You'd think that a guy as rich as Michael could send a car for me. My Reagan-era Civic chokes a few times on the way up the hill and I kick the floorboards again, with love, to give it some incentive. I've only made it through three of the seven gates, and if I break down here in no-man's land it's going to be a long trudge up to the house. You'd think he could send a car.
But then again, if I was the kind of person you had to send a car for, I probably wouldn't be here. I think a big reason Michael likes me is that I'm not a part of his world. I look at things a little differently from the executives and the celebrities that fly out every now and then. The funny thing is, Michael's not a part of that world either. It surrounds him, and I guess to a certain extent it protects him, but in the end he's just as much an outsider here as I am. "You know Joe?" he told me last week, "I feel like I've been painting myself into a corner for the past twenty years."
"That's a shame," I said. "Most people paint themselves into their corners much faster."
Then he laughed, which is one of the things you never see him do on television. It's a girlish, unsettling sound, but I feel lucky every time I hear it because I'm one of the few people that gets to. I'm still thinking about that laugh when the seventh gate opens and the road changes from gravel to yellow brick.
Neverland. The first few seconds are always a little overwhelming. The house and the grounds that surround it are so colorful that it almost hurts. Everywhere you look there is something to catch your eye and hold it: bright metal amusement park rides, a funhouse, giant statues of candy canes and lollipops. It all demands attention. Unfortunately, carousels and Ferris wheels are only happy when they're being used. Abandoned here in broad daylight, they look gaudy and sad. I almost expect tumbleweeds.
Michael doesn't have kids up to the hill anymore, and after the kids quit coming it didn't take long for just about everyone to quit coming. Now the place looks like the day after a carnival, except that it's immaculately clean. I imagine Michael has someone come out here and dust the rides once a week.
There's a garage set off a little from the front of the house, but it hasn't seen any use since Michael let all the valets go. It's a pain in the ass to come in through the front anyway. The double doors up there are twenty feet tall and solid mahogany, and it really takes two people to open them. I drive over the grass, park by the rear terrace, and let myself in through the sliding glass door.
The first time I came through this door was when I set up the satellite TV here six months ago. Michael was already down to one person on permanent staff by then: a large black woman named Tanya. In between rants about the difficulties of keeping house in a place this big, she showed me the back door and all the rooms that needed service. In under a week I did every room that had a TV in it, twenty-three in all. I got to know the interior of the house pretty well, but I never saw Michael. Tanya assured me that even if I didn't see him, he was sure to see me. He had enough passages and peepholes in this place to wander for days.
In bed at night I told my wife that I didn't think it was that big a deal. That celebrities need their space as much as anyone else, maybe more. I didn't admit to anyone how eagerly I had anticipated looking him in the eye and shaking his hand. This was, of course, before I knew that Michael Jackson never shook hands.
I walk through the sun room and into the main hall. "Citizen Mike," I yell, and my voice comes back to me once or twice. "Citizen Mike, come out wherever you are. We've got a schedule to keep."
His voice comes from the stairs behind me, "Am I incognito?"
Michael Jackson is a master of disguise. His array of fat suits, make-up, wigs, and clothes takes up a room that is bigger than my house. He has a different name for each of his different costumes, and he loves putting them on and walking around town anonymously. He watches, eavesdrops, and buys a lot of records. He likes to think that he can blend in, but I always tell him that blending in and remaining unnoticed are two different things.
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