A Hope in the Unseen (21 page)

He pauses, savoring it, using every precious second. “And then, Cedric … I began to sing to her, right there as we ran.”

Cedric’s jaw drops in mock surprise and he claps once, egging Clarence on, as the teacher throws back his head and lets it flow:

As the teacher begins to repeat the verse—Hymn 189, it so happens, from the
Standard Baptist Hymnal
—Cedric wordlessly gets up and moves to the blackboard, all reflex, it seems, and begins scribbling sine and cosine, X’s and parentheses. Clarence squints at the distant chalkboard. The scribbles are the start of a calculus proof.

“The integrating of two whole numbers, I see,” Clarence says with the same reverent tone as his just finished hymn. “You still got it! Look at that boy go!”

Chalk is flying, white chips falling on Cedric’s head and shoulders, his hand moving in furious arcs, the dark green board filling with arithmetic Sanskrit as it turns olive in the early evening sun.

“I wish all integration was this easy,” quips Cedric, nearing the proof’s finale. “We’d all be better off.”

And Clarence Taylor laughs, loud and long, feeling, for an instant, like he and Cedric Jennings are just starting out.

B
eautiful
—they drag us halfway across the city and Roosevelt High’s auditorium turns out to be hardly any bigger than Ballou’s,” fumes Barbara Jennings as she glares at Neddy. Her daughter shrugs and seems happy to slip away to chase her seven-year-old, Lawrence, who just disappeared down a hallway.

Barbara is working up a powerful sweat, but perspiration is no great feat with an afternoon high temperature of 96.

“Bishop Long’s wife hates being hot,” she groans, wishing Neddy would get back here so there’d be someone to complain to—so she wouldn’t have to be talking out loud to herself like some damn fool. “I just don’t know what Mother Long will do.”

Barbara has always been most comfortable and settled when she felt like she was rescuing her Lavar—from infidel drug dealers or his intemperate father, from carping teachers or false idols of peer pressure. Not to mention poverty, despair, and hopelessness.

But on this day of victory—graduation day—there are no demons left to fight, at least not for her. It will only be him, up there.

Soon the Jennings entourage is here and seated, midway in a side section, all in a row: Barbara; then Bishop’s Long’s wife, Mother Long, and her sister, Skinny, who’s anything but; then Cedric’s paternal grandmother, Maggie; his half-sisters, Leslie and Neddy; and, on the end, little Lawrence.

The sweltering auditorium at Roosevelt High School—a turn-of-the-century monstrosity with Yankee church spires and crumbling cornices—is filling quickly, and the balcony is now opened. Maggie mentions something about Cedric Gilliam wanting to come but having a lot of work. He was paroled in November and just started working at a new barbershop. Under Barbara’s wilting glare, she adds that “he wasn’t sure, I don’t think, if Lavar really wanted him here.”

Barbara takes a deep breath. The man’s whole life is an excuse, she
starts, but quickly decides it’s better—simpler—that he’s not here. She turns to make small talk with Mother Long and periodically cranes her neck to watch the crowds of parents as they jam in, women mostly, it seems, rows of them, some casually dressed in jeans, others, like Barbara, more formal. Many are coming straight from work, like she did, but in their uniforms—a nurse, a toll taker, a cop.

Ballou’s music teacher silently cues the high school’s small band, clustered up against the stage. A solemn “Pomp and Circumstance” marks the arrival of the graduates, with LaCountiss, Cedric, and a few others who will sit on the stage leading the procession down one of the main aisles.

Barbara spots him. “There … see him?” she says to Mother Long in a high, almost girlish voice. “Gaawd. Doesn’t he look good?”

He does—and everyone can see: the boy near the front of the line, the long gown accentuating his height, girls on all sides. It quickly becomes clear that there will be an absence of the decorum typical of graduation ceremonies. Before the first stanza of “Pomp and Circumstance” is over, people are screaming.

“WE LOVE YOU TANISHA!” is wailed from the balcony. A bunch of kids in their royal-blue silky gowns, with the gold “Ballou Class of ’95” sash, look upward and one—Tanisha, no doubt—waves to her family.

