. . . hearing thousands of screams . . .
I couldn't sleep that Friday night without asking John about that club incident. Tony and his cousin Bean got high and invited some girls over, but they didn't have enough girls to go around, and John just wanted to relax and prepare himself for performing the next day. So before I jumped on him about the scene he had made at the club, I watched BET videos with him.
I said, “These videos are powerful, man. A video is, like, more important than radio sometimes.” They had late Friday night rap videos on from Craig Mack, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, the Wu-Tang Clan, Outkast, Digable Planets, and others.
I just sat there watching those videos, listening to the beats, and thinking about John's imagery as a performer. He was as clean-cut as you could get. Then it occurred to me that his mother hadn't allowed him to watch videos or listen to rap music. A lot of the New Wave culture was alien to John. He had gotten most of his references from me.
He smiled and said, “These Wu-Tang guys talk a lot about kung fu and stuff.”
I laughed and said, “Yeah, that's where they get their names from.”
He said, “And this guy actually calls himself the Ol' Dirty Bastard? You gotta be playin'.”
I laughed and said, “Nah, he's for real.”
John said, “Go 'head, man. They're just doing that for this song, right?”
I said, “Nah, that's his name, the ‘Ol’ Dirty Bastard.'”
John shook his head and said, “My God. No wonder my mom didn't want me listening to this. I wonder how this guy's mom feels.”
“Aw, man, that's just one rap group,” I told him. I asked him, “But how do you feel about that, man, to have missed out on so much? I mean, you did a little more with me around, but there's, like, so much stuff that you couldn't do that it ain't even funny.”
He hunched his shoulders and said, “I don't really think about it, man. All I know is that nobody's gonna stop me from what I wanna do now.”
I said, “And that reminds me. Stop talking shit about my football aspirations. I don't beat your shit down. I'm doing everything I can to help you.”
He looked at me from his twin-sized hotel bed and said, “My bad, man. That ain't right.”
“You damn right it ain't right,” I snapped at him.
He smiled and said, “But you have to admit, once we get inside the music-business, I don't think there's nothing like it. I can't wait until tomor'. I'm gon' try to rock the house.”
What can I say? I couldn't stay mad at my boy for long. I decided to drop the whole issue about the girl in the club. Nobody's perfect. I guess I was trying to come off as John's father sometimes, and he was a few months older than me.
I smiled back at him and said, “We gon' have some girls of our own tomorrow, man. You didn't get that girl to dance with you tonight, but plenty of them will want to dance with you tomorrow. With no clothes on,” I joked.
I went to sleep with that thought on my mind. I couldn't wait until tomorrow either. The dog in me couldn't wait.
Before we went to the Black History Month Celebration that Saturday, Tony was up early enough to go over what John wanted to perform that day.
Tony said, “I know you sing a bunch of ballads, man, but do you have any up-tempo stuff where I can really get down on my drums?”
John said, “Yeah, I got this song called Freedom. It's kind of funky, too.”
Tony said, “How it go?”
I smiled and started clapping my hands on beat. John filled in the words:
That was all Tony needed to hear. He nodded his head and grinned.
He said, “Yeah, we can work with that. What else you got?”
I started thinking that maybe we should have worked that all out ahead of time instead of right before the event. But knowing John and Tony, they didn't need much preparation. They had a rhythm together that fit like a glove. What they did at Zanzibar Blue up in Philly was beautiful!
I thought about that and came up with my own idea.
I said, “You can do that stage song that you sang at Zanzibar Blue uptempo.”
At first they just stared at me.
I said, “In other words, instead of singing, ‘The sta-a-age . . . she's my lovver,’ with that pause in the middle, you just sing it straight out, ‘The stage is my lov-ver-r-r,’ and hold the r at the end. Then you can do a bass line on the keyboard, like: Da-Doom, Doom-Doom, Doom-Doooooom.”
Tony filled in behind me, lip-syncing a drumbeat while working his hands and thigh, Da-Doom, Tit TAT, Tit Doom, Da-Doom-Doom TAT. He nodded and said, “Yeah, that'll work. That's funky.”
John looked at me and smiled. Then he sang it the way that only he could:
He looked at me again and nodded. He said, “That's pretty good, man. Good idea.”
I felt like some kind of a hero.
