking guy either. So if fugly singers can get laid, you know your boy can.”
I laughed at the idea. I said, “He ain't got laid yet. We'll see.”
I even got phone calls from a couple of my lady friends that night.
“Darin, I didn't know your friend John could sing like that. How long has he been singing?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Since he was six years old in the church choir. But look, I'm trying to get some sleep tonight. I have to rest up for this game on Saturday.”
“Oh, well, go ahead and get your rest then. Just tell your friend, the Loverboy, to keep singing.”
I took my phone off the hook for the rest of the night and tried to nod off and go to sleep, but I couldn't. I was actually feeling jealous of my boy, and I couldn't help myself. In retrospect, I had to ask myself, How long had John been jealous of me as a star athlete? So I felt guilty about it.
Sometime after midnight my roommate came in the room. He looked at me still trying to sleep in my bed and said, “D, your boy got the girls open like crazy tonight. I mean, they were wide open for that boy! I even seen Loverboy heading back to Bennett with one.”
“Heading back to Bennett with who?”
Bennett College was an all-girls school that was a good walking distance from A&T.
My roommate said, “Man, I don't know who she was. Some brown-skinned girl with a phat body. I guess your boy 'bout to get paid already. Paid in panties.”
I just smiled it off. I told myself, Yeah, she's probably just asking John a bunch of questions like they all do. He'll be walking back home alone with no action.
That next morning, John was practically waiting for me before class. He caught up with me like eight o'clock in the morning.
He asked me, “Did you have a girl over last night? I was trying to call you. You forgot to put your phone back on the hook.”
I smiled and said, “Oh, yeah. I did forget to put the phone back on the hook.”
He smiled back at me and said, “It finally happened, D.”
“What happened?”
“I was with a girl last night.”
I said, “From Bennett College?”
“Yeah, how you know?”
“I got spies working for me,” I told him.
John said, “Well, yeah, man, it finally happened for me. I got some.”
I just stopped walking. I said, “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that you can sing one damn song at homecoming and get some ass after going dry for nineteen years?”
“I guess so,” he told me. He was grinning his ass off.
I never dared to ask him, but I figured that John had been jerking off or something. He talked about girls enough. He just couldn't get any.
I said, “So who was she?”
“Janese.”
“That girl from South Carolina? Oh, yeah, she's nice,” I told him.
He said, “Well, she's my first love now.”
I looked in his face and asked, “You not in love with her or nothing, are you?”
He paused. “I can't really say. I mean, I like her and all.”
He wasn't in love with her. John would have known immediately if he was. He would have known that before he even went over to her place. Instant true love was rare anyway.
I said, “So, how did it happen? Did she always want to give you some, and last night was just the night for it?”
I figured John would make me late for class, but what the hell. During homecoming, plenty of people miss class anyway unless you have a test or a big assignment to turn in, and I had neither.
John said, “Well, she asked me if I had written May I for her.”
I said, “What? Go 'head, man. She didn't ask you that shit.”
“Yes she did, too.”
“So what you tell her?” I just knew that John didn't tell her he had unless it was true. The boy was honest like that.
“I said yeah,” he told me.
I started laughing. “You wrote that song for her for real?”
John said, “Well, you know, it's for all women.”
I said, “But she didn't ask you that. She asked you if you wrote it for her. ”
“Well, she's a woman, ain't she?”
I broke out laughing again. John was learning how to game for some trim.
I said, “You lied to her, man.”
“But I didn't.”
“Yes, you did. But don't worry about it. We all lie to get it. Or most of us do. Unless you really like the girl.”
John said, “I do like her.”
“As much as you liked Carneta back in high school?”
He thought for a second. He said, “That was a different time in my life.”
I cut to the chase and asked him, “Well, how was it?”
He smiled. “It felt good, man.”
“Did you nut?”
He paused and went into deep thought about it.
“Umm . . . I don't know. What does it feel like?”
After he asked me that, I figured that I wouldn't even make class that morning. I couldn't stop laughing, and I damn sure wanted all of the details.
“What does it feel like? You must didn't do it right then. Did she like it?” I asked him. I could imagine John having no idea what he was doing.
