Time Is Tight

by Booker T. Jones

  When I looked into her eyes, I felt I’d known her from a long time ago. She smiled. Our eyes riveted together in a magnetic field. She stood still, hands clasped in front of her, and sucked in her breath. I braced and held her hand a little too long. Her smiling face gave instant approval of both me and the outfit. She was beautiful. For a moment, we were the only people in the room. I felt I had found a lost piece of myself. No one can be ready for a moment like this. It’s when there is no past or future and all time is contained within the present. Nan has bedroom eyes. The first time she looked at me, I wanted to sleep with her that night. Maybe she could have my child.

  We broke our gaze, and Nan Warhurst, the mystery girl, went off into the kitchen with my manager’s wife. He sat me down in the living room and looked up at me as though to say, “You OK? You sure?”

  Nan ran track in high school and ended up with three master’s degrees with honors from Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Nan’s family was football and sports oriented. Her father was a celebrated coach, while her mother was an accomplished artist.

  The sky was clear blue, a warm, Southern California day. Nan and I both repeatedly botched the score, missed easy balls, and came to the net with annoying frequency. The entire match gave way to our constant flirting with each other to the point that Bill and Carla got tired of trying to push the game forward. Our hosts must have wondered what they had done; their gambit was on course to pay off, like it or not. Nan and I were hopelessly attracted to one another.

  At dinner, after the doubles, she turned to me. “You have the same name as one of my favorite musicians!” What could I do? I followed her wherever she went. I waited a long time for a woman like her, having had my share of missteps before we met.

  On the sidewalk, at our cars, Nan said, kiddingly, that she had some etchings at her house she’d like me to see.

  So I went to her place, which was neat and clean. I felt comfortable there. And the “etchings” were photos of her seven-, five-, and three-year-old sons—Matthew, Brian, and Michael. Those “etchings” turned out to be some of my favorite works of art.

  Three weeks after I met Nan, I went back down to Spicewood, Texas, to work with Willie Nelson. I still wasn’t into golf, which was a shame since Willie had maintained his beautiful course. His greens were some of the smoothest and fastest I’d ever seen. We were working on Without a Song, the follow-up to his Stardust LP.

  When I was in Texas, Nan and I regularly talked on the phone during the week.

  With weekends free, I asked her to meet me in San Francisco one weekend. I was sure the population in Pedernales would be ready to hang me from the nearest tree if she showed up on my porch the next morning. I felt Texas in the early eighties was no place to flaunt an interracial relationship. They might tolerate a black man working for a powerful white like Willie, but an open display of affection might trigger a problematic situation.

  I picked San Francisco’s most romantic destination, the Miyako Hotel in Japantown, and reserved a suite with an ocean view. I arranged for my flight to get in before hers and picked up a new summer outfit. The weather was San Francisco’s best—slightly cool mornings breaking into warm, sunny afternoons. When she came out of the Jetway, she looked perfect, as I knew she would, and we hopped into a rental car for the most marvelous weekend. We ate, we slept in late, we had dinner, and we went to movies.

  This was the weekend that sealed our fate. I was so comfortable with Nan, and she with me. She even said, “We’re complementary, and we dig each other.”

  AUSTIN, TX—1983—10

  I made a brief appearance in Willie Nelson’s film Songwriter. Only every time director Alan Rudolph said, “Action!” I got distracted and forgot my lines because I kept taking too many drags on the joints being passed around. That was why my appearance was brief. They never got a piece of film with me saying anything coherent.

  “You can’t say you wrote a song you didn’t write unless you really wrote it.”

  When I heard that line, I knew writer Bud Shrake really understood the music business. Willie loved it so much that he said it over and over, and it became a running joke on the set because it rang so true. There was a lot of laughter on the film’s set. Nobody could even look at Rip Torn without breaking out laughing. It’s a mystery how Sydney Pollack remained a taskmaster and got the film done with this bunch.