John said, “And I'll just start it off with May I. ”
Blake said that they would have twenty to thirty minutes to perform, and from what I was told, this event would have a young and cheap audience.
I said, “John, I wouldn't do that May I song, man. Save that for the album and an older audience. I would do At Midnight. ”
John looked at me and kept smiling. He said, “Tony can get off on At Midnight, too. And you're right, May I is a classic-type song. I shouldn't even perform that one anymore until we get signed.”
I knew what was coming after that. John said, “Are you sure you're not a manager?”
Tony frowned at me and said, “What, you don't wanna do this? Music is where it's at, boy! You better recognize! ”
I shook my head and said, “If I don't make it in football, then I'll think about this.”
Tony said, “Whatever, man. At age nineteen, if you can get into the music business with sure-shot talents like me and John, you better think about taking it. I mean, it ain't like you playing football at Penn State or some shit, where you damn near guaranteed to go pro. You're at a small black school.”
John came to my defense and said, “D was one of the best football players in Charlotte, man. He knows how to play.”
Tony smiled and said, “Yeah, and so do a million other motherfuckers.”
I felt like saying, “A million motherfuckers play music, too,” but that just would have been in spite, so I held my tongue.
Big Daren picked us up in his fully carpeted van and took us to Detroit's downtown Cobo Hall.
When we unloaded all of the equipment, I nudged John with my arm and whispered, “You moving on up, man.”
He just smiled at me. Then the pampering began.
A sister in her late twenties stepped up with a big smile and said, “Hi, are you John ‘Loverboy’ Williams? I'm Cindy Battle, and I'm going to be your chaperone for the day. So I'd like to show you to your stage area, get you something to eat, drink, or anything else that you need. You just let me know.”
John nodded to her and said, “Thanks.”
Tony said, “I could use something to eat right now.”
Cindy started laughing and said, “Okay, well, let me show you to your area first, and then I can go take you to get whatever you want. We also have a VIP area for performers. Their food is generally nice, but you can have anything you like. We can even order out for you.”
Tony said, “Do you have any jerk chicken? They usually have jerk chicken and curry goat and whatnot at most of the other black expo events that I've been to.”
She said, “I can check and see for you, but I don't remember seeing anything like that.”
I thought to myself that bald-headed, weed-smoking Tony could be high maintenance compared to John. John was intensely focused. He just wanted to jump onstage and do his thing.
It was nearly three o'clock, and Blake had gotten us a prime performance time, at six. The two headliners were set to go on after John, and the event was over at eight. I couldn't even remember the names of the other acts. There was no one major there, and I was concentrating more on watching John set off another crowd and win them over. As far as I was concerned, the only acts that could top John and Tony were platinum-selling artists. And a live performance was a bit different from selling albums. You really had to know what you were doing onstage, especially when people hadn't heard of you. John was just beginning, but he was a natural. He was getting things down to a science.
Tony walked around and checked out the floor with all of the merchants selling their goods. But John and I went straight to the stage area to check out the acts who were on before him. They had a young female dance group, African drummers, a kids' fashion show, and then the music began at around five, with a gospel group, of all things.
I looked over at John and smiled at him.
John didn't even flinch. He said, “You see that not that many people ran over here to hear them. Just a few old people. But wait until they announce my name and me and Tony do our thing.”
I said, “Are you telling me that people wouldn't recognize your talent if you sang gospel?” I knew the answer to that myself, I was just agitating John.
He grinned and said, “Nope. They would give all of the glory to the Lord.”
“And you don't?” I asked him.
He said, “God helps those who help themselves, right?”
I said, “Right.”
“And I haven't worked for it?”
I smiled. I knew about all of those hours John had spent practicing by himself and pushing his talent as far as it could go. I said, “Man, you know you worked for it.”
“Well, there's nothing else to be said then,” he told me. “I just thank God for giving me the talent to be who I am. But that doesn't mean that I have to sing gospel. I mean, does God bless the football players and not the basketball players?”
I got the point and smiled. Sometimes John sounded a little too secure. Overconfidence could be just as bad as being insecure sometimes. I think it was better to have poise right down the middle between the two, like having confidence without talking about it. Most of the time, John didn't talk about his talent, he just performed. I guess I asked for it by playing the devil's advocate again. So I just left him alone while it got closer to his performance time.
