Part III: The Funeral of Shelby Austin

(Photo: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

“What the f*<k you mean I ain’t invited?!” Gerri shouted at the large man outfitted entirely in black, holding a walkie-talkie. “She was my wife, for Chr^st sake!”

Just inside the narthex of the huge New Hope Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia, the scene played out with crowds surging inside the sanctuary.

The dark clouds over a noontime Atlanta sky heightened the somber mood of the congregants, even though Gerri Green’s passion was crackling like lightening inside the foyer of the church.

He leaned into the security guard but pointed toward the front of the building, where displayed upon a raised bier was a platinum casket with silver handles, adorned with hundreds of red roses, and covered by black velvet; appropriate for the saddest pop icon the world knew, Shelby Austin, otherwise known as the “Voice.”

Pleading and arguing at the same time, Gerri said, “This is not right, my man; Shelby was my life. I have to sit up front, I was her husband?!” The guard, unmoved, retorted dryly, “You were her husband, Gerri,” “You’re not family anymore, and only family are sitting upfront. Period.”

The big security guard was doing the pointing now, “no one gets up there without me escorting them.” 

But Gerri was gone...

He moved like a cat, avoiding the nine-lives bestowed upon a feline, swiftly pushing open the two swinging oak doors and walking right up to the center aisle of the church under the watchful eyes of mourners. Just like Gerri to demand the attention of the moment, he stopped right in front of the pewter colored box and dropped to one knee, doffing his black fedora. You could have heard a pin drop to the old slate floor.

All week Shelby struggled with her addictions and the impending 4^th trip to a very private rehab clinic near Sedona, Arizona. Jittery at rehearsals for the Grammys® and avoiding accountability from her handlers, Shelby was going to have one last “good” weekend in L.A. before trying to kick pills and booze once again, helped by professionals. Her mentor Clive Davis’ party at the Beverly Hills Hilton was the warm-up for Sunday’s awards ceremony at which she was scheduled to sing. The practice sessions were dreadful, but she kept assuring Clive that she was quitting cigarettes, getting healthy.

Gerri Green did not force the Voice to lace her marijuana cigarettes with base cocaine, but by the end of their tumultuous 15-year marriage they were buying kilos of the drug to blow together. The weight of his guilt and the reality of her passing drew him here today, even though he was not welcomed.

“I am so sorry for what I have done, God.” Gerri prayed at her coffin. “Keep her and protect her,” he was tearful yet defiant, he could feel the daggers in his back as thousands stared, seeing him as to blame somehow for her death. “She was your angel, Lord, take her back now; thank you for my time, for her love.” Gerri got up slowly, kissed the index and middle fingers of his right hand, and touched the sealed coffin, dropping his head and turning just as the security team reached him. “Good-bye, sugar,” he said, looking back toward Shelby.

He could barely walk down the aisle, the retinue almost carried him by the elbows. All agility and power were gone, seemingly left at the foot of the coffin with his prayers. Gerri Green was a broken, forlorn man retreating toward the rear of the chapel. The squawking walkie-talkies chirped over the silent stares of each row as he was escorted out ignominiously, like a criminal on a perp-walk, destination: an Atlanta police car.

She could not beat this devil, nor the others that haunted her; Gerri Green was the personification of the wrong turns her life took in the 1990s, from which Shelby Austin never recovered. Now she was free. Even though her body was tightly enclosed in front of the throngs of friends and admirers assembled here today, later to be laid to rest; her soul was in heaven. Shelby was singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among the angels, and making music to the Lord with a joyful heart.

Life is lived either moving toward God or away from Him. Shelby’s commitment to her Lord wavered over the journey through fame, which turned out to be a cortege. All our most lovely moments perhaps are timeless, and so it was as Gerri made his way out of the church and into a waiting cab; he heard the song playing on the Atlanta FM station, surely commemorating the somber ceremony about to start behind him. It was the song that always reminded him of her love, and he hated to share the damn thing with millions of fans. The warmth he felt of the “good old days” of which the song reminded him, was surely the illusion of timelessness, and yet he was sure Shelby would have wanted to say good-bye before he left.

As the song played on the car radio, he spoke to her again, ripping apart inside, but with a proud exterior, “dear Shelby, I will miss you so much, you were the best thing that ever happened to me and I screwed it all up!” “Please forgive me and watch over Bobbi Kristina. I will always love you.”

“Now drive!” he screamed to the cab-driver, and it was over; he could look toward the church no longer.

