Edwin sat behind his huge desk looking intensely at columns of numbers moving quickly across the screen of his computer. He had removed his suit coat, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled up to just below his elbows.
“Dwight! How good of you to come,” Edwin greeted him. His face lit up with a warm smile as he stepped around his desk and vigorously shook Dwight’s hand with both of his. A barrage of questions followed.
“Please, have a seat. How’s the hotel? Have you had a chance to check in? Did you have a good flight? We’ve all been eager to meet you. When Becky told me she had a Hampton grad she wanted me to interview, I was excited. Would you like some coffee? Tea? Have you had breakfast? Most important meal of the day, if you ask me. I can have whatever you’d like brought in. Perhaps some fresh fruit? It’s no trouble.”
Edwin Jackson spoke in such a rapid-fire manner, Dwight had little chance to answer any of his questions before he’d ask three more. Dwight thought Edwin was more nervous than he should be. Dwight was the one being interviewed.
“I’m fine, really, Mr. Jackson. I came here right from the airport. But I’m certain everything will be fine with the hotel. And I had breakfast on the plane,” Dwight said.
“Edwin!”
“Beg pardon?” Dwight answered.
“Edwin! Call me Edwin, everybody does. We try and keep a family environment in the office. No stuffed shirts here. Let’s get down to business, shall we? Mikal Lewis and Bill Carter are on their way up to meet you. Like I was saying, I’ve heard great things about you, Dwight Scott. I read your resumé thoroughly; you’ve got a lot of experience in the area we’re expanding. I talked with some people at Hampton who knew you while you were a student. At the top of your class. I like what I hear about the work you’re doing with our kids, we do a considerable amount of community work around here too. I figure we have a responsibility to give back to our community, especially our children. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes sir. Never forgetting where I came from has always, always been important to me.”
“Yes, sir, Dwight, I like what I see,” Edwin said.
Dwight liked Edwin immediately and liked him even more by the end of the interview. Mikal Lewis, vice president of sales, and Bill Carter, technical services manager, were obviously eager to have him join the team. They answered all his questions without hesitation, open and honestly. The company was well situated financially, and their plans for growth and development were exciting to Dwight. The salary they proposed was three times what he was making at his former employer, with stock options and excellent benefits.
After three hours of questions and more questions, Edwin called his executive assistant to summon the limousine to pick Dwight up and take him to the hotel for some rest before dinner. It would take him to the Park Hyatt just outside Georgetown, where Dwight promised to review the portfolio of material they had given him before dinner. As the heavy wood door was closing behind him, Dwight turned and caught a glimpse of the three men smiling and nodding their approval. He was in—if he wanted.
Dwight relaxed in the comfort of the company limo. He stretched his legs and thought how wonderful it was seeing Black men excelling in the tough and competitive computer industry. He pressed his head back into the soft leather, and the smoothness of the ride lulled Dwight into a sweet dream of a day when he’d have an office just like Edwin Jackson’s.
When he arrived at the Park Hyatt, a beautiful sister named Carmen welcomed Dwight and told him his executive suite was waiting for him. Finally, she listed the many amenities the swank hotel offered its guests.
The suite was impressive, as was the basket of fruit and bottle of wine Edwin’s staff had waiting with a note welcoming him to Washington, D.C. Dwight started to order a late lunch, but remembered his dinner later that evening. He remembered Carmen describing the wonderful health club, so he decided to go for a workout and swim instead.
Forty laps later, Dwight stepped from the warm water of the indoor pool and shivered as the cool air hit his wet body. He hugged himself and looked around for his towel. He could see the oversized hotel towel through the glass partition separating the pool area from the weight room. Except for Dwight, both areas were deserted. He retrieved his towel and plastic water bottle from next to the stationary bike he’d ridden before taking a swim, then retraced his wet footprints back to the pool area.
Dwight dried his upper body, and used the towel to pat water from his swimming trunks. He sat on a reclining deck chair and dried off his legs and feet, then threw the towel over the chair next to him. He lay back and closed his eyes. Though the workout and swim had relaxed his body, his mind moved at the speed of light. It had been a very long day.
