Life (47 page)

a lot of weight. I’ll be the first to admit it, being a Black female in

the predominately white man’s world can be intimidating.

I stood in the middle of his office. On the wall I saw a picture

of him and President Clinton. On his desk were more pictures,

family, I guess. His office was huge, it made me feel small. I took

a deep breath.

“
As of today I am resigning,” I said flatly, and walked up to his

desk and placed my resignation letter on it. He shot forward in his

chair as he removed his feet from the desk and knocked over a pic-

ture in a gold frame in the process.

“
Resigning?” he retorted.

“
Yes.”

“
But you haven’t even given me a two week notice. We’re

already under-staffed and overloaded with cases.” I just gave him

a look that said,

that’s your problem.

“
I’m afraid that it will not be possible for you to resign at this

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present time until we can find a suitable replacement for you.”

“
No, I have had just about enough of this. I think this entire

criminal justice system needs to be overhauled. I sincerely thank

you for asking me to stay, bu –”

Scandels was on his feet. It startled me for a man his age to be

able to move so fast. “You cannot leave now!” he interrupted

pointing his finger at me. This was the other side of the man not

used to having his authority challenged and rejected, especially by

a Black woman. I stood my ground, Lord knows I wanted to avoid

this confrontation, yet in my own feminine solace I was delighted

to badger his male ego.

“
David.” I called him by his first name just like everyone had

been doing me since I first started working in the office. He jerked

his neck narrowing his eyes at me letting me know that he did not

appreciate me calling him by his first name the way he does me.

White people. The nerve.

“
It’s a done deal. I’ll be sending the movers for the rest of my

things in my office.” Saying that, I turned to walk away.

“
Hope! I can assure you, if you try to play hardball with me,

you’ll end up being blackballed. If you walk out that door, I can

promise you, you will never find a job in this town practicing law,

even if you wanted to work for free.”

His words stung me. I stood rigid and stared at the man who

went out of his way to give me all the low profile cases, cases that

no one else wanted. I couldn’t help but smile at that white man,

either that or curse him out. My daddy did not raise me that way,

so I just smiled at him as I walked up and placed my business card

on his desk. “This is my new employer,” I said pointing at the

name on the card. It read “Hope Evans, Attorney at Law” and for

some reason, that name instilled a kind of courage in me, the kind

that made a sista feel proud. “Feel free to use your power and pres-

tige to blackball me if you like, but from here on out I ain’t work-

ing for no one else but my damn self!” With that, I stalked out of

the door leaving him staring at my card.

*****

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I was getting ready to make my entrance into the world of cor-

porate America, an independent Black woman. I was 25 years old

and wet behind the ears, but determined to do my own thing.

Inside my heart and soul, although I would not admit it to any-

one, I was scared to death!

I left the building shortly after my confrontation with my ex-

boss with most of my office material in a box. As I walked across

the parking lot in the sweltering heat, with each step that little

voice in my head barged its way in, the fear of failure announced

its presence like an angry troll.

Hope, you damn fool! You shouldn’t have quit your job. Who’s

going to feed the baby?

The diction of voices echoed in my head acrimoniously. I

thought about my brother on crack, my other brother doing life

in prison and catching my husband in bed with another man. I

had enough blues in my life to sing a sad song, and to think, I had

just quit a sixty five thousand dollar a year job. God help me, now

I was going to try to make a career in a male dominated world. As

I was opening the car door, I could feel sweat cascading down my

back. I got in the car and tore my stockings on the door, ruining

them. “Damn it! Damn it!” I screeched as I pounded my fist on

the roof of my car, with it came a surge of emotions that I never

knew existed. For the past year or so, I had been holding so much

inside, tr ying to be strong, determined. I was a single parent try-

ing to raise my son. My marriage was a failure, not to mention my

husband was a homosexual. I was so filled with grief that I began

to weep openly. I noticed that a car pulled up waiting for my park-

ing space. The driver was an elderly Black lady. She watched me

cry for a moment. Then she got out of her car. Age had stooped

her body but she was still very attractive. I could tell she was once

a very beautiful woman. She wore her hair styled and colored in a

lovely shade of blue. She wore black slacks and white shirt.

“
Child, are you OK?” she asked sympathetically as she lightly

caressed my back with her hand. Lord knows it felt like I was hav-

ing a nervous break down. I wanted to tell her no, everything was-

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n’t OK, my life was a joke, and my real baby daddy had spit in my

face and called me an Uncle Tom, and I had this stupid dream of

helping my people so I quit my job.

