by Bobby Love
“You mean Hertz the car rental company?” I asked.
“Yeah, them,” Ana said. “The Guarinos have a commercial kitchen down here where they make sandwiches, and then someone drives them up to the Hertz building. They need someone to help out, but you’d have to be at the kitchen by six in the morning. Are you interested?”
I shrugged. “How much do they pay?” I asked.
“They’ll pay you a hundred and fifty dollars a week, off the books.”
I smiled. “I’m there. Just tell me where I need to be.”
From making sandwiches, I eventually ended up working at the Hertz cafeteria. Just like at Guarino’s, I was busing tables, emptying the garbage, and cleaning. I was still living in my room out on Staten Island, which meant I had to take the Staten Island Ferry and then catch a subway to get to work. But I was never late, not a single day. Between my two jobs I was making $175 a week, still off the books, and able to save a good deal of money in just the few months I had been working there. Which was why I said no when a woman from the human resources department at Hertz came to offer me a job with the company.
Apparently this woman had been watching me for a while and had spoken to my supervisor, Doug, who confirmed that I was a conscientious worker.
“Would you like a better job?” she asked me after introducing herself one day when my shift was over. Her name was Mrs. Pearson.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Mr. Love, we have an opening down in our warehouse, and after speaking with Doug, I think you might be a good fit,” she said.
“Is that so?”
“Have you ever done mailings or worked in shipping and receiving?” she asked me.
I shook my head. “No, not really.”
“Well, would you like to come down to see our warehouse?” she said. “We would train you for the job.”
“No, thank you,” I said as politely as I could. “I’m not interested.”
She gave me a polite smile, said okay, and left and went back to her office.
I did appreciate the offer, and I was pleased that people thought I was a good worker, but I was afraid of what could happen if I applied for a corporate job. First, I’d have to fill out an application. And I knew they would investigate everything I put on there. How would I account for the six years I was in prison? I didn’t want all that worry. I was perfectly happy staying where I was, working in the cafeteria and getting paid off the books.
But Mrs. Pearson was persistent. She came back the next day.
She started telling me more information about the job.
“You’ll have very good benefits, and you will get paid every two weeks,” she said. “And, Mr. Love, you’ll make more money than you’re making here. I guarantee it.”
“Thank you,” I said again. “But I’m not interested.”
She just smiled and said “Okay,” but I could tell she wasn’t done with me.
When she left, my boss, Doug, came over to me.
“Hey, Bobby, can I talk to you?” he started.
Oh boy, I thought. Now he’s going to try to convince me to take the job. And sure enough, that’s what he did.
“Listen, Bobby, Mrs. Pearson really wants to give you this job,” he said. “It’s not a hard job. You’d be working in the shipping department. They’ve got a big warehouse down there on Twenty-seventh Street on the West Side.”
I didn’t say anything. Doug kept talking.
“It’d be a good look for you,” he said. “You know, you’re going to get benefits, and one day if you have a family, you’re going to need that. You should take it, Bobby.”
I shook my head. Here I was, finally able to make a decent living, nobody was searching for me, and these people wanted me to risk it all.
Doug gave it one more shot. “Listen, Mrs. Pearson asked me if you could come down there on Monday, just to check things out. I told her I could get someone to cover for you Monday, if you want to do it.”
I wanted to tell Doug and Mrs. Pearson to leave me alone, but I could see they were just going to keep asking me. So I agreed to go check out the warehouse on Monday.
Doug clapped me on the back. “Good for you, Bobby,” he said, beaming. “You don’t want to pass up a good opportunity when it comes your way.”
* * *
On Monday I showed up at the warehouse, and Mrs. Pearson and another man were waiting for me. They gave me a tour of their facility and showed me where I’d be working and what I’d be doing. I stayed there the whole day observing and shadowing some of the other guys. Like Doug said, it seemed like easy work.
At the end of the day, Mrs. Pearson came to collect me and looked at me expectantly.
