Though my father never really gave us the guidance I hoped for, I think he did the best he could. He had never had a father or grandfather to advise him, and he lost his mother very young so he didn’t really know how to give us advice. My father did teach me the basics, however. He told me that family always came first and that seemed like a paradox based on his past behavior. He taught me to be myself and never to let anyone tell me who I am. He cautioned me to be independent and to work hard because he wouldn’t always be there and one day I would have to make it on my own. He always kept me grounded by reminding me, “No matter how successful you become, you’re still a black man in America.” Respect was especially important to him, especially for our mother. He would accept nothing less.
When my mother told him that my brothers or I had disobeyed her, he would go ballistic. He would call us into his office downstairs to talk with us. Usually when we were in that office, we were there to get a lecture. If we tried to defend ourselves, he would slam his hand down on the desk and shout, “Shut up! I’m your father. I don’t want to hear that you’re not listening to her again. Your mother runs things around here. She loves you and she would never guide you in the wrong direction. All I know how to do is play the piano and sing.” He didn’t believe in spanking us, but he did believe in strict punishment. He was very clear about what was going to transpire if we did not listen to our mother.
He would deal with our behavior when our mother asked him to, but he would not deal with the emotional aspect of our experiences. If we got upset about something that had happened, he would ask us very objectively, “What did you learn?” If we didn’t answer to his satisfaction, he would tell us, “This is how I would approach it.” He was always calm and analytical but firm. I think it was his way of dealing with our question in the third person, taking himself out of the equation. He always wanted to play the good cop because he was not home enough.
Without question, though, it was my mother who saw to our well-being twelve months a year. Looking back, I don’t know how she managed. Our first year in View Park, she had to take care of three very active boys while coordinating the move, adjusting to a new neighborhood, visiting my father in rehab, and coping with the stress of the impending trial. And that was only the first year. During our first five years on Southridge, she had to have a series of operations to remove the adhesions resulting from the surgery on her appendix, and Dr. Foster had her on frequent bed rest. Though she had survived peritonitis against the odds, she battled the long-term effects for the rest of her life. She was never truly healthy after that. She eventually underwent ten operations and coped with pain and exhaustion almost daily. Pictures of her at Southridge often show her with a scarf or net covering her hair. She lost her hair several times as a result of the surgeries and physical stress. My brothers and I never understood how ill our mother was and how close she had come to death. She would remain ill for a long time.
Our friends were always welcome at our house. I think my mother felt more comfortable having them there where she could keep an eye on us. Our friends ate dinner at our house as often as they did at home. Every night at six o’clock she would serve up a full meal of soul food: corn bread, yams, pork chops, cabbage, greens, smothered steak, or barbecued chicken. Everyone loved her cooking. No wonder they wanted to eat at our house. Once anyone stepped through the door, my mother demanded they show respect, and everyone respected my mother.
And our mother made sure we respected our father as well. That was very important to her. She would tell us about our father’s dreams, his struggles, the odds against him. If we complained that he was gone too much, she would say, “Look around you. When you feel like you’re doing without something, look around. You’ve never missed a meal.” And if I came to her with rumors I’d heard about him, she always told me, “Ignore the rumors. They’re not your problem. Let me handle that. It’s your job to respect and love your father.”
My mother couldn’t help us much with our studies as we grew older because she had little education herself. But she kept on us about our homework, visited teachers, stayed involved, never let us skip school. I only ditched class in high school once in my life, to go to the beach with my friends. I would get caught and Mr. Childress, the vice principal, would call my mother immediately. When I got home, she asked me where I had been, and I told her the truth. She was really upset, saying, “What if something had happened to you? I wouldn’t have known where you were.” I took my punishment, and I never did it again. More important, my mother did not need to constantly worry about me: she had enough on her plate.
My mother kept us busy and made sure we kept to the straight and narrow. Most important, she led by example. She never took drugs or drank, and she expected the same of her sons. She didn’t care what was going on around us. She expected us to follow the standard she kept for herself. My mother brought us up right. She kept us very close, and she dedicated her life to raising us as men the Lord would approve of. Growing up, it was virtually impossible to lie to my mother or go against her wishes. Even when I tried, even when my friends laughed at me, I just couldn’t do it. I knew right from wrong. She prayed for us and for our father every day. I believe that God has blessed her with a long life because of her belief in him. If I had adhered to her wisdom as an adult, I would have avoided many traps and much suffering.
Only once as a kid did I go against her teaching about smoking and drinking. My mother liked to give card parties for her friends, and though she didn’t drink or smoke herself, many of her friends did. After the parties there would be cigarette butts all over and liquor left in the glasses until the maid cleaned up the next morning. David and I loved to go in after the parties and pretend to smoke and drink. We thought we were so cool. Then one day Mom came through the door and caught us. We knew we were busted in a big way. My mother said, “So you want to smoke and drink? Well, okay.”
