by Jerrold Ladd
“I heard how hard you worked on that case. Keep up the good work, Jerrold,” said a partner.
I stayed mostly to myself, in my office with my piles of documents. To most of them, going through the thousands of pages of correspondence, memos, reports, and briefs, was dull work. To summarize a deposition made some of them pull their hair out. But I was like a kid in a candy factory. “He likes to write,” they often said.
After work, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would sit for hours and read the correspondence from these big businesses, the engineers, chief officers, and bankers. I would take apart maybe two or three thousand pieces of paper, knowing I would have to put all that paper back in order. I would sit there and read these high-tech word battles, over and over. With this, I got a general sense of how industry works and a firsthand education in business writing.
When I wasn’t reading the documents, I was in the law library, reading the case laws, the torts, all the books. I read everything that came across my desk. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I was at the community college, taking two classes, English and computer science, which were both a cinch. Everyone I knew back home could have performed highly. At night around nine, I would catch the bus home.
Before long, some of the attorneys were assigning work directly to me rather than going through the chain of command. They were so busy and under such pressure, they had time to worry only about who could get the job done quickly. One attorney even had me sit in a deposition with him for hours, to advise him on his questioning. As the paralegals saw and heard this, their mouths dropped open, their opinions changed.
Around then, too, a former clerk returned to the firm. I kept on working the same way, but no matter what I did after that, it was never right. If I had to work past lunch for an attorney, I was reprimanded for not taking lunch at noon. When an attorney would send for me, this clerk would, somehow, get the message before I did. I was shifted around to different paralegals.
I was finally assigned to the woman I surprised when she heard I could talk straight. I found her to be the least skilled of them all. She would make me look over her correspondence and reports to correct the mistakes. Once, I was going through about fifteen boxes of documents and saw a mistake that could have cost the law firm time and money. “You wasn’t told to look for that,” she screamed at me one day. People close by looked up.
A week later we were both called into the office meeting of one of the administrators.
“Jerrold, I understand there are problems with your speed. You’re too slow.”
I was so angry. I couldn’t even find words. They were looking as if I were too dumb to comprehend what was going on. My supervisor added, “He found mistakes in the bates numbers. Perhaps he wants to go back through all the boxes.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do,” I said submissively, and heard, “Stop being so aggressive.”
Some of the lower-level employees, like those in mail delivery, and also another case clerk, a Hispanic you would never guess was Hispanic, began to tell me in hushed tones that they had it in for me.
Then daily, slowly, all my morale left. Even though it seemed so untrue, I began to question myself. Maybe I had been doing everything wrong and it only looked right to me. Maybe they can see something that I just don’t have the capacity to see. Maybe something in my head would not let me work the numbers right, could not let me think right, and everything was coming out backward.
In October I began to miss school to try to work harder, but it still was backward. No matter what I did, no matter how many times I looked over something, I couldn’t satisfy these women. Then, over the next few months, my whole world began to crumble, I began having migraines and sleepless nights. I stopped eating, lost twenty-five pounds, and became skin and bones. I would sit in that office all day with my head pounding, just waiting to leave work. The whites seemed to sense this weakness, draw strength from it. I would leave work and curse the heavens for making me inferior. I was terrified to know that for the rest of my life, regardless of my determination, the only way I was going to get established was through the help of those white people, who would make my life miserable.
I couldn’t read anymore, concentration was so hard to keep. I would just walk around the neighborhood, go shoot pool, or just drink with the fellows on the corner. I no longer wanted to work for that law firm, no longer wanted to be among white people. If I had to spend my life being miserable, it was going to be right here with the brothers, where at least, sometimes, I could get some relief.
I was experiencing the same impasse that had afflicted every black one of us, the same dilemma that crippled my mother, the dope dealers back in west Dallas, the man who made me steal the TV, sweet Gloria, Shortleg Lee, Syrup Head, Three Finger Willie, Drunk Tom, the old heads, the Dixon Circle dope dealers, and the workers—and especially my aunt’s husband, who told me I would only get as far as the white man let me. He was right.
He was right because none of us had ever had any proof to the contrary. How can a man reason without knowledge? Where was our knowledge, our evidence? No one had ever told me I was capable of being a genius, building a city, pioneering new medicine, becoming an engineer. And if so, how would he have known? How would he have proven this to me, convinced a nineteen-year-old black boy that what had been reinforced all his life—through guileful TV, warped religion and education, through government propaganda and deception, Uncle Toms, and the so-called black leaders up there spitting out a lot of nonsense—was just a delusion? How could he disprove that the success of every black person was not somehow, always, tied into someone white: white teachers, white schools, white mentors, white history, white founding fathers? How could he explain that success was conceivable without white people? The evidence surely pointed to this. And, like everyone else I knew who was black, poor, and human, this is what I accepted.
The next morning I handled another day at the office, then prepared to see Vernon after work. On the way out, I felt as if I were leaving one white nightmare and entering another, the white walls, uniforms, and bedding of the hospital, a place that always gave me the creeps. The busy information center at Methodist directed me to intensive care. A family, grieving aloud, walked by. Their sorrow made me wonder if Vernon would look bad.
