It only last awhile. That’s just the way it is. Sometimes in life you don’t get what you want. One would guess that ’s most of the time. He wasn’t looking for much in this life. Just wanted a little money to live comfortably. Be rewarded for his hard work. Have a wife. Have a house, with a two car garage. he didn’t think he was asking for much. Children were still up in the air. He didn’t think he wanted to bring another human being into this world with which he lived. He was still debating on that little subject. Most of the women he had dated wanted children. It was a subject of much conversation with the women he had been very serious about which totaled a mere two. Both of them got their hats when they had found out he really didn’t want children. He was starting to get lonely. Very lonely. An emptiness unlike anything he could ever think of having.
Work was not cutting it any longer. He was getting tired of working for his way of life to fill the various voids that were in it. If he was lonely he would go to work and knock out some claims on his desk. He was tired. Tired of busting his hump for the company he was working for with no reward. No increase in pay. No promotion. No life outside of work; this had been another problem in his various relationships, his girlfriends all thought he spent too much time at work. He knew that he did but he was focusing on a goal. He saw himself rising in Omni Insurance and becoming President or CEO, like the current CEO had done.
Shirley R. White, she was an aberration; she had no college degree. She had started at Omni straight out of high school some thirty years ago and she had found herself now the President and CEO of the second largest company in commercial line insurance. He had read all about her before even applying for a position at the company. She was his role model though he had a degree, she was the epitome where hard work could get you. She was a human marvel. Omni was the company for him. Progressive. That’s what they epitomized as a company. Surely if they had in a company such as Omni, listed in the Forbes Top 100 Companies to work for, a female President and CEO they were a company which would suit a minority like himself to a tee. He wanted to be on the fast track. He had read so many positive aspects of Omni when he first sought a job subsequent to graduating from Marian College. Top ten percent of his class. Likable. Handsome. He had found out after ten years at this company that his black skin kept him from all the aspirations he had upon hiring. He had heard all the old heads at the company, other blacks, saying what a racist company it was but he was intrepid. He heard his father’s maxim for life over and over in his head, “Boy. If you work hard. There is nothing they can deny you. Nothing.” ‘They,’ being white people. Ms. White was white but she was a minority in the work place and being that the Corporate America world was male dominated in a position such as she had attained, she was someone he had gotten strength from. Someone he could say, “If she could do it. I can too!” There was also a saying which he long forgot but it came to him now, “Lightening never strikes twice in the same place!”
He loved his father dearly but he had found out his father had a very idealistic view of the real world. His father was a laborer. Worked at a foundry shoveling all day. When he finally retired he looked as though he was perpetually bending over ready to shovel what was in his way when he walked. His father had become a product of his job. A human machine, an automaton. His father when he was young had taken him to his workplace, a small metal foundry that had specialized in coming up with prototypes for various companies that would sub-contract out . It was a R&D business. One of the engineers had given him the fine points of Corporate America. Enlightening him about the fact big business does not themselves come up with their various products. It was the companies, like his father worked all of those years for, that were making it happen. His father had given him a tour of the place. It was almost pristine because of his father’s tireless work ethic, “You take on a job, you do it to the best of your ability. Don’t compare your work to others who may have done the job or is doing the job the same as you. That’s not doing it to your best because you are comparing. You work like you never worked before and they can never fire you because of your lack of work.” He remembered the sly smiles of the white people he was introduced to while his father took him around, “This here is Mr. Rawley. He’s an engineer,” Rawley being the one who had given him the little knowledge about corporate America. “This here is Mr. Johnson he’s another engineer. This is my son Dewitt he’s going to Marian College this coming Fall and taking up business.”
They both smiling and nodding their heads up and down, “Yeah, you got a fine looking son there, “ Mr. Rawley was saying, “Use more people in the world like your father there Dewitt.” He looked at the both of them with not a smile on his face and realized he would never in his life do manual labor like his dad. His father and his ancestors had done enough for this world. No. Laboring was finished after his father was through toiling. “So let it be written.! So let it be done!”
He had become his father incarnate. Oh, he did not have a shovel in his hand but he was a slave all the same. Thinking of those two white men, “The Engineers,” they were just high class slaves. Thinking of it , he and everyone else in this sorry world that didn’t have the money to know it, were slaves.
