Angelique Too

My thanks to Charlene for the beautiful background picture!

Part One

Michael felt like he’d just awakened from the best night’s sleep he’d had in a long, long time … years, in fact. The sensation of being suspended between wakefulness and slumber was familiar … half remembered from his last World Tour, he thought … almost as a hazy memory from a long-forgotten childhood. He was comfortable … no pain or fear disturbed his contentment. Even the dull ache in his legs, back, arms, and shoulders, the result of unaccustomed long hours of rehearsal for his latest venture was eased. He knew a moment of gratitude that he’d never neglected his lifelong practice of daily dance sessions or he was sure the dull ache would have been a lot sharper over the past few months. All was still … no light … no sound … not even the steady pulse which had accompanied his every thought … even in sleep … for the last nearly fifty-one years … and was frequently injected stealthily as the backbone in his music was silenced. He wasn’t alarmed by its absence. It had become such a constant companion that he often didn’t notice it … like the chimes of a grandfather clock at the bottom of a long stairway that someone had forgotten to wind.

His body drifted in a state of peaceful lethargy induced by the drug he’d asked his doctor to administer after yet another in a long, long series of sleepless nights … but his mind remained active … reviewing the events of the day … remembering … cataloguing … planning … envisioning … dreaming up innovative ways to present his music … translating the melodies and harmonies that were seldom absent from his thoughts into form. He was an open-source amplifier … constantly receiving inspiration from somewhere … heaven, he supposed. Music, rhythm, harmony, visions of spectacular visual clarity, concepts to engage all of the audio-visual apparatus of his audiences in one wholeness of joy and discovery. Even in the last ten years when he hadn’t performed or released any new material, much of each of his days had been spent in deciphering and transcribing onto a tape recorder the melodies and harmonies he heard in his head … using his vocal instrument only … the bass produced deep in his chest cavity … which he then placed on tracks in a recording studio to be worked on later … and dancing, often without benefit of external accompaniment … just  keeping time with his own internal orchestral conductor … and playing with Prince, Paris, and Blanket. The decade had passed quickly … but also with interminable slowness.

Michael recognized that his chronic insomnia had become crippling. He just couldn’t find a way to shut down … to switch off … enough to allow his body its much needed rest. Even he admitted that the solution he’d found wasn’t perfect when Janet and the rest of his siblings had staged an intervention. He recognized their actions were motivated by love … and was grateful for their concern. The surplus adrenalin which coursed through his veins allowed him to perform at the “are you nuts?” level to which he was accustomed … and which his fans had come to expect … but it was difficult to shut that flow off when the show was over, the stadiums empty, and the fans home in their own beds.

Casting back to his last World Tour, he saw again … in his mind’s eye … a face … framed by brightly-shining blond tendrils, lit by green eyes dancing with golden sparks, spattered with freckles over cheeks and nose as if dripped from a paintbrush, and a smile revealing small, white teeth. He recognized the lovely young woman who had, somehow, boarded his flight to Paris for a few days of holiday at Euro-Disney prior to embarking on the HIStory campaign … in mid flight over the Atlantic Ocean … sat in Wayne’s seat and touched his hand … and then vanished when the Concorde landed at its destination. He’d seen her again outside his window at the hotel, standing calmly in the middle of the mayhem that had always attended his travels, the eye of the tempest that was his life. He’d sent Wayne out in the middle of the night to find her, but the ex-policeman had returned empty-handed and more than a little baffled by his employer’s strange behavior.

Finally, he’d composed himself to rest, turned out the lights of his suite, and settled into the luxurious king-sized bed when he’d felt that soft touch on his hand again and he’d been introduced to … well, there was no other word for it … an angel. What followed had seemed like a dream … the most beautiful dream he’d ever had, in fact. For several months, she’d accompanied him as he’d strode across Europe and Asia, always preceded by the gigantic statue he’d had constructed to announce his imminent arrival at his next tour stop. He laughed as he remembered that statue. It had caused such a stir. “The most vainglorious display of self-deification a pop star ever made with a straight face,” they’d called it, but it got their attention!

