by Sam Harris
The plane.
It was the first time either of us had flown since the tragedy only days ago, and though we didn’t discuss it, we were both afraid. I’d narrowly escaped flying on September 11 itself and who knew if this was over? When I saw the turban of the taxi driver my fear was exacerbated. For the first time in my life I understood true bigotry and a hate born of fear.
Get in the car, I told myself. You are not one of those people.
As we pulled away, the driver offered Todd and me a stick of gum. Against everything I knew to be right and good, I couldn’t help but worry that it was poisoned with anthrax. I accepted the gesture of goodwill and forced myself to chew it. I caught him watching me in the rearview mirror. I told myself that if I was scared, just imagine: this Muslim driver was probably even more afraid than I was. He could be the target of nationalistic violence, and yet he bravely still wore a traditional turban and beard, and a laminated prayer card hung from his rearview mirror. He must have told himself You are not one of those people as well.
After initial pleasantries, our ride was silent for most of the way. Then our driver spoke in his thick Middle Eastern accent: “What do you think they should build in the place of the towers?”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. A memorial? A park like in Oklahoma City.”
“Do you know what I think?” he continued. “I think they should build two more towers . . . each of them one story higher!”
• • •
Airport security was heavy and methodical and we were grateful. The flight was quiet. Passengers were more compatible, less rushed. Anytime anyone rose to go to the lavatory, all eyes darted in their direction. Flight attendants were elevated from waitstaff to trusted heroes. Our first-class breakfast was served with plastic utensils for security purposes. We landed in Chicago without incident and it felt good to be somewhere else.
Todd and I were rushed to the studio for rehearsal. When I’d done Oprah’s show before, the machine of her production company, Harpo, had been a sight to behold. It was a self-contained city that resembled the strange combination of a five-star resort and a municipality. Her Majesty had been nowhere to be seen and I met her only seconds before the floor manager counted us down to airtime.
This time was different. While the same machine was in full play, it more resembled Oz, with Buzz buzz here, buzz buzz there, and a couple of tra-la-las nearly audible. In the midst of the tragedy there was a joyous, dogged purpose in what Oprah herself had proclaimed was necessary for the healing of the country. A grand piano was rolled into a studio hallway and we were asked to explore songs. Oprah appeared in a gray sweat suit without a stitch of makeup, her hair stuffed under a baseball cap, and she hugged me and thanked me for coming. I introduced her to Todd and she told us she had an idea.
“Do you know ‘Precious Lord’?” she asked.
“Kinda sorta not completely,” I admitted.
“It’s my favorite hymn and it was Martin Luther King’s favorite hymn and I think you would really sing it beautifully.”
“Okay, perfect, we’ll try it. I had another idea on the plane and maybe we can combine the two songs,” I told her.
Within ten minutes, five different CDs of artists singing “Precious Lord” were delivered to my hands along with lyric sheets, a CD player, and headphones. I suspected Oprah’s kingdom must have a record shop, somewhere between the gym and the post office. Todd and I learned the song within a few minutes and set a key, then combined it with the idea I had on the plane.
Half an hour later, Oprah returned and said, “Whatcha got?”
She gathered several production assistants around the piano and asked for quiet. “Sam Harris is going to sing!” Todd and I tried out the new arrangement and when we finished, Oprah sensed my volatile state, held me by the shoulders, and zeroed in, saying, “You can do this.”
It was all surreal—all of us trying to find a scrap of faith in the rubble.
“Will you come to my place for dinner tonight?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. I knew that Oprah didn’t typically fraternize with the guests, but this was a different situation and rules were being bent and broken every which way.
An assistant placed a proper calligraphied invitation in my hand with Oprah’s home address and the time notated.
I guessed they knew I would accept.
Todd and I were the first guests to arrive at the high-rise on Lake Shore Drive and were greeted by a houseman. The vast apartment was all very French. Brocade and tassels were everywhere. It reflected a gracious and refined taste that had been learned and earned since Oprah’s meager beginnings. Like everything else she did, it was the best of the best.
