Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (27 page)

He ordered the surgeon to "transform my nose-I don't want my father's
nose." When the bandages came off, "Joseph's nose"-at least on Michael's
face-was history. It was the beginning of countless plastic surgeries in his
future.

After the surgery, Michael asked the doctor, "What are you going to do
with the part of my nose you removed?"

"Discard it, of course," the surgeon told him.

"No, I want to keep it," Michael protested. "It's my nose and it belongs to me."

As he was driven to Encino to recuperate, Michael gripped in his hand a
glass vial. In it was preserved a bloody purple-red piece of nose cartilage.
Beginning with this simple vial, Michael would, over the years, expand his
bizarre collection of preserved medical oddities.

At this same time he also began the bizarre habit of collecting mementos
of his seven nephews and nieces, all fathered by his brothers. The collection
ranged from a discarded plastic replica of Donald Duck to soiled diapers-or
so it was reported-from each child. The crusted brown contents from each
child were still intact and carefully labeled and dated by Michael, members of
the household staff at Encino later testified.

Even though Michael had gradually matured into an adult, his music was
still geared to the youth of the world.

The greatest fan of Off the Wall was a fifteen-year-old girl, Roberta
Flackson, born of trailer camp white trash somewhere in the Florida
Panhandle. Her mother was a prostitute, her father of "unknown origin."

Since her mother had had sex, often of the unprotected variety, with so
many men, she could not be certain who the father was.

Roberta suffered a background of child abuse. Her mother was not only a
whore, but a drug addict who allegedly prostituted her own daughter to johns
who wanted someone really young.

Eventually, when she was thirteen, Roberta fled the Panhandle, arriving in
New York with money stolen from her mother's nightly earnings. When that
money ran out, Roberta herself became a prostitute, allowing middle-aged
men to pick her up and carry her to seedy motels in New Jersey or else to one
of the hot-bed hotels that used to exist in midtown Manhattan in the 1970s.

Once, when arrested and questioned by the police, Roberta admitted that
she was a prostitute, a profession she pursued for two reasons: one, to make a
living; another, to buy all the Michael Jackson records and memorabilia she
could. In an apartment on the Upper West Side that she shared with a much
older prostitute, Roberta had stuffed every room with Jackson memorabilia.
She played Jackson records day and night, especially Off the Wall.

When not plying her trade, she'd show up frequently on the set of The
Wiz, and had to be forcefully removed by security guards. Somehow she
learned that Michael and La Toya were living on Sutton Place. Between her
nightly rounds, she hung out in front of the apartment building, hoping to get
a glimpse of her idol. Even though he tried to avoid his number one fan,
Michael frequently had run-ins with her when he was attempting to flee from
her presence.

Finally, thanks to the urging of his friend, Theresa Gonsalves, Michael
invited Roberta up to his Sutton Place apartment for tea. The girl was mesmer ized by Michael and didn't know what to say. Even so, it was difficult to get
her to leave. Theresa had thought that once the fan met Michael, and her
curiosity was satisfied, she'd leave him alone.

Not so. With money earned from whoring, Roberta flew to the West
Coast. Whenever she wasn't working, she stood at the gates to the Jackson
Encino mansion hoping for a glimpse of Michael coming and going. Her presence became such a problem for him that he slipped in and out of the Jackson
manse without her detecting him. He even used disguises to throw her off his
trail.

Three weeks after she'd flown to Los Angeles, Roberta was found dead in
a seedy motel off Santa Monica Boulevard. In her room was found all the
Jackson memorabilia she'd collected. It is not known if Michael was even
informed of the apparent suicide of his number one fan.

After the success of the album, Michael retreated to his room and rarely
ventured out, except for secret visits to Disneyland. He donned several disguises, but finally decided the best camouflage was the enveloping black
chador of a traditional Muslim woman. The only incongruity were those white
socks and tennis shows which appeared right below the hem. Ironically, that
was the same disguise he'd wear in the 21st century as an expatriate in the
Middle Eastern country of Bahrain.

At the Grammy Awards in 1980, Michael expected many more prizes but
won only a single Grammy as the best male R&B performer. Bitterly disappointed, he burst into tears in front of the audience. "One sore loser," a member of the staff of Rolling Stone was overheard saying.

"I was robbed!" Michael shouted, making a public spectacle of himself.
"It's racism!" He vowed with amazing accuracy that his next album would be
"the biggest in history."

Following the awards, Michael entered a deep depression and wouldn't
leave his darkened room. It took a family tragedy to drive him from the house.

It was almost four o'clock in the morning, March 4, 1980, when an emergency call came in to the family home at Encino. Police had used equipment
called "The Jaws of Life" to rescue the mangled body of Randy from the
wreck of a Mercedes-Benz. At the wheel, Randy had lost control of his girlfriend's car along Cahuenga Boulevard.

It had been raining during the early morning hours, and the road was
extremely slippery. Apparently, Randy had been driving at ninety miles per
hour when he'd lost control of the car. "Like sailing on ice," in the words of
one policeman, the Mercedes had glided across the street and into a telephone
pole before coming to a jarring stop. Without his safety belt on, Randy was
thrown forward into the windshield, cracking his pelvis and crushing both of
his legs.

When the call came in, only Janet, La Toya, and Michael, along with both
Joe and Katherine, were at their Encino home. All five piled into a family
vehicle for the nervous ride to St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank.

