The Gregory Isaacs I knew!

Christopher Serju, Sunday Gleaner Writer

I recall clearly that day many years ago, when I visited the Isaacs' home along East King's House Road, St Andrew, and told the children playing on the veranda I wanted to speak with their father.

Suddenly, they stopped playing. The youngsters, who a short while ago had responded warmly to my greeting, were now trying to get each other to do my bidding. No one, it seemed, was anxious to get dad.

The reason for their unusual behaviour soon became apparent, after one of the younger siblings was coerced into carrying out what, to me, had seemed a fairly simple request.

"I nuh want see nobody," Gregory bellowed from within the house. Without even a goodbye, I immediately turned and headed for the gate.

Less than 30 seconds later, I was startled to, again, his voice. But this time, in a much calmer register, as he gently asked, "Wha happen, Serju? Weh you a seh?"

I looked around to see his wiry figure struggling to get one hand through a shirtsleeve, one of his trademark fedora firmly in place atop his head. We chatted as if nothing had happened and parted on the best of terms.

Dealing with addiction

Some time afterward when I encountered him at home, Gregory was in a much better mood, and I was the one feeling out of sorts - again as a result of what he said, but this time for a different reason.

"Your words them use 'gainst me," he said nonchalantly as we relaxed. Seeing my puzzled look and sensing my consternation, he went on to explain that a consular officer at the US Embassy had denied him a visa, crippling plans for a tour.

Citing an interview carried in The Sunday Gleaner of July 31, 1988, the officer declared that he could not grant the visa, given that the entertainer had admitted to using hard drugs and, specifically, crack cocaine.

I was shocked. Gregory was amused. That was just how things had worked out, he explained.

As I braced for the verbal outburst, he continued to smile, moving the conversation to other topics, never once showing any sign of malice or rancour. This was the 'Cool Ruler' at his coolest and I at my most confused.

We never spoke of it again.

Entitled 'Gregory fighting hard to kick cocaine habit', the article in question detailed his drug addiction and the heavy toll it had taken, his desire to be free, and the uphill struggle he faced at age 38.

Frank revelation

Written in collaboration with photojournalist Michael Conally, also a Gleaner staffer, the article documented the first - and to date, most frank -admission of drug abuse by a Jamaican superstar.

The story was significant. For as Gregory explained, he was but a single star in the galaxy of local entertainers hooked on one of the most addictive substances known to man.

"He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone. Well, I don't see nuh stone so I know that I am not alone," he declared, consistent with the cryptic utterances for which he is well known.

He also made it clear that the decision to come clean about his drug habit was nowhere as hard as trying to quit, sharing lyrics from one of his many autobiographical songs. "I am not a snake in the grass, not a hypocrite, yeah/ Anything I do I'm big enough to own up to it."

Despite his best efforts, this was one demon Gregory never conquered, and, given his immense talent it is sad that its footprints will forever taint his legend.

There was a time though, when he felt confident that he had at least tamed the beast.

When his gaunt, scrawny frame began to show signs of improvement, Gregory explained that in addition to better nutrition, he now understood the importance of hydration, which he had long neglected, and was now eating and sleeping much better than he had in a very long time. Among his friends and relatives, hope was renewed that the coolest man around was indeed back in town.

"If you don't take vitamins (while using cocaine), it dehydrates your system. It takes liquid from your structure, so you have to continue putting in liquid. That makes you sweat, so you have to take vitamins," he shared.

In the 1988 interview, Gregory lamented the incalculable price he paid for the addiction he described as dangerous and costly - with freedom, love, respect, money, friends and privacy lost to and through drugs.

"It's the greatest college I've been to - the Cocaine High School - but also the most expensive school fees that I have ever paid ... . I learnt a lot from it, both good and bad. I wouldn't encourage anybody to try it."

When I pressed him about the seeming conflict between his Rastafarian beliefs and hard drugs use, the man known as 'Super' 'Gaddafi' and other names to his associates went philosophical.

Crossing the fence

"I used to fight against it (cocaine) too, but them times I couldn't afford it. I used to say them people a fool fi touch them things," he said.

Once the hits started paying off though, and he could afford to move with the 'in' crowd, the entertainer found himself on the other side of the fence, recalling his first foray into drug abuse as "very nice but dangerous".

A complex character, Gregory has proven time and again to be a contradiction in terms. Many have made the mistake over the years in thinking that because they have been associated with him or worked with him, they really know him. That assumption is fallacious, since the Cool Ruler allows you to know only as much about him as he wants you to.

I was privileged to be on the receiving end of some of his insight, and caught glimpses of Gregory the philosopher. He shared with me that, contrary to public perception, the song Night Nurse is not about drugs but rather pays homage to a man's woman, who in his time of need, becomes for all intents and purposes, his night nurse.

"When you feel sick, you belly a hurt or you have a headache inna the night, the first person you draw (call) for is you woman. Whether she make a cup a tea or whatever she haffi do, she a really the first nurse deal with you. If you have a bredda (brother) who is a doctor and him even have a helicopter and you take sick inna the night, by the time you fi call and him come, you dead."

I regret that younger fans who can only recall the songs of later years, might never know of the social activist, the revolutionary Gregory who penned such songs as Slave Master, Black Liberation Struggle, or Storm in which he urges: "Heng on come wind, rain or storm/'Cause Jah will guide us through the calm."

When I asked why he no longer performed such songs, he smiled before replying that he was pleasing the fans who were more in tune with his lover's rock catalogue and Cool Ruler persona.

Such a pity, I thought, as I recalled his plaintive wail in The Border:

"Please take me to the border, no matter what the cost/'Cause we want, we want go home/I'm aleaving out a Babylon/I'm aleaving out a Rome/This place could never be my home ... "

Reggae ambassador

Gregory Anthony Isaacs rose to become one of reggae's most loved, respected and widely travelled ambassadors, holding the distinction of performing on every continent I believe. No mean feat for the son of Enid Murray and Lester Isaacs who was born in Fletchers Land, downtown Kingston.

Having learnt of his death early Monday morning, all day I floated on a cloud of disbelief wanting to believe that the media reports were just rumours, refusing to accept what I knew to be true.

A text message from my sister, Charmane, which I suspect was meant to offer some comfort, achieved very little and, when my mother called in the night to offer her condolences, I almost broke down.

So, to Gregory's mother, Ms Murray, wife June, brother 'Jiro', children, grandchildren and other relatives and friends, it is my hope that in this your time of grief, "Jah will guide you out and coming in/What more can I say ... ?"

He shared with me that, contrary to public perception, the song 'Night Nurse' is not about drugs but rather pays homage to a man's woman, who in his time of need, becomes for all intents and purposes, his night nurse.