Phat City News

Seemed like as good a time as any to post an old "Uncle Dave" piece from June 4, 1996:

**Uncle Dave's Celebrity Profile**

Michael Jackson slumped back in his lounger, aiming his remote at the television to flip idly through the channels. An advertisement for "Baywatch" caught his attention and he stopped to watch Pamela Lee run across the beach in slow motion, her hydraulically-enhanced attributes suspended in a slow-bounce silicone ballet.

He laughed. Not the shy, girlish giggle he affected in public, but a lusty horselaugh that he reserved for his truly private moments. Jackson drained the last of his Michelob and let the tapered amber bottle drop to the floor. He glanced over the edge of the lounger at the litter of bottles that had accumulated so far. Laughing again, he stopped counting at ten, then rose to fetch another cold one from the refrigerator.

Scratching at the edge of beer gut peeking from underneath his stained t-shirt, Jackson wobbled into the kitchen. He stopped in front of the refrigerator, pointed at the door and proclaimed, "The King of Pop would like another beer."

The refrigerator did nothing. Jackson snorted and chuckled. "Guess I'll get this one myself."

The King of Pop. Of all the nicknames in the world, why did he have to pick the King of Pop? Jackson shook his head as he twisted open his beer and wandered back to the living room. An edge of a reflection caught his attention, and he stopped at the mirror in the hallway to stare.

A middle-aged black man stared back, the light-complexion makeup washed away, the wigs in storage, the fake eyelashes in their special boxes in the dressing room back in California, a lifetime away. His own hair was cropped close, groomed in a short natural style, his cheeks and chin peppered with two-days-worth growth of beard.

The one-bedroom apartment in Huntington, West Virginia had been a masterstroke of genius, the perfect place to hide, to be himself. Jackson could come and go as he pleased, to wander the riverbank, to walk along Third and Fourth avenues. He had become an adept dumpster diver, able to retrieve trashed treasures from the bottom of the most fully packed receptacle. The winos called him "Jack," and they appreciated his dumpster diving skills as well, sending him in time and time again for food and salvageable bits of metal and glass.

The crack whores on Hal Greer Boulevard called him Jack, too. Jackson was a regular in the tattered project housing that lined the avenue, and he knew all the women who worked that part of town. They would do incredible things for a rock and a fresh butane lighter, and Jackson kept a supply of both. His appetites required that these women be capable of bizarre things. Sometimes they disappeared altogether after a long weekend with Jackson, but nobody asked questions about these types of women. They seemed to be transient by nature, and the ability to disappear seemed to be one of their talents.

Back to the television, Jackson eased the recliner back and resumed his surfing. Comedy Central was replaying an episode of "Absolutely Fabulous," while the USA network was showing some bad made-for-TV suspense film.

But A&E was broadcasting a biography on Jeffrey Dahmer, and Jackson stopped there. Transfixed by the details, he watched the file footage of police officers and ambulance crews outfitted in hazardous material suits carrying away the blue 55-gallon drum that contained three partially-dissolved human torsos.

He sat forward to watch as a white-suited officer in a gas mask wheeled Dahmer's refrigerator down a flight of stairs. The voice-over narration said there were preserved heads and genitals in the refrigerator, and the King of Pop wondered aloud what it would look like if the icebox door suddenly flew open on the way downstairs, scattering the gruesome contents like human confetti.

Then Dahmer's image flashed onto the screen. A tall, slim, blue-eyed blond with a faint shadow of beard. Jackson stared, thinking how easy it would be in a few years for Macauley Culkin to portray Dahmer in the movie based on his life. A sharp wave of paranoia took his breath for a moment as the documentary showed the court scenes, the replay of anguished family and friends of the deceased lashing out at Dahmer.

Jackson settled back and took another long drink of his beer. This would never happen to him. Neverland is too secure, the freezers locked and hidden away in the dark sub-basements of the mansion. The children would not be missed, the homeless waifs who wandered the streets in Los Angeles. They appeared on and disappeared from those streets every day.

Soon, it would be time to go back to Neverland, time to prepare for another concert tour. He would have to lose weight, to don the makeup and wigs, to practice talking in that high, breathy voice that the media expected. And, of course, there would be the trips to Disney World, the fantasy land where the media and the world believed Jackson belonged.

As long as there were children there, they were half right.

Jackson laughed and went to the refrigerator for another beer.


More later,
uncle dave

© 1996 by D.L. Swint. All rights reserved.