One Sunday, a group of us teens peppered our religious education teacher with questions about sex and sexuality. The next Sunday, one of the heads of condom-maker Schmid Laboratories in Little Falls, New Jersey, who was also a member of Community Church, arrived at class armed with life-size, detailed plastic replicas of the male and female reproductive systems, condoms, and other birth-control devices. His in-depth, no-holds-barred presentation was decidedly not the CliffsNotes version. We sat in awe, and afterward we discussed what we would do with our newly obtained knowledge. What better place than church to help teenagers learn about sex and sexuality, and to talk about how they would integrate them into their lives? The presentation thrilled my mother even as it confirmed my father’s belief that Satan ran roughshod at Community Church.
The Sexual Revolution. Feminism. The Summer of Love. Woodstock. Sex was laid bare in the midst of the sixties, even for my father. In the top drawer of his blond-wood dresser, my father kept a gold key to the New York City Playboy Club. In the upper left-hand drawer of a small desk in our downstairs living room, which doubled as his office, under a stack of typewriter paper lay an iconic photo of that age. In the photo, my father is sitting at a table with several White IBM coworkers, and above him stands a White Playboy waitress. She is holding a tray full of drinks and cigarettes, while the tips of her breasts, shaped conically by her bunny outfit, point to the grin on my father’s face. Surely that grin rose from titillation. I suspect it also rose from vindication. Yet even as he sat in the newly opened Playboy Club in New York City, a similar expression of a Black man’s pleasure in the overt sexuality of a White woman would be grounds for lynching in places like Mississippi.
My father, a concert baritone, loved Billie Holiday’s smooth voice. She recorded “Strange Fruit,” with its powerful images of southern lynchings, in 1939, when my father had not yet turned twenty and was, by his account, a member of the American Communist Party. News of southern lynchings dominated the pages of northern Black newspapers and galvanized movements by Blacks, and by the American Communist Party, to bring them to a halt. These lurid, horrific images and Billie’s lilting, haunted melody could not have been far from my father’s mind that day in the late 1940s when he hailed a yellow and black checkered cab.
My father often told me the story of how, early in his career, some of his IBM colleagues had attempted to entrap him by arranging a business meeting that instead was a rendezvous with a prostitute. They hoped that capturing him in such a compromising situation would force his ouster from the company. He told me that his suspicions mushroomed the moment his taxi deposited him at a familiar hotel, which seemed an unlikely place to meet an IBM customer.
He also told this story not with anger but with pride at how he had outsmarted his colleagues and eluded entrapment, but he refused to reveal just how. Although I’ve long suspected it had something to do with Lena Rogers, his deftness at avoiding this “honeypot” trap revealed a side of my father that few knew or even suspected. Underneath the veneer of a well-manner IBM employee lay a scrappy, streetwise kid from the Bronx.
My father recognized the dark side of life and was unafraid to descend into its depths. When my sister or I got in trouble with the law, my father had no compunctions about determining whether a bribe given to the right person would remedy the situation. I once got into a rock fight with a group of Italian kids who lived a few doors down from our Bronx home. I flung a rock that hit a kid named Johnny in the kneecap, and he went down screaming. Johnny vowed to get me in big trouble by telling my father. When he did, my father listened dutifully and then closed the door and turned to me.
Behind the closed door he waved Johnny off. “Ahh. Got into plenty of rock fights with his father.”
When my father told the story of stepping out of that cab for a sham IBM business meeting, I never once heard anxiety or fear. Instead, his reaction reminded me of the man I knew playing chess, who’d already glimpsed many moves in advance and had a response waiting for any move his opponent could make. Still, it must have come as a surprise to realize his colleagues had conspired against him. And it must also have brought some relief to know they’d unintentionally shifted the game onto terrain he knew far better than they imagined. This is where I suspect Lena fits into the puzzle.
My father’s recognition of the hotel where he was being set up suggests that he’d been there before. A prostitute? A hotel? An attempt to shift the story to something else? This tells me it may also have been the hotel where Lena lived. Under pressure, my father often acted as that proverbial “cool customer.” So it doesn’t take much to envision him in business attire, swinging a briefcase, while walking casually into a place where he was on a first-name basis with everyone from the doorman to the concierge to the front desk clerk, or that instead of taking an elevator to the meeting room, he took an elevator to Lena’s studio.
When she flipped aside the peephole cover and then flung open her door, I can hear the shock in Lena’s gravelly voice before whisking him inside. “Stan, what the . . . ?”
And when he told her about his suspicious meeting, I can also see Lena placing a reassuring hand on my father’s shoulder with the words, “Stan, stay here. I’ll be back in a jiffy,” and then returning with the news that someone had paid one of the other girls a lot of money to lure my father into bed but leave the door open so a photographer could slip in and capture the scene.
* * *
“I want you,” the woman whispered.
Her calls always came at night, near bedtime, in the years before cell phones and caller ID.
“I need you,” she said. “You can’t hang up.”
