Michael Jackson (2 page)

Now, he has children and makes them wear masks in public.

‘How does it feel when you're alone, and you're cold inside?’ Michael asked in his song ‘Stranger in Moscow’. Indeed, how
in the world, we wonder, did he turn out as he has?

Of course, fame twists everything. It's a strange phenomenon that no one but the famous can truly understand. However, ask
yourself: if your entire life had been played out under heavy and unyielding scrutiny, made even more torturous by an abusive
father, what would you be like? What if you were infantilized by an adoring public who celebrated you primarily as a talented
youngster? Do you think you might, over time, be compelled to infantilize yourself? Out of frustration and desperation, might
you revolt and begin to do whatever you wished without considering the logic of your decisions, the common sense of your choices,
or the propriety of your behaviour?

What if you also had an inordinate amount of wealth, giving you the power to redress your deepest insecurities and desires
by any means at your disposal, no matter how extreme, and with no one around daring to challenge you? Don't like the colour
of your skin? Fade it away. Never had a real childhood? Say hello to Neverland. Want to sleep in the same bed with boys? No
problem, there. Don't like how you look? Change your face. Still don't like it? Change it to another face, and another and
another.

Why can't he see what's happening to himself? we ask about Michael. Why doesn't he
understand?
How does he see himself, anyway? As the King of Pop, a trailblazing, misunderstood musical genius whose career spans an entire
lifetime? Or an insecure, basically unhappy adult with enough money and power to do whatever he likes and get away with it?
Perhaps only one thing is certain: if you were an unfettered combination of both, chances are you would be like… Michael Jackson.

The bucolic town of Los Olivos in Santa Barbara County is a little more than a hundred years old. If a visitor wants a sense
of the local history, Mattei's Tavern, built in 1886, is the place to go. One of many monuments to a by-gone era, it was a
stagecoach stop where guests stayed overnight during their journeys, back when the only mode of transportation was horse-drawn
carriage. It also became a stop-off point for the Pacific Coast Railway narrow gauge line, constructed in the 1880s when travel
by land along the coast ranged from difficult to impossible. At its zenith, it stretched over seventy-five miles from what
was once called Harford Wharf on San Luis Bay, south to Los Olivos. Passengers spent the night at Mattei's before taking the
stagecoach to Santa Barbara, the next day. Today, the Carriage Museum is on this site, providing a visual history of the region.
The original watering hole is now a charming eatery called Brothers Restaurant at Mattei's Tavern.

One recent day, a strange-looking man came through the Museum with a boy, a girl and an infant. He was accompanied by two
women, senior citizens who tended to the youngsters, maybe nursemaids, one cradling the baby in a blanket. Also present was
a male assistant who appeared to be in his early twenties. His eyes darted about, as if he was on high alert, vigilantly aware
of his surroundings, of what others were doing in his presence.

The older man, wearing a deep-purple, silk surgical mask, a fedora over ink-jet black hair and over-sized sunglasses, stood
before one of the photographic displays. ‘Prince! Paris!’ he called out. ‘Come here. Look at this.’ The tots ran to his side.
He pointed to the picture with one chalky, spindly finger – at the tip of which was wrapped a band-aid – and read the accompanying
description, his high-pitched voice sounding instructive. In the middle of his reading, he admonished the boy to pay closer
attention, insisting that ‘this is important’. The group moved from one display to the next, the masked man reading each narrative,
beseeching the children to listen, carefully.

After the day's lesson, the small group enjoyed a bite to eat in the restaurant. While there, they laughed among themselves,
sharing private jokes, yet seeming closed off from their environment, never acknowledging the existence of anyone outside
their miniature world. The masked man fed himself by lifting his disguise just a tad, rather than take it off. The locals
tried to ignore the odd contingent. However, it was difficult not to stare, particularly since the children had been wearing
masks, too – not surgical, though… just Halloween. They took them off to eat, and then put them back on, once again hiding their
faces.

In the early 1900s, a major new rail line was built thirty miles closer to the Pacific coast. Because Los Olivos had been
bypassed by it, the population of the once-thriving town dwindled. However, it has since been rediscovered, thanks to an influx
of tourists in the last twenty years. Now, there is an Indian reservation and gambling casino, as well as a number of spas
and New Age healing centres. Small and locally owned art galleries, antique stores, gift shops, boutiques and wineries flourish
in restored western-themed buildings.

One afternoon, the masked man visited one of the art galleries. ‘Now,
this
one would be just perfect in the bedroom, wouldn't it?’ he said to his young assistant. He held up a small oil painting of
two angels floating ethereally above a sleeping child. The assistant nodded. ‘Yoo-hoo,’ called out the masked man. ‘How much
for this one?’ He and the curator conferred, privately. Then the man in the disguise walked over to his assistant and whispered
into his ear. ‘Okay, very good,’ he finally said to the store-owner. ‘I'll take it.’

The proprietor scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to the younger man, who then extracted a wad of bills from his
wallet. He counted them off to pay for the purchase.

‘No, wait! That's too much,’ said the masked man who had been watching, carefully. ‘I thought you said it was a hundred dollars.
Not a hundred and six dollars, and change.’ There was a quick, urgent conference. ‘What?
Tax?
Really? On
this?
’ He made a show of thinking hard. ‘Well, okay, then,’ he decided. ‘Thanks, anyway.’ He put the painting down.

More negotiation.

‘Really? Okay, good, then. A hundred dollars it is.’

The covered man regarded the painting, again. ‘My God, it's so beautiful, isn't it?’ he remarked, picking it up. ‘The way
those children are so…
protected.
How sweet.’ As he and his assistant walked out of the gallery, he turned and hollered back to the proprietor, ‘I just want
you to know that I think you're a wonderful person, and I wish you all the luck in the world with your store! I'll be back
soon.’

