by Ron Suskind
A few steps onto the sun-sparkled blacktop, Cedric already feels himself trying to place some long volatile emotions, temporarily stabilized, in cold storage. Not such an awful guy, he thinks, turning his back on the prison. He squints at the bright green sweep of the Virginia hillside. “Not such an awful guy, really,” he murmurs, and he’s surprised at how good it feels to say it.
Cedric can’t help but glance over at Barbara as he passes a few feet from the white couch. He detects that her eyes aren’t making those little flecked, jerky movements that eyes do whenever someone’s watching TV. She must be just staring at the screen to avoid looking at him.
He turns away quickly, before she changes her mind, grabs the Billboard from the chair, and takes it back to his room.
It has been more than two weeks since they’ve talked. And life has moved on. Besides visiting his father, Cedric started his summer job, an office gig with Fannie Mae, the federally backed mortgage banker, that’s all ease and air-conditioning at $7.50 an hour. Not that the silence has been easy. He almost broke late last week after he got the envelope from Brown. Actually, she got it, with the rest of the mail, then left it—purposely, he’s sure—on top of a pile on the dining room table and then went to her room. It was kind of late when he came out of his room to fix his dinner, from food he bought because they’re each buying their own at this point. On the way back in, with a plate of day-old fried chicken balancing on top of a water glass, he saw the letter and snatched it with his free hand. How sweet it was to look at the unfolded, computerized grade sheet. An A in Calculus, B in Fieldwork and Seminar in High School Education, which means he must have gotten an A on the final paper. An S, for satisfactory, in Spanish and, praise God, an S in Psychology. Couldn’t have passed that final exam by much, but a pass is a pass. Full membership in the Brown community, won fair and square.
Now, a week later, Cedric teepees the Billboard on his chest and looks up at the water-stained ceiling, hands behind his head. Keeping his grades from Barbara was hardest the night he got the letter, and it has gotten easier in the days since. Yes, she’d be happy to be told. And that’s the point, he thinks. She can’t live through him. She’s got to start finding what makes her happy, to start living for herself. He’s angry, and she damn well knows why. They’ve been through this before and now it’s just tired. Her being the martyr. Her not taking care of herself. Her spending so much precious energy to hide her need. It’s one thing to hide it from people at church, but from her own children? What, like we’d think less of her? Talk about not giving a person any credit!
So where does it end up? With a mother who’s in debt up to her eyeballs, about to be put out, for God’s sake. A woman, damn near fifty, who’s under so much stress from not tending to herself and her own well-being that she’s having chest pains. But has she seen a doctor like they told her to? ’Course not. Neddy told him last week that Barbara said she has prayed over it and God will either take her or he won’t. She loves saying that. Like he’ll take her and put her out of her misery. And where, exactly, does that leave the rest of us?
He gets up, letting the magazine slide onto the parquet with a slap, and flips on the TV, searching for distraction. He’ll watch it, he decides, until dawn if necessary, until every thought is cleaned from his head.
Nearly two weeks later, on a Thursday approaching mid-June, Cedric dresses early to go to church. He took the day off from work and bought some clothes, more office prudent than the flashy ones he bought last summer but still stylish, and he decides that they’re right for today. Services don’t start until 7:30, and he’s scheduled a late afternoon meeting with Bishop Long. Cedric has been going to church irregularly and feels like he’s there mostly out of obligation. Things have changed, and he needs to be straight with Bishop.
An hour later, he’s sitting lightly on a red velour cushioned chair across a little round table from Long, getting past cordialities. They talk for a moment about Barbara. Word has gone around church about her woes. “I’ve had lot of experience with this sort of thing,” Bishop Long says after a bit. “Some people get down and then they must rely on their faith to extricate them. And your mother is a woman of faith, pure faith, which means she’ll eventually triumph over her difficulties.”
Cedric, not sure of a response to such finality, talks for a bit about how ashamed he feels at church, worried that everyone knows, and Bishop Long offers a tsk-tsk smile. “Oh, come on now. You know plenty of people at Scripture have had troubles like your mom’s having.”
