He was upset I was going to prison. For weeks he kept telling me, over and over, "If anyone tries to fuck with you, just pick up a chair or a pipe or anything you can get your hands on, and blast them over the head with it. Don't take no shit from nobody," he'd say. "You let them know, right up front, that you're not to be fucked with! It's very important. You gotta let them know right way." He had a look in his eye that scared me, but it was his fear, not mine, that frightened me most.
He was always good at figuring me out, so if he sensed he was making me scared, he'd change the subject or tell one of his funny stories from when he served time. It usually worked. He had a way of making it sound more like an adventure, than a punishment or something to be feared.
Rick hated Sharon, our stepmom, as much as I did. He ran away from home when he was thirteen and was placed in a reform school. When Dad wasn't working, or off on another bender, he'd take us up to visit him on weekends. We'd stop on the way, at a supermarket, and pick up candy and fruit, but we weren't allowed to have any ourselves, because it was for Ricky. It was a good thing I loved him, because it never seemed fair that the treats should go to the one who had gotten into trouble. Inside the visiting room, we'd sit and watch him eat, as he told us stories about what went on in there. He could always spin a tale that would make us laugh. Reform school didn't sound like such a had place. He confided in me once that it was better than being at home.
Dad reminisced about what it was like when he had been sent there. He and Uncle Ronnie served a couple of years for breaking into a store when they were kids.
When the state wouldn't let Rick come home for the Christmas holiday, Dad helped him escape by holding the front door open as he was leaving the visiting room. Ricky ran out the door, and Dad yelled after him. "Rick! Don't do it," in a bogus attempt to look like he was surprised. A few nnin- utes later, Dad picked him up down the road, at a spot where they had agreed to meet.
After the holidays were over, Dad took him downtown to sign up for the military. Dad had to do the same thing, when he was eighteen, except that a judge gave him the army as an ultimatum. Otherwise, he would have gone to jail.
Rick said the Air Force was also better than being at home, but then he got a dishonorable discharge for giving a "blanket party" to a snitch. That's when you throw a blanket over someone and beat the shit out of him. Later, when Rick went to prison, he never did say if prison was better than being at home.
But on my last night, Rick laid off the advice. We had set aside the time for fun and laughter and enjoying each other's company for the last time. We started drinking at his apartment around three, and then he took me for a steak dinner at The Ponderosa. Afterward, he smoked a joint, and I drank more beers.
Rick liked country music, but since it was my night, he let me listen to whatever I wanted on the radio. I loved the new sounds of disco. It had a beat and a rhythm that felt sinful and bad, and something else I couldn't explain. It had a feeling of forbidden access, maybe because it was black, and whites didn't listen to black music.
My friends all listened to rock and roll. They liked the Detroit bands like Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band. I liked rock and roll as well, but I was fascinated with disco. Though I wished I had the courage to listen to what I wanted to without caring what others thought of me. "Turn off that nigger shit," one of my friends sneered. After that, I only listened to disco when I was alone.
I had seen Saturday Night Fever a few months earlier and fantasized about dancing like John Travolta on a lighted dance floor. The Bee Gees were all the rage, but I'd grown tired of them. They were missing something that black girls like Thelma Houston or Donna Summer had. The way the music made me feel free and afraid all at the same time felt almost sexual.
I couldn't understand why Ricky liked country music. He'd taken his wife Belinda to see Conway Twitty for her birthday. It all seemed so cornball and hillbilly to me, yet ever since he served time in a Florida prison, he liked Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn and complained how Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were renegades who were out to ruin country music. I didn't know what he was talking about, and I didn't care. As long as he liked it and didn't try forcing it on me, I was OK with it.
We picked up a black woman, named Candy, on Woodward Avenue. It was in an area known for prostitutes between Six- and Eight-Mile Roads. She had on a leopard-skin miniskirt and rust-colored lipstick that was outlined in a darker brown.
"Don't give her the money until you come," Rick yelled, after having gone first. He zipped up his fly as he walked into the diner to have coffee with her pimp.
As soon as I stepped inside the van, she asked me for the money.
I was nervous, so I
