I'm Not Saying It Happened Like That. I'm Just Saying It COULD Have Happened Like That, Etc.

MichaelMichaelMichaelJacksonJacksonJackson. Everywhere you look, everything you hear. Wall to wall coverage of his massive memorial service in L.A. yesterday, I mean Tuesday, and my coworkers can't stop speculating his "true" cause of death. On a power walk the other morning I encountered a couple walking in the opposite direction; the woman smiled and pointed to my Sansa and mouthed Michael Jackson? I shook my head and smiled back.

Madonna. Don't Tell Me.

Her smile wobbled as they passed me.

Jackson's 11 year old daughter Paris broke down in tears as she remembered her dad. I know this because the image of her surrounded by a sea of comforting Jackson aunts and uncles is on the cover of all of yesterday's daily newspapers and leading off all the news and infotainment shows. Did they encourage Paris to speak or did she insist on doing so? Maybe they shouldn't have let her--she was obviously overwhelmed by grief and she's only a child after all.

My mother has decided that Michael Jackson could not possibly have molested any of those kids. She's given it a lot of thought and come to the conclusion that it was an extortionist plot, complete with racist overtones, hatched by the father of Jackson's accuser.

Right. Of course. I pointed out to her that more than one boy came forward with charges of sexual molestation (or inappropriate contact, or whatever you feel more comfortable calling it); were all the parents in on this shakedown?

She thought a moment. "Yes," she said.

Okay, that last part I made up. I did remind her that Jackson and his legal team had to contend with more than one accuser, and she quickly concurred, but then continued talking about it as though Michael Jackson's downfall was all the fault not of his own actions or poor judgement but of one boy, possibly a malicious, manipulative boy, possibly an innocent who was being stage-managed by a resentful, greedy dad who might even have described Michael to his son as a nigger.

I sighed, remembering how the OJ trial had (briefly) divided the family; here we go again. "I'm not convinced of that particular scenario, Mom..."

"I know, but--"

"I mean, come on now. You've pretty much convinced yourself that's how it happened and you don't really know that. You like that explanation because you liked Michael Jackson and get misty-eyed at memories of him as a little boy. You'd rather not believe him capa--"

"I know it. I know it! I've had that talk with myself, asked myself if I wasn't just believing what I wanted to believe... I'm not saying it happened that way--I'm saying it could have happened that way! You don't realize, honey--there are people in this world who will do things like that, especially, you know, when a celebrity is involved..."

She went on like that for awhile longer, building steam, and eventually I gave up trying to interject. I knew that attempting to point out the irrationality of her central argument would only lead to an emotional quarrel that neither of us wanted and would in any case move neither of us from our firmly held positions. Besides, could I say for sure she was wrong? Money and unexpected proximity to a superstar celeb can bring out the worst in all kinds of people; maybe my mother's assertion is essentially correct and poor Michael got busted for trusting the wrong people.

May-be.

Thing is, if in strict fairness I have to concede that she could conceivably be right in her suspicions about Michael's accusers, it stands to reason that she should be prepared to do likewise and allow for the possibility, however painful to contemplate, that it was Michael Jackson's behavior that was predatory--not the boy(s) and not the parent(s)--but she can't (quite) bring herself to do that.

"--and all that money! That little nigga can afford to give up some of that money, it ain't gonna hurt him!--I'm just saying it could have gone down like that! And--you know what, too?--those sleepovers--Michael was probably just trying to recreate something from his childhood, you know? From the days when the Jacksons weren't rich and he and his brothers were sleeping two and three in a bed and maybe used to horseplay and tease each other? I've really thought about this, Lorraine, and I'm pretty sure that's what was going on. Maybe things got out of hand somehow and the boy misunderstood Michael's intentions, or maybe he knew Michael didn't mean any harm but he told his family about it, and next thing you know--"

Yeah, Mom. But it is also possible that something happened between Michael and his young guest that absolutely should not have, but not with everybody who made the complaints. Maybe upon hearing of the first molestation accusation some of the parents, shocked by the charges, allowed guilt, disgust, hysteria (and the scent of settlement money in the air) drive their actions, convincing their kids to say things went on that didn't happen to them but did happen to somebody else.

It is also possible that Michael Jackson betrayed, in the most unforgivable way, the starry-eyed trust of countless youngsters over an unknown period of years while managers, handlers, staff, security, perhaps even certain family and friends, nervously looked the other way, praying to Jehovah that their worst suspicions were wrong.

Not saying it went down that way. Just saying it is possible and wondering if we (the fans generally, the black community particularly) will ever allow ourselves the freedom to merely speculate, let alone investigate.

"--and, I mean, yes it's true Michael obviously had a dark side--I really feel he needed help that he never got. All those cosmetic surgeries, and his skin--you know they say Joe Jackson used to say terrible things to Michael about his looks when he was young, make fun of his nose and his teenage skin--somebody should have gotten him some help so that maybe he wouldn't have felt the need to change himself so drastically--"

Okay, that I definitely agreed with. Michael needed help he never got. It was fascinating and disturbing watching his face morph first into an eerie approximation of Diana Ross circa 1980, then into a Eurasian drag queen and then... not... really... sure anymore. Bad Kabuki theater?

Given his many cosmetic surgeries, I've never known what to make of Jackson's assertion that his bizarre color transformation was the result not of relentless self-bleaching gone haywire but rather of treatment for vitiligo, a disease that makes skin lose its pigmentation in patches, by causes still not fully known. I'm not disputing Jackson's claim, but I have read that Joe, the Jackson patriarch, was a strict and forbidding taskmaster who ruled his household with an iron fist--just this week one of the morning news shows paying tribute to Michael's musical legacy reported Jackson senior used to monitor his sons' rehearsals with a belt in his hand--and was indeed cruel in his comments to MJ about his appearance. I have also read that Michael was so traumatized by life with his father that the surgeries were really a determined attempt to eradicate all traces of Joe Jackson in his features; furthermore, I've read that once MJ decided he wanted to become a father himself he was determined the mother should be white, the better to replace, or at least "dilute," the Jackson genetic trait.

I don't of course have any way of knowing for sure how much of any of that is true. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised. The Jacksons were steeped in the public consciousness for a long, long time; when you're that famous certain things about you--sometimes waft-y, indefinable things--eventually surface whether you wish them to or not. Even when nothing is confirmed by the celebrity or his spokesperson you begin to sense things simply by watching him or her over the years. You read, and watch, interviews carefully, paying close attention to what is not said as much as what is. You glance at tabloid headlines, hate yourself for taking such trash one ounce seriously, and read them anyway as you wait at the check-out line; you watch to see which scandalous allegation develops legs and gets picked up by the "respectable" periodicals. You keep a sharp eye out for that eyebrow-raising Barbara or Oprah confessional.

"...Poor Michael. They need to just leave him alone now, let the boy rest in peace. That's what killed him, probably, carrying the stress from all that stuff..."

Probably, Mom. That or the drugs.