I wanted to shout out to the radio that Tommie Jordan was a liar who used the same tired homophobic arguments to keep not only himself down, but also many of his fans who could have been gay or lesbian as well. That kind of simplistic argument, utilized to bait people into staying quiet about gay issues in the Black community, was why places like LADS were still important.
“Everybody could use free rent these days,” one of the female sidekicks added. “Times are hard for everyone in this recession.”
“Amen to that,” Tommie said. “So can I talk about my new campaign and cause?”
“Go ahead, brotha,” the host said. “This is where we get to tell our side to the people who matter.”
“Thanks,” Tommie said. “I just recorded a dope gospel track with a young cat over in Atlanta. Hip-hop beats, word of God, all that.”
“Anything to get God’s word out there,” the host said. “Why gospel at this point in your career?”
“I felt it was time for my career to serve others,” Tommie said. “This song’s going to be the theme for the Family First initiative in the upcoming election season, where we want to ensure that our kids know that the best families are those where one man and one woman are heading it up. Traditional families, like we grew up in, ya dig? All the proceeds are going to the campaign, which is being headed up by a fine man in Los Angeles, a man of God named Reverend Lamont Murphy, who runs this organization in L.A. called LADS. It’s about the upliftment and empowerment of young Black men who find themselves confused and at a crossroads in their lives about who they are.”
My jaw dropped. Tommie and Reverend Murphy were teaming up to support the Family First initiative, a dangerous attempt to modify the state constitution and legally define marriage. And they were using my organization—my former organization—LADS, to do it, and announced it live on The Black Morning Radio Show. The show was national, airing in hundreds of markets, with millions of Black listeners across the country. Tommie and Hamilton were super strategic. And connected. Unlike most people with image management issues in their lives.
I’d learned how to work with and challenge the city establishment when I founded and ran LADS. But learning how to work with and challenge the Black entertainment establishment was another story, especially when a male-dominated, heterosexist, performing masculinities narrative kept the same images and stories recycling over and over about Black life in the U.S.
All I could say out loud as I slammed my cup of tea on the table was “Oh hell naw.”
Chapter 25
“Dang, Uncle Malcolm,” Blake said as he walked into the kitchen with his laptop computer in his hands. He was more animated and excited than I’d expected, considering how hard he was snoring just an hour earlier. “I can see why those paparazzi people are all up in your ass. One of my friends just sent me a link of you on GayClick. I had to break out the tissue and shut the door.”
The conversation was gross, and highly inappropriate for an uncle and nephew to be having. And after listening to the lies Tommie Jordan spewed on The Black Morning Radio Show, I was on edge and not in the mood for Blake’s happy-go-lucky and no-thinking attitude. I instructed Blake to have a seat and to shut down the computer.
“First of all, I’m an adult and you need to address me as such,” I said. “Regardless of how much you think you know me or how cool you think I am, I’m still your uncle. And you’re just nineteen. Don’t forget that!”
“I didn’t think I was…”
“You said it right…‘I didn’t think,’” I said. “You always have to think, Blake. You always have to consider other people and be considerate. So that means you don’t step to an adult like one of your boys. I’m your uncle, and we’re on friendly terms, but I’m not your friend like that.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I just thought since we’re roommates this summer, and we’re both gay, and you’re the coolest uncle in the world that we could just talk like that. I mean, after all we went through together since I got to L.A. Sorry.”
“I guess I can see how you’d get confused,” I said. “But you’re my nephew living here. Not a roommate. You don’t pay rent. And your mom would appreciate it if I looked after you like she would.”
“Oh God,” Blake said and sighed. “Here we go again with rules.”
“They’re simple rules,” I said. Because he was family, and with a legal obligation to his future, I knew I had to be Campbell-family strict and lay down the law. “No guests in this house unless I know who they are. No going out with people unless I know who they are. No drugs in my house at all, and I’d prefer you not use outside my house either. I’d make you keep your laptop out here in the living room or kitchen, but I’ll give you some leeway on that. No late-night anonymous sex chats or visitors here.”