  The picture is pretty funny, even though I’m not sure the funniest parts ever got on film. I kept it together enough to play in the band and give composer Larry Cansler a little help with the score.

  LOS ANGELES—1983—1

  Meanwhile, my relationship with Nan changed the tide of my life. We began to date, and as I got to know her, I became increasingly drawn to her natural empathy for humanity. She truly cared about people.

  One of Nan’s greatest passions in life was reading. She read incessantly to herself and to others. Her home was filled with books. She read to her children and to the people she loved. Nan was juggling the care of her three children plus going to graduate school—a schedule that would intimidate most people, but she thrived even under these conditions.

  Nan sat across from me at my old redwood table in my kitchen, grasping a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

  Nan read these words to me: “My mama dead. She die screaming and cussing. She scream at me. She cuss at me. I’m big. I can’t move fast enough. By time I git back from the well, the water be warm.”

  By the time she finished, I was hooked. I recognized the vernacular of my people. A language I listened to as a boy on the porches of my father’s cousins down in the farm country of Mississippi. Nan was reading to me from The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. My previous favorite novels were Old Yeller, when I was a boy, and John Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage when I was in high school. Now, by reading to me on a daily basis, Nan was exposing me to literature, and I was getting enthusiastic about it. She loved to read to me, and I loved having her read to me.

  The next book she gave me was Chaim Potok’s The Book of Lights. This was not simple, happy, easy reading. A strenuous book, the subject matter ultimately caused me to ask difficult questions, without which I would not be the person I am today.

  When she wasn’t introducing me to new worlds through literature, she and I would sit at my redwood kitchen table and talk late into the night, engaging in profound conversations about life and its meaning. As time went on, our relationship became more natural and acquired more character and depth. And she was cute too!

  Even in 1983, an interracial relationship made people look twice.

  Nan’s three sons were young and, rightfully so, were somewhat apprehensive. I came from a family of huggers, and Brian shirked my nighttime beddy-bye hugs. Matthew, the oldest, was the wariest. He wasn’t having any part of that touchy stuff. However, Michael, the youngest, jumped onto my lap anytime we were close. One day, in Matthew’s room, I got down on my knees while he was playing with his rock collection and just hung out there, not saying anything. Finally, he shoved one of the rocks in my direction. I scuttled after it. After all, I had been a little boy once myself playing with my toys on the floor. He looked up at me and smiled. We started talking about different kinds of rocks. The ice was broken from then on.

  To some, three stepchildren might have been too much, but I saw them as a bonus in Nan’s overall package. Living in a predominantly white community, the boys would need some time to feel comfortable with my brown skin, and Nan explained to them how my skin color was simply just one way I was different. She put the boys at ease by portraying me as a loving person.

  I dated Nan for nearly two years when an issue finally needed to be addressed. I was reticent and guarded. With two unsuccessful marriages under my belt, I was unsure of my ability to make a go of it.

  I was afraid of getting in deep. I was afraid of getting hurt again. I was afraid of failing and having to get divorced again. To me, there were few things in life worse than divorce, and if
relationships became healthy and grew, they led to marriage—not just long-term relationships.

  A part of myself was not going to allow me to continue in a blissful relationship such as the one Nan and I were having. I stopped calling her. Continuing a habitual pattern that I set early in life and that was very easy for me, I disappeared. I denied myself the very thing I wanted most. Happiness. Still in trouble with myself, I thought I was unworthy.

  When I pulled back, Nan was very hurt. So she moved on and started dating other men.

  My phone went dead. Priscilla sent Lonnie back to LA from New York to live with me. T’s mom kicked him out when he graduated from high school, and he was sleeping on my living room couch.

