Уинстон Грум - Alabama Noir

“When that happens it’s time to get out,” her parents had warned.

Ronnie Dodd, her dad, had come to Birmingham from Opelika, where he had been hired for the midnight-to-six time slot by the local radio station because no one else wanted it. “Give it to the young black guy,” management had reasoned. Ronnie became Opelika history, the first black guy... thing. Ronnie then turned the opportunity and the station into a moneymaker. Within a year he was scooped up by WSGT, the largest and most popular station in Birmingham. WSGT broadcast from a downtown high-rise, which looked out over the city. Ronnie was once again given the midnight-to-six slot. It wasn’t long before “Ronnie Dodd up here in the dark” was born.

Within a couple of years of arriving in Birmingham, Ronnie knocked up his girlfriend. It caused a stir.

Mariessa was her own melting pot, Anglo mixed with Greek, Italian, and Latino. In Alabama, if you weren’t black you were white. Being white, she wasn’t supposed to be Ronnie’s girlfriend. Not openly in the 1970s, in Birmingham, Alabama. Hell, it was still illegal for blacks and whites to marry.

Her world was the over-the-mountain upscale neighborhoods and country clubs of Birmingham’s suburbs. Her family, without hesitation, barred her from ever bringing Ronnie home again after that first time, after dating him in the shadows for a year. Plus, Ronnie was ten years older and already had a son, eight-year-old Justin, with his high school girlfriend in Opelika.

Mariessa announced her pregnancy to her family on a Sunday after church. Her mother, knowing how headstrong her daughter could be, accused her of intentionally getting pregnant. Had she? Mariessa smiled. Rather than fight it out, she and Ronnie packed up his VW bus, Justin, and the newly born Xenia, and headed to California. They were married on Venice Beach with Justin as his dad’s best man and tiny Xenia in her baby carrier, the flower girl. Ronnie worked out a deal for the midnight-to-six job at KPCH in Santa Monica overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He was operating in the dark once again, this time in California.

Mariessa’s mother led the way back.

Marcella, Mariessa’s mother, an educator/artist, decided that being in her only child and grandchild’s life was worth the friction with her husband John. She didn’t confront him about bringing them back to Birmingham, nor did she ask him to visit them in California with her. She instead made the cross-country flight three times a year, rented a small cabin in Santa Monica, painted at a local studio, and enjoyed her family and the Southern California lifestyle. During these visits she came to think of Mariessa’s stepson, Justin, as her grandchild as well. She grew as close to him as she was with Xenia.

John’s resistance would last another fifteen years.

Working to piece her family together through the grandchildren, Marcella would pay for Justin to go to law school if he agreed to do it in Alabama. Justin consented. He alone moved back with his grandmother. Marcella leased an apartment for him. John insisted Justin stay with them, but in the gardener’s cottage behind the house.

After law school, John bragged about his “black grandchild,” who had finished atop his class and was recruited by every major law firm in the state. John’s firm hired him. Justin was on his way to being a pillar in the New Birmingham.

The Temptations’ “My Girl” ended.

“Hey, everybody! It’s so good to reconnect. I love you all,” Xenia told her fans around the world. Mentions, hashtags, and tweets all echoed their love back to her. “I’m back, stronger than ever. Better than ever,” she assured all.

Xenia’s voice sounded almost like Sade singing — smooth, soothing, and personal. Her listeners felt she was talking directly to each one of them. And she was.

She got right to the heart of the matter: “Hey, everybody, I want to be perfectly clear... I did not have an abortion.” She dropped that bomb in a firm and even tone.

The rest of her soliloquy to “her people” around the world went smoothly. She went into more detail about her miscarriage than she could have ever imagined. The miscarriage had almost killed her. To then be accused publicly of having an abortion! How could she? Why would she? The pregnancy had made her so happy. So excited. Her life had meaning beyond herself. She had started bringing little baby trinkets to the studio.

It had begun with a phone call, “The Voice,” and then the firestorm on social media. She was still on the air in Santa Monica, having taken over the midnight shift from her dad, who was semiretired.

“You’re going to hell! Hellfire and damnation for you! I know your secret,” the creepy voice had threatened. The Voice accused her of killing her baby. “A mixed-breed murderer, a whore,” he had called her. He demanded that she reveal to her audience who the dad was and whether she had told him about the abortion. “You’re going to hell,” he repeated. “You got the devil in you. And I will be your judge and jury.” When he was ignored he became more threatening, more menacing. I will be waiting... and when you least expect me, he texted.

There were not enough ways to stop him. Even when his calls to the studio and her cell were blocked, he used burner phones to text and e-mail. He dominated every night’s show. Changing her numbers did no good. Somehow, he always found her... Every time she blocked his attempts he got angrier. “You will burn in hell!” he spit at her. They were the longest nights of her life.

“Who is this?” she would question him repeatedly. She had no idea. She had not dated steadily for some time. She was not interested in marriage. Her life would not be traditional.

One memorable night, each word of explanation triggered more e-mails, texts, tears, phone calls, tweets, and hate from the people she had thought were her fans. How could they be so mean, she wondered, when they don’t even know the real story ?

She wanted to explain... yet the artificial insemination was no one’s business but hers. Tabloids splashed their pages with Xenia and her abortion. Is she a whore, a murderer? they asked.

Xenia became another fallen celebrity. The pitfalls of fame nearly ruined her. The social media rumors of an abortion and the harassing threats, on top of her miscarriage, sent her into a hole she could not crawl out of.

She stopped trying to explain herself. She fell apart. She refused to work. Refused to eat. Refused counseling. Refused to leave her bedroom. It was her right to grieve and give in to her terror, and she did.

Her doctor declared her physically fit, but still she wouldn’t utter a word. She listened to the hip-hop artist snaPz’s suicidal song “Dear God” over and over. Then it was Van Morrison’s lyrics, “Just like Greta Garbo, I just want to be alone.” Finally, on their fifth try, Mariessa and Marcella got her in front of the right therapist. Still, Xenia went two more months without speaking. At four months, she started crying, inconsolable weeping. At six months, she announced she wanted to go back to her show. “I have to,” she declared.

Justin began the rebuild. He, Marcella, Mariessa, Ronnie, Arnold, and even John brought her back through love and reason. The new show would originate out of Birmingham.

“You’re the girl,” her mother and grandmother assured her.

The night rolled on. Three o’clock. Four o’clock. It was as if the Queen had never left. Xenia gave a shout out to her friends in Cumberland, Maryland, and the annual DelFest Music Festival that featured the folk group the Infamous Stringdusters.

Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”... caused a sensation with many of the female listeners.