“Come on, Unc, that’s how my generation meets people. Your generation too, truth be told,” he sighed. “You and Ma have been talking, huh?”
I knew he knew Marlena and I had been talking about him. He was usually nearby whenever she would call and complain about Blake’s revolving door of sex partners, smoking out, or not studying. It was Blake’s track record, not my need to be a control freak, that warranted a set of house rules. Marlena had sent my nephew to stay with me, and she sent him with certain expectations in mind.
“And stop playing dumb, Blake,” I said. “You’re nineteen. You need to be focused on what you want in life…something more than who you want to sleep with or who you meet online. And you need to be back in someone’s college or community college. I mean, what do you want to be in life?”
Which may or may not have been a fair question. When I was nineteen I was focused on being a sophomore at Northwestern University, but didn’t know how that would translate into a specific job or career. And for someone like Blake, who’d been in and out of trouble in school and barely earned his high school diploma, developing a focus might have been too much to ask. I hated being a pragmatist about Blake’s potential, but someone needed to focus him so he wouldn’t waste his time or future.
“You know I want to be a rapper…or a model…or someone who puts together outfits for celebrities…”
I wanted to roll my eyes and tell him what I saw as reality. Those jobs were statistically not a reality, and a lot of it—potentially working in the industry—was based on lies. Not the way we were raised in Indiana. That I’d seen and heard numerous young men from LADS talk about their dreams of celebrity, but the realities of life left those dreams deferred. That often the young men who wanted those types of jobs didn’t have a clue where to begin to map the path to their goal.
But I didn’t want to be a dream killer to my nephew, at least not yet, and decided to engage him. I needed to develop some rapport in order for him to accept my feedback.
“So what is your plan? Or let me rephrase…what have you learned about how one becomes a rapper, model, or stylist?”
Blake was silent as he thought about my question. “What do you mean?”
“Okay,” I said and took out a piece of paper. I felt like I was at LADS again and doing a one-on-one with a client. “Let’s do stylist. Put ‘stylist’ at the top of the page. Put yourself today at the bottom, with your current skills, training, networks, and qualifications. Make a list of all the baby steps and the time frame you think need to take place for you to achieve that goal at the top of the page.”
“I don’t know all that,” he said and smiled. “That’s why I moved to L.A. and that’s why I have an uncle with famous friends. Y’all will hook a brotha up.”
This time I did roll my eyes. I huffed too. My patience was wearing thin. I wondered how Blake could have been surrounded by all those hardworking Campbell family members, and none of that drive for middle-class status and values reached his core. It was sad, but similar to what I saw in some of the guys at LADS. The system had created barriers related to race, class, gender, and sexual orientation that many individuals knew, or experienced, could kill their personal dreams a
nd aspirations. Even in the age of Obama. Still, I had to have hope Blake wouldn’t give up. We didn’t give up—the Campbells.
“It’s about hard work, not hook-ups,” I said. “Life is not that easy. Especially if you’re Black, without an education, and gay. Please. You’re nobody to larger, mainstream society, that’s why you have to have a goal and some knowledge and a degree behind you. Work harder than anyone else.”
“Ma says the same thing all the time,” he said. “I’m beginning to think I don’t wanna be an adult if it’s all doom and gloom.”
I thought about what Blake said. Somewhere between nineteen and thirty-five, life transitioned from fun and spontaneous to something a little less than fun and spontaneous. That was just the reality of life, though present situation notwithstanding, I’d had more good days than bad.
“I guess we have a lot to learn from each other this summer,” I said. “But for the record, I never consented to those videos being made. And they were all with the same person, who I was in a relationship with. That’s why you have to watch who you get involved with, because not everyone who seems nice is. But that’s another story for another day, Blake.”