Angelique’s presence was joy to him. He couldn’t remember ever having so much fun. She’d visited orphanages and hospitals in every city in which he’d performed with him, sat on his “cherry picker” watching his concerts clapping and whistling through her teeth, and held him through the night so that his body could sleep, while they held long conversations in his mind … and played hide and seek in secret forest glens … and walked among the throngs that always jammed the entrances and exits of his hotels … and kissed with unimaginable heat on sandy shorelines as gulls cried overhead.

That’s how he’d become addicted to the sensation he now felt as the intravenous drip delivered another drop of the milky substance directly into his veins. It was similar to the out-of-body travel he’d experienced with his angelic companion nearly ten years ago … similar, but not exactly the same … a dim reflection, perhaps, of that feeling … as the moon is a dim reflection of the sun’s brilliance. The chemical was the only human means he’d found in the ensuing years to recreate a reasonable facsimile of the feeling of flight with a beautiful angel.

He couldn’t quite remember how he’d lost his ability to see her … hear her … sense her presence.  She’ always told him that it was as he willed it … that he controlled her relevance in his life … that her reality required his belief and acceptance to be manifest in his world. Somewhere along the way, Michael must have stopped believing in her … or denied her existence. Perhaps, it was during the rape of Neverland by seventy sheriff deputies … or his five-month trial on charges of sexual molestation … or his years of roaming from place to place in search of the feeling of comfort, welcome, and homecoming that Neverland had always offered him as soon as he entered the front gates. He couldn’t remember, but somehow he’d lost his ability to see her. With her, he’d lost a large chunk of himself and he didn’t know how to reconnect with either … though he did know that she was always there. She’d told him that often enough.

During his absence from the world stage, he’d spoken to Kenny Ortega often about doing something together, but he’d told him that it had to be something special … something to bring everyone into consensus … union … to accomplish a goal. He refused to mount a production just because he is Michael Jackson … and he could do so easily. It had to have purpose and drive and meaning before he would commit himself to it … and full and absolute commitment was the only way he would do it. His fans expected no less of him. He would not knowingly let them down. If he did it, he would do it as he’d always done … all out … with as close to 100% perfect execution as he could get … putting it all on the line again, as he always had. Because that’s what Michael Jackson is all about. Period!

Finally he’d found the impetus … the goal … the cause … for which he could throw himself … body, soul, and mind into the enormous undertaking required by one of his tours. He’d read a report by a bunch of European scientists which had alarmed him. It said that the human family had only four years before the damage being done to the Earth was irreversible … only four years! Now, that was a cause he could certainly get behind. Michael’s love for the planet was very intensely felt, sincerely communicated, and well documented … and the planet had reached a critical juncture … a stage of “life support” terminal illness. Besides, his kids were curious about what their daddy did for a living and they were old enough now to appreciate what Michael had devoted his life to.

Finally, he felt strongly about wanting to do something for his fans. They’d stuck by him through thick and thin. He felt an intense love and gratitude to them for forty years of devotion and loyalty, love and affection ... even in his darkest hours … through all his trials and tribulations … they’d always been the one constant he could count on. He shared a special kinship with his fans that few artists could understand … or duplicate with any sincerity. He supposed It’d come of beginning his career when he was only a baby himself and growing up with many of them, in a way. He’d always been very protective of them … solicitous of their welfare … sending pillows and blankets sailing out hotel windows (after signing them, of course) so that they could be more comfortable during their long, cold nights camped outside his hotels … ordering pizzas and hamburgers to be delivered to appease their hunger. He smiled inwardly as he recalled their devotion.

The last few months had been deeply satisfying for him. Kenny, Travis, and Michael Bearden worked well together. When Michael threw himself into the mix there was no stopping the creative fire that poured out of them … all of them … to the point that they didn’t even keep track of who thought of what … it became a true collaboration and the likelihood of magic intensified and broadened. With his vision, clarity, voice, and innate sense of rhythm and flow in a stage production, they all felt that there was nothing they couldn’t accomplish.