Other names hurl from the crowd, whoops and yells for Jameses and LaShawns and Keiths, a thunderous “WE ALL WITH YOU NATASHA,” seconded by cries for Jamaals, Latoyas, and Pernells, providing lyrics for the stately processional tune.

It doesn’t take long for the graduates to settle into their seats, and Barbara looks down at the program. About two hundred names are listed across three pages, each page carrying a small-print disclaimer: “The listing of names on the program does not imply that students have met all requirements for graduation.”

The national anthem and a posting of colors is followed by a few introductions. The place sounds like a rush hour train station, with a low, steady hum of conversation, one thousand or so people all now fanning themselves with the heavy bond paper of the program. Principal Jones, suave as always, sporting a dark, tailored suit, today with a
sharp, yellow tie, starts with an admonition, chiding the assembled that “our young people have prepared speeches and if you are quiet, they can continue ….”

It is the first of many tongue lashings hurled by the stylishly appointed blacks on the cool, elevated stage—an assortment of school board members, District of Columbia school administrators, $80,000-a-year principals and vice principals. It’s not a crowd that takes to ultimatums well. Most of the sweating parents never graduated from high school, much less attended college, and are certainly not going to be reined in at the only graduation many will ever attend by some distant, bourgeois blacks.

Up at the podium, Keisha Ward, class vice president, shouts a short welcome statement through the microphone, asking her fellow students to “look around and see those survivors of these trying years and also see our missing friends, who could not hold on.”

Barbara, squeezing some outrage from her reserve tanks, leans toward Mother Long—“No respect at all, these people,” she says, “just like at the school,” and Bishop’s wife shakes her head in stagy disgust. Barbara studies the accomplished suburban blacks up on stage, admiringly. She wants to yell out that it’s her son up there, so all those “honored guests” will know that she’s different—that Barbara Jennings doesn’t belong in this unruly mob.

Cedric belongs up there—that she knows. And Barbara realizes that he’s sitting among these accomplished people because she always thought that’s where
she
belonged—no matter what other people said.

“Can you quiet down, just a little bit!” exhorts a svelte, smartly dressed female school board member from the lectern. “This is an important day in these students’ lives and it needs to be orderly and quiet …. Maybe if you’re quiet, you won’t be as hot.”

An obese woman from behind Barbara offers the crowd’s reply: “Oh Puleeeeze. A slender lady from up there—and SHE TALKING ABOUT HOT?!” This gets some laughs from the nearby rows and Barbara has to chuckle, despite herself.

Mother Long glares at Barbara from the neighboring seat, a “nothing funny about it” look on her face, and says, “When Cedric gets up
there, he better say God has helped you through this, that God’s the one who should be thanked today.”

“Oh, he will, don’t worry,” says Barbara sheepishly, before she’s drowned out by the Ballou chorus as it launches into a soulful rendition of the old spiritual “Amazing Grace,” changes course midway into the Afrocentrically sensible theme from Disney’s
Lion King
, and finishes raucously on “got no worries, for the rest of your days, it’s my trouble free philosophy, Hacuna Matata.”

Dr. Constance Brooks, Ballou’s vice principal, in a white Liz Claiborne number with a black collar, follows the song with more verbal attacks. “We will have to move people out of the aisles. There are seats in the back of the balcony. Please clear the aisles, or the fire department will move us out of the auditorium.” This prompts no discernible movement. Finally, with no point in waiting longer, she murmurs, forlornly, “Ladies and gentlemen, our salutatorian, Cedric Jennings.”

Down below, Barbara Jennings’s anxiety finally dissolves. She looks up at the stage, transfixed, unspeakably happy to simply be the mother of that boy.

A hundred feet away, Cedric places his glasses on the podium, flips his tassel to the far side of his mortar board, and rustles three pages of typed notes, trying to keep his elbows from locking.

As he looks up and clears his throat, he is certain that the din has actually risen a notch, his ears picking up a few moans along with a mocking “Ceeeeddric” or two. Kids love saying the name. It will always mean “nerd” to them.

He thanks the honored guests for their presence (including Mayor Marion Barry, whose seat remains empty) and turns to thank Dr. Jones, who shifts a bit in his chair and winks in a gesture of kinship, signaling his hope that Cedric will stick to the kinder, gentler text that was approved yesterday.

