Michael Jackson Read online

  The proprietor scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to the younger man, who then extracted a wad of bills from his wallet. He counted them off to pay for the purchase.

  ‘No, wait! That's too much,’ said the masked man who had been watching, carefully. ‘I thought you said it was a hundred dollars. Not a hundred and six dollars, and change.’ There was a quick, urgent conference. ‘What? Tax? Really? On this?’ He made a show of thinking hard. ‘Well, okay, then,’ he decided. ‘Thanks, anyway.’ He put the painting down.

  More negotiation.

  ‘Really? Okay, good, then. A hundred dollars it is.’

  The covered man regarded the painting, again. ‘My God, it's so beautiful, isn't it?’ he remarked, picking it up. ‘The way those children are so… protected. How sweet.’ As he and his assistant walked out of the gallery, he turned and hollered back to the proprietor, ‘I just want you to know that I think you're a wonderful person, and I wish you all the luck in the world with your store! I'll be back soon.’

  Los Olivos is the home of about five hundred horse ranch estates, Victorian-style homes and about two dozen businesses. A thousand people, maybe less, call this remote and slumbering place home (fewer than a dozen of them, black), including one unlikely resident, the only man in town who wears a mask: Michael Joseph Jackson.

  Figueroa Mountain Road winds upward through the lush and rolling Santa Ynez Valley of Los Olivos. A man sells apples under a leafy old shade tree on the side of the road; he's been doing so for years. Every day, he sits with nothing to do but sell his fruit, enjoy his day and bake in the sun. It's just that kind of place.

  A half mile back from the road, behind an imposing oak gate, is 5225 Figueroa Mountain Road, a massive Danish-style split-level farmhouse, its brick and masonry walls crisscrossed with wooden beams. This is where Michael Jackson lives.

  This 2700-acre property, originally a ranch for farming dry oats and running cattle, was once known as Sycamore Ranch. It came on the market at $35 million; Michael purchased it for $17 million in May 1988. He then changed the name to Neverland Valley Ranch -Neverland, for short – an homage to Peter Pan's Never-Never Land. The first order of business for Michael was to build his own amusement park own the acreage, including a merry-go-round, giant sliding board, railway with its own train and even a Ferris wheel. With his kind of money, he could pretty much do anything he wanted to do… and he would do it all at Neverland.

  Michael's corner of the world is verdantly green as far as the eye can see. Old-fashioned windmills dot the landscape. There is an elegant softness to the grandeur; thousands of trees gently shade superbly manicured grounds which include a five-acre man-made, ice-blue lake with a soothing, never pummelling, five-foot waterfall and a graceful, inviting stone bridge. It is here, amidst the infinite silence of unfarmed, rolling and gentle countryside, that Michael Jackson has created his own environment, a safe haven for him from an ever-pressing, ever-difficult world.

  Two thousand miles east, in the grimy industrial city of Gary, Indiana, there is a small, two-bedroom, one-bath, brick-and-aluminum-sided home on a corner lot. The property, at 2300 Jackson Street, is about a hundred feet deep and fifty feet wide. There is no garage, no landscaping and no green grass. Thick smoke plumes upward from nearby factories; it envelopes the atmosphere in a way that makes a person breathing such air feel just a little… sick. Joseph and Katherine Jackson, Michael's parents, purchased the home in 1950 for $8,500, with a $500 down-payment.

  This place, primarily a black neighbourhood, is where Michael Jackson first lived as a child, with his parents and siblings Maureen, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya, Marlon, Janet and Randy.

  Like most parents, Joseph and Katherine wanted their children to succeed. In the early fifties the best they could do was two bedrooms and one bath for eleven people; clothes and shoes bought in secondhand stores. They hoped that when the youngsters graduated from high school, they would find steady work, perhaps in the mills… unless they could do better than that.

  However, when the Jackson parents discovered that some of their kids had musical talent, their dreams expanded: the boys with the surprising musical and dance abilities would win contests, they decided, and be ‘discovered’.

