Out of the Madness (23 page)

This was nothing new. Many of the young men had come to the same conclusion, that enough of us had been taught to have small
dreams, to say “I want to be a doctor,” rather than “I want to own a hospital,” to say “I want to be a manager,” rather than
“I want to own and control a large industry,” to say “I want to be a teacher,” rather than “I want to pioneer a new university,”
or write math and history books, or design new computers, and build houses, and similar dreams. But I realized we were doing
in decades what it had taken other races centuries to do, and against odds a hundred times greater.

I concluded that my first objective must be to gain a base of understanding on as many subjects as I could. I realized that
learning new disciplines, such as trigonometry, law, agriculture, nuclear science, was a core thing, meaning any person can
shape his intelligence to master any body of knowledge he desires. So I began with writing and decided math would be next.
I always had figured it’s better to master one discipine before moving on to another. So that’s the way I studied, mostly
the art of writing, and occasionally studying math, business, and other areas. I figured once I had mastered writing, I would
move on to math, then decide what would be next.

Over time, I began to read the textbooks I had bought. I started from the very beginning, reading grammar, essay, and rhetoric
books. I knew I had to patch up the holes in my knowledge, everything I had missed in grade school. Instead of just reading,
I would memorize the information, thirty and forty pages of text, word for word, and practice quoting the text verbatim. I
had always heard the remark “You have to be twice as good as the white man to make it.” And now I understood. I inevitably
would do the same with the math, memorizing the rules and steps, the formulas. I would do the same with vocabulary, typing,
basic computer programming, and dozens of other subjects.

I no longer thought of just being a writer, scientist, or attorney, which were my first ambitions. Why not all? My confidence
was that high. I knew it was possible and less difficult than I had been led to believe. Besides, so many of us had been killed,
imprisoned, or warped that we needed men and women who had more than one skill, in order to rebuild our communities.

The only difference between us and others is that they had all the resources: food, books, air conditioners, parents, organized
communities, banks, schools, newspapers, grocery stores, a right to a fair trial, a right to decent medical care, protection
from police officers, fair opportunity, taxation with representation, and other important things. Furthermore, we were facing
a wide information gap, because we once weren’t allowed even to read and learn. And when that was abolished we were given
inferior schools, misinformation, and terrorized neighborhoods. And the gap between the races became wider and wider. As a
result, I knew, and took pride in knowing, that the status of white America, all their gains, wasn’t something that they had
earned through fair competition. They couldn’t stand proudly and say, “We earned, and worked, and toiled for this. Y’all had
equal opportunity, y’all are just dumb and lazy.” Whites had never competed fairly for anything. No one truly knew the measure
of their ability. Instead, they had killed off and enslaved others for the wealth and resources they possessed and had held
on to at any price.

After a while, after I felt I had really started to change my direction, I finally went back to south Dallas to find my friends.
I ran into Jamie first, near Lincoln High School. He was happy to see me. “Where have you been, Jelly Roll?” he asked, using
the nickname he had given me. He was coming from Lincoln where he now worked as a teacher’s assistant.

He took me to a small white house on Pine Street that he was renting, which was several blocks from the school. I told Jamie
I would be needing a place to stay. Without hesitation, he asked if I wanted to move in. “You know you’re welcome to live
with me,” he said.

So a few days later, I paid one of the older men in south Dallas to haul my belongings to his house. Jamie gave me one of
the two bedrooms, the one in the back. And to help him with the bills, I filed for unemployment.

Back in the neighborhood, I settled into my new home, my new back room, with my small desk and boxes of books, and went right
back to work. I enrolled into two summer classes at the community college and started looking for a part-time job. I still
stayed mostly in the house, except for occasionally going out with Jamie and his friends.

I began to work on the first rough drafts of my life story and other small writings that would be published in magazines in
Texas. I later would win several prestigious writing awards and be invited to visit Ethel Kennedy in her house in McLean,
Virginia, where I met Senator Ted Kennedy, who encouraged me to keep up the good work. I eventually would use my writing talents
to pave the way for me to pursue my entrepreneurial ambitions.

