Step Out on Nothing

by Byron Pitts

  Gradually I began to improve. There was growing comprehension. I was gaining confidence, though I was still very quiet because of the snickers over my speaking deficiencies. By my sophomore year I had moved out of remedial math and reading. Although I was still closer to the basement than the top of the academic curriculum at Curley, my spirits were buoyed by a sense of accomplishment. Because teachers knew that I was a hard worker, they were willing to spend extra time with me after class. Most were encouraging and supportive. Sports remained the center of my universe, but I was no longer simply surviving in class. I was beginning to thrive. I eventually found a subject I loved—history. From the American Revolution to the Civil War, the stories of conflict and courage appealed to me. I could relate to figures like Crispus Attucks, the first black man reported to have died in the American Revolution. The people around him underestimated his talents, but when the time came, he proved his worth. History had a beginning, middle, and end. That’s how I began to see my life. I enjoyed it without prodding from my mother. The more I learned about a given topic, the more I wanted to learn. I was finally reading. And there was a reward. History was the first class in which I ever received an A.

  Until this time I was still very much a loner and was afraid to engage in an academic conversation with a classmate or really speak up in a class discussion. But by junior year, especially in history class, there was a gradual recognition by my peers that I excelled in this subject, and they sought my opinion and even my help. This was a new experience for me. I was not accustomed to having a reputation as one of the “smart” students. Around the same time, my other grades began to improve, and I liked being recognized for something other than athletics.

  It was also in my junior year that Curley started a school newspaper and I signed up to be a sports writer. I loved sports, and I was beginning to love words. It seemed like a natural fit. It was the first time someone other than a teacher or relative would read my work. I would sit in the cafeteria and watch classmates read an article I had written. It would make me think back to the days when people thought I was stupid. Now people were reading my stories. Sometimes they would laugh, sometimes they would look surprised, and sometimes they would look pleased or at the very least interested. The fact that I could provide people with critical information gave me the sense that I mattered. I served a purpose.

  Along with the academic improvements, I was gradually gaining ground on a normal teenage life. Pickle was growing up. I still stuttered, but I was more comfortable, and confident enough to speak up when I had to and didn’t even mind friends who finished my sentences. By senior year, I experienced a respite from my struggles. I was a solid B student, ranked 30 out of a class of 240. Four years earlier I’d been ranked 20 from the bottom. My body had finally caught up with the size of my head. I had a steady girlfriend. Kim Taylor lived at home with her parents and three sisters in a suburban neighborhood. Kim was the perfect high school girlfriend. We had known each other since junior high school, when we sang in the church choir together. We shared similar values, neither of us drank or did drugs, and we could dream aloud about college. In my world outside of Curley, there were not many people who had such dreams.

  And getting into college was a priority. For years my mother had warned me, actually threatened me, about what life would be like without an education. I learned exactly what she meant after graduation, when I spent the summer working on a maintenance crew for the Maryland State Department of Transportation. At the time, the law required all summer employees to be at least eighteen years old. It was a good paying job, and our family needed the income, so I lied about my age. I got a job cutting grass along Interstate 95 near the Baltimore Harbor tunnel and cleaning the toll-booths and inside the tunnel tube. It was dirty and somewhat dangerous work. The large self-propelled lawn mowers could cut a three-foot-wide swath of grass, a pile of garbage, or a person’s leg. I loved the work. Walking up and down the grassy median of the interstate behind my industrial-strength lawn mower, often under the hot sun, was almost therapeutic. The walking would strengthen my legs for football, and pushing around the lawn mower and lifting debris was as good as lifting weights. It may have been the most instructive job I’ve ever had.

  Every day, twice a day, employees would punch a clock. We could arrive early if we wanted to, but the paycheck would only reflect a change (a deduction) if we were late. I don’t remember the names of any of the men I worked with, but I can still see their faces. The foreman was a small, tightly wound white man in his midfifties. His dark pants and orange work shirt were always neatly pressed. Even his black work boots had a nice shine. If not the orange shirt, then the white socks always gave him away. One of the workers in our crew was always responsible for keeping his government-issued white pickup truck clean and the tire rims polished. He had an awful habit of calling all the black crew members Skip. The first time he called me Skip, I walked past him. He pulled my arm and said, “Didn’t you hear me, boy?”

  “You said Skip, sir. My name is Byron Pitts,” I answered.

  He looked confused and walked away in a huff. From then on I’d always respond appropriately if he yelled Skip. I took it to mean whichever one of you colored boys is close, come do such and such. There were three other men assigned to our crew full-time (there were several other crews). Two of my crew mates were black and one was white. The white guy had a distinct accent, pure Dundalk (only people from Baltimore have heard it or at least would recognize it), a beer belly, and a perpetual three o’clock shadow. He was always pleasant and, for the most part, minded his own business.

  Whenever our day was interrupted by rain and the boss would pick us up, the white guys rode up-front and the brothers back in the flat. There was a constant barrage of harsh language, lots of cigarettes without filter tips, and the frequent liquid lunch if the boss man wasn’t around. Since they thought I was older, I had talked about my plans to go to college soon. One payday the white member of our crew yelled at me, “Why are you going to college? You oughta just get a job. I gotta job. And every two weeks my paycheck speaks to me.”

