I wouldn’t say that we were a middle-class family during that period, but we were close, and that’s saying something. It was extremely hard for black people to move up the economic ladder in the ’50s, yet we lived very comfortably in what at the time was an integrated neighborhood.
Growing up I idolized my older brother. I can still remember when he walked me to school every day in kindergarten. I felt so happy, safe, and confident. Each day when he dropped me off with my teacher, he’d tell me: “Baby sis, you hang in there girl. I’ll be right down the hall if you need me. And you better not cry.”
Even at home I would follow him all around the place. His little shadow I was. Years later, as I thought about our childhood, I concluded that, periodically at least, I was a pain in his ass. Even when he had his friends over or when they were out playing in the streets doing their boy things, I’d make it my business to be a part of the action.
“No, Fee-Fee, stop!” my brother would shout. “Go play with the girls… No, you can’t play stickball — get yo’ butt outta here before I call Mama!”
Then I’d start to pout and cry and cry, and when I couldn’t cry no more, I’d fake the tears until I got my way. I didn’t realize it then, but my brother really knew how to manipulate people. Where I had it in my little child’s mind that I was going to do exactly what my brother and the boys did, my brother would always talk me into something like an “important cheerleader role.” And with my little dumb-ass self, I’d end up on the sideline shouting out some silly “Rahrah-hip-hip-hooray-for-the-gang” bullshit as they played. Yet still loving every moment of it.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when the high affection for my brother began its decline, but I do remember when he dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and started hanging out on the street with his friends instead of being at home. Both matters led to major arguments between him and my father, which months later erupted into a horrendous fight — right smack in our living room, as me, Mama, and Nanny looked on and begged them to stop.
Daddy ended up knocking Junior to the floor — then started shouting at him: “Nigger, get yo’ ass up and get the fuck outta my house. You don’t wanna go to school, you don’t wanna work. Get the fuck out and don’t come back until you get some sense.”
Junior slowly got up off the floor, walked straight out the door, and I didn’t see him again for months. He was sixteen years old at the time and I’d recently turned twelve.
Junior would drift periodically back into the house. During the few weeks or months that he was home, we’d share some good times. But something was missing. Things just weren’t the same. The streets had taken over Junior, and I could see in his eyes how extremely anxious he was to get back out there to do whatever he was doing.
As I entered my teen years, my life became humdrum. My hero Junior was no longer there to play with, learn from, and help me to stay on course. My father continued to work two jobs and was too tired to do anything other than eat and sleep when he got home, and Mama had become much too strict and demanding for me to try to talk over anything with her. Nanny was rapidly aging. I was still her “precious little pumpkin,” even as early stages of Alzheimer’s set in.
Gradually, boys became the excitement in my life. Boys, boys, and more boys. I had to have them. I had a crush on this particular seventh-grade classmate named Richard Armstrong. This was one cool, ultrafine manchild. His coffee-with-a-splash-of-cream complexion fit so well on his handsome face. And his slim, trim yet muscular physique simply turned me on. Plus, he had this roguish, street-smart attitude and confidence about himself — with a sexy-ass swagger that immediately started my juices flowing whenever I saw him. Every girl in my school, Langley Junior High, worshipped this boy, and rumor had it that an estimated ninety-five percent of the young ladies who were virgins upon entering the school all became virginless within ninety days, and that Richard was single-handedly responsible for a whopping percentage of the deflowering. A fact for sure, though, is that I am a statistic in whatever Richard’s true percentage is, because I happily lost — no, gave — my cherry to him at the ripe age of fourteen.
Word travels quickly, I learned, when a female is promiscuous. My brother was the first in the family to find out about my sexual activities and sneak-off-partying lifestyle. Even though Junior himself had completely adopted sinful ways, he still looked down on me and started to lash out. We would run into each other at various places, and every encounter turned into a fierce battle of nasty exchanges. He even smacked me so hard once that I discovered how a person can literally get the taste slapped out of her mouth. My hero didn’t exist anymore.
My mother and grandmother died the same year, 1966, two months and three days apart. My mother had undetected diabetes — she suddenly fell into a coma and just as suddenly passed away. Nanny died of a heart attack.
After their deaths, nothing inside of the Taylor home was the same. Daddy went into a shell. He quit one of his jobs and merely went through the motions of working the other. We seldom talked or did things together, and it wasn’t long before I was out on the streets nearly all the time, completely falling in love with the games, drugs, and fun. But equally so with a very powerful, handsome, and sexy new man.
I met Zack Amos when I was sixteen years old through my girlfriend Kim, who was his cousin. I knew about him and had seen him on a number of occasions, but we hadn’t actually spoken until the day Kim told me that Zack was interested in meeting me, and that he’d arranged a gathering of four at his favorite club, Evelyn’s. The four would be me, Zack, Kim, and her man, Oje Simpson.
Kim was very street smart and knew just about everybody in D.C., particularly all the major players in the hustling world. She was gorgeous, of the Pam Grier nature. It became very easy for me to function smoothly on the streets after being taken under her wing and taught the tricks of the trade.
Zack Amos was twenty-five then and he had already taken over much of the drug trade in D.C., which he inherited from his uncle, Hazel “Cookie” Ferguson. Cookie had been busted under the Rico Conspiracy Act three years earlier and is now incarcerated at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary serving a life sentence.
Zack stood six-foot-two and had the same glorious physical traits as my former teenage lover, Richard Armstrong. But where Richard was a sexy manchild, Zack was a superman in every way, and I instantly fell in love with him.
Located at the corner of 9th and U Streets, N.W., Evelyn’s Nightclub was a modest facility, unlike its counterpart, the Fantasy, which was a monstrosity of width, height, glitter, and raucous activities. Evelyn’s was a classy spot that catered to a sophisticated and older jazz-loving crowd who also enjoyed a dose of mellow R&B.