An intended weekend stay stretched into a month as relatives and childhood friends kept coming across the border to see me. I was having the time of my life with George and Lindi. Wally Serote gave me an invitation to deliver to pianist Abdullah Ibrahim for the cultural resistance festival. When I left Botswana, I promised to come back for the festival the following year. Back in Lesotho, Thembi Mtshali told me of how she would be stopping in Nigeria on her way back to New York, and I should join her because she was a big star there after having taken the country by storm when she toured with Ipi Tombi.
When we arrived in Lagos, the crowds went crazy over Thembi, screaming “Queen! Queen!” until we drove up to Bobby Benson’s hotel, where the place was surrounded by more frenzied fans. I hadn’t realized what a heavy impact Ipi Tombi had had on the audiences who got to see it all over the world. I never attended the show because all the solidarity groups such as the antiapartheid movement and the African National Congress had blacklisted it under the cultural boycott, which discouraged people from attending shows that came out of South Africa and patronizing artists who had performed in that country. In New York City there had been pickets outside the Broadway theater where it was showing, but every performance was sold out. My friend Rudy Lucas apologized to me: “Hughie, you know I love you, my brother, but I just had to go and feed my eyes on those South African thunder thighs, and I gotta say one thing for your country, boy. It is definitely the undisputed home of the big ass. Don’t get me wrong, though, I really loved the music and you know I support the cultural boycott with all my heart. However, I have to confess that I’ve been to see the show five times already.” Then he laughed like a little schoolboy who didn’t give a shit if he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Although the picketing forced Ipi Tombi to close down on Broadway, it played in Las Vegas for several years. Rudy wasn’t the only friend of mine who snuck in to see the show.
A couple of days later I took a plane to Liberia, hoping to see my daughter Pula, who was now three years old. The country had been through a bloody coup, in which Major Samuel K. Doe, who had been a presidential guard, took over as president after he and his comrade Kwingpah led a massacre of president Tolbert and most of his cabinet and friends, including acquaintances of mine. To a certain extent I was taking a chance by going to Liberia; the men now in power were not likely to be very civil to a friend of the old regime. Sister Gertie’s description of how Tolbert and his friends were mowed down after being marched down to the beach in Mamba Point, next to the city center, was bloodcurdling to say the least.
I found Pula playing alone near a rubbish dump across from where Tshidi was renting a flat. The little girl was beautiful, calm, and friendly. She clung to me like chewing gum to the sole of a shoe. Tshidi had completed her medical studies and was now working as a doctor at Monrovia’s John F. Kennedy Hospital, where she was making a very decent living. I regretted the way things had gone down between us, but Tshidi had changed her life for the better, and she still practices medicine in South Africa, where her talents as a doctor command great respect.
That weekend Pula, Philemon Hou, his wife, Georgia, and my nephew Mabusha, who was now fifteen and really tall, went to a picnic out on Zuma Beach. The seaside picnic spot was full of revelers who had forgotten about the recent coup and were barbecuing and dancing to the loud music of a local DJ. Pula and I swam in the lagoon with scores of other folks, and she wouldn’t let me out of her sight, clinging to me for dear life in the water.
After dinner at Philemon’s house, I went to Eddie Dunn’s nightclub, where I had spent many wonderful nights with friends who were now dead as a result of the coup. Many others had fled the country. Except for the midnight curfew, there was no real evidence of tension around the city, although soldiers were at many roadblocks, on patrol through the streets and at the bars all over Monrovia. Eddie told me not to worry about the curfew, and said that I was safe inside his establishment. Sitting next to me was a lieutenant who smiled at me and said, “Hughie, you don’t remember me, but you took a few girls away from me when I was a presidential guard, but those days are gone, bubba!” I froze, thinking the shit was about to hit the fan. “Anyway,” he continued, “you were always okay with us soldier boys, Masekela. You bought me beer many times, man, and were always friendly to a fellow. You even gave me twenty dollars whenever Speedy had you come over to the palace. I always carried your trumpet for you. You take your time, man, and when you’re good and ready, I will personally take you to the Ducor Hotel. Eddie, tell this man he’s in good hands with me.” I was so relieved that I didn’t even notice how much I was perspiring in spite of the serious air conditioning.