“Hi! My name is Scotty. What’s yours?” Dwight lifted his head to find a thin little white boy in lime-green swim trunks standing beside him. He tried to focus on the child’s face, but his eyes were still blurry with sleep. He stretched his full length, then relaxed back into the chair, yawning loudly.
“What’d you say, kid?” he asked.
“I said”—the little blond boy stomped his sandaled feet on the concrete and yelled at the top of his lungs—“my name is Scotty and I’m four years old!” His high-pitched voice reverberated off the pool room walls. Dwight was now fully awake.
“Scotty! Leave the nice man alone. Come over here with Mommy.” A pale white woman with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a yellow warmup suit with gym shoes, sat up in a deck chair a few yards to Dwight’s right. A younger child, a toddler, sat wiggling in her lap. She smiled nervously in Dwight’s direction. “I’m sorry, mister, I hope he’s not bothering you,” she said. Dwight didn’t respond. He was thinking, of course he’s bothering me. I’m trying to rest before my big interview dinner. Scotty couldn’t read Dwight’s mind.
“You wanna play, mister? I can swim now. I don’t live here. I came here on a really big airplane. I bet I can swim all the way ’cross by myself. Wanna see?” Scotty leaned on the arm of Dwight’s chair.
“Scott David Taylor! I said come here instantly!” his mother warned, but Scotty kept his round blue eyes focused on Dwight, not even turning when he heard his mother struggling to get up from her chair.
“I got a fire truck at my house and a puppy. Puppies can’t go on the airplane, just people.” Scotty ran his fingers along Dwight’s arm. “You all brown like my puppy. How come?”
Scotty’s mom gave the little boy a quick swat on his bottom and jerked him away. Scotty turned to look back and waved at Dwight as his mother mumbled something about him talking to strange men.
Dwight didn’t wave back. The “superior race,” he thought. Four years old and already comparing him to the color of his dog. When he’s forty, he would be a white man treating people like a dog, Dwight thought.
Though Dwight had a natural affinity for children, his feelings toward white people blinded him to Scotty’s innocent overture. He had a little brother once. Sedrick David Scott, but everybody called him Scooter from the day Sarah brought him home. Scooter was about Scotty’s age, four, when white people let him die. Sat by and watched him die.
Dwight was seven going on eight when he became the first person in his family to learn to swim. He had taken lessons from the local YMCA all summer long, finally passing the test and receiving his certificate. Sarah was so proud, she framed the certificate and hung it on the living room wall for all to see. She’d pull friends and neighbors aside after church and tell them: “You know Dwight, my oldest, got his swimmin’ papers. Yessiree, my little man can swim, chile. From one end of the big pool to the other. Praise the Lord. You’ll never get me in a pool that big, but my baby can swim.”
So when Dwight’s aunt Ruthie came all the way from Hughes Springs, Texas, on the Greyhound for a visit, Dwight’s mom was pleased when she asked for a real live demonstration of Dwight’s aquatic prowess.
Wednesdays were “free days,” when the quarter admission fee was waived at the city-owned pool in their neighborhood. And although the facil
ity had been “officially” desegregated years before, the white and Black children maintained an imaginary line down the center of the water. Though they stood in line together, the Black kids jumped off the diving board to the left, and the white kids jumped to the right. Orange plastic chairs lined the walls on both sides of the pool for nonswimmers to sit and watch.
Dwight was in such a hurry to show his mother and Aunt Ruthie what he could do, he had convinced her to take him and Scooter to the pool at eight A.M. It didn’t officially open until around nine-thirty, but Dwight knew the big hole in the fence was a way of sneaking in on the nonfree days.
“Watch me, Mama!” little Dwight had yelled. “Watch this, Aunt Ruthie.” And Dwight did a spectacular belly flop off the diving board into the deep end of the pool.
“Watch me, Mama!” Scooter copied his brother, standing close to the edge of the pool’s shallow end.
“Scooter,” his mother had yelled. “Boy, don’t you dare jump in that water. Wait for your brother. I’m not playing with you, boy.” She was halfway out of her chair, when Dwight suddenly splashed through the surface of the water at the shallow end.