I patted his leg to let him know we’d be all right. The way my dad would reassure me after one of his life-lessons lectures.
“See, Unc, that’s all you had to say and I would have been cool,” he said. “You have a lot to learn about young people this summer.”
“And you have a lot to learn about your uncle,” I said. “Now, since you’re so wanting to get into entertainment, get online and pull up The Black Morning Radio Show.”
“Why?”
“I want you to listen to today’s show and think about what we saw at Tommie and Tyrell’s the other day,” I said. “And then tell me five reasons you think going into entertainment is going to help your community.”
Chapter 26
Kyle kept his word.
Within an hour of our phone call, I had a personal safety assistant outside my apartment and two others watching the front and back entrances of my building. It felt weird—having people—but being drawn into the scandalous world of Tyrell and Tommie made it necessary. I prayed the situation would die down and go away in a few days.
By noon, Kyle showed up at my place with what seemed like a trunk load of groceries, which the security team helped to bring in. He also brought lunch—Thai food—for Blake and me. I welcomed the company. Blake, after I introduced him and Kyle to each other, welcomed the food. Thai was something new to his Indiana-bred taste buds.
Kyle and I sat at the kitchen table. He put a napkin, bib-style, over his white polo shirt and covered his khaki pants. I missed being part of the working world and longed for the day when I could get back into a nine-to-five. Kyle dived into his pad thai and into the conversation.
“Wasn’t that some bullshit?” Kyle said. “I can’t believe they let Tommie Jordan go on and on without even asking one intelligent or challenging question. But then again, I can believe it. How are you doing?”
I was somewhere in between. I was happy my best friend was with me and supportive. I was livid with Tommie Jordan and the interview on The Black Morning Radio Show. I hated that Reverend Lamont Murphy was using LADS as a platform to support the hateful and discriminatory Family First Amendment.
But I loved the Thai food Kyle brought.
“Kyle, I’m all over the place,” I said, finally. “If I wasn’t a stronger person, I could see how one might end up overusing alcohol or pills. That’s not cute.”
“Don’t even go there, my friend,” Kyle said. “I see too many folks around the studios who think the answer is in a bottle or prescription…or worse. Functioning zombies.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going there,” I said. “I just want a sense of stability back in my life like it was a week ago. Imagine me, Mr. Boring Does Everything Right, being an Internet porn site star, fired from my job, and embroiled in the unfolding drama of two closeted Black celebrities? If they could see me now.”
“Girl, they probably have.”
We laughed.
“That was a little bit funny, Kyle.”
“Might as well laugh,” Kyle said. “People overcome scandal every day. Little by little you’ll get better and get back to that sense of stability you want. Hell, stability is boring sometimes.”
“What? Mr. Been In A Relationship Forever?”
“As much as I love Bernard, sometimes I want to try something or someone new,” Kyle said. “Then he comes home with a funny story, and his good-ass cooking, and I realize we make it new every day. Then I get over my thoughts.”
It was the first time I’d heard Kyle verbalize any questioning about his relationship with Bernard. It was kind of a big deal to me, because they always presented a united and happy front. But we were best friends. We talked about random subjects all the time without making them big deals. Just getting stuff out there with no real conclusions or advice.
“Thoughts?” I asked.
“We’re human,” he said. “But when I think of what’s out there—or not—I put those thoughts away. I’ve never cheated, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“None of my business if you have or haven’t, Kyle,” I said.
“I’ve had offers,” he said. “But there’s no one like Bernard, and I’m not starting over at thirty-five. Couldn’t imagine it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Because I’m not throwing any breakup parties.”
“Of course not,” he said and smiled. “I’m throwing your bachelor party when you marry Tyrell Kincaid. He wants you, you know that?”
“Whatever.”
“I have a feeling,” Kyle said. “I think when all this blows over, you and Tyrell will be making some of your own videos.”
“Stop.”
“Those long, big hands and fingers.”