I saw little of Vernon during this time but learned he had begun selling dope in Arlington, a suburb about twenty minutes
from Dallas. He was getting into lots of fights and staying around trouble. He even tried to start fights with Jamie and me.
So we figured he would have to find himself in his own time, believed he would choose the right path before it was too late,
but decided, for the time being, to support him from a distance.

By the summer of my twentieth birthday, I had learned the truth about self-reliance, about not wasting my intellect, about
my responsibility to my child. I had not thrown away courage, become a dope addict or a religious puppet. But I still saw
my friends shooting each other, saw the girls walking the streets like zombies, saw the hardworking Dixon Circle boys losing
hope.

I was keenly aware of where I stood, that there was no real racial harmony or freedom for blacks, and anyone who claimed so
was a fool. I knew I had no time to waste, that there was too much that needed changing and too much work to get done.

So I committed myself to being a living testimony, to being a custodian of black proverbs and lore, to writing great race-guiding
books, ones that would encourage us once again to explore, to value family, culture, and unity.

It was at this time, in the heart of a bitter neighborhood called south Dallas, in a place where the suffering of the people
has no bounds, that I knew I had won the fight for my soul. With this victory, I realized that nothing, and no one, could
ever stop me from living and dying as a strong black man, that I was forever out.

I
n the summer of 1992, while living with my sister in Oak Cliff near Paul Quinn College, I met a new friend: Keenon, a young
man about twenty years old. We talked about his motorcycle’s horsepower at a black-owned detail shop on Lancaster Street,
Sparkle Detail, one street over from where old man Wayne had lived.

Keenon was about my height (six feet one), had real dark skin, and permed shoulder-length hair, which was popular with black
men in 1992. We both had slim builds, but I was larger from lifting weights, and he was gangly. After we talked, he burned
rubber as he left the detail shop, his hair fluttering in the breeze. He leaned around a corner and out of sight. He was gone
so quickly.

Over the two months I knew him, we did many things together. We rode around in my convertible Mustang. He tried to teach me
to ride his fast bike—I backed out after I saw him run into a fence with that thing. We ate pizza at his grandmother’s house,
where his only brother lived and his mother, stepfather, and younger sister, who had a small child, visited all the time.

Over time, I learned Keenon had qualities I admired: quiet, understanding, observant, and extra-kindhearted—a kindness some
mistook for weakness. And Keenon, similar to most of the hardened brothers, was not afraid to exchange blows with any man,
although that wasn’t his preference.

Keenon had one of the best personalities. He had a charming smile, which was full, pearly and deep. Being around him, you
knew that there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you—if he loved you. Keenon’s mother had lost her job, so he had taken
up a lot of the slack. He told me he’d been paying many of the bills at the apartment where they lived, including, at times,
the five-hundred-dollar rent. He also helped his sister and his grandmother. All of his family looked up to him.

But I never imagined Keenon sold drugs to get the money. He seemed too smart to slip into that trap. One day while we talked
in front of his house, he asked for a ride to some nearby apartments.

“For what?” I asked.

“To pick up some dope,” he said, smiling a little. “I’ll just run up there and be right back down.”

But he stopped smiling when he saw how amazed I was. He started looking amazed, too, as if he couldn’t believe I was surprised
over something so common, something everybody was doing for a little change. I refused to take him.

About two weeks later, Keenon rode with me near Red Bird Mall to pick up the keys to my new apartment. Going there, I told
him how I felt about him taking chances selling drugs, how I felt he should put his intellect to better use. “I’m about to
incorporate a small company,” I told him.

During that trip home, he must have asked a thousand questions about the goals of this company and how was I doing it. He
sadly reminded me of many former close friends, and other people I had known who desired to establish legitimate means of
income, to own companies, to chart their own destinies. But, just like the challenges they faced, Keenon would need strength
to overcome the difficulties of his life.