He said, “Oh, yeah, she was moaning all loud and going crazy. I thought somebody was about to knock on her door and tell us to stop.”
“Go 'head, man. You bullshittin'. And you don't even know if you nutted. How you gon' turn her out like that and you didn't even know what you were doing?”
“Well, she got on top of me, man, and she was like, doing it herself.”
I said, “Oh, now that explains it. So Janese had a little bit of a freak in her, and she let it all out on you.”
John laughed and said, “I guess so, because I didn't even have any condoms. She had some.”
I held out my hand and said, “Well, welcome to manhood.”
John smiled but he didn't give me a handshake on it.
He said, “Just because I got some, that doesn't make me a man. I have a long way to go yet.”
I nodded to him and took my hand back.
“All right, well . . .” I didn't know what else to say. I said, “Well, let me get to class, man. I'll talk to you later on.”
John whispered, “I didn't even take a shower yet, D.”
I looked at him and frowned. “Why not?”
“Well, if you thought that I was lying to you when I told you, I wanted you to smell me for proof.”
I said, “Are you fucking crazy, man?! Go take your damn shower, boy! I'm not gon' smell you. You crazy!”
John laughed and started walking backward to his dorm at Scott.
“All right, D. I'll see you later on, man.”
That boy had to be out of his mind! I had to smile at it, though. John was like a big kid with a new trick up his sleeve. And when I made it to my first class that morning, it was basically over with. Only five students had shown up anyway.
• • •
On that homecoming Saturday, instead of me picking off an interception and running it back for a touchdown, I sat on the bench the whole game as both teams ran up the score. Alcorn State beat us 45–34. Steve “Air” McNair threw four touchdown passes and nearly four hundred yards against our senior cornerbacks, while I rode the pine. To top things off, my boy John had people talking about him while he performed in the school band before, during, and after the halftime show.
I figured I would get drunk and get laid myself that Saturday night to heal my wounded ego. Even that idea backfired on me.
“Can you sing a song to me like your friend Loverboy ?” this girl named Tanya teased me. She was only joking, but I wasn't in the mood for that. I was just about to take her clothes off when she said it, too.
“Why don't you stop fucking asking me about him?”
She said, “What? Darin, I was only joking. You don't need to get an attitude with me.”
I said, “Yeah, just shut up and take your clothes off.”
It was alcohol talking. I was drunk.
Tanya said, “Oh no you didn't !” and pulled away from me. “You don't talk to me like that.”
“Stop wasting time, then,” I told her.
She said, “Oh, I won't,” and headed for the door.
I don't remember all that I did that night, but I had a headache in the morning when John called me on the telephone.
He said, “I got some more last night, man.”
“From Janese?” I asked him.
“Nah, from this other girl.”
I shook my aching head and moaned. John had been turned out to the sex game. In two days!
“What's wrong?” he asked me.
“I got a hangover, man. A bad one.”
He said, “Yeah, I had one last night, too.”
“Had one what? A hangover?” John didn't drink. But I did.
He said, “No, not a hangover. I'm talking about when I did it last night. Man, it kind of felt like my whole insides were squeezing out of my thing.”
I grabbed my head and screamed, “I got a headache, man! Don't do it to me this morning!” I wanted to laugh so bad, but my head was killing me!
John said, “My bad. I'll tell you later on then.”
“Nah, you can tell me now, just don' t say nothing too funny.”
He said, “I'll try not to. But this girl knew what she was doing even more than Janese, man. I mean, she was on the bottom, but she was grabbing on me real good, and squeezing me real tight. And then when I did it, like, my whole body just froze, man. And she squeezed me real, real tight.
“And aw, man, that felt great ! And I was like, Wow! And then we did it again.”
I thought I was ready to have an aneurysm in my head or something. The thing that made it worse was that John had no idea how funny the shit was. I mean, he was only telling it like it was, but damn !
I said, “So how long have you known this girl, man?” I wanted to see if these girls had just opened up to John recently, or had he simply figured out how to score.
“Antoinette? For about a month now. She's a freshman.”
“So, how did you get her?”