As always, he’d been exhaustively involved in every aspect of the show … from choosing his dancers and backup singers to lighting design to stage design to musical arrangement to film concepts to 3-D filming to choreography to conceptualizing … there was no detail too small to capture his attention. Even the number of people on the ground required to assemble the stage and the number of trucks needed to transport the massive megawatt equipment to the O2 Arena in London were not beneath his notice. If this thing was gonna be done, he was gonna make sure it was done right! He’d even flown to London to choose the medical crew who would be on hand to treat the fans who might become overheated … or faint … in the excitement of the gigantic production.

Of course, all of this involvement and commitment took its toll, increasing his concern that everyone would be safe while enjoying the most technically complicated audio visual extravaganza he’d ever staged in his four decade career … multiplying the already myriad reasons why his brain just refused to shut down when he turned out the lights. He was accustomed to this. It had been so ever since BAD, his first solo tour in the 80’s. But he had no doubt that his age wasn’t making things any easier.

Michael was excited about This Is it. His vision was manifesting before his very eyes. The 3-D elements of Thriller and Smooth Criminal were meshing seamlessly with the on-stage elements, the technical difficulties of presenting a 3-D spectacle in a live performance were being ironed out, his costumes were even going to be “light enhanced.” “This is gonna be one cool show!” he thought with another chuckle. He’d tried to get Kenny to find a way to reproduce Victoria Falls on stage for Earth Song, but Kenny had … not exactly balked at the idea … but been defeated by how such a thing could be done in so short a time (they only had eight more days). When he’d explained at 3:00 in the morning that he was channeling these ideas, Kenny had asked Michael to ask his Higher Power to take a vacation for a little while so they could finish rehearsals and get these shows off the ground. “I can’t do that … he’ll give the ideas to Prince!” he’d responded with a giggle. Kenny had laughed out loud, ending the conversation with, “Go to sleep, MJ!”

Yesterday’s rehearsal went well, he mused. He felt his vocal chords  warming and limbering and stretching to accommodate a two or two and a half hour show … his body was settling into the rhythms and dance sequences with little fuss … the dancers and singers and band members were becoming more comfortable with him and stretching and expanding in their performances as a result. Their love and devotion was always one of his biggest hurdles … they all had to overcome the impediment that they were sharing a stage with the “great and wonderful Michael Jackson” … they’d all grown up listening to his music and watching his short films … learning from him as he’d learned from James Brown and Jackie Wilson. They treated him with respect, bordering on awe. It took time and constant, daily contact for them to realize that he was no different from them … that he was a human being just like them … that he put his pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.

The process of achieving a level of easy, human, personal interaction could, sometimes, take months! It was all just part and parcel of his level of mega-stardom, he supposed. He appreciated the hero worship, but it did get tiring … often presenting an obstacle that could be difficult to surmount. Sometimes he missed Greg Phillinganes and Brad Buxer and Sheryl Crow who had accompanied him on the BAD World Tour … Greg and Brad had also been on the Dangerous and HIStory World Tours and they had developed a particular closeness during those record-breaking events. He remembered how long it had taken Sheryl to be at ease enough to tease him on the BAD tour, but her flirting had enhanced the audience’s enjoyment immeasurably … as well as adding considerable savor to his own performances … after all … Sheryl is a beautiful and talented woman. What red-blooded man wouldn’t want her flirting with him?

“These dancers and singers are so young, though!” he thought … or dreamed … or whatever … with a mental shrug. “They’re just kids … talented kids just like I was … but kids nonetheless.” Michael attributed this feeling to his age rather than theirs, but many of them hadn’t even been born when he started touring on his own … let alone when he toured with his brothers. “They are good, though … especially that young, blond guitar player … Orianthi, right? She looks like she’s twelve!”

Suddenly, Michael felt a disturbance in the air around him … a “stirring” … as if someone or something had walked past the bed … or opened the door to his room. “It’s probably just Conrad coming in to stop the drip and wake me up. Gotta get busy … lotsa work to do.”  He felt a light fluttery touch on his brow and calming, soothing, comforting warmth invaded his being. He remembered being touched in this way before … years ago … the HIStory tour … Prague … and before that Euro-Disney.

“Don’t be alarmed, dear one,” he heard a familiar voice whisper within his mind. “You are safe now. Do you recognize my voice? Do you know me?”