Long pauses.
“But, Cedric, I sense there’s something else … ”
“You sure do know me by now,” Cedric laughs, and then starts into a list of his doubts. “I still believe in God, that Jesus is my personal savior, and my friend, and my guide, but I just don’t feel as tied to the church so much anymore. I like coming and all, but, at the same time, I feel like I’m ready to venture out.” With each word, Cedric’s ease seems to grow. These questions have been running through his head all year, he figures, and it feels good to finally let them out. He talks about how he’s become more comfortable and confident at Brown, little by little, and how he’s thinking lately about all the things he might try, all the avenues that suddenly seem to stretch before him. Bishop nods like he wants a for instance, and Cedric mentions how he’s toyed with the idea of going into the music industry, “the real business side, sales, marketing, producing and whatever, to combine my math skills with my love of music.”
Frustrated with his rambling about music and careers, Cedric feels an urge to be more clear, more succinct, to get to the underlying point. “The basic thing, Bishop Long, is that I feel I’ve outgrown the church.”
Long sits forward, the shoulders of his pinstriped suit bunching up as he clasps his hands on the tabletop. He seems to be plotting out a response when something grabs him. “Most people don’t ask my permission before they leave,” he says with a husky laugh, and then settles into a whispery voice. “As long as you carry God with you, in your heart, you can go out into the world, Cedric, and you’ll be fine. Just don’t be too proud to let Him walk with you, to at least let Him be alongside you for those times when you will need Him.”
Long looks at him hard, his one eye searching Cedric’s face like he’ll want to remember it later. “You’ll always have a home here,” he says, measuring the beat of his words. “And if you ever find yourself in need of love, you know you’ll always be loved here. Loved for who you are rather than who people want you to be.”
Cedric nods, surprised that hearing what he’d hoped to hear would feel like a kick in the chest. Long wants him to stay for the service, but Cedric—feeling like he wants to think over what the Bishop said—murmurs something noncommittal and then goes home.
On Sunday, he rises early and leaves the house. Barbara sleeps in, not going to Sunday worship—something she almost never misses. It’s just as well, Cedric thinks. He feels a little uncomfortable about going to church, anyhow, and not having her with him makes it easier. He feels like he ought to show up to at least let Long know that he hasn’t simply fled, that he’ll be coming once in a while.
He gets to the church twenty minutes early. A few people are straggling in and offer their greetings as they make their way to the pews to chat quietly in clusters. Cedric, propping up a wall, sees one of his special people, Gloria Hobbs, the woman who first brought his mother to this church and one of Barbara’s oldest friends. A moment later, they hug and slip into a long, empty row.
“I’m worried about my ma, that she’s feeling bad and she just won’t let anyone help her,” Cedric says after a while.
“Oh, she’s strong as she could be,” Gloria replies. Cedric then mentions the chest pains and, to show just how worried he is, tells Gloria how he gets up every night to check if she’s all right. He didn’t want to mention that last part. “You won’t tell her that I’m getting up or anything,” he quickly adds, and Gloria, her features darkening with concern, a
ssures him that she won’t.
Early that morning, about three o’clock, he rises in the darkness and pads out to the living room. It’s almost a full moon, and he easily sees Barbara’s silhouette on the couch. Edging up close, he bends low and hears her soft breathing, making sure that it’s regular and easy. Most nights, he gets quickly back to bed, but tonight he lingers, sitting cross-legged on the parquet floor. She looks fresh and young in the pale light, almost girlish, a soft-cheeked face that makes his anger feel misplaced. For so long, he thinks, he needed something to push against, to push himself forward. Except she’s not something to rise above and leave behind. She’s what got him this far. Give, give, give, her whole life, mostly to him, is part of what’s left her hollowed out like this. But a person needs to learn how to receive once in a while. Yes, that’s something she needs to learn. He silently uncoils to stand, reaches for the edge of her blanket, tangled near her waist, and pulls it gently to her shoulder.
