The party continued well into the night when at least a dozen Chicago relatives came back to my hotel room after the show. They brought buckets of fried chicken and Tupperware filled with spaghetti, potato salad, collards, and chitlins. There were coolers of cold beer, soda (pop, as they say in Chi-Town), and Kool-Aid, plus nine or ten fifths of hard liquor and a bottle of Ripple to boot. I invited the entire Eubie! company. When you were on the road, home-cooked food was always a treat.
Gypsies are nocturnal creatures. We would do the show and then go to bars or clubs, where we’d sing, drink, and likely pick up a “piece,” the term gypsies used for the “civilians” they’d meet in a club and spend the night with. For me, nothing could extend the thrill of a standing ovation like great sex with a gorgeous guy. After all, I deserved my reward for a job well done! Not only was it fun, but I had discovered that sex could lessen the “crash” I sometimes experienced when I came offstage.
It’s pretty common to have a heightened sense of self when you are performing: a rush of bliss, and an almost uncontrollable sense of accomplishment, like what runners feel when the endorphins kick in.
The applause coming over the footlights is like a slow-motion tsunami of adoration, like jumping on a spaceship and riding it bareback to Pluto. The crash after the show, I assure you, is just as intense. Let’s just say that I had sort of an unconscious habit of using post-show sex to come back to earth.
Well, “unconscious” habit isn’t really accurate. I wore my sexuality like a medal. I was Cleopatra, Pam Grier, Marilyn Monroe, and Jezebel rolled into one. A jaguar with skin supple as a baby’s ass, capturing my prey with lust and laughter. Then, ever the alpha, it was I who chose the locations, the positions, and the durations.
Let me be frank—I did a lot of fuckin’ during those years of crisscrossing the nation in concerts and shows. But hey—everybody was having a lot of sex. The sexual revolution was still in full swing. Despite my Baptist upbringing, I’d been sexually active since my teens and, as a young woman, I was pleased with my ability to attract men and had never been shy about talking about my sexual escapades. In fact, I cracked everybody up with my exaggerated stories—“Girl, it was so big that when he stood up in the bathtub, he knocked out my front tooth.” Ultimately my girlfriends nicknamed me “Dick Diva.”
My men were handsome, talented, and accomplished. I mean no scrubs. For instance, there was the club bouncer in Chicago who looked like a black Clark Gable. One night, after earning two ovations, I knew I was not going to bed alone! I escaped drinks with the rest of the Eubie! cast and went off on my own to a disco. As the bouncer unhooked the velvet rope for me, he flashed a perfect set of teeth with a big Ultrabrite smile. He was so beautiful there was no thought in my brain other than “Nigga, you goin’ down!”
We spent a few hours at the club chatting about his travels and studies before I took him back to my hotel and drew a bubble bath. That was my ritual with new conquests, my way of assessing the goods. It was a tactic that I learned in Kinloch as a young teen.
Me and my girlfriend, Ethel Rue, decided to skip junior high school one day. We were walking down Cranberry Road when a big white Cadillac pulled up. It was Fat Jackie, the town prostitute. She hollered out of the car, “Y’all skippin’ school? Git y’all’s asses in this car. Go on. Git in the back seat.”
Me and Ethel were scared that we would get in big trouble for playing hooky. Fat Jackie was just driving along, and when she got to a stop sign, she put her right elbow over the seat and looked back at us. She had rings on damn near every finger, blond coif grazing the car roof, two gold front teeth, and a fried chicken leg in her left hand. She pointed that chicken leg at us and said, “Y’all fuckin’ yet?”
Personally, I had only made out once with Jessie under the bleachers at school. But I knew Ethel was already on the fast track to getting pregnant with Raymond’s baby. Naturally, we both said, “No, ma’am.”
Fat Jackie said, “Yeah, well, when you do start fuckin’, make sure you always check the meat.”
We didn’t know if she was talking about baloney, ham, or Spam, especially since she was waving the chicken leg. She went on to explain.
“I carry a flashlight wherever I go. Some men always want to keep the lights off, but I always check the meat. You girls hear me?” She jabbed the drumstick in the air to punctuate her words: “Always. Check. The meat!”
By this time, Ethel and I were pressed against each other in the back of the seat, scared to death. Fat Jackie pulled up in front of the school and said, “Now, git the hell out of this car and go git y’all’s education! Next time, Imo tell y’all’s mamas.”
Running from the car as fast as we could, we heard Fat Jackie yell once more, “Be sure you check the meat every time!”
In the bubble bath, I checked out the bouncer, Mr. Clark Gable, whose name was actually Maurice. He turned out to be a master of Shotokan karate with an eight-pack torso and a dick the size of a small garden gnome. I sank lower in the bubbles, thinking “Mer-ry Christmas!”
For the next couple of weeks while Eubie! played Chicago, Maurice joined my rotation of sex partners, which also included a musician I’d met named Steve, along with Ken and Perry via phone. Usually, I would see a guy for a few months, often juggling him along with a few others. Yes, y’all, I was skilled.
Things were going pretty well until I found out that Steve was planning to get married. Like I said, I’ve always been dramatic. Steve’s news gave me overwhelming pain, and I missed a performance because of it. Not that I wanted to marry him—I had a rule never to mess with other women’s men. But not to worry; Steve was soon replaced with Pierre and Jerome.
The tour moved on to the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts in Detroit. They put us up at a dump called the Leland Hotel, which fortunately had a piano in the bar. Never show a gypsy a bar with a piano—the show is on! We gathered in that bar every night.
Basically, I had a “man in every port.” Although I started out in Detroit dick-less, I soon met Leon, a professional masseuse who gave me a massage in my hotel room and came back two days later for sex.
Needing attention from more than one man, I felt the need to check in with all my boyfriends. I called Ken, the journalist in New York, and Maurice in Chicago. I hung up when a woman answered Maurice’s phone. I’ve kept a journal since junior high and wrote:
JOURNAL ENTRY: que sera, sera, motherfucker.
Despite this merry-go-round of men, Miguel, who was still in the Dominican Republic, always remained in the lead position.
One of the most popular recording artists around at this time was the sultry Phyllis Hyman. When I heard she was playing in Detroit, of course I had to go see her. Phyllis was a sexy, quiet Amazon who demanded your attention. You would bow down as soon as she hit the stage. Her stunning beauty, six-foot frame, and that big-ass hat she always wore made her an imposing and impressive live performer.