©Mark H. Pillsbury
[this is a fictional account partly based on real life characters, not meant to be factual; it is a dramatization of Whitney Houston's funeral, any other similarities are coincidental]

Thoughts on the PGA and golf (Aug. 10, 2011):

I don’t believe golf is like life. It’s more complicated than that and golf has facets to it that are inscrutable.

However, as we approach the final of the four “Majors” which tees off Thursday morning, I want to talk about golf and tell what it means to me:

Golf is a jealous mistress, requiring time, money, attention, long-suffering patience, and secret obsession. Egalitarian and often blind, watching others play golf sometimes confounds: I have seen people who “look-like” golfers play poorly, and those street urchins on a public sandlot play like Seve Ballesteros, always known to attack the course and any opponent on his way to par. Real pressure in a golf game with Seve would be playing for $10 when you only have a $5 in your pocket!

Because golf has gone global (as FedEx® says it has) its future is probably as bright as any major sport. Like basketball, with numerous multi-national stars, and competition played worldwide, the post-Tiger era seems promising. A strong wave of young guns arrived on the golf scene a year ago, comers who surely began the game as 8-9 year olds when Tiger started his legendary run.

It is a unique game, historic and humbling; anyone can play, the great players with the hackers, boys and girls, old and young. It affords players a social opportunity as well as one grounded in nature.

Truly hitting the ball without “thinking about it,” when it leaps off the clubface with the crack of a good shot, gives me a childishly fun and pure reaction. Like life, the hazards along the course infuse fear into the average player, taking away the trusting mindset required to swing freely. The combination of physical, mental, and natural processes make it a challenging, lifetime sport, requiring concentration, dedication, and ethics. I’ve learned a lot about respect, about values in life, to be honest with yourself whether you hit it well or in the hazard because you're the only person who can give yourself a penalty, if you do something your playing partner hasn't seen.

The year’s last major is the PGA played in Atlanta (AAC). The PGA suffers from a bit of an infereriorty complex, the tournament invented a tagline with a branding twist: “Glory’s Last Shot!” Mathematically it is one-quarter of all majors just like the other ones, except in almost all the metrics of modern golf it comes in fourth place in importance.

Maybe it is just so damn hot in August, football is heating up, baseball going into a pennant race; nevertheless, hoisting the huge Wannamaker Trophy pays in multiple exemptions for the winner (means he gets invited to lots of tournaments without qualifying), as well as a $1 mil check. It was once the only match-play major until television convinced the PGA to change the format in 1958. With this year’s field almost 156 players (98 out of top-100 ranked) including Mr. Woods, any golf fan can find a horse on which to bet. Speaking of football and heat, the PGA was twice played in Dallas!

It does help that almost a third of this tournament’s champions are big names, such as: Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Lord Byron Nelson, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Walter Hagen, and Sam Snead (28 PGA titles among those names).


“You know, I started thinking back there on that last hole. All I’ve done my whole life is play golf, work at golf, study golf, listen to golf, read about golf. I’ve worked to build a game I can rely on, make a living with. Find a ‘repeating swing,’ as Hogan called it. I’ve experimented with all the equipment—graphite, metal, titanium. I’ve found what works best for me, for my body, my swing. This year I come up with some solid chances to win a big one. After all the years and all the hard work out here, my game’s ready to win a major. But what happens? I get a lousy ruling in Augusta… I get a lousy ruling at Pinehurst… and I get another one here. Each time I let it beat me. I really let it beat me. So I’m thinking my hard-headed ass has finally learned something. Golf’s not about equipment… technique… distance… practice… saving shots… the putting stroke… any of that. Once you know how to hold the damn golf club, golf is only about one thing. How you handle bad breaks.” –Bobby Joe Grooves in Slim and None, by Dan Jenkins (Doubleday 2005)

If you wish to hide your character, do not play golf. It strips you naked and forces you to strategize in an area as small as 5-inches across: your brain!

Every hole contains chapters like a book: the big opening salvo off the tee, winding through the hazards finding the way home to the green—the climax. Then the soft finish as the putting closes the story. I find the chance at renewal after each hole refreshing; as you walk to the next teeing area, leave what happened yesterday at the previous green. The new day dawns as you push the tee into the ground and look forward down the fairway, new opportunities and dangers await you.

Dealing with the reality of my game, I have come to the conclusion that it is more satisfying to be a bad player at golf: the worse you play, the better you remember the occasional good shot! That shot is the one that brings you back next time, the one fantastic glass of Cabernet in a week full of $9 Chardonnays.

Sex and golf are the two things you can enjoy even if you're not good at them, so the best thing you can try to do, is go out there and have fun!

©Mark H. Pillsbury