“Well, she's a music major, so she wanted me to listen to some of her stuff, and then she just came on to me, talking about how talented I was.”
“ Talented? Man, these people only heard you sing one song,” I told him.
“Yeah, but she has her own keyboard, so I showed her a few things on it. And she knows I'm on a music scholarship. You don't get a scholarship for nothing.”
John was right. I was downplaying his talent from my own jealousy, so I moved on from it.
“And then she gave you some?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Basically. And she was real passionate about it.”
“So what are you going to do now? Are you going to keep both of these girls?”
I wanted to see if John had thought things through.
He said, “Man, I have no idea. I didn't even think about that. But I came up with a new song last night, though.”
I said, “A new song?”
“Yeah. Because you know how we have that midnight rule for dorm room visitation. Well, I came up with a song called At Midnight. Me and Antoinette were talking about that, because I had to leave before she wanted me to.”
“Did you take a shower this time?” I asked him with a laugh.
He laughed back and said, “Yeah, as soon as I got back in last night.”
I said, “Good. And don't do that shit again, man. That ain't too healthy.”
He said, “Oh, yeah, some people invited me to perform at Norfolk State's homecoming next Friday night.”
I started smiling again. “And?” I asked him.
He said, “You down to go?”
I laughed. “We got a game next week, man.”
“But it's a home game. Norfolk is only a couple of hours from here. We could drive up there, D, do our thing, and I'll drive back while you sleep.”
I said, “Nah, man. I'm trying to rest in a bed before my game. My car ain't comfortable.”
“We could be back before one, though. How many hours of sleep do you need? You can still get your eight hours. Both of us. I still have to play in the band at the game.”
I wouldn't commit myself to it. I said, “Nah, man. I'm not going up there.”
When we hung up that morning, I felt guilty again. Was I acting out of jealousy, or just pure laziness? I figured that if I had something up at Norfolk State that I wanted to do, I would have had no problem driving up there and back. So it had to be jealousy. I thought about that and decided to call John back.
I said, “I'll drive up there with you, man.”
He said, “Hold on,” and clicked over to his other line. When he came back, he said, “Thanks, D. I didn't want to go with anybody else, man, because I can't share things with people like I do with you. But if you forced me to . . .”
I said, “So you wasn't even gonna try and beg me first?”
“Nah, man. You're a Taurus. I mean, you can either be supportive or not, but begging you never made a difference.”
He was right. If I made up my mind, it was made.
I asked him, “You were already making phone calls for a ride up there?”
He said, “I had to. I'm going, man. This is another opportunity for me. I'm gonna do this new song, At Midnight, up there, with May I. They asked me to do two.”
“Is it another contest?”
“Yeah, for them, but they want me to sing, like, right after the intermission.”
“What, like a featured singer?”
“Yeah. You believe that?” He was all excited about it.
I asked him, “Are they paying you?”
“Nah.”
“Well, shit, you need to get paid if you're gonna be a featured singer after intermission, man.”
“But what if they say no.”
I was stuck for a minute. What if they say no? I thought.
I laughed and said, “Well, then you do it for free then. But you can at least ask them first.”
John paused and said, “I don't really like asking for money, man. I just want to perform. How about I call them back up and let you do it, and say that you're my manager?”
I started laughing again, but John was serious.
I said, “If I call, I'm asking for a thousand dollars. Five hundred per song.”
John put me on the spot and said, “Do it then.”
At first I was ready to back down, but then I figured, Why not do it? Let me put my actions where my mouth is. I was never the kind of guy who would back down from anything. I had two older brothers. I was trained to stand up to challenges.
I said, “All right then. Give me their number.”
I called the homecoming organizers up at Norfolk State University, and they were really excited about having John sing up there. That surprised me. I thought they would act as if it was no big deal.
I said, “Yeah, John Williams is my boy and everything, and we came up in church together, but he doesn't like dealing with the money aspect of performing, so I figured that I would do that for him. And I think that a thousand dollars would be fair to both parties, you know, five hundred dollars for each song.”
I didn't know if I was going about it the right way with being so honest, but that was the deal.