  After their sons cut their first records, the imaginings of the parents grew more grandiose: a sprawling estate in California; servants at their beck and call; expensive luxury cars for everyone; three-piece suits, diamond rings and great power for Joseph; mink coats, jewels and a better social life for Katherine. They fantasized about flipping on their television and seeing their celebrated children perform their number-one hit songs for an appreciative world. As a result of the boys' fame, they figured, the entire family would be recognized, sought-after, asked to pose for pictures, sign autographs. They would all be stars. What a great world it would be, for each of them. No more worries; everything taken care of, handled by their good fortune.

  Was it too much to ask? It certainly seemed like a good idea, at the time. However, as proverbial wisdom has it, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

  Joseph and Katherine

  Joseph Walter Jackson was born on 26 July 1929, to Samuel and Chrystal Jackson in Fountain Hill, Arkansas. He is the eldest of five children; a sister, Verna, died when she was seven. Samuel, a high school teacher, was a strict, unyielding man who raised his children with an iron fist. They were not allowed to socialize with friends outside the home. ‘The Bible says that bad associations spoil youthful habits,’ Chrystal explained to them.

  ‘Samuel Jackson loved his family, but he was distant and hard to reach,’ remembered a relative. ‘He rarely showed his family any affection, so he was misunderstood. People thought he had no feelings, but he did. He was sensitive but didn't know what to do with his sensitivities. Joseph would take after his father in so many ways.’

  Samuel and Chrystal divorced when Joseph was a teenager. Sam moved to Oakland, taking Joseph with him, while Chrystal took Joseph's brother and sisters to East Chicago. When Samuel married a third time, Joseph decided to join his mother and siblings in Indiana. He dropped out of school in the eleventh grade and became a boxer in the Golden Gloves. Shortly thereafter, he met Katherine Esther Scruse at a neighbourhood party. She was a pretty and petite woman, and Joseph was attracted to her affable personality and warm smile.

  Katherine was born on 4 May 1930, and christened Kattie B. Scruse, after an aunt on her father's side. (She was called Kate or Katie as a child, and those closest to her today still call her that.) Kattie was born to Prince Albert Screws and Martha Upshaw in Barbour County, a few miles from Russell County, Alabama, a rural farming area that had been home to her family for generations. Her parents had been married for a year. They would have another child, Hattie, in 1931.

  Prince Scruse worked for the Seminole Railroad and also as a tenant cotton farmer, as did Katherine's grandfather and great-grandfather, Kendall Brown. Brown, who sang every Sunday in a Russell County church and was renowned for his voice, had once been a slave for an Alabama family named Scruse, whose name he eventually adopted as his own.

  ‘People told me that when the church windows were opened, you could hear my great-grandfather's voice ringing out all over the valley,’ Katherine would recall. ‘It would just ring out over everybody else's. And when I heard this, I said to myself, “Well, maybe it is in the blood.”’

  At the age of eighteen months, Katherine was stricken with polio, at the time often called infantile paralysis because it struck so many children. There was no vaccine in those days, and many children – like Joseph's sister Verna – either died from it or were severely crippled.

  In 1934, Prince Scruse moved his family to East Chicago, Indiana, in search of a steady job. He was employed in the steel mills before finding work as a Pullman porter with the Illinois Central Railroad. In less than a year, Prince and Martha divorced; Martha remained in East Chicago with her young daughters.

  Because of her polio, Katherine became
a shy, introverted child who was often taunted by her schoolmates. She was always in and out of hospitals. Unable to graduate from high school, she would take equivalency courses as an adult and get her diploma in that way. Until she was sixteen, she wore a brace, or used crutches. Today, she walks with a limp.

  Her positive childhood memories have always been about music. She and her sister, Hattie, grew up listening to country-western radio programmes and admiring such stars as Hank Williams and Ernest Tubbs. They were members of the high school orchestra, the church junior band and the school choir. Katherine, who also sang in the local Baptist church, dreamed of a career in show business, first as an actress and then as a vocalist.

  When she met Joseph, Katherine fell for him, immediately. Though he had married someone else, it lasted only about a year. After his divorce, Katherine began dating Joseph, and the couple soon became engaged. She was under his spell, gripped by his charisma, seduced by his charm, his looks, his power. He was a commanding man who took control, and she sensed she would always feel safe with him. She found herself enjoying his stories, laughing at his jokes. His eyes were large, set wide apart and a colour of hazel she had never before seen, almost emerald. Whenever she looked into them, as she would tell it, she knew she was being swept away, and it was what she wanted for herself. Or, as she put it, ‘I fell crazy in love.’