Sure enough, as soon as they announced his name, the young crowd flocked to the stage, and those who took their time hurried their step once John began to do his thing:
Tony did his thing on the drums, following John's lead on the keyboard, and I just watched the crowd react. I won't lie either. I was trying my best to spot the phattest girls in the audience to have a good time with afterward. After doing a few shows with John and witnessing the power that his singing had on everyone, I just began to expect certain things.
When they went up-tempo with The Stage, the crowd started nodding their heads immediately. John and Tony made the song funkier than I imagined. Then John went ahead and used the full stage to walk from left to right and sing to girls in the audience.
He had never done that before. It seemed like he always had a few new tricks up his sleeve, and he was springing them without warning.
But John took the cake when they got to Freedom. Tony whipped up another funky beat, and as much as John said he didn't want to be a gospel singer, he damn sure seemed like a hell of a preacher when he raised his palms to the ceiling, changed the words to the song, and started chanting:
John had Detroit swinging, clapping their hands, and bobbing just like in church. I did my usual thing and started smiling my behind off. To cap off another excellent performance, John screamed, “I'LL SEE YOU ALL IN THE RECORD STORES WHEN THE ALBUM COMES OUT! THEN WE CAN ALL MEET AGAIN AT THE PONTIAC SILVERDOME!”
I didn't even know that John knew about the Pontiac Silverdome since he was never really a sports guy like I was. But I guess that big-time singers performed there too.
When they got off the stage, I asked John, “What made you say that, man?”
“Say what?”
“You know, the stuff about the record deal.”
John smiled and said, “That's what we want, ain't it? I might as well let people know.”
I said, “That's a good idea, man. You need to do that at the end of every show.”
Before I could even turn around, Blake was breathing down our necks with two friends.
He said, “You guys don't even need a demo tape. Damn that was hot!” He turned to his two friends and said, “What do you guys think?”
One of them joked, “Let me pull my checkbook out. I'm ready to sign him right now.” Or at least I thought that he was joking.
At that point, I hadn't had time to set up a meeting with a lawyer yet. But at least we had filed for John's publishing affiliation at ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.). We applied as JLW Music with BMI and Love Lyrics Inc. Music with ASCAP, in case John wrote anything for someone else. I also had a chance to talk to my brother Darryl as a business manager and consultant. But for contract purposes, we needed a lawyer.
I got nervous and said, “Well, you know we'll need to go over any paperwork with our lawyers. John understands that.”
“Yeah, well, whatever we have to do, let's do it.”
These guys all looked like hustlers to me, wearing fine suits with big hands and big gold rings, with pearly white smiles and shiny eyes. I started thinking about the character Big Red in the movie The Five Heartbeats.
I said, “Well, you know, let's just all slow down a minute. We'll talk about it.” My heart was racing again, but at least I was up for the challenge. It was the moment of truth. Or near the moment of truth. So I wanted to make sure that we got things done the right way.
One of the guys asked, “Who is this, the baby genius manager or something?”
I smiled, even though the guy was trying to slight me. Being called a baby genius wasn't exactly a bad thing in my book. I began to look at John as a musical genius. Maybe we were two birds of the same feather, and I was a genius in my own right.
Anyway, when that guy called me a baby genius, that actually gave me a little bit of bravado.
I said, “Yeah, big things sometimes come in young packages. I can't change my age until I get older.”
Everyone broke out laughing. But they knew that I was serious after that, so we traded phone numbers and made it urgent that we get in contact real soon. These guys represented ShowTime Records, another independent label that I had never heard of.
After that business was taken care of, we were able to concentrate on the other business at hand. The girls. They didn't seem to care about who else was singing that day, they were all out to get a piece of Loverboy; young, old, fat, skinny, light, dark, and all in between. And it was much different from the college arena. We had our own hotel room, no curfew, and we didn't have to worry about gossip or on-campus boyfriends to get in the way. That was freedom indeed!
John and Tony started signing autographs and talking about their aspirations in music, and I started scheming on dates.
“So, what does everyone do in Detroit on a cold Saturday night?” I asked this one girl. She was a knockout and as brown as I was, but she wasn't really paying attention to my question. These two yellow girls jumped in and answered me for her.
“There's lots of things to do in Detroit on a Saturday night.”
