My father was a truck driver and was away a lot of the time, also tryin’ to make ends meet. They struggled along to pay the utility bill, asking for help from whoever had it that month. Even though my father was not at home much, he had a presence in our house. I loved my father because hestayed. Most of the kids who lived around us didn’t have daddies. The daddies had left, were in jail, or dead. My father seemed to have so much power in anything he did. I will never forget the sound of his boots walking down the hall in the morning. That sound always made me feel secure and that we were better off than the other kids because we had a daddy. I remember secretly watching him from the crack of the bathroom door, which he left open as he shaved. He was always wearing jeans and an undershirt. I thought my daddy was the most handsome man in the world, and I remember watching him worry about every wavy black hair, making sure they were perfect. My father always smelled good, and the strong smell of his aftershave would linger long after he had left the house. His smell just put fear and discipline into my heart and kept me on my best behavior until he came back. All he had to do to discipline me was tolook at me. When he was coming home from off the road, we just all knew that the king had arrived.
High Point, North Carolina, is about an hour and a half north of Charlotte. We moved several times to Charlotte and Winston-Salem, neighboring cities that sometimes had better opportunities for my father. We always came back to High Point, though. High Point is actually a very small city with less than 100,000 residents. It is most famous for the furniture outlets where both rich and middle-class people come to buy furniture at wholesale prices. High Point’s downtown area is sprinkled with furniture strip malls, and in between the small wood-frame and shingled houses throughout the city, there are churches with names that I will never forget, like Charity Baptist Church, Living Water Baptist Church, Church of Christ, and Galilean Missionary Church. Faith and furniture are the main resources in High Point, North Carolina.
People from High Point are not usually rich. It is a city of workin’ folks, and the only money that comes into the city is the money from the bargain hunters looking for furniture. Most people in High Point don’t have a lot to be proud of, but they do take pride in being from the furniture capital.
As you drive toward High Point north from Charlotte, the first city is Thomasville, named after the famous furniture manufacturer. The very next city along Interstate 85 is High Point. Although High Point is a major destination throughout the South, it still has a two-lane road as if the city is afraid that one day the people will stop comin’. As you enter High Point, you can feel the pressure of the city as you’re trapped in a traffic jam. The first local spot that you see on 85 North heading into High Point is the Paradise Hotel, which people say is where the drug addicts stay when they’ve been evicted. My friends used to call High Point the “Land of the Dead,” because it was so hard for people to get their voices heard, musically or otherwise. Now, as you cross the city line, there is a billboard of my face that says “Saluting High Point’s American Idol, Fantasia Barrino.” I still have a hard time looking at it because I can’t believe it’s there. There is a lot of musical talent in High Point, but no one ever seems to get out far enough to show it to the world or to get a billboard. Most of the people that I knew there ended up strung out on drugs, became drunks, went to jail, had too many kids, or died.
Now, when I drive through the streets of High Point, I’m always happy to see the same old men sitting on the side of Washington Street, drinkin’ and tryin’ to have a good time. They make me remember that just a few years ago that was Rico, Tiny, and me playing outside with no shoes on. I remember when some of those drunk men used to stumble by when they had their bottle of gin already and an extra dollar and would say, “Come on over here and sing me a song, and I will give you a dollar.” I used to stop whatever I was doing, sing the men a song, and get a dollar to buy candy at the Candy Lady who was parked on the corner. Since I was five, singing has always been my life and my livelihood.Ain’t nothin’ changed.
People are poor in High Point because there are not a lot of jobs. If you don’t work in a furniture showroom, a hospital, a school, a nursing home, High Point University, a restaurant, or a gas station, there isn’t really much more to do. Like I said, my mother worked many jobs to support us. My mother struggled along with Grandma basically raising Rico while she worked and my father was out on the road. After Tiny was born, my father started making more of an effort to take care of his family. My father still wanted to be involved with singing and so did my mother, despite having two little boys. My parents would sing at any opportunity that came to them.
The grandchildren called my father’s father “PaPa.” PaPa was a singer, too. He was around during the time of the Chitlin’ Circuit. The Chitlin’ Circuit was a tour route that was only for black artists and it was only in the South. It was the only place that
