A Hope in the Unseen (40 page)

“I think it would be just right for you, Cedric,” Tom says as the student passes a form across his desk.

“How’s your semester been?” he asks with a by-the-way casualness as he looks down to sign the form.

“All right, I guess. I’m taking everything pass/fail and I’ll pass everything … but I feel kind of lost sometimes.”

“That’s not uncommon for a freshman at this point,” Tom says, looking up, trying to be encouraging, though he knows—and suspects Cedric does as well—that what this student faces is far more confusing and complicated than most. “Just stay with it and it will become easier.”

Cedric smiles. “Yeah, right … ,” and then begins rambling about maybe majoring in education along with math.

The juxtaposition of Cedric and Franklin causes Tom to squirm. He knows Cedric mostly from his papers, especially the family tree paper where he so boldly revealed how faith is at the center of his life, and from a few times he’s spoken up in class. Cedric is not accommodationist. He is black and urban, a church kid from the inner city and, at this point, still culturally fixed, always in his shoes. He can’t step away from it, can’t intellectualize it, because it’s still too close, too visceral. It’s why so many kids like him—passionate, sometimes angry kids—fail here.

“ … so, Professor James,” Cedric finishes up, “I was thinking maybe of education as part of a dual major might be good for me.”

Tom nods and looks closely at the student, scanning the bags under his red eyes for clues to his inner life. He imagines how obtuse and disconnected Cedric must feel. He wants to ask if he’s found a church in Providence, about how things are going in the dorm, but he feels uneasy prying into those realms.

“I think that would be just fine, Cedric, but it’s still early to declare a major. Let’s keep talking about it as you go forward.”

Cedric has what he needs and rises, putting the signed form in his bookbag.

Tom rises, too, fumphering. “You’ll come see me, right? If there’s anything, any problems or anything you want to talk about,” and Cedric nods halfheartedly as he turns and begins walking for the door.

“Don’t forget how much you’ve accomplished already, by making it to Brown,” Tom says, keeping his voice even but betraying some urgency.

Cedric turns, expressionless. “It’s a little hard to remember all that now.” He seems to force a smile of gratitude as he strays out the door. And Tom James spends what’s left of the day replaying the dialogue in his head, wondering what else—what better—he might have said.

A
sheet of ice blankets Washington. Cedric sits on a dinette chair in striped pajamas, leaning close to a radio on Barbara’s kitchen counter.

“Montgomery County public schools, closed; District of Columbia public schools, two hours late; Alexandria public schools, closed … ”

He flips it off and dials a familiar number. “Hi, it’s me, Cedric Jennings,” he says expectantly to a secretary answering the phone at Ballou’s office. “I was wondering if ‘Alumni Day’ is still on? It’s supposed to start at 9:30 but with the two-hour delay, school won’t even be starting until 10:45 … uh-huh … okay, then. I’ll be there, for sure … yeah, ’bye.”

He walks across the cluttered room and slumps onto the white couch in the empty apartment, Barbara having already left for work. It hasn’t been such a terrific three days since he arrived home for Christmas break, but he has sort of been looking forward to today’s return to Ballou. Just before graduation last year, Ballou’s librarian, Marilyn Green, asked if he would be there and if he’d be willing to speak. He said he would. And during those dark lonely days of the fall, when he often felt friendless, having committed to a date gently provided a counterpoint to his flagging confidence. He would have to face them all if he had to drop out of Brown by then. Through November, he’d sometimes see his old teachers sitting in the library, like they were waiting for him, counting on him. And it would summon something in him—not pride, exactly, more like self-preservation.

Cedric indulges in a long shower this morning, thinking over his speech. He needs to be upbeat but realistic, he thinks, and, with so many things he wants to say, he has to be careful not to ramble. He decides that in talking to his audience—seniors thinking about college—he needs to try to be absolutely truthful about what it’s really like to be in a big college, far from Southeast. He owes them that.

