To Be Loved

by Berry Gordy

  Pop’s frustration—and begging—convinced Mother to go for it one more time. Finally, a boy!! Pop was ecstatic. But again, it was not his pick. (I could never understand why Pop made such a stupid deal like that in the first place.)

  But this time Mother gave him shocks of joy when she named the baby Berry Junior. When asked why, she said she was just tired. She knew he would never stop until he got a Junior. I was lucky. But how my younger brother, Bobby, got here I’ll never know. He was even luckier.

  I may have been living a lie for thirteen years thinking I was the chosen one, but the die had already been cast. It was too late to change my Junior status, too late to change who I thought I was.

  People become what they think they are. For example, I didn’t know much about astrology and didn’t believe in it. But still, subconsciously, I accepted the good qualities about my sign and began emphasizing these traits in my personality.

  I was born a Sagittarius and everybody told me that Sagittarians shot straight like an arrow, were honest and couldn’t be contained easily. They also had a good sense of humor, were philosophical, competitive and adored women. Sounded good to me!

  “IF”

  I was a gambler. Craps, blackjack, poker, anything. I loved it all.

  My parents were very strict about gambling, but when I moved to the Eastside it became one of my favorite pastimes. I was about six when I learned my first card game, war. We would pitch pennies in the playground, and hiding in the school bathrooms, we matched nickels and dimes. By the time I was fourteen I had graduated to more sophisticated games.

  “Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!” I remember screaming one day in a hot crap game in the backyard of Dewit Lavender’s house. I meant that literally. I did need a new pair of shoes, but the dice didn’t give a damn about my needs! As usual I lost everything.

  I always wanted to hit that big one. Whenever I was ahead I knew with a little more luck I could make it. Getting over that hump was something I had to do. One last pass on the dice would do it. But the last pass was always the next one. I would play until I missed, no matter what. After I’d borrowed all the money I could, I’d go down on Hastings Street and pawn something: my watch, my suit, whatever it took to get me back in the game. When I’d lose, and I always did ultimately, I’d realize too late that if I’d just saved all the money I borrowed, I would have been way ahead of the game.

  In my neighborhood, the cats were clean, sharp, especially when it came to our shoes. Once the soles became too thin we threw them away.

  So, after the game that day, with nothing left to hock, I squeezed a little more money out of Gwen, promising her that I wouldn’t gamble with it, and hit the shoe stores on Hastings to find a bargain. Having no luck and about to give up, I was leaving the last store when I saw an expensive-looking pair sitting in a bin. They were perfect and they were half price. I tried them on—my size and everything. What luck! I bought them quickly, making out like a bandit.

  It wasn’t until I got home that I realized they were my own shoes—the same pair I had thrown out three weeks before. They had been found by those junkmen, fixed up and put in that shop on Hastings Street, which they owned. I later found out most of the buildings in our neighborhood were also owned by some of these same guys.

  The next time I went to a pawn shop to hock my valuables for a mere fraction of what they were worth, I found that it, too, was owned by—guess who? It was not difficult for me to clearly understand the laws of supply and demand.

  I was fascinated by these junkmen as they went about their business in the alleys behind our house. “No job too big, no job too small,” their creed, was the same as Pop’s, except they didn’t have to pay for their material! Probably what impressed me most was they weren’t ashamed of going through our alleys picking up our trash. The more I talked to these little guys with their long beards, wisdom and wit—I later found out they were called Jews—the more I liked them. They liked me, too. They were always giving me advice. About everything! “Never buy anything that you can’t afford,” was big with them.

  “Well, how will I know if I can afford it?” I asked one day.

  “When you can pay cash for it.”

  A dollar down, a dollar a week was the way most of the people in my neighborhood bought things—clothes, hats, Cadillac cars! I didn’t take their advice at the time, but I never forgot it.

  We were at war. Ever since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, life had changed one way or another for everybody—food rationing and air-raid drills, war films, propaganda, fear. I had night-mares about airplanes coming over and bombing us and never getting to see my brothers again. First Fuller had been drafted into the army and shipped off to the Philippines; then George joined the navy, stationed at the Great Lakes naval base.

  Meanwhile, there was another war raging inside of me: That little upright had taken on a major contender, boxing gloves. For a long time entertainers like Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine and the Mills Brothers had shown us that music could lead to the good life. But Joe Louis, and now Sugar Ray Robinson, were also showing us that boxing was another way out of the slums to success, fame and fortune.

  The upright versus the gloves—that was the beginning.

  But whether I admitted it or not, there was already an ulterior motive for everything I did—girls. Romance and love were always on my mind. In fact, girls were always on everybody’s mind. That’s why we went to dances and wanted to excel at sports and music and anything else.

  I knew so little about women and wanted to find out everything I could.