They were two light-skin honeys, reminding me of Angie and Pyra from Virginia. I started thinking about John's friend Janese and her talk about light-skin girls. I hated to stereotype, but it just seemed like a lot of light girls knew how to jump right on an opportunity. I mean, it wasn't as if I was out to choose them, they had just decided to choose themselves. If you think I was ready to turn that opportunity down for some color code, you had another think coming. A fine sister is a fine sister in my book, no matter what shade she was. And from me not being a one-woman kind of guy, I definitely knew how to choose the girls who wanted to be down. We had no time for any hesitation.
I asked, “Do y'all have a car?”
“Yup. And we will travel.”
Just to make sure I knew what I was getting into, I said, “So, which one of you has the crazy boyfriend who might come out looking for you?” I was thinking of Pyra again.
“What boyfriend?” they both joked.
That was the kind of response that I wanted to hear, so I kept talking to them and traded phone numbers, places, and times.
When I got a moment alone with Tony, he said, “Boy, I got me about four dates set up for tonight. Nine o'clock, twelve o'clock, three o'clock, and six in the morning.”
I laughed and said, “Who agreed to six o'clock in the morning?”
“This woman with her own crib. She told me to just call before I came.”
I said, “But how did you even get in a conversation like that?”
Tony said, “It's the game, boy. It's the game.”
I said, “Yeah, go 'head, man. You makin' shit up.”
Tony said, “You wanna come with me?”
I hesitated for a minute. He couldn't have been serious.
He broke out laughing the next minute and said, “Naw, I'm only bullshittin' you, man. I ain't going nowhere at six o'clock in the morning. I'll be high as shit and knocked the fuck out by then.”
I said, “Do you get high all the time, man?” I was concerned about it. I didn't want that to be a problem.
Tony said, “Naw, only when I'm awake.” Then he laughed again. “Naw, I'm just fucking with you, man.” He nudged me and said, “Loosen the hell up, North Carolina. I know you the big manager and everything, but damn! I mean, I don't get high all the time, but I like to unwind every now and then. Yeah.”
When I made it to John through all of this fanfare, I asked him what he had set up for the night.
He looked at me and shook his head. He said, “Man, I had so many different people in my face saying this and that, that I couldn't even concentrate on any of that.”
Tony overheard him and said, “That's what you need Darin to do. He was supposed to give out the invitations.”
John laughed and said, “Invitations. I like how you put that.”
Tony said, “Yeah, invitations to be with the Loverboy for a night.”
I said, “Well, I gave out two.”
Tony looked at me as if I had lost my mind. He said, “You gave out two? Man, are you crazy! You mean you got all of these girls out here, and you set up just two invitations? What if they don't show?”
He said, “Man, you supposed to give out at least twenty. Then you get ten of 'em to show up. But you only invite four up to the room from the lobby. Then you make the extras wait out in the hallway until you send them in for the next shift.”
John and I just broke out laughing. Either Tony was a great comedian, making it all up as he went along, or he had pulling girls to the hotel room down .
John said, “Well, if they don't show, then we'll just take a few of your extras, if that's all right with you.”
Tony said, “Take my extras. Shit, you the Loverboy. I'm just the drummer. I'm supposed to be taking your extras.” He shook his head and said, “You Southern boys got a lot to learn, man. A lot to learn.”
We didn't have to take Tony's leftovers that night. By the time John and I made it back to the hotel room, we had four messages from three different groups of girls who had found out where we were staying. One girl had called twice to leave three different phone numbers to reach her.
I looked at John and said, “Do you believe that? Imagine what'll it be like when you really do perform at the Pontiac Silverdome? You'll have to check in hotels under another name.”
John just laughed it off. He asked, “So, which girls do you want to call back?”
I said, “I don't even know who these girls are. Do you know them?”
John smiled and said, “I don't know, man, I might get them all confused. I mean, it wasn't like I had time to talk to any one girl for that long.”
I said, “Well, I did. I talked to these two light-skin girls with their own car. I say we just call them to be safe. Unless you don't want to deal with any more light-skin girls,” I joked to him.
John grinned and asked, “Did they look good?”
I stopped and thought before I answered him.
I said, “Do you think we have a different standard of judging light-skin girls from dark-skin girls? I mean, what exactly does looking good mean?”
