Time Is Tight

by Booker T. Jones

  MEMPHIS—1955—9

  I didn’t have a lot of luck with women in my life. It started back when I was in junior high. All along I was socially naive, and even when I got older I didn’t know myself, drawn to women who weren’t a good fit.

  I had wanted to kiss Jocelyn Glenn since I first saw her. She sat in the front row of the youth choir at church every Sunday. I looked at the back of her head until she turned around during the service to stare at me.

  I planned the time for when we both had to leave the choir pit during service to go downstairs to the bathroom. The spot I planned to kiss her was in the cafeteria of the church bordered by the men’s and women’s bathrooms. There was no one there. I took her hand, pulled her close, and kissed her on the mouth. It was my first kiss.

  After service, Justine Brown came up to me and said, “I heard you can’t kiss.” Jocelyn must have said something. Justine stood there waiting for my response. So many things raced through my head. All the kids who must have known this by now. What a bad choice I made for my first sexual venture. Embarrassment. Embarrassment.

  Suddenly, Justine grabbed me and put her tongue in my mouth. I had no idea of my innocence before that. She stepped back and smiled. I never kissed Jocelyn Glenn again.

  MEMPHIS—1956—1

  My earliest girlfriend was Marie. It seemed we might spend the rest of our lives together. The relationship lasted five and a half years, until I met Willette, my first wife. I was twelve when I met Marie, and I was never the same again. Everyone—all my friends, my parents, my family—saw the difference in me once I met Marie. People thought we would get married and live happily ever after.

  She was wearing a blue dress, one of a few she had to wear to school. Diminutive, with short hair, bright eyes, prominent cheeks, and an hourglass figure, her personality was contagious—she was loved, or hated, by everyone in the school. Talkative, smart, and energetic, Marie had her own clan that included both girls and boys. They lovingly shortened her name: “Mau-Ree.”

  Marie, whose absentee father was a musician and composer, had a way of walking very quickly that I found irresistible. I was more than smitten. She was impish, cute, vulnerable, and openly crafty.

  The first time I kissed her was at the bottom of the steps after school, with what seemed like the whole seventh-grade class looking on or peeking around the corner. The only obstacle: she didn’t live around the corner.

  The bike ride to Marie’s was a long one. It was fifteen blocks west on McLemore, instead of Trigg, to avoid gang territory. For years, my Western Flyer bike provided a way to get around—from my prepubescence. A smooth conduit from trike to sedan.

  MEMPHIS—1962—2

  After high school graduation, I spent my last summer in Memphis before heading to college at Indiana. Marie told me she was going to Nashville for a few weeks to stay with friends at Tennessee State University, presumably to explore the campus with regards to enrolling that fall. She said goodbye and gave me a Nashville address to write her.

  After a few days, I wrote Marie, asking how her visit was going and telling her I missed her. My evening route finished up at Walker and Lauderdale, and I remotely knew the family that owned a small grocery/restaurant at the corner of Wellington and Walker. I had a couple of customers on Clack Place just a few doors away from the store and was rounding the corner at Walker to head back home.

  “Hey, Booker T., when are you coming over?” It was Veronica Waltham, the store owner’s daughter and a friend of Marie’s.

  “Well,” I answered, “I hadn’t planned to. Why?”

  “Marie is staying with us. Upstairs. We thought we might see you sometime.”

  You could have knocked me over with a feather. That’s why my letters have gone unanswered!

  Then Veronica looked at me as though she knew something. She did know something. It was either Levi, a Lauderdale Sub thug who had mockingly befriended me, or it was a guy from North Memphis, E. J. Washington. When we were seniors, everyone at school knew that E. J. Washington had told Marie to quit me, but she didn’t have the courage. So in the hall, or at recess, she would stand close to me, with him watching, and mouth words as if explaining something: “Uh, Booker T., uh, you know, uh, uh…”

  My mother was not surprised. My father rolled his eyes.

