The church I grew up in had let me down, as it failed to be the safe and loving place it was meant to be when Pastor Heard molested me. I sought God and thought Unity might hold some answers.
The services were held at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center on Sunday mornings, led by Reverend Olga Butterworth and her husband, Reverend Eric Butterworth. I felt like I was going to church. I don’t know that I fully understood what Unity was talking about, but I was captivated by the idea that the “answers” I desired about my purpose might, in fact, be inside me. I had not quite abandoned Jesus. I still hoped He would appear and let me know what the fuck I was supposed to do with this gift God had given me. But Unity fed me what I needed at the time. One Unity phrase that stayed with me for many years was “say yes.” The concept jumped off the page and into my soul—to be all right with being all right. It comforted me. It meant to breathe. It meant be kind and forgiving. Pay attention to the world around you. It meant everything I wanted for my spirit.
Although many friends attended Unity, we did not discuss what we were learning. We had been raised Christian, but our religion was Theater. We read the Daily Word, but really our bibles were Variety and Backstage.
Jesus wasn’t the only one I was waiting for. I expected to be rescued by my career savior—the person who would “discover” me. The one who would recognize my superior talents and take me to unseen heights of stardom. You know, like in the movies and all the books I’d read. Like Lana Turner at the counter in Schwab’s pharmacy. I imagined that I would be having drinks at the Russian Tea Room or doing high kicks in some nightclub and my Aaron Russo or Mike Nichols would show up. Russo was the manager credited with boosting Bette Midler from performing in gay bathhouses to superstar status. Mike Nichols, the brilliant producer, director, and writer, took Whoopi Goldberg from street-corner artist to a one-woman Broadway show. Incidentally, I first met my dear friend Whoopi when she was doing stand-up in a tiny off-off Broadway theater. Like my gypsy friends and I repeatedly said to one another, I was just “waiting to be discovered.” Waiting for that one big break.
During these days of the early ’80s, I had no career guidance. No strategy. In fact, my whole life was all over the place. I couldn’t sit still. I moved fast and talked fast, acting on every impulse. My thoughts raced from one thing to the next. I knew that my high energy helped me get a lot of stuff done, but the energy often came hand in hand with high anxiety. So, even as I rushed here and there, it always felt incomplete, hollow, like it was not enough.
SIX
“MA’AM, ARE YOU A DELEGATE?”
In early January 1981, the Eubie! tour went to Washington, DC. It was the week of the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Even though I was not a fan of the new president, I appreciated the city’s celebratory atmosphere. I visited the Rayburn Building, where members of Congress have their offices. I was excited to meet Bill Clay, a black congressman from St. Louis; Charles Rangel, who represented districts in New York; and Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, in 1968. Chisholm became a huge role model for me when I was in high school and she later became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. The title of her memoir says it all: Unbought and Unbossed.
African American political “firsts” mean a lot to me. It’s no surprise, then, that years later, I used every trick up my sleeve to be front and center at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, to see my baby (yes Lord!) Barack Hussein Obama become the Democratic Party’s first black nominee for President of the United States.
It was a last-minute decision, and every hotel was booked, of course. I stayed with my dear friend Brian Norber, whom I had performed with at Six Flags over Mid-America when we were both seventeen years old. He even did my hair for this historic event—teased it up as only a gay boy in show business could. There was a bus for celebrities, but it was leaving for the Pepsi Center far too late for my taste.
See, ladies and gentlemen, having been in the theater for a hundred years, I knew that when an event is this big, get your ass there early! I got on a bus with forty celebratory civilians. It was six hours before Barack Obama would accept the Democratic nomination. Everyone on the short bus ride was laughing and carrying on, spouting our hopes and wishes for a new era.
As the bus neared the stadium, I saw that CNN had been right when they predicted forty thousand people would attend, because I swear to you, all forty thousand were standing in a line, in the sun—and in my way. Yours truly would not be number 40,001. Yes, I admit I have entitlement issues, so don’t even go there. We got off the bus. It was hotter than a whore from hell that day. The sun was blazing and Brian had teased my hair so high, I was unable to wear one of my famous large straw hats to keep the sun off my (yes Lord!) pretty skin. I heard a high-pitched voice to my left. “Lana Hawkins?” That was my character on Strong Medicine.
In all of that heat, I had one thought: A fan! Merry Christmas, bitches.
I rolled up on the woman who I’m sure had attended every Democratic National Convention since Franklin Delano Roosevelt won. She had ten thousand buttons on her orange security vest and a hat sporting ten thousand more. She was classic. She was sweet . . . and she was my ticket to get to the front of the line.
I said, “Hey girl, yeah it’s me, Lana. Ooh, girl, ooh, girl, ooh, girl . . . ooh . . .” I whispered, “I can’t stand in this line. I got plantar fasciitis—”
Her Southern drawl was real: “Plantar what now, baby?”
“Plantar fasciitis, and I’m allergic to the sun. Help me, girl. Help me, girl. Ooh.”
She twanged, “Well, honey, the only way I can get you through this mess is to roll you across the parking lot in a wheelchair.”
Other people were looking on at this scene, so when the wheelchair came, I knew I had to at least limp. In my own desperation, I proceeded to drag my right leg behind me like Dracula’s servant, Igor. I’m sure it was the worst performance of my life. But fuck y’all, like I said, I wasn’t standing in that goddamn line. My therapist Rachel herself would have killed me had she witnessed this great lie and manipulation.
When I rolled up to the checkpoint, a sizable woman security guard spotted me and said, “Hey Tina Turner’s mama! Get over here and come through my line.” She swiped that security wand one second across my body and said, “Go-on in, baby. Go-on in there.”
I cautiously walked through, thinking that at any moment I would be shot in both knees and taken out for my subterfuge. But no. In fact, a young African American girl spotted me all by my lonesome and said, “Miss Lewis, may I help you?”
Again, merry fucking Christmas in these streets.