Such candor hasn’t been easy in his first few days home. Two hours after the night sleeper from Providence arrived on Sunday morning, Cedric was already in church, with Barbara beaming and a hundred pairs of eyes on him.

He never did get around to calling Bishop Long after parents’ weekend, so the pastor had a little surprise in store: he called Cedric and another college freshman onto the stage to ask them a few pointed questions—things he knew the congregation would want to know.

“As Cedric’s spiritual godfather,” Long said, jauntily holding the hand mike like a talk-show host, “I’m obligated to ask how things are going at Brown University.”

Cedric paused. He had thought about this on the train ride. He knew people would ask, and he knew they’d need an answer that wouldn’t leave them confused and deflated. On his way to a good, concise answer, he took a few logical detours: (1) even taking everything pass/fail, he knew that his grade in Calculus would have been an A, and (2) in his other classes, he simply doesn’t know what his grades would be. With the benefit of such forethought, his response on stage was clarion clear: “I have a 4.0 average.”

“A four point oooooh!” screamed Bishop Long, turning to the flock and waving his free hand as they rose in a standing ovation.

Once the clapping died down, he moved to the other key issue. “So, Cedric, have you found another church up there?”

“No, sir, ummm, there aren’t many churches up in Providence … ”

“Not many churches?” said Long, casting a skeptical look. Relieved to be past the grade-point issue, Cedric proved to be as light-footed as a politician on the stump. “I just know there’s no way I could
ever
replace Scripture Cathedral.”

Long snapped his head toward the audience with a “that’s-my-boy” grin, showing his delight and compelling thunderous applause.

J
ust shy of 10
A.M.
, Cedric walks through the metal detector at Ballou’s front door (a new addition this year) and into the school’s front foyer. It’s empty because of the late opening, giving him a chance to quickly check which teachers might be around. He glances at the wall clock and sprints down to the math wing, first floor.

“Ms. Nelson, it’s me,” he whispers, ducking his head in the first-floor classroom.

“Oh, Cedric, you made it,” she says, and she hugs him.

A moment later, he’s at the room of Ms. Wingfield, his ninth-grade math instructor and homeroom teacher for four years.

“I got your letters,” she says as soon as she sees him striding in, all aglow.

“Got yours, too,” he smiles back. “That was a nice card.”

“So, how did it go?” she asks.

“I’m doing good, 4.0,” he testifies, feeling less guilt saying it than he expected.

“Oh, come on,” she says.

But he doesn’t flinch. Walking these hallways, the performance pressure is, if anything, rising. He can’t back down now. “The good are delivered,” he says to her, slightly under his breath. “Yes, the good are delivered.”

In an empty, unused annex of the library, teachers have already gathered around a cafeteria table with a coffee urn, juice bottles on ice in a large plastic punch bowl, and a few plates of donuts and muffins.

Cedric feels awkward walking in, clumsy and outsized, not sure, suddenly, how he’s supposed to sound when he talks to them all. He grabs an orange juice and hovers close to the table, making small talk.

“Someday, you know, I’m coming back to be the principal of Ballou,” he says to a couple of teachers with whom he’s been chatting. “After, of course, I become a software designer and make my fortune.”

They both smile at him, warm, sad, soft smiles, making him suddenly
feel boastful and transparent, and he finds his self-confidence rapidly eroding as everyone moves into seats.

Alumni Day, as much as anything at Ballou, is an act of imagination. The icy day notwithstanding, the turnout is bleak, as it has been for years, with ten or so seniors, half a dozen returning graduates, and maybe twenty teachers.

Dr. Jones, having traded in last year’s starched white shirts and colorburst ties for a black turtleneck, stands at the plug-in, desktop podium. Cedric already heard from Ms. Wingfield that the violence and mayhem at Ballou have been rising steadily, and Dr. Jones looks weary. Any optimism he had during his first year as Ballou’s principal seems to have vanished in his second.