  I had a natural gift for choosing the wrong women.

  BLOOMINGTON, IN—1963—4

  Willette Armstrong, nicknamed Gigi, became Willette Jones, my first wife.

  We were sophomores getting breakfast on our trays in the cafeteria at Teter Quadrangle one fall morning at Indiana U. Picturing an idyllic life together, I managed to get her to sit next to me for breakfast.

  Our first date, at her request, was on Sunday morning. We went to Trinity Episcopal Church on Grant, where she wanted us to attend. I was raised CME, or Christian Methodist Episcopal (originally Colored Methodist Episcopal). The service was so formal, like the Catholic church, and it was awkward sitting with Willette that morning because I had spent the night before with a senior girl the first evening I was on campus.

  Cute, extremely smart, popular, and sporting a little feminine swagger that was as irresistible as it was endearing, the senior girl arranged for a friend to drive us (along with her friend’s freshman date) forty miles south to the small town of Bedford, Indiana, where we checked into two rooms. On the ride down, we sat in the back seat and listened to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Very reserved, she didn’t kiss me; she just looked over and smiled from time to time. In the hotel room, she took me with her slip on. I was seventeen; she was twenty-one.

  I never saw her naked body. To turn me on, she merely stripped down to her bra, but that was enough. I don’t know if she loved me. She never said she did, but I thought I loved her. She seemed to enjoy my company.

  This particular morning, with the girl already off to classes, I found myself sitting at breakfast with Gigi. The girl’s friends were all around us at the table; she was very popular. It was the custom for the African American students to sit together, apart from the white students. There were always a good number of people who knew each other dining together.

  I did not try to hide my relationship with Gigi from the girl. They knew about each other. It was a small community of black students on a large campus. Gigi would ask me about the girl, if I would break up with her. I found out I wasn’t the girl’s only lover.

  The girl and I had a ritual; on any given day, I would check in to an old downtown hotel, the Van Orman, call the girl, and give her the room number. She would leave class, stop by Sam’s, and join me later in the hotel room.

  This time we talked; she said she would meet me there later. Ten o’clock came, twelve o’clock, one o’clock. No girl. She never came. That was the way she was. Lesson learned.

  A few times during the semester, I had phone conversations with Gigi’s roommate at Morrison Hall, Becky, where she hinted maybe I shouldn’t be dating Gigi.

  Gigi moved into Sycamore, and Becky stayed behind at Morrison Hall. One evening, I met Becky in the Morrison lounge.

  “I don’t think seeing Willette is a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s not good for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “Gigi’s fine. I’m going to marry her.”

  “You don’t know what’s good for you.”

  Becky stood and went up the stairs to her room.

  Hardly suspicious, I was a big man on campus, with a brand-new Ford Galaxie convertible and a balance of $5,000 showing on my checkbook due to an advance royalty payment for “Green Onions.” I remember Gigi’s eyes bugging out when she saw the balance on my checkbook. She broke into a big smile and made it no secret she had come to Indiana looking for the “Mrs. Degree.”

  Becky appeared to be a concerned friend who was in no way interested in me, but I wasn’t sure where she was coming from. So on New Year’s break after Christma
s, I drove to Gary, Indiana, to spend those days with Willette Armstrong. I took her to a hotel, and we spent a few days after New Year’s 1964 together. It was then that our son, Booker T. Jones III, was conceived. He was born nine months later, October 6, 1964.

  I could tell from her body, though, that she had been with someone else over the holidays while I was in Memphis at my parents’. She told me she had “scratched herself” as the reason for the abnormalities.

  Without my asking, Gigi insisted the child was mine, and in my heart, I knew that was true. I had “sensed” the moment of conception. But something was not quite right.

  Walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, on the way to my car, Gigi’s tall, red-headed, light-skinned schoolmate noticed me on the sidewalk as he picked up the morning paper. He turned as he headed back to his porch.

  “Hey, man. What’s happening?”

  “Good morning; everything’s cool.”