  Before I could answer, the eldest and quietest member of our crew did something he rarely did when we were in a group; he spoke up. “Leave the boy alone,” he said in my defense. He went on to say, “Son, stay in school. Someday your paycheck is gonna scream at you.”

  We all chuckled. I had a smile on my face the remainder of our shift. I wish I could remember his name. I would work with him for three summers of my life; he was more like a favorite uncle than a co-worker. I never knew if he could read. On those rare occasions when we had to read instructions on a piece of equipment, he’d always ask me to read for him, explaining he’d forgotten his reading glasses. There’s no doubt the fourth member of our crew could not read. He had a stutter far worse than mine, and the boss often treated him more like an animal than a man. He never objected. He and I would exchange greetings only in the morning and at the end of the day.

  We may have been an odd collection of men, but five days a week, eight and half hours per day, we were together. Thirty minutes for lunch was usually spent under a bridge or on the side of the truck. Ten minutes to eat (I usually carried my familiar bologna sandwich with mustard on white bread) and twenty minutes to nap, either in the shade beneath the bridge or on the ground beneath the truck. Learning to sleep on the side of Interstate 95 (with your back to traffic, of course) would be great training for one of the vital skills of being an international journalist: the ability to sleep anywhere at any time.

  There were also tremendous role models for the value of hard, honest work. For some of the men I toiled with that summer, cutting grass on the interstate was the pinnacle of their working lives. It’s what they were good at and where they found satisfaction. They maximized the talents God gave them. That may be hard for many people to understand. My mother was clear about such things. Do your very best at whatever God has given you to do. Push past what you think is possible. If that’s a
perfect shrub in landscaping, so be it. She saw a different potential in me. Today I work in a profession with people who are well compensated and well respected for what they do. Yet many complain about being overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated. Many of those men in orange shirts whom I had the honor to work beside never complained about jobs that paid barely north of minimum wage. They were decent men who saw dignity in their work. They didn’t make excuses.

  I don’t look back on those days through rose-colored glasses. At the end of the workday, my hands and limbs were sore. I smelled. I was sweaty for hours. Yet there was structure and simplicity to the tasks. Gas the mowers in the morning. Walk north or south behind the mower until it ran out of gas or it was lunchtime. Fill the tank, and then walk until the workday was done. In a few days or a few weeks, we’d reach the end of our section of highway, then we’d simply turn around and head the other way. It was the Forrest Gump approach to work. On bad weather days we’d get to clear trash near the toll plaza, and at least once per summer paint the booths.

  For me, that summer was like a year at prep school. It crystallized the reasons why I wanted to go to college and what the alternative would be if I failed. Earlier that spring, I had been accepted to a few schools—I received average SAT scores, but I had strong extracurricular activities, which included football, and glowing recommendations. All those who wrote letters said pretty much the same thing, “Give this kid a chance.”

  My mother and I had decided on Ohio Wesleyan University for some of the same reasons she chose Curley, a small school with good academics in a safe, supportive environment. And by safe, I mean middle of nowhere. Delaware, Ohio, is about as far from East Baltimore as one can imagine. One is overwhelmingly black. The other is overwhelmingly white. My mother and I flew to Columbus and took a shuttle van to campus. I wondered to myself, “Am I going to college or a farm?” Nothing looked familiar. East Baltimore is a world of row houses, parked cars, blacktop streets, mixed-breed dogs, and lots of black people. That first day in Ohio I saw more cows than people who looked like me. It took about ten minutes to drive the entire length of the town. The college campus is compact, easy to walk from end to end, with a population of about 2,400 students. About 500 were brand-new, just like me.

  My brief taste of college life had been when I was a high school senior on a recruiting trip (not to Ohio). The football players took me to a fraternity party. During the course of the evening, they began to pass a marijuana-filled bong around the room. When my turn came, never having seen a bong before, I did what I thought all the others had done. I blew as hard as I could. Pot sprayed everywhere. All over the floor, the walls, books, even on one of my hosts. To say the least, I made a poor impression. I think the guys would have jumped on me if not for having to explain why a fight broke out on a recruiting trip. Needless to say, I bypassed that school and was never tempted to try pot again, or any other drug, for that matter. I had never heard the term recreational drug use until I got to college. In my world back in Baltimore, junkies did drugs and drunks drank alcohol. Their shocked reaction always surprised me when classmates found out I didn’t do either.

  Since my mother and I arrived before my roommate and his family, I got to stake out the best spot for my belongings. The time alone in the room also helped calm my nerves a bit about meeting him and about living with a stranger for the very first time in my life. I was a football recruit, a full-fledged jock. Usually, those are the most confident characters on campus. I, on the other hand, was a bit of a geek. Not a book-smart geek. But an unworldly young man who thought church choir rehearsal was a great night out.

