You Don't Know Me Read online

  The family area was on the other side of the foyer. It consisted of the den and the kitchen. The den was where we lived. My mother believed that part of the house should be a space to relax in, where we didn’t have to worry about making a mess or damaging the furniture. With active little boys in the house, she knew that keeping the whole house nice would be impossible. She bought a bright blue sofa and sturdy retro furniture for the den that could withstand our play. When neighbors commented that she didn’t have nice things in the den, she replied that the den was the family area. We could roughhouse and play there all day without worry if we wanted. The only rule was that at the end of the day, we had to put our toys away.

  Outside of the play area, we were expected to keep our house clean and neat, especially when my father was home. My mother helped us understand how important it was to Daddy that we keep everything in its place. We knew that if we left things on the floor, Daddy might trip and fall over them. If we didn’t put things back, Daddy might not be able to find them when he needed them.

  If we weren’t in the den, we were usually in the kitchen, where my mother would read to me there. Dr. Seuss, Curious George, and the Dick and Jane books were my favorites. As I got older, the kitchen table was where I did my homework. The kitchen was white with a red table and chairs. I had a little red booster seat of my own where I would sit for meals. I was a picky eater, so much of my food would end up hidden under my seat. After a few days the food would mildew and start to smell, and then I would get in trouble.

  Upstairs were the bedrooms and my father’s office. The master bedroom overlooked the backyard. David and I shared a bedroom across the hall. In the front of the house, overlooking the street, was my father’s office. The view from the office was almost completely blocked by a large tree, but that was not a concern of my father. Those were the days before he had his own studio, so his office was the music and rehearsal room where he wrote and arranged music and worked with the band. I spent countless hours sitting on the carpet by the closed door, listening as he practiced or played cards with band members. His office was where he kept his photographs and awards. Over the years, the carpet and drapes gradually absorbed smoke from my father’s cigarettes and the scent of his cologne. If I missed him while he was on the road, I could always sneak into his office to look at his photos, run my hand over his things, and breathe in his scent.

  Out back were a garage, a covered patio with a nice set of lawn furniture, and a grassy yard with a big lemon tree. A wall next to the lemon tree divided our yard from our neighbors, the Andersons. Anthony Anderson soon became my best friend. David and I spent countless hours hanging around the backyard, shooting the breeze and talking to our friends across the fence. My mother liked having us in the backyard because at least she knew where we were.

  Life on Hepburn Avenue was simple. As I grew up there, our lives followed a regular rhythm orchestrated primarily by my mother. My father came in and out of our lives every few weeks, leaving and returning as his life on the road dictated. But my mother was always there. Everything with my mother had to follow a routine. She cooked breakfast every morning, and we always ate together. If it was a school day, my mother would also pack our lunches in the morning. We never bought our lunch. I didn’t want homemade sandwiches; I longed for “kid food,” the kind they sold at the local hamburger and hot-dog stands. We used to pass a Pup ’n Tail hot-dog stand on the way home from school, and I always wanted to stop for a chili dog. We never did. Despite our affluence, my mother remained a frugal woman with simple tastes. She didn’t believe in wasting money by buying food she could prepare herself. So my brothers and I spent all of our school days eating lunches our mother packed for us in our tin lunch boxes.

  When we got home from school, we were expected to do our homework before we could go out to play. I didn’t mind. My friends had to do their homework first, too, so there would be no one to play with except my brother if I went straight outside. If The Mickey Mouse Club was on, my mother might let us watch it before we went out to play, if we had behaved. Once outside, we could run around as much as we wanted as long as we stayed on the block and out of forbidden areas, which included the garage, the fence, and the neighbors’ yards—unless, of course, she knew the neighbor, and we had been invited.

  Dinner was always at six o’clock. If we were out playing, my mother would call us to come in. The rule was that we always ate dinner together. Our friends were welcome to join us. My mother would cook a complete dinner of pork chops or smothered chicken, vegetables, banana pudding. Oh, how I loved that banana pudding. If my father was there, he would eat with us. Afterward, there might be more homework to finish. If it was summer, we would go outside to play again after dinner. We liked to play sock ball on the front lawn. Most often, though, we rode our bikes, me on my Schwinn and David behind me on his tricycle, riding up and down the street.

  Once it got dark we had to be inside, no matter what the time. During fall and winter, we would play in the den after dinner if our homework was done. We played with Lionel trains that ran around tracks and over toy bridges, Tonka trucks, and whole armies of toy soldiers. None of these toys lasted very long. We never meant to break them, but somehow they didn’t survive much more than six months. Our indoor play involved a lot of shouting, jumping, and tumbling. Then it would be time for our bath ritual. Afterward my mother would put us in our pajamas, the kind with feet if it was cold. We always had superhero pajamas with Superman, Spider-Man, or the Green Lantern. If we were really lucky, after our bath we would get to watch television.

  Strange as it sounds to many people, I loved Leave It to Beaver. It didn’t matter to me that none of the people on the show looked like my family. Wally and Beaver weren’t much different from me and David, and the way they lived was like our lives on Hepburn. I looked forward to watching each episode. My favorites, though, were the Walt Disney programs. Walt Disney was such a remarkable man. He was a visionary, and had a vision of utopia that in many ways he was able to bring to life. Everything he produced offered glimpses of what the world could be. There was always a lesson to learn, a dream to aspire to, an adventure to imagine.

