corliss

8/9/2019 Corliss

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/corliss 1/4

1989

Corliss

David Moser

I think Corliss would have been one of those powerful Amazon women who cut

one of their breasts off so as not to interfere with the shooting of a bow and arrow. At

least I always sort of thought of her as an Amazon she was over six feet and rather

statuesque. She was the lead singer in a soul band I played with when I was an

undergraduate in college, ca. 1980. I was the only white person in the band and she wasthe only woman, so I think there was always a kind of bond between us, if you know

what I mean. I always felt a bit more comfortable hanging out with her during breaks, or

sitting next to her in the back of the equipment van when riding to a gig. Being

somewhat insecure in the dark, throbbing haze of a black nightclub, it always felt good to

have her there. The other members of the band were always friendly enough to me,especially Lafayette, the drummer, a short little guy with a gold tooth who always called

me “Mr. Dave”. The two of us shared a passion for jazz, and we were both non-smokers(a rarity in the kind of environment we found ourselves in), so we hit it off pretty well. I

liked the other guys well enough, but being basically just a college-educated suburban

white kid who left the air-conditioned suburbs on weekends to play with the group, I felta bit uncomfortable with their general rowdyness and enthusiasm for drugs. The sight of

Bo, the guitarist, shooting up in the back of the white equipment van, gave me a queasy

feeling in the pit of my stomach which lasted for days.With Corliss I felt safe, protected. Not that she was the maternal type exactly. I

just felt secure because Corliss was always totally in control of every situation.

Everything about her

her body language, the way she dressed, the way she talked

exuded a sense of self-confidence and savvy that somehow kept her above the pettyintrigues and power struggles of the Oklahoma City nightclub scene. That she, a woman,

could maintain a position of dignity and even power in this grimy little milieu was

something admirable in and of itself. This was a world where the men swaggered aroundlike emperors eying the available “bitches”. They often stood in little stag herds outside

in the parking lot, or near the women's restroom, looking for “some of that yellow meat”

(a term for a light-skinned woman, a light complexion being preferable to darker one),

and unabashedly shouting out their evaluations of the women's bodies. To try to pick upa woman was to “hit on her”, and if one was quite persistent about it he was “hitting on

her hard”. When trying to attract the attention of a particularly attractive woman, they

would produce a kind of insect mating call with their lips and teeth that sounded like “pss pss pss pss”, sort of this black sub-culture's equivalent of the wolf whistle.

But nobody dared behave that way toward Corliss. Men always seemed to treat

her with respect and a sort of respectful deference, though it was clear that she wasattractive enough to them. I never saw her with a man in all the time I knew her, and

never heard anything about a boyfriend, past or present. She might have been a lesbian,

though this thought never occurred to me at the time. Somehow it seems more likely that

8/9/2019 Corliss


she simply was uninterested in the type of men who frequented the nightclubs we played

at.

Corliss seemed to sense my shyness and nervousness in the club environment, andshe quickly took me on as her sidekick (the word “mascot” is a tad too demeaning, but

perhaps somewhat more accurate), shielding me from any “white boy” taunts and hassles

from certain types who might want to take advantage of my naivete. I was her “buddy”,and anyone who wanted to mess with me would have to answer to her. With Corliss

around I could relax, joke with the clientele, even sit at a table and do my music school

counterpoint assignment (which was usually due the next day) without fear of ridicule.She wasn't the greatest singer in the world. She sang off-key, but she did it with

enough style and confidence that folks didn't seem to mind. During slow ballads she

would often instruct the band to continue vamping quietly behind her, and she would rap

to the audience, improvising ten or fifteen minute monologues that were often soinsightful and beautiful they made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. She had a

way of connecting especially with the women in the audience, who in the middle of her

performance would often shout out things like “That's me you're talking about!” and

“Don't I know it! Tell me about it, girl!”The group went through many names during the two years I performed with them

“The Black and Blue Convention”, “The Al Harris Band” (Al was the keyboard

player), “Al's Gang”, “UFO” (United Funk Organization) but none of them seemed to

stick, for some reason. I played trumpet (and sometimes lead guitar) with the group,

which means that I had to stand out front next to her along with Loftus, the saxophone player, while we played. In a soul band, the horn players don't just play horn lines, they

also have to do choreographed steps and movements in time to the music. I was never

very good at this, and would often crash into the microphone stand with my trumpet as I

whirled clumsily around. Corliss would tease me good-naturedly on stage, saying to theaudience things like “You'll have to excuse Dave, our trumpet player here. We're

affirmative-action employers.” The band would occasionally play a tune by GladysKnight and the Pips, and in such tunes Loftus and I had the demeaning duty of singingthe background lyrics sung on the original recording by the Pips, which echoed or

commented on the main lyrics of the song. Things like: “Leavin' on a midnight train,

woo woo!” At such times I reminded myself that it was only a job, I wasn't going to bedoing this all my life.

One would sometimes see mixed-race couples at the clubs we performed in, most

often a black man with a white woman, seldom the other way around, for what reason I

don't know. I began to be able to recognize a certain type of white woman who wouldfrequent the clubs we played at, usually someone with a black boyfriend. This type of

white woman was always completely assimilated into the segment of black culture we

were entertaining, so much so that she spoke with black mannerisms, and could fluentlyand comfortably use black jargon and slang. As someone who consciously and

unconsciously remained “white” in the midst of this environment, I found such women

fascinating. I was somewhat unwilling and perhaps unable to completely remold my personality so as to fit into this milieu, and I would always marvel at these women who

seemed to feel totally comfortable “going black”, as they said.

