My right arm was free, and I put my hand around the knife handle without him realizing it. As I raised my arm to plunge the knife into the man’s back, the stainless-steel blade flashed the glare of the candle flame at my eye. I stopped my hand in midair. It was like the reflected candle sparked deep knowledge in my soul. Suddenly I was clear that violence was not the answer; I wanted to see neither my blood nor his on my bedspread.
I dropped the knife on the bed and undertook the greatest performance of my life. In a low, even tone, I asked, “What is your name?”
“James.”
“Can I tell you something, James?”
“What?”
“You smell that medicine?”
He raised up on his hands, blinking his eyes against the invasive scent.
“Yeah, what is that?”
“I’m sick, and that’s the medicine I have to soak in every day.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
I paraphrased something my mother had said to me about a friend’s illness: “It’s a disease, and they don’t know what it is. I was raped.”
“You were raped? Where?”
“Down over on 10th Avenue.”
“What were you doing on 10th Avenue?”
“Walking my dog.”
This was believable to him. He looked me in the eyes for the first time.
“Look, if you go inside of me you are going to get sick. Let me get you off. I have Vaseline in the bathroom.”
“Uh, yeah. Okay.”
He rolled off me. I got up and started toward the bathroom.
“Stop.”
I thought, Damn. He’s snapped and this is it. But when I turned around, the young man was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. Crying. He looked at me.
“Put your clothes back on.”
I quickly complied as he continued to speak.
“I shouldn’t be doing this shit! Especially to a sister. They locked me up for some shit I didn’t do! I just got out.”
Suddenly I saw how skinny, fragile, and vulnerable this kid was. I realized I could probably kick his ass. Instead I sat down next to him and put my arm around his shoulder.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, James. You see this Bible? I have this here to help me through hard times. I will help you, James. Let me give you my number, and you can call me.”
I walked to the kitchenette and got a paper and pencil. From the nightclub, I had $400 in tens and twenties on the counter. He easily could have taken it, but he wasn’t looking for money. He was looking to hurt because he had been hurt. I well understood emotional pain. I gave him the paper with a telephone number on it.
“You should go, James. My boyfriend is coming. G’on now. I won’t tell. I won’t.”
James looked at my piano and spoke like a little boy.
“You play piano?”
“Yeah, but you gotta go now.”
“I’m sorry. I know you are gonna tell, but I just want you to know I am sorry.”
He was not evil. He was just fucked up.
He left, and I stood still for a moment, then quickly opened the bathroom door. As Genta jumped into my arms, I fell to my knees and fainted.
When I came to, I thanked God for my life. Sweet Bobby came over immediately and that afternoon he and Mark took me to the stationhouse to report the assault. The detective said, “Miss Lewis, you will suffer some emotional stress over this. But keep this in the front of your mind, only one in three million women can talk her way out of rape, especially once the door closes.
When I called Thomas, my boyfriend at the time, he couldn’t handle it. “Don’t walk me through it.”
I couldn’t tell Mama or my siblings. I was too far from home and knew they’d be worried sick. The next day I fled to Boston. I was sure Temi and June, two friends about twenty years my senior, would give me the love and security I needed. I knew and trusted those divas. They had had so much therapy over the years, they knew exactly how to help me heal. I was tormented by “what ifs.” June said, “You have a right to your thoughts. Have them all, feel them all, so you can get up and keep going.”
They dragged me to a lake in Brookline, and I found solace in the beauty of New England in the fall. There’s nothing like the bond between women during a crisis. They comforted me and reminded me of my own power. After a couple of days I felt better, although I continued to look over my shoulder for months. But the show must go on. My beloved New York, despite it all, was still my city.
I had been performing in Eubie! for several months, when one late September day, I arrived at the Ambassador at half-hour and saw Gregory Hines and all the other cast members standing around the call board looking gloomy. They told me the show was closing October 7th, just two weeks away. I was so young and new to showbiz that I didn’t realize that Broadway shows even closed. “Excuse me? We’re closing? Well, now what do we do?” I remember how Maurice Hines just looked at me. Clearly, he couldn’t believe my naiveté. Here were the great Hines brothers, and I was standing there with my big Afro wondering, “What do we do now? Where’s the next show?”
The female lead in Eubie! was Terry Burrell. She and her sister Deborah Burrell, both extremely talented performers, were about my age, and I became close friends with them. I heard Terry say, “Me and my sister Debbie, we’re doing a club act.” I knew what that was, and I asked them, “Can I do it, too?” Terry said, “Why don’t you open for us?” I didn’t really know what that meant, but as long as there was a stage, I was ready. Thus I entered the world of cabaret in New York City. Terry and Debbie had a gig at the Bushes, a tiny nightclub, where I sat at a little white piano and sang Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” and two other songs. The Burrell sisters were fabulous, but on the first night I realized I wanted to be the star, not an opening act. I was the opening act only twice more—for the singing group Gallagher and stand-up comic Jackie Mason. After that I made a rule—nobody goes on after Jenifer Lewis (said with humility, of course).
I did the Bushes for a few weeks, but with no other major gig in the wings, I began to fret as my finances dwindled. A gypsy friend suggested I check with the Actors Fund, a charitable organization that would give a few bucks to an out-of-work actor like me. The folks at the Fund were real nice and hardly asked any questions. I walked out of the office with $40 that would at least cover my food for the next week or so. But I was wishing it was $4,000.
Walking back home through Times Square, my attention was caught by a handful of people crowded around a small makeshift, cardboard table. The eyes of the crowd followed the quick hands of a short brother in a backwards cap as he shuffled three cards around the table in a lightning-fast round of Three Card Monte. He was talking fast, encouraging the onlookers, “Find the black queen and win 10 to 1!”
This is my chance! I was sure I could turn my $40 into $400 in just a few moments. Pushing my way through to the table, I watched two rounds, feeling smug because both times I correctly guessed which of the three cards was the black queen. The next round started. The brother switched the cards back and forth on the table really fast and shouted: “Place your bets, my people! We payin’ 10 to 1!”