“So, Mr. Love, have we convinced you to take the job?”
“I need to think about it,” I said.
She frowned. “Mr. Love, we need to have your answer before the end of the week. We have placed an ad in the newspaper and need to start interviewing other people for the position if you’re not going to take it.”
“Okay,” I said, unwilling to allow her to force me to make a decision I would later regret. “I’ll let you know.” And then I left. All the way home on the bus, subway, and ferry, I tried to decide what to do. They were giving me this job. All I had to do was show up. But the fear of being found out and getting sent back to prison prevented me from making that call. In my mind, I was tormented with images of Mrs. Pearson looking into my background and finding out that Bobby Love didn’t exist.
But by Thursday morning, I’d started thinking differently. I reminded myself that I was the guy with the big imagination who didn’t make moves based on fear. When there was a good opportunity, I went with it. This job offer was a good opportunity—and it was all aboveboard. Plus, I had to admit a few hard truths to myself. I didn’t want to bus tables for the rest of my life. No woman wanted to go out with a busboy, as I had recently discovered when trying to talk to some of the ladies at Hertz. And I knew there was no real way to get ahead working a job under the table.
I called Mrs. Pearson on Friday and told her I’d take the job. When I had to fill out the paperwork, I just left certain things blank and prayed that it wouldn’t matter. Under “previous employment,” the only thing I wrote, other than my current position in the Hertz cafeteria, was my work at Guarino’s. I started at the warehouse the following Monday.
* * *
Once I was working at Hertz, I began to feel like my life was truly falling into place. I was feeling better than I had ever felt in my life. I now had enough money to live like a responsible adult. I bought myself some decent clothes, and some new sheets and towels for my room in Staten Island. I could afford to start enjoying all that New York had to offer a young man looking to sow his wild oats before settling down to start a family. I’d go up to Harlem on the weekends, where I became a regular fixture at the clubs. I easily met women and liked taking them out and showing them a good time.
Meanwhile, I was still working at Guarino’s occasionally, filling in a shift here and there. During one of those shifts, I saw Ana for the first time in a long while. She told me I looked like life was treating me well.
“Thanks, Ana,” I said, happy to see her again.
“How about we go out for a drink after your shift?” Ana asked me.
“Okay,” I said, giving her a sly grin. Ana had always kept things professional, but she was being kind of flirtatious. I wondered if having a steady job suddenly made me more attractive to her.
Later over drinks, I told Ana how well things were going at Hertz. “They’re sending me to Xerox school, because they want to move me out of shipping.”
“Are they?” Ana said. “They must really like what you’re doing.”
I shrugged. “I guess so. They’re going to have me working up in their main building on Madison Avenue. I’m going to be doing all the copying and stuff up there.”
Ana drained her drink. “Good for you, Bobby Love. I knew from the minute I laid eyes o
n you, you were going to do well here in New York. I could just tell.”
“Really, you thought that?” I said. “How’d you know?”
“I could just tell you were something special,” she said, looking me in the eye. “I mean, you’re a good-looking man. You’re hardworking. You’re the whole package.”
Ana was Italian, at least five years older than me, but now there was no doubt that she was flirting with me.
By the end of the evening, Ana had really inflated my ego and made me feel like I could do anything I wanted to do in New York. I had been feeling the same way lately, but the fact that Ana was saying it too gave me an extra shot of confidence. I don’t know why I did it, but I shared with her one of my secret dreams.
“Ana, I want to be a model,” I said, telling her all about how much I loved fashion and how, when I was little, reading Jet magazines with my sister, I had dreams of walking the runway for some big-time designer, traveling and seeing the world. I knew that’s how the actor Richard Roundtree, who played Shaft, got his start, and I wanted to do the same.
“So, go for it.” Ana smiled at me. “What are you waiting for?”
I don’t know if it was the buzz from the beer, or the fact that this attractive older white woman was telling me I had what it took to be a model, but I decided that I was going to do it.