“Yes,” Michael answered simply. “I’ve missed you so much. Where have you been?” Michael remembered the gentle angel from his dream from so long ago, her voice caressing him as he slept. “No, don’t answer. I know. You were always here. I just couldn’t break through my conditioning, right?”

“Very good, beloved,” the voice replied. “I’m glad you haven’t totally forgotten me. Just relax and don’t be afraid. Can you rise?”

Michael thought for a moment. “Rise? You mean wake up?”

Angelique wavered hesitantly before replying, “No, my dear. You won’t be waking up this time. I mean can you leave your body behind and come with me as you did before? Can you see me? Feel me? Your body is still being filled by that horrible drug and your soul is still connected by strong webs. Conrad won’t be here for another hour or so. In the meantime …”

“Whoa … whoa … whoa …” Michael thought panicking. “He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on the drip … monitoring my heart and breathing …”

The soft voice that Michael knew as his Angelique replied hesitantly, “I know, beloved. But he’s not. He’s on the phone … I think that’s what you call it. Your heart has stopped … your body has stopped breathing … but the drug is still tying you to your body.” Angelique felt Michael’s panic rising again and touched his brow with hers, sharing her serenity and peace … and she felt him calm instantly.

“But I have so much work to do,” he thought. “The concerts … This Is It … I can’t disappoint them all … and the album … I need to remind them to care for the children … the planet …”

“You will, dear one … you will remind everyone of every message you ever placed in your music … or your dance … of every note you’ve channeled throughout the years … not one will be lost or forgotten … we will see to that … you and I … your fans will take care of it … your friend, Kenny, will remind them all of everything.”

Michael’s panic subsided a little, “But what about my kids … Prince, Paris, and Blanket?”

“Don’t worry, my beautiful Michael,” he sensed … more than heard … in his heart. “You have provided for them … and you will be with them every step of the way … as I’ve been with you every step of your journey … whether you recognized and accepted my presence, as you did before … or did not, as more recently … I am always here … as you will be for them. Now, here comes your doctor, beloved. When the needle is removed, you’ll be released from its affects ... and your body. You’ll be able to rise … to see and sense your surroundings. You’ve done this before … with me … do you remember?”

“Yes,” Michael responded. “I remember.”

“Good. Just relax and don’t be afraid. All is well. Okay?” Angelique asked.

Once again, Michael felt that same fluttery touch on his forehead and the calm and serenity that his angelic companion personified bathed him as he felt himself rising. He was able to look back and watch his physician performing CPR on his lifeless body as he called for help. Angelique floated above the scene with him, looking just as she had the last time he’d seen her … her short, blond, curly hair, locks curling around her pixyish face … her sparkling green eyes lit by golden flecks … her freckles dotting the bridge of her nose and her checks … her compact, little body once again wearing comfortable blue jeans and a t-shirt with sparkling letters spelling out its message … “My boss is a Jewish carpenter.” He couldn’t help but smile, the light of his smile illuminating his remarkable eyes. “I thought I’d dreamed you back then … or lost you … I wasn’t sure which.”

Angelique returned his smile tentatively. “No, dearest … you didn’t lose me … and you didn’t dream me, either. You may have lost yourself for a time … but I told you … you can never lose me just as I can never lose you. We are one. The events of your life became overwhelming … made it a bit difficult for you to believe in the magic we shared together … the illusion became more real to you … through its pain and anguish … than the reality of what we knew. You became ensnared in that illusion … allowed it to entangle you more firmly than ever in its tendrils. I am always here … and I always love you.” Once again her smile lit her green eyes with golden fire.

Michael turned from her to watch Conrad toiling over his inert form, pumping his chest in cadenced cycles. “Will he bring me back?” he asked hesitantly.

Angelique’s glendruid eyes misted over with unshed tears. “I don’t know, dear one … but I don’t think so. We will not go far, just in case he does succeed.” She reached for his hand and held it as she, too, watched the doctor’s feeble attempts to reanimate the empty shell which lie so peacefully below them. Suddenly, she sighed deeply. “It was the most beautiful, sensual physical envelope I have ever seen. I shall miss it!”