Los Olivos is the home of about five hundred horse ranch estates, Victorian-style homes and about two dozen businesses. A
thousand people, maybe less, call this remote and slumbering place home (fewer than a dozen of them, black), including one
unlikely resident, the only man in town who wears a mask: Michael Joseph Jackson.

Figueroa Mountain Road winds upward through the lush and rolling Santa Ynez Valley of Los Olivos. A man sells apples under
a leafy old shade tree on the side of the road; he's been doing so for years. Every day, he sits with nothing to do but sell
his fruit, enjoy his day and bake in the sun. It's just that kind of place.

A half mile back from the road, behind an imposing oak gate, is 5225 Figueroa Mountain Road, a massive Danish-style split-level
farmhouse, its brick and masonry walls crisscrossed with wooden beams. This is where Michael Jackson lives.

This 2700-acre property, originally a ranch for farming dry oats and running cattle, was once known as Sycamore Ranch. It
came on the market at $35 million; Michael purchased it for $17 million in May 1988. He then changed the name to Neverland
Valley Ranch -Neverland, for short – an
homage
to Peter Pan's Never-Never Land. The first order of business for Michael was to build his own amusement park own the acreage,
including a merry-go-round, giant sliding board, railway with its own train and even a Ferris wheel. With his kind of money,
he could pretty much do anything he wanted to do… and he would do it all at Neverland.

Michael's corner of the world is verdantly green as far as the eye can see. Old-fashioned windmills dot the landscape. There
is an elegant softness to the grandeur; thousands of trees gently shade superbly manicured grounds which include a five-acre
man-made, ice-blue lake with a soothing, never pummelling, five-foot waterfall and a graceful, inviting stone bridge. It is
here, amidst the infinite silence of unfarmed, rolling and gentle countryside, that Michael Jackson has created his own environment,
a safe haven for him from an ever-pressing, ever-difficult world.

Two thousand miles east, in the grimy industrial city of Gary, Indiana, there is a small, two-bedroom, one-bath, brick-and-aluminum-sided
home on a corner lot. The property, at 2300 Jackson Street, is about a hundred feet deep and fifty feet wide. There is no
garage, no landscaping and no green grass. Thick smoke plumes upward from nearby factories; it envelopes the atmosphere in
a way that makes a person breathing such air feel just a little… sick. Joseph and Katherine Jackson, Michael's parents, purchased
the home in 1950 for $8,500, with a $500 down-payment.

This place, primarily a black neighbourhood, is where Michael Jackson first lived as a child, with his parents and siblings
Maureen, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya, Marlon, Janet and Randy.

Like most parents, Joseph and Katherine wanted their children to succeed. In the early fifties the best they could do was
two bedrooms and one bath for eleven people; clothes and shoes bought in secondhand stores. They hoped that when the youngsters
graduated from high school, they would find steady work, perhaps in the mills… unless they could do better than that.

However, when the Jackson parents discovered that some of their kids had musical talent, their dreams expanded: the boys with
the surprising musical and dance abilities would win contests, they decided, and be ‘discovered’.

After their sons cut their first records, the imaginings of the parents grew more grandiose: a sprawling estate in California;
servants at their beck and call; expensive luxury cars for everyone; three-piece suits, diamond rings and great power for
Joseph; mink coats, jewels and a better social life for Katherine. They fantasized about flipping on their television and
seeing their celebrated children perform their number-one hit songs for an appreciative world. As a result of the boys' fame,
they figured, the entire family would be recognized, sought-after, asked to pose for pictures, sign autographs. They would
all
be stars. What a great world it would be, for each of them. No more worries; everything taken care of, handled by their good
fortune.

Was it too much to ask? It certainly seemed like a good idea, at the time. However, as proverbial wisdom has it, be careful
what you wish for. You just might get it.

Joseph Walter Jackson was born on 26 July 1929, to Samuel and Chrystal Jackson in Fountain Hill, Arkansas. He is the eldest
of five children; a sister, Verna, died when she was seven. Samuel, a high school teacher, was a strict, unyielding man who
raised his children with an iron fist. They were not allowed to socialize with friends outside the home. ‘The Bible says that
bad associations spoil youthful habits,’ Chrystal explained to them.

‘Samuel Jackson loved his family, but he was distant and hard to reach,’ remembered a relative. ‘He rarely showed his family
any affection, so he was misunderstood. People thought he had no feelings, but he did. He was sensitive but didn't know what
to do with his sensitivities. Joseph would take after his father in so many ways.’

Samuel and Chrystal divorced when Joseph was a teenager. Sam moved to Oakland, taking Joseph with him, while Chrystal took
Joseph's brother and sisters to East Chicago. When Samuel married a third time, Joseph decided to join his mother and siblings
in Indiana. He dropped out of school in the eleventh grade and became a boxer in the Golden Gloves. Shortly thereafter, he
met Katherine Esther Scruse at a neighbourhood party. She was a pretty and petite woman, and Joseph was attracted to her affable
personality and warm smile.

Katherine was born on 4 May 1930, and christened Kattie B. Scruse, after an aunt on her father's side. (She was called Kate
or Katie as a child, and those closest to her today still call her that.) Kattie was born to Prince Albert Screws and Martha
Upshaw in Barbour County, a few miles from Russell County, Alabama, a rural farming area that had been home to her family
for generations. Her parents had been married for a year. They would have another child, Hattie, in 1931.

Prince Scruse worked for the Seminole Railroad and also as a tenant cotton farmer, as did Katherine's grandfather and great-grandfather,
Kendall Brown. Brown, who sang every Sunday in a Russell County church and was renowned for his voice, had once been a slave
for an Alabama family named Scruse, whose name he eventually adopted as his own.