  “Are you—are you Booker T.?”

  “Yeah. I’m staying with my girlfriend, Gigi, two houses down.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, Gigi! What, you’re a couple now?”

  “Yeah, man, we’re getting married!”

  “You’re what?” He threw his head back in laughter. “You’re what?” Uncontrollable laughter. Composing himself, he said, “Yeah, man, congratulations, she’s a nice girl—nice girl.” He closed the door, still smiling.

  I couldn’t get the scene out of my head, on the neighbor’s porch, his laughter. What does he know that I don’t?

  A few months later, a justice of the peace in Crown Point, Indiana, married us. When we got back to the hotel, Gigi jumped up on the bed, dancing, and screaming, “I’m a liberated woman! I’m a liberated woman!” I was nineteen years old, and I thought, Have I done the right thing?

  She was from Gary. Gary, Indiana. The American capital for steel mills and murders. Her father was murdered.

  We tried so hard, Gigi and I did. She loved to laugh, and we would make pork chop sandwiches and hit the road—stopping at cheap hotels, chuckling to each other as the doors would open and shut throughout the night.

  She was the happiest sad person I ever knew. I never did figure out what was eating her. Something deep down inside that she wouldn’t face? Her dad’s drinking, or something in her childhood?

  She was a good person. I loved her, and I still do. I just couldn’t live with her. And couldn’t now, either. I didn’t try to then, and there went our little family.

  BLOOMINGTON to GARY—Fall 1964—2

  She went home to have the baby—to be near her mother and to enlist the services of her doctor, Dr. Georgia Lutz, for the delivery. Gary is about a four-hour drive from Bloomington, and I got the call at about one o’clock the morning of October 6, 1964.

  I had a white Ford Galaxie 500 convertible, black leather seats, and a 390 under the hood. I had to leave it in front of the hospital in Gary. I was so anxious that I burned up the engine on the four-hour drive from Bloomington.

  It’s not easy to burn up a ’63 Ford 390, but there was no one on the highway at that hour, and I wanted to be there for the birth. I missed it—by minutes. They were wheeling her down the hall to her room when I walked in, and I’ll never forget that satisfied glow and the look of accomplishment on her face that morning. She said it was the first thing she ever did right.

  She did indeed do something right. He was perfect. He was ours, and he was a boy. I stood there looking at him in amazement for so long before I remembered his mother needed attention too.

  I had brought her flowers and thanked her for having the baby. All of a sudden, I could see the toll the birth had exacted on her. Like the roses I had brought her, this once young flower had bloomed and blossomed, and it had made her tired. I tried to hold her and stay close to her.

  And I did. For a while.

  Chapter 9

  Bootleg

  SAN FRANCISCO, CA—1963—4

  Bill Graham bought my first ticket to San Francisco. At the airport, I saw an Indiana School of Music classmate getting off the plane wearing a very expensive fur coat in a very nonchalant manner. It startled me to see her trappings of wealth. At school, I assumed she was struggling to get by, like myself and other students from Indiana, barely managing school tuition, clothing, and necessary expenses. Maybe being from San Francisco, not Memphis, was a different story.

  Bill had us play his new club, the Fillmore Auditorium. Our hotel was on Van Ness, walking distance to the Fillmore. After sound check, walking back to the hotel, I was stopped by several black men who blocked my progress on the sidewalk west of the Fillmore. They allowed Duck to walk past, but he stopped before turning on Geary toward the hotel.

  “It’s not his nature to love you,” one of the men said to me.

  I didn’t respond.

  “It’s better for you not to play here tonight with them.”

  I pushed forward and around the men, ending up on the east side of the street, and joined Duck on Geary. We continued walking toward Van Ness. They didn’t follow. At the show, I looked for them but never saw them in the crowd.

  After the performance, we went to our dressing room, elated at having played what we felt was a great set for a large, enthusiastic crowd. We ordered drinks and sat around waiting for the bill. A lot of time passed. No one approached us about being paid. I was sure Jim Stewart at Stax had arranged some type of compensation, as we always got at least a little money after gigs.

