I met him the spring before that. My high school friend, Jake Austen (he had the Chica Go-Go show in Chicago, and his brother, Ben, writes important articles for the New York Times), was having a killer party in Hyde Park. Jake had been advertising Club Naked, a club which was run by Adam's older brother, Troy Abshire, and many other folks, and where Adam was learning to become a DJ. Every week Jake handed out flyers for Club Naked at Kenwood, our high school. He was really good at promoting a party. So, when I saw Adam and Bryan Sperry handing out flyers at Jake's party, I said, "Oh, I know about that place," even though I'd never been there. I took a flyer and huffed away. Later, Adam would admit that he remembered me from that night and thought I was a B-I-T-C-H. I remembered him from that night, too. He had such pale skin and such red lips, and his hair was slicked back like a jazz man from the 1930s, with waves. I thought he looked androgynous, strange. He looked different from anyone else.
Over a month later, I was sitting bored with friends, listening to the Saturday night mixes on the radio, and in our desperation for something to do, I pulled out the flyer, which was still in my purse. We decided to give it a shot. The music was so wonderful, and the dancing was so excellent, we became regulars at Club Naked. But I didn't officially meet Adam right away. I was dating a guy who eventually went away to college, so I had my mind on him, and Adam wasn't too impressed with my spiked hair, so he didn't pay much mind yet. It was in late summer, when we should have already been in school but weren't because of the strike, that we finally talked to each other. I wore my hair like you see in the picture above, and that is what drew him to me, at least that is what he said. We bonded over music and style. He was floored that I knew both house music and odd rock like rare, early Talking Heads. He traveled up north and I shared my love of David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve in "The Hunger," and I traveled south and we listened to jazz records. My mother remembers that we all went to the Chicago Jazz Festival to see Irakere together. But he was younger than me, and that meant a lot in those early years. He didn't know how to act in our relationship and was often argumentative. I knew the relationship wouldn't last, but somehow an indelible impression had been left. He had such a good ear. There were very few other people who I met during my high school years that appreciated a wide range of music. I learned to appreciate Bobby McFerrin more through him. We sweated Annie Lennox's voice, and Santana instrumentals, and he even went to see Front 242 with me. Damn, I'd forgotten that one. We went to the Metro for the concert and then took the bus down to Club Naked afterward; what a night! And because of him, I pulled out my disco records, which I had abandoned for punk at that time, a little more often.
I stayed connected to Club Naked for a while, but eventually, I lost touch with the group because I became focused on studying once in college. I literally had to abandon all my friends, even my best friend, so that I wouldn't party and just focus on school. But once I got the hang of things, maybe around 1991 or 1992, I decided I could handle going out to dance again. That's when my best friend's boyfriend told me that Adam was DJing at a club in Wicker Park. "It's called Red Dog," he said.
"Really? Is it any good?"
"Uh, yeah, it's really good. You should go."
I did go, and when I got there, I decided to say "hi," even though I was worried he'd be annoyed or not remember me. I was lifted into an overhead DJ booth and the person behind the turntables was unrecognizable. Adam had dreds! When he saw me, a huge smile came on his face and he gave me a big hug. Then I introduced him to my boyfriend, and his smile sank. I decided I should cut things short.
However, months later, when the relationship I was in had ended, and I was lonely and somewhat nervous about dating someone entirely new, I figured I'd give Adam a call. It was easy to reach him in Pilsen, as his family was established there. He called me right back and asked me to dinner. We began dating right away and I became a fixture at Red Dog, completely mesmerized with how he had grown as a DJ. His hit "Zig Zag" was playing everywhere, and it was a joy to dance three or four times a week. I was working two jobs and I was an excellent student at Columbia College Chicago, so dancing was a way to de-stress. It was also fascinating to see everyone from Club Naked again. Dzine had done the artwork at Red Dog, Troy and his crew were the United Freaks of America, and they were all so beautiful, especially Yvette, whose outfits were inspirational.
I spent most of my nights in Adam's loft or listening to tracks in his studio, when we weren't at Red Dog. If I stayed all night, I called home to let my folks know, and Troy would say, "That's nice. You're a good girl. That's really nice." Adam wasn't ever as mellow as Troy back then. He was more argumentative than I remembered him in high school. But his ear. Now he was really into Duke Ellington, and when we listened to Bjork, he always pointed out the squeaky highs in her singing, and I learned, "Yes, that is the thing that gets to your bones, to your inner guts, that squeak, that desperate squeak." He pointed out the squeaks in Janis Joplin, and when we went to see "Carlito's Way," the squeak in Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful," right at the end, when he sings, "...to me...." One night, he took me into the studio and played an early version of "Chunk-a-Nova," and he asked me what I thought. I said, "That's cool," in a totally inexpressive way. It was not what he needed. Yet, weeks later when it was playing everywhere, and I was dancing like crazy to it, he said, "You didn't act this way about it when I shared it with you," I had no explanation for him. I don't think he realized that he knew how to hear something before others could hear it. He knew what the whole room wanted to hear. I felt moved when he'd mix Pink Floyd in with a deep house track, for example. The bizarre combinations broke racial barriers, broke art barriers, and they created a harmony that most of us wished for in human interactions but rarely found.
