I don’t remember much from my childhood but I do remember this —dangling from a hotel balcony, three flights up. It’s one of my first memories. Sometimes I have difficulty distinguishing my memories from my dreams, from make-believe. And sometimes everything is a lie.

We were in Europe, staying at a hotel in Berlin. Dad was due to receive some lifetime achievement award. About two hundred people had gathered at the hotel entrance and we had to fight our way through the crowd. Someone even got injured. It was later when he took me out on the hotel balcony to see the crowd that he held me over the railing. I could hear the crowd shouting below, but I wasn’t scared. All I could see were my bare feet because Dad had covered my face with a towel. I was happy because I had managed to kick off these blue woollen booties Grandma had knitted for me. They made my feet itch horribly. I was always trying to remove them and someone, either Dad or the nanny, kept putting them back on. It damn near drove me crazy. But now they were gone for good. Sweet relief.

Girls would always huddle outside hotel gates, trying to hide from security. And sometimes Dad would go and say hello. He would give out handwritten letters that said things like: ‘I can feel your energy through the walls. You inspire me so much. I love you all. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for loving me. With all the love in my heart.’ It was never just ‘Thanks guys. I hope you enjoy the show.’ Grandma says my handwriting is like his. Long and sloping, with lots of capital letters thrown in randomly.

I remember the way he used to hug the girls. Like he used to hug me. He would put one hand on their neck, behind their head, like you would do to someone you knew closely. Sometimes when he hugged them like that I wanted to kill him.

We often stay at Grandma’s. We like to sleep three in a bed, head to toe. In her driveway, there is this sign that says ‘Happiness lives here’. The first time I saw it I asked who Happiness was. From then on my sister teased me every time we passed it. She used to say ‘maybe Happiness will be there’.

Grandma has this big box of coloured beads. We used to spend hours threading them into necklaces. We liked to dress up as cowboys and Indians. A few times my brother and I changed the game to cops and robbers, or my personal favourite, Spiderman. My sister always dressed up as a princess, though. She would dress the cat up like a princess too, and sometimes my brother and I as well. After a while, she stopped because my brother ripped one of her favourite pink dresses. I was happy about that. I agreed with Dad when he told her boys don’t wear dresses.

We like going to Grandma’s because she lets us eat what we want. Dad was fanatical about food. He’d give our nannies long lists of what we could and couldn’t eat. He told me I was allergic to peanuts, but my sister said the real reason we had to be careful was in case our food was poisoned.

I guess you could say he was over-protective. I remember when the rabbi brought his kids to play at the ranch and we were actually allowed on the Ferris wheel, the roller coaster and the bumper cars for the first time in months. Dad said they were only ever to be used on special occasions. Later we were all playing hide-and-seek and Dad went ballistic. It was one of the few times I saw him get really mad. He said that we had gone too far away from the house—that the coyotes would get us. And that very night coyotes took my sister’s rabbits. Only one was left, his little broken body lying on the ground, fluttering and sighing like he was caught in a dream. The coyote had bitten his balls clean off. We rushed him to the vet, but he died from loss of blood on the way.

Dad could see into the future. It’s my personal belief that’s why he made Thriller. Ghouls and zombies were the people who helped kill him and his career. I remember at the funeral a man gave a speech and said Dad was a genius. He talked about a song of Dad’s called ‘Black and White’ and this is what he said:

Dad had been critical in desegregating music.

Dad transcended race.

Dad symbolised the 400-year-old African American struggle.

My sister said a few things too. I didn’t say anything. I was just sad. I thought about Neverland and the lies Dad told me. Lies about living forever and not growing old. I wondered if the people mourning his passing still thought he did those terrible things written about in the papers and shown on TV. I wondered if they were all lies and make-believe. And then I wondered if they were true.

Strangers would tell him they loved him and if they were devoted enough, he would sometimes let them into the house. I remember hearing Grandma telling Dad that he was to blame for his predicament. She had warned him to find friends his own age. Sometimes I wished he was just a regular musician with a regular face and regular friends. Then maybe he wouldn’t have shared his bed with kids.

After the funeral, Aunty took us for ice-cream. Her well-cut black suit made her look smart and almost dignified. Personally, I think the bust line was not in keeping with the gravity of the situation. She had crazy boobs. We all ate grape flavoured ice-cream, which was my favourite but Aunty didn’t have any. She said she wasn’t hungry. In fact, she couldn’t keep still. She kept jumping up and jerking about. I asked her if she was itchy. I told her I knew how awful it was to be itchy, and I told her about my triumph over the blue woollen booties. Then we finished our ice cream and went home to Grandma’s.