Here he was getting ready to go to work on a Sunday morning at 6:00am. The company was giving him double the load of any claims adjuster in the company. He didn’t mind but there was no end to it. Kept pilling it on day by day, week by week. Diary was impeccable. His manager never got any calls about him not phoning claimants back in a timely manner or any complaints of poor customer service. Not one thank you from middle management. Not one promotion. He had gotten his AIC in a year, his CPCU took him less than two years, while he was still knocking down the various claims and taking care of business like no other person in the company. His father’s words came back to him then, “...Don’t compare yourself to any one when doing a job...” He closed his eyes trying like hell to purge that horseshit, that fecal matter. A tear ran down his face. He understood then that conditioning of an human being can run deep. Hard to purge instilled beliefs but he was going to try with this.
He had thought a lot about certain processes of peoples brain functions. How subsequent to coming out of the mother’s womb a person is conditioned to think a certain way. Brainwashed to the degree where one has no other choice but to think as the whole, “A Collective,” as he once heard on one of his favorite series, ”Star Trek The Next Generation.” He thought a lot about the certain aspects of the show and realized the writers and producers really didn’t understand how close they were to the truth of this world. We are all like the ‘Borg’ and yes , “Resistance is futile!” He was going to change that. Oh, how he was going to change that. It was time for him to start living. It was time for him to start breathing again. It was time for him to take on another perspective in life.
He had heard from the Old Heads at Omni time and time again say repeatedly amongst one another and to him, “Don’t you see? Aint no black person going to get a management position in this company male or female. They aint never had a black manager and never going to have. Look at all of us with all this education and experience. They have never considered any of us for a management position and never will. From the top down there is no black person in any type of middle management or upper management position. You might as well quit busting your butt the way that you doing or go to another company. ‘Cause it ain’t happening here.” Time and time again he had turned a deaf ear to there negative comments. They were comparing themselves to others. He knew better than that . He had been instilled with a certain work ethic he knew was tried and true.
Then it happened. Like a right upper cut from Mike Tyson. It hit him. It hit him so hard he was in a funk for what now...some two days? This long week-end had proven to be the worst thing that could have happened to his way of thinking , his conditioned work ethic. It was about to take a turn. May be a turn for the worst; but, maybe. Just maybe, a turn for the better. It all depended how he looked at things.
Instead of going to work he had gotten on his computer for no other reason but to look for other opportunities on the net. It was so foreign to him to be doing what he was now doing, looking for another job. He didn’t want to admit it to himself but that’s what he was doing. “Shit. Or get off the pot!” His father’s other maxim. “Don’t ever go around sulking boy. Do something about your situation! Anybody can whine but it takes a special person to make a decision. You’ll see one day. People will sit around and talk all day long but will never take any action. Hell look at our government. Congress and the Senate talking all day long. Takes them two years or so to pass a bill or to come to some sort of agreement. You see we are conditioned to be idle. The powers that be on this earth wants to have a reason to fuck you. And they will every opportunity they get. They will fuck you. But only if you let them. You got to work. I don’t care what a person does just get busy doing something other than talking. “
Oh, and how his father was right about that. He had even found on his job how people would talk the whole day away about this person wasn’t doing this or this person wasn’t doing that and they were doing not much of anything but sitting up there complaining, whining. Often times looking at him with disdain or disgust because he would keep on doing what he was doing, his job. They couldn’t fathom that. Sometimes even saying to them, “Hey, I got work to do so if that’s all. Please excuse me I need to make some calls.“ Giving him a look as though if to say, “Oh, you trying to be a good Nigga, huh?” He wasn’t trying to do anything but what he was hired to do, his job. If he wasn’t going to do that he needed to find something else to do in life, that’s just the way he saw it.
What difference did it make? He was constantly interjecting his viewpoints to people. And inevitably the conversation would always end in him being villified by said people in the conversation at hand. No he would have to stop. What difference did it make what he thought and what they thought? The hell with it. He started thinking now just like before, it was he who was the problem not society at large. Saying things to people, his opinions, trying to get them to see his truths and that was never going to happen. He had to understand that for his peace sake. “Don’t sweat the stuff,” the statement would go through his head constantly on a daily basis as if it were a loop playing incessantly through his waking hours. Somehow the statement made little or no difference to him until now. Now, he was quite tired of the day to day infighting within himself to try to be accepted. And by him being accepted meaning people affirming his truths were okay to believe. All his life he had tried to get acceptance from his family, friends and peers. He with much disappointment had never received that comforting feeling in his whole damn life. It was time for him to make a change. It was time for a lot of things to be purged. “By your words you are justified. By your words you are condemned. Watch what people say; then, watch what they do,” the first statement being biblical, one of his Mother’s favorites and the second being one she would add onto it as explanation to the first to make the statement even more powerful than it already was. “Fire and brimstone” elegy.
