Space Between the Stars (14 page)

Dad watched as Mom and I chattered. “Are you home for good?” he asked, eyes clouded.

My heart felt squeezed like a wet sponge when I answered, “Yes.” There. I had admitted that I'd left Sly.

Dad's face shone like stars blinking in a dark sky. “Well, we've missed you.”

“And been worried sick,” Mom added. “Oh well, you're home now. You must be hungry.” She hugged me again.

“Where's Kitsaun?”

“She didn't tell you?” Mom's lips pulled tight. “She moved into a small apartment in the Haight with her friend Rosita.”

“Oh,” I said, missing my sister more than ever and grateful beyond words to be home.

I did not call Sly that night. I moved into Kitsaun's bedroom downstairs, feeling safe but shaken that my life was blown apart. Sleep would not come, and I turned the events of the past months over and over in my mind.
I called Sly the following day.

“Why did you leave without telling me?” he asked, his voice edging through the phone in a slow, drunken drawl.

“Because I wanted to get out before you would hurt me again. I'm staying with my parents, getting a job, and returning to college.”

“Anytime you want to come back, you can,” Sly said.

How I wished I could. My heart yearned to be with the Sly I had first met. But the fantasy was over. We talked a few more times, and Sly's life sounded unimaginably crazier than before I had left. Sly said promoters were “messing” with him. He bought a baboon that lived in a cage outside the Bel Air house. He was a lost soul, as I had been with him.

At night, I dreamed of Sly looming over me, a giant seething with anger, shaking and slapping me. I winced and cowered in the safety of Kitsaun's bed, scarred in places no one could see.

Mom hovered close, fussing over me, cooking brown rice and vegetables, baked chicken and corn bread, giving me more love in a week than I had felt in many months. Dad stood close, hands in his pockets, nervously jingling his change. Kitsaun and I met at the movies, ate at the Hot House at Ocean Beach, and bought It's It ice-cream sandwiches for dessert.

My family tended to my broken body, and my spirit cried out for healing. When Mom invited me to our family's Pentecostal church in Oakland the next Sunday, I accompanied her and Dad. My stomach jumped nervously as Dad put the car into park. I had not been in church in two years, not since I wore my
purple satin hot-pant suit. Grandmother had put her long, thin arm around my waist and said, “Baby, you forgot your skirt,” in her soft, crackly voice.

I felt I owed this day to God, because the desire for drugs left me when I came home. It seemed like a miracle. After a year of burying my pain in drugs, I sensed it was my mother's prayers here in this church with the other believers that had raised me from the depths of my stupor.

We walked toward the bright red stairs leading to the front doors of the stucco building. I took a deep breath entering the foyer, my eyes squinting in the sunlight that streamed delicately through the stained-glass windows.

In the sanctuary, it seemed that I had entered a forest. Arms were raised, waving from side to side, like tree branches in a gentle wind. A few voices called out “Jesus!” in a plaintive cry. Other voices moaned low and guttural. Some sang “Oooooooo” in a rising and falling pitch, like sleepy dogs on a moonlit night.

Dad, regal in his gray sharkskin suit, carried his guitar to the amplifier next to the piano. Mom and I slipped into a mahogany pew. Ten rows up, in the pulpit, high above the congregation, stood my uncle U.S. wearing a full-length black wool robe with thick folds; an embroidered golden cross lay over his heart.

“The Lord is good,” he proclaimed, wiping his forehead with a white handkerchief.

The congregation responded, “Amen. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus”—incantations to the God I had forgotten.

Aunt Bitsy sat at the piano, her hands rising and falling over
the keyboard like a school of dolphins at play. Dad fingered his guitar next to her, and my cousin Calvin thumbed the bass. Bitsy's eyes were closed; her head was tilted back; a heavenly countenance shone from her face. She began to sing “How Great Thou Art,” never glancing at the hymnal. Goose bumps stood the hair up on my arms, and a shiver of faith ran down my back.

Sister Fields sat in front of me, to the left, crowned in her little straw brim with the polyester rose on top. Her light brown hair, streaked with gray, was pulled back in a soft bun. Her white missionary dress hung starched above the tops of her hard oxford shoes. Now that she was in her eighties, it was hard to imagine her the way I had heard she was when she was young: striding by the old church on Seventh Street in high heels and a tight dress, smoking a cigarette on her way to work at the house of prostitution. I'd heard her testimony many times over the years. “Once the Holy Spirit got ahold of me,” she had said, “I left that house of sin and ran home to look in the mirror, because I knew I looked different!”

I smiled as she clapped her thin, brown hands together, singing in a soft, confident voice.
God had forgiven Sister Fields her past. Wouldn't a merciful God forgive me, too? Can I stay away from Sly's world and the people who have forsaken their souls to flirt with fame and fortune?
I glanced around at the sweet faces.
Why had I ever left this safe haven?

Sister Hogg ushered. In her uniform white blouse, black skirt, and white, wrist-length gloves, she smiled as she passed me a fan. I was not warm enough to use it, but as I held it in my hand, I remembered hot summer revivals when members of
the Texas churches had come to Oakland. The Holy Ghost had moved through the church, laying believers out in a sanctified faint. I had been afraid to be slain in the Spirit because I did not understand how its invisible power made people dance, speak in tongues, and fall over. I still did not comprehend how, but I believed Spirit could change lives. I had felt it in my own since I returned from L.A.

