I ran into my old friend Curtis yesterday, way uptown — the edges of Harlem. We’d been in a drug detox program together many years ago, long before they became fashionable and assumed the look of Ivy League campuses. We got fairly tight then . . . everyone did in those bleak surroundings.
Curtis had the same look as back then: long, straggly goatee like some Chinese astrologer, a shaved head, giving him a remarkable resemblance to the boxer Marvin Hagler (though only about half his size).
I saw Curtis coming from a block away, heading downtown I on Fifth with the cranked, purposeful walk of a purposeless 1 man. He was cutting through the humidity with rocking elii bows, auto-cruising on major fear and bad crack. Dangerously bad crack, speed-laced, dearly in want of sedative grace.
He was wearing the same hat he had on at our last chance meeting six years ago —a short-billed black beanie, leather. He told me that the blue zippered jacket and dark blue baggy trousers I was wearing made me look like I was on a work detail from Riker’s Island. After asking about mutual colleagues from the old days and other musings, Curtis came up square on me with his eyes. Serious contact. Urgent. The whites of those eyes were yellow as an old sheep’s. I envied the man’s teeth, however. He asked me if I was in any rush; said that he was involved in a situation that I might be able to help with.
“You be just who I need talking to right now.” He spoke just above a whisper.
We crossed Fifth Avenue, walked down the stairs leading into one of the secret jewels of Central Park, the Conservatory Gardens. All the flowers were blooming full, all the benches were empty. Except for a suspicious park worker grooming the curve of a hedge with huge, brutal shears, it seemed we two were alone. We took a bench near the back gate, surrounded by high rows of pink mums and surveyed the hordes of flora. I mentioned that these gardens were the place where Sam Cooke came to get into the lyrics of “Rose of Spanish Harlem” the morning before recording it.
We crossed Fifth Avenue, walked down the stairs leading into one of the secret jewels of Central Park, the Conservatory Gardens. All the flowers were blooming full, all the benches were empty. Except for a suspicious park worker grooming the curve of a hedge with huge, brutal shears, it seemed we two were alone. We took a bench near the back gate, surrounded by high rows of pink mums and surveyed the hordes of flora. I mentioned that these gardens were the place where Sam Cooke came to get into the lyrics of “Rose of Spanish Harlem” the morning before recording it.
“What ever happened to Joe Tex?” Curtis asked, by way of a non sequitur reply.
“No idea,” I answered.
“See if you can find out,” he said, almost as a command.
“You know,” he went on, “I heard that James Brown once offered to pay for one of those sex change operations for Joe Tex, so that he could marry him as a bitch. He said he loved Joe’s voice so damn much that he wanted to get down with him but not like a faggot, dig? He wanted to marry him so as all be right in God’s eyes and shit. You ever hear that?”
I hadn’t, but I said that I had.