Michael nodded slowly. “Well, I don’t know about beautiful,” he thought. “Most of the world criticized it … scorned it … ridiculed it … measured it and found it wanting. But it did everything I asked of it … and then some … for much longer than I could have ever imagined or hoped. I am grateful to have been allowed its use. I’m afraid I didn’t treat it very well sometimes. But, Angel, I’m still hearing the music … the melodies and harmonies still clamor for my attention. Why is that?”

Angelique chuckled softly, “Beloved, you are the most sensitive tuning fork ever created. You will go on hearing the music … rejoicing in the hearing … translating the melodies and harmonies into form. I hope you won’t mind too much?”

Michael and Angelique watched the paramedics arriving to transport Michael’s body to the hospital. Before they lifted him from the bed, they jammed large needles containing resuscitative drugs into his neck and chest cavity, attached catheters and defibrillators to shock his heart back into a regular rhythm and cuffs to monitor his blood pressure and heartbeat. None of their efforts produced any response. Eventually, they placed his corpse onto a stretcher for transport to the nearest medical facility.

“Angel, I wanna see my kids,” Michael said quietly. Instantly, he was standing in the kitchen of his rented house in the Holmsby Hills section of Los Angeles. Prince, Paris, and Blanket were gathered around the marble island as the young chef he’d hired just a few months previous piled food on their plates. They seemed anxious. They knew something was going on, but had no idea what the problem was. Just that their dad had some kind of problem. They were playing with, rather than eating the fruit and salads in front of them

“Michael,” Angelique whispered. “We need to talk. You need to understand a couple of things.”

Michael tore his eyes away from his beautiful children. “Okay … talk,” he said.

“Well, do you remember when we traveled around before … you had to kinda melt through obstacles?” Angelique asked.

Michael nodded without looking away from the three children.

“Well … things are a little different now. You travel now by intention.”

“Intention?” he asked. “What do you mean intention?”

“Well,” Angelique struggled to explain. “Now if you think a thing … you are there … do you see what I mean? For example, you just said to me, ‘I wanna see my kids,’ and you are there. You travel now at the speed of thought. Do you understand?”

Finally, he turned to look into Angelique’s eyes. “Warp speed,” he exclaimed playfully. “Woohoo … I love it.”

Angelique laughed out loud this time. “Not exactly, dear one. Warp speed is the speed of light. This is much faster. But you have to be careful what you … um … intend. Each thought will transport you to that place. Do you see what I mean? You could end up popping into and out of places and situations at dizzying speeds which could … um … disorient you somewhat … especially since you are so new to it.”

“Each thought will transport me to that place, huh?” Michael asked thoughtfully.

Angelique nodded.

“Just by thinking … I am there … huh?” he continued.

Angelique nodded.

“You don’t mind if I play with that a little, do you?” Michael asked. He found himself on the stage at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The kids were rehearsing Man in the Mirror with Judith Hill singing his part. She was really very good. He remembered yesterday when they’d sung I Just Can’t Stop Loving You together and he’d tried teasing her a little … removing his sunglasses … lifting his eyebrows … crooking his finger … in a “come hither” gesture. She hadn’t quite known how to react … wasn’t yet comfortable enough with him to return his flirting in kind. “That hero worship thing again,” he thought.

His next thought was “Kenny” and he was standing behind Kenny Ortega who’d just been talking on his cell phone. He put the phone in his pocket and walked toward the stage grabbing a microphone. He stopped center stage and said, “Can I have everyone’s attention please?” A momentary hush enveloped the huge auditorium. When he’d made eye contact with a number of those standing in front of the stage, his voice rang out again. “MJ has just been rushed to the hospital.” He paused as a collective gasp rose from dozens of throats in unison. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious, so let’s not get too upset, yet. I’m going over there and will keep in close touch.” Handing the microphone to Travis, he jumped from the stage and exited the building, heading with singular purpose toward his car.

The thought, “Katherine,” flitted through his mind and he was at her side as she entered her Rolls, her driver helping her into the back seat and closing the door. Then he sat behind the wheel, buckled his seatbelt, closed the driver’s door and backed the stately limousine out of the curving drive toward the road that would take them to the hospital. Silent tears rolled unheeded down his mother’s cheek, but she was too much a lady to call attention to her fears.