“I got ’em, Mama. C’mon, Scooter, back down the ladder. I’ll catch you. You can hold on to the side.” Dwight and Scooter looked to their mother. She smiled her approval and Scooter began backing down the metal ladder into the water. When his left big toe touched the water, Scooter squealed and climbed quickly back up the ladder. Sarah and Ruthie had a good laugh, and Scooter sat stubbornly on the edge of the pool and tried to ignore his big brother’s teasing.
“You ain’t nothin’ but a big ol’ baby, Scooter!” Dwight said as he dove under the water and surfaced back on the deep end. When he swam back, Dwight noticed he had company, a little white boy about Dwight’s age had jumped in the pool. His mother and father sat on the unofficial white side facing Dwight’s mother and aunt. They wore matching tropical print swimsuits. Dwight and the little white boy were taking turns jumping off the diving board, when they heard the scream.
“Oh, Lord! Oh, my dear Jesus! Somebody save my baby!” Dwight’s mother was running up and down the shallow end, pointing into the water.
Scooter had just up and jumped feetfirst into the water and was now frantically waving his arms and trying to call for his mama. The flailing of his arms and legs was carrying him across to the other side of the pool. The white couple sat up straight in their chairs and leaned forward to get a better view. Dwight swam as fast as he could toward the shallow end. When he got to the spot where he’d last seen Scooter, he held his nose and searched under the water for his baby brother. Dwight opened his eyes, and the chlorine burned and blurred his vision—he saw Scooter but couldn’t tell how far away he was or if he was still breathing. When his breath was almost gone, he jumped up and gulped for air.
His mother and Aunt Ruthie were now pointing to the other side of the pool, in front of the still-seated couple. Dwight did his very best to swim across faster than he’d ever swum before. He thought he saw Scooter’s little hand touch the side of the pool at the five-foot mark, then against the six-foot mark before he disappeared again under the water. Dwight swam faster toward the mark, but Scooter had drifted farther toward the deep end. His mother and aunt were running around the pool toward the white side.
“Help me! Help my baby!” Dwight’s mother yelled at the couple. “Can’t you please help my poor baby?” she begged. “We cain’t swim!”
“We cain’t either. Yer boy’ll get him. No point in everybody drowning,” the man said. He turned to his wife and said, “Honey, go get somebody out here to give ’em a hand.” The white woman stood reluctantly and sauntered off. Dwight would always remember the heavy clip-clop of her clogs on the concrete as she moved ever so slowly toward the pool office.
Dwight held on to the white side of the pool, his body exhausted, his breath coming in quick gasps. He swam to the eight-foot mark and dove deep under the water—coming up for air and then diving back down again. He couldn’t reach Scooter, and his tiny body was sinking slowly to the bottom of the pool.
By the time help arrived, it was too late.
Sarah stood wringing her hands and praying softly, tears streaming down her face as Scooter’s limp body was placed gently on the stretcher. Ruthie sat paralyzed with shock and grief. The couple stood side by side with the little white boy hoisted onto the man’s shoulder like they were watching a parade.
Dwight stood stiffly at his mother’s side, his rage forcing back his tears. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he whispered.
His mother placed her hand on his shoulder, “It’s okay, baby. It’s not your fault.” She paused as if to summon all her strength. “Scooter is with Jesus now.”
Dwight wanted to lash out at the white couple, beat their little boy until he lay as lifeless as Scooter. But he was weak and powerless. He couldn’t even save his own little brother.
A mother’s scream brought Dwight back to the present. The painful, vivid memory had tensed his body, and he felt a tightness in his neck and shoulders. Dwight sat straight up and stretched his arms high over his head.
“Help! Somebody help!” Dwight turned to see Scotty’s mother running to the edge of the pool. She had left Scotty explicit instructions not to bother the nice man and not to go near the water while she went into the locker room to change the toddler’s diaper. Scotty had jumped into the clear blue water as soon as she had turned her back. The loud splash made her turn in time to see Scotty gasping for air as he went under.
