Chapter 5: August 19, 2002

Went to visit Shooby to return his cassettes and pay my respects. He offered to take me out for lunch. I wasn't hungry, but didn't want to refuse his obvious generosity and desire to hit the streets. He wore a sports cap with "Canada" across the brow. Got it from his nurse, Conserve, who had recently vacationed up north. He liked Conserve, who entered the room during our conversation to change the bedding for Shooby's roommate.

Shoob took his wheelchair, but refused to sit in it -- he pushed it for balance, shuffling slowly down the hall. He chatted jovially with staff and other residents in the corridors. I signed him out at the 3rd floor desk, and we took the elevator down to the admissions floor. He waited while I fetched the car, standing dutifully behind his wheelchair as if pushing an imaginary patient. I drove up and he gingerly climbed in the front seat, while I collapsed the wheelchair, swung it in the trunk and hooked bungees. Shooby instructed me to drive to Broad Street, Newark, to a particular eatery a block or two from his apartment building.

In the car, he asked if he could smoke. No problem, I told him. I was surprised that he indulged. Said he only did so outside the nursing home.

We parked in a commercial lot and crossed the street to Palace Fried Chicken (cor. Broad and Chestnut), a cheap & dirty fast food joint with fluorescent lighting, plastic booths, and protective Plexiglas separating customers from counter help. The illuminated wall menu above the counter displayed color-faded photos of burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, corn on the cob, mozzarella sticks, whiting sandwiches, hot wings, cheese steaks, and gyros. Nothing looked appealing -- seafoam green was the dominant color in these pics -- so I ordered a side of slaw and bottled water. Shooby ordered a gigantic cheeseburger, of which he only took three bites during our subsequent conversation. The slaw looked older than Taylor's shoes, and was about as appetizing.

He talks loud, and without self-consciousness. He's naturally boastful, and proud. "I want to be heard. That's the show business."

"Music is where I'm at," he exclaimed. Helps him find redemption. "Salvation," he noted. "But the most important thing is serving Jesus." He used to scat along with spirituals because he "felt it."

Taylor attended the Hartnett Music School (or National Music Studios -- 8th and 46th Street?) under the GI Bill. Studied with a voice coach. He tried writing music in school, but didn't stick with it. His thing was scatting. One time after work, he was walking up the front steps of the school. "Climbing the stairs, I could feel it. Those guys were wailing, man! I went into the room where the guys were jamming. I started scatting." His voice teacher heard him, and warned her charge that singing like that would "ruin your voice." But Shooby realized he could express himself better by scatting than by singing. "It was the right decision," he pointed out. "You have the evidence."

He used to tip the scale at 230, now weighs 160. But all that heft didn't help "the power of the singing," he said. "It's the feeling."

Was his son musical? "He tried bongos, but that was a long time ago."

After 21 years with the Post Office, he stopped working in the 1960s or '70s after getting hurt on the job (details unexplained). He still collects a pension. "The Post Office was good to me. I could've been fired." He confessed to having had a temper. "I blowed up on the job. They grabbed me and held me down. They wanted to know what was wrong with me. I learned I was going to a therapist. 'William H. Taylor -- he's a patient of ours.' I was messin' up things. I went in the big boss's office. I wanted a transfer, but they didn't want to give me one. They liked me and wanted me to stay. But I wanted to make 30 years. I blowed up to call attention to myself. It was a stupid thing to do. I was seeing a therapist."

Why was he seeing a therapist?

"Emotional problems." Once a month. "Not fights. I didn't run away from anyone. But I wasn't a fighter -- I was a lover!" The intro line, "You lied -- you bitch!" before his recording over the Ink Spots' "You Were Only Fooling," he said emerged because, "I was Romeo with the ladies." He often alludes to females who "won't leave [him] alone." He elaborated on his whoremongering: "I always paid for it. You find 'em all over. Not just in Harlem -- downtown, the Bronx -- come on, man!" Now that's over because, "I'm seeking God. I was trying all the time for God. I'm still trying."

He recorded at a studio on 48th Street, but cannot recall the name. "They moved to 49th Street. Now he [the owner]'s in a new building."

He took the cheeseburger, shuffled back to the window and asked the server to pack it for the road. We slowly made our way across the busy, mid-afternoon Broad Street traffic, and drove back to the nursing home.