She got a glass and filled it with Cutty Sark, and then she got my father’s unfiltered Kools. She sat there in front of us, holding a belt, and made us smoke and drink it all. First she made us smoke the cigarettes. Then she made us drink the liquor. It tasted terrible. We threw up several times, but she made us finish it. It took us about an hour and a half. By then we were crying and begging to stop. Afterward we were very sick. My father fell down laughing when he heard about it. The story became legendary in our household. It cured me for years of wanting to smoke or drink. My mother did not have to worry about me coming home drunk or stoned.
In so many ways, my mother was both father and mother to us. She spoke to us about everything she thought we needed to know. About life and people in general. Even about girls. How embarrassing! It was my mother who taught me etiquette and how to dance. And it was my mother who talked to me about the facts of life. She even gave me a pack of condoms. I told her, “But Mom, I’m not doing anything.”
She sighed and said, “I know you’re not, but you will. You don’t think you will, but at some point it will happen. And when it does, I just want you to be responsible.” I took it all to heart.
More than anything else, it was playing sports that helped me internalize the lessons my parents were teaching me. By the time we moved to Southridge, sports were becoming increasingly important in my life. My mother had always encouraged us to play sports, if nothing else to keep us busy and help us burn off energy. Surprisingly, my father was a big sports fan. In blind school he had run races holding on to a guide wire and played ball by listening to the ball rolling on the ground. He was fiercely competitive. Luckily, we lived in a city with some of the best sports commentators in the world. I grew up listening to Chick Hearn announcing Lakers games. Vin Scully’s voice on the radio during Dodgers games became the backdrop to my childhood. At home in our playroom or driving in the car, we listened to him every spring and summer. My father loved Vin Scully.
If the family attended a Dodgers game while Dad was in town, he would sometimes go with us. My father disliked being in c
rowds since he couldn’t see people coming, and there was too much noise for him to track their movements with any accuracy. People were always coming up to him, shouting, “Mr. Charles!” He tried to be polite about it, but it unnerved him, especially if they grabbed him unexpectedly. At Dodger Stadium he would walk behind Duke or my mother with his arms interlocked with theirs until we found our seats. He always brought his radio along so he could listen to Vin during the game. It was a Super Zenith radio that came in a black leather case. When he folded down the case, the inside had readouts from time zones around the world. It was cool. He carried it with him when he was on the road. Radio was his medium for watching sports. He would sit in the seats with us, feeling the sunshine and the breeze on his face, holding the radio to his ear. He could hear the crack of the bat when someone connected, the cheering and heckling from the crowd, all the while listening as Vin explained what was happening on the field just yards beneath us.
My father even tried to play sports with me. He had taught me to ride my bike when I was little, and he wanted to be able to play ball with me. He decided to give football a try. One afternoon when we were outside, he told me to throw him the football. I didn’t want to do it because I was afraid he’d get hurt, but he kept insisting. What I didn’t understand was that when he said, “Throw the ball to me,” he actually meant I should roll or hand him the ball. That’s how they played catch at the St. Augustine school for the blind when he was a kid. So when I finally threw him the football and he bent down to catch it on the ground, it hit him in the head and knocked his glasses off. He didn’t say anything.
I said, “Dad?”
Instead of answering, he picked up his glasses and continued to play with me.
When I became interested in baseball, he took an interest in it, too. He asked me to describe the baseball bat, and he ran his hands over it, trying to get the feel of it. Since my father couldn’t teach me how to bat or catch like the other fathers could, I had to figure it out on my own. I had to learn everything in fast-forward. Baseball games were like on-the-job training for me. My team was named the Indians. I became good at baseball very quickly, but I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was batting cross-handed. Mr. Kaiser and Mr. Ramirez were our coaches. They kept telling me I was going to hurt myself if I kept batting with my wrists crossed, but I wouldn’t listen to them. I figured I was doing great the way I had taught myself, so I didn’t want to change. But I did correct my grip. One afternoon my father came to one of my games at Baldwin Vista Park. He sat in the bleachers next to my mother while she narrated the game for him. I was hitting the ball like crazy that day, but the coaches kept telling me, “You’re going to hurt yourself!” Every time I got a hit, Mr. Kaiser would shake his head and say, “Well, there goes Ray Jr. again.”
My father perked right up when he heard that. He beamed his famous smile and said, “That’s my son.” He would sit on the sidelines and listen attentively to what was happening on the field. He gradually stopped coming to my baseball games once my schedule started conflicting with his.
A few seasons later, I was voted most valuable player. I was thrilled. It was the biggest night of my life. More than anything, I wanted my dad to be there. He promised he would be, but when the night came, he had to leave before I got my trophy. I was heartbroken, and for a long time I was angry and hurt by his absence that night. It was only later that I understood what had really happened. When I had originally asked him to come, he changed his performance schedule so he could be there. The change was complicated because it involved a lot of musicians and a crew, but he did it. And then at the last minute, the promoter changed the time, and there was nothing my father could do but handle his business concerning his performance. Almost eleven years old, I was too young to understand. All I knew was that my dad wasn’t there. It hurt him as deeply as it did me because he wanted to keep his promise. Years later he wrote about it in his book. It still bothered him. I understood, and I let go of the disappointing memory. Instead I think of him holding my MVP trophy and showing it to people with great pride.
