by Wallace Ford
I am sure that it’s pretty clear that, given my background, just showing up on the Cumberbatch front porch to take Charmaine to the movies would have precipitated paroxysms for Dr. and Mrs. Cumberbatch. But the truth of the matter is that Lionel and Mattie have always been pretty cool with me once they understood that my feelings for Charmaine were sincere.
Charmaine has the soul of an artist and the brain of a scientist. She has tried to pursue both passions with equal energy and vigor. So it must come as no surprise to learn that she was a National Merit Scholar in English literature and biology. At Mount Holyoke College for Women, she was the lead in all the Drama Club productions and also one of the top students in the premed program. As far as she was concerned, it didn’t have to make sense to anyone else. It made sense to her. And, as far as I can tell, that’s the way it’s always been with Charmaine.
I suppose that it was a sign of the times that schools like Yale and Williams, Dartmouth and Wellesley, Mount Holyoke and Harvard all had black student organizations. While they all had sociopolitical objectives, the social agenda was never too far down on the list. This was especially crucial in light of the fact that so many of the young black men and women attending these schools felt socially isolated at the time, despite their presumed familiarity with white America.
So, just like their white counterparts, these groups and organizations scheduled mixers and other social events. It was a fairly reliable way for young men and women in college to meet. And then, of course, nature could take its course.
And so it came to pass, on a late autumn day in New Haven, a busload of about forty young black women from Mount Holyoke arrived on the Yale campus. By then Charmaine was a sophomore, majoring in organic chemistry. She has always told me that she went on the trip because her best friends teased her into going. They seized upon the fact that up until then she had not been very “social.” I now know that the furthest thing from her mind was the idea of meeting the love of her life.
At the time of our meeting I considered myself very successful with the young ladies. When I was running with the gangs in Philly, there were very few women who would say no to me. At Yale, I was truly busy with my studies, but I was not a damned monk. I rarely felt myself feeling lonely or neglected.
In the late sixties and early seventies, there was a certain black militant chic that pervaded many of the college campuses. I guess it was a kind of precursor to the gangster chic that gallops through young black America today.
Back then it was important to have a big Afro. Military jackets and sunglasses were de rigueur, combat boots were optional. Being somewhat aggressive, assertive and possibly combative were also part of the effect that many young brothers adopted.
Not trying to sound immodest, the fact is that, at the time, I had been there and done that. I had been as tough as the toughest and had backed down from no one when there were no ivy-covered walls or campus police to back my play. I saw no need to advertise. I was very happy being myself and there was simply no reason to prove anything to my relatively privileged black classmates at Yale.
Nevertheless there were a couple of occasions that were reminiscent of the “Mr. Swimteam” episode. I remember the time a couple of my black classmates saw it as their righteous and holy mandate to make sure that somehow, some way, I would feel that I did not “belong.”
As a result, a few of my more knuckle-headed classmates left Yale University with a double degree. One taught them all about the nuances of their major and the other taught them to never, ever, mess with me. In that aspect of their degree they graduated summa cum laude.
Oddly, none of this had anything to do with that particular autumn Saturday night in New Haven. It seemed a no brainer to go to the mixer with scores of black women from colleges throughout New England being in attendance. My motivation for going that night was, frankly, hormonal. If anyone had told me what was about to happen next, I would just have had to laugh at the sheer, unabashed, shameless romanticism of it all.
I can still visualize the entire beginning of that evening. I was at one end of the gym where the mixer was being held. I was just beginning to sip some absolutely nonalcoholic punch as I looked for a place to sit and take in the proceedings that were about to begin. That’s because at these events, at least in the sixties, black “mixers” at schools like Yale and Harvard and Princeton and Dartmouth served as the setting for cultural clashes as distinctive and meaningful as anything found along the Gaza Strip.
You could see brothers from the projects of Detroit trying to talk a hole in the neck of some Jack & Jill alumna from one of the “finer families” of Baltimore. You would find Alabama ingénues bewitching Los Angeles bon vivants. You could make a movie about it all.
As I was getting ready to sit down I was bumped by a gasp of loveliness that boldly looked me in the eye and immediately let me know that she knew that I knew that she knew … that our meeting was destiny and history … and love.
“Excuse me. Can I get rid of that pesky punch bowl that seems to be in your way?” was the wittiest bon mot that I could offer, given that I was at ground zero of a nuclear emotional explosion. I still cannot put into words the ebb and flow of currents that reshaped my heart and soul in that very moment.
We were still in our late teens so there was no Richard Wright or William Shakespeare dialogue. But the poetry of our first encounter is eternal as far as I am concerned, and I would bet my life that Charmaine still feels the same way too.
As my comment faded into infinite banality, our eyes met, as the saying goes. In truth that is what happened. And at that moment I knew a feeling that I had never felt. Love? Lust? Desire? Surrender? All of the above?
But, at that very moment, we were both stunned into silence. Anyone who has ever experienced love at first sight knows what I am talking about. Tongue glued to the roof of a Sahara-dry mouth. Sweaty palms flowing with ever-growing rivers of perspiration. Speedracing heart and a galloping pulse worthy of the Kentucky Derby. A tingling in the fingertips that presaged the collapse of the dam that held back all emotions and feelings.