Adam was a true artist, but at the time, I sensed a lot of frustration. One night, when he'd taken a bevy of pills and inhalants, he had a panic attack and I had to sit with him in the stairwell of Red Dog to calm him down. He said he didn't think what he wanted was going to happen and that's why he was so nervous all the time. He said to me, "Do you want to know what I really want?"
I said, "Sure."
"I've never said this to anyone. Don't repeat this."
"Okay."
"I want to be like Quincy Jones. I want to be able to make amazing music and help other people make amazing music." He looked so scared to tell me.
I said, "But don't you know I know that already? It's obvious."
When his birthday came around in February, I bought him a book. It was a well-received tome all about every jazz musician you can think of. I figured he could read about them and maybe follow in their footsteps, DJ-style. He didn't like the gift, at least that's how he acted. "Buyin' a DJ a book, psshh," he said, looking at it. I didn't think that maybe, as a high school drop out, he had disdain for books. That broke my heart because I thought it was a thoughtful gift. He often grew cranky, in ways I didn't understand. He complained about so many things and people, and the only thing that calmed him down was DJing (and what he was named after, sometimes).
One night, when he was packing up records to go to Red Dog - that's what DJs did back then (!) - he was particularly cranky, swearing about this and that, throwing things around. I asked him, "You don't really like anyone, do you?"
"No," he said without pause. When he saw the look on my face, he backtracked and said, "Oh, but I like you." He didn't understand that what he saw on my face wasn't a desperate need to be loved by him, but a genuine sadness because of his sadness. I wanted him to love life, I wanted him to feel how I felt when he played his mixes, I wanted him to dance and feel what I felt when I danced. I didn't try to explain to him. I knew, just like Troy implied when he called me a "good girl," that my experience was different.
He wasn't the best boyfriend, so things ended. Every now and then we'd see each other, here and there, but it was finally over around 1994 or so. There were ways in which Adam hurt me that I cannot express here, but I will say that I was able to forgive him, perhaps because it felt like we grew up together. We were kids, you know? Trying to have fun, trying to figure things out, usually failing.
I didn't reconnect with him again until the invention of Facebook. When I did see him on the site, our interactions were pleasant enough. When our friend Larissa planned a Club Naked reunion, I was initially excited about it, but then when it actually came to going, I felt like I had moved on and wasn't sure I wanted to open that door again. I didn't go. Nonetheless, Adam came to me for help with his Red Dog page, and regularly reposted my blog about Club Naked, at one point even saying to me that he thought I was an excellent writer. When we had dated, he had judged my ability to be a writer, so his change of heart felt like it came from the heart. He had never been one to admit he was wrong before.
If Facebook is good for anything, it is good for seeing how an interaction with someone can change into something you didn't expect it to be. I did not have any significant relationship with Adam for the last 20 years, but the interactions that we did have in the distant past shaped me, in both good and bad ways. It means so much to me that, in his own way, he took back the bad and acknowledged that he'd been wrong about some things. It also means a lot to me that I got to see how he survived many challenging years and situations, and maybe learned something, maybe became a better man. But what pleases me the most is that he never gave up making music. It's nice to know that neither one of us abandoned our dreams, the dreams we shared with each other when we were kids.
Adam will never read my book, but this poem in it, which has been read across the country, was inspired by him and our time at Club Naked and Red Dog (normally, it is sung; he won't ever get to hear me sing it, either):
I Lost My Virginity to a DJ
deep
deep
deep
deep
Fiasco’s drinkin’ gin and
tonic
deep
deep
deep
deep
Fiasco’s drinkin’ gin and
tonic
deep
deep
deep
deep
curly girl’s walkin’ in with
a fake fur
deep
deep
curly girl’s walkin’ in with
a fake fur
deep
deep
blue…light in the water
deep
deep
red…light in the water
deep
deep
deep
deep
coat check girl is under
eighteen
but her daddy’s the owner,
know what I mean
deep down
deep down
deep down
deep down
bartender is her brother
I ain’t ever seen her mother
deep down
deep down
deep down
deep down
curly girl is spinnin’ in the
middle of the crowd
deep down
deep down
deep down
deep down
don’t go into the stairwell
the walls and the floorboards
have a thing or two to tell you
deep down
deep down
deep down
deep down
a sniff a pipe a sip a life
deep down
deep down
tick tock tick tock tick tock
tick tock
deep down
deep down
deep down
deep down
slide that leg arms reach
overhead
and bounce
deep down
and bounce
deep down
hide in a groove
in a circle that moves
deep down
in the wax
deep down
skippin’ beats on the trax
deep down
in the wax
deep down
on the trax
deep down
deep down
deep down
curly girl is walkin’ out as
the loop ends
deep
deep
deep
deep
gatherin’ in the alley
cars drivin’ off to who?
where?
deep
deep
deep
deep
good-bye
deep
deep
deep
deep
good-night
*