The next morning I wanted to revisit some of my favorite haunts and see if some of the old regulars were still around. I drove to El Meson, an old favorite bar where Nga, Bob Young, and I had shared many wonderful breakfasts together followed by our first double cognacs of the day with an ice-cold beer chaser. We used to love this spot, where we regularly conducted early-morning business meetings. Sitting in my customary corner in an old wicker lounge chair, I was on my third double cognac when the waiter brought my breakfast. As I dug into the food, the place went quiet. A uniformed group of generals walked in, and were escorted to the corner in the far end of the lounge. Shortly afterwards, my waiter came over to me and said, “General Kwingpah sent me to bring you to his table, sir.” I obediently abandoned my meal.
“Sit down, Hugh,” the soldier said without looking at me. “Welcome back home. It’s good to see you in Monrovia. I just want you to know that you were always okay with us, my man. I will tell President Doe I saw you. You must come to the palace and greet him. If you need anything, just give me a call. This boy here,” he said, pointing to the soldier sitting next to him, “will give you my telephone number. Again, welcome and enjoy your stay.” With that, he waved me away. I felt very uncomfortable.
I paid my food and drinks bill and went straight to the Pan Am ticket office to book a seat on that evening’s flight to New York. From there, I went to get an exit permit at the immigration offices, where the soldier in charge made me aware that things had changed in Liberia. “Hughie, I can’t give you an exit permit just like that. You got to give up something, my man.” I gave him a hundred-dollar bill, drove to the hotel, and started packing.
I spent the rest of the day at Sister Gertie’s house with Pula, Philly, Mabusha, and Georgia. That evening Philly drove me to the airport. I was relieved when the plane took off, even though I didn’t know what New York had in store for me. Through most of the flight, the innermost fear haunting me was what might happen to my little daughter and my nephew Mabusha. My life was in shambles; my career was in limbo. After being away from New York for three months, I didn’t have a band to speak of. I was actually returning to start again from scratch.
18
WHEN I GOT TO NEW YORK, Pat and Mike Mikell encouraged me to get a band together so I could come in and start playing their club again. René McLean had telephoned saxophonist Fred Foss to stand in for him. The rest of the band members from the Lesotho festival reunited with me, and we were soon back together at Mikell’s, with Hotep Galeta rejoining us on second keyboards. We got some bookings outside New York, and it wasn’t long before I was back on my feet again.
René married his lover Thandiwe in Lesotho, and they planned for her to move in with him in New York as soon as she could make arrangements. René returned to the States after a couple of months to prepare for his bride’s arrival, and rejoined our band. Quincy’s wife, Margaret, told me that Jabu was about to marry her old boyfriend Eugene. This news made me very unhappy. “Leave her alone, Hughie. You’re not going to make her life a nightmare again,” Margaret warned me, but I begged her for Jabu’s number, and right away we began seeing each other again. I did not even have the decency to call the woman I had been living with before I left for Africa. I had completely forgotten about Jackie Battle, and dropped her unceremoniously. Something was definitely
wrong with my head, and I didn’t know it.
Blinded by jealousy, I could not stand the thought of Jabu marrying anybody but me. I was certain that we were made for each other. I proposed marriage to Jabu, and she readily accepted. I was warmly welcomed into her family by her mother, Beatty, who literally adopted me as her own son. Mama Beatty made it a rule that every Friday evening we must come to her place at 5th Avenue and 107th Street for family dinner. I absolutely loved this experience, which previously I had only seen in the movies. The Friday evenings were special; I always made sure to bring beautiful flowers for my future mother-in-law. Barbara and I arranged for Mabusha to return from Liberia.
