(Author's note: This is the last time I will tell this story. It has been a
staple in my series of "it served me right" recollections for a number of years.
But within the last six months, the person who was at the core of the story was called
home to the Lord. This last telling, and its committal to print, is my memorial to her
memory and my foolishness.)
God has gently guided me along two paths.
My early path as a journalist, where God provided a living for my family and I. Then
late in life, God called me to bring forth his word.
At some points along the way, the paths have crossed. The A.M.E. Today Online
Ministries are one example of how God has shaped the secular skills He has given me
for His glorification.
But there were some years when there was only one path, a secular one. I was saved, but
still not sensible. Often times I was too busy taking care of me, who I
thought was number one at that time, to take care of the Lord who is number one all of the
time.
My job as a journalist? I was the entertainment editor for the paper I work
for, a little daily out in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I call it little but the
circulation is about 71,000 people a day. My entertainment pieces were syndicated to
the other papers, owned by the same family, so every time I wrote it went out to about a
quarter million people.
That is all to say, I probably burdened the Lord with the weight of the attitude and ego I
was carrying around.
One day I was just lounging around in the pressbox at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.
It had become my home away from home for the first 20 years of my journalism
career.
I went there to review shows. Interview the stars of the show. And perhaps my
favorite thing, to hang out with Charlie Abel, who was the security guard for the
pressbox.
Charlie's job was to keep the press in, and under control, and to keep the rest of the
world out.
There were a lot of attempted interlopers into this inner sanctum of the press. They
realized, if they could get past Charlie, they could get next to the stars. I
learned, there are a lot of star-struck people out in the world. They kept Charlie's hands
filled most concert nights.
On this particular night, Charlie and I were in the outer lobby of the pressroom, catching
up like we normally did. This usually involved a lot of kidding around. A
friendly game of the numbers so to speak. It always was fun to see who got the last
word in on one of these exchanges.
We were prodding one another in the way we always did when the door to the pressbox swung
open. In the doorway was a woman. A fairly sizeable woman. She filled the doorway,
completely.
She barged her way into the pressbox, claiming the star of the show (it was M.C. Hammer)
told her to come back and say hello to him. That line was so old, it did not even
make Charlie's Top 10 list of good ways to sneak into the pressbox.
Charlie had to protect the security of the pressbox. Already gathered there was the
normal collection of press and such Philadelphia celebrities as Doctor J, and Patti
LaBelle, and the group Bell, Biv and DaVoe, who had made a behind the scenes stop in
Philadelphia, while on tour, to see this young group of guys they had heard about called
Boys To Men. That was before the latter had a record contract and they were busily showing
off there harmony work in hopes of impressing the veterans in the box.
There was a lot going on in the pressbox and this intrusive woman was not supposed to be
part of it.
Charlie tried to angle her back out of the pressbox, but she was not in the mood to
budge.
You could tell her attitude was artificially enhanced in some fashion. Her words
were somewhat slurred. Her demeanor ranged on the meter from abrasive to obnoxious.
She was barely dressed. And not being skinny, stuff was hanging out from
places that I never realized stuff existed. Her skirt was high, her top was low.
And now I have to confess my own sins, I was rolling. I was in flat out
hysterics, watching Charlie try to maneuver this aggressive gate crasher out of the
pressbox he was employed to protect. She was bigger than him and he was having no success
at all. I knew I should not have been laughing at this woman acting foolish in her
altered state of mind. Today, I would have tried to minister to her. But
back then, I laughed.
My ribs were starting to hurt I was laughing so hard at Charlie's futile efforts.
For I think in my heart of hearts, I had compassion for the woman. It was
Charlie looking like something out of a Keystone Kops movie that had firmly hit me
in the funny bone.
Charlie called for back-up security. And the woman threw him a curve. She
plopped down on the floor. Right in the middle of the pressbox. This plop was not
lady-like in any fashion, and modesty had gone out the door that she had come in.
But it was an effective ploy. Charlie was totally stymied. And me, I
could not even talk, the laughter was that convulsive.
Tears were running down my cheeks, my brother, who I had taken with me to the show, was
equally doubled over observing Charlie's frustration with trying to get this woman out of
his pressbox.
Just as I thought I had never laughed harder and could not laugh any more. The
woman, piled in a heap in the middle of the floor, turned her attention in my direction.
A look of recognition crossed her face.
"Johnny Fisher, you bad bad boy," came the words from her mouth. These
were not slurred. They were out there for the whole world to hear, clearly!
"I see you over in the corner laughing. You would not be laughing if I had not
stood you up on our date back in high school."
It was like a shot to the solar plexus. That took all the wind out of my sails in a
second. The laughter that was about to come out of my mouth, got sucked right back
in.
But Charlie. He who was once perplexed, put-upon and frustrated, now he was standing
on the other side of the room, convulsing in laughter. The worm had turned, he that
was once laughed at was now the laughter. He still faced the problem of moving her out of
the pressbox, but it now seemed like a lot less of a burden.
My brother abandoned me completely. He was not even attempting to be his brother's keeper
especially now that his brother was the subject of one of the funniest occurrences ever to
take place in the Spectrum pressbox.
Every security guard in the Spectrum, and that was a small army, was told about
Charlie Abel's great reversal. How his problem, turned into his greatest source of
laughter.
I walked out from the Spectrum that night, with a great show to report on, both on the
Spectrum stage and in the Spectrum pressbox.
The woman on the floor was indeed someone I had had a crush on many years ago. Yep,
and she had shot me down after saying she was going out with me. Time had not been kind,
perhaps to either of us, and I obviously did not know who she was but that was no
excuse for my behavior. Just because I did not recognize her did not mean I should
not have respected her. I should have tried to remind her, even if a stranger to my eyes,
to hold on to a bit of her dignity through the haze of whatever substance that was
working on her.
I didn't and as I matured in the Lord, it was a regret. I never saw her again after
that night to apologize. My parents saw her in the store shopping but the incident
never was brought up.
Any time I have needed an illustration as to why you should not laugh at other people's
misfortune, I have called up the story of Charlie Abel's reversal on me as a
character lesson in he who laugh's last, laugh's best.
But now, as I retire this story, both putting to rest she who was at the center of it, and
the old me who was not mature enough to keep it from happening, I realize that
inappropriate laughter is not the only lesson it contains.
Jesus taught when you come across people who are down, destitute, out of society's
circle, that we should reach out to them. They are reflections of Jesus and as we
ignore them and their situations, we are ignoring and bypassing Jesus.
In retrospect, I know I traded in a great opportunity to evangelize for a few cheap
laughs. And in the end, the real laugh was on me.
How many times have we all laughed, or ignored someone's misfortune, or their
substance-altered condition. How many times have we found it more convenient to
ignore such a situation than try to help the affected person?
I still am far from perfect, and I know I will make more mistakes along the way, but this
incident taught me a real valuable lesson. Someone who is letting their life slip
away behind a bottle or a pipe, is no laughing matter regardless of how amusing the
circumstances may be.
Two months ago, they found that woman dead in her apartment. I have no idea as to
the cause of death. Anything I may have said years ago may not have made any
difference.
But you know something, I will never know, because I did not try. It's no laughing
matter.