Keenon would never have the chance to grow into the man he could have become, never have the chance to reflect on his glorious
past or tap the greatness sleeping within him. The last time I saw him alive was when he and his stepfather helped me move
my belongings into my new apartment. Days later, I came over while his stepfather stood outside the house of Keenon’s grandmother.
“Hey, where’s Keenon?” I asked.

“Jerrold, Keenon’s dead,” he said. “He spent the night here, and when we came this morning, we found him, his brother, his
grandmother, and his friend piled up on the floor. They were all dead, had been shot execution-style. The whole kitchen floor
was soaked in blood.”

For the next two weeks, people in cars would slowly pass the house to see where the murders had occurred. It was reported
as one of the most gruesome mass killings in Dallas. It kept the black neighborhoods paralyzed for a long time. The Dallas
media played Keenon up like some sort of big drug lord, which upset his family.

A young man in his mid-twenties was caught and convicted nearly a year later for all four murders. He was allegedly a drug
rival of Keenon’s.

Keenon’s death had so much significance. Another friend gone. Another senseless murder.

Keenon was just another black boy destroyed, proving that the factory of death was still churning, and that the black race
must work hard to solve the dilemma of the mind.

Around then, I helped my mother and her elder husband move to my two-bedroom apartment. She had lived down the street from
Keenon’s grandmother and had seen him hanging in her apartment complex. Keenon had kept the young boys from disrespecting
her when she entered and left her house. I encouraged her to pack her bags and move several days later.

She had been on and off drugs the last two years, and in and out of jail. I had left for Florida in December 1991 to attend
Florida A&M, and had returned home in April 1992. She had gone to jail the same week I returned home. It took a lot of time,
effort, and money to gain her release. While I was in Florida, she had found a man she admired and gotten married. She was
now forty-two. We moved in together to the new apartment, where she finally was in a position with some real support.

She enrolled in GED classes on her own, and got more involved with her grandchildren. She talked to me about her desire to
develop a program to treat addicts and people in need. She felt that she knew how to counsel and respect those kinds of individuals
and wanted to do her part in contributing to improving our community. I promised her that as long as she had dreams like that
I would make sure she had all the support she needed. It would fulfill another goal of mine: to design a family treatment
facility around her theories.

I had heard my mother many times tell me never to let God get fed up and turn his back on you. “Once he does this, you’re
no longer under his protection,” she had warned. I guess her friend Big Mary never learned this lesson. One day she fell dead
in a Dallas street. Others we knew fared better. Shortleg Lee is still alive, retired, and living in south Dallas. I’ve had
little contact with Vernon. Jamie got married and does his own audio and visual production work.

My sister remains married, and has added a son to her posse—my nieces, Fatima and Shakara. Her marriage is really working
and she is settled and happy. She also plans to return to school. My brother has a daughter and a son by an older woman he
lives with. He is enrolled in the police training course at Dallas Baptist University and plans to become a police officer.
We all guess that’s okay for three high school dropouts.

Vanessa knows her daddy, and we are finally getting the chance to do all the things that a father and daughter should do.
There’s so much I’ve gone through with her mother in trying to be a responsible father. I missed the first two years of Vanessa’s
life dealing with Tammie. The court recognized me as Vanessa’s father and I’ve been given visitation rights. It was pure torture
getting Vanessa adjusted. Even to this day, I feel that Tammie’s keeping Vanessa away from me and making things difficult
was the most undeserved thing that ever happened to me. In the present, Tammie remains uncooperative about the.whole arrangement.
But Vanessa and I don’t worry about that.

After returning from Florida A&M University—the school would only support my education if I majored in journalism—I reenrolled
at a community college here in Dallas, planning to someday major in psychology and economics at an area university. I have
incorporated a small company, to produce quality film, music, and literature for African Americans, and I intend to develop
a finance company in the near future, to develop business and industry in the black communities. And I’ll continue writing.