  I had spent weeks thinking about whether or not I would fit in at Ohio Wesleyan University, facing the academic challenges I anticipated and the social pressure I dreaded. I was relieved that Mother had made the trip with me. She helped me unpack. It didn’t take long: I had one suitcase and one box. Inside the box was the same stereo my sister had taken to college ten years earlier and my mother’s childhood pencil holder. It was just a tin can wrapped in brown paper, but as far as I was concerned, it was a family heirloom. My sister had taken it to college. It was mine now. God willing, someday I’d pass it on to my children. The only other item of value was my Bible. Actually, it was my grandmother’s pocket Bible. Most of the pages were dog-eared and worn.

  Mom and I said a prayer before she sent me off to football practice that afternoon. Eventually I walked back to my dorm room, where my mother would be waiting, so we could go to dinner and talk about my first day of college. Much to my surprise, Mom was gone. In her place, a letter and a single dollar bill.

  Dated August 21, 1978, it read:

  Dear Son,

  I pray your first team meeting went well. I know how excited and nervous you are to be playing college football. I wish I could have been there. My heart reflects back to your days in Little League in East Point. I was so proud of you then. I am even prouder of you now. Please know I’m sorry I couldn’t be here when you returned to your dormitory.

  I didn’t want you to worry or lose your focus, but I only had enough money for us and your stuff to get to Ohio Wesleyan and then get my butt back to the airport (smile). As you see, I’ve left you a dollar. I wish I had more to give, but I only have two dollars left in my purse. Like we always have done, we share. So I gave you half of what I had and kept the other half. I know a dollar won’t get you much, but God has always met our needs. So know that God will meet your needs today, tonight, and in the years to come.

  Byron, you’ve always been a good boy. Please continue to be that. Be the polite young man I raised you to be. Work hard. Pray hard. Study hard. This is a good school. You will do great things here.

  Son, always remember I love you, your sister Saundra loves you, your brother Mac loves you, your grandmother loves you, all your aunts and uncles love you. Not a day will pass when we won’t be praying for you and believing in you.

  Do your best and God will do the rest.

  Love,

  Momma

  Mom headed home with a buck . . . and I started college with my sister’s old stereo, my mom’s pencil holder, my grandmother’s pocket Bible, a dollar, and a tractor-trailer full of love and prayers. I would need all of it because college was about to kick my behind in new and unfamiliar ways. In all honesty, my freshman year in college was the scariest year of my life. My course load included freshman English, geology (which I hated), philosophy, introduction to journalism, and Spanish. Each class required more reading than all of my classes in high school combined. Nothing unnerved me more than the daily torture of that pile of books I faced every day. And there was the realization that my mother was not there to schedule my day and yell threats or encouragement in my ear. It was up to me.

  But it wasn’t just the academic pressure. I was beginning to feel alone and isolated, in part because of the economic gap between me and many of my classmates. Even when I had issues at Curley, we were all blue-collar kids. At OWU I had a classmate with a BMW. I had never seen one before. A few messy students whined about missing their housekeepers. I couldn’t tell anyone that my grandmother was a housekeeper. I had classmates who had traveled the world, spent semesters abroad. At Curley we considered Ocean City, Maryland, a big excursion. I began to feel resentful, deficient, and overwhelmed. The loner was returning.

  But out of the agony of this experience came a friendship forged in battle. For every person who’s ever told me, “No, you can’t, you’re not ready, you’re not good enough,” God has always brought people like Peter Holthe into my life. Pete lived down the hall from me in our dormitory. Our floor was divided into social groups: the farm boys, the frat boys, and the others. Pete wasn’t associated with any group, and as a committed bookworm, he often found himself eating alone in the cafeteria. I was usually alone too. We “others” gradually found our way together. Pete is one of the smartest people I have ever known. He arrived at OWU intent on majoring in the sciences. His parents had hoped he would go to a
n Ivy league school or one of the nation’s top business schools. Pete’s dad was a partner in a major accounting firm back in their hometown of Minnetonka, Minnesota. Pete decided to study business and zoology, with advanced degrees in decency and friendship.

  “My dad may have thought I was rebelling by going to OWU, and perhaps I was. But I was determined to go my own way. I barely paid attention my senior year in high school but aced my SATs, and that’s what got me into OWU.”

  I remember when Pete told me about his journey to college. I was struck by the notion that his attending Ohio Wesleyan was seen as disappointing by his parents, whereas, for my mom, getting me to OWU was a miracle.

  I’ve always described Pete as the whitest white guy I’ve ever met. Not just pale white (Nordic white), with reddish hair, but he wore thick glasses and had a formality to him that made him seem more like thirty-eight than eighteen. We hit it off right away. Pete thought I was equally weird.

  “Why do you play football?” he asked me one day. “You’re not going to play professionally, and you must not be very good at it because every time I see you, you’re limping or have a limb in a sling. It doesn’t make sense why you’d punish your body for no good reason.”

  That was Pete—everything needed to make sense to him. He’s always been analytical. There’s an answer to every problem if only one takes the time and puts in the effort to figure it out. He became a dominant voice in the nightly discussions about politics and world affairs that would take place in our dorm, often in his room. Pete and the other guys would exchange ideas, but I rarely said a word. My verbal contribution would be laughter, a grunt, or an occasional one word assent. Mostly, I just listened. Pete knew I had a problem and had the courage to point it out. Actually, at the time, I thought he was incredibly rude.