High School Darkness

Remembering War’s seminal song

In 1971, my sophomore high school year, our school was beyond overcrowded. 1700 students crammed into a school built for 800 (there were precisely and intentionally 800 lockers) meant that hormones and bad blood and the short long days of winter wreaked havoc on our psyches and sometimes, our physical health.

I say this from a position then and now of great privilege. I was driven to school every day and picked up after by either a parent, or a friend who already had her/his license. I never had to walk more than fifty feet from car to school/and back, and most of the time, I would arrive at school less than five minutes before the 8:00 bell rang, and arrived home no later than 3:20, except on days of play practice (I was ensconced in the Thespian Society!).

My comfort in leisurely doing homework, talking on the phone, and having a hot supper served to me by my expert-chef Mom solidified a life of care and almost made me anxiety-free (except the part about trying to get dates with the girls I called every night).

And what a year for music, too, as we all claimed songs and bands that stretched as well as comforted us. From “Green-Eyed Lady” to “Rock On,” “Band of Gold” to “Smiling Faces,” music defined as well as separated us into embattled enclaves. Sometimes, these weren’t racially-designated, because most of us loved Stevie Wonder and the Stones.

White people like me listened a lot to AM hit radio, which back then played songs from most pop genres. But had I been a Black kid, I’m reasonably sure that my radio play would have found, almost exclusively, the Soul stations near the far right end of both the AM and FM dial. I remember listening to WENN-FM (107.7) a bit, and hearing the DJ play Tyrone Davis’s “(If I Could) Turn Back the Hands of Time” twice in a row. No DJ on the whiter hit stations ever did this (though in the early 80’s one guy, Jim Batton, played Blondie’s “The Tide is High” over and over as the new college football season ensued and music and Alabama football were thus wedded).

Some bands and songs should have brought us all together, though, and maybe they would have if so many Black students hadn’t had to ride buses to school, some leaving as early as 6:00 AM, meaning that those students would have to sit in the unheated gym for at least 90 minutes before classes started. Achieving racial balance would never be easy, numbers-wise; achieving social equality has defied Americans ever since we had an America, and that illusion persists.

So, many Black kids were sleepy, bitter, freezing, and so no wonder that contempt for the privileged ones ruled their minds. It would be dark when they left home (hardly any white kid had to ride any bus), and sometimes dark when they arrived back home, the last bus running close to 5:00 PM.

That more fights at school didn’t break out is still a wonder to me.

One thing we all had in common back then is that almost everyone wore huge bell bottom jeans or non-denim pants of some other fabric. Long hair, huge naturals, bright colors, patched-to-death slacks. We peacocked our way through those confining halls, our suede or leather boots defining the moment.

While music could still separate us, every now and then, a song came along that we all had to notice and account for. Stevie’s “Superstition’ would have been one, but the other I remember best was War’s

“Slippin’ Into Darkness”

from their 1971 LP, All Day Music, which should be a MUST have in your private collection.

There was a guy I had class with, Jeffrey (last name lost in time), who bridged certain gaps. Most Black guys did not wear jeans, but Jeffrey did — faded, un-hemmed, and patched. His Afro was medium sized, and he wore a Black-Power-fisted comb/pick in his back pocket. Our school had a designated smoking area outside (if you can believe that), and I saw Jeffrey there, almost daily. I didn’t smoke, but it was a cool place to hang.

I also have a vague memory of running into him at a basketball game in town when our school played crosstown rival Abrams High. We had a good and racially-mixed team, and following them seemed about the best we could do to blend. Jeffrey was hanging outside that game in the smoky twilight, and I walked over to him. A radio played an unforgotten song — that War song as we spoke.

We soul-shook, and Jeffrey asked if I wanted to take a hit off his smoke. This smoke was neither Kool nor Marlboro, if you catch my drift.

It wasn’t like every white kid I knew at school was someone I’d invite over for supper or to spend copious amounts of time in front of my turntable, and so that it couldn’t occur to me to ask Jeffrey to hang isn’t such a thing in and of itself.

Except that I would have liked to hang with him and hear more of the music he loved. I didn’t spend money on War records back then, not that I had much money, but my funds went more toward the folk-rockers who had just started playing through my mind. So Jeffrey and I smoked a bit that late winter afternoon and then went on into the game, which we won on a last minute shot by a guy named Joe Perry.

“I was slippin’ into darkness When they took my friend away… You been slippin’ into darkness And pretty soon you’re gonna pay…”

We never got to be friends. Not then. Impossible in Bessemer, Alabama. I never saw him after we graduated and have never discovered what happened to him. I’m guessing that he hasn’t thought of me at all, even or especially on re-hearing this song after all these decades.

But there was another street in town, 9th Street, where I’d pass through on my way to our poor old shopping mall (home of Music Land), and one time I saw as the last sun was slipping, a guy who could have been Jeffrey standing near the corner of a cross street.

I’m writing this story for him.

Thanks for reading and to Christopher Robin and Samantha Drobac for publishing. And to Steven Hale, Paul Combs, Pierce McIntyre, David Acaster, Chris Zappa, Jessica Lee McMillan, Kathy Copeland Padden, and Karla Clifton, whose stories matter to me even more in these days.

In case you missed it: