The Pride

by Wallace Ford

  As a single man in New York City, I had an opportunity to enjoy the delights of the town, home to some of the most beautiful and sensual, intelligent and demanding women on the planet. But my story is not about my romantic escapades and sexual adventures. Let it suffice to say that I did not work all the time.

  Later that morning, as the January sun actually began to insinuate its dull glow through the skylight of my town house, I began to push myself through the rigors of my typical morning exercises. For me there has never been an alternative in my universe.

  I spend so much time sitting behind desks and luncheon tables, lifting nothing heavier than a telephone or a silver soup spoon or a martini glass, that without a regimen of regular exercise I am sure that I would have succumbed to stress or that I would have strangled an adversary, a client, a stranger, or all three by now.

  The physical benefits of regular exercise were always known to me, but as I became more involved with my practice as a lawyer and a member of The Pride, I have found that I needed exercise to keep my brain clear and to have a chance at managing the stress attendant on being a lawyer and a member of The Pride.

  Indeed, it has always amazed me that so many of my colleagues have been able to keep up the pace that they do without exercise. Of course, I was getting ready for a funeral of a colleague that morning, and I am afraid that there have been several more since then. And I know that there will be even more, sooner than later.

  Interestingly enough, Winner Tomlinson didn’t die from overindulgence or lack of exercise. A week earlier he had died of liver cancer. No one saw it coming, least of all him. It had been diagnosed in August of the previous year. Quite simply, he was dead within six months and all the sit-ups and push-ups in the world probably wouldn’t have helped him a damn bit.

  It has been the intimations of mortality that have contributed to my general unease at funerals and memorial services during the past few years. And now that I had to go to yet another one I tried to exorcize my personal demons through exercise on that soon to be fateful morning, and Bob Marley’s jammin’ on the house sound system punctuated my movements. The sounds of Lisette showering in the master bathroom and the CNN announcer were barely noticeable as I started to enter that “zone.”

  Entering the zone had become more and more important as the years progressed. And it has been the mental health aspect that keeps me getting up at ungodly hours and doing certifiably insane things like leaving a warm Lisette Bailey in a warm bed.

  Another reason I remember that morning is because I have such deep dislike for the ceremonies that celebrate death. So I felt like an extra surge of exercise would help me manage my way through what promised to be a particularly trying personal and professional experience. I remember that on that particular morning, I really pushed myself through a much more strenuous workout than usual.

  Instead of one hundred sit-ups I did five hundred. Instead of bench-pressing for ten minutes, I battled those weights for almost a half hour. After thirty minutes on the StairMaster I added another fifteen minutes on the Nordic track.

  I have my reasons for disliking death services. Almost two years to the day before Winner’s funeral, my father had had “minor surgery” to correct a slight gallbladder malfunction. I will never forget the doctor telling me that with this corrective procedure, my father, then seventy years old, would live to be at least eighty-five.

  I guess you could say that the doctor miscalculated somewhat. My father was dead within forty-eight hours of the first incision. I vaguely remember the doctor mentioning something about complications from the anesthesia.

  I never bothered to listen to the complete explanation after I was told that my father was dead. I had been a biology major for my first two years of college and probably would have understood a good part of the explanation but I never saw the point in taking the time to clinically understand the cause of my grief.

  My father was dead. What was the point of any further explanation? Like I said, I had my reasons for preparing for stress that day.

  As I battled with the free weights that day, my brain felt like the “kaleidoscope” mode had been entered. I started working out at an almost frenzied pace as I thought about too much. I thought about all of the wakes, funerals and memorial services that I had attended.

  I thought about how I used to believe that the worst thing that could ever happen to me was delivering the eulogy at my father’s funeral. And, as the sweat poured off me that morning, I remembered that I had already found out that there could be something far worse.

  By now any observer would have seen a six-foot-plus dervish, moving feverishly from floor exercises to machines to weights, like some gym-bound Sisyphus. I barely heard Bob Marley telling me to Lively Up Yourself.

  I know I don’t remember hearing Lisette leave, although I do remember that she had a seven-thirty conference call with London that she had to attend at the Broad Street offices of Goldman Sachs in the Wall Street district where she worked. Once the business day started, passion and romance and lovemaking had no place in Lisette Bailey’s world. Of course, she was not unique in The Pride, or on Wall Street for that matter. As I moved into the final stages of my workout, Lisette was long gone, and that was O.K.

  CHAPTER 5

  Paul

  What a tangled web …

  It was O.K. because no number of sit-ups or push-ups or bench presses could make me forget that there was something worse for me than delivering the eulogy for my father. That’s because six months after my father died, my younger brother died in a freak hang-gliding accident in the hills east of Monterey, California.

  For almost a year, I spent almost all of my nonbillable time on estate matters, insurance matters, closing down residences, selling furniture and poring over endless piles of personal effects. There are certainly worse tortures; I just don’t want any part of them.

  A psychoanalyst might say that these serial deaths were the reason that I pursued such a self-indulgent lifestyle, but the truth is much simpler—I like to have a good time. And someone like Lisette Bailey could make a man forget almost anything.

  It was almost as if she realized that there was a cloud, a burden, and she seemed to dedicate her time with me to make it all go away. At least that’s how it seemed to me. She probably was just having a good time too. Her angelic smile and endless, eternally creative devilish desires always made me want to forget.

  I could never forget the pain and sadness that I have felt in losing my father and brother that way. And she could never make me forget Samantha Gideon, although I never would have dreamed that Samantha would be gone from my life someday. Even today, married and with a son, a day does not go by that I don’t think about her. I have grown accustomed to the reality that her memory will be with me as long as I live.

  If Samantha hadn’t gone away so suddenly, maybe she would have been the mother of my son. How different would my life be now? I have no regrets at this stage of my life, but still, I can’t help but think about these things from time to time.

  Finishing my shower, I still had time to get dressed and attend to my home computer and the attendant e-mail messages before leaving for the funeral, which was to be held at the Riverside Church, no more than a ten-minute taxi ride from my house.

  Before going to my home office, which was on the second floor of the town house, I went down to the first floor kitchen, with its appointments of a Garland industrial range and a Norge refrigerator/ freezer. It had a free-standing island with a marble-faced counter space, rubber tiled floors, and indirect halogen lighting. I had to begin my morning with a blended shake of yogurt, fruit juice, and soy powder to go along with a veritable pharmacopoeia of vitamins and herbal supplements. I took my cup of Kenyan mountain roast coffee back up the stairs and logged on to my computer.

  In the relatively few years of its existence in my world, I have found e-mail to be virtually indispensable. There was a time in my life when there was no e-mail, I just can’t remember i
t anymore. Just like I can’t remember when there were no faxes or overnight mail. I must admit that I do remember Special Delivery letters.

  When I sat down to check e-mail that morning, I had no idea that a note from one of my classmates at Harvard Law School would give me a perspective and then an idea that would change my life and the lives of many other members of The Pride.

  Joel Rosenblatt was one of those people who saw public service as something more than an avocation. He had been in government since we graduated from law school, and he now worked as a senior staff member of the United States Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Banking.

  He worked there because he wanted to and liked it, not because he was looking for a platform for a partnership in some K Street or Wall Street law firm. And, he was a good guy.

  Paul:

  There is no easy way to put this—so consider this a word to the wise. The shit is really about to hit the fan for some of your investment banking colleagues “of color.” The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are working with my subcommittee to hold hearings about the rise of black investment banking firms and the correlation of that rise to their political campaign contributions to black politicians around the country.

  Can you believe it? There would be no Merrill Lynch or First Boston or Lehman Brothers without all of the contributions, cash and otherwise, that they have made to various government officials over the years. But it looks like your people are going to have to play the game by another set of rules.

  The worst part is that these hypocrites have wrapped themselves in so many veils of self-righteousness that going after these black firms is going to seem like a holy crusade, if they ever get any momentum going.

  As I write this I realize that I should have some kind of advice or suggestions for you—and I don’t. But I thought that you should know this, and I knew that you would know what to do with this information.

  Take care.

  Joel

  As I have said, memory is so strange. It can be so unreliable and useless at times, and then there are other times, like now, late at night in my Harlem brownstone, when it seems like I am the only one in the world who is awake, that I can remember every detail of something that, at the time, I didn’t even realize was so important.

  For example, I remember that I stared at Joel’s e-mail message, understanding it, and, at the same time trying to comprehend its greater meaning for a long, long time. While thinking, I sent an e-mail back to my former classmate and current friend.

  Joel:

  Thanks for passing on the information. I know that you have a lot more to do than worry about the fate of black investment bankers (and their lawyers) who don’t know where their next BMW is coming from, but you should know (if you don’t already) that it’s a lot more important than that.

  We both know that on a per capita basis, there are as many white knuckleheads on Wall Street as there are black knuckleheads. We also know that without some real power and influence and an institutional presence on Wall Street, the black experience in America will continue to be a series of parallel stories of individual achievements and collective frustration. You have to control sources of capital in this country to be able to play the game.

  And, speaking of playing the game, it is so ironic that the moment black investment banking firms start to get a little traction that the SEC and Justice and the U.S. Congress (!!!!) start to jump on them for so-called ethical violations. What a crock of shit!

  I guess that my clients can be more discreet in their future forays into the adjoining worlds of politics and municipal finance. But I would hope that I could give them more advice than that. If you have any bright ideas, let me know.

  Hasta,

  Paul

  The note from Joel Rosenblatt set in motion a Rube Goldberg-like series of levers and pulleys in my mind that finally dredged up the bright idea that would change the life of so many.

  As I logged off the computer, I remember thinking that Joel’s note, while newsworthy, was hardly surprising. There were a lot of reasons for members of The Pride to be paranoid, not the least of them was that their very existence offended too many white people in the United States. There were otherwise intelligent, well-meaning and God-fearing white men and women in America who had lived their whole lives with a certain sense of the natural order of things.

  In their universe, black men as principals and partners in Wall Street investment banking firms and law firms simply didn’t exist. Black men and women who were chief executives and senior officers of major corporations simply could not exist. Black women with law degrees, MBAs and partnerships in major law firms offended the Laws of Nature as much as a flying pig or a talking mule. Some things simply could not exist in their world.

  And their response upon encountering this unnatural reality—after the initial shock—has been to deny. And then, if denial did not reassert their conception of reality, then it was time to take more aggressive and even violent actions.

  Sometimes those actions might be as simple as not hiring someone for a job for which they might be overqualified. It could be a peremptory “no” at the meeting of a co-op board in a particularly exclusive address on Park Avenue or Central Park West. Country club memberships and law firm partnerships and investment banking firm partnerships do not stay all white in New York City by accident or for the lack of qualified and interested black men and black women. All of these things are simply puny and pitiful attempts by some people to maintain the natural order of things as they had always known them and would like them to be.

  If I had let the antipathy and hurt feelings of white people determine my fate, I imagine that I would be lucky to be pumping gas somewhere far from Wall Street. Still, Joel’s note was not to be dismissed or ignored.

  This guerrilla warfare against key members of The Pride could have disastrous results. Municipal finance-based revenues were an important part of the financial foundation of a number of black investment banking firms and law firms. Whether that business resulted in the sale of mortgage revenue bonds or the investment of pension fund assets, this income represented the base upon which other business could be built.

  Or should be built, I thought wryly, because now it really was time for me to start getting dressed for the funeral. Going through the eternal ritual of selecting a dark suit, white shirt and subdued tie, I thought about the fact that too many of my friends and colleagues in investment banking were content to frolic in the high cotton of municipal finance, never heeding the commonsense thought that their success would eventually bring about serious institutional reprisals. But more than a few members of The Pride perceived the obvious—it was time to diversify and to solidify gains that have already been made.

  That morning I finished dressing and called a local Dominican car service to send one of its seemingly infinite number of new Lincoln Continentals to come by and get me to the church on time.

  I decided that I would make it my business to invite a few insightful friends to a postfuneral lunch. After all, Winner was to be buried near his birthplace in Alabama so there would be no need to endure an interminable ride to some suburban cemetery.

  As I settled into the backseat of the car, salsa music gently tapping at the door of my consciousness, I started to think about a guest list. The right mix would be important as a plan started to take form in my mind. As I tried to sort these matters out, the always awesome and bold presence of the Riverside Church insinuated itself into view.

  I was glad that I was early. This was going to be a very busy morning and, as the cliché goes, it really was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. Of course, at the time, I just had no idea how right I was going to be.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sture

  Through the looking glass

  In retrospect, it would seem that I knew about The Pride before I learned about it. After all, Paul Taylor was not the first or only black patron of the Water Club. Howev
er, since there were so few blacks who were customers of the restaurant, I would always notice them. And since far fewer were anything like regular customers, it was hard not to remember the repeat visitors. And in any event it would have been almost impossible to forget Paul Taylor.

  Working at the Water Club was an education for me in many ways. I learned, for example, that clowns and idiots come in any and all colors—that there were as many black idiots and clowns as white idiots and clowns. There were the kinds who were too loud, too ostentatious, too ready to treat the waiters and restaurant staff as their own personal servants, or worse.

  I always have thought that such people were insecure about something in their lives, but then of course, no one ever asked me. My job has been to see to it that my patrons are well fed and satisfied with sufficient libations. Their manners and deportment have never been my department.

  And, since the Water Club (and now Dorothy’s By the Sea) has always been an upscale establishment, during the past decade I have spent my working hours with people with decidedly high-income lifestyles—or at least pretending to do so. And, I have found that the size of the income and the amount of disposable cash that a person might have has nothing to do with having class or even knowing how to spell the word “decorum.”

  Paul Taylor always brought a certain amount of class with him when he came to the Water Club. He took the time to say hello to the coat check girl and was never superior or dismissive of waiters, sommeliers or the busboys.

  I don’t want to make him sound like Mother Teresa in a pinstripe suit, but he was always a classy and decent person. I remember he would come with his (then) wife Diedre, and they would celebrate anniversaries, birthdays and the like, and he was always solicitous of her without being a phony romantic.