“Dunk,” brought him to his sister, Janet’s, apartment in New York. She was standing in front of her television watching the ambulance back out of the driveway of his Holmsby Hills rental with her hand over her mouth and panic lighting her eyes. He reached out and touched her cheek lightly with the fingers of his left hand, but she seemed to be too immersed in panic to feel his presence.

“Neverland,” brought him home. He hadn’t seen it in a long time … five years almost. The familiar feeling of homecoming enveloped him as it always had when he was here, but the place seemed deserted. No children’s laughter danced through the grounds. The park rides had been dismantled and shipped off to other less magical amusement parks around the country … the zoo animals had been relocated to other zoos around the world … his furniture and artwork had been removed from the main house … the cavernous rooms echoed with emptiness and silence … the recording studio was still there, but dusty, unused … only the nearly perfect circular stain on the highly polished wooden floor of the dance studio testified to his over fifteen-year occupancy, the result of the sweat of countless nights spent in twirling, spinning, grabbing, sliding, thrusting, moonwalking … until he couldn’t think … couldn’t breathe … couldn’t walk back to his own room to pass out exhausted on the bed … often as the sun was peeking over the horizon in the east.

Angelique’s arms encircled his body, her head resting in the indentation in his back just between his shoulder blades. “I felt your pain,” she said. “It has always called me to you … even when you did not … or could not … sense my presence. It always will.”

Michael nodded, reveling in her nearness and her palpable love for him for a few moments before turning to face her. “It’s so sad,” he said with a quiver of emotion. “This place pulsated with life and love and fantasy and fun. I wish you could’ve seen it. It was my Garden of Eden … alive with promise and possibility and music and laughter and joy. Look what they’ve done to it.”

“I did see it, my sweet Michael,” she averred. “I helped you build it. Those nights when you danced yourself into an exhausted trance in the dance studio … I danced with you. The nights when you recorded the demos for Will You Be There and Keep the Faith and Fall Again … I helped harmonize on the background vocals. When you rode the rides all by yourself … I was in the next car … laughing with you. When the children came from the hospitals and inner city schools … I helped keep them all safe. I am always here.”

“I wish I could’ve felt your presence like I did in Paris and Prague and Bucharest,” he said. “I called out for you during those years … even in my pain and anger during the trial … as I listened to those children lie so boldly … I needed you so badly.”

Angelique nodded. “And I was here … always … as I am now. I held you … touched you with my love … tried to ease your suffering. Your pain blocked my love … your anguish erased my touch from your awareness. I couldn’t reach you through all that fear … through the walls that you built around your heart and soul to avoid further hurt. I wanted to … tried to … but you were … closed to me. I couldn’t get through. But I never stopped trying. I never left you alone. I can’t. My love is too all-encompassing … too infinite. I need to be with you probably more than you needed me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Michael said seriously. As he spoke, he felt a cry of anguish rend his consciousness. Within the next heartbeat, he was standing in the hospital watching his mother sob uncontrollably as Jermaine reached out to comfort her. Michael knelt before her and put his arms around her trembling shoulders, cradling her head against his cheek and kissing her. “I’m here,” he thought, whispering his thought into her ear. “I’m here, Kat. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

Blanket approached from across the room where Prince and Paris sat crying with Tito and Jackie. Jermaine watched him, tears trickling from his eyes. Stopping at Michael’s side, he stood quietly, his eyes riveted toward Michael comforting his grandmother. Michael released Katherine’s shoulders and placed his arms around Blanket’s holding him close, kissing his hair, and repeating his thought, “I’m right here … I haven’t gone anywhere.” Blanket separated himself from Michael’s grasp and his serious brown eyes stared right into Michael’s. He nodded, turning to return to the couch on which his older brother and sister sat with his uncles.

“Angel, he saw me,” Michael said.

“Yes,” she answered from his side. “Children are very sensitive to the world of the spirit … some more so than others. Blanket is one who’ll remain connected to our world easily, seeing little reason to disconnect from it … unless he experiences some kind of trauma and closes himself off … he’s much like you were as a child. You seldom had the opportunity to … um … plug in … through your imagination … because you were always working. So, we had to find other ways to communicate with you … to touch you. We did it through music … melody, harmony, dance … you’ve always been so receptive to music. Blanket is very open … willing to see us … hear us … feel us.”