  CANOGA PARK, CA—1985—2

  I moved again, for the thirteenth time in the past sixteen years. This time, from Westwood to Canoga Park, with two children from previous marriages in tow. About a decade earlier, I began taking courses in Transcendental Meditation in Santa Monica and embarked on a quest to get to know myself through self-awareness. After ten years of soul-searching, I felt ready to choose the right mate. Thankfully, Nan and I were still on speaking terms—we hadn’t given up on each other! After a while, we met for dinner. Within weeks we resumed dating, and our feelings for each other grew.

  One day, I called Nan. The phone rang. No answer. I called again. No answer. The realization came over me that I wanted, really wanted, to know what was going on with her. What was she doing? Was she gardening? Was she going to class? I was always—always—thinking about her. Any time of day or night, I was thinking or wondering about Nan. Was this about me, or was it about her? Was I so bad at marriage? In my heart, I knew my failed marriages were not all my fault.

  I asked her to meet me out on North Hollywood Way in Burbank. Her car pulled up behind mine, and she got into the passenger seat. There, parked in the shadows under the trees, I told her I loved her and asked her to be my wife. I have never been more certain about anything in my life. I didn’t have a ring. I just wanted to be with her, married or not.

  She said yes!

  We got out and went into the old Japanese restaurant and held hands across the table. I told her how I wanted to move into her house in Glendale and find a small studio nearby to work in. We discussed how our families might react. Each person. We talked until the place closed, then went to the car and talked more before we kissed and said good night. We drove to our respective houses.

  I called her when I got home. I wanted Nan and her boys to become family with me and T and Lonnie. I lost the sense of being fragmented, and I started to feel whole.

  Reaction to our decision to wed was mixed. My dad, of course, was thrilled; he was always glad to see Nan. My sister, Gwen, was happy for me. My brother-in-law, Floyd, turned up his nose.

  Nan’s brothers and sisters approved, although she wasn’t so sure about her parents.

  When her maternal grandmother, Marguerite, found that Nan’s parents weren’t going to come, she said, “That’s my granddaughter, and I’m going to her wedding!” She was Marguerite Spafford of “Rosie the Riveter” fame. I decided she deserved to be chauffeured to the event in a black stretch limo and ordered one immediately.

  I guess Nan’s parents heard Marguerite was coming in a limo and decided they couldn’t be upstaged or outdone by the old matriarch, so they relented and decided to attend at the last minute. With that, any other dissenters fell in line one by one until we expected a full crowd, including my brother-in-law, Floyd. It was going to be interesting. It was.

  Nan was beautiful in a light ice-pink gown, and she had that idyllic smile on her face that made me feel like a million bucks. When it came time to give her away, we needed consent from each of our five children. They sat patiently together on benches on either side of where we were taking our vows, with a modicum of fidgeting. The minister asked each one in turn if they would give their blessing to the marriage. Each politely consented until he arrived at Michael, who wasn’t really sure about the whole thing. (He was only five years old.) He hesitated. The room went uncomfortably silent. The minister looked up at Michael over his spectacles and asked again, slowly, deliberately, “Do you give your blessing to this marriage?” After a deafening silence, Michael let out a loud yes, and a sigh of relief and giggles filled the room.

  I looked at Nan. She gave me the most special look of love. We were going to be man and wife.

  After the wedding, Arlene, Nan’s mom, cornered me by the fountain and gave me a setting out I will never forget. How dare I marry her daughter! Mrs. Warhurst was horrified that one of her children had married a person of color. Overwhelmed, beside herself with disbelief and outrage, she was furious, and she let me know. The unthinkable had happened in her family, and she stood shaking, glaring into my eyes. No one noticed or knew what was going on. I was thinking, Oh my God. Upset as Arlene was, it was a furor I had witnessed before, so consequently I stood quietly. Nan noticed and rushed over to rescue me. She hadn’t told me about this side of Arlene.

  The celebration was otherwise joyous. Some were happy, I think, just because Michael had said yes. Nan and I let go and relaxed. She had worked so hard on the planning. We ate cake and drank champagne. We had done it. Against all odds.