I didn’t. Instead, I danced with her in a drama that played out over many weeks. Three or four nights each week my telephone rang. She spoke with a deep, husky, even sexy voice.
“Hi, Clyde.”
“Hi. What’s your name?”
“In time, Clyde. All will be revealed in time.”
“But I don’t know what to call you.”
“My name’s not important. You’re important. You’re important to me. I was very hurt last night. I called and you didn’t answer.”
“I was out.”
“Where?”
“At a restaurant.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t remember. Near my work. One near where I work.”
“With whom?”
“Friends.”
“With another woman?”
I said nothing.
“Is one of them your girlfriend?”
I did not answer.
“I would be very hurt to discover you had a girlfriend, when I know we are meant to be together.”
“And you know that because . . . ?”
“Because we are soul mates.”
“Tell me again how you know this?”
She sighed. “Do you enjoy that?”
“What?”
“Hurting me.”
“No.”
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?”
“Yes.”
“Then, please, don’t ask me again how I know that we’re meant for each other.”
“And if I don’t feel that way?”
“Trust me, you will.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Do you believe in destiny . . . fate?”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, I do. And we are destined to be together.”
“Which one gave you my telephone number?”
“What?”
“Destiny? Or fate?”
“You’re mocking me. Hurting me again. Do you enjoy being cruel?”
“I do not.”
“Then why ask? Besides, I not only have your telephone number, I know where you live and where you work.”
My mind raced. How did she know where I lived, and where I worked?
Soon her calls took an ominous turn.
“I’m tired of playing this game,” I said.
“What game?
This is my life. Our lives. My heart. Our hearts. You’re completely insensitive to call it a game. I want you. I need you. I love you.”
“You can’t love me. You don’t even know me.”
“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare ever tell me who I can or can’t love. I love you. We’re meant to be with each other. My life would not be worth living without you. I’d sooner take my own life if we can’t be together.”
“Take your own life? You can’t be serious.”
She slowly annunciated each word. “Obviously, you do not understand the depth of my feelings.” Her voice rung with a plaintiff wail. “Yes, I’d rather kill myself if you didn’t want to be with me.”
She must have sensed a weakness that she could exploit. Our conversation now teetered on this macabre balance: love me, or I’ll take my own life. I kept answering her calls, talking with her, afraid of the consequences of hanging up.
One day, after weeks of these chilling late-night calls, I sat at my desk, head down in a flowchart, when I heard a woman from the secretarial pool speaking on the telephone. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Perhaps you do not understand that Mr. Benson is not in today. I can take a message for him if you would like.”
I didn’t turn around. But what she said, “you do not understand,” and how she said it, played over and again in my mind. I knew those words. I knew that voice. They belonged to Michelle Johnson, a Black woman who worked behind me.
I left work early that day and sat on a bench across the street from my building, where I had a clear view of the workers heading home. Shortly after five, Michelle Johnson walked out. I stood up and followed her from behind. She flowed in a sea of humanity pouring around the corner and swarming down the stairs to await the #2 train to Brooklyn. I hid behind a pillar at the far end of the station. The subway train screeched to a halt. I peered around the pillar as Michelle stepped into a forward car. I waited until the doors were about to close before pushing my way into the last car. I lurched backward as the subway left the station, balancing on one foot while fighting to maintain my spot at the door. Our train rocked from side to side as it sped under the East River. On the Brooklyn side of the river, at each station, a crowd of people overwhelmed me, pushing me backward out of the car, onto the platform. I turned to see if Michelle had stepped out, and then hustled to get back into the car and fight, once again, for my spot at the door.
Pushed out, again, into the station at President Street, I saw Michelle exiting her car and being swept along with a mass of people toward an escalator leading up toward the street. On the escalator up, I turned to face down until I felt the stair treads flatten out and solid ground slide under my feet. Four staircases led up to the street from the escalator landing. I looked but could not see which one Michelle had taken. I stepped quickly toward the stairs opposite the escalator and joined a line of people plodding upward.
Aboveground I realized I’d chosen incorrectly. Catercorner, across the street, I saw Michelle disappearing down the block. The traffic light changed, but not in my favor. I held up my hand to oncoming traffic, dashing between cars whizzing by. I couldn’t risk losing her. A half block ahead of me, Michelle strolled down President Street, crossed over Kingston Avenue, and took a left on Carroll Street. She opened a gate midway down the block. I ran toward her, calling out.
“Michelle!”
She walked quickly to her front door, shoved a key into the lock, turned it, then opened the door. With her front door partially opened, she looked back with a mixture of horror and disdain.
“Whaddya want?” she snapped.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“The deception. The telephone calls. Threatening to kill yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did someone put you up to it?”
“Up to what?”
She ducked inside, then slammed the door closed behind her.
I never had a late-night caller threatening suicide again.
