The cell-phone rings. It’s Mother, sounding alarmed. ‘Michael is at the hospital … We’re here with him … He’s slipped and fallen. It’s his back.’
‘I’m on my way,’ I say, already out the door.
The hotel is equidistant from the Santa Maria courthouse and Neverland, and the hospital is a short detour. I’m met at a side entrance by a hospital manager to avoid any fuss out front.
On the hospital’s second-floor corridor, I see an unusual number of nurses and patients hanging around and an audible fuss dies down as I approach. A presidential-style phalanx of familiar dark-suited bodyguards is clustered around a closed door to a private room. They step aside to allow me to enter.
Inside, the curtains are drawn.
In the half-light, Michael is standing, wearing patterned blue pyjama pants and a black jacket. ‘Hi, Erms,’ he says, in almost a whisper.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
‘I just hurt my back.’ He forces a smile.
The fall at the ranch, when getting out of the shower, has left him in miserable pain and it appears to be the final punch at a time when life keeps pounding him. But he’s a child molester, right? He deserves this, right? The police must have some hard evidence, or he wouldn’t be on trial, right? People have a lot to learn about how wrong this trial is.
Mother and Joseph are the only other people here, sitting against the wall to my right; they are like me in not knowing what to do but be present and appear strong. Michael winces with the pain in his rib-cage and lower back, but I sense his mental pain is far greater.
In the past week, I have witnessed his physical disintegration. At 46 years old, his lean dancer’s body has withered to a fragile frame; his walk has become a pained, faltering gait; his dazzle is reduced to that forced smile; he looks gaunt, haggard.
I hate what it’s doing to him and I want it to stop. I want to scream for the scream that Michael has never had in him.
As he stands, he talks about the court testimony yesterday. ‘They are putting me through this to finish me … to turn everyone against me. It’s their plan … it’s a plan,’ he says.
Our father has never been one for deep emotional examination and, as Michael talks, I can see him itching to divert the conversation towards other plans: a concert in China.
‘Your sense of timing is not good, Joe!’ Mother tells him in admonishment.
‘What better time is there than now?’ he says. That’s Joseph. Very direct, and interpreting this time away from court as a small window to discuss something other than the trial. ‘It’ll take his mind off things,’ he adds.
It doesn’t surprise or sidetrack Michael. Like the rest of us, he’s used to it and understands that this is Joseph’s way. I interpret it as a father’s ploy to deflect his own worry about events he can’t control; to look beyond the trial to a time when Michael is free and able to perform again. Indicate light at the end of the tunnel. But it doesn’t feel like a distraction, it feels inappropriate. Anyway, my brother keeps talking. ‘What have I done but good? I don’t understand …’
I know what he’s thinking: he’s done nothing but create music to entertain and spread the message of hope, love and humanity, and awareness of how we should be with one another – especially with children – yet he is accused of harming a child. It’s akin to putting Santa Claus on trial for entering the bedrooms of children.
There is not one shred of evidence to justify this trial. The FBI knows it. The police know it. Sony knows it. (This irrefutable truth would be confirmed by an FBI statement in 2009, making it clear after my brother’s death that there was never any evidence to support any allegation in 16 years of investigations.) The authorities are just making something fit in 2005. Think it, see it, believe it, make it happen. The negative version.
Michael lifts his eyes from the floor. He looks the saddest I have ever seen him, but I can tell he just wants to talk. Up until now, he has rarely released his emotions in front of us. He has been controlled and resolute, speaking about his faith, how he trusts the judge of God, not the judge in a robe. But his controlled demeanour is now undone, no doubt triggered by yesterday’s testimony, and compounded by the frustration of this back injury.
It’s all becoming too much.
‘Everything they say about me is untrue. Why are they saying these things?’
‘Oh, baby …’ says Mother, but Michael’s hand rises. He’s still talking.
‘They’re saying all these horrible things about me. I’m this. I’m that. I’m bleaching my skin. I’m hurting kids. I would never … It’s untrue, it’s all untrue,’ he says, his voice quiet, quivering.
He starts pulling at his jacket, like an exasperated child wanting out of a costume, shifting on to both his feet, ignoring his back pain.
‘Michael …’ Mother starts.
But the tears are coming now. ‘They can accuse me and make the world think they’re so right, but they are so wrong … they are so wrong.’
Joseph is paralysed by this show of emotion. Mother’s hands are to her face. Michael pulls at his jacket buttons and starts struggling out of its sleeves. It falls off his shoulders and hangs backwards from his upper arms, revealing his bare chest.
He is sobbing. ‘Look at me! … Look at me! I’m the most misunderstood person in the world!’ He breaks down.
He stands in front of us, head bowed, as if he feels shame. It is the first time I have seen the true extent of his skin condition and it shocks me. His self-consciousness is such that he has kept his body hidden from even his family until now. His torso is light brown, splashed with vast areas and blotches of white, spreading across his upper chest; one patch of white covers his ribs and stomach, another runs down his side, and blotches cover one shoulder and upper arm. There is more white than brown, his natural skin colour: he looks like a white man splashed with coffee. This is the skin condition – the vitiligo – that a cynical world says he doesn’t have, preferring to believe that he bleaches his skin.
‘I’ve tried to inspire … I’ve tried to teach …’ and his voice trails off as Mother goes to comfort him.
‘God knows the truth. God knows the truth,’ she keeps repeating.
We all surround him, unable to hug him tight due to his back, but it is comfort nonetheless. I help put his jacket back on. ‘Just be strong, Michael,’ I said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’
It doesn’t take him long to compose himself and he apologises. ‘I’m strong. I’m okay,’ he says.
I leave him with my parents, vowing to return to the trial after a visit overseas. The brothers are taking it in shifts to provide support and I’ll be back in a few days.
After I leave, the bodyguards convey a message relayed from his attorney, Tom Mesereau, at the courthouse. The judge is not happy that Michael is late, and if he’s not in court within the hour, his bail will be revoked. Even his genuine pain is not honoured or believed.
At the hotel, I finish packing and watch my brother’s delayed arrival at court on television. Shielded by an umbrella to protect his skin from the sun, he shuffles along just as I left him: in his pyjama bottoms and black jacket, now wearing a white undershirt. Joseph and a bodyguard stand either side, holding him steady.
Michael had always wanted to appear pristine and dignified for his trial, choosing his wardrobe carefully. To enter like this, in his pyjamas, will be making him cringe inwardly. This