I went back to my old ways of dealing with the unhappiness and resumed my extended trips away from our home. This time, I had my baby girl in tow, so we could both escape the madness of Danny and whatever he was going through. But this time, I also knew much better than to head in Billy’s direction again. Danny never mentioned the possibility of Anansa being Billy’s child, and I certainly never felt the need to bring the topic back up. When I was back home, on the days I got the nerve to leave the apartment, Anansa and I would spend time with my sister at her home in New Jersey, or with my parents in Buffalo, or with James in New York. Anansa and I would stay for a day, or sometimes two or three, with friends and family—just enough time for us both to relax. My stomach was beginning to hurt all the time, but I tried to ignore it. I traveled a great deal for my work and barely had time for visits to the doctor. With a new baby and a bad marriage, I had little time to focus on anything else, and that included my health.
Compounding matters was my growing guilt over what I knew was happening to my beloved Bob Marley.
Bobby was now coming around the apartment on Fifth Avenue more regularly as he and Danny were working together again on new music and additional tours. I’d made the call that brought Danny back into Bob’s life, and boy, was I kicking myself all the way down the block for that. In truth, I hadn’t known Danny but a few months when I made that call, so I’d really had no idea what I was talking about. I had no business getting those two back together, and Danny had no business asking me to.
Bob had told me that I should be wary of Danny, and instead it was I who changed his mind. Deep down, I suspected then that Bob knew better; he had to after all he’d been through with Danny in the past. But still he listened to me. What a mistake for both of us.
Bobby was a man with a heart of pure gold. He gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, until they gave him reason to think otherwise, and he wasn’t prone to think ill of someone for no reason.
He was also physically perfect. That ruddy red complexion, those glistening, beautiful dreads, and that toned, compact body. Bob Marley was such a good-looking, tidy package. I’ll admit I was quite smitten from the second I heard that sexy Jamaican accent, too. He asked me for a date once, and I probably would have accepted his request if he hadn’t had a wife. In fact, I think he had several wives, and many, many, many children, on top of that, all of which was a deal breaker for me.
But I always kept love in my heart for Bob Marley, so the thought of putting him in jeopardy the second time around with someone who meant him harm really upset me. It’s one thing to hurt yourself by getting into a bad situation, but it’s quite something else to drag someone along with you into a mess.
When I think back, there were many indications not only that Bob’s reconnecting with Danny was a mistake but that Bob’s health was also beginning to fail. Danny often offered Bob a boatload of concoctions for a vast variety of ailments whenever Bob came over to the apartment. I never gave much thought to it and just figured it was nothing very serious. Bob was only in his early thirties, and he seemed to be enjoying his ever-growing fame and riches.
By 1975, the entire world knew who Bob Marley was, and Danny played a huge part in helping him get the recognition he deserved. But Danny probably also took more than his fare share of the profits from Bob’s success the second time around, just like he did the first time.
Bob often complained of pain in his foot and in his big toe, but I was honestly so consumed by my own domestic issues that I could barely take time to ask him for more details about his health. Sadly, as it turned out Bob was very ill, and I will always believe his illness was compounded by Danny’s unsavory business practices. Bob had given Danny way too much power over his career again, with the hopes that Danny would take him to an even higher level of stardom. Danny did just that with Bob’s career-defining album Exodus, the one that featured one of Bob’s most beloved songs, “Jamming.” But Bob was an artist through and through; he didn’t have a head for business, he just wanted to make good music. It was a shame that he didn’t have his own lawyers to prevent Danny from doing exactly what he had done before. Danny attached his name to the publishing of Bob’s music and in the end received huge profits on the back of Bob’s songs. I’m not sure when Bob found out he was probably being mismanaged again, but when he realized that his family might not reap the full financial benefits of his work, it must have been a hard pill to swallow.
Danny also advised Bob about his health issues. He and others told Bob not to have his entire toe amputated after doctors found a form of malignant melanoma under its nail bed. Several doctors had suggested removing the entire toe to prevent the cancer from spreading elsewhere, but instead, Bob just had the nail and the nail bed removed, and continued to work and tour to make money.
As horrible as this may sound, looking back I feel certain that Danny knew Bob and his music would be worth far more in death than in life. How else could you convince a man so young and full of vigor to forgo a life-saving medical treatment for such a serious disease? Yes, Bob was a Rasta, and Rastafarianism has certain beliefs that lean toward a more natural approach to life. But I don’t believe for a minute Bob knew he was signing his own death certificate by not using traditional medicine. It took three years for the cancer to spread to Bob’s lungs, and ultimately all the way to his brain, before stealing him away in 1981 at age thirty-six.
I cried the entire day when I heard the news that Bob had died.
After Bob’s death, Danny added paranoia to his list of behaviors. As much as I tried to stay away from learning what actually went on in Danny’s business, it was hard to not hear disturbing tidbits here, there, and everywhere while at home, since that’s where he did many of his business dealings. As just one example, sometimes I heard about the radio station DJs who had to be dealt with for not rotating certain records enough times on air (as they had been paid a handsome price to do). Other business dealings that he was involved in hadn’t gone smoothly, and now more than ever the stress was weighing heavily on Danny.
As a consequence of all the stress, Danny was consuming more and more cocaine—it definitely altered his personality, and it scared me to death. I could tell Danny felt something heavy coming down on him soon, and that meant my daughter and I were both in harm’s way. I had to make a move.
At this point, I didn’t know if the feds or the Mob or both were on Danny’s tail. Before our marriage, Billy and others had bombarded me with stories about the Mob helping Danny finance many of his early projects, like the soul food eateries in New York and Chicago. That money also aided him in going to Jamaica to listen to Bob Marley perform, and to bring back to the States the first recordings of reggae music.
Now it seemed all those old debts were coming due faster than Danny could handle them. I didn’t see how he could ever have hoped to pay back the money, as he certainly had a habit of spending most of my money as soon as I earned it. As his erratic behavior deepened, I tried to make myself more scarce around the apartment.
But sometimes I’d get so fed up with his foolishness I just couldn’t help confronting him. After a trip to the bank one morning, I realized my money was disappearing at warp speed. I was tired of Danny’s myriad excuses for why my money had to be used for every expense we had. He was in the bathroom washing his face, and I stood at the door and asked him about the money situation in the calmest voice I could muster.
But it didn’t matter how calm I was—Danny didn’t want to hear my complaints about our finances. Before I really knew what had happened, Danny had slapped me across the face. It wasn’t hard—in fact it shocked me more than hurt me—but he hit me, and that was enough. I went into Anansa’s room—she was about six months old at this point—and sat in the chair by her bed, just staring into space for a while. What was I going to do now? My husband was spending my money, and now he was raising his hand to me. My Mother Dear was right—I couldn’t stay with this man.
Looking back, I see that there
were many bad moves I wish I could take back, and the one involving James tops the list. I had to do a modeling assignment for the Neiman Marcus catalogue in New Jersey that next day, so I packed up and took Anansa to James’s apartment. I had only planned to be gone for a few days, to clear my head. Catalogue modeling was a quick way of making good money, and by the way the wind was blowing, I knew I would soon be in great need of some extra cash.
That trip to James’s house would turn out to be our last time together.
When I arrived back later that night after my day in New Jersey, I found all types of commotion outside of his apartment complex. The doorman told me that James had been robbed, and that both he and my baby were gone. I knew straightaway that the robbery was connected to Danny somehow, so I rushed home to see if he had taken back Anansa. When I got home, sure enough there was Anansa.
When I asked Danny what had happened, he simply said, “That will teach you to run off with my baby.”
I started to call James over and over to see how he was, but he never answered. Now I was getting very worried. What had Danny done to my friend? Later on that night in the kitchen, I saw what looked like a man’s diamond tennis bracelet broken into pieces. It looked identical to the one James had worn for years. As I stared at the shattered jewelry, one of Danny’s friends walked in and began telling the story of what had happened. He explained how James had been roughed up; the bracelet had been cut off his arm, and he had been tied up with garbage bag ties. Then they had gotten Anansa and brought her back home to Danny.
I was in disbelief as I listened to the horrific story of what they had done to my dearest friend. Where was he now? Was he scared to death? I called James again and again that night and for many nights afterward, but he never answered. In fact, I never again spoke to James, my guru of all things fabulous and beautiful. He moved out of his apartment building a few weeks later and closed his state-of-the-art salon not long after that. Mutual friends assured me that James was indeed alive and well, so I was left to assume that he didn’t want to speak to me again. I couldn’t blame him really.
There was such a huge void in my world after James walked out of my life. He had been there for so long and taught me so much about everything. How would I bounce back from losing such a valuable and beloved friend? How could I bounce back from knowing the reason for losing such a friend?
The first thing I did after learning what Danny had done to James was take Anansa to live with my sister Sheilah for a few weeks.
Life is all about the decisions we make and when we make them.
I needed to decide when to make my grand exit from my marriage because I now feared for my life. Not long after we arrived at my sister’s house, she asked me a pivotal question about my husband, or rather about my leaving my husband. Did I think my life was in danger if I stayed with Danny? I told her I did, and without hesitation Sheilah said, “Then you must leave now.”
With that piece of advice from my big sister, I headed back to the Fifth Avenue apartment to pack my and Anansa’s belongings. It was time to leave that life behind for good, and I felt I needed to explain to Danny why.
If I had been completely on my game that day, I would have turned around as soon as I realized there was no one but Danny in the apartment when I arrived—no maids, no nannies, no hangers-on, no friends. Danny hated being alone, so the fact that he was there by himself should have been a surefire signal for me to turn around pronto and run for my life. But I didn’t. Instead, I walked right straight into hell.
I was in the bedroom packing my things when he came into the room, and I knew in an instant I was in big trouble. His eyes were bloodshot, he was high as a kite, and I could tell he hadn’t slept in days. I took a running start for the dining room to hide beneath the table, but Danny dragged me out by my legs. In my mind, I knew this had to be it, he was going to kill me.
It was then that he began to yell that I had gone to the FBI and ratted him out.