Once there, I stood outside his door, gathering enough courage to go inside. From the hall I saw two doctors taking pictures of his face.
I walked in and bent near him. The blackish swelling made his face and neck look like old, limp balloons. The doctors must have noticed the same breathing problem that had upset Jonathan because they had cut a large hole in his throat. A thick tube attached to a machine bloated in the hole. He held his mouth wide open and sucked air in slowly. I realized that Vernon was going to be laid up for a while. I gripped my compassionate friend’s hand as he continued to rest.
Several days later the doctors gave a positive prognosis. He had no brain or spinal injuries, maybe some nerve damage. During the next three months he remained in the hospital, where he underwent reconstructive operations. He was so charismatic that the surgeons decided to treat him for free.
Afterward I went to visit him several times. He was usually heavily sedated, so I never stayed long. His body was strong, and he was recovering faster than normal. After he was released, he moved in with his mother.
* * *
Back at the duplex, my mother had driven her latest boyfriend away. Now, since he was gone, she mostly stayed away from the house, so I saw her less frequently, maybe three times a week. But one week, she stayed away for many days. During what I thought would be a normal evening, I came home from work to another empty house. The heroin had again made her sell everything that we owned. At times like this, when something was pushing her to the edge of insanity, she had no mercy. She did whatever it took to hold on. She even sold my work clothes and school books. More important, though, she sold the dresser in which I kept the receipts for the money I sent to Vanessa. This meant I wouldn’t be a
ble to prove I had taken care of her. I sat on the porch all that night, meditating on the situation, trying to figure out a plan. Although I only had the clothes on my back, I was so hardened that her actions no longer affected me.
I called Vernon for help. He convinced his mother to let me move in with them. The few weeks that I stayed there, I stayed close to him. His mother let us have the upstairs room, which had a giant closet that we converted into a room, adding a bed, a TV, and a phone. Vernon now weighed about 135 pounds. His tongue had been sewn to his mouth, and his mouth was wired shut. He could only drink liquids and eat very soft foods. He smoked weed a lot, because of the pain, which had increased after each of the several surgeries he’d had. In that room I stayed with him, listening to music or talking for hours. And with my paychecks, I bought him medicine, weed, special foods, and anything else he requested.
I later moved in with my sister for two months. She still lived in the apartments in Pleasant Grove. With the money I saved while living there, I rented a small, cozy apartment on Ferguson Road. The apartments were in east Dallas, on the fast 64 Ferguson bus route, which meant I would have no problem getting to and from work.
Over the past months, I had continued to meet with Alex, even though he now made me feel uncomfortable. Lately I was feeling the same kind of distrust of him. I knew without a doubt that Alex would never love me like my own people, would never go all the way for me, like Vernon, especially if it meant confronting his own people. And some of his remarks shook me up.
On the day I moved into my new apartment, he came and helped. That day I asked Alex why he was continuing to assist me. He stopped and looked hard at me. He said, “Well, it’s better than us coming down here with rifles and shooting a bunch of y’all up.”
He was serious. I wondered, as I looked at him, who was the “us” he was talking about? Was he describing a bunch of white people storming black neighborhoods with guns? I was confused by his comments because Alex wasn’t some Klan member or skinhead. Alex was a respected member of his community who taught little white kids in Sunday school each week. He was a man with strong influence.
Also, I remembered when he visited my house in south Dallas, after I joined the firm. It was a day when automatic gunfire exploded in the near distance. When he heard the shots, Alex took one look at me and scrambled to get inside his BMW. Guns and death clearly terrified him.
In addition, Alex had been inquiring about my activities at the firm as though he were a dedicated scientist conducting an experiment, always dead serious. I felt obligated to answer his questions since he had found the job for me, but it made me uneasy. And during one of his inquiries, a paralegal told him I was on probation. When he mentioned it to me, I told him I thought that the whites there were being very unfair with me, and that I was thinking about resigning. Alex said not to worry about it, that he had figured the job would be too tough for somebody like me.
I continued going to work, even though I had just about given up. At the new apartment in Pleasant Grove, I spent my time just sitting around or staying up all night. Sometimes I caught the bus over to Vernon’s to keep him company. He was encouraging me to keep the job, to hold on as long as I could.
I tried to visit my little girl as often as possible, but that meant putting up with Tammie. She was now an eighteen-year-old who wanted to ponder the secrets of men, clubs, parties, and excitement. Several friends had told me that Tammie was going with a dope dealer. She later admitted that she had allowed one to have a private phone installed in her house, so she could make phone calls for him and receive his messages. As a consequence of Tammie’s activities, Vanessa was mostly left with Tammie’s grandmother, who ensured her good health.
As another consequence, I didn’t see Vanessa too often—only when Tammie was in a good mood or didn’t have male company, or when I would bring money or gifts over. But my determination to love and support Vanessa would remain intact, even though I often left there more miserable than when I arrived, because of Tammie.