Thank you, God
, I prayed,
for bringing me out of the fiery furnace.
I had heard saints pray about the fires of hell when I was young, but I had no idea what they had meant until now.

The singsong cadence of Uncle U.S.'s sermon bathed me in peace. His words washed over me like healing waters—a baptism. Perhaps I could start anew, the sins of my L.A. life forgiven.

henever I thought of Sly, I would wrap my arms around our German shepherd, Nureyev, and stare out the living room window, wondering whether the pain of sorrow would make me perish. Day after day, Nina Simone sang lazily from the stereo, “The Other Woman,” her voice vibrating.

For a couple of weeks, I drove past Mama and KC's house on Urbano to see whether Sly might be visiting his parents. I looked for the camper and the Cord, any sign of his presence, even though I would not have gone to the door. I had not talked with Sly since my first week home, and wondered whether our love had been a hallucination. The memory of his hands slapping hard against my face made me confident that I was better off without him. I told myself to put one foot in front of the other, and I willed myself not to abandon what I knew was necessary—“Save yourself!” I screamed to my insides, the weak part of me still cared about Sly.

Lynn and Jerry left L.A. and moved back to their Bay Area home in Forest Knolls. They invited me to stay with them for a few days, and I welcomed time away from Mom's and Dad's protective arms. Lynn picked me up, and we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge through winding, tree-lined roads, to a country town an hour away. We sat on their deck beneath spruce and cedar trees, butterflies languidly gliding by. Lynn offered me lemongrass tea with honey in a china mug. Los Angeles had not changed her at all: She was bright and loving, and her house was quiet and commodious, a haven from the tumultuous past months. I was curious about Sly, but Lynn steered our conversation far away from him. It was just as well; I needed to let my heart dry out, to allow my friendship with Lynn to change its orbit. Jerry rolled cigar-like joints, but I vehemently declined sharing the smoke. Fresh air, the beauty of the Bay Area, and being free of fear was enough of a high for me.

Kitsaun and Lynn held my fragmented life together with loving talks. My solitude allowed me time to plan for my future, rather than mull over memories of the past. I applied to San Francisco State for the fall 1972 Creative Writing Program and was accepted. I started taking hatha yoga on Dolores Street, letting quiet soothe my body and the gentle exercises rebalance my spirit.

Goodness came back into my life in surprising ways. Sly's secretary, Stevie, called me in early June, saying, “I've left L.A. Those people have completely flipped. Sly is too stoned to work, and he's not showing up for gigs. Hamp is living at Bel Air, and they're carrying guns.”
Terror shot through my body. Hamp da Bubba da Banks in L.A.? I remembered his cold eyes after Sly hit me. “God, Ste-vie.” My head felt light.

“Hamp and Sly are against Larry. Something crazy is going to happen soon.” She paused.

“It must have been unbearable for you,” I said. I never thought she would leave.

“It was horrible watching Sly totally lose it. I called because I'm working in the city at Black Expo. It's a temporary job in an office on Oak Street. I need a receptionist. Are you interested?”

I was stunned and didn't answer at first.

“Debbie?”

“Yes! I'm interested, just shocked,” I whispered. “I would love to work with you. How long will the job last?”

“Just this summer. It will be great. We're putting on a conference of speakers and music for the community,” she said, and gave me directions to the office. “Debbie, I always liked you and thought of you as a sister. It was such a combative atmosphere for me. I wanted to tell you the truth about Sly, but I was drowning, too.” I was touched by her kindness to call me and offer me work, as well as tell me she had cared about me.

Her news had stunned me—now that I heard her story, I felt lucky to have escaped with my life.

How had I lost my identity and purpose in Sly's life of duplicity? I had been drawn in by his smooth, slick words that complimented the way I looked. How very stupid of me. He had never known me or wanted to know me, had he? Now that I knew his reckless character—the lack of respect he had for women, the lies he told as easily as he swallowed his pills or in-
haled a cigarette—I felt cheap and disillusioned with love. But I was wiser, too.

The Black Expo staff was organizing a weeklong summit of nationally known black entertainers in August. Ray Taliaferro, local radio announcer and talk show host, was the director of the project. Stevie managed the office staff and production coordination of the conference; she was experienced from having been Sly's personal secretary and from planning his tours, studio schedule, and travel details. She was a hard worker who accomplished every job given to her. As receptionist, I directed calls to staff, took messages, and spoke with artists' managers. We worked with eight other people, and I loved being busy and using my mind. My life had its own significance again.

In July, Lynn and Jerry invited Kitsaun and me to a Tower of Power concert at the Marin Civic Center. We rode the ferry from San Francisco to Sausalito, the wind briskly churning the water gray as the boat plied through the bay. It felt strange being near San Quentin, the prison where George Jackson had been shot to death barely a year earlier. I had recently read about the legendary political prisoner and leader of the Black Panther Party—his book
Soledad Brother
had just been published. Imprisoned ten years for allegedly robbing seventy dollars from a gas station, George Jackson was forced to spend seven of those years in solitary. His murder was a tragedy of the war between the Black Panther Party, the government, and the police. His legacy would live on in his writings and in the thousands of freedom seekers, like me, who refused to believe that blacks were inferior or that we should accept a lesser system of civil rights. Now that my mind was clear from drugs, the old
fire of social justice was stoked in me again, and I wanted to regain my purpose to work toward eradicating ignorance and injustice.