Free You Are Not Alone_Michael, Through a Brother’s Eyes by Jermaine Jackson Page B

Our fingers aren’t long enough … it’s impossible,’ we moaned.
    ‘Get it in your head that you can touch that wall!’ he insisted.
    Here started yet another Joseph mental lesson: the mind is stronger than the physical. ‘Believe that you can touch the wall,’ he said. ‘When you think you’re at the limit of your reach, then reach more. Visualise reaching it. Picture yourself touching the wall.’ Michael stood on tiptoe and strained to outreach us all. That made us giggle. He was the tiniest boy, yet he always wanted to be fastest and first.
    If Joseph had any doubt of his influence on Michael’s career, then that doubt will have gone when Michael put his stamp on Hayvenhurst in 1981. Nailed to an exterior wall of his old studio remains a sign with a pale blue background and big-lettered words: ‘Those Who Reach Touch The Stars’.
     
    IF WE COULDN’T WAIT FOR MOTHER to return home from work, we couldn’t wait for Joseph to leave : with him out of the way, we could run around, act the fool, go outside and play. Rebbie, especially, couldn’t wait for him to work a night shift because then she could sleep in a proper bed with Mother, not on the sofa-bed. The common perception of our youth seems to be framed by the use of Joseph’s belt and the timetable for rehearsals, and it’s true that our circumstances developed us more as artists than as boys. But, as much as I hear the voice of discipline and instruction in my memories, I also hear the distinct sound of fun, laughter and play. As brothers, we always had someone to hang around with and those memories have not been allowed to breathe in public. Anyone from a large family will tell you that we each remember things differently.
    With Joseph at work, Mother made sure we didn’t slacken off on the routines we were expected to know. ‘Did you learn that song you’re supposed to do? Did you learn those steps?’ she would ask.She was our father’s eyes and ears, but she balanced that with our need to play. As well as the go-karts, the trains and the merry-go-round, we rode our bikes (again built by Tito out of junkyard frames and wheels) and went roller-skating (with those wheeled brackets that clamped on to sneakers, bought second-hand). We couldn’t wait to get out and tear up and down Jackson Street – ‘But go no further than Mr Pinsen’s house!’ He was our baseball coach and lived 10 doors down.
    We enjoyed family camping holidays to the Wisconsin Dells, where we went fishing with Joseph and he taught Jackie, Tito and me how to bait the hook. We always stayed near old Indian towns and walked the trails in homage to our ancestry. We grew up knowing we have Native American blood in our veins, passed down from both the Choctaw and Blackfoot tribes. The inherited physical attributes were our high cheekbones, light skin and hairless chests.
    Back home, we watched lots of television and it was always a fight between Jackie wanting sports, Michael and Marlon wanting Mighty Mouse or The Road Runner Show , and me wanting Maverick , starring James Garner. The only programmes we all liked were The Three Stooges , Flash Gordon and any Western starring Randolph Scott. It’s The Three Stooges we must thank for first teaching us the harmonies we took to Mother at the kitchen sink. We loved mimicking their introductory triad-harmony of ‘Hello … Hello … Hello’.
    We huddled around Mother on the sofa to watch TV. My abiding memory of this happy scene is of her seated in the middle and Michael lying across her lap, head facing the screen, me sitting on her other side, La Toya on the floor, against her legs, resting her back on the sofa, Marlon on the other side (with Janet when she entered the equation). Tito and Randy would lie on the floor, while Rebbie and Jackie took the armchair or a kitchen chair. In the window – opened during sultry summer evenings – we wedged one of those square fans that blew cold air into the room. Michael would stick his