She placed the toddler on a deck chair and ran over to Dwight, the toddler’s cries and Scotty’s gasps piercing in her ears.
“Please!” She grabbed Dwight’s arm. “I can’t swim. Please save my child,” she cried hysterically.
Dwight hesitated for a blink of an eye. He saw Scooter struggling in the deep water, his own mother frightened and panicked at his side. An overwhelming sense of powerlessness and rage gripped his heart. Scotty’s blond head bobbed to the surface, his small arms and legs moving wildly in the water. He gasped for air, screamed for his mother, and gulped water before he sank again.
Scotty’s mother shook Dwight hard. “Help me!” she screamed in his ear.
Dwight rushed to the side of the pool and dove in. Seconds later he crashed through the surface of the water with a coughing, crying Scotty under his arm. He swam to the side of the pool and lifted the frightened child into the hands of his mother. Grabbing on to the side of the pool, he lifted himself onto the deck. He was surprised to find his knees wobbly, his body drained as though a weight he didn’t even know he carried had been suddenly, mercifully, lifted from his shoulders. He got his towel from the deck chair and wrapped it around Scotty’s shivering body. Scotty’s mother wept, alternately hugging and scolding Scotty. “Thank you for saving my son.” Her eyes were filled with tears and gratitude as she looked up at Dwight.
Dwight put one arm around her shoulders and one arm around Scotty and pulled them close to him. Scotty’s mother sobbed with relief; Scotty held on tightly to Dwight’s leg and cried a scared-little-boy cry; and, for the second time, Dwight wept for the loss of Scooter.
Chapter 25
It finally happened. Like that song goes, I fooled around and fell in love with Yolanda Diane Williams. I’m tripping ’cause it happened so soon, and because I don’t know if she’s fallen for me yet. But I’m not real worried, she will. Matter fact, I think I’ll surprise her and go to Chicago once I finish my college game gig in Madison.
Having her here every evening, waking up in the morning, just talking and enjoying the comfort of each other’s bodies, has changed me. I still find it hard to believe I’ve found a woman who I feel so safe with, where I don’t see nothing but love when I look in her eyes. When she left for the airport a couple of hours ago, I repeated what I had told her this week: I love you. I know her silent smile means she feels the same way. She’s just afraid to say it.
I was looking in my closet, trying to decide which swe
aters and slacks to take to Madison, when my doorman buzzed me. I wasn’t expecting anybody, since every time someone called when I was with Yolanda I gave them the old brushoff.
I’d gotten about five calls from Monty, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was told he was downstairs. Now, this mofo knows I don’t like folks dropping by my place unannounced. But I decided to use this opportunity to tell Monty that we couldn’t kick it anymore. It was later for hardheads. I opened my door, and there Monty stood with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.
“Whatsup, my dog? I didn’t think you was going to let me up,” Monty said.
“Come on in, Monty, whatsup,” I said as I shook his hand and gave him the standard brotherman hug.
“Did you get my messages? Man, I’ve been needing to talk to you,” Monty said.
“Yeah, I got them, but I’ve been real busy.”
“That’s right, you’re doing the TV thing. That’s smooth, man. I saw you once. You look good on the screen.”
“Thanks. Come on and have a seat. What do you need to talk to me about that’s so important?” We both walked over to my sofa. I started to put on some music, but I wanted to hear what this mofo had to say and get him out.
“Man, you still look good,” Monty said as he touched my face. I quickly grabbed his hand and pushed it back. “Naw man, I ain’t with that. What do you need to talk to me about?”
“All right, man, these niggers in my group are tripping. I got caught in some shit, you know with my pants down. Niggers are jealous ’cause I’m getting ready to blow up on the music scene. Getting ready to go solo. And I wanted to tell you I think I’m going to have to go public with the other side of my life,” Monty said. For a moment I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Monty was Yolanda’s client. My body started to feel warm and I twisted my neck and tried to loosen the top button on the knit pullover I was wearing.
“Man, why you wanna do some shit like that?”
If This World Were Mine Page 21