  Bedtime was the rule that could never be broken. Throughout elementary school, I had to be in bed at eight, even in the summer when it was still light outside. On weekends I might be allowed to stay up to nine-thirty, but only if it was a special occasion. Looking back, I’m not sure how much of the bedtime rule was my mother’s belief in children getting their sleep and how much was her own exhaustion from dealing with very demanding little boys all day. Whatever the reason, bedtime was not negotiable. David and I would be tucked in our twin mahogany beds, kissed good night, and expected to close our eyes and our mouths as she switched off the light.

  The one concession was that she would leave the bedroom door open. I did not want the door shut. I was deathly afraid of the dark, or more accurately, of what I feared was in the dark. In those days horror films were screened on television on most weekends, and we would watch them on rainy afternoons, our eyes glued to the TV. I was terrified of Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. Lying in bed at night, I would imagine the monster coming into our room, stalking rigidly toward my bed, his arms extended to grab me. Then there was Karloff in The Mummy, with his dragging foot and dirty muslin strips unraveling as he crept along. It was the era of supernatural shows like The Outer Limits. The Crawling Eye also lurked in the darkness of our bedroom. The Day the Earth Stood Still convinced me that aliens were coming to abduct me or blast our house to smithereens. My mother’s reassurances that none of these things were real did nothing to lessen my fears.

  I relied on my dog, Mikey, to keep me company whenever I was afraid. Mikey wasn’t a guard dog. In fact, Mikey wasn’t a real dog at all, but he was real to me. His fur had worn off long ago, and stuffing was coming out of his seams, but I loved him. I had tied a piece of string around his neck, and when I left the house, I often took Mikey with me. I would walk my dog down the street
, and when we got to the corner, I would stop and say, “Sit, Mikey!” Since Mikey was already in a sitting position, he was very good at following this command. As a result of our outings, Mikey was filthy and torn. My mother sewed him up repeatedly, but there was nothing she could do about the dirt. If she had scrubbed him, he would have disintegrated. Every now and then she would try to get rid of him without my knowing, but each time I would cry and go search through the garbage can until I found him. There was one firm rule for Mikey, though: he was not allowed to sleep in my bed. My mother flatly refused to let that funky dog in my clean bed. So the best Mikey could do was keep watch by my bedside at night and help to keep the monsters away.

  Our mother was the strictest parent in the neighborhood, and sometimes I resented her discipline. One day when I was about six years old, I decided I had had enough of my mother’s demands. I informed her that I was going to run away from home and be a hobo. (I loved hoboes because of their freedom. I would usually dress up like one on Halloween.) To my surprise, my mother didn’t object. Instead, she continued with our regular routine. It wasn’t until years later that I found out she intentionally kept me busy with our usual activities until evening came and the sun started going down.

  After dinner I went out front and sat on the porch, thinking about how life on the road would be for me. It seemed to work all right for my father, I mused. As I sat there thinking, my mother came outside. She had made a bundle for me, with some clothes and sandwiches wrapped up in a cloth, and tied the bundle to a stick. She handed it to me and said very solemnly, “Son, I love you, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” Then she put my jacket on me and said, “You’ll need your jacket on in case it gets cold,” as she buttoned me up.

  Inside the house, I could hear David crying. He shouted through the open door, “Oh, no! Please don’t let my brother go!”

  “Now son, I want you to be careful out there, you hear me?” my mother told me. Then she kissed me good-bye, went back inside, and closed the door. I could still hear my brother sobbing on the other side. I stood there for a while, looking out at the street. It was dark by then, with only the porch light illuminating the spot where I stood. As I hesitated, rooted to the porch, my mother turned off the light. I could hear her throw the lock on the door behind me. I was frozen. Finally, I worked up my nerve, picked up the stick with its bundle, and forced my legs to move me off the porch. All around, there was darkness.

  I never even made it to the end of the driveway. Halfway there, I dropped the stick and ran back to the front door, pounding on it and screaming, “AHHHHHHH! Let me in! Mommy! Mommy! Let me in!”

  A few moments later my mother opened the door and peered down at me. “Back already?” she said calmly.

  I threw myself into her arms. “I don’t want to go! I’ll do whatever you say!”

  “Well, that’s fine, son,” she replied. “Come on in, then.”

  I never tried to run away again.

  At one point, my brother David tried to run away as well, but he too was unsuccessful.

