Out of the Madness (20 page)

From our damp, unfurnished apartment unit, my brother and I walked around with our big pump shotguns, facing down dope dealers.
We did what amounted to headache work (young black kids in Dallas called the police “headaches”). My brother was trying to
work a part-time job also. We took turns working the graveyard shift. I preferred the graveyard shift; my heart was too broken
for me to get any sleep.

Over the months of 1989, when I was nineteen, we stayed there, visiting our sister, working our shifts. I sent my daughter
fifty bucks from each check. In spite of everything, my brother and I were still encouraged. And things weren’t so bad. The
apartment had air, sometimes. They paid the light bill. And we had food.

Still, making $5,000 a year was pure slavery. We knew this. But my brother was so tired that he didn’t care, as long as we
weren’t homeless. I wasn’t that content. Whatever it took, I wasn’t going to spend my life in that mess. And neither was my
daughter.

Over time, I learned from reading Fahim’s book that since my child was born out of wedlock, I would have to go to court and
establish myself as the father. Once completed, I could get visitation rights, powers, duties, and privileges.

I figured if I wanted to see my daughter, even one day get custody, I had better have a nice place to live and a decent job.
I soon began to gradually improve myself, though things went at a snail’s pace. I caught the bus to the downtown community
college and told them I wanted to go to school. People who had dropped out were required to take the same tests as high school
graduates. While I scored low on the math, I got the second highest score on the reading test—I had become an expert at reading.
They were very surprised and said I could enroll in the college at the normal level. I was thrilled!

Still, when would I go? I worked all night, and the school was an hour’s bus ride to downtown on the pitiful bus system. Only
one way: I would have to find another job, a stable job. I needed a car.

I called Fahim, who referred me to a friend of his, Bob Ray Sanders. He was a well-known black TV journalist who knew a lot
of charitable groups. It took me a long time to swallow enough pride to call one. But I did, the Junior League of Dallas,
and spoke with Maria*. I was brutally honest, willing to do whatever it took. I told her in brief my situation, about my love
for my daughter, and asked her if they could loan me a down payment on a car. Understanding, she said the organization couldn’t,
but she would ask her husband. Days later she called my house and asked for directions. He, from his own pocket, would do
it. One of my best friendships was about to begin.

Now, intuitively, I knew not to appear too black around these people. So I put the broken radio on a classical station and
practiced sounding white like the black kids at the elementary school. I also knew her husband wouldn’t let his wife visit
some black man alone. Sure enough, they both pulled up in a late-model car, and I invited them inside. They were neatly dressed
and glowing with business and education. Her husband, Alex*, was tall and gaining thick weight in his middle age. He glanced
around the house and then quickly looked at me as if he didn’t want me to see he had noticed the terrible apartment. They
took a seat on the small sofa across from me, tried to look comfortable, and asked me about my ambitions.

“So, Jerrold,” his wife began, “I understand that you have a child you love, and that you want to raise her. But how do you
plan to do that?”

“Well, I plan to find a better job and go to school part-time. My main concern is getting in a position where I can take care
of my little girl,” I said. I was trying not to give them much detail. I felt like if they wanted to help me that was fine,
and if they didn’t that was fine, too.

While sitting there, though, I got the impression that Alex was very compassionate, even though he tried to look stern and
doubt danced around his face. But I think they quickly became convinced that I was deserving, because they only stayed a few
minutes. Before they left, they made sure I knew that $600 they gave me was a onetime gift. I made sure they understood that’s
all I wanted.

On that day, I had not known just how rich and successful Maria’s husband was, or that he was wondering how in the hell I
was keeping so motivated. We were from opposite worlds. He was in his forties, a golden boy from an aristocratic family, from
fine stock. He had gone to school until he was twenty-nine; and he and Maria both were certified lawyers. But that was not
his line of occupation, not Alex. Instead he was the big chief, a big corporate boss, on the board, a CEO of a multinational
firm with countless employees and contacts. He was handling the millions.

Prior to marriage and Dallas, he had swung his genius around at the New York Stock Exchange, earning at his leisure, wielding
the power of his spotless, golden upbringing. After his success, it was time for marriage, Maria, and three children.

Alex called me several days after his first visit. I was surprised to hear from him, as he had established that he had no
further interest. That was not the case, though; something was bothering Alex, something he had wondered about all his life
and now had the perfect opportunity to determine.

“Jerrold, listen, how are you?” he said, sounding slightly nervous. “Listen, I was wondering after our meeting the other day,
about trying to help you get organized, you know, show you how to put together a résumé, and maybe write some letters for
you.”

I was uninterested in having him poke around in my business but elected to give the man another meeting; hell, he had given
me $600. “Sure, no problem,” I said.

“Listen, that’s great,” he said. “How good do you know downtown? Meet me at the executive health club on Griffin Street.”
He hung the phone up sharply, like a man who knew how to handle a call, almost in the middle of my good-bye.

Alex and I met in this gym’s cafeteria. He had just come from working out. He piled a whole lot of weird food—he called it
yuppie food—on his plate and we sat down. I knew right away that he was a probing man, full of all that economic, budget analysis
and planning work he did. And he loved it.

“Do you know what type of work you intend to do?” he asked.

I told him just work and went on to answer questions about my education, my family background, my religious beliefs—which
had been narrowed down to a belief in the Creator, not religion—and my security job and salary. “What!” he said. “That’s all
you make!”

Alex and I met several more times before things went any further. During these meetings, he talked about religion often, about
how the black church was the thing that had kept blacks going, the place of all their resources. I never let him know what
I thought of that.

Alex had a hard time believing that one religion was the right one. “Listen, I don’t think all those Muslims around the world
are going to hell,” he said, looking perplexed. Moreover, he was surprised to find out I wasn’t deeply religious like most
blacks. He and I had that in common.