  I had always been fascinated by those exciting older women with great bodies who hung around Hastings Street at night with not a lot to do. When I found out what they did, I was even more fascinated. I had heard they would let you “do it” to them for just a few dollars. Wow wee! Those sexy-looking women, who I would always have trouble calling whores, had style and class. At least enough not to accept money from a fourteen-year-old punk kid.

  They just ignored me as I strolled past, money in my sweaty out-stretched hand.

  “Sorry, short shot,” said one fine, honey-skinned beauty. “There’s some things even we won’t do.”

  I was thrilled to know I wasn’t invisible. But I didn’t know how to take that. Was I too young, or too ugly? I persisted, continuing to walk by another and another.

  Finally, after parading up and down the two-block stretch for the third time, one who had given me a subtle smile my last time around whispered softly, “Hey, you wanna do some business?”

  Rocketed off guard, heart in mouth, I stammered, “Uh, business? I mean… uh… business, like what?”

  “Like fuck, that’s what!” she said, staring right at me while I looked quickly to the stars off in the sky somewhere.

  “Oh… well, I… uh…”

  “Follow me, sweetie,” she said in the softest, sexiest voice I’d ever heard, as she darted across the street.

  And so I did—on wings! Going through a dark alley and up some back stairs was exciting, but scary. I passed two old men sitting in a dimly lit kitchen playing cards. This was new territory. But I was much more excited than frightened.

  I followed her into a small, overused room with a small, overused bed that I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough to jump into.

  “Baby, you got to pay me first,” she said as I was scrambling to get out of the inside-out pants leg that was clutching my foot.

  “Oh yeah, of course,” I said, trying to find my pants pocket somewhere on the dark floor.

  It was an exhausting night but so well worth it. Like riding wild horses and a magic carpet at the same time. Phenomenal! All two minutes of it!

  The next morning I was in the back of Pop’s pickup truck, wondering if I looked any different. We were arrowing down John R Street on the way to the day’s first plastering job. I hated having to get up on those cold mornings, knocking out dirty ceilings, sucking in dust through every pore. And being tired a
ll the time. I worked with Pop most weekends and sometimes during the summer.

  He never came out and told me, but I knew he wanted me to take over his business one day. Maybe it was because I was the only son working with him at the time. Whatever it was, it made me proud, but Pop never changed. I had to do it his way. The “keeping busy” way.

  When we ran out of material and had nothing to do, Pop would create something, anything. “Boy, don’t just stand there,” he’d say. “Get a move on ya. Do something. Sweep the floor, pick up nails—somethin’. Don’t let me catch you loungin’ around doin’ nothin’.”

  I tried to convince him to let me plan more and work less. For instance, to let me figure in advance how much material we’d need for a job. Because if we ran out of material and four people were out of work for one hour, that’s four hours we lost. Me picking up nails and sweeping the floor was not going to make that up. Pop paid no attention, thinking I was only trying to get out of physical work. And maybe I was. But I was sure we could save money.

  One summer Pop had to make a trip down South and left me in charge of the two plasterers and a laborer. I was ecstatic. Oh boy! This was my chance to do it better. I planned everything ahead. When materials were low I rushed out and got more long before we ran out. I kept the men busy all the time. They loved it because they accomplished so much more without having to rush.

  I was an executive!

  The day that Pop was due back, we were way ahead of schedule. I couldn’t wait for Pop to see that it was not necessary for my body to be abused when my mind could do the job.

  I hustled around at top speed, making sure everything was in order: bags of material in a special lineup, floors clean, truck organized. When we saw him coming, we all quickened our pace. As he got closer we all slowed a bit in unison. It was as if the rest of the crew was reading my mind, my wanting him to see all the progress that was made under my direction so effortlessly. I was cool—real cool. My work spoke for itself.

  Pop ambled in, happy to be back. He talked about the South a bit. Then noticed me being cool. “Junior,” he said, “get busy.”

  I got busy. But glancing at him from time to time I could see that he’d begun to notice the work that had been done, inspecting the nicely plastered walls and the clean floor, noticing the organized way the materials were stacked and then casually looking over at me. Though he never verbalized it, his attitude toward me said, “You did a good job, son.”

  While he was away, the woman who owned the house told me she was paying the contractor $4,000 for the job so it’d better be good.

  Four thousand dollars? I knew that as the subcontractors we were doing all the work and we were only getting $2,000. The guy who had hired us was cheating us! I was so mad I couldn’t wait to tell Pop.

  “Boy, don’t never worry ’bout what somebody else is makin’, as long as you get what you bargain for,” he scolded. “We make a good livin’. And if we didn’t have them to call us, where would we find work?”

  They loved Pop, and who wouldn’t? I was proud of Pop for believing in his own convictions and keeping us steadily employed. But on the other hand, I realized, what was right for Pop was not necessarily right for me.