I said, “Are we talking about, like, a keen nose, a small face and lips, with curly or wavy hair? I mean, is that what makes light-skin girls look good to us?”
John caught my drift and said, “Yeah, and we judge the dark-skin girls by their body, right? She got a big behind. Or a phat-to-death body.”
We both broke out laughing, but I thought it was an interesting observation.
I shook my head and said, “Nah, some brown girls got the prettiest faces in the world, though. Like that girl Stacey Briggs at school, who ran for homecoming queen, her face is pretty as I don't know what. That girl Dawn from New Jersey had the look too, but she wasn't as brown as Stacey.”
John said, “But they still got white features. Stacey's nose is sharper than white people's.”
I said, “Well, your nose ain't all that big either.”
John said, “Yeah, my whole face is small. But I'm tall and thin, man. I mean, the more you weigh, the more your face is gonna fill out. That's just common sense.”
“That ain't always true. I know a lot of big girls who have small faces,” I told him.
John said, “Whatever, man. I'm tired of talking about this anyway. So what do you want to do?”
As soon as he finished his sentence, the telephone rang. I picked it up with a smile, expecting more girls. And it was, the two girls that I had met.
I said, “Hey, I was just talking about you two.”
“What about us?”
“Do people in Detroit think that y'all are pretty?”
“Well, we cousins, we just ought to be pretty.”
I said, “Oh, I didn't know you were cousins.”
“Yeah, so what's up? Are you ready? Let me speak to Loverboy.”
I smiled, just thinking about the forwardness of light-skin girls again. I told myself to cut it out, though, and just have a good damn time with whoever. So I passed the phone over to John.
“Hello,” he answered, grinning. He said, “Yeah, well come on over then. We'll be here . . . We can go everywhere or nowhere. It's up to you two.”
I looked at him and smiled. John never would have said anything like that in high school. But we weren't in high school anymore.
John hung up the phone and said, “They sound like they down for whatever.”
I said, “That's what I'm saying.”
“Well, they're on their way.”
I clapped my hands and said, “Well, let's freshen up and get ready then, man.” It would have been my first score on the road with John. Or at least I hoped that it would be.
The telephone rang again, and John answered it.
“Hello.” He said, “Umm, we made plans for the night already . . . I don't know what time we'll be back.”
I was listening to him from the bathroom with a smile. I wondered if he was experienced enough with multiple date situations to say the right things. I was experienced. But this was John's turn to find out how it was done.
He said, “You can hang out that late?”
I broke out laughing. That damn John was a fool! You could tell that he still had a lot of innocence about him. In a way it made him charming, as if he had no idea how powerful his voice and music were.
He said, “Well, call us up and see then. Okay? But we're about to leave out right now.”
When he hung up the phone again, I said, “That wasn't bad, man.”
He walked to the bathroom door while buttoning up a clean shirt and asked me, “What wasn't bad?”
“The way you handled that phone call.”
He shrugged it off. “I just told her the truth, man.”
“Is that how you plan to be all of the time?” I asked him. I was dying for him to say yes. It would have been real interesting to witness, because whenever you have more than a few girls calling you at once, it's almost a necessity to lie.
John smiled and paused before he answered. He said, “It depends on the situation.”
I said, “That's what I thought, ” and started laughing again.
John said, “Man, I'm learning that sometimes it just don't pay to be too honest. It seems like it causes more pain than good sometimes. But yet, people are always saying, ‘Just be honest with me. Just be honest with me.’”
“They don't mean that shit,” I told him. “When most people tell you to be honest with them, what they really mean is, ‘Either break it to me easy or tell me a good damn lie.’”
We broke up laughing again while getting ourselves ready to go out.
The phone rang again, and John answered it before I could tell him not to. It was getting too close to our meeting time, and unless our girls were lost, which I doubted, John didn't need to dodge any more bullets.
“Hello.” He listened for a while and said, “But we're about to head out right now . . . But— Well—”
I started laughing again. It didn't sound like he was getting out of this one.
Finally, he said, “All right, if you can catch us in time.”
I walked out from the bathroom after he had hung up the phone and asked him, “What did you just do now, man?”
He grinned and shook his head at me. He said, “These three girls were just pressed to come over, D. I couldn't stop them.”
I shook my head and said, “Well, let's try and be gone before they all get here.”
We caught the elevator down to the lobby to catch our dates. Tony was just walking out with his cousin Bean.