* * *
In the early 1970s, when I worked for IBM, I also taught yoga at Aquarius, a four-floor brownstone on 148th Street between Amsterdam and St. Nicholas Avenues in Harlem. Long since defunct, Aquarius, named after renowned Black yoga teacher Maxine (Daya) Quander, herself an Aquarian astrologically, featured a natural foods store in the basement, a natural foods restaurant and music venue on the first floor, a yoga studio on the second floor, and a sauna and massage studio on the third. A throwback to the days of Harlem rent parties and in-home restaurants, Aquarius carried these notions into a new age.
At one of Aquarius’s famed all-night Saturday parties, I met a young woman named Kisi. Though born in America, like many, she had taken an African name. Her Ghanaian name meant “a girl born on Saturday.” My Ghanaian name, which I received during a traditional naming ceremony in Kumasi, Ghana, was Kojo, which meant “a boy born on Monday.” Kisi and Kojo. An epic match so it seemed.
Kisi claimed to be an aspiring actress, which allowed her to blend in well with the many actors and actresses, working and aspiring, that frequented Aquarius. Kisi also seemed very intrigued with me, which I found flattering. Where did I work? What did I do? Did I like my job?
I drove a VW camper at the time, which I used to escape from New York City as often as I could. A Black guy camping seemed an endless source of fascination for Kisi.
“Camping? Whaddya do out there?”
“Nothing.”
“Got a television?”
“No.”
“Bathroom?”
“No.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No.”
“You really do nothing?”
“Maybe hike. Relax. Read.”
“Grizzly bears and cougars?”
“It’s western New Jersey!”
“I gotta see this for myself.”
And one weekend we did.
Not long after we returned, my manager called me into his office.
“Ford,” he barked. “While you were in class last week a woman came to visit me.” He raised his right arm. “About five-five. Slender. Maybe attractive.” He chuckled. “Couldn’t tell under all that makeup and that wild Afro everywhere.” He shook his arms back and forth, palms facing each other on either side of his head. “Know her?”
“Maybe.” I perched in a chair in front of his desk.
“Maybe? She said you two were together. About to get married.”
“Did she.”
“She said she wanted to meet ‘Clyde’s manager,’ which is why she came to see me. Look, your personal life is your own business. But when your personal life steps into this office, it becomes your professional life, and therefore it’s my business. She dressed like a cheap hooker. Denim skirt frayed at the edges. Way too short. Up to her ass. Hairy legs, no stockings. Sandals. Huge earrings. Even huger sunglasses. Wide, floppy hat like she was at the beach. Nice tits—I’ll give her that. You get the picture?”
“I do.”
“Here’s the thing, Ford. I can’t tell you who to marry.” He pointed away from his office out onto the office floor. “But I can tell you she’ll never fit in. She’s just not IBM material. If I were you, I’d value my job more than that . . . that gal. I’d sooner see you lose her than lose your position with us.”
As I stepped from my manager’s office, it felt as though I met a sea of smirks from the floor. Something also felt familiar; like I’d been here not long before. That night I called Kisi.
“You came unannounced to my office and met with my manager? And you didn’t even think to tell me?”
She said nothing.
“You told my manager we were getting married?”
Still nothing.
“What were you thinking?”
She hung up.
I called back but she didn’t answer. I tried calling the number I had for her several times, but I only got another woman who claimed she’d never heard of Kisi. I was at Aqua
rius many times—to teach yoga, take a sauna, or have a meal. I did not see Kisi again.
I’ll never know why these women did what they did, never know if it was from some warped romantic sensibility or if someone else put them up to an involvement with me. Yet, as I’ve pondered the honeypot trap that my father escaped during his early years at IBM, I’ve long wondered if I also escaped my own honeypot traps in my early years with the firm.
8
Twice as Hard
When I was nine, we moved from our home on 221st Street to a co-op apartment at 1950 Hutchinson River Parkway, in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx. Ours was the first co-op in the Bronx, and we were the first all-Black family in the co-op. Co-ops were a novelty in 1960. The apartments in this co-op had been leased quickly, and none were given to all-Black families, although one mixed-race family lived a few floors below us. My father had applied several times for one of the few vacancies, and each time he was turned down until only one apartment remained, 13C, an exclusive corner apartment on the building’s top floor. This time, my father went to the building’s management agency, but instead of filling out an application, he called aside the man leasing the apartments and asked how much it would take to secure apartment 13C. My father slipped the man several hundred dollars and walked away with a lease.
Of course, with a new address came a new school: PS 102 in the Parkchester neighborhood, where my mother also taught kindergarten. Excitement filled me as I entered a special fifth- and sixth-grade class devoted to music, where each student could choose the instrument they wanted. But I walked into class that first day to find that my music teacher was none other than the mistress of the monsters, my former piano teacher and nemesis, Carmen Silva.
We lined up to select instruments. When my turn came, I picked up a flute. Miss Silva smiled devilishly and snatched the flute from my hands.
“The flute’s a girl’s instrument,” she snarled. “Here.” She thrust a clarinet at me. “You’ll play clarinet instead.”
“But—”
“There are no buts in my class, young man. You’re a boy, not a girl. You’ll make yourself com-for-tubble with the clarinet, and that’s that.”
Think Black Page 9