  When I wasn’t working with Pop I tried other things to make money. I once built a homemade shoeshine stand with two buddies, Bud Johnson and Frank Griffin. It was nothing more than a chair with stirrups on top of a wooden box—an eyesore. But undaunted, we took it right into the heart of white downtown outside of Hudson’s Department Store and got to work.

  Popping my rag and singing, I was a real joy to my customers. But the downtown proprietors were anything but joyful. Not wanting a ragtag bunch of kids outside their premises, they ran us off every corner we tried to set up on. We spent more time running than shining.

  From the shoe industry, I turned to journalism, selling the Michigan Chronicle, Detroit’s top colored weekly newspaper. One weekend I packed up some papers and went to sell them in the white neighborhood. I figured white people there would probably love to buy them if they got the chance. After all, you could always find them hanging out at the black nightclubs—like the Flame Show Bar or those down in Paradise Valley. I felt that everyone in the world had a lot more in common than they realized.

  Well, I was a big hit and sold more papers in less time than ever before. I decided I could afford to share the wealth and brought brother Bobby down with me the next week.

  We did not do well. We both got a hard, fast lesson in race relations. It seemed one precocious little black kid was cute, but two were a threat to the neighborhood.

  My next enterprise was the first time I tried to make money at something I loved—music.

  Lloyd Sims, a kid about my age from the neighborhood, had one of the most beautiful voices I’d ever heard. He sounded just like Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots, but he was shy and didn’t like singing for strangers. I convinced him that: 1) He had talent; 2) He could make people happy; and 3) We could make money!

  I took him from door to door to sing for neighbors.

  Everybody loved him, especially when he crooned out “Danny Boy.” There wouldn’t be a dry eye anywhere. His voice was as silky and smooth as I’d ever heard. We made money, about fifty cents a house. He was talented. I thought I was, too, but all I could play were some simple chords, one-finger stuff and Boogie Woogie. Nevertheless, I’d be right there trying to accompany him whenever I thought I could. But it seemed whenever I did, people’s faces would quickly let me know that I should cool it on the piano. Some would motion to me with their hands or even say something out loud. I hated it when they did that. But I was cool. I would just sort of stop playing as if it was my own idea.

  It was fun while it lasted but I think people finally convinced Lloyd I wasn’t really needed.

  As bad experiences often do, this one made me realize something—maybe I shouldn’t have quit my piano lessons after only one year.

  But that didn’t stop me from refining “Berry’s Boogie” into a musical masterpiece. When I heard that Frankie Carle—a big band leader from Hollywood—was coming to town looking for talented Boogie Woogie piano players for his amateur contest, I rushed downtown to the Michigan Theater where it was to be held and signed up immediately. My great chance for the big time.

  I was sensational. I wowed both audience and judges with my unique, original composition and grinning smile, but still lost. The kid who stole the show was less than half my age, Sugar Chile Robinson. They called him a five-year-old prodigy, but when I went back to the neighborhood I told my friends he was a grown midget who won by playing with his knuckles.

  It was a few months after my fifteenth birthday when Sua handed me a piece of paper, saying, “Here’s something you should read.”

  She was always giving me something to read or study. I was not a reader and certainly not a studier so I had ignored most everything in the past. Probably it was the simple one word title, “If,” that grabbed my attention. I started reading a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The first few lines were simple, too:

  If you can keep your head when all about you

  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.

  If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

  But make allowance for their doubting too;

  Hmmmm, interesting.

  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

  Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.

  Don’t look too good nor talk too wise? Sounded like wisdom to me. I read on. The more I read, the more fascinated I became with its meanings.

  If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

  If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

  And treat those two impostors just the same;

  If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken


  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

  Or watch the things you gave your life to broken

  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

  If you can make one heap of all your winnings

  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

  And lose, and start again at your beginnings

  And never breathe a word about your loss;

  If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

  To serve your turn long after they are gone,

  And so hold on when there is nothing in you

  Except the Will which says to them “Hold on!”

  If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

  If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you

  If all men count with you, but none too much;

  When I got to the end—

  If you can fill the unforgiving minute

  With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

  Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

  And—which is more—you’ll be a man, my son!

  —something happened to me.

  A big question had been answered—what made a man a man? I was told that when you turn twenty-one you were legally a man, but that didn’t necessarily make you a man. You could be one at fifteen, or didn’t have to be one even at fifty. I had always thought to be a real man I had to be like Pop, have muscles of steel, work from sunup to sundown—kill rats.

  This was the first time anyone or anything had told me that emotional strength was just as important as physical strength. “You’ll be a man, my son!” That stuck with me.

  I learned “If” by heart, picking apart each verse and finding ways to apply its philosophies to my own life.