Frankly, with all my “experience” I did not know what to say. Charmaine, with all of her “upbringing and breeding,” did not know what to say either. A pure romantic would say that we just stood there staring into each other’s souls. We were overjoyed to be drowning in a whirlpool of love and desire.
I felt like Sir Edmund Hillary on his very best day. Charmaine later told me that she felt like Althea Gibson at Wimbledon. Witty commentary was not going to happen that night.
“Would you like to dance, Mr….?”
The first strains of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” by Gladys Knight and the Pips coursed over the loudspeakers. The dance floor started to fill up immediately.
“As Mary Wells would say, ‘you beat me to the punch.’” It was the best that I could muster as a response, and I headed to the dance floor with an angel on earth. I didn’t have time to calculate the damage, but I knew that I had been seriously smitten.
And so we danced, and danced, through the night. In later years, we would both have to admit that we would never give the Soul Train dancers a run for their money. But we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. And we enjoyed each other. It was like the whole world had disappeared and there was no one but Charmaine and me.
By the time the disc jockey played Smokey Robinson’s “Ooh Baby Baby” as the last dance, Charmaine told me that she decided to go back to my room since she was going to spend the rest of her life with me anyway. And the strangest thing was that I felt the very same way. And what is most amazing is that in the last twenty-five years, nothing has really changed between us. It is like we just met over the punch bowl in New Haven last night.
Charmaine moved in with me in New Haven after the Christmas break, much to the horror and disappointment of her parents. But after Dr. and Mrs. Cumberbatch met us together they realized that they were in the presence of inevitable, unconquerable, irreplaceable love. To
their credit, they have supported and loved the two of us ever since. We got married at the end of the spring term of my junior year.
The plan was for Charmaine to resume her studies after I finished business school. Aside from bringing the everlasting brilliance of love to my life, Charmaine also has been my best and most trusted advisor. She convinced me that my future lay in the business arena. To use her words, “you can always hire an engineer if you feel like changing the world.” And she has always made me feel like changing the world, which is one more reason why I liked Paul’s idea so much.
But in the latter part of my senior year, Charmaine started falling ill, repeatedly. At first my chest puffed out with pride as I thought that this was the first signs of pregnancy. But that pride was soon snuffed out as we realized that it was not pregnancy, but something entirely different.
Various specialists at Yale Medical School simply did not have the answer. Dr. Cumberbatch called upon his entire national network of experts and specialists, and still, no answer. And then, we finally got an answer, and a diagnosis.
It turned out that Charmaine was experiencing the first stages of multiple sclerosis. And there was no cure. And she would never be the same.
Just like that, our lives changed once more. But Charmaine was not afraid or shaken by the diagnosis, because she knew that I would always be there for her. And I have been there for her from that day to this very minute.
When I heard the diagnosis I can honestly say that I never felt shortchanged, cheated or cursed by fate. I have always looked upon her health challenges as an opportunity to show her how much I love her and how special she is in my life. And I know that I always will.
As Charmaine’s situation stabilized and we learned to live with it, I went to Columbia Business School, and it was to an apartment on Morningside Drive that we brought our first child home. And despite Char-maine’s health challenges, we have had two children, Jerome Jr. and Hannibal. I went on to work on Wall Street, and five years ago, I formed my own firm.
Now Charmaine and I live in Hastings-on-Hudson right outside New York City. We have cars and maids and drivers and our children live a life of privilege and comfort. We like to consider ourselves down to earth, but in reality, our feet rarely touch the streets that I knew as a teenager in Philadelphia.
CHAPTER 41
Jerome
Raymond Russell Beard III
The chill of the January evening snapped me out of my reverie as the arctic winds began to prowl the serpentine streets of the Wall Street district. I started into the building where my offices were located. It had been an interesting day, but it was not over.
As I got into the elevator to my thirty-second-floor suite of offices, I considered the future. I did not survive and prevail in Philadelphia, Yale, and Columbia by being a fool. I have always paid attention.
From the first day that I met Raymond Russell Beard III I knew that there was the possibility of a problem. He was extremely bright, one of the smartest people that I had ever met. He was always ambitious and self-assured, right up to the precipice of arrogance, with a few toes poking over the line. And he has been just the kind of person that I wanted in my organization. Up to the day of Winner Tomlinson’s funeral and the luncheon thereafter, he had been perfect.
I think that Ray’s problem was that he came from one of those special black families in Atlanta. In that city there is a coterie of families that has kept to themselves. The members of these families have thought of themselves as being better than most black people primarily because of the high incidence of preachers, lawyers, doctors and undertakers and light-skinned relatives in their midst.
As a child of that world Ray grew up believing that he was entitled to the best of everything. And, if he was not recognized as the first, the best, the brightest, in whatever forum, something was fundamentally, institutionally wrong.
After meeting Ray I learned that he was entitled to more than a few ass-whippings during his early days at Morehouse College. His attitude, however, sustained him through Harvard Law School and his first few years on Wall Street.