They said, “A thousand dollars? We can do that.”
I was shocked! I said, “Yeah, so that would be a deal then.”
When we hung up the phone, I starting thinking that maybe I had asked for too little. After all, talent show performances were always packed during homecoming events. They would have plenty of door money. Nevertheless, I was happy to give John the news.
He said, “They agreed to it?”
“Yeah. And I'm thinking that maybe I should have asked for five thousand to see if they would meet us halfway.”
I had learned my first big lesson of management: never ask for too little, because they will be more than happy to give it to you.
That Thursday, the organizers called John back and tried to back out of the deal.
John got me back in the conversation with them, because they were trying to run the bullshit game all through him. I had obviously told them too much information.
They said, “We looked into our budget, and we just don't have the resources to pay him anything, but we've already pumped his name up around campus, and everybody is really excited about hearing him. This could be another big opportunity for him to get his name out there.”
I got real slick and said, “So you guys have already pumped everything up for Loverboy. And the women are all looking forward to hearing him prove it, hunh?”
“Yeah, they really are.”
“And they know that he's going to perform two songs?”
“Well, we don't know about two songs. If time permits, you know.”
John was waiting right beside me in his room.
I said, “But they know that he also writes his own music and lyrics?”
“Well, we just put the word out that he's really talented, and everybody's looking forward to seeing him.”
I said, “Okay, well we'll just collect our money from the door then. After the first hundred people walk in, you should have over one thousand dollars. What is it, ten dollars a ticket? And the capacity is like what, five hundred or so?”
There was a long pause. “Well, we have other things to take care of on our end.”
“And John Loverboy Williams is one of them.”
John couldn't tell everything that was going on, but he was smiling at my demeanor, because I was not playing with those people. It pissed me off more that they tried to run through John after I told them that he didn't like to talk about money. I guess they thought that he wouldn't tell me or something. Or maybe they figured that Thursday would be too late to do anything about it.
They asked me, “Well, was he paid for the talent show at A&T last week?”
“He wasn't a featured performer last week,” I responded. “But you invited him as a featured talent.”
“Well, he can perform in our talent show if he wants.”
I said, “You know what? If John still wants to perform after you agreed to one thing, and then tried to call back at the last minute for something else, then you find him another ride up there then, because I'm not going to be a part of this,” and I handed the phone back to John. I had done my best to try and get him paid, and that was all I could do. The rest was up to him.
John looked at me with the phone to his ear and said, “Well, you made a deal with my manager, and now you're trying to change it—
“No, he is my manager. To manage means to basically control affairs, and if I didn't listen to what he felt was fair, then I would need to fire him. But I have no intentions of firing a lifelong friend who is only looking out for my best interests.”
John was silent for a few minutes while I waited for the outcome.
He said, “Sorry, but I can't do it then . . . I'm not interested in one song. I was told that I would be paid for two, and I'm already looking forward to singing both of them . . . Well, thanks for getting me all excited for nothing . . . That's not my problem. If you would have kept the deal that you agreed to, that wouldn't have been a problem for you either. But now it is . . . Yeah, we'll be here.”
John hung up the phone and immediately started to panic.
He said, “Fuck, man. Now they may not do it at all.”
“What they say?” I asked him.
“They said they'll see what they can do and call us back. But what if they don't call us back?”
I said, “They want you to sing just one song now?”
He said, “Yeah, but I want to sing my new one. I've been working on it all week. Now we ruined it, man. I knew we shouldn't have tried to get any money out of this. I just want to sing, man. I just want to sing. ”
He was already stressed out about it. That boy had found a new addiction, man. I panicked after that. I didn't want John feeling all down about a lost opportunity to sing because of me. That boy could be melodramatic about things. So I broke down and said, “I'll just call them back then and tell them that you'll do it for free.”
I smiled and asked him, “Is this At Midnight song as good as May I ?”
He smiled back at me. “Hopefully, you'll see for yourself tomorrow night at Norfolk.”
I shook my head thinking about the homecoming organizers at Norfolk State again. I wanted to at least talk about them before I called them back.