My father became a serious advocate for the YMCA during the years I was playing. He supported our sports leagues, making sure we had uniforms. Kids who otherwise couldn’t afford to participate were able to take part in after-school programs because of my dad. But it was my mother who threw heart and soul into our teams. Because the teams depended on volunteers, all the fathers were required to participate in team activities. My father, of course, couldn’t do that. So my mother had to get special permission to perform the duties usually performed by the fathers. She became our stat keeper, raised money, worked in the concession stands, and got other celebrities and entrepreneurs to sponsor our team, including Nancy Wilson.
What she couldn’t do herself, she found someone else to do for us. She found mentors for me. One way or another, she made sure I was introduced to men who could help me evolve as a young man. It was through these men that I was able to develop into a good young man and a great athlete. Men like Mr. Kaiser, Paul Ramirez, General Hall, Maurice Hill, Leonard Harris, and Jonathan Leonard took the time to mentor me not only through sports but in life. I found structure in sports, and I learned what it meant to be a team player. We planned things as a group. Before every game, my YMCA Thunderbirds coaches led us in the Lord’s Prayer. These men taught me discipline, respect, and sportsmanship. Their sons became my friends. Sports helped teach me what it meant to win and how to lose.
I wonder now how my father felt about being the only dad who couldn’t take his son camping or help him swing a bat. It must have been hard for him. Herbert Miller says my father’s blindness was a huge issue for him when it came to being a father. He had never done most of the things we were interested in and had no idea how to relate to them. Dad had received only a basic education, designed to help him survive as a blind man in a sighted world. Though extremely intelligent, he had never had a chance to go to college. Outside of his music, he worried that he had nothing to teach us.
I always wondered how my father felt about his blindness, and he used to say, “I’m not blind. I just can’t see.” He seemed to move through life like a sighted person. In reality, everything he did had to be adjusted to his lack of sight. Whenever he went to a new space, someone had to show him where everything was, lead him around, and point things out until he had a chance to memorize their positions. My mother had been doing that all my life. When he was walking quickly down the hall at home or at his studio during the day, he would say, “Beep! Beep!” to let people know he was coming. If we were walking somewhere in a hurry, he would interlock his arms with ours. In a crowd, he would get behind one of us and put his hand on our shoulder to guide him through. I saw him do this with my mother, Duke, and Vernon, and eventually with me, countless times.
His blindness forced him to trust people. No matter how many precautions he took, he could never be certain what was going on around him. In order to function, he had to believe that the people he relied on were telling him the truth. Some people took advantage of my father’s blindness, hiding the truth from him and twisting the truth to their own advantage. That was one reason my mother taught him to print his name when they were first married. She wanted him to be able to sign things himself with his own unique signature, not just use an X or have someone else sign for him.
My father always talked like he could see. If we were looking for something, he would say, “I saw it over there.” He didn’t carry himself like a blind man. David Braithwaite, who became his sound engineer when I was thirteen, told me he’d hear people say, “Man, this guy thinks he can see.” My dad had an uncanny ability to conceptualize spaces in his mind. He would tell Dave, “You gotta concentrate. A man that’s sightless has to concentrate, ’cause he has to remember.” Nothing frustrated him more than losing his concentration. After a long session at the sound board, he sometimes knocked over his signature cup of coffee. He’d forgotten it was there. He would be upset for the rest of the
day. Sometimes after singing for hours, he’d forget his exact location and walk into a wall. There would be a smack and the sound of cursing. Everybody in the studio knew better than to try to help him when that happened. You didn’t want to be in the room when he got back, either. I used to wonder how anybody could concentrate that hard every minute of the day. It must have been exhausting.
My father looked at things with his hands, like most blind people. That was his way. If he was curious about something, he would ask us questions while he felt it. He often did that when he was given a new toy. He wanted to know what it looked like, how it worked. He would listen carefully as we explained it to him, nodding his head and saying, “You don’t say.” That was his signature remark: “You don’t say.”
My father’s love was in his touch. There was the way he always stood in front of me and my brothers and placed his hands on our heads, ran his arms down our sides, our shoulders, our faces, under our chins. He would place his hands on the sides of our bodies to see how much weight we had gained around our waists. He would pat us on the chest and the stomach, too. He had done this when each of us was born. And he would say, “You don’t say.”
I was a teenager when we finally talked about his blindness. He said he was scared when his mother told him he was losing his sight because he didn’t know what that would mean, but that she was diligent in preparing him for a world of listening and touch. He could remember vaguely what his mother looked like but described her with loving accuracy. He remembered many of the beautiful things in life—the sun, the moon, flowers, basic colors, butterflies—but he also remembered how poor they were.
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