“Y'all all right, man?” Bean asked us. “Your boy ain't gon' grab no more girls, is he? I hear he sings so good that he shouldn't have to.”
I chuckled and said, “Yeah, he's all right, man.”
John just smiled it off.
Tony asked us, “Y'all all right for tonight?”
“Yeah, we're straight,” I told him. I just wanted to get out of Dodge as quickly as possible.
When our girls arrived, John and I were all ready to walk back out with them and head to their car. The plan was to go out for a few hours, sneak back to the hotel with them, and make sure that we kept the phones off the hook until they had left.
Our two girls had other plans.
“Can we see y'all room?”
I spoke up and said, “Y'all can sleep in it if you want to. But we're ready to get something to eat right now.”
“Let's order room service. A nice hotel like this has to have good room service.”
I was thinking, What the hell is up with girls and this room service shit?
John went ahead and introduced himself. “Well, my name is John.”
The girls laughed at the obvious and introduced themselves before I could.
“Well, I'm Sherry Anne, and this is my cousin Tabitha.”
They looked close enough to be twins that night, but I guess that was how they planned it.
I said, “My bad. I was supposed to do that.”
“Well, you were too slow on the draw, man,” Tabitha told me.
“Tell me about it,” I responded to her. I didn't bother to ask, but I figured they had to be straight out of high school. They still had that reckless high school energy.
Anyway, once things had slowed down from the pace that I wanted, I was able to check them out again. They were both wearing thin shirt tops that tied above the stomach, with silver rings at their navels, formfitting black pants, and black boots. Sherry Anne had on a short black coat, while Tabitha wore a matching silver one. They smelled good, too.
I started thinking with the wrong head already. My Johnson started talking to me from my pants, and these girls were practically begging to get up inside our room.
I said, “All right, let's go to the room then,” for a quick change of plans. As soon as I had said that, the posse of three girls that John had spoken to last walked in. They were all dark brown and they were dressed more conservatively than our dates.
“So, where y'all going?” the leader of the pack asked us.
Talk about drama, I didn't even want any part of that. I just wanted to disappear.
John spoke up and said, “We were just on our way out the door.”
“We see,” another member of the posse said.
I could feel the tension in the air, and I was sure that John could. But John handled things a lot cooler than even I could at the time. I was too busted on the spot to even try.
John said, “Well, we'll see you around a little later,” and started walking toward the rotating doors while holding on to Sherry Anne.
Somebody said, “No thanks. Y'all got what y'all want already. Ain't nobody trying to be sloppy seconds.”
I couldn't believe my ears! They were telling it like it was. Maybe I just wasn't used to girls up north yet, because they were all bold as hell, just barging up in the place and making a ruckus.
When they all walked out with us, John walked over to this black stretch limo that was stationed out front and said something to the driver.
Somebody said, “Aw, they goin' in a limo. That's fucked up. That's some fucked-up shit!”
I didn't even want to look at who said it. I was too embarrassed. Sophisticated white people were all around us. We looked like a bunch of ghetto kids gathering at the wrong damn hotel!
John walked back over to us and started talking loud. “Our car is on the way.”
I took his lead and said, “Yeah, but it's cold out here, so let's wait inside until it comes.”
We walked right back in to escape the drama. That's when one of the doormen asked us if there was a problem.
John said, “No sir, everything is cleared up now,” and started heading for the elevators.
I followed his lead again with Sherry Anne and Tabitha.
We stood and waited for the elevator.
Tabitha asked, “Who was that? They sure were mad at y'all. I think y'all hurt somebody's feelings.”
She was rubbing it in. I didn't take too lightly to that. I was feeling guilty about the whole situation. We had chosen the light-skin girls. I mean, somebody could even argue that we were just a few shades away from choosing white girls.
John spoke up again and said, “I told them we already had plans. They did that to themselves.”
I had to give one thing to John, he sure was consistent with his honesty. I mean, even when he had to lie, his lies seemed appropriate in some way.
We made it up to our room, and the two cousins took off their coats and got immediately comfortable, as if they had done it all too many times before.
I said, “How many times have y'all done something like this, you know, hung out with performers and all?” I had to make sure that I clarified everything and didn't offend them.
Sherry Anne said, “Every time somebody comes in town.”