A few evenings later, Cedric comes across his grade sheet sitting under a magazine on his night table and then roots around the apartment, looking for the pad on which he wrote down all the summer numbers from Brown. Maybe he’ll call Zayd or maybe Chiniqua, just to talk. Sure, they’d talk about grades, but mostly he just wants to hear their voices. He’s thought a lot about Brown lately and about his desire to get back to Providence. He figures that maybe next summer he’ll just stay up there, get an apartment, a job, take some classes.
When he finally finds the pad, it’s too late to call. He retires to his room, figuring he’ll make calls tomorrow from the free phone at work. It’s Thursday night, and he hears the door shut as Barbara comes back from prayer meeting. He doesn’t hear anything for a moment but senses her presence in the hallway.
“Lavar? Are you ready to talk?” she says, standing in his doorway. Her voice is soft.
“I talked to Gloria tonight,” she says, barely audible, as he pushes aside a magazine he was reading in bed and stands up. “You know, I don’t want you to worry. I’m gonna be fine. I’m gonna take care of me now.”
He steps a few feet toward her and sees that her eyes are moist. He wants to get the words out quickly, before he feels overwhelmed. He does, telling her, “You can’t be the only one doing the caring. I’m strong enough to do some now, too.”
It’s the only thing he says before they embrace, all the tension of the past month, of not knowing how they ought to be with one another, spilling out in tears. His long arms squeeze tight around her, a big woman who doesn’t need to be so damn big anymore.
EPILOGUE
In the fall of 1997, Cedric Jennings started his junior year at Brown University with a B average. He wasn’t, quite yet, just another student passing through an Ivy League college. But, with each passing month, he grows closer to feeling inconspicuous at Brown and at once-foreign ports of American life.
Along the way, there have been a few stumbles on grades and episodes of social uncertainty, but they lack the intensity and confusion of the first year’s treacherous encounters with the unfamiliar. Now in the winter of 1998, he is past that, and each time, it gets a little easier to hoist—or discard—baggage from his past and figure out a way to move forward.
It is a particularly long journey from one edge of America to the other these days, and a passage few can manage. For many of Cedric’s peers at Ballou High School, there has been, sadly, little forward motion. Phillip Atkins still works in the mailroom of the newsletter company in Bethesda, Maryland, and doesn’t think much about being a dancer or comic anymore. LaTisha Williams dropped out of UDC, bumped along through office support jobs, and joined a small, virulently fundamentalist church whose preacher sometimes screams on street corners. Recently, she said she discovered that “who I was before no longer exists,” and quit her job to sell M&Ms on the sidewalk—50 cents a bag—to support her church. James Davis dropped out of Florida A&M at the end of his freshman year and was already on the streets of Southeast, dealing drugs, the following summer when another dealer robbed him and shot him in the leg. Despite police pressure, he refused to press charges against the shooter and, three months later, his brother, Jack, was arrested for murdering the rival in a hail of gunfire. In October 1997, Jack was found not guilty of the murder, a verdict that, among other things, rested on the confusion by various prosecution witnesses about which of the identical twins may have fired the shots. Cedric hears about such matters in passing, third hand. He rarely speaks to kids from Ballou.
Cedric Gilliam, in accordance with his parole, entered an intensive drug treatment program the day after he and his son met in prison. He stayed there for a year, living at a halfway house near the Capitol, getting therapy, and eventually working as a counselor to other drug addicts. It seems to have worked. By New Year’s of 1998 he is still drug free, living with his mother, Maggie, in her house or with Sherene, who has stuck by him. He talks to his son from time to time, mostly over the phone, and both are attentive to avoid tearing a veneer of respectfulness that is allowing their relationship to evolve slowly. Not that it has been easy. As Cedric Sr. watches his son meet successive challenges, he plods along—unhirable after two decades of incarceration—cutting a head or two a day and rooting around for something to do.