“What are you so mad at Dewitt?” A query more than one of his past girlfriends had said to him. He guessed all had asked him now that he thought about it. He saw it but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “You can’t save the world boy. But you damn sure can save yourself!” His father would say to him from time to time
“Shut up,” he said softly to the endless of souls’ voices that entered his head what seemed like every second of his waking life. He looked like a beaten man. He was beaten he guessed. All the shit day in and day out that he put up with. He looked at the clock again time was still moving. It wasn’t going to change a damn thing him keep looking at the time thinking by some divine way his glances were going to cause the digital to cease flipping. Just stop for one damn minute so he may catch up. Could calculate his next move. “Give me a break. Will ya’?” A statement softly spoken again. Hoping like hell some merciful entity would hear these statements and grant him the wishes he really didn’t think would be granted. Life was a hard mother once enlightenment hit you, he thought.
There was something eating at him. It had been eating at him for a while now. Some eight months since his last relationship. Eight months and three, no four wet dreams later. The last wet dream was just two nights ago. Waking up to that familiar stickiness, wetness on his dick and surrounding parts. Thirty-five years old and still having wet dreams. Oh, people talked about masturbating and things like that but he had tried masturbating and he just thought it was one of the stupidest things a man could do, holding his dick in his hand and going up and down while fantasizing about some luscious past tryst or some other thought that may enter the masturbators mind to reach his ejaculation. Shit, now that he thought about it . It didn’t sound half bad. He hadn’t wacked off in hell...seventeen years now. But what was the point? It never was the real thing. Never could be. Could it? That dream just two nights ago sure was real enough. Maybe in his mind he could take himself anyplace. Maybe.
“Smoke and mirrors boy. Just smoke and mirrors,” Dad’s words again entering his mind, “Quit all that daydreaming. Dreams. That’s all those are, dreams. Unattainable. Not gonna’ happen in this lifetime!” “Thanks for the encouragement Dad,” he said again softly to himself. As he looked around his neat bedroom. “Everything in it’s place. That’s the way it should be all the time Dewitt,” his Mother’s words of wisdom. A woman all of her life cleaning white folks houses until she could not do it any longer. Mother fuckers still calling after she had open heart surgery two years prior to. “We were wondering Laine, if you could come over and do some laundry for us today? You know you are the best with ironing sheets and all.” He had happened to be there visiting his mother at the time and had heard his mother say into the handset, “Yes I can sure do that for you if that is all that needs to be done. I get tired now that I have all these pills to take. Just ironing? Yeah I can do that for you Mrs.”....She did not get the name out before he had grabbed the phone out of her hand and yelled into the receiver, “Don’t ever call my Mother again you sorry sons a bitches ! She’s through cleaning your dirty ass house for you!” He slammed the phone down and looked at his Mother with anger, not he thought now, directed at her but how they were going to use his Mother up and they didn’t give a damn about her. And he remembered his Mother on the verge of tears, with total disbelief in her eyes, like her son had committed capital murder. And he for the first time with thoughts of disrespect. Never would he say it. He had learned that if people could actually know what you really wanted to say and what came out, there would be peoples feelings getting hurt every second of everyday. No one could stay in a relationship or keep their jobs...an endless amount of turmoil and despair would be the norm. But this was real life and in real life people can not read your thoughts, he understood, and he remembered thinking that day, “Fuck you Mommy! And fuck them white Mother fuckers too!” But what came out was, “I’m sorry Mommy. There are just some things a person has to do.” he looked at his Mother with those sorrowful eyes and felt lower than anything or person he could possibly think of at the given time. But damn it, he didn’t care at that point. He was tired of holding his tongue. All his life being taught to be a slave, a person of deference. He thought now that it all was starting to make since to him. “From the cradle to the grave we are conditioned and trained to be slaves.” He thought about his Dad and his Mother. his brothers and sister. Every single one of them slaves and not even knowing it. He thought about himself. This gave him pause. He was starting to feel that malaise again within his soul, a dark cynical haze replacing an air of humanity which used to be filled with hopes and , yes, dreams. For the first time realizing his dreams were going to go unfulfilled. This was bad. This was very bad indeed.