Two days later I signed up at the Barbizon modeling school. I’d seen commercials for them all the time on TV. It was a serious money investment, but I looked at it as investing in myself. I would go to class in the evenings during the week and then for four hours on Saturdays. I really started to feel myself, once I got my portfolio put together. I was literally living my dream. But then my fears of being discovered caught up with me. I was enjoying my life so much, I forgot I was a wanted man. If I became a successful model, my pictures would be everywhere, and I’d surely get caught. The thought was sobering and put a damper on my dreams, but I still finished the course and actually booked a few local modeling gigs. That was as close as I got to being the next Richard Roundtree.
* * *
As time went on, I stopped worrying so much about getting caught, but God always found a way to remind me to stay alert.
I had gone on a few dates with this pretty woman I’d met while out clubbing in Harlem. Her name was Denise. She had cinnamon-brown skin, long legs, and she wore her hair in a bob, like a lot of women were wearing in the early 1980s. The relationship hadn’t gone beyond a couple of dates, and I’d done nothing more than kiss her on the cheek, but one night after leaving a club we were sitting in her car. I was hoping she was going to invite me over to her apartment. But she was hesitating.
“What’s the matter, Denise?” I asked, as I slid over closer to her in the front seat.
“Don’t push up on me, Bobby Love,” she said in a way that made me move back and give her a look.
“I thought we were cool,” I said. “Did I do something to offend you?”
“No, you didn’t do anything,” she said, real matter-of-fact.
“So what’s the problem, then?” I asked with a smile.
“The problem is I put your name into my system to check you out, and nothing comes up but your driver’s license.”
My heart started to race. “What do you mean you put my name in your system?”
“I just wanted to find out if you were hiding anything.”
“I thought you said you were a teacher,” I said.
“Bobby, I work for the FBI,” she admitted.
I felt the contents of my stomach rise to my throat. I had gotten a New York State driver’s license, but I’d had to pay a guy at the DMV to overlook my suspicious-looking birth certificate, which I had forged to read “Bobby Love.” If Denise found out about that, then she would definitely find out about my past.
“Really?” I said, trying to appear unfazed by her admission.
“Yeah,” she said. “A lot of guys get intimidated when I tell them I’m an FBI agent, so I don’t always share that right off. Are you okay with it?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, playing it cool, even though I wanted nothing more than to get out of that car and as far away from Denise as possible. If she hadn’t found out anything about my past yet, it would only be a matter of time.
“Well, okay, then. I gotta get home because we’re working on a big case,” Denise said.
I didn’t need to hear another word. I opened the door of the car and said my goodbyes, promising to call her in a few days. I had to force myself to walk away from her car instead of run, which is what I really wanted to do. Needless to say, I never called Denise again and stayed away from the club where we’d first met.
Another time, not too long after fleeing from Denise, I was walking down Eighth Avenue with a co-worker from Hertz. As usual, there were throngs of people on the sidewalk. But I noticed a guy walking toward me who looked familiar. Almost like someone I’d gone to school with in Greensboro. Sure enough, as we got closer, he yelled out, “Cotton Foot!”
It was Morris Carter. He was a grade behind me in school and we played basketball together sometimes. He looked the same except he was wearing a uniform and was carrying a bunch of packages.
I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat and prayed he wouldn’t say anything about prison or use my real name in front of my co-worker.
“How’s it going, man?” I asked Morris when we were standing face-to-face.
“Good, man,” he said, smiling. “I can’t believe we’re bumping into each other like this, though, in New York!”
“Yeah, it’s crazy, man,” I said, trying not to lose my cool. “You good?”
“I’m surviving,” he said, nodding toward the load of packages he was carrying.
An awkward silence followed because I was trying not to hold a conversation with my past. Morris got the hint. “I gotta run, man, but it was so good seeing you,” he said. “Let’s catch up, Cotton Foot.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do that.”
After he was out of earshot, my co-worker turned to me. “Why’d he call you Cotton Foot?”