Oprah entered the living room, followed by her two cocker spaniels and her right-hand person, Lisa Halliday, whom I took to immediately. Oprah said that music had always been the conduit for healing for her and it was the tool we needed to start mending. I sat on the floor with the dogs and found myself singing a song that I loved and had recorded: “The Rescue.”
Oh come, you’ve been down so long
The current pulls so strong, this life that you’ve been leading
Oh please take this love from me
It’s stronger than the sea, this love that you’ve been needing.
Have I reached your heart in time to stop the bleeding?
Oprah wiped away a tear and rose, as if shaking off the despair, and called to her chef to ask how dinner was coming. She seemed to be, at once, completely emotionally available and equally skilled at moving on.
The other guests who were to perform on the show arrived: gospel icons, BeBe and CeCe Winans, Donnie McClurkin, and the opera diva Denyce Graves. It struck me that I was the only Caucasian in this group of gospel and opera royalty who had been asked to “heal our hearts.” I was honored and intimidated, and Todd and I shared many a “can-you-believe-we-were-invited-to-this-party?” glance throughout the evening.
I kept waiting for someone to tell me that I was just there to sing backup.
Oprah sat at the head of the dining table and a place card designated my spot immediately to her right. Dinner was comfort food: pork chops and collard greens and fried green tomatoes. I realized it was the first real meal I’d had since the day and it reminded me of my Memo.
We were a fellowship of artists, bound in search of respite. Everyone shared their most personal stories and their attempts to pull themselves from the black hole of helplessness. Donnie had been on the 9:00 a.m. flight from JFK that I had canceled, and he had witnessed the second plane crash into the tower from the air. His plane was diverted to St. Louis for several days.
Oprah engaged with fierce investment and I realized that what made her so singular was her authentic, intense curiosity. Though she is regaled as a woman of great wisdom, it is her vigorous need to know, to learn, to explore and examine that keeps her going. I felt that if she ever actually found the answers to her quest, she would deflate and become purposeless. It is her aggressive search for her own healing that keeps her in service to others. Her integrity was astonishing.
Wine was poured freely, and between my emotional exhaustion from the past week, moving, fear of flying, and nervousness about my upcoming performance, I chugged even more than my regular two-bottles-a-night custom. The evening ended much later than it should have for a group of people who had an uncivilized 6:00 a.m. call for a live national television show. But we had prepared in a less disciplined but more important way.
By the time I got back to my hotel and in bed I was afraid my vocal cords would atrophy if I slept, so I lay in the dark and tried to meditate.
A few hours later we were driven to the studio. Makeup, sound check, lighting, bagels. We’d each been given private dressing rooms but we all chose to cram into the greenroom, nervously trilling and humming and pacing—together.
We were asked to say something before we sang and I was terrified that I might not be able to keep it together. I was on th
e emotional brink, sleepless and slightly hungover. At the commercial break before my performance, the producer, Kandi Amelon, took me by the hand and led me to my mark on the set. Somber blue light bathed the stage like a mist and an American flag waved on a screen to my left. Oprah introduced me from her seat in the studio audience. She was there to be healed too. She spoke in a matter-of-fact, time-to-deal-with-it manner, but when she threw her first question to me, I was momentarily breathless, as if a heavy hand was pressing against my chest. Then I spoke, slightly trembling, about everyone feeling helpless, not knowing what to do, but that all of us had different gifts we could contribute. Mine was music.
Todd gave me a single note and I began, slowly, a cappella.
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, help me stand.
I choked up and, for a brief moment, doubted if I would get another note out.
I’m so tired—
Todd’s hands answered my prayer with a gospel phrase.
I’m so weak, I’m so worn.
Todd began to play with strength and I took it from him.
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to your light.
Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me . . . lead me home.