He looked again around his one bedroom apartment, located on the west side of Indianapolis and looked at the things he had attained in his life and thought to himself, “This is all I have to show for thirty-two going on thirty-three years of life?” Which he summed up to be not much of anything. If he were to die right here and now no one would mourn his loss. Not saying he was an asshole...Or was he? Maybe he was. Maybe that was one of the reasons he had no friends. No significant other. No life outside of work. Goddamn, no social life whatsoever. He continued to sit on the end of his bed, half dressed looking out on the gray Sunday fall morning. The day was the epitome of how he felt. It was a kind of eerie feeling for him. Usually he had such a love of life. What in the world had happened to him what seemed like overnight? Maybe it hadn’t happened over night at all. Maybe it was there just looming just behind his emotions ready to pounce at any given moment like today when the timing was right. Everything was hazy: his thought processes, his life, his next move in this life, shit life in general. Motivation. What was his? That was the question. Until this morning his work was his motivation. Thinking of becoming President or CEO of Omni, now that seemed as unlikely as he winning any given Powerball drawing.
He started thinking about all of the poverty stricken people he had grown up with, even his family wasn’t that well off. Oh, they were not poor but they lived in a very poor neighborhood. His father’s philosophy, “Why in the world would I want to move when this house is paid for? Ain’t nobody bothering us. You don’t flaunt what you have. No just live a good life no matter where you are and everything will be fine.” Oh, they had nice things in their house. A very clean and nice old house located on 29th and Capitol avenue. one of the biggest houses for some five blocks. But it looked like all the rest. Big that is. Their house’s lawn was rich green and well manicured. Trim on the outside meticulously painted. it looked like a home in a fairytale. The family never having a nice car. No, if you were going to live in this type of neighborhood, so his father felt, you never flaunt what you got. You see if you take care of your house no one is going to penalize you for that as long as you are not lugging big televisions and stereos and all other types of amenities up in the house. his father believed there was a certain code of living where they lived, sometimes to stay away from problems you have to do without. Not saying they had to live without those things just live practically and don‘t give way to suspicion. His Father realized long ago there was a certain penance one suffered when they decided to stay in a certain area and that same one has done something to increase their standard of living. He had done just that. His Grandfather had given his Dad the house he grew up in. He continued to live there and decided there he would stay. His father loved the house. “So many memories Dewitt. Just too many damn memories to leave.” It was a place his Father dwelled to this day. Still as well kept as ever.
All around them in the various houses and streets, poverty. It always bothered him on some level, why so many had to live like they were living. And most doing it with a smile on their face. He wondered how anyone could get to the point of smiling in the face of bleakness, doom. But there they were on most of the faces as he grew up with them. Jocularity being the norm of the day from young to adult. It was still kind of unnerving to him. He would visit his Mother and Father now every week, usually on a Sunday and fix them dinner, so they would not have to worry about sustenance when they returned from worship. It was a way for him to give back, in a minute way, to all of his parents hard work throughout his life and making, he deemed, what he was today. Good. Bad. It did not matter. he was the byproduct of a co-joining of souls that at last count had just passed fifty years of marital bliss. He smiled at that. He still sees images of his Parents being intimate with one another. Hugging and kissing each other whenever they felt the urge, it didn’t matter who was around or the occasion they were still into each other after all of these years. He had heard people say they couldn’t take seeing their parents being intimate but he enjoyed it. Whenever he would witness it he would almost cry and sometimes he would cry at those special occasions. The most wonderful thing he had ever witnessed was seeing his Parents kissing each other passionately. It gave his life a warmth unsurpassed by anything else he had experienced in this life.
It was funny that he started thinking of his parents on this day, a Sunday. This was the day he would fix them dinner and eat with them. This was their day. Today more than any other day he wanted to see his parents. Had to see them for some inner emotional turmoil he was going through and needed to spend time with them so it may be soothed some kind of way. His parents made him feel comfort all the while he was around them and even when he was alone like now, just thoughts of them: their faces, their smiles, their kindness, their love...He hoped like on a few occasions in the past they had not chosen to partake in any other activity this Sunday. He looked at the clock and it was still early. Only 7:30 a.m. but he knew the both of them would be awake. Dad already in the kitchen fixing the both of them breakfast. And the house if you would go over there smelling of bacon and fresh brewed coffee. Both of his parents very healthy. His mother after having opened heart surgery for a blocked artery, the doctor looking at her and said, “I have no idea Mrs. Henry why you are here. Forgive me for the way that came out. I really meant that in a good way. I mean, we ran every test imaginable and every one of them came out clean. Cholesterol, enzymes, triglycerides, blood pressure...Everything! You are a very healthy woman. We have no idea why that artery became blocked. None. For sixty-eight years young you have a body of a forty year old. The only thing you will probably have to take is an aspirin everyday to make ensure the stint does not become clogged again. Other than that. I do not foresee me having to see you in this capacity for years if that. Of course I will have to see you every six months and keep tabs on your progress until I am satisfied. You won’t mind that will you?”