“
Yes ... I’m OK,” I finally said as the tears ran down my

cheeks, I cried openly.

The old woman grabbed my arm forcefully; I was surprised of

her strength for a woman of her age.

“
You will be all right, you hear me?” she said passionately, but

there was something in her eyes that moved me. “You must never

give up!” The old woman raised her voice. I nodded my head,

swallowed the lump in my throat, breathed in air like it was new

found courage. I met her motherly gaze and felt like she was try-

ing to tell me something that I all ready knew.

“
Thank you,” I said softly as I looked away from her, embar-

rassed, this old Black woman that I did not even know. There was

something in her warmth, her touch, and her eyes. She watched

me closely as I got into my car.

“
If you’re not willing to sacrifice, maybe even die for your pur-

pose, what are you living for?” The old woman yelled at me as I

drove away. That was the day that my life would be changed for-

ever. There would be no turning back.

As soon as I arrived home I checked my answering machine.

One message was from Stan, the man that I caught in bed with

my ex-husband. I thought that was ver y strange for him to call.

Three other messages were from Officer Coffee. I was avoiding

him after I found out he was a playa, besides, the man was too

damn fine and I didn’t trust myself.

I changed into my running clothes and went for a jog. I did

five miles in record time, 45 minutes and some change. Afterward,

I felt energized and aching in all the right places, a runner’s high.

At 2:15 in the afternoon, I decided to pick my son up early

from the daycare center and we would do the family thing–go see

a movie at the mall.

I arrived at Saint John’s Daycare Center, an ancient building

that also served as a Catholic church run by elderly nuns. I paid a

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hundred and fifty dollars a week for Marcus to attend the school.

As soon as I walked inside I was pleasantly reminded of how

it felt to be a child at heart. I smiled as I watched all the children

frolic in a game of musical chairs. A child’s laughter is addictive. I

looked on as the music stopped and the children scurried for

chairs. A little girl with blue eyes and long locks of blond hair that

made her look like a beautiful baby doll stood motionless as it

dawned on her that she was the last person standing, eliminated

from the game. I noticed that my son, Marcus, was nowhere in

sight. I looked around for him. One of the nuns, Sister Mary,

approached me. I could tell from the expression on her face she

was trying to remember my name.

“
Hi. I’m Hope Evans, Marcus Green’s mom,” I said politely

with a smile.

Sister Mary extended a bony hand. She wore a silver ring of a

crucifix on her middle finger. Her handshake was cold and cal-

loused.

“
Where is Marcus?” I asked as I looked over her shoulder. The

amiable expression on her face froze only to be replaced with a

blank stare.

“
Marcus is in the Time Out room. Sister Grace placed him

there this morning.”

“
This morning!” I repeated indignantly looking at my watch.

“
What did he do?” I asked in a high-pitched voice causing some

of the children to turn and look in my direction.

The nun sighed taking a deep breath, “Marcus curses like a

sailor and fights with the other children.”

“
Why wasn’t I informed of this?” I asked, disgruntled.

“
Well, we thought that it was more than likely a bad influence

coming from the household.”

I listened, not believing what I was hearing, but knowing what

she was trying to insinuate, that I was a bad parent.

“
We’ve talked with the school’s psychologist. The child is

problematic, hyperactive and we believe that he has a learning dis-

order and –”

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“
He is 3 years old.” I said cutting her off, not believing what I

was hearing.

She continued, “The doctor said that he wanted to place

Marcus on a drug called Ritalin. It’s very popular with dysfunc-

tional children.” All I could do was shake my head at this woman

that was supposed to be a ser vant of God.

For the second time that day I counted backward from ten.

That’s when I heard the little girl say, “I fucking quit, I don’t want

to play no more of your stupid game.” The nuns must have heard

too, but chose to ignore it.

“
Where is my son?” I asked through clinched teeth. The nun

pointed to the other side of the room. There was a large picture of

Bozo the Clown along with other car toon characters, a chalkboard

with letters of the alphabet, ABCD, big enough for the seeing

impaired to read. I saw my son huddled in the corner with his face

up against the wall. I walked over there in a hurry, almost ran.

“
Honey, are you all right?” I asked affectionately.

He turned around and looked at me with almond eyes, face

streaked with dried tears, his eyes the window to his soul. I saw

something worse than hurt as my son looked up at me sniffling