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Dad and Jackie went over the map as we drove away, mostly out of habit,
because we had been to Detroit before, of course. We passed Mr. Keith's
recording studio downtown by City Hall as we made our way through town. We
had done some demos at Mr. Keith's that Dad sent to Motown after the
Steeltown record. The sun was going down when we hit the highway. Marlon
announced that if we heard one of our records on WVON, it was going to bring
us luck. We all nodded. Dad asked us if we remembered what WVON stood for as
he nudged Jackie to keep quiet. I kept looking out the window, thinking
about the possibilities that lay ahead, but Jermaine jumped in. "Voice of
the Negro," he said. Soon we were calling roll all over the dial. "WGN -
World's Greatest Newspaper." The Chicago Tribune owned it.) "WLS - World's
Largest Store." (Sears) "WCFL . . ." We stopped, stumped. "Chicago
Federation of Labor," Dad said, motioning for the thermos. We turned onto
I-94, and the Gary station faded into a Kalamazoo station. We began flipping
around, looking for Beatle music on CKLW from Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
I had always been a Monopoly fan at home, and there was something about
driving to Motown that was a little like that game. In Monopoly you go
around the board buying things and making decisions; the "chitlin' circuit"
of theatres where we played and won contests was kind of like a Monopoly
board full of possibilities and pitfalls. After all the stops along the way,
we finally landed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, which was definitely Park
Place for young performers like us. Now we were on our way up Boardwalk,
heading for Motown. Would we win the game or slide past Go with a long board
separating us from our goal for another round?
There was something changing in me, and I could feel it, even shivering in
the minibus. For years we'd make the drive over to Chicago wondering if we
were good enough to ever get out of Gary, and we were. Then we took the
drive to New York, certain that we'd fall off the edge of the earth if we
weren't good enough to make it there. Even those nights in Philadelphia and
Washington didn't reassure me enough to keep me from wondering if there
wasn't someone or some group we didn't know about in New York who could beat
us. When we tore it down at the Apollo, we finally felt that nothing could
stand in our way. We were going to Motown, and nothing there was going to
surprise us either. We were going to surprise them, just like we always did.
Dad pulled the typewritten directions out of the glove compartment and we
pulled off the highway, passing the Woodward Avenue exit. There weren't many
people on the streets because it was a school night for everybody else.

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