Barbara Jennings, meanwhile, has managed to keep herself busy. Standing in the ruins of her near eviction, she said it was time to take care of herself, to do something other than martyr her life to Cedric’s escape and success. It just took a while for her to back up those words. Ten months later, facing yawning debts that included Neddy’s loan for the back rent, she was evicted. This time no one came. She quietly moved back to 15th Street, to an upstairs room in the old clapboard house, completing an odd life cycle that seemed to produce a fresh start. Living there almost free, she has since paid off nearly two-thirds of $11,000 in debts, including some old medical bills that have trailed her for years. Last summer, she began taking classes at Scripture Cathedral and attending meetings for single adults organized by Bishop Long. For her refuge and sustenance, Barbara still relies on the church, which continues to grow. (Bishop Long, meanwhile, continues to save souls and he recently upgraded to a Rolls-Royce.) Even though they’ve walked several steps down diverging paths, Barbara and Cedric talk regularly. They often spend holidays and vacations together, and they have enjoyed each others’ company by ignoring long-standing issues of obligation and sacrifice.
As for the students in Unit 15 at Brown University, the last year and a half has flowed downstream along the predictable, lazy current of college life. Rob Burton became a peer counselor, joined a fraternity, and is majoring in marine biology and English. Cedric and Rob did in fact become friends early in their sophomore year. They met and chatted and eventually were able to laugh about the Jackson Pollock sink and much of what was roiling them in room 216. Zayd Dohrn continued to thrive at Brown and went abroad to Oxford for his junior year, e-mailing his friend, Cedric, many times to fill him in on the latest chapter in his unfolding adventures.
Though he has white friends, Cedric has spent the past year and a half mostly socializing with black students at Brown. He regularly visits Harambee House, where Chiniqua lives, and sometimes hangs out with a few middle-class black guys he sees around the campus. In the spring of his sophomore year, he began dating Nicole Brown, a tall, lithe girl from northern Virginia, who is a forward on Brown’s basketball team. They’ve continued to see each other since then.
The more things Cedric tries, the more things he is able to try. Certainly, he sometimes has to outwork the competition in his classes—play a little catch-up—but he’s used to that. A building of skills in writing and clear thinking has allowed him to better handle work in education, history, philosophy, and African American studies classes. His major, meanwhile, is in applied math, a concentration that deals with the tangible applications of theorems, the type of high-utility area with which he has always been most comfortable.
Subtly, almost without notice, the passin
g days bring him self-knowledge, which is what all the lecturing, note-taking, testing, and endless intervening hours are really about anyway. He still hears the echo from rutted Southeast Washington and presses through gusts of thankfulness and survivor’s guilt to figure out why he escaped when so many—who are so much like him—did not. As he searches and learns more in classes and discussions about the country’s immigrant past, the phrase “a hope in the unseen” continues to resonate. That’s the thing, he figures, that built the country, that drew often luckless people across oceans to a place they could barely imagine. He knows it is what propelled him from one country to another—even though he is anything but an immigrant, and even though these are anything but hopeful days for most African Americans. Nonetheless, the fact remains; he had hope in a better world he could not yet see that overwhelmed the cries of “you can’t” or “you won’t” or “why bother.” More than anything else, mustering that faith, on cue, is what separated him from his peers, and distinguishes him from so many people in these literal, sophisticated times. It has made all the difference.
But such contemplations are, increasingly, just that: things he can mull over on rainy afternoons and then step away from to consider. Recently, on one such rainy afternoon, Cedric sat killing time at his clerical job in the Brown admissions office—one of several part-time jobs he’s taken at Brown to supplement Donald Korb’s $200 a month. Drumming the desktop with a pencil, he thought about his classes, girls, CDs he’d like to buy, and some modest plans for next semester. Things are so easy up here, he mused, looking out at the tended lawns and ancient trees on College Hill, so many avenues to choose from, every path cushioned. And that notion about ease swiftly drew its opposite, a passing recollection of his days worrying about gangs and guns, walking through garbage, keeping his head low. He snorted out a laugh. It’s weird, he decided, but there is something about those days—the intensity of them, eyes watching him pass, always being alert or, to unearth an old phrase, having “something to push against”—that he misses. He nodded once and casually gathered up his things to go. An absence for sure, Cedric Jennings concluded, but one he can easily live with.