“Strawberries”
A Michael Jackson and Prince Fan Fiction Story By:
Tiffeny Butler
September 2007
“…But I love you both! I don’t know what to do!” I exclaimed burying my face in my hands.
“You better get an idea of what to do. You’re only leaving with one of us. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I’ll be damned if I share.”
“I agree. This deceit and madness has got to stop right now.”
I looked up, as tears stung my eyes like red hot pokers.
Michael Jackson and Prince, standing a few feet apart loomed over the couch I was sitting on, staring rudely at me. I knew that my crying wasn’t moving them at all.
I had screwed up something awful. I should have known better than to get involved with the two of them. For all the men on Earth, roughly three billion, I had to mess with the King of Entertainment and the Funky One!
“Brynn, we want your decision, right now.” Prince frowned at me even harder, his light eyes getting stormier by the second.
“I keep telling you! I love you both!” I bent over until my forehead touched my knees.
“Maybe we should give her a moment to gather herself.” Michael’s voice, once hard, had lightened and softened a bit.
“Bullshit!” Prince exclaimed and I felt his hands gripping my shoulders tightly.
He pulled me to my feet so quickly that I barely felt them hit the floor.
For a man as short of stature as he was, he was incredibly strong, a fact I had forgotten until he began to rattle me.
“Damn it! You make up that little mind right now or I‘ll shake it right out your damn head!” Prince snarled and his eyes swelled with unrestrained anger.
“Hey! Stop that! You don‘t hit a woman!” Michael shouted and grabbing Prince by the neck, literally threw him back.
Prince landed against an armchair across his large living room and sunk down to the carpet.
“Are you alright?” Michael wrapped his arms around me. I could barely believe it. Though he was at the brim of insanity with fury at me, he was still worried about my welfare and feelings.
I nodded feebly, holding him closer to me.
I looked up in time to see Prince streaking at Michael, his golden face burgundy with rage.
“Michael!” I warned and before he could spin around, Prince caught him in a full Nelson pulling him to the floor.
“I don’t play this shit! Hell no! You ain’t about to try to start a fight in my house! I’m gonna finish this shit!” Prince screamed in a voice so shrill I barely recognized it. “This is Paisley Park! This ain’t no fucking Neverland. Peter Pan ain’t gonna save your ass now!”
With a sickening thunk thunk thunk!, he punched Michael on top of his head three times.
“Stop! You’re hurting him!” I screamed and grabbed Prince by his short cropped hair.
He had been yanking on Michael’s long free flowing hair, but at my feverent tugging he had let Michael go. Michael laid on his side coughing.
“What the hell?!?” Prince managed to pull free of me.
“Don’t you ever put you hands on me!” He gave me a back handed slap so hard that I fell on my stomach, my head and the room spinning.
“Don’t hit her you bastard!” Michael’s voice boomed as he pounced on Prince, knocking him to the floor and turning over a purple lacquer end table in the process.
As he hit Prince at a law of physics defying rate of speed, I tried to stand.
Still dizzy, I fell again.
“Get off me you pasty faced son of a bitch!” Prince put his hand squarely in Michael’s face and pushed him away.
Both hopped to their feet and Prince got a punch across Michael’s chin.
“Let’s see how much of your face is still real!” He taunted and geared up for another punch.
Michael, using one of his dance step kicks, knocked Prince in the face. His nose gushed blood all over the white tunic he wore and his nose began to puff up almost immediately.
“My nose! You bitch!” He bum’s rushed Michael and they were on the floor once again.
As they rolled around beating the pure hell out of each other, I could only watch as their fighting became more frenzied. Their punches became harder. Blood spurted freely.
The realization that this entire ordeal was my fault finally hit home.
It was all my fault.
But it hadn’t always been that way…
Fourteen Months Earlier
West Hollywood, California
When I first met Michael Jackson, I was a struggling, really down on her luck, second rate singer. I was just barely nineteen and barely living above the poverty level. I had moved to California from Texas in hopes of scoring that big record contract and fame that most people only dream of.
So far, for me, it had been a major nightmare. I was living in a slum in West Hollywood, a pitiful one room hole in the wall with one deplorable bathroom shared by over thirty tenants in the building. Yes, that’s right, thirty. And the only singing gigs I was scoring were in little no-name bars that nobody who was anybody wanted to be caught dead in at the lowest of pay.
I thought that I was just going to be another statistic of people who have a dream but never ever achieve it and end up with a countless life.
Then Michael Jackson walked into my life.
Well, not exactly.
It was a Thursday night and I was singing to a handful of half drunk and totally stoned patrons in a joint called, Sadie’s Soul Shack.
Let me tell you, all of the souls in that place had to be bound for Hades!
I had just finished a rendition Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and was resting just off stage, trying to down water to soothe my vocal cords.
Although I was working in the worst of places, I always sang like I performing for a sold out crowd at Madison Square Garden.
It was then I noticed a man walking towards me. I automatically knew that he was different; that he didn’t belong in the club. Most of the people in Sadie’s were of the denim and leather set and this man wore a fancy, expensive looking three piece suit. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties.
“Excuse, Miss, I was wondering if I could have a word with you.” He said standing a few feet from me.
I sighed heavily. I was tired and in no mood for a man to be hitting on me, especially if he was one of the slime balls that thought I was a hooker.
“Okay, what do you want?” I asked gazing up into his watery blue eyes.
“I just wanted to tell you that you have an amazing voice. I’ve heard dozens of people sing that song and that was the first time I ever felt it.” The man’s voice was a bit hoarse, as if he were a heavy smoker.
