My mom, dad and I temporarily lived in a townhouse in Newport News, Virginia, while they saved money for their dream home. The townhouse had white stucco walls and brown wood trim, but didn’t have the large yard like our prior home in Hampton. So my dad, the more social of the two, was forced to entertain inside the house instead of outside like he preferred.
The one benefit of being inside, however, was the music acoustics. My dad was a genius (and I’m not saying that because he was my dad. Brotha-man was taking down radio towers because he wanted to see how they worked as a pre-teen; went to Morehouse at 15-years-old type of smart). His genius mind and musical heart fueled him to spend hours, while smoking his Kool cigarettes, trying to create the best listening environment to enjoy his records.
Wires were strewn haphazardly like Christmas lights across our living room: snaking across the carpet and up and down the walls; speakers were jimmy-rigged to hang in wall corners and on the floor. My dad, would work his way around the room, cigarette smoke circling around his head, to make little adjustments to his homemade surround sound system and tilt his head to the side, pause and listen to the sound.
Hmm, hmm, itchi gitchi ya ya da da
Itchi gitchi ya ya here
Mocha-choca-lata ya ya
Creole lady marmalade. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
Frequently my mother would wander in the room, dancing and singing. At that moment she didn’t care about the wires and speakers ruining any “look” she may have been serving for. Patti’s voice would drown out any remaining anger from their last argument. And they’d dance.
A few years later, after my father had died in a car accident and my mother and I had packed up my dad’s speakers and boxes of records and moved from that townhouse, my mother started taking me to the Hampton Jazz Festival, in the Hampton Coliseum. The Coliseum was grandly shaped like a queen’s crown. It was there that I grasped that those voices that I heard coming out of my daddy’s speakers were actually real people.
He’s leavin’ (leavin’)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leavin’ on the midnight train)
Yeah, said he’s goin’ back
(Goin’ back to find)
To a simpler place in time
(Whenever he takes that ride) oh yes he is
(Guess who’s gonna be right by his side)
The crowd swayed, the Pips moved in perfectly coordinated movements and polyester suits, and I stood still staring at Ms. Gladys Knight. She – that voice – was real. She, her voice, was making my mom smile again…and dance again.
Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle were the Black women who brought joy to my home, caused me and my family dance and laugh; rocked us, patted our backs and coo-ed “there-there, everything Gowan be alright baby” when we were sad. They were Tabu wearing, pie making, tell yo ass off, love-you-to-death Black Aunties.
They showed up and got us right just when everything seemed wrong. They loved on us, pulled us close, let us lay on their chest and told us that we needed to be strong, that we’d get through this, and they’d be there along the way to make us pies and to saannng.
Now that I am an adult, I understand my parents better. I understand my mother allowing my dad to have our family room look more like a sound room. I understand the hours my dad spent perfecting his homemade surround sound system. I get that he didn’t want to hear the music, he wanted to feel it; he wanted to feel it so strongly that for a short moment everything in the world was right.