I was so relieved that that was the only question he had, I told him the whole story about the rusty nail, the copper penny, and the fatback that cured me.
Then there was the time I was hanging around 42nd Street. It was a Friday night and the peep shows, strip clubs, and movie theaters were in full swing. Tourists and locals alike were all around the area, taking in the spectacle. Bright colorful lights bathed the whole scene in an unnatural neon glow. I was enjoying myself. I was still high after smoking a joint and was trying to decide what show I might want to see. As I stood in front of this one theater, a white man with red hair bumped into me. Right away I pegged him as a tourist because he had an orange backpack on, and he was obviously intoxicated.
I didn’t think anything about it, but then he bumped into me again, stumbling to the point where he almost fell over. I righted him up and asked, “Are you okay, man?”
He mumbled something in return and continued to wobble around the area. I ignored him and went back to reading the sign in front of the theater to see what this show had to offer. And then once again, the guy with the red hair came stumbling back my way. I didn’t know what he was trying to do or who he was with, but he came closer and closer to me, seemingly so drunk he could barely stand up straight. When he got right up close to me, he turned his back to me and I saw that he had a bunch of twenty-dollar bills sticking out of his backpack. Someone was going to steal them if he wasn’t careful, and I yelled at him that he should close his pack.
“Yo, man, somebody’s going to take your money!” I said to him, right before he crashed into me again, this time almost knocking me over. I was annoyed, but I helped him up one more time. The thief in me couldn’t help but reach for a few of those twenties as I did so. As soon as I started to put the bills in my pocket I heard, “Police, stop! Put your hands up!”
The two twenties in my hand fluttered to the groun
d as I raised my hands above my head and I had to bite my lip to keep from crying. Had I just ruined everything for forty bucks? A police officer came out of nowhere and slapped a pair of handcuffs on me and then led me to a waiting police car across the street. Rather than whip me off to the police station, the cops left me sitting there while they pulled this same sting operation on some other dummies like me. That little red-haired tourist was actually an undercover cop. The police apparently did this regularly to fill their quotas of arrests for the night.
I spent the night in jail but I didn’t sleep a wink. Instead, I paced my cell nonstop, waiting for my time in front of a judge. I got to meet with a lawyer first and I told him what had happened. He found the whole thing ridiculous and told me that he would try to get me a light sentence. I was devastated, angry with myself, and a nervous wreck. Bobby Love could not do time.
When we entered the courtroom, the judge asked the lawyer to explain my crime. When the judge heard what happened, he asked the arresting officer to approach the bench with my lawyer.
“Is the lawyer’s version of events true?” the judge asked. “Your guy bumped into Mr. Love three times, and the first two times he tried to help him and the last time he took the money that was falling out of the backpack?”
The officer looked sheepish but he answered clearly, “Yes, sir, that’s pretty much how it happened.”
The judge rolled his eyes and shook his head like he couldn’t believe he had to listen to such a stupid case.
“Mr. Love,” he addressed me directly. “You’re free to go.”
“Really?” I said.
The judge looked at me. “You wanna stay here longer?”
“No, sir,” I said, grinning.
The tension in my shoulders eased. I released the breath I’d been holding. I wanted to jump and shout, but I just thanked the judge and waited for the bailiff to escort me out of the courtroom.
Once I hit the cool air of the New York morning, I let out a little whoop and then I thanked God, over and over, my entire journey back to Staten Island. I knew what I had just experienced was God’s grace. It couldn’t have been anything else. I did not want to squander the second, and now third, chances I’d had at living freely. These brushes with my past made me realize I had to remain ever vigilant. And I knew that I had to suppress completely, once and for all, the thief in me. I didn’t beat myself up about what I’d done. I just told myself that I had to do better. And as with everything else I had accomplished in my life, I knew I could do it if I put my mind to it. I knew I could leave Walter Miller in the past and build the future I wanted for myself, as Bobby Love.