I said, “You see how people try to do you in business, man? And all I was asking for was a fair deal. If they couldn't do it, they could have told us Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
“With my father working for a housing contractor, I've heard plenty of stories about people trying to get over on business. He had a different story just about every week.”
Both of my brothers were business grads because of all of my father's stories. My middle brother, Darryl, was even planning to go on to law school to further his education on contracts.
I said, “All right, well, give me the phone and let me call them back.” I told him, “I ain't no damn manager, man. I couldn't even get you a thousand dollars from Norfolk.”
As soon as John handed me the phone, the damn thing rang in my hand. It caught me off guard. I shook and said, “Shit.”
John took it back and answered, “Hello?” That boy was anxious ! He said, “Yeah, this is John.” He nodded his head and smiled. “That's good to hear.”
I assumed that Norfolk State was agreeing to something.
I said, “Tell them to put it in writing. And we want the money before you perform.” I added in a low tone, “Because I don't trust them now.”
John asked them for everything I told him to in his own patient way. Then he hung up the phone and smiled at me again.
“What was that you were saying about not being a manager?” he asked me. I mean, that boy was happy as hell!
I grinned and said, “Shit, man, we're just kids out here. A thousand dollars ain't nothing.”
John said, “That's my point, though. Everybody starts from somewhere. This could be your start.”
I blew him off. I said, “Yeah, whatever, man.” But it was funny how that boy went from panicking to praising me in just a few minutes. That's how John was, though. Hot and cold.
We made it up to Norfolk State that Friday night, and there was another jam-packed homecoming crowd just waiting for John to do his thing. But they had screwed up his name. They had “John LOVINGBOY Williams” printed up all over campus! Can you believe that!
John smiled at me and said, “That ain't no big deal to me, man. My name ain't really Loverboy anyway.”
I said, “Yeah, but still, man, they need to get the shit right. These assholes got this shit all over the campus. Lov-ving-boy,” I emphasized for effect. “That shit sounds kinky, man. It's Lov-ver-boy. There's a difference. ”
John just started laughing at me. He was still happy to be there.
Then the organizers pulled an okie-dokie on us when we went to collect on our money. They only gave us $750.
“That's all we can afford to give you.”
I was looking at the crowd up there like, Bullshit! They're trying to play us!
John didn't even care, though. He was like, “Okay. Let's just do it then.”
I said, “Wait a minute, John. I thought we were supposed to have a thousand dollars in writing.”
There wasn't no paperwork to be seen up there. But at least they gave us most of the money. So I just backed off and let it slide. John wasn't about to pay me no mind anyway. That boy just wanted to sing.
Norfolk had more funk in their talent show performances than we had at A&T. But no one rocked the house like the rap group from New Jersey or John did. Or at least not yet. Maybe Norfolk's best performers were waiting to perform last, too.
They introduced John correctly as the Loverboy, and the crowd started looking, but I didn't have a sense of what the vibe was, especially after they had advertised the wrong damn name up there. John even went out and bought a new brown outfit that looked pretty cool. I sat with his Korg keyboard, nervous as hell again, and ready to press that start button. It wasn't a fearful nervous, though. It was a restless nervousness. I wanted my boy to shock the house again. I wasn't jealous of him anymore either. He was my boy, and he needed my full support. So I was prepared to give it to him.
John held the microphone for a few seconds again, with no words spoken while the crowd got ready for him. Then he looked over at me. I pressed the start button, and John did that shit again:
I laughed my ass off when Norfolk realized that my boy had them under his spell. They had a lot more hip people from up north who went to Norfolk, too. Thugs, playboys, fly girls, you name it. They were screaming and hollering all kinds of things, but it never broke his concentration. John got all of them open. Then I changed his disc for the second song, At Midnight.
John gave them a short introduction, telling the crowd that he had just written the song that week. They even laughed when he told them about his inspiration for the song. I guess we can all relate to running out of time in the dorm rooms. John seemed to be at ease up there on the stage, like he was meant to be there.