Michael rose from his kneeling position and crossed to Prince, embracing him and whispering his message into his ear. He repeated his actions with Paris. Touching his brothers briefly, he watched the glass doors open to admit Kenny. Kenny looked around the room at the distinct groups of grieving Jacksons. “No,” he whispered. “No. I smell him … his cologne. He’s here!”

Jermaine crossed the distance between Kat and Kenny and put his arms around Kenny’s shoulders, pulling him into an embrace. When Jermaine released him, Kenny felt another warm embrace and Michael’s cologne wafted up and around him, enveloping him in MJ’s presence as it always had. “It’s okay, Kenny,” Michael whispered in his ear. “I’m right here!”

Kenny Ortega bowed his head for a moment. Then he turned to Jermaine and said, “I have to go back and tell them … they’re all waiting for him to arrive.”

Jermaine nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”

Kenny shook his head, “No … I’ll do it. Thanks, anyway.” But he whispered to Michael in his mind, “MJ … you’re not gonna desert me on this. I need YOU to come with me … help them all over this.” He left the waiting room at the hospital, walking through the lobby in a daze … but still aware of the scent that so permeated Michael Jackson that the dancers, singers, band members, and videographers … everyone … even Travis and himself … would line up for hugs when he arrived … and, of course, Michael was always more than happy to oblige … shyly hugging each and every one. “The man was a walking, talking, dancing, singing, spinning, twirling,  moonwalking L.O.V.E. machine,” Kenny thought with a sad smile as he boarded his car. He put his head down on his crossed arms on the steering wheel for a moment. “Michael … what are we gonna do?” Once again, Kenny felt the warm embrace of a man who couldn’t possibly be embracing him, but he wasn’t alarmed. Kenny Ortega was somewhat attuned to the spiritual dimension, as were most artists. Just because he couldn’t see it or touch it, didn’t mean that it wasn’t real to him … and his long years of association with Michael Jackson had enhanced that attunement to an almost prescient degree.

He started the car and headed towards the Staples Center just blocks away. He didn’t know how he was going to tell them all … didn’t know the right words to say. Suddenly, he heard Michael’s soft voice whisper in his mind. “Love lives forever,” it said. Regardless of how attuned Kenny was, he nearly steered his car over the parking barricade and in through the doors of the Staples Center.

“Okay, MJ,” Kenny thought. “I get it. You’re still here … and I’m so glad … but you gotta try not to scare shit outta me when I’m driving … okay? … otherwise I’m going to be joining you sooner than either of us thinks.” Michael’s giggle echoed through the car. “Yeah … very funny,” Kenny thought.

Upon entering the Staples Center, he noticed that Travis and Michael Bearden had kept everyone working. MJ had been planning on rehearsing Dirty Diana today and the band was warming up, Orianthi was practicing the guitar riffs. He walked slowly toward the stage, a parade of people not involved in the song trailing in his wake. Grabbing a microphone, he mounted the stage and approached Michael’s mark at the center waiting patiently for everyone to quiet before he began. He felt every eye watching his every breath … the air of anxious concern was palpable.

                                                                      

Slowly, he lifted the mike and spoke with unguarded emotion. “MJ is gone,” he said pausing to let the news sink into the hearts and minds collected around the platform. Gasps sounded and echoed around the silent auditorium.

“What d’ya mean gone?” Michael Bearden exclaimed from behind the bank of keyboards that he called home. “He can’t be gone. Where’d he go? We’ve got a show to do!”

Kenny smiled hesitantly. “Okay … lemme put this another way … Michael Jackson died at 2:26 PM today of an apparent cardiac arrest. He was transported to the hospital and declared dead shortly after arriving.” Again, Kenny paused. He heard sobs and sniffles, saw tears leaking from nearly every eye in the stage lit vicinity. He let the pause “simmer” as Michael would have said for a few more heartbeats … letting it “bathe in the moonlight,” as MJ had said just yesterday.