  I went out into the hallway and asked to see Bill Graham. I was led to a small upstairs office.

  “Look, Booker, I bought you tickets from Memphis and Bloomington to San Francisco. I rented instruments for you. I put you up in a nice hotel. You just played a great show for your first West Coast audience. You’re going to be stars on the West Coast after this. No one else could have done this for you. What do you want me to do?”

  The feeling came over me that I had just met Bill Graham. Someone I had not previously known but who was presiding over the music scene for this part of the country. He had the strength to lean back in his chair after addressing me and say nothing, looking me unerringly straight in the eye, as if to say, “You owe me, young man.”

  I couldn’t find any words. None at all. I got up and left the room and went back to the MGs’ dressing room.

  I said to the guys, “I didn’t get any money.”

  Al said, “C’mon, Jones.”

  Duck said, “Where my money?”

  Steve began to look at me with a knowing half-grin.

  I always got paid. I had stared down hefty New York club owners who told me they lost money when the floor was packed and come upstairs with cash or a check. Many times before. I got paid.

  But this man was different. He was Bill Graham.

  I flew back to Indianapolis. The others returned to Memphis.

  BLOOMINGTON, IN—1963—9

  Back in Bloomington, there were so few African Americans compared to white students that most of us were at least somewhat aware of the others. The Commons, a restaurant at the Indiana Memorial Union, was the only place African Americans gathered on campus, and you could always find someone there. All the blacks came to know one another by frequenting this campus restaurant. The white students allowed it to remain exclusively black.

  During my freshman year, I was at the Commons so much it’s a wonder I made my grades. My girlfriend was a math major, a skillful whist player, and a demanding partner. Before I got to campus, she and a couple of other smart girls established a winning tradition at the whist tables, so I whipped myself into shape to sit across from her as her partner. The worst part was learning to keep score. Even if you knew how to bid, and won, scorekeeping went by turns, and mistakes were costly. Not money but bid whist determined African Americans’ social status on campus as well as whether they were Greeks or GDIs (God Damned Independents). It was more desirable to be a Greek.

  Social status was more important than academic status among blacks at Indiana, so I spent my ti
me on campus at the music building or at the Commons during my freshman year and soon made the decision to pledge a fraternity. I met Roosevelt (Rosie) Williams, the charismatic young president of Kappa’s Alpha Chapter, and he had talked to me about the social advantages of going Greek, especially with his frat, Kappa Alpha Psi, which, according to Rosie, the women preferred over the Omegas and which had a beautiful frat house on the north campus.

  In order to become a Greek, you attended mixers, called “smokers,” to earn the right to be regarded as a social inferior in the fraternity you wanted to join. The smokers were held during “rush week” and gave the senior frat members a chance to look at you and decide if you were worthy of becoming an underling (or pledge) of theirs for a week of harassment and hazing. If you were deemed worthy, you had to do everything from getting coffee for your “big brothers,” to taking their clothes to the cleaners, to allowing them to “lose” you in the woods at night, or whatever humiliating prank they might dream up. A senior member of the frat was assigned the task of seeing the pledges through hell week duly unharmed (or duly harmed, whichever he saw fit). The pledge captain was entrusted with the fraternity “paddle,” a large piece of plywood, for the purposes of “managing indiscretions” among the pledges. The suffering of these indignities, along with the unperturbed toleration of such humiliations, would purportedly cause the lowly pack to huddle together and become “brothers for life.”

  Pledges slept together on the floor in one room. We walked to school together too. We sat at the same table for meals. We washed the dishes. We swept and mopped the floors and cleaned the windows. We mowed the grass and washed cars. All in addition to our regular studies. We took notes and ran errands for the big brothers. We carried books to classes. We took on the unmistakable haggard look and demeanor of pledges—just like hundreds of others on campus.