ARCHIVE: 'Michael Joe' was a thriller back in Gary
Aug 24, 1996
His name was Michael Joe.
But they called him Lil' Mike.
He had smooth mocha-colored skin, a broad, handsome nose, the perfect halo-shaped Afro - and a personality that could light up a concert hall.
The first time I laid eyes on him, it was love.
I couldn't eat. Couldn't think. For days. It was Mike, Mike, Mike. Isn't he a charmer! Isn't he a looker! Isn't he just the most talented guy in the whole wide world!
My super-strict parents wouldn't even let me talk to boys on the phone, let alone date. But they figured this guy Mike was safe. And anyway, they knew my crush would pass.
I'd retreat to my room, the Shrine to Michael. Michael in his red corduroy jumpsuit with the Big Apple hat. Michael with his family. Michael blowing a kiss into the camera lens. Life-size pictures. Pictures everywhere.
I'd gaze at the kiss-blowing one and imagine the smooch headed straight at me, put on an album, and cry. I'd wake and the stereo would be off: my parents. They must have prayed for the grip of irrational, idol-love to let loose of me.
But, in my mind, Mike and I were destined. We were born in the same hospital in the same Midwestern steel town. Our fathers worked in the same mill and they made the same Friday after work watering stop. It was there that I first saw Mike - in the parking lot of Mr. Lucky's Lounge.
I was sitting in the front seat of my Dad's red Chevy Impala. He was standing by a yellow van.
Was he looking past me? Or staring directly into my soul? Oh God! I thought I saw him wink! My brother brought me back from the trance. "Wait 'til I tell Daddy that you've got a boyfriend."
The next time I saw him, he had become Michael Jackson, certified phenomenon. He was on stage at Gary's West Side High School auditorium, croonin' like Jackie Wilson, doing splits and spins like James. I screamed 'til I was hoarse.
For months after, I thought about that Jackson 5 show. Spent my allowance on Right On! magazines. Talked about Michael like we were intimate friends. Fantasized about how our five children would look.
When the fan clubs formed, I sent money. And I usually managed to get a Jackson scoop into the school paper. While I struggled with algebra, he and his brothers were a short ride and a whole world away, hanging out with Diana Ross and Berry Gordy in Motown.
Eventually my crush faded, though I left most of those posters up in my room until I had graduated from high school. After all, the Jacksons were Gary's favorite sons and their clan was, for many years, the undisputed Royal Family of American pop culture.
It was about the time that Michael's hair caught fire during the filming of that Pepsi commercial that I came to grips with reality: Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was not the kid I fell for in that parking lot.
It wasn't just that his skin had been lightened, first to the color of a paper bag and then to the color of Jamaican sand. Or that his Nubian nose had turned to a pinch. Or that his natural had become a chemical nightmare. It was that I could tell he wasn't comfortable with the man in the mirror. And I wasn't comfortable with that.
And there was something else.
Throughout the good years, through the television specials and the Grammy awards and the zillion records sold, Gary's favorite sons had never bothered to reconnect with their home when Gary, its steel industry fading and white businessmen fleeing, needed the Jacksons most. They didn't bother even when thousands of Gary schoolchildren sent letters asking Michael to stop in Northwest Indiana on a big concert tour. He never responded.
Tito, Jackie and Marion did come back to Gary to promote the "2300 Jackson Street" release. It was a quick trip to a shopping center and a whirl by their old westside home. The house was to be turned into a Jackson museum/community center, they announced. It never happened.
Folks in Gary, though, don't hold a grudge. The Jacksons were, after all, the Royal Family and like the Kennedys or the Brit aristocrats, we expect a kind of royal dysfunction from them.
When I think about Michael now, like I did when I watched that mini-series a week or so ago, I get nostalgic - and a little sad.
I prefer to remember him as the sweet kid who - I swear - winked at me that day.
The little charmer who stole my pre-teen heart.
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Rosemary Harris is a writer for the Gazette Telegraph. Her column appears Saturday. You may write to her at P.O. Box 1779, Colorado Springs 80901, e-mail at harrisusa.net or call her at 636-0195.