Then, he again raised the microphone to his lips. “Now, some of us in this auditorium knew MJ for many years … had worked with him before on stage productions or choreography. Some of us knew him only through his music and short films … until meeting him as a person when we gathered together to get this show on the road. Whether you knew MJ for five minutes … or a lifetime … everyone within the sound of my voice felt the love that reached out of his body and soul and heart … wrapping everyone within his space in a blanket of warmth and caring. When I was in the hospital surrounded by grieving Jacksons, denying the reality of what my heart was feeling … I know some of you are going to think I’m crazy … but he hugged me … I swear it … and I smelled him … I’m not saying this very well … I know. The point is … I was driving back here wondering how I was gonna tell you all … when I’m sure I distinctly heard MJ’s voice whisper in my ear … “LOVE LIVES FOREVER” ... I nearly drove my car over the parking barricade and straight in through the glass doors. And Michael Joseph Jackson was all about L.O.V.E. The man was a walking, talking, spinning, gyrating, crotch-grabbing, singing, hee-heeing love machine … a sure fire prescription for what ails you … regardless of your particular malady.”

“Is there anyone in this auditorium that he didn’t hug at least once a day when he was here … anyone who didn’t notice the fragrance of his presence as he snuck up behind you expecting to make you startle … anyone who didn’t stand in line waiting for his embrace just so you could breathe his air for a moment?” Making eye contact with Travis standing at his left hand … and each of the singers, dancers, videographers, and band members in turn as each shook his or her head, he continued. “That kind of loving, caring, generous, humble, self-effacing, unselfish, non-judgmental, all-encompassing love doesn’t just die. It creates! And it goes on creating! Forever!

“Now, I want each one of you to close your eyes. Go ahead. We’re performing an experiment here … close your eyes and just allow yourself to … um … feel for a moment. MJ … do your thing, now …help them over this,” he said, bowing his head and closing his own eyes.

Michael walked through the silent auditorium embracing each of the cast and crew … finally making his way up the steps to the platform and embracing Kenny and Travis and Michael Bearden last. As he touched each one, he or she inhaled deeply and sighed softly as if breathing the scents of a flower. When he’d finished, tears still shone in their eyes, but small, secret smiles lit every face.

Kenny looked around the stage. “Now,” he said quietly. “Am I crazy … or what? Okay, we all have a job to do. I’m not totally sure what that job is, but I know one thing. This is NOT it! This Is It will happen in some way, shape, or form. MJ had an important message to impart … and we will all make sure that message is heard and seen and felt all over the world somehow. It won’t be exactly the same as it was planned, but it will be spectacular … and it will be worthy of him. You have my word on this. For now, we’ll all go home and figure out what comes next. I know he would want me to thank you all for your time and hard work … and your creative spark … and for entrusting your selves to him … and me … for this gig. We’ll all stay in touch and I’ll try to let everyone know where this thing is going and how it’s going to get there. In the meantime, don’t grieve too much. It’s okay to be a little sad that the beautiful man we were all getting to know better … and coming to love …  has … um … transformed, for lack of a better word. But, you all know … you all felt him, smelled him … he hasn’t gone anywhere … close your eyes occasionally and ask for a hug. He’ll prove it to you, if you give him a chance. Okay?”

Kenny handed the microphone to Travis and walked over to each of the three videographers he’d hired to record the rehearsals for Michael’s review at the end of each day. “I need everything you’ve got … all the footage,” he said to each of them. “I need you to deliver it all to me at my house. Don’t get in an accident on the way. Don’t stop along the way for any reason. Don’t leave it unguarded for one moment. I need it in my hands by 7:30 tonight so that I can lock it up in my vault at home. Understand?” The cameramen and one woman nodded solemnly. The woman said, “MJ has yesterday’s shoot for review.” “Okay,” Kenny said. “I’ll get that from his house. He would want me to thank you, too.” “It was an honor to get to know him. I’m going to miss him a lot,” she responded. “He was really quite remarkable, wasn’t he?”

Kenny nodded. “Yes, he IS!” he responded with emphasis on the last word. “I won’t use the past tense. He IS! More than any of us ever knew or appreciated.”

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