Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,6

Grandpa Joe had his charms. He was well groomed and a sharp dresser. He had the gold chain with the chai, the sapphire pinky ring, and he smelled of cologne. Though he was in the shmata business, he wanted to be an entertainer to the point that he actually commissioned an oil painting of himself wearing a tux and singing into a microphone. He saw himself as an Al Jolson or an Eddie Cantor, Jewish singers who hit the big time in mainstream American music. That portrait hung in the entryway to their apartment, but Grandpa Joe never made it into show business. Instead, he became a tailor, which he claimed was the meaning of the name “Kravitz.”

Unconsciously, I think he nudged me toward his deferred dream. He was the first person to put a microphone in my hand. Grandpa owned a reel-to-reel and loved recording himself singing show tunes. When he got tired, he’d turn it over to me. He taught me songs from Carousel and South Pacific. I picked up the vibe and jumped right in. It was natural, and it was fun. And when the music died down, Grandma Jean kept the party going by teaching me durak, a Russian card game whose name translates to “The Fool.” We’d play for hours while I devoured her chopped liver on matzo.

Beyond the portrait of my grandpa, the centerpiece of my grandparents’ apartment was an oil painting hanging over the fireplace in the living room. A beam of light shone down on the face of a handsome young man. He was Leonard Kravitz, my dad’s younger brother, who was killed in the Korean War at twenty years old. For sacrificing his life in the protection of his entire platoon, he’d eventually be awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor. As a young kid, I couldn’t keep my eyes off this painting, this shrine to a fallen son. I felt the great weight of the loss and heartache over my namesake.

That pain was the root of the resentment Grandma Jean had for my father. Dad had been the first to join the armed forces, prompting his younger brother to follow suit. I think Grandma was convinced that if Dad had not enlisted, Leonard wouldn’t have either. In her mind, my father was a cause of Leonard’s death.

I also felt a bitter tension between my father and Joe. It was not until many years later that my mother explained the source of that tension. Grandpa Joe was not a faithful husband. Dad despised how his father cheated on his mother. Back then, I didn’t have a clue about these grown-up concerns. I was just a happy-go-lucky kid hanging out in my grandma’s kitchen eating kasha varnishkes. When I became an adult, though, and started watching Woody Allen movies, I recognized my family on the screen. That was the Jewish humor that raised me.

* * *

In 1969, Dad went to Vietnam as a journalist and Army Reservist. He was gone nearly a year. I remember seeing pictures of him from Saigon. He was holding a camera and a machine gun. He would tell stories of how much he loved Vietnam—the people, the food—and how he had his own house and a maid.

Part of me was relieved that he was gone. The heaviness lifted. Dad ruled the roost. My mother’s old-school Bahamian upbringing taught her to defer to the man of the house. So, she didn’t question his authority. At the same time, Mom was no pushover. She enforced her own tough brand of discipline, making sure, for instance, that I did my household chores. But unlike Dad, she enforced with love. Dad enforced with fear.

When Dad finally arrived home from the war, Mom was happy. I was conflicted. He immediately reestablished his role as Enforcer. Part of me was grateful that he was back. But another part of me hated how he was already back on my case: Why are those socks not put away? What are all those Hot Wheel tracks doing in the middle of the floor? When Dad returned, tension returned with him.

* * *

Bed-Stuy was a welcome escape from that tension. The crazy thing is that these two living situations, though radically different, balanced me. I can’t say they forced me to adapt to any situation, or if I was born with that ability. But I can say that when it was time to go to Brooklyn, Eddie ran.

It was in Brooklyn where Grandma Bessie first started musing