  They were opposites in many ways. She was soft. Joseph was hard. She was reasonable. Joseph was explosive. She was romantic. Joseph was pragmatic. However, the chemistry was there for them.

  Both were musical: he was a bluesman who played guitar; she was a country-western fan who played clarinet and piano. When they were courting, the two would snuggle up together on cold winter nights and sing Christmas carols. Sometimes they would harmonize, and the blend was a good one, thanks to Katherine's beautiful soprano voice. Michael Jackson feels he inherited his singing ability from his mother. He has recalled that in his earliest memory of Katherine, she is holding him in her arms and singing songs such as ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and ‘Cotton Fields’.

  Joseph, twenty, and Katherine, nineteen, were married by a justice of the peace on 5 November 1949, in Crown Point, Indiana, after a six-month engagement.

  Katherine has said that she was so affected by her parents' divorce, and the fact that she was raised in a broken home, she promised herself once she found a husband, she would stay married to him, no matter what circumstances may come their way. It didn't seem that she had much to worry about with Joseph, though. He treated her respectfully and showed her every consideration. She enjoyed his company; he made her laugh like no one ever had in the past. Importantly, there was a tremendous sexual bonding between them. Joseph was a passionate man; Katherine, less so a woman. However, they were in love; they were compatible and they made it work.

  The newlyweds settled in Gary, Indiana. Their first child, Maureen, nicknamed Rebbie (pronounced Reebie), was born on 29 May 1950. The rest of the brood followed in quick succession. On 4 May 1951, Katherine's twenty-first birthday, she gave birth to Sigmund Esco, nicknamed Jackie. Two years later, on 15 October 1953, Tariano Adaryl was born; he was called Tito. Jermaine LaJuane followed on 11 December 1954; LaToya Yvonne on 29 May 1956; Marlon David on 12 March 1957 (one of a set of premature twins; the other, Brandon, died within twenty-four hours of birth); Michael Joseph on 29 August 1958 (‘with a funny-looking head, big brown eyes, and long hands,’ said his mother); Steven Randall on 29 October 1961, and then Janet Dameta on 16 May 1966.

  Early Days

  Talk about cramped quarters… once upon a God-forsaken time, all eleven members of the Jackson family lived at 2300 Jackson Street. ‘You could take five steps from the front door and you'd be out the back,’ Michael said of the house. ‘It was really no bigger than a garage.’

  Katherine and Joseph shared one bedroom with a double bed. The boys slept in the only other bedroom in a triple bunk bed; Tito and Jermaine sharing a bed on top, Marlon and Michael in the middle, and Jackie alone on the bottom. The three girls slept on a convertible sofa in the living room; when Randy, was born, he slept on a second couch. In the bitter-cold winter months, the family would huddle together in the kitchen in front of the open oven.

  ‘We all had chores,’ Jermaine remembered. ‘There was always something to do – scrubbing the floors, washing the windows, doing whatever gardening there was to do,’ he said with a smile. ‘Tito did the dishes after dinner. I'd dry them. The four oldest did the ironing – Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, and me – and we weren't allowed out of the house until we finished. My parents believed in work values. We learned early the rewards of feeling good about work.’

  Joseph worked a four o'clock-to-midnight shift as a crane operator at Inland Steel in East Chicago. In Michael's earliest memory of his father, he is coming home from work with a big bag of glazed doughnuts for everyone. ‘The work was hard but steady, and for that I couldn't complain,’ Joseph said. There was never enough money, though; Joseph seldom made more than sixty-five dollars a week, even though he often put in extra hours as a welder. The family learned to live with it. Katherine made the children's clothes herself, or shopped at a Salvation Army store. They ate simple foods: bacon and eggs for breakfast; egg-and-bologna sandwiches and sometimes tomato soup for lunch; fish and rice for dinner. Katherine enjoyed baking peach cobblers and apple pies for dessert.