Cedric turns back to the crowd and begins reading. “I would first like to start by thanking God for giving me the strength and courage to be where I am today. I would also to thank the many people who have had a positive impact on my life, especially my loving mother and my family.”

The din is indeed, rising, the crowd having already passed its allotment of attentiveness. People who aren’t using their programs as fans are noisily flipping pages to see how many more of these speeches are coming.

Cedric pushes forward gamely, keeping his voice loud and even: “When I was asked to deliver the salutatory address I was afraid because it seemed an awesome responsibility … many of us who are going on to college, to work, or to the military, understand the feelings of fear and responsibility in our new endeavors … but if we, the class of 1995, are to face a new day, we must become self-sufficient, responsible, and determined in rising to the challenges of the twenty-first century.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” says a man leaning close to his teenage daughter a few rows from the stage, and the girl laughs. Cedric hears the whole thing.

He tries to remain composed, again rustling pages on the lectern. “In our high school years, we have learned great lessons that will serve us well in the future. Most importantly, we have learned to hold tight to our dreams, although there have been many obstacles on our way to a high school diploma ….”

He pauses and, for the first time, really looks up from the text. The crowd is blurry. He looks quickly to the right edge of the podium and sees his glasses. He forgot to put them on, and he can’t stop to do it now in midspeech.

He looks outward again, feeling his throat tighten. The next part he knows by heart. It’s the first thing he wrote two weeks ago. It’s the very reason he’s up here, or so he decided this morning when he added back the next three paragraphs.

“You see,” he begins, his voice halting but seeming to sound conversational, “we have learned how to fight off Dreambusters. Yes, Dreambusters. Their favorite lines are ‘you cannot’ or ‘you will not.’ Many of us have been called crazy or even laughed at for having big dreams.”

Some in the crowd look up, perplexed, as though they aren’t sure what he just said.

“I will never forget being laughed at for saying I wanted to go to the Ivy League. I’ve been told that I wouldn’t make it and, quote unquote,” he says, “that I ‘couldn’t hang.’”

He can hear students mumbling to each other in the middle seats just in front of him, and he imagines what they must be saying: Can it be that the nerd is giving some back? Giving it back to the whole class! Who does he think he is?

He grabs the edges of the podium, intently studies the blur of royal blue while he waits for the room to quiet. He knows some of them are frowning, giving him the dead-eye. But he can’t make out their faces, and that makes it all possible, allowing him to see only the indignities, stretching back years—the chiding, the slights, the threats. And finally, he’s purging it, spitting it all back. It’s a spectacle. People are stunned, silent.

“When one of my peers found out that I was going to Brown, he told me I wouldn’t last two years. While they were laughing in the corner and trying to predict my future, I laughed back … ” He pauses, and it becomes clear that he’s ad libbing, searching. “I said to myself, ‘THERE IS
NOTHING
ME AND MY GOD CAN’T HANDLE.”

The crowd erupts. It’s thunderous. A few people are standing. Even the badass kids have to laugh—the human punching bag is finally punching back.

Barbara’s up, screaming, “THAT’S MY SON!” loud enough that even Cedric can hear her, and he squints over toward her voice, trying to see—but he doesn’t need to. He feels her inside him.

Now the frog prince is flying, up on his toes, preaching, reaching down and, in a flash, he sees his mother standing by the white couch, pointing at him, dropping her finger slowly, like a gun. Remembering every word, he lets it rip.

“For the race is not given to the swift nor to the strong,” he signifies, “but to him who endureth until the end!” The mothers, the powerful churchwomen, start to cry out from all corners, and distinctions between the cool stage and the surrounding lowlands are gone as the room thumps as one big tent revival.

Cedric goes on to finish the speech, ending nicely with the Langston Hughes poem, but he knows—even as he recites it—that no one will remember much of the end. All they’ll remember is that some boy preached today.

LaCountiss Spinner gives a tame, respectful valedictory speech, mostly thanking a lot of teachers; and Mayor Barry arrives, about an hour late, to present the Mayor’s Academic Achievement Award to three students on the stage, including Cedric. As he places a silver medal around Cedric’s neck, Barry quips, “Sure is nice to see a young man up here.”