Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,58
wish of making music for Tisha. Unfortunately, nothing happened with the tune. As far as I’m concerned, it was a hit in an alternate universe. Tisha leaned more into acting instead and ultimately landed a huge role costarring with Martin Lawrence on Martin.
* * *
While still living at Alvin’s, I happened to glance at a cover of TV Guide featuring the cast of The Cosby Show. I pointed to Lisa Bonet and calmly said, “I’m gonna marry that girl.” Alvin laughed. The Cosby Show was at its height of popularity, presenting a vision of upper-class Black life that Reagan’s America was willing to embrace. Father Cliff Huxtable was an obstetrician; mother Clair was a lawyer; and the kids, except for one, were straight arrows. That “one” was Denise, played by Lisa. Denise was different, and I knew, just by watching the show, that Lisa was different as well.
I’d spent a lot of my life hanging around sitcoms. I knew the genre demanded broad comedic skills. Its masters—Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Red Foxx—found ways to humanize stereotypes: a whacky housewife, a frustrated bus driver, a junkyard owner. Supporting cast members usually didn’t demonstrate the complexities of the central characters. But on The Cosby Show, the reverse was true. Denise/Lisa was the most fascinating family member. She stood apart and seemed to be living some secret inner life. She had a come-hither magnetism that drove boys and men mad. She was a bohemian dreamer wrapped in mysterious allure. I wanted to solve that mystery—or at least get close to it.
But how in the world could that ever happen?
SHOCK
The ninety-nine-dollar People Express had dropped me back in L.A. I got off the plane and drove over to Cloverdale to grab some things. Dad didn’t hear me come in. Mom was in Nassau visiting Esau. Walking down the hall, I could hear Dad talking on the phone in his bedroom. I can’t tell you why, but something about the tone of his voice made me walk toward his door to listen in.
I started to make out what he was saying:
“Baby, baby…”
I inched closer and closer. I knew he wasn’t talking to my mother. I had never heard him call her “baby,” and if he had, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been in that tone of voice.
I continued eavesdropping and heard him say, “I can’t hide the last fifty thousand.”
I stopped breathing. My throat went dry. My heart started racing. I stayed frozen in place, listening to every word of his conversation. My ears caught fire. The more he talked, the more I realized he was talking to a girlfriend. I couldn’t make out every word, but I definitely got the gist: he was cheating on Mom and supporting his mistress with Mom’s money.
I went beyond anger. I was on the verge of exploding. The first thing that came to my mind was the gun Dad kept hidden in his closet. I know that’s crazy, but that’s how I was thinking. He was betraying my mother, the woman who honored and loved him with all her heart, the woman who’d stood by him through thick and thin. All the fury I’d been feeling for my father since I was a little boy, two decades of pent-up rage, erupted inside my head. I wanted to kill him. Right then and there, I wanted him dead.
It was only the grace of God that checked that instinct. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day that I had spent praying to the Lord of love came to fruition in that very moment. I couldn’t ignore the words that God spoke to me then. They couldn’t have been clearer.
Don’t do it.
“Thank you, God,” I said silently. I went back to my room, picked up the phone, and made a call.
My cousin Esau answered.
“Esau,” I said, “please put Mom on the phone.”
Mom heard that I was alarmed, but I couldn’t tell her why—not now. I had to do it in person. I asked her to buy me a ticket so I could fly to Nassau that very night. She kept asking why. I said, “You’re gonna have to trust me. It’s an emergency. And if you don’t send me down there, somebody might die.”
I could hear Mom’s voice trembling with fright as she said, “I’ll call you right back with the details.”
A few hours later, I was on the red-eye from LAX to Miami. Flying across the country, I found thoughts flying across my mind: Why