“To tell them what, Danny? I don’t know anything!” I said.
This was true. I didn’t know anything at all about anything Danny did—what he was doing or what he had done—and I didn’t want to know. I just wanted out.
But Danny chose not to hear me. Though I’d broken loose from his grip, he began to chase me around the house, tearing at my clothes and punching me in my face. I could feel my lip bleeding, and then, all of a sudden, he just stopped talking. He told me to be quiet and still. Then he looked at me and said, “Did you hear that? They’re coming.”
I’m thinking, This man is really bat-shit crazy!
Suddenly, he ran off into another room and came back with a big shiny gun, and forced me to get under the dining room table with him because “they’re coming.” When we were under the table, he told me that the Mob had a hit on him—he was clearly in the middle of some type of cocaine-induced paranoid delusion.
I tried to defuse the situation and calm him down by telling him I would go out into the hallway to see if anyone was there. There were three entrances to our apartment. I walked around and checked all three doors for Danny’s sake. I knew by this time that my face that paid all the bills was completely swollen and so was my lip, and I knew I had to get away from that crazy man with the gun. Eventually I was able to convince Danny to come out from underneath the table and to put down the gun.
After Danny finally fell asleep that night, I called my sister Sheilah to tell her the crazy story of my day. My parents were there and heard the entire story, too, and were deeply unhappy with the escalation of physical abuse. Still, I felt compelled to stay there to make sure Danny didn’t come after me later, as well as to complete what I came to do in the first place. I was determined to have an adult conversation with my husband about the end of our marriage. We needed to hammer out the basics of the separation, talk about the fact that I would get the baby, and how we would split everything we had accumulated together down the middle.
Later that night I woke up with unbearable stomach pains—I was vomiting and had developed nonstop diarrhea. Danny took me to the hospital down the street, this time in a cab. There, they determined I had colitis. There are various treatments for colitis, but none worked overnight. We left the hospital and went back home, where I was hoping to rest. Before I could get into the bed, my father and Sheilah’s husband, Bobby, showed up, and it wasn’t for a friendly visit. As soon as Danny opened the front door, my father decked him so hard he hit the floor.
My father was followed by my brother-in-law, who came into the house toting a shotgun under his coat like he was in The Untouchables. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so serious. Bobby was waving the gun in Danny’s face and shouting at him that if he ever put his hands on me again it would be the last time. My father was in the background, yelling the same thing. Danny swore he would never hit me again, and that we would be able to work everything out as a couple.
Satisfied they had made their point to Danny, my father and Bobby left so I could get some rest.
But I wouldn’t be getting any rest that night. Just after midnight my stomach pains returned with a vengeance. Danny gave me a few more pain pills and promised to take me to the hospital in the morning. But when morning arrived, I woke up to find myself in the back of a car, behind Danny and his friend Milton, who was driving. I was barely conscious, but I could see the tops of trees whipping by at rapid speed. We were in the country it seemed, but I didn’t know why.
The next time I woke up, I felt like I had been asleep forever. I found myself in a small, stark, white room. The only windows I could see were high up, and they had bars on them.
My crazy-ass husband had gone and put me in the damn crazy house.
CHAPTER 15
Doing Bad All by Myself
It was true—Danny had signed me into a psychiatric hospital on Staten Island for observation. The doctors had heavily medicated me with some type of hard-core sedative; I’d been out for days.
When my head cleared, I
tried to explain to the doctors that my presence in the hospital was merely payback from my husband for planning to divorce him and taking our infant daughter away. But the male doctors weren’t moved in the least by my story. Judging by the looks on their faces, my tale was one they had heard many, many times before. It didn’t help that no one recognized me. Sitting in my room with the walls closing in, I could only imagine what my family was thinking—they hadn’t heard from me in days. I imagined that Danny had made up an elaborate story, perhaps that I was out of town on location or on assignment or something else.
I had to do something. There were two young female nurses working in the hospital, and hoping to gain their sympathy I told them what had happened. Fortunately, they believed me—in fact, all three of us were boo-hooing by the time I’d finished my sorry tale. The nurses agreed to drive me back to my apartment to get my clothes and my baby. As we were leaving, we passed one of the male doctors I’d spoken to earlier, and I quickly hid my face in case he tried to stop me from leaving. Instead, he smugly said, “You could have signed yourself out at any time you know.”
Jackass! Why hadn’t I been informed of that before?
The nurses drove me home, and I thanked them warmly and bid them good-bye.
In the apartment, I couldn’t believe my eyes—Danny was in the living room watching some stupid movie as though nothing had happened. Fortunately, I could hear that we weren’t alone in the house, so I felt safe enough. Danny didn’t seem surprised to see me; instead, he actually waved to me, as though I had just gone out to the store to pick up something.
“Hi, Beverly,” he said. “I finally hired that Swedish nanny I told you about.”
I held my breath and prayed to the good Lord for strength since I didn’t want to end up in Bellevue, where they take the real nut cases, or Rikers, where they take the real murderers.
I asked him where my baby girl was since he clearly had gone to get Anansa from my sister’s house.
The Face That Changed It All Page 17