An Interview with Dragon

You worked as a bodyguard for The Temptations for almost twenty years.  What were your biggest fears when you worked in personal security?

There are regular, everyday fears with the job.  My primary fear was carelessness--me, missing something; a blunder that could cost someone their life.  When I was on the job, I thought of myself as a perimeter;  a circle around The Temptations.  My mind was constantly circling The Temptations.  I always counted them.  I counted 1, 2 3, 4, 5.  That is something I never used to talk to anyone about, but I don't mind talking about it now.  Sometimes I'd end up with 6...then I knew we had a problem.  Sometimes I would count 4, then I'd have to find out where the fifth one was.  I must have counted them...I can't tell you how many times in 20 years I have counted.  Then, there was the fear of being shot, stabbed.  You don't think about it.  Because, with the training, you dismiss the major fears. You react with your training.  The fear hits you when you're off-duty, in your hotel room at night.  Your mind has fast-forward, rewind, and pause.  And you play it over in your mind constantly--what you did; if you could have played it differently. Then, there was the fear of trying to get home. 

Why was that?

Because, after all the work and all the things that I went through, nothing scared me more than not being able to "get home".  I wanted to get home so badly. The fear came to me again with the space shuttle Columbia tragedy.  It just hurt my heart because I knew that they were almost home--only sixteen minutes from landing.  I mentioned it to Otis Williams and he agreed. Otis and I used to have a standard agreement that as soon as we got home we would call each other to make sure the other made it home safely.  Being in personal security, a bodyguard travels on boats, trains, planes and buses--and you're not in control of any of those things.  You have to depend on someone else.  And, I found, after being on the road two or three months, the feeling of totally depending on someone else to get me home, was my biggest fear. My worst experiences were on airplanes.  The experiences I had on airplanes were soul-stirring.  Let's just leave it at that.

You mentioned "counting" The Temptations.  Can you recall a time when you came up short and a time when you came up long?

There was one Temptation, who shall remain nameless, that we left behind once.  We stopped at a truck stop late one night in the South and he got off the bus while everyone else was sleeping.  He never mentioned to anyone that he was getting off the bus.  And, the bus driver gassed up the bus, returned to the driver's seat and took off.  Consequently, while we were driving along, I got up and went up front with the driver.  We kept hearing a car horn blowing; blowing, blowing and blowing--like panic blowing. We kept looking and we could see a car with two young ladies trying to pull us over and our bus driver ignored them and kept driving.  Finally, in the back of the car, we saw this Temptation's face in the window telling us to pull over.  We had driven a few miles until he got our attention.  Needless to say, we stopped the bus and he got on.  We laughed so hard.  He tried to pay the ladies for helping him catch the bus, but all they wanted was autographed pictures of The Temptations, which we gave them.  After that, Otis made it known that everyone had to let someone know when they got off the bus.

And a time you came up long?

We had a black tie affair and it was in Atlanta at the Merchandise Mart. They had The Temptations on a graduated stage so that there were steps on the platform.  I'm standing at the base of the front of the stage.  The Temptations are singing. Awww man, they were really dancing.  They were in the heat of doing what they do.  All of the sudden, I'm counting 12345---6.  The Temptations had on black tuxedos.  All of a sudden there were 6 guys with tuxedos.  Ali Woodson tried to signal me that there was something wrong.  This guy came out of nowhere from behind me.  He was dancing.  He was doing The Temptation Walk so good that I didn't even notice that he was somebody that wasn't supposed to be there.  What made me catch him was I kept saying "6, 6".  Ali was pointing at him and then I took the guy and escorted him off the stage.  He was a tall, nice looking dude.  He was an older guy but he was dancing his butt off.  They teased me about that for a long time--especially Ali.

More questions and answers to come.