On one of these lost evenings, when I was at the lowest stage of my life, when I had nobody to instill confidence in me with proof and not the empty statements I had heard all my life, I sat at my apartment. I had the window in my small bedroom open, and the hot night air was blowing through. Even though it wasn’t that hot and I had taken off my shirt, I was still sweating in my small bed as I lay there. There was no future for me at this point. Some of my essays and poems, which I kept in a box, were scattered on the room floor. So were my once revered dress clothes. I sifted through some of the writing, reminiscing on old times. I was sweating so hard that the sweat was dripping on the papers. Heat had always come at a time of crisis in my life.
From childhood, I had been a curious person, had bugged everyone I thought had an answer or a clue, and later had delved into books to gain understanding. But nothing could answer why I felt like something was internally wrong, why black life was a paradox. The reality before me, as it was, showed in all its aspects that I and everybody I knew were limited individuals, innate failures, black nobodies. I understood then how people became dope dealers, how women and men could abandon their children, their race, pride, manhood, and womanhood. It was clear now, easy to see why blacks had become parasites on each other.
I still kept my boxes of books with me. Reading was second nature by now. So I turned to the only escape I had ever known, which could easily have been drugs but, for me, was books. I picked up the one Fahim had given me, the weathered book with the black man on the cover. It was the Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with the assistance of Alex Haley. Though it was painstaking reading at first, I kept at it all evening and into the night. At last! Here was one, an example, though dead. A black man who was purely himself. I was so overwhelmed, I stayed up the entire night pondering the black hero. Malcolm said get off your knees and fight your own battle. That’s the way to win back your self-respect. That’s the way to make the white man respect you. And if he won’t let you live like a man, he certainly can’t keep you from dying like one!
The next day I shared the book with Vernon. It had the same effect, simply overwhelmed him.
After reading about Malcolm’s life, I realized something. I couldn’t recall one strong black man in my youth. This had been pervasive in every situation. Most of the women were husbandless, all the children fatherless. Where were the black soothing hands in our moments of uncertainty? Where was the black man’s wisdom and guidance to lead us around snares and guide us through tribulation? Where was my father, who resists despair and holds high his torch of hope?
Malcolm’s life story was the first confirmation I was looking for in my quest for understanding. I began to search more than I ever had before, reading more than I had at the West Dallas Public Library.
From that little apartment, I lived like a hermit for about two months, only going out for work or for food. Inside, I would sit in the living room or across my bed, reading about all the dead black heroes, philosophers, and thinkers. I learned about people like Marcus Garvey, who attempted to unite all the black people of the world; Professors Cheikh Anta Diop and Ivan Van Sertima and their extraordinary research in documenting our accomplishments; McCoy, an inventor whose products were so good that everyone wanted “the real McCoy”; Garret Morgan, who invented the gas mask and traffic light; Jan Matzeliger, who invented the first shoe-making machine (lathe) and revolutionized that industry; and hundreds more. What impressed me most is that they never relinquished their right to equal respect as humans.
More important, I learned about people like Imhotep the Great, the world’s first multigenius, who lived around 2970 B.C. Imhotep was considered the father of modern medicine, and he built the world’s first hospital, called the Temple of Hotep. He was a great architect and designed the Step Pyramid. Imhotep was revered as one of the wisest men in the world. He’s responsible for the famous phrase “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.”
And there were black wom
en like Queen Kahina, a woman who rallied forces and fought fiercely against Arabs who invaded and conquered parts of Africa, such as Egypt, a place they still occupy. Did you know that Greeks learned at the feet of African men? The philosophies they took back to Greece were foreign in their own country, and they were often persecuted for introducing such beliefs.
I learned that the Egyptians had the world’s greatest university, the mystery schools, where it took students fifty years to become masters. In the beginning only Egyptians could study there, but later they also accepted Greeks and Persians, whom they called babies in knowledge. The Egyptians called themselves the Kemets, which means black people. Their education consisted of the ten virtues and the seven liberal arts. Grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, and geometry were studied. And at the highest levels they taught the supersciences.
All my life I had said “Amen” at the end of prayers, never knowing that it was a word blacks used before the Bible was written, to give homage to life. Here was the true laying down of the foundation of all knowledge. My founding fathers.
Why wasn’t I told that we came to America before Columbus, carrying gold-tipped spears; or that we were being taught what we once had taught others? Why wasn’t I told that Africa was here when Europe didn’t exist? Or that the subjects of the original Madonna and Child had been black and the work later resculptured to bear the image of white people, and that paintings and icons of the son of God had been done over for the same purpose? No wonder everyone had felt naturally disturbed at the little west Dallas church.
My discovery of dead literary role models permanently cured my doubt and made me bind back to the fundamental truth. Knowing the great accomplishments of my people, when they existed in their own civilizations, started a chain reaction that would change the foundation of my mind. But this change had nothing to do with my drive and confidence. These had always been there. Deep inside every person I had met, where it has retreated to its last, safe sanctuary, the spirit lived.