  Around this same time, early July 1985, I was selling my new home in order to move to Glendale into Nan’s home. Nan came to me and said, “I want to start new. I want to live in a home where I never lived with another man.” She wanted to get out of the shadow of her previous marriage.

  Then, several months after the wedding, Nan and I discovered we were having a baby girl.

  Nan being pregnant, however, didn’t stop her from wanting to do the annual camping trip in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite. Nan comes from a large family of nine, and every summer of her childhood, they had spent two months there.

  In 1985, on my very first hike up a treacherous hill, I heard Michael tell Nan he wanted to be in her tummy like the baby she had in there. I replied, “I know how you feel, Michael.”

  CANOGA PARK—Fall 1985—8

  I watched Nan over and over again taking on more than she should. It was after she had pushed herself past her limit that I felt the need to step in.

  After Nan finished graduate school and received an MBA, she began work as an advertising account manager for a Los Angeles magazine.

  “God, I’m so exhausted I can hardly stand up,” she would say after a day’s work.

  After a few weeks of this, I said to her, “Nan, I’d really like you to consider quitting for a while. You can go back to work after the baby’s born.”

  Surprisingly, she listened to me, a real triumph given her stubborn nature. I let out a sigh of relief. Our chances of having a healthy baby just got a lot better.

  My love of fast cars came in handy the morning Nan told me she was beginning to have contractions. We jumped into my Lincoln Mark VII bachelor car and whipped down the 118 to Verdugo Hills hospital. In the delivery room, I held Nan’s hand and breathed with her like we were taught in our natural-childbirth classes.

  Not long before, I had turned the dining room of my Canoga Park house into a small studio, featuring a great-sounding Soundcraft 600 recording console. I used it to record some special music for the birthing room. The music was playing softly when Olivia came into this world. The doctor called it the “most perfect birth he had ever attended.” It was December 29, 1985, a mild winter day.

  Olivia Marguerite, a beautiful baby, became the personification of our love. We named her after Nan’s maternal grandmother, Marguerite.

  By this time, Arlene, Nan’s mother, had been won over and came to the hospital to hold the baby and take pictures. She was a fool for little ones, or any newborn animal for that matter. My only regret is that my own mother, Lurline, did not live long enough to meet Olivia and Nan. My mother would have also loved my three grandchildren from my son T. Jade, my first grandchild, was born shortly before Olivia. My two grandsons from T, Booker T. IV and Nijel, were born
several years after.

  The care of the newborn, Olivia, was something I cherished. Nan and I were both so involved with the baby we didn’t pay much attention to the outside world.

  On a blissful day, enjoying our new child and family, came the news that legal proceedings had been filed to change the primary custody of Nan’s three boys to their father. With their new beds barely even broken in, this was an unexpected event, however, not a derailment.

  Nan went to court alone. “What kind of music does your husband play?” Nan cleverly responded, “He produced Willie Nelson’s biggest album.” The action was defeated, and Nan retained custody of her sons.

  Not long after, a second petition was filed. However, in court a second time, Nan’s attorney prevailed. The boys were still sleeping in my house.

  Then the legal server came to my door. He asked for me with a pen in his hand to sign for the delivery. I was being subpoenaed. The battles you lose are the ones where the outcome is determined before the fight. You know it, and you fight to retain your dignity. The outcome may have even been decided before you were born, as was this one.

  I walked into the courtroom a proud man. I wore a conservative suit and tie. They could break my wife’s heart and tear apart my family. They could ignore my rights as a human being. Whatever—they couldn’t touch my composure or make me bow my head. I went through the motions. The judge ruled, and the boys went into the care of a nanny in their father’s Los Feliz mansion. We were devastated. We were broken.

  Despite the obstacles, we maintained a close relationship with each other and with the boys, who felt isolated and abandoned. They were too young to comprehend the legal and racial complexities of the situation or how unfair it was that they had to pay the price and bear the brunt. Still, they didn’t have their mother on a daily basis.