“Stop.”
“Hot, sweaty basketball player all up in your stuff.”
“Kyle.”
“Here,” Kyle said and reached for Blake’s video camera he’d left on the kitchen table earlier. “Let’s record your thoughts…or let me…how does this damn thing work? We’ll start our own channel online. Wouldn’t that be funny?”
“Don’t ask me, I’m not that tech savvy,” I said. “It’s Blake’s.”
Kyle and I heard sound coming from the camera after he’d pushed a couple buttons.
“…abstinence training, marriage and family counseling, something like that—and get some photo ops with some of the ministers campaigning for that so-called ‘Family First’ legislation in the winter election. I would say you had this in the works before these pics and vids went public.”
I looked at Kyle and said, “That was Tommie’s agent, Hamilton.”
We continued listening to the sound coming from the camera.
“What? You serious?”
“Is that Tommie?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah.”
“I got the contacts at congregations in L.A., Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Houston. Take your pick. They’re all big. They’re all Black. They all do the same thing. Kinda like you, hmm, Tommie?”
“We should get Blake in here,” I said. “He can get the picture to come on. BLAKE…GET IN HERE. Look at us, a couple of old, college-educated guys can’t figure out this camera.”
“This is crazy. Not even the pisser has had to repent this much.”
“What’s crazy, Tommie Jordan, is that you and Tyrell have everything, and so much to lose. And you go out and get your dick sucked by a man at some place with a bunch of strangers, and you get a bunch of damn pictures taken of you in the act while an earthquake is going on. That’s crazy.”
Blake walked into the kitchen, not moved at all by the sense of urgency with which I’d called him. I got a sense of why Marlena was always yelling at him—to get him to do something.
“Whassup, Unc?”
“How do you get pictures to show on this?”
I pointed to his
video camera sitting on the table.
“Dang, Unc,” he said and picked it up. “I got some private videos on this.”
He pushed one button and sat it back on the table. There wasn’t any video, nor any more sound coming from the camera.
“We don’t want to see your little nineteen-year-old thing on camera,” Kyle said.
“You shouldn’t even be making those kinds of videos,” I said.
“I bet.” Blake grinned. “I know how y’all dirty old men like the young bucks.”
“Blake. Serious,” I said. “Turn on the camera.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so,” I said. Put a hand on my waist and tilted my head like I meant business.
My nephew was three seconds away from a backhand across the face in my mind. Of course, I knew I’d never do it. Violence was never an answer. However, I could empathize with my sister having dealt with Blake solo for nineteen years. And with him looking so much like his father, who’d abandoned Marlena and Blake shortly after his birth, I could see how Marlena could have so much anger when Blake acted like this. A backhand was a bit much, though, when my frustration was with people other than Blake. I decided to take another approach.
“Blake,” I said. “You’re interested in a career in entertainment, right?”
“That’s whassup,” Blake said. “Why?”
Kyle was intuitive and knew where I was going.
“You might be one step closer to getting the career you want,” Kyle said. “Turn on the camera for your uncle and me, and you’ll see just how close you are.”
Chapter 27
It took some coaxing, but eventually Blake bought into our plan and showed us what he’d gotten on camera. We—Kyle, Blake, and I—decided that laying low for a week would help, and thanks to Kyle’s huge grocery purchase and the security person posted outside my apartment, it was possible to lay low successfully.
Throughout the week, Blake updated me on what the bloggers were saying and not saying about Tyrell and Tommie and me. I read a few, but lost interest in the untruths being passed off as truths. As time passed, my name disappeared altogether and the stories focused just on Tyrell and Tommie. A few days later, their scandal was no longer the top read or blogged-about gossip in the Black or LGBT communities. The message boards were drying up, with no new and false comments about me and my role in their relationship. The syndicated radio shows were through with their constant Tyrell and Tommie gossip and speculation, as newer and more scandalous celebrity incidents were taking place center stage.
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