He looked over at me to press the start button again. For this At Midnight song, John had produced a beat, with a bass line, horns, and his piano again, all coming from the keyboard like a mini orchestra. First the piano came in playing all high notes with a slight echo. The beat followed right behind it:
The slow beat followed right behind the piano:
Then the bass line slid in:
And the horns trailed John's vocals, starting off with the chorus:
I'm not even going to lie about it. I didn't pay close attention to the verses. I was sitting there hypnotized, thinking to myself, This boy is bad ! I can't believe this shit! And the girls were losing their damn minds in that place!
“I'LL MEET YOU AT MIDNIGHT!”
“YOU DON'T NEED TO BE LONELY, BABY!”
“WE CAN GET DOWN ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE!”
“DO THAT SHIT, BABY! SING! ”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING LATER ON TONIGHT?!”
I started thinking that we wouldn't be able to leave that night. After the show, John's dumb ass tried to walk through the crowd instead of finding a back door somewhere. I guess he wanted to be mobbed.
“Can you sign anything for me? I just want to have your autograph before you turn famous.”
“Shit, he should already be famous, singing his ass off like that.”
“Who you tellin'?”
“You don't have a record deal yet? Well, somebody needs to sign you.”
“Me, too.”
“To hell with an autograph, I want a date.”
“Can you make me sing like that . . . at midnight?”
I was standing off to the side, watching all of these fine women mob my boy, and two weeks ago he couldn't even get laid. That shit was amazing!
This tall, light brown dude in a suit and tie stepped up out of nowhere and tried to hand John a business card.
“My name is Todd Light, with Ecstasy Records, and I'd definitely like to speak to your manager.”
John pointed him in my direction.
I acted like I was really important and said, “Darin Harmon. I'm pleased to meet you.”
He looked at me as if it was a joke.
“ You're his manager?”
“You expected an old man?” I joked to him. “Young people are getting it done nowadays. Look at Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs and Jermaine Dupri.”
I figured that after John ripped the house like he did, I could talk all the big-time shit that I wanted.
“What are you guys, straight out of college?”
I guess this guy had been in the business for a while, but I had never heard of any Ecstasy Records.
I said, “We're still in college.”
He said, “Oh. Well, yeah, I'd like to talk to you guys.”
He finally handed me his business card. He was local, with an office in Richmond, Virginia.
I asked him, “You want a number for us?”
He seemed hesitant after he found out that I was Loverboy's manager.
He said, “Well, when you guys call I'll get it then.”
I nodded to him, immediately thinking about throwing his business card away. He didn't want our business bad enough. I could feel it already.
I said, “All right then, we'll call you.”
When I turned back to John, he was still glowing and signing autographs in the middle of all of the attention he was getting.
“Excuse me, but you said that you're his manager?” one girl asked me. Her girlfriends were in the background. They all looked like they were ready for excitement, too.
I said, “Yeah, I'm his manager.” I was already beginning to expect things.
She said, “Well, what hotel are you staying in?”
I thought, Damn, we don't even have a hotel. So I told the girl the truth.
“Actually, we have to get back down to A&T tonight. We have another event tomorrow morning.”
She looked disappointed. She said, “For real? Y'all going back tonight. Why?”
I repeated myself, having second thoughts about leaving: “We have something to do tomorrow morning.”
“Well, can y'all leave later on? I mean, we trying to hang out, you know. We came all the way down here from D.C.”
I guess she was the group's spokesperson. She had a phat body, too, with some tight black jeans on! Boy, she just didn't know how tempted I was to stay, but I figured that we would have plenty of nights to hang late when we would have a hotel room and no game to prepare for the next morning.
I said, “Sometimes we all can't get what we want right when we want it. But if you want to leave us a phone number, you know, we can call you up whenever we do a show or something up in your area.”
I had been to Washington, D.C., only once, for a football game against Howard University. There were plenty of black people up there, too. George Clinton from the funk group Parliament called it Chocolate City.
The girl took a deep breath before taking out something to write on.
“Are you really gonna call? I mean, don't play with us if you're not.”
I said, “Yeah, we'll call you, as soon as we have something in your area.”
One of her girlfriends overheard me and said, “Well, you don't have to wait until something is going on in D.C. to come see somebody.”