I didn't know if it was a joke or not, but everyone laughed but me, so I guess it was a joke.
Tabitha said, “No, we usually don't get this close. It's, like, floods of girls at some of the shows we go to.”
I said, “Well, how old are you two?”
Sherry Anne said, “Well, I'm sixteen, and I'll let Tabitha lie and say whatever age she wants to tell you.”
My heart started pumping. I said, “ Sixteen? You sixteen? So, you just started driving then?”
I was totally baffled! I figured that I should have asked them that before I gave them an invitation, just to make sure that they were old enough.
Tabitha said, “I look grown for my age, don't I? But I'm only fifteen.”
I said, “And you can both hang out like this?”
Everyone was still laughing, but I couldn't see where the damn joke was.
I looked at John and said, “What the hell are you laughing for, man?”
John said, “Chill out, man. You're acting too much like a manager. They're just playing with you.”
“No we're not either,” Sherry Anne told him.
John said, “Well, I guess we're about to go to jail then, because y'all look good in here.”
Tabitha said, “Go to jail for what? For eating room service? Because I don't do nothing else.”
I was about to lose my damn mind! I said, “Hold up, hold up, stop playin' for a minute. We gon' get all this shit straight. Now how old are y'all, for real?”
They started laughing at me again.
Then Sherry Anne said, “Oh, Daddy, I like it when you talk rough.”
Tabitha shook her head. She said, “I can tell you from down south, because you are really slow.”
At the moment, I wasn't exactly in a position to argue with her. I just waited for somebody to explain things to me, because I was left out of the joke somehow.
Tabitha said, “We may look young, but everybody is of age up in here. Okay? John got that immediately. We just played with you because you seemed to want to believe it. You must like young girls, hunh? Don't lie, Darin.”
I shook my head and ignored her. I even thought about asking for a license.
I didn't regain my composure until after we had all ordered and eaten our room service. I was beginning to feel like an outsider, like John had some inside track on the speed and craziness of the music business. He was learning how to just go with the flow, and I was not in step yet. Maybe as a manager I couldn't be. I felt like I had to be above it all in some way, even though I wanted to be a part of it. Or did I? I still wanted to play football. I was confused as hell that night. But after I had eaten, Sherry Anne was still talking that Daddy shit, and my Johnson got rock hard again.
When the lights and television went off that night, it was all on in the dark. John ended up with Tabitha, and I had Sherry Anne.
At first, it was a little weird. I kept thinking I was dreaming or something. John was about to get paid right next to me with some fine-ass cousins, way the hell up in Detroit, Michigan. But once Sherry Anne slid under the sheets, slipped off her clothes, and asked me if I had any protection, I realized that everything was for real.
I got my protection out and I watched John in the dark for a minute. He was already getting busy with Tabitha, and he looked like he was moving around in circles instead of up and down and in and out.
I started laughing in the dark at my own joke this time. John's ass was still an amateur in the sex department. And I was planning on making them all pay for fucking with me earlier.
I got up inside of Sherry Anne, and I started turning that girl out like it was the last time I would have a girl in my life. She was feeling it, too.
“Oooh, oooh, oooh,” she moaned.
She made a noise after every move I made until Tabitha finally said, “Shut up, girl! God! ”
It was my turn to have some fun. I didn't mean to show my boy up like that, but I took Sherry Anne to the next level that John still had problems with. Climax. Or in a girl's case, an orgasm.
“OOOOOH, DEEEEE!”
When she started grabbing on me for dear life, I sped up the pace and did my thing.
I said, “Here it come! Here it come! You feel it?”
“YEAH, YEAH!”
And when it came, damn that nut was good! It was like I was popping three in one! Then I put the shoulder lock on her to push myself as far inside as I could. John couldn't match that shit with his singing. I had the last laugh that night. He got his thing off shortly after, but it was nothing like mine. I don't think that Tabitha was as pleased as Sherry Anne was either.
When Sherry Anne caught her breath, she said out loud, “Oooh, Darin in trouble. He just did it with a fourteen-year-old.”
That time, I laughed along with them.
Then Sherry Anne kept going with it. “And I'm gon' tell the police officer downstairs on you. I'm gon' say, ‘Yup, he did it to me, Officer. That boy right there from down south. And it was gooood. So I made him do it to me again.’”