  A BIG PART of our lives was church. Our church was Traveler’s Rest, a small Baptist church near East Florence and Compton Boulevard on the east side of Los Angeles. Inside there was a gold-leaf ribbon painted across the wall behind where the preacher stood, with blue sky, a piece of Scripture, and the words “Traveler’s Rest.” Our church was a haven for hardworking people, who went there every Sunday to rest their souls and get energized for the next week. The congregants were all African American, most of them Southerners. They referred to one another as “Brother” and “Sister.” At church, my mother was Sister Robinson and my father was Brother Ray. Church was an all-day affair. We were never there less than five hours. There was Sunday school and prayer service and a potluck and then more worship. To a young boy, the services seemed to go on forever. I would sit on the pew in my little suit, snap-on bow tie, and Buster Brown shoes, swinging my feet back and forth and squirming. I was too old to be in a separate room with my little brother, so I had to sit there next to my mother through the entire service. Every now and then she would pinch me to stop my wiggling. The building wasn’t air-conditioned, and in summer it was miserable. The hot, dense air was like a whiff of hell bubbling underneath us. The only relief was the hand fans on a stick they handed out at every service. On one side was a picture of Jesus, and on the other was an ad for the local mortuary. Life and death on opposite sides of the cardboard seemed like a paradox as a child. I thought that was an odd combination. My mother was always dressed beautifully in her suit and hat. The hats were sometimes spectacular. I could never understand why the heat didn’t seem to bother her as much as it did me.

  The pastor, Reverend Durham, became my godfather not long after we moved to California. He was an old-fashioned, pulpit-pounding preacher, and when he got “in the Spirit,” he would slap the podium and say, “I heard,” pausing for dramatic effect. An incurable mimic, I would hit the back of a chair at home—or worse, at church—and say, “I heard” just like Reverend Durham, then turn around and stare intently at my listeners.

  This was very upsetting to my mother. She would slap me up the side of the head and say, “Don’t you mimic Pastor Durham!”

  The deacons sat in a row up front. When it was my turn to walk forward and put a dollar in the offering plate, I always noticed their socks. They all wore thin black nylon socks with a red stripe up the side. One Sunday before church, I sneaked into my father’s closet and found a pair of thin black nylon socks like the deacons wore and put them on under my Buster Browns, using a rubber band to hold them up. When my mother saw what I’d done, she smacked me on the head and said, “Take your daddy’s socks off right this minute!” I don’t know if she ever made the connection with the deacons.

  When my father was in town, he would sometimes come with us. He was treated like any other member of the congregation. He didn’t interact much, just sat there listening and nodding in agreement, twitching occasionally, humming along with the choir director. My mother, on the other hand, would get carried away by the Spirit every Sunday. She would begin to sway and cry, and other ladies from the church would gather around to fan her. It was a jumping, shouting, deliverance kind of church, and when Mother really got into the Spirit, she would sometimes be “laid out” by the Holy Ghost, falling unconscious onto the floor. As a child, I didn’t understand what was happening to her, and my mother never explained it to me. Neither did anyone else. She would just say, “Thank you, Jesus.” As an adult, I understand the burden she was bearing and her need for spiritual comfort and emotional release, but at the time, her dramatic reaction was very confusing.

  There were compensations at church, though. Gospel music was in my blood, and I loved listening as the congregation swayed and sang along. I also liked singing the children’s songs like “Jesus Loves Me.” And oh, my goodness, the food. Church potlucks made the long, hot services worthwhile. The women brought their soul-food specialties: yams and greens and cabbage, spare ribs and lamb chops and pork chops, and always homemade corn bread. The best food in town.

  EARLY IN MY LIFE, school held its own challenges. I wanted to do well, but I was born with what is now called ADHD—attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. This was long before the research, formal diagnosis, or medication options that have become commonplace for children who exhibit the symptoms I did. When I was small, children like me were called hyperactive, told they had “ants in their pants,” or more harshly, described as “brats” who simply needed stricter discipline. All I knew was that sitting still for very long was agony, and that no matter how hard I tried, it was impossible for me to stay focused on anything. Luckily, I had two advantages that many ADHD children don’t have: a father who could afford to send me to good schools, and a mother who was committed to my education.

  My mother was adamant about my brothers and me getting a good education. She had dropped out of school at a young age and learned the hard way what a struggle life wa
s for those without an education. They would spend their lives as maids and waitresses, as she had until she met my father. She demonstrated her belief in education by returning to school after we moved to California, eventually earning her GED. My mother knew that education could open doors, especially for black children, and she wanted us to have every opportunity to build successful lives so we wouldn’t have to rely on our famous father’s name.

  I started kindergarten at the Thirty-ninth Street Elementary, a public school around the corner, just a couple of blocks from our house. Every morning my mother would walk me there and back. My second year I started walking with a group of my friends, carrying the lunch box my mother had packed for me. Every day when I got home from school, my mother would read with me. We read the Dick and Jane series, and The Cat in the Hat and other Dr. Seuss books. I would sit next to her at the kitchen table, carefully sounding out the words. She was patient with me. She took her time teaching me to read.

  When it came time for David to start school, she researched schools to find the best place for us. She enrolled me and David in a Montessori school when I started the second grade. Unfortunately, that only lasted one semester. My brother refused to take naps, and one day he had a tantrum and tore up the whole area. That was the end of Montessori for both of us. Our family friend Dr. Foster told us about a private school on Adams Boulevard called Mary Clay, and that is where we attended next. Our mother continued to look for a school that would give us the safe environment she wanted and the individual attention we needed. Eventually she found Colin McKuen, a private school on Highland, adjacent to the Hollywood Bowl. I remained there throughout elementary school.