Boy, these girls were aggressive ! I thought, Shit! John would need all of the management in the world to deal with girls who would be that forward with him. He had limited experience with those kind of women. They usually didn't give him any time of day. I even had a hard time keeping up with them. Most of the time, those in-your-face girls were just not worth the agony they would put a guy through.
I took a few of their phone numbers and tried to push John along in the direction of our car before we ended up leaving at one o'clock instead of arriving back at A&T at that hour. As we made our way back to the car we still had company.
This light brown girl stepped up and asked us, “Do you mind if we walk with you to the car and ask you a few questions about performing?”
She had a girlfriend who was as light as she was. And they both appeared high-maintenance, with fancy hairstyles and outfits, way out of John's league. Or previously at least, because his singing seemed to elevate him ten notches.
I said, “As long as you can keep up with us.”
That damn keyboard that I was carrying wasn't paperweight. After holding on to it for nearly an hour, it was wearing me out, and I still had a game to play that next morning.
John was all ears for these girls.
He said, “What kind of questions do you have?”
“Well, you write your own songs, right?”
John smiled and said, “Yeah.”
“And do you write songs for anyone else?” She stopped and said, “I'm sorry, my name is Pyra and my partner is Angie. We call ourselves Two Scoops.”
I turned back and started laughing.
I said, “Two scoops of what? Vanilla?”
I was only joking with them.
Angie spoke up and said, “Yeah, but that's only for the meantime. We're still trying to decide on a new name.”
Pyra said, “And we could use some good management, too.”
I looked at them again and figured that they were probably older than us. They looked like they were in their early twenties and out of the teen years.
I said, “What do you think, John? Could you use some backup singers? Would you two be willing to do that?” I asked them.
They both said, “Yeah, whatever.”
Angie said, “I mean, we just didn't want to push up on you while everybody else was crowding around, because we wanted to talk real business.”
I was still amazed at how fast things were moving. The music industry must have been something else! It was like free food at a crowded picnic, and everybody wanted something to eat.
John said, “Yeah, I've had a couple of ideas for backup singers. All I have to do is sit down and work it all out.”
Pyra said, “Well, we're not trying to be backup singers for long, but if it'll help us to get our start, we'll do it. But we just want you to know up front that we still want to do our own thing, too.”
“You don't have management now?” I asked them.
They looked at each other and grinned.
Pyra answered, “Yeah, but it's not the kind of management that we need. You know, sometimes things get a little too personal.”
I didn't want to get into that. They both looked good, and I could easily see how any guy in his right mind could get personal with them. I wanted to get personal, too, from just looking at them.
On our way back to North Carolina A&T, John was still smiling his ass off behind the wheel of my get-around car.
I asked him, “What do you think about all of this, John?”
His head was on cloud nine. I guess mine would have been, too, if I had a chance to shine in football.
John said, “It's a dream come true, man. I've been dreaming about being up on the stage for a while now.”
I said, “Yeah, well, this is still the bottom ranks. I mean, how far do you want to go with this?”
He looked at me and asked, “What did that guy with the business card say?”
I frowned at him. “I don't know about him, man. He seemed like he didn't want to really deal with me. That gave me bad vibes. I mean, if you really want to work with somebody who is talented, you don't worry about the manager, you just try to sign the talent. And that guy acted like I was too young to even talk to him.”
John nodded. He said, “Yeah, if we do a lot more shows and stuff like this, we'll get a bunch of people asking to sign us anyway.”
I corrected him and said, “Sign you. And I know. There'll be a lot of people asking. That's why I'm not sweating that guy. But what do you think about those two backup singers?”
John smiled. “Two Scoops? I think they looked good. I wouldn't mind them singing behind me.”
I laughed and said, “But what if they can't sing, and they just look good?”
John paused. He said, “Well . . . I can't use them then. And I don't want to write any songs for somebody who can't sing either. But I liked how they waited for everyone to fade away before they stepped up like that. That was smart.”
I agreed with him. “Yeah, that was smart.”
We continued on our way back to school and talked the whole way about the events of the night and the craziness of the music business. I mean, we weren't really even in it yet, but we could both just imagine how wild it could be.