  There are few school pictures of the Jackson children today, because they could not afford to purchase them after posing for them. For the first five years that they lived on Jackson Street, the family had no telephone. When Jermaine contracted nephritis, a kidney disease, at the age of four and had to be hospitalized for three weeks, it hit Katherine and Joseph hard, financially, as well as emotionally.

  Whenever Joseph was laid off, he found work harvesting potatoes, and during these periods the family would fill up on potatoes, boiled, fried or baked.

  ‘I was dissatisfied,’ Joseph Jackson remembered. ‘Something inside of me told me there was more to life than this. What I really wanted more than anything was to find a way into the music business.’ He, his brother Luther and three other men formed The Falcons, a rhythm and blues band that provided extra income for all of their families by performing in small clubs and bars. Joseph's three oldest sons – Jackie, Tito and Jermaine – were fascinated with their father's music and would sit in on rehearsals at home. (Michael has no recollection of The Falcons.)

  In the end, The Falcons was not commercially successful; when they disbanded, Joseph stashed his guitar in the bedroom closet. That string instrument was his one vestige of a dream deferred, and he didn't want any of the children to get their hands on it. Michael referred to the closet as ‘a sacred place’. Occasionally Katherine would take the guitar down from the shelf and play it for the children. They would all gather around in the living room and sing together, country songs like ‘Wabash Cannonball’ and ‘The Great Speckled Bird’.

  With his group disbanded, Joseph didn't know what to do with himself. Now working the swing shift at Inland Steel and the day shift at American Foundries, all he knew was that he wanted much more for himself and his family. It was the early sixties and ‘everybody we knew was in a singing group’, Jackie recalled. ‘That was the thing to do, go join a group. There were gangs, and there were singing groups. I wanted to be in a singing group, but we weren't allowed to hang out with the other kids. So we started singing together 'round the house. Our TV broke down and Mother started having us sing together. And then what happened was that our father would go to work, and we would sneak into his bedroom and get that guitar down.’

  ‘And I would play it,’ Tito continued. ‘It would be me, Jackie and Jermaine, and we'd sing, learn new songs, and I would play. Our mother came in one day and we all froze, like “Uh-oh, we're busted,” but she didn't say anything. She just let us play.’

  ‘I didn't want to stop it because I saw a lot of talent there,’ Katherine would explain later.

  This went on for a few
months until one day Tito broke a string on the guitar. ‘I knew I was in trouble,’ Tito recalled. ‘We were all in trouble. Our father was strict and we were scared of him. So I put the guitar back in the closet and hoped he wouldn't figure out what had happened. But he did, and he whooped me. Even though my mother lied and said she had given me permission to play the guitar, he tore me up.’ When Tito tells the story, his words tumble out and he gets tongue-tied. So many years later, one can still sense his anxiety about it. ‘She just didn't want to see me get whipped,’ he said, sadly. ‘Not again.

  ‘Afterwards, when Joseph cooled off, he came into the room. I was still crying on the bed. I said, “You know, I can play that thing. I really can.” He looked at me and said, “Okay, lemme see what you can do, smart guy.” So I played it. And Jermaine and Jackie sang a little. Joseph was amazed. He had no idea, because this was the big secret we had been keeping from him because we were so scared of him.’

  Joseph later said that when his sons revealed their talent to him, he felt a surge of excitement about it. ‘I decided I would leave the music to my sons,’ he told me, many years later. ‘I had a dream for them,’ he said. ‘I envisioned these kids making audiences happy by sharing their talent, talent that they'd maybe inherited from me.’ He seemed touched by his own words as he looked back on the past. ‘I just wanted them to make something of themselves. That's all I wanted,’ he added.

  Joseph went off to work the next day and, that night, returned home holding something behind his back. He called out to Tito and handed him the package. It was a red electric guitar. ‘Now, let's rehearse, boys,’ Joseph said with a wide smile. He gathered his three sons together – Jackie, nine, Tito, seven, and Jermaine, six – and they practised. ‘We'd never been so close,’ Tito would recall. ‘It was as if we had finally found something in common. Marlon and Mike, they would sit in the corner and watch. Our mother would give us some tips. I noticed our mother and father were happy. We were all happy. We had found something special.’