I moved out of my Riverdale apartment and in with Jabu at 400 Central Park West at 100th Street. Although unhappy to lose me as a tenant, Frank Karefa-Smart was very thrilled for me. Jabu and I got along extremely well, unlike before, when we used to have sudden arguments whose sources we could hardly retrace. We were madly in love, and I began to make a major change in my previously insane lifestyle. Every morning I would walk Jabu to the bus stop on the corner of 100th Street and wave good-bye to her as she went to her job downtown. Then I would run through Central Park for a full hour and do another hour of stretches and exercises before returning home to eat breakfast, practice the trumpet, and then go down to the 63rd Street YMCA for a swim, steam, and sauna, followed by an occasional massage. Jabu also put us on a serious diet, and after six weeks we looked like fashion models.
Following African custom, I asked my sister Barbara, my cousin Collins Ramusi, who was teaching in Chicago, my cousin Gaby Magomola, who was the “golden boy” at Citicorp, and my cousin the actor, playwright, and theater director Selaelo Maredi, to ask Jabu’s family for her hand in marriage.
That August we were married at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. We had an afternoon reception at the Village Gate, where my band played. Collins recited the Batlokwa praises of our clan. Jabu’s father, Mphiwa, reciprocated with some awesome Zulu praises. That evening we moved the wedding gala and get-down party to Mama Beatty’s apartment complex community hall, where a DJ played South African township dance hits. There was a wide variety of African home cooking and every kind of drink imaginable, including traditional sorghum beer. South African wedding songs were sung as we marched in rhythm around the block. People were hanging out their windows in the summer heat at a total loss as to what we were all about. Some of the more curious were screaming, “Hey, what’s going on down there?” We yelled back, “It’s a South African township wedding.”
“Right on,” someone shouted. “I love it! It’s fucking beautiful, man. I wanna get married like dat.”
We danced furiously back at the party, with everybody else trying to out-dance us. But Jabu is one of the meanest dancers ever to step onto the dance floor. Jabu and I left the revelers shortly after midnight and shared a taxi with Remi Kabaka, our band percussionist from Nigeria, who is very difficult to shut up. High out of our skulls from the all-day-and-night drinking, smoking, and snorting, Remi and I couldn’t stop running our mouths, and when we got to Remi’s house on the same street as ours, he invited us upstairs, where we thought we would just have one drink. However, Remi and I continued our yapping, snorting, drinking, and smoking. Jabu, who had taken only a couple of glasses of champagne and was nowhere near as whacked as we were, finally exploded. She had had enough. She stormed out of Remi’s apartment, slamming the door behind her. I ran after her, apologizing, but it was too late. I had ruined our wedding night and she was furious. At our flat, she quickly changed clothes and stormed out, slamming the door in my face. I stood there dumbfounded and speechless. Less than an hour later she returned. We made peace, but Jabu looked me straight in the eye and said in a sullen voice, “We are doomed.”
I replied, “Don’t say that.”
She repeated coldly, “We are doomed.”
When Barbara moved to Zambia to join Oliver Tambo’s ANC office staff in that country, it happened very suddenly and she asked for Mabusha to come and stay with us. Right away, Mabusha and Jabu did not get along, so I asked Jane and Mburumba Kerina to take him in, and he was extremely happy there with their children Kakuna, Kambandi, and Mandume, who were already quite grown up. Kakuna was now working at Essence magazine, Kambandi was an architect, and Mandume a doctor. I thought that this would be a major inspiration for Mabusha, and it was. He had really been through the mill. Born when Miriam and I lived in New Jersey, he’d spent his infancy on the Lower East Side with Barbara in her friend’s apartment. Barbara had taken him to Zambia, where she attended the university in Lusaka. Miriam had come and scooped him up when he was two years old, and taken him on the road all over Europe and America. I’d taken him from Miriam when he was three years old, and he’d gone to California with me, where he lived through my mad period with Chris Calloway and the great drug bust. He’d lived with Big Black’s family until he moved in with Jessie and me. He’d then gone to Athens, Ohio, with Barbara, then to New York, from where I’d taken him to Guinea and Liberia. He’d come back from Monrovia a few days before I married Jabu. He was now fifteen years old and had lived in more places than most nomadic adults do in a whole lifetime. Still, Mabusha passed his high school finals with flying colors. Don Will, Jabu’s brother-in-law, who was married to her sister Ntathu, arranged an interview for him at Pennsylvania’s Haverford College, where he was due to start in September of 1983.