“Not at all. If that’s what I have to do to stay alive and to be with my man on this earth,” as she smiled and turned to her husband who had dropped his head ever so slightly and a slow steady stream of tears dribbled down his face, thankful for his wife’s reprieve. Their son taking all of this in and crying openly at this beautiful show of love and affection. A memory along with a plethora of others that motivated him every day and gave him hope for this world and his life. Yes, he had to see them today.
The phone was ringing. He usually would pick it up but damn if he did not stay with these eggs. They would not get turned in time to make them over-easy. Elaine usually always let him answer the phone. Those telemarketers getting more and more aggressive, his wife just altogether just quit answering the phone unless he was not home, then she would let the answering machine pick up unless she heard one of her children saying in a loud tone like she was hard of hearing or something over the answering machine, “Momma! Pick up the phone!” Younger people made her smile. Thinking all older people were hard of hearing or somehow lost all common sense altogether. She was just getting ready answer the phone when Morgan had come out of the kitchen with spatula in hand. “I got it Laine. But the eggs aren’t going to be worth nothing,” as he smiled at her and picked up the receiver. “Speak on it!” as he smiled at his wife and she just shook her head a little and smiled. She didn’t know why he answered the phone that way but he did and had been saying the so called greeting for years. It made there children laugh every time they called.
“Well. Well. If it ain’t old Dewitt. What’s wrong boy. You usually don’t call us until you are just about finished with your files at work. Going to work on a Sunday and don’t have to. The damndest thing I have ever heard. But, hey, whatever works...”
“Stop giving him a hard time Morgan,” his wife whispered to him. He waived a little to her and smiled and whispered back as he covered the receiver, “Okay, Laine. Just kidding around with him a little. You know I don’t mean no harm.”
“You know how he is about his work. Just see what he wants Meanie,” as she gave him a tender pinch on his cheek. He faked a slight discomforting, “Ouch,” and held his cheek and smiled the biggest smile he could muster.
“Oh, You!” She said to him and hugged him while he held the receiver with the right hand and held his wife lovingly in his left arm.
“Don’t tell me you’re not coming over to fix us dinner today. Now Me and your Mother been talking about your cooking since we got up this morning..”
“No. No. Nothing like that Daddy,” as he smiled at his Dad’s voice, a welcomed calling, “I was just calling to see what you and Mommy wanted to eat today?”
“Hold on..” as he looked down at his wife and asked, “Dewitt wants to know what you want to eat today?” \
She reached up and took the phone, at the same time said, “Oh, let me talk with him. Dewitt...”
“Mommy! It’s good to hear your voice. How are you today?” he asked her and it kind of threw her off.
“I’m fine Dewitt. But whatever you want to cook us you know we love your cooking so surprise us if you want but we know whatever you cook will be very tasty.”
“I’ll go to the store now and find something haven’t cooked before. Okay?”
“What you are not going into work today before you come over?” She said to him kind of surprised.
“No. I decided those files can wait.”
She held her hand over the receiver and said to her husband, “Dewitt isn’t stopping by work today. And he sounds kind of funny.”
“What do you mean funny?” he asked his wife kind of concerned. His son was a rabbit of habit. one person you could set you watch by.
“I don’t know. you know not like himself.”
He reached and took the phone back from his wife, “Alright now! What’s wrong with you Dewitt? Not going to work today and your Mother’s concerned with you not sounding too kosher. you alright man?”
“Oh, I’m fine Daddy. Just taking a day off. A person needs that sometimes. I’ll be over around two okay?”
“Fine Dewitt. That’s fine!” His Father said.
“Love you! Tell Mommy I love her too! See the two of you later!” He rang off.
His Father held the receiver and looked down at his wife and shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yeah. I see what you meant. Definitely didn’t sound like our old mono toned voice Dewitt. Sounded as if our son finally found some emotion some place.”
“Oh, you stop it Morgan. He is just focused about his career. That’s all.”
“Well , we’ll find out when he comes,” he kissed his wife on the lips and made two quick sniffs and asked, “Do you smell something burning?”
She looked at the spatula in his hand which was grasped along with the receiver in his right hand and he looked at what she was looking at and said, “The Eggs!!”
She laughed at him as he rushed into the kitchen understanding how he hated to get sidetracked when he was cooking.
He remembered his Father how he absolutely, positively loved MGD. He would drink it by the case. He remembered when growing up his father only would drink PBR. He lived by beer, a slight man who never looked as though he ever changed in his weight or looks.
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