on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Earnestine McClendon was one of the only few black agents in the business at that time. She sent me on a few auditions for TV commercials and one for a film, but that was about it. The work was coming so slow that I had to find some temp work, and after a few odd jobs, I picked up a full-time job as a graveyard-shift security guard at a mall.
While I waited for my acting career to take off, I met a new tenant at my apartment complex by the name of Reverend Jones. He reminded me of Bill Cosby, but with a white beard. Reverend Jones and I would talk at the complex about the Bible, and as we got to know each other better I would stay over at his place late just to have a one-on-one Bible study. We did that for about a year and it really opened up my mind about who God was and what God expected of me as a person. Reverend Jones suggested that we both save a little money by moving in together, and so I moved in and we studied the Bible seven days a week. Soon, we started a church in his little apartment called Mount Sinai. We got some of the tenants at the apartment to attend, and it was a great feeling. Reverend Jones also helped out some troubled youths in the neighborhood; they would stop by and he would feed them and preach the Bible.
One of the youths Reverend helped was a 14-year-old kid named David who was half Mexican and half white. He looked like a young John Belushi. David lived with his alcoholic mother, but he often ended up sleeping at our place. David could be wild at times, like the time I had to stop him from sniffing car gasoline to get high. But he was a good guy who was generous with the few things he had.
About this time I met another girl at the apartment complex named Pam who had just gone through some personal relationship problems. She invited me to go her church over in Gardena and I jumped at the chance. That Sunday we drove out to Gardena in her car to a little church called Christian Apogee Church. The place was in a little corner building that the church was renting out, and the pastor was a lady by the name of Audra. I had heard that Audra was a member of the mega church called Crenshaw Christian Center in Inglewood, but it was rumored that she left to form her own church after some inner-church problems. I thought the service was very good and felt at home because my mom had always taken us to small churches like that where there were about twenty-five people in attendance.
During the service I spotted a young girl sitting up front who looked to be of mixed race. I thought she was very pretty with her golden brown hair, but I was too shy to introduce myself, and so I just watched her throughout the whole service. After the service Pam took me up to meet the pastor and I found myself standing right next to the girl. I heard someone call her Laura from across the church, and just like that I had a name to go with that pretty face. As I shook the hand of the Pastor and turned to walk away I found myself standing eye-to-eye with Laura.
I smiled and she smiled back and I could also see Pam eyeing the both of us—it appeared that Pam was a little jealous, because her attitude quickly changed towards me. Pam never asked me to go to that church again with her, so a couple of Sundays later I got David to go with me. We sat in the back, and right away I spotted Laura sitting next to the same lady she was sitting next to before. I told David that we needed to get closer to Laura, so we moved to the seat right behind her, and as we sat down Laura slightly turned around and smiled at me. She gave me butterflies, and from the way she looked at me I could tell that there was a definite connection between us.
But Laura looked so young, a fact that bothered me. I thought that she could be maybe sixteen or seventeen. I also began to suspect that the woman sitting next to Laura was her mother. After the service I told David that we had to hang around because I just had to find out how old she was, and so I walked over and formally introduced myself. She smiled and introduced herself and then her mother. I introduced David. Laura’s mother was then called away and as soon as she excused herself, Laura and I began to talk. I asked her how long she had been coming to this church, I asked her where she was from, and then I asked her how old she was; she gave a big smile. “Seventeen” she replied and my heart almost dropped to the floor. I was 21 and she was underage. She then said that she would be eighteen in about six months. Well, that made me feel a little better. Then I thought to myself that it might be worth the gamble. After all, she was very pretty and a church-going girl. I asked her if I could have her phone number and to my shock she gave it to me. I then asked her if she had a boyfriend and she said no.
After getting her phone number I was so excited that I hurried out of the church without saying good bye to anyone. I was in love and it felt so good. I never saw Pam at that church again; I guess she had started to like me and when she saw that I had eyes for Laura she decided to just stay away. I did see her at the apartment complex from time to time and I also helped her move to another apartment closer to the beach. After that, I only saw Pam a couple more times and then we just lost touch with each other.
Laura and I called each other almost six or seven times a day, and I would see her on Sundays at church. Soon I started going to her house maybe four times a week. I got to know Laura’s mother and her older sister Leslie very well. Laura’s father and mother were divorced so it was just the three of them living there. I liked both Laura’s mother and father and they treated me with respect. Laura went to a private school in Los Angeles called Immaculate Heart where she played basketball. She was pretty good and I spent a lot of time at her school games with her mother and sister. We also went to a lot of basketball games at the University of Southern California where Laura’s sister Leslie attended. We were all big fans, and for me it was the best of times. When Laura graduated I took her to her high school prom; we went to Disneyland and had the reception at the Ambassador Hotel, where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. On the night I picked Laura up from her house her mother joked that I was rocking the cradle because Laura was only seventeen.
Laura, a future congresswomen, could be very wild at times, even to a dangerous extent. One day I picked her up at her house and was taking her to Long Beach for lunch, but as we were driving down the freeway, Laura slammed her foot down on my foot over the gas pedal. As the car lunged forward down the highway and I tried to control it, she said, “You have to learn how to live a little fast.” Laura laughed and wouldn’t take her foot off of mine even though we were starting to weave into other lanes. We hit 90 mph and I told her to move her foot because we were going to crash, but she just kept laughing and called me scaredy cat. I yelled for her to move her foot and she finally did, and then she crawled into the back seat and said that I should learn how to have some fun. I told her that there was no fun in crashing and dying and I wasn’t going to leave Earth that way. She didn’t speak to me for about ten minutes.
Growing up in Florida as a teen I had met some people who always talked world politics and international affairs, and I would sit often with them at a local gas station where they would gather, drink tea, and talk about Israel, Lebanon, and the other countries. These people were from different parts of the world, but we all gathered at a certain time of the day to talk politics. I loved it. As a teen I knew the names of the major Israeli, Lebanese, and Syrian politicians, plus those in the rest of the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. One of the things I loved about Laura was that she was always ready to hear what I had to say about politics. If we were together at a basketball game and I started to talk about politics, Laura would tell her mother and sister to be quiet because I was talking. Laura would look me in the eyes and soak in everything I was saying about politics and she was a great listener. I guess I could give myself a little credit for putting the political bug in her ear.
At that time in our lives Laura and I were young Christians who were on fire for Christ, and we would spend a great majority of our life either in church, at Christian conventions, or at a Bible study at someone’s house. We felt that the Lord was really working in our lives, and I can truly say that Laura had a love for serving the lord.
One day a lady visiting Reverend Jones handed me a book called I Believe in Visions, written by Pastor Kenneth Hagan Jr. That book really opened my eyes and my faith; a few weeks after finishing the book I heard on the radio that Kenneth Hagan was coming to the Long Beach Arena. I called Laura and invited her to come with me. The next night I had a dream—this was 1980, and up until this time