A few times when the situation between Jabu and me got volatile, I would ask Mama Beatty to intercede, but the lull wouldn’t last for too long. By June of 1982, Jabu and I were hardly speaking. A few times I would go up to Stewart and Jolie’s upstate farm in Oliverea, or to my cousin Gaby Magomola and his wife Nana’s Roosevelt Island home on New York’s East River, just so the two of us could get a break from our madness. Finally, when the time came for me to go down to Botswana for the Cultural Resistance Festival, I left without saying good-bye to Jabu. I just packed my suitcases and took off while she was at work.
When I arrived in Gaborone, rehearsals for the festival were already on the wing. Many actors, writers, poets, activists, and musicians from South Africa and other parts of Africa had rolled into town for the workshops, seminars, readings, and performances. The great saxophonists King Force Silgee, Barney Rachabane, Duke Makasi, and Mike Makhalemele, the trumpeter Dennis Mpale, and the keyboard genius Tony Cedras were all in town. Along with Jonas Gwangwa, we began rehearsals. Dorothy Masuka prepared all of her wonderful compositions of the 1950s, which were the era’s mega-hits, with most of us accompanying her. The crowds went wild! Dorothy sang “Nontsokolo,” “Kutheni Zulu,” “Khawuleza,” “MaGumede,” “Imali Yani,” and “Khanyange.” It was a mbhaqanga feast. When we played Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Mannenberg,” everybody screamed with delight. People came from as far away as Holland, Germany, the United Kingdom, West Africa, Scandinavia, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China. They danced like it was the end of the world, many of them weeping with joy. It was an unforgettable week. We were sure that Abdullah would join us on the last night, but he requested that we all leave the stage. He then played an hour’s concert of solo piano. We were mesmerized by his genius performance, but surprised that he refused to play with us. The audience went crazy over him.
The band Mother had recently added John Selolwane, an outstanding guitarist and vocalist who drove the crowds wild with his solo work. The band served as the main rhythm section for the entire festival, and afterwards I went on to play with Mother all around Gaborone and Botswana’s eastern towns and villages. We renamed our band Kalahari, after the famous Botswana desert. We quickly became one of the hottest bands in southern Africa. We toured and played six-hour shows. The Botswana people simply love to dance, and at the end of the night, usually just before four, they would complain that it was still too early to go home.
During all this time, I was living with George and Lindi in their four-room Broadhurst home. Housing was an extremely scarce commodity in Gaborone. However, at
the beginning of 1983, George helped me find an affordable four-room house in Gaborone’s Section 12, about a mile and a half from his place and a fifteen-minute walk to the city’s business district. With the help of Seemisho Motuba, our band manager and driver, and a neighbor, Tsepo Koka, we painted and fixed the disheveled dwelling over a two-week period. Our childhood friend Julius Mdluli, who visited us regularly from Johannesburg and had helped to set George up in his transportation business, brought me a used stereo set, a fridge, and some old cooking utensils. I furnished the house sparsely with the bare essentials, like beds made by a carpenter friend, a kitchen table and chairs, cutlery and crockery, and curtains that Violet, Jonas’s wife, sewed for me. In my heart and mind, I was through with Jabu and preparing for divorce proceedings, but many people, including George and Lindi, my father, Violet, Jonas, and Jabu’s South African cousins, were pressuring me to make up with her. I finally gave in and invited Jabu to come back. She made a major sacrifice by resigning from her highly lucrative job at the New York Times to come and live with me when I was basically quite poor and in the process of building a new life in a place that was foreign to me. In the beginning it was very difficult. Not owning a car, we had to walk to the city center when taxis were unavailable from the main road at the end of our street, then hire one when we returned from shopping. We had to take taxis if we wished to visit anywhere else. As the weeks went by and I played more shows with Kalahari, we were able to properly furnish the house and buy a small Datsun 1400 pickup. Soon we had living room and guest room furniture, a stereo, television, new kitchen fittings, and a garden that was producing beautiful flowers.
Still Grazing Page 44