Then tempo commenced, a new key emerged like a ray of light, and I sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I summoned all of the hope and trust that I had been seeking. I demanded that we would survive. I demanded that we would unite. I demanded that we would triumph. Near the end, I repeated the line “ You’ll never walk . . . you’ll never walk” and led a bolt-from-the-blue key change that promised a tenacious, you-won’t-tear-me-down conviction that I knew I needed to feel and hear and believe was possible.
When I released the last note, Oprah joined the audience in jumping to their feet and she ran to me, yelling, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Hit that note at nine in the morning!” She embraced me hard and sure. This was not a funeral—it was a declaration.
BeBe and CeCe dueted on “Bridge over Troubled Water,” Denyce performed “American Anthem,” and Donnie McClurkin blew the roof off the studio with “Stand.” At the end of the show, we all gathered to sing “God Bless America.” Oprah and I clung to each other throughout the anthem and she sang in a proud, lusty voice with the same fervor as her soulful guests.
When the show came down, I went to Oprah to thank her and say good-bye. She said, “I’m flying to the West Coast. Do you want to come with me?”
“I already have my flight,” I responded. “Your staff took care of everything.”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. I was.
“I mean on my plane,” she clarified. “Do you want to fly with me on my plane? I can drop you off in Los Angeles before I go up to Santa Barbara.”
“Oh! Yes. Of course I do. Sorry.”
She was going to “drop us off” in Los Angeles. I’d never heard that phrase used when a plane was involved.
I wondered if I would be parachuted directly to my house.
Todd and I boarded the private jet with Oprah, her longtime partner, Stedman, her friend and hairdresser, Andre Walker, and BeBe. We didn’t have to show IDs or remove our belts.
After takeoff, we alternated between conversation and contemplation. The sum of the past days fell upon me and the soft rumble of the engine invited sleep, but I willed myself to stay awake. It wasn’t every day I was on Oprah’s private jet. I thought about the circumstances that got me here: Liza’s call the morning after I left the only city I’d ever felt was home. The endless footage of the buildings falling. My endless search for a sense of community. I gazed out the window and thought about all the cities I’d played and all the people I’d played to and all their disparate races and religions and economics and how this tragedy had united us all.
I wondered how long it would last.
Oprah had brought Tupperware containers of leftovers from the previous night’s dinner party, and as we filled our plates, she pulled out a tape of the show we’d performed live only a few hours before and put it on.
“She never does this,” whispered Andre. “When the show is done, the show is done.”
Today was different.
We gathered, unbuckled, clustered on chairs and draped across sofas and sprawled on the floor like a family in their den on movie night, and watched each performance, cheering, like thankful air gushing from our lungs. We used real silverware to stuff our bellies and I dug into the reliable comfort of fried green tomatoes.
They were a little soggy, like us. But they held up just fine. Like us.
When the show was over, Oprah said, quietly, “Let’s watch it again.”
And we did.
12. Crossing the Line
In the last, scattershot days of summer before the mythical world of high school was about to begin, Curtis Davis hosted a backyard party.
It was a rite of passage of sorts, celebrating an impetuous silly freedom that we presumed we must shed with the expectations of maturity. Everyone was frolicking about, tossing balls and Frisbees and bouncing on the trampoline. I was always uncomfortable in these situations and somehow managed to bow out or have an excuse or be engrossed in something else when sporty activities began.
It was baffling to me how I could be so coordinated when it came to choreography but a complete klutz when it came to anything remotely athletic. I could run, sure, but only when being chased or sidestepping a battery of dodge balls in PE class.
I’d found an exercise-free corner of the yard and had immersed myself in conversation with Devena Stevenson when a Frisbee landed at my feet.
I was paralyzed with fear. I was also paralyzed by my shoes. My Thom McAn Earth Shoes. I loved them. They were the biggest thing to hit the footwear industry since mankind evolved from woven grass tied to wood. I had owned a half dozen pairs in succession since the previous year in eighth grade, simply replacing them with a new, identical pair when the negative heel got too negative and I began to fall backward while walking forward. They added an extra two inches to my compact five-foot-seven frame and gave me an air of buoyant confidence . . . as long as I was indoors or standing still.
I stared at the Frisbee lying mere inches from the tawny duckbill toe peeking from under my faded denim bell-bottoms. Between my unsteady footwear and unstable agility, I was terrified. I knew it was simple. All I had to do was pick up the Frisbee and fling it back to the thrower. I glanced at the faces of expectant players and the pressure was on. I had no choice. I listed forward on my waffled sole and grabbed it. So far so good. I aimed as carefully as I could—and threw.
It spun through the air in slow motion and I breathed a sigh of relief that I was actually able to achieve liftoff rather than some lame, haphazard roll into a nearby hydrangea. But it wasn’t over. Suddenly the Frisbee soared off its intended course, and just as Mark Pogue sprang high into the air from the trampoline, it met with his face at the exact wrong moment and smacked him straight in the mouth, busting his lip. He yelled out and came down with a painful boing.
His teeth glistened with blood.
I had crossed the line, entered No-Sam-Land, and hurt someone—with a Frisbee—the single most innocuous form of sports equipment known to man. Mark’s lip was swollen and purple as a ripe plum, and though he didn’t blame me, I knew I could never again attempt anything remotely jocklike in the future. If this was the result of a simple Frisbee toss, a game of Ping-Pong might result in quadriplegia and anything with a ball or a bat would undoubtedly mean certain death. I swore in my heart that I would stick to things at which I was completely proficient, natural, superior, the best. Which was a bit limiting, since it meant not trying anything new, ever, when the world was full of literal and figurative Frisbees landing at feet left and right.
I justified my oath in knowing I was an artist, and persons as unique as myself didn’t have time for kids’ games. As my “uniqueness” grew more evident, I decided to take the bull by the horns—and decorate them! I began wearing 195
0s pleated and cuffed gabardine pants and knit pullover sweater vests, tweed-twilled two-button suits, wing-tip shoes, and skinny belts and ties, all of which I’d found stuffed in mildewy barrels at my Memo’s storage garage. They’d all belonged to my uncle Darrell, who died before I was born but left a treasure trove of fashion.
Still, something was missing.
What could be better than Sun-In, a spray-on hair lightening product that could give me a natural, summer-streaked appearance, and at under three dollars?! I couldn’t resist. I bought a bottle and read the directions carefully: Apply sparingly and test on a strand of hair before using.
Kind of like testing a carpet before applying cleaning fluid. It went on: Highlights are permanent.
Well, why shouldn’t they be?
Subscribing to my typical now-quicker-more philosophy, I saturated my hair with the stuff and used a blow-dryer to hasten the process. Within minutes I had a new look. And that look was bright orange-blond hair.
Highlights are permanent . . .
There were no highlights . . . just a head of orange-blond hair.
I hoped that my locks would grow out before my new life in high school, which was only a few weeks away, but that seemed unlikely unless I shaved my head and started from scratch.
On the first day of high school, I entered the double glass doors in a stylish fedora but was told to remove it immediately, as no hats were allowed in the building—even a fashionable chapeau that matched my retro outfit. No one commented on my clothes. Everyone commented on my hair. Actually, they asked what had happened to me. I told them, matter-of-factly, that I’d “spent a lot of time at the public pool and it was totally natural.” Forget that the natural color of my hair could not be found anywhere in nature, except perhaps in those creepy bioluminescent jellyfish skulking miles beneath the sea. And never mind that I sported the same pallid, sunless skin. And that everyone knew I couldn’t swim.
But bigger things were at hand. Prior to high school, there had only been Christmas shows and band or choir recitals, but no real musicals or plays. At lunchtime, a sign-up sheet for tryouts was posted for the fall musical: The Music Man. I hoped the starring role of Harold Hill could be seen as an apricot blond.