One interesting linguistic feature of black culture at the time, at least this segmentof it, is the subtle use of the word “nigger”. Whereas I, of course, would never dream of

8/9/2019 Corliss


calling any of the people in the band a “nigger”, I found that they themselves used the

word all the time. The word could be employed as a form of address, as in “Whaddya

think you're doin', nigger?”, or in the third person to replace “he” or “she”, as in “Why isBernard puttin' the vocal mike on the drumset? Nigger ain't got no common sense.” The

term is by no means invariably derogatory, and is often said with a tone of respect, as in

“Nigger sure can play that guitar.” This is such a standard feature of black AmericanEnglish that I soon got used to hearing it and became familiar with its many usages.

One weekend we were playing in a club in Chickasha, Oklahoma. On Saturday

night, one of these totally assimilated white women, a blonde, came in with her black boyfriend (or husband, I don't know which). The two of them sat together with a few

friends, occasionally getting up to dance. About 11:00 the woman's boyfriend had to

leave for some reason, but the woman stayed at the club, sitting at a table with a group of

black women who seemed to know her quite well. During breaks I would occasionallyoverhear some of the conversation they were having and, as usual, I was amazed to hear

this white woman quite naturally using extremely idiomatic black locutions and phrases

as if she'd been doing it all her life.

During a break Corliss, Bo, and I were next to the stage trying to fix a brokenmicrophone stand. An obviously drunk little guy wearing a floppy hat came up to me

and asked if the white woman seated at the table nearby was my girl. No, I told him, Ididn't know the woman. He stood next to me for a while making small talk, rocking back

and forth on the balls of his feet, his thumbs stuck into his wide leather belt with a

stupidly-huge silver buckle. After a few minutes he sauntered over to the table where the

blonde woman was sitting with her friends. There weren't too many people in the club bythen (apparently nobody was exactly dying to hear our second set), and despite the

jukebox playing, everyone could easily hear the conversation at the table when the little

guy sat down. It was pretty clear he was hitting on the blonde woman, and hitting on her pretty hard. She was trying to keep it light, joking with the guy while making it clear she

wasn't interested. Occasionally she would raise her voice in an exaggerated, theatrical

voice loud enough for the entire club to hear, saying “Hey, dude, why don't you just getyour ass home, I think I hear your old lady callin' you!” or some other joking put-down,

to which her girlfriends would howl with appreciative laughter. He got up several times

to go get another drink at the bar, but he would always take a seat at the table next to the blonde woman.

Just before we were ready to go on stage again, the little guy started up on her

again. She turned exasperatedly to her friends and said in a stage whisper, “I done told

him to get lost a hundred times. Nigger must be deaf or somethin’.” The little guy boltedto his feet, knocking his chair over. “What did you call me?” he said, standing over the

blonde with his fists clenched. “What was that word you called me, bitch?” The

situation had become very ugly in the space of one sentence.“Hey, take it easy, dude,” she said, trying to avert a disaster. “Sit down and have

a drink with us.”

“I wanna hear you say it again, bitch,” he said, throwing his hat off to show hemeant business. “What was that word you called me?” The entire club froze. The

blonde, trying to act cool, took out a cigarette and lit it, as if nothing were happening.

There wasn't time for anyone to assess the situation before he hit her in the arm. Not very

hard, but a punch nonetheless. “Hey, cool it, man,” somebody said. He hit her again, this

8/9/2019 Corliss


time in the face. Her cigarette tumbled to the floor between her legs. “Hey!” she said,

starting to stand up. He slapped her on the cheek, and at that point people in the club

began to move toward them.Corliss got there first. She was a full head taller than the guy, and when she came

up behind him she literally lifted him off the floor by the shirt collar. “What the fuck do

you think you’re doin’, motherfucker!” she said. She spun him around and shoved himinto a nearby booth, sending ashtrays and glasses clattering to the floor. The little guy,

his shirt scrunched up around his neck, struggled to keep his balance in the chair. I was

astounded to see him change from a menacing bully to an indignant kid in the space of just a few seconds. He pointed a finger at the blonde woman, now standing up and

rubbing her cheek. “She --”

He didn't have time to finish his sentence. Corliss slapped him, hard. “Where the

fuck do you get off hitting a woman?” she yelled, slapping him again on the top of thehead. “Don't you ever, ever hit a woman!”

The little guy shielded his head from her blows. “She called me a …”

“I don't care if she said your mother sucks cock !” said Corliss, “Motherfucker

don'tnever

have no call to beat on a woman. Makes me sick to my stomach to see someskinny-ass dude slapping some little lady around.” She bashed him again several times

about the face and head and then shoved him in the chest, toppling him over backwards,chair and all. He grabbed at a nearby wobbly table for balance as he fell, and several

drinks went crashing to the floor at the same time he did.

I was standing near the stage clutching my trumpet. The whole thing had only

taken thirty seconds, and I don't think I had breathed during that time. Corliss turnedaround and walked toward the women's restroom, probably to comb her Afro, which had

been only slightly mussed in the fracas. “Stupid-ass nigger”, she muttered.

corliss

Documents