In less than ten minutes in the shack, I was back in that familiar storm cloud of fear conjured up by my brother. I certainly didn’t need convincing that this man was a horrible person, but I couldn’t understand why my mother and brother dragged me back here to talk to me about some alleged threats from her terrible husband. I had just signed my first record deal! I had just pulled myself out of this crazy, scary family drama. What were they even talking about? Why were they doing this? Why was I even there?
The vibe was getting increasingly creepy and claustrophobic. I remember Morgan saying in his quiet sinister way, “I got this plan to shut him up. You don’t need to know the details, but believe me I can make him shut the fuck up.” He went on to say that all he needed was five thousand dollars. There it was.
I looked over at my mother, hoping to get some clarity. She just kept her eyes fixed on Morgan, who had obviously convinced her to let him run the show. He continued to remind me how mean and vindictive her husband was (and indeed he was—he’d been displaying opportunistic behavior since the moment he met me) and that the press would shame me and destroy my career. All I had ever lived for was to be an artist and I had just signed a record deal. Maybe it all could be taken away in an instant? And he said it again—for “just five thousand dollars,” he could protect me and take care of the threat. “It’s just five thousand dollars. No one will ever know.” Five thousand dollars for what? To do what? A sickening panic began to bubble in my lower belly.
Morgan had a long history of violence, of being mixed up with shady characters and shady situations, and there was no telling what he might do for money. In 1980, he was involved in a scandalous Suffolk County murder case. John William Maddox was murdered by his wife, Virginia Carole Maddox. Their son was an acquaintance of Morgan’s. Before the night she shot her husband in the neck with a rifle, she had propositioned Morgan to kill him for her for thirty thousand dollars. He accepted a $1,200 advance but did not carry out the job. According to the court records, her solicitation of Morgan (he was compelled to testify before a grand jury) was key evidence in disproving her claim of self-defense and helped lead to her murder conviction.
I was barely in the third grade when Morgan was involved in a plot to murder a man for money. I remember him and my mother talking about it, and I have a vague recollection of seeing courtroom sketches in the house. Morgan snitched, so he didn’t get any time for accepting the payment.
“C’mon, it’s only five thousand dollars, no one will ever know” kept ringing in my ears. I sprang to my feet and began pacing the five or fewer steps between the little living room and the even smaller kitchen; both seemed to shrink an inch with each passing second. “You don’t have to do anything but give me the money,” he said again. I was struggling to process what was actually happening here. I don’t even think I’d received my first advance check and already, already my brother and mother were trying to get money out of me?! And for what? To fuck up my mother’s husband?! What the fuck.
Tragically, I wasn’t surprised Morgan had begun to try and screw a siphon hose into me right away, but what got me to my feet and blew my mind was that my mother was going along with it. She remained savagely quiet the entire time Morgan spewed out conspiracy theories about blackmail, exposing and humiliating both her daughters, and her son arranging to “fuck up” her husband for money. Was she really willing to agree to place all of her children in such grave emotional, spiritual (and possibly legal) peril? Or, equally terrible, was she in on a plot with Morgan to extort money from me? Maybe she was just rendered powerless under his spell.
I was not prepared for the implications all this was having for me and for my position in this family and in this world. Under no circumstances could I ever, ever entertain being involved in physically harming anybody, even a despicable dickhead like her husband. I categorically refused to even entertain their sick scam. Yet what was really beating me down was that I knew that if I gave Morgan this first five thousand dollars, and if he did something violent or criminal, he would definitely blackmail me. This would be the first five thousand drips in a faucet he would use to drain money from me forever.
How delusional of me to even entertain the notion my mother and brother were going to toast me for making my only dream come true. Instead they called me back to gut me. I was in a sad shock. I don’t recall exactly what I said, but I remember walking in tight circles, that sick feeling now in my heart and pounding up to my eyes, and I was shaking my head—“No, No” … and something unseen inside me snapped, and I broke away from that pack.
I stumbled out of the shack, knowing, without a doubt, that I did not belong to any of them. My father was estranged. My sister burned and sold me out. And now there was no more brother and no more mother. Standing alone.
Still bruised, still walk on eggshells
Same frightened child, hide to protect myself
(Can’t believe I still need to protect myself from you)
But you can’t manipulate me like before
Examine 1 John