After this, Alex invited me to his office, a tall building on the periphery of booming downtown Dallas. His private suite
was on the twenty-seventh floor in a far corner. In his office, he had a big desk, golf clubs, and a big world globe. He spoke,
smiled, and tossed me several examples of résumés, then jogged to an urgent meeting he was late for.

His secretary helped me make out the resume, and when Alex came back he got on the phone. “Listen, I have this guy here who
wants to work a full work week while going to school part-time. I’ll fax you his resume, and you send it to management.” He
did this with about five law firms where he knew people. He instructed me to call one week later for an appointment and reviewed,
with me, basic etiquette and interviewing techniques: how to talk, smell, dress, and act.

About a week later, I interviewed with five law firms. The interviews were very routine, as if the decisions already had been
made. One law firm in particular was expressing a lot of interest. There, I was interviewed by at least five white women.

“What do you think is the most important thing being a case clerk?” one of them asked as they sat around me in the crowded
office.

“I think that a case clerk needs to be able to follow instructions, not be afraid to ask if he doesn’t understand … mind his
bosses …”

“That’s very good, Jerrold,” another one said, as if she were talking to a man who had just held up one finger on request—“Yes’m,
ma’am, this heh is da one fingu. Gib me ah peanut.”

I was hoping and praying that one of these law firms would give me a chance. I knew once they saw how hard I worked, I would
never be without a job. It would be all I needed to get in shape, to get my daughter.

In another week, Alex called me. “Hello, big shot! … What did you say to them? We got three job offers!”

I told him to hold on, while I got off the phone, turned forty-nine flips, soared to the heavens, and jumped over the moon.
“Man, I don’t know how to thank you for this,” I said emotionally.

“Don’t worry about it. Come into my office and we’ll go through everything.”

I went to Alex’s office once more. “What do you think about making twelve hundred dollars a month? It sure beats walking around
that complex.”

I fumbled the words in my mouth several times. The law firm offering this salary was a prestigious one. They were going to
give me $1,200 to work eight hours a day and have a lunch break, an hour lunch break. I was just awed.

The law firm was one of the largest in the city, with litigation, corporate, tax, and bankruptcy divisions. They had dozens
of big bank, city, business, and industry clients.

“Listen, Jerrold, do you have any dress clothes?” Alex said. “You have to be dressed well in the business world…. We’ll meet
this weekend and get you some shoes and attire. You think about what you like and where you want to shop in the meantime.
Also, there is something I want to tell you about where you’ll be working. It’s a very large, prestigious firm. Now most of
these people probably have not had much contact with black people and couldn’t tell you where south Dallas is. You don’t have
any education or office experience. Most of them are highly educated, experienced adults. You’re going to have a lot of odds
against you. They think that all black men are dumb, lazy criminals. You’re going to have to go in there and prove yourself.”

Listening to him really challenged me. These people didn’t know anything about me and already had figured how and what I would
be. They were the cream of the crop, the highly educated. And I was just a poor, ignorant, uneducated black boy from south
Dallas. I would prove them all wrong.

I had been scheduled to start work the next month, so I decided to move back with my mother. This meant moving back to a tough
part of south Dallas, but it was closer to downtown and on a better bus line. My mother was all excited about her son going
to work for a law firm. And I myself had never been happier; persistence had paid off. Back home I went through south Dallas,
telling my friends, Jamie, Vernon, his uncles, the old heads, my friends in Prince Hall, and everybody I could find. At home
I would just stand in the mirror in my new shirt and jacket, feeling like a million dollars. “Man, you’re lucky,” my friends
would say. They all wished they were in my shoes.

But Vernon felt disturbed about the whole thing. “Don’t trust that white man too much. Don’t get too close to him. He’s one
of those white men who realizes how wrong they are. He’s just guilty now. He’ll turn on you when you need him the most. He’ll
never be there through thick and thin.”

I told Vernon I didn’t have time for all that mess. Alex was asking for nothing in return; what could I have given him? What
could he possibly want from me? No, I would trust him. He had been straightforward with me. He had been excited for me. I
didn’t care if he was white. He had enough compassion to see that there was no lack of talent, ambition, and will, but that
I, no one, would ever get anywhere, get anything, without significant resources, some money, a start, some help.

And where were the black men? The ones who could have helped, the so-called middle class, the educated, the doctors, the professors,
the businessmen, the politicians, the teachers, the entertainers, the sports figures? They had left us, got out of the slums
and turned into Uncle Toms, puppets, and wanna-bes. Pretending they were so concerned with charity and giving back to the
community, up there speculating on what they thought was the problem, refusing to have direct contact with us. Big fakers.
I didn’t understand why they couldn’t stick together as a race. Meanwhile everyone was starving, struggling, and trying their
damnedest to stay sane.

“Jerrold, you can think what you want, but I’m telling you, don’t trust him. It won’t last.”

We just dropped the conversation after that, neither of us wanting to relent our position. Alex was here; and I didn’t care
what he, or his people, had done in the past. He had recognized a financial need and had offered to become my corporate mentor.
I felt like his help was all I needed.

O
ne night in October 1989, as I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep for work the next morning, I heard a sudden, frantic knock
on the front door. My mother, who was sleeping in the living room, and her boyfriend jumped up to see who was knocking. But
I rushed past them, just in case some person with revenge on his mind was out there.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s Jonathan.”

I told my mother to go back to bed, that it was only Vernon’s brother.

I stood on the porch and shut the door. “What’s the problem, man?” I asked.

He was frantic. “Aw, man, I tried to tell him to come on, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

Who was he talking about? I was in Jonathan’s face now. “What the hell is wrong, man?”