Mr Psychic

Clifford Royce was one of the more interesting individuals to enter my family's life. He was one very busy Psychic Man! He taught development classes (how my mom met him), had a daily radio show, and a weekly TV program. But wait! There's more! He preached on Sundays at his church in the Oak Park Arms Hotel. As I knew him he opened Mr Psychic's Restaurant. He also did psychic counselling, and kept boarders at his house. How do I know that? I was one! Royce was invited to hold seances at our house to help us get to the bottom of all this ghost business. We discovered we had more ghosts than Star Trek had aliens! There was an old man, a colored housekeeper, a dog, along with occasional special guest ghosts.

Well, Clifford Royce opened the door to a new career path for my mother, one that served her well the rest of her working life. We had some very cool seances at my house, at least as good as what you see in the movies. When the pressure of being a teenage border-line drug addict became hard to handle, I had some counseling sessions with him where he used hypnosis to keep me from wanting to get high. (It worked for a long time). Oh, about the sessions, Royce used past-life regression to take me back to a previous incarnation.

My previous life was of a guy named John West. He roamed around the mid-west gambling and hanging out. He eventually acquired a spread in Texas, but before he got the place going, he was shot in the head. I remember well the feeling of pain in my head when we hit that spot. The John West story illuminated a number of loose ends that didn't make sense otherwise: I was born with the desire to learn to speak Spanish (although we knew no one who spoke it). As a youngster I had a love/hate relationship with Texas; I wanted to be here and I didn't. When I did finally get to Texas (particularly Austin), what I learned about Texas history explained a bit about the John West story. Stephan F. Austin deeded him a grant in Austin colony that already had Mexican people living on it. John didn't speak enough Spanish to negotiate, and wound up shot off his horse shortly after arriving.
Anyone over the age of 30 already knows the Great Po-ba has a wicked sense of humor: the Parkside house was in a town formerly known as Austin IL.

When my father took a job on the Mississippi gulf coast, my family started packing to leave Chicago. I wanted to stay and do my last year at the school where I had things worked out. Clifford Royce went to bat for me and got my parents to agree to leave me in his care. So I stayed at the Psychic Manor from September 1, 1969 - June 20, 1970. Royce, his wife Ursla and the two boys lived downstairs, while me and a retired gentleman named Hanrahan lived upstairs. Every now and then a touring fellow psychic would bunk in the other bedroom for a few days. I came to think of Metaphysical folk like carnies. It was a little bit science, and a lot of show-business. Cliff was no fun when watching the Amazing Kreskin, or Uri Gelher, he always would explain how they did their amazing feats.

My first church gig was at The Temple of Life Church. This was where Clifford Royce held service on Sundays. For years it was in the ballroom of the Oak Park Arms Hotel. As church, it was great theater: Each week the opening was the same; the lights went down and 2 lit candles were in an alter in front of the podium. The band would go into the long version of Battle Hymn of the Republic. As the piece crescendos at the end, Royce would come lumbering down the middle aisle to the pulpit. At the end of the service, Rev. Royce would feature one of his star students giving quickie "insights" to individual people in the congregation. This was worth staying for! Now and then Royce would channel an old colored slave lady friend of his, and she would give the readings. That was always a riot... It was like there really was someone else up there.

I was only 13 when I first started in the band there. My job was to play the hymn melodies on saxophone and do a solo number each week. I would break out my sax on Sunday morning, play the hymns in the key they were written, and after I got the melody, would transpose so I would be playing in the right key with the piano. The "band" was made up of an older lady that played piano (with only 3 fingers on her right hand), a guy who played a Cordovox (this looks like an accordion, but is electric and sounds like an organ), a drummer, and me. I did this gig for about a year that time.

Later, when I was 17, and living at the Royce house, I went back to playing at the church. I was visiting one Sunday and noticed the drummer couldn't stay awake during the service. I mentioned this to Royce, (of course) he knew and said he was looking to replace him. I guess after our conversation he had a vision or something because he called right back and asked me to take the drummer job. It was easy and I knew I could stay awake for an hour so I was back on the payroll. I alternated with a female vocalist and every other week she did the solo.

In Spring 1971, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeplin came out. I learned it right away and played it the next Sunday at church for my solo. Royce asked if I wrote it as it had several references that applied to my life at the time. I did the song knowing there was one part he'd disapprove of; about the lady buying the stairway to heaven. Wisely he didn't want his patrons criticised.

Another of the interesting things about Mr Psychic was; he made a really big first impression... he weighed like 450 pounds. When I drove him around (he didn't drive) in my VW bus, it was like it was going to tip over when he got in the back. He had circulation problems due to his huge size and someone came to the house to give full massages several times each week. His weight wasn't what what finally did him in, it was just the opposite.

CR enjoyed introducing me to acquaintances as his "son from a previous marriage".
After a couple of his associates made the humorous inquiry as to whether I was a boy or a girl, (see "Hair Wars") I finally told him the next time somebody asked that, I would reply with "I may look like a girl, but I fuck like a man!" Soon enough, one of his friends asked the question, he looked at me, I shrugged and started to say my part, but he interrupted with "Billy says he may look like a girl, but he assures us he makes love like a man". Royce was nothing if not deadpan. He had a dry sense of humor, and hardly ever laughed.

The last chapter of the Clifford Royce story is the strangest of all.
Due to his immense size, he was always having health crisises; heart attacks, spells, you name it. Somehow he would always come back from them. The doctors finally told him he must lose the weight.
Intestinal bypass surgery had just been invented, and CL was in the first wave of recipients. Sure enough, Clifford Royce began to shrink. . . And shrink. . . And shrink. About a year after the "life-saving surgery", Clifford Royce died weighing 60 pounds, too weak to live.