By the time he came to work for me he seemed to have his attitude problem under control. But I must confess that, at times, I had the eerie feeling that not only did Ray Beard feel that he was better than everybody else, he felt that he was better than me. It was a bizarre feeling that I have never really been able to explain.
I am not an insecure person. I have always welcomed the company of bright and brilliant and incandescent people into my personal universe. I never worry about how brightly my light shines. I can honestly say that at this stage in life I am comfortable with being me.
Nevertheless, there is an uneasiness that I have always had when it comes to Ray. The instincts that helped me survive and prevail in Philly, Yale, Columbia, and Wall Street tell me that I should always, always keep a close eye on Raymond Russell Beard III. And on that particular winter day in January I watched Ray. I did not miss a thing.
I am pretty sure that neither Gordon nor Diedre noticed a particularly nasty confrontation between Paul and Ray just before we left the Water Club. As best I can tell, it was Ray’s attitude to which Paul took offense.
I don’t know what was said, except it was clear that Paul took Ray by the arm and in that immobilizing act promised to beat the living shit out of him. And Ray clearly backed down.
I had seen how over-proud Ray had been at Winner’s memorial service. I had watched Ray’s over-proud play with the young TV reporter, leaving me to wonder once again why women would find a man so in love with himself to be attractive. I had watched him barely hide his discomfort as Paul set forth his plan for us. And frankly, I was very disappointed that Ray could not understand that he would be a part of whatever plan Paul described.
What I saw take place between Ray and Paul was Ray backing down. Basically he rolled over and surrendered. There could be a lot of reasons why Ray might do all three of these things, beginning with the fact that Paul could kick his ass. Nevertheless, I really did not like seeing my so-called protégé back down and skulk out of the room, pouting like a girl.
I have known fear many times. But I rarely show it. And I never show it to an adversary.
But Ray Beard’s pride and arrogance were just for show. They weren’t real. And since I am sure that Ray knows that, he has always found a need to overplay his hand. The problem with that modus operandi is that on occasion you get your feelings hurt when someone calls you out.
As I exited the elevator and entered the lobby of my office it was close to five o’clock and so I simply nodded hello to the receptionist. I was at work now and for as long as I was here I would rule, I would decide, I would control.
That’s just the way it had to be.
CHAPTER 42
Jerome
Berta’s story
As I walked into my office, my secretary and personal assistant, Berta Colon, had all my messages and she told me everything I needed to know. Berta had an interesting story all by herself. It all starts with me believing that I had been condemned to Secretary Hell during the first ten years of my professional life.
I have had secretaries with men problems, child problems, weight problems, pet problems, butt problems, religious problems, allergy problems and sometimes just plain old madness. I had secretaries who could not spell. I had secretaries who could not type.
I had secretaries who did not know how to answer a telephone in a remotely professional fashion. I have had secretaries who had carried around an attitude as a matter of personal principle. I have had secretaries who thought that their job description included wearing short skirts with no underwear, bending over to pick up “dropped” pencils throughout the workday. And then came Berta.
Berta was a forty-something-year-old Puerto Rican woman who had been through several lifetimes of experience. Looking at Berta one would see a raven-haired beauty, with sparkling coal black eyes well on the way to their destiny as eternal diamonds. She had d
efied Father Time both in her appearance and in her spirit.
As I came to learn over time, she had grown up in East Harlem and was enrolled in the enriched school program in the best public school in that part of town in those days, Benjamin Franklin High School. Berta was accepted at Mount Holyoke College, Charmaine’s alma mater, where she was supposed to go after graduating as class valedictorian. But Berta found out that she was pregnant right after graduation. The father was one of the Young Lords.
Not having the baby and going on with her education and her dreams was simply not an option for this young Catholic girl. She dutifully married Hector Colon, and they had a little boy, Hector Junior. For two years she worked as a bookkeeper at a bowling alley and tried to make a home life. She put her dreams of going to Mount Holyoke and becoming a lawyer on a back shelf in the cupboard of her mind.
And then Hector Senior discovered heroin. Or perhaps heroin discovered him. It really didn’t matter. Whatever the case, he became hooked to the Boy Who Made Slaves Out of Men. The deterioration and destruction of this bright, ambitious and committed young man was dramatic and shocking to Berta and Hector Junior. Within a few months Hector had moved out of their apartment and it did not surprise Berta in the least when the police came to tell her that Hector Colon, formerly a dynamic and charismatic leader of the Young Lords, husband of Berta, and father of Hector Junior, had been found dead of an overdose on the rooftop of a movie theater in the South Bronx.
To her credit, this did not beat Berta down. She knew that grief was not going to pay the rent. Her heartbreak did not put shoes on Hector Junior’s feet. The bowling alley job was not going to be enough and right after the funeral she started looking for a new job.
She found a position working as a personal assistant to the talent agent who represented Latin music stars like Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, Willie Colon, and Tito Puente. Berta was bright, loyal, talented and personable, and she has always been able to take care of business. And it was not long before she was managing the business affairs for some of the biggest names in the Latino music world.