Pre-show at the T-Mobile Center for the Billboard Music Awards, 2017.
“No, no,” Mykal says with mafia seriousness, “this face needs the full thirty minutes right before the show. Can we move up this tendu fifteen minutes?”
“You know Sumayah likes to put her beat on before warm-up,” I say.
“True. It’s fine, we have our needs.”
As the sentence completes, his lips close firmly on it. The cheekbones scoot further up the rake of his face to find the light. His eyes squint with certainty that he sees a silvery river in Wakanda.
“Really?” I say. “All that?”
He breaks into a full-out cackle, aware that we are in fact in a narrow hallway of dressing room space amidst road cases we will use as barres in a second, all while other Cher staff with pre-show activities negotiate our legs and arms as they pass.
Mykal’s are longer than mine and Sumayah’s and he uses them fully in the space, helping to escort us to whatever vistas of art and inspiration we need to prepare these bodies for the show. Even as I give the barre, he commits his full discipline of years of concert dance training and professional stage experiences to make this hallway a sanctuary.
Every show day. At 7:00 p.m. Consistently.
To be clear, he exaggerates none about his make-up. At his station is a gorgeous block with an assortment of fine brushes that I am sure professional make-up artists do not have in their kits. The caboodle with his actual make-up is more manicured than any others in the dressing room.
Somewhere between Zamundan rockstar and Met Opera deity, sometimes craving a turn up and other time a sunrise vinyasa, Mykal embraced his range. “I’m a lot,” he said more than once over years at our Vegas residency and on tour. He reminded me during one of our excursions to Bed Bath and Beyond how prosaic I can be, while he deliberated over plates and mugs as if they were rings at Tiffany.
“Don’t you have enough plates at home, diva?” I asked.
“But look at these…”
“But then, how do you plan to get those home?”
“Shipping, of course.” As if I had asked how babies are made.
“You know they have Bed Bath and Beyond in all the states.”
At which point he clutched pearls and midriff with his bone structure alone at the basicness of the suggestion.
Five minutes later we were swapping full reviews of salacious websites.
Seldom cursory, always sensory, he felt things—in the air, on his nose, through his spirit, around the soul—with depth, often leaving me to look around in the moment, trying to find these sources. He wanted his loved ones to feel them to, especially if there was light and joy in them.
I never had to guess where he was. He spoke his truth as easily as he excused himself to pee. Lines got drawn quickly, and he practiced no fear in clarifying these boundaries. I watched and enjoyed this (probably more than I should have), but I knew how hard he fought for every ounce of career in his journey.
He was a good listener. One day we sat over tea as I related my struggle with maintaining all this hair that our boss asked for me to keep. Since he was new to this gig, I gave Mykal some background on how much our legendary boss loved hair, and he was nothing but generous with understanding about the challenges involved with headpieces and bowlers with black hair. Even very particular Noah, his dog, was sympathetic. Sure, I had tortured Cher one time back in ’14 during a grueling hurry-up-and-wait tech, joking that I was planning to get a weave. She’d gotten excited until I told her I was just kidding. No, no, instead I would just find ways to manage this black hair on stage.
Mykal entertained this, my extended anecdotes, my inflated hardship. He gave conciliatory Amens, clinked my mug, cheerleading the job I had done so far.
Then he showed up to the first rehearsal of the next leg with a full, glorious weave.
It had the nerve to be versatile, augmenting his oval face and extend lines with circles and swoops at the top. It surely weighed five pounds. A mane. Our boss came to the stage and saw nothing else.
“My God, it’s beautiful!” she swooned.
Mykal thanked her. With a brief, quick port de bras, he snatched the string so that the tresses cascaded from his crown where they sat a second before. He swung his head far more than necessary to remove it from his way during their conversation about how it was done, who did it, where…
(Side note: he would be very happy about the sentence above.)
The minute they were caught up, Cher’s face, a combination of victory, admonishment and plea, zeroed in on me just long enough for me to catch it.
“I hate you,” I told Mykal.
“I know!” he said, eyes bright and teeth shining.
We laughed about this for at least two days.
Me: “What picture are we taking?”
Him: “This one.”
Me: Hahahahaha!
That he is in heaven is an understatement—there is a full twirl happening, replete with Kakilambes, Swan Lakes, Errands into the Maze and bootylicious drops. Perhaps all at once. Probably with Jeremiah. He may be mid-argument with Peter about the design of his chateau, but he is there no doubt, cheekbones high enough to make God blush.