At the hospital, the presiding doctor told a stern-faced Joe, "Your son may
have less than twenty-four hours to live. We're doing all we can to save him."

Upon hearing the news, Michael burst into uncontrollable sobbing. "My
baby brother!" he shouted. "Randy!" A nurse was asked to sedate him.

After Michael was brought under control, Joe also learned that the doctors
might have to "amputate one or both" of Randy's legs.

"He's a performer and a dancer," Joe shouted at the doctor. "How can he
do that without legs? You'll amputate over my dead body."

When a sedated Michael was brought in to see Randy, he started to cry
again. Randy lay on blood-soaked sheets, with shards of glass from the windshield still imbedded in his face. In fright, Michael turned from the sight of
him.

Later, he joined the rest of his family for a deathbed vigil. By ten o'clock,
Randy had rallied but only slightly. Later, Michael learned that a male night
nurse had nearly killed Randy when he'd administered a dose of methadone
to the crash victim. The injection had been intended for a black heroin addict
two rooms down.

After two days and nights, doctors determined that Randy's legs would
not have to be amputated after all. "But I doubt if your boy will ever walk
again," the doctor told Joe. "He'll be forced to live in a wheelchair for the rest
of his life."

"There goes the fucking tour," Joe shouted angrily at the doctor. He'd
wanted to send his sons on a national tour that summer, hoping to considerably beef up sagging family finances.

Michael paced the hallways at the Jackson's Encino home at night. "Why
Randy?" he kept asking out loud and to no one. "Why, God, couldn't the accident have happened to someone not important? Someone who doesn't need
legs to go on stage?"

During the uncertain duration of Randy's recovery, Michael would often
break into uncontrollable sobbing of the kind he'd displayed upon hearing of
Randy's dire condition. "It could have been me. Everybody in this household
has been urging me to get a driver's license. I might be the one who will never
walk again."

Katherine maintained an almost constant ritual of prayer. But, of the siblings, Michael was the most loyal. He stood by Randy, offering moral support
as he went through a therapy so painful that he often cried out. Bravely he told
Michael, "Fuck what the doctors say. I will walk again! You'll see."

The months went by, and Randy's legs seemed to improve every day. Katherine got to see her son not just walk on a stage again, but dance as well.
"My prayers have saved my son."

When Katherine's mind wasn't occupied with Randy's recovery, she had
to deal with an increasingly assertive Michael.

Now that he was a full-fledged adult, Michael decided to replace Joe as
his business manager. He told Katherine what he planned to do. "It'll break
your father's heart," she warned him, urging him not to fire Joe. Normally,
Michael listened to his mother. Not this time.

He appealed to David Braun, hailed as one of the best attorneys in the
music industry. Diana Ross had recommended Braun to Michael. His other
clients included Neil Diamond, George Harrison, and Bob Dylan.

As president of PolyGram Records, Braun in the fall of 1980 recommended John Branca, an aggressive 30-year-old New York tax attorney, to handle
Michael's account. At the time of his first meeting, Michael liked Branca and
stated his ambition-"to become the wealthiest entertainer on the planet and,
last but not least, the biggest star in the world."

If Branca was shocked by such bold ambition, his face gave no indication.
On the way home that night, he stopped off in a record store and purchased
both Jackson singles and albums. Previous to their meeting, he had never
heard Michael sing.

From that night on, Branca became almost more familiar with Michael's
music than the artist himself. He certainly knew more about Michael's financial affairs than Michael did himself. Branca would dominate Michael's career
for more than a decade, and he'd become the single key figure in his success
in the music industry. "Michael stated his goal to me on our first meeting,"
Branca later said, "and I saw that he achieved both those ambitions expressed
to me."

Immediately after signing with Michael, Branca barged into the office of
Walter Yetnikoff, the controversial monarch of CBS Records who ruled over pop music's heyday in the 70s and 80s. Yetnikoff
emerged as a key player in the careers of Bob Dylan,
Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Barbra Streisand, Bruce
Springsteen, and the Rolling Stones. In time he
would become "the father confessor" to Michael.

Walter Yetnikoff

John Branca

One of Yetnikoff's secretaries confided, "He
was in a constant state of blazing combustion," a condition usually fueled by alcohol and cocaine. Known
as "the bully of the record industry," he was flamboyant, volatile, and tone-deaf.

"Two famous people came out of Brooklyn,"
he was fond of saying. "Mae West and Walter
Yetnikoff. She's washed up. I'm still in there slugging away."

Yetnikoff originally had wanted to fire all the Jackson brothers, including
Michael, but had become convinced that Michael could be turned into the
biggest pop star of the 1980s. "Listen," he told Branca, "I can talk down
Barbra Streisand, so I'm sure I'm up for any challenge the little Jackson boy
will toss my way."

Before leaving Yetnikoff's office that day, Michael's new attorney secured
for him an amazing contract. In an astonishing "giveaway" by CBS, Michael
walked away with a 37% royalty rate. Michael had instructed Branca "to get
me what Dylan gets," and that's exactly what Branca got.

Branca also negotiated with Johnny Mason, the lawyer representing Joe
and his sons, a provision that Michael could break away from his brothers at
any time without penalty. Joe ranted for days when he heard the terms, but
didn't immediately confront Michael, fearing he might bolt from the group
right away.