“Thanks man.” I said a bit stiffly. I was used to guys complimenting my singing to try to get close to me. (It never worked and I wasn’t about to let it start working either!)
“Look I have business proposition for you.” The man took a few steps closer.
“And what would that be?” I was readying my self to curse him out if he mistook me for a “woman of the night”.
“Well, my name is Rusty Ross and I have been scouting around most of Southern California looking for a girl to sing a hook on my client’s new song.” The man ran a hand through his blonde tipped brown hair.
“Alright. Just who is your client?” Part of me wanted to hug the man for the opportunity and part of me was still skeptical. You didn’t know what kind of ulterior motives these jokers were working with.
What the man said next took my breath away.
“Michael Jackson.”
My water bottle fell to the floor and rolled away.
“M-M-Michael Jackson? Billie Jean Michael Jackson? Thriller Michael Jackson? Best selling artist of all time Michael Jackson?” I sputtered.
“Yes” The man nodded solemnly.
“But isn’t he out the country since his trial ended?” I demanded.
For over a year, Michael had been in court over accusations of child molestation and since the trial was over, I had heard that he was overseas in some Middle Eastern country.
I finally got a grip on my senses. Why the devil would someone who was supposedly associated with someone as renowned as Michael Jackson be looking for a singer in a cheesy bar?
“No, we just said that to keep the media off his neck. The person that has been getting trailed is a look alike.” Rusty replied calmly. “He is at home at Neverland.”
“Wait a minute…why doesn’t Michael want somebody like Beyonce or Mariah Carey or somebody that’s already big to sing with him?” I asked cautiously. My head was spinning a mile a minute.
“Frankly, I don’t know. But all I know is that he said to find someone with explosive talent and have them show up here--” He handed me a scrap of paper with an address scribbled on it. “--at one o’ clock tomorrow. Now your name is Brynn McAllister, right, how do you spell the first name?” Rusty produced a small notepad.
“B-R-Y-N-N” I said quietly fingering the paper.
He jotted my name down. “Okay this is so the security man can let you in.” He explained.
I looked at the paper more closely.
“Where the hell is Santa Ynez?” I asked.
“That’s where Michael Jackson’s home is.” Rusty deposited the notepad in an inside pocket on his jacket.
“Dude, this is West Hollywood. I have no car! How am I supposed to get to Santa Ynez, wherever that is?” I demanded putting my hand to my forehead.
“I’ll tell you what. You take a cab over there and we’ll cover the costs. I’m sure Michael won’t mind paying once he hears you.” The man smiled.
“Um…okay.” I stared back at the paper.
“Good, well we’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good night.” Rusty walked away, as quietly as he had approached me.
* * *
That night I paced around my apartment, dodging large cockroaches and contemplating what had happened at Sadie’s. I honestly had no idea what to think.
On one hand, this could really be a deal to work with the biggest name in music and could make me a star virtually overnight.
On the other hand, the whole exchange could have been an elaborate scheme to get me away from my “home” and I could find myself dead and lying in a gutter somewhere.
The very thought of putting myself in harm’s way was teeth-chatteringly frightening, but my gut was telling me that I should try to go and see what would happen.
If this was the real deal, I’d be kicking myself in the ass forever more if I let a chance at fame slip from my fingers.
Plus I was almost trembling with excitement over the thought of maybe meeting Michael Jackson.
Ever since I was a child I had been a huge fan of his music and just him as a person, and the thought of being anywhere near him always gave me palpitations.
Running over to my tiny, ratty bed, squishing an unlucky six-legged freak on the way, I fell asleep thinking of what amazing things might happen the next day.
Or the horrible things.
* * *
The next day, I stood on the curb outside my shantytown of an apartment building, trying to hail a cab. It was a humid, hot day. I think the temperature was well over a hundred degrees. On any other day, I would have been decked out in a tank top, shorts and flip flops, but since I might have been singing to the King of Entertainment, I actually had to dress “nice” for a change.
So instead, I was sweltering in long-sleeved white blouse and simple black trousers. The only punch that I had given the outfit was the pair of high-heeled zebra print pumps I wore. Cool and classic with a twist, just like Michael Jackson himself.
I stood there and thought about him. Michael was always pushing the fashion envelope from wearing high water pants, to a single glove on his hand to heavily embellished military style jackets. And he always managed to look amazing! He always made it seem effortless and simple.
Toot! Toot!
I was wrenched from my thoughts at the sound of a tooting horn. A cab had pulled up along side of me.
The driver, a man of Middle Eastern descent, asked in broken and heavily accented English,
“You want cab ride lady?”
“Oh yeah!” I replied and slid into the backseat. I really hated cabs. It seemed as though all the ones I had ever been in smelled of the same combination of stale burritos and urine.
“Where to lady?” The driver asked.
I fished out the scrap of paper that Rusty had given to me the night before and handed to the cabbie.
“Take me to this address, please.” I instructed.
The cabbie read the paper and I saw his sleepy dark eyes widen up. “Santa Ynez? You know how far that is? You got money to pay fare?” He demanded.
“I wouldn’t be in the cab if I didn’t have money man.” I rolled my eyes arrogantly.
“That’s long way away from West Hollywood.” The cabbie was really starting to get on my last good nerve.
“Man will you just drive? I have an appointment at that location for straight up one o’clock and I don’t intend to be late, arguing with you. Now please, let’s go.” I ordered hoping that I was really going to Michael Jackson’s house and that I wouldn’t have an outstanding cab fare to pay.
“Alright, but I want my money.” The cabbie whined turning his meter on and pulling his car into drive.
“I want to come out of this alive.” I thought soberly as my apartment building became a tiny speck in the distance.
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