“Ms. Green has been planning for this day almost the whole year now,” he says, looking slightly stricken as he gazes at the small gathering. “We look forward to you, alumni, coming back, an effort for you to have a continuity, a continuum, for you to help someone else who’s been in your place and knows what it’s like to go to Ballou.” He pauses, looking down momentarily at his fingers curled around the podium’s edges—like a fighter asking his arms to decide whether it’s worth getting up off the canvas.

He straightens them and swiftly wraps it up: “Because I want those young people who are still here to see the success that you, the alumni, have had … and know that they can do that, too. So, right, you can dream and you can fulfill your dreams … okay … good morning and have fun.”

Cedric watches it all, feeling disembodied. Slumped in his chair with arms folded, long legs stretched out, and ankles crossed, he gazes around the room, noticing how small this library is (hell, Jefferson’s was bigger), how few graduates showed up, and how the teachers, mostly standing along the spotty shelves of books, don’t dress nearly as well as the professors at Brown. He sees James Davis, in a wrinkled green army jacket, slip into the back of the room looking grim. He feels an urge for the two of them to get out of there and talk about old times.

The first student speaker, a girl he barely knows who graduated in 1993 and goes to Howard University, starts off predictably, talking
about how she was fourth in her class at Ballou but was overwhelmed as a Howard freshman, practically failing most of her courses until she discovered Jesus … “and He became my study partner.”

She launches into a stunning testimony of how “Jesus taught me when to study, taught me how to study, taught me what to study, told me exactly what was on every test,” and boosted her average to nearly 4.0. “I just got one B in French, and that was my fault.”

When she cites Jesus as the source of her federal educational grants, Cedric starts to chuckle, shaking his head. He attributes everything to Jesus, too, but federal loans? If only it were that simple, he muses, as Ms. Green returns to the podium and his moment approaches. Then he’s up front, tapping the mike. He tells them his name, that he’s triple majoring in math, computer science, and education, and that he wants to talk about “practical things.”

He crests through some of his going-it-alone, against-the-odds mottos, like listening to yourself, to your own heart, in deciding about college and not what other people (“some of whom are scared to do what you’re doing”) expect of you. Then he recounts how people warned him about going to a “big white university with lots of private school kids” and notes that he’s proven them wrong by being “very happy at Brown and very successful at Brown, with a four point average.”

As the clapping dies, he tells the seniors to take advantage of Ballou’s “contingency of great teachers who hold your hand because there’s nobody gonna be holding your hand when you get out there in the world. It’s hard to believe I’m saying this, considering what Ballou can be like, but, in some ways, this is a shelter for you, a protection against some of the real obstacles to achievement, some of which are real complicated. Once you get out there, you have to build your own protection.”

He pauses for a moment, realizing that these teachers and administrators must recall how he stood proud nine months ago and told them that “there’s nothing me and my God can’t handle.”

And it jars him. The memory of that line makes his chest ache, and he knows that his front is crumbling, that every word, now, is taking him further from that rallying cry.

“To really shoot for the stars,” he continues, unable to match the phrase with an upbeat tone, “you must fully accept the challenges of life—to face them honestly and head on—because life is not an easy road. It’s very hard ….” His voice catches on the last word. The library seems silent, a roomful of unblinking eyes. “You need to work hard, very hard,” he begins again, desperate just to finish. “And put your trust in the Lord and not man—because man will let you down—and then you can succeed in life.” He flees back to his seat before the brief applause ends.

After a few more short speeches, most teachers wave farewells and hurry back to class.

By now, the school day has started. Cedric notices James has already disappeared, and he wanders out into the halls, not sure what to do. He peers into a few classrooms, thinking that everything seems the same but weirdly far off, like he’s watching it on TV. On the first floor he walks past a cluster of boys who should be in class—they look sort of puny to him—and then he stops, reaching out to touch his first-floor locker. It’s someone else’s now, but he turns and leans his back against it and tries to sketch outlines of the previous owner, the angry boy who ran a gauntlet in these halls and preached at graduation. But he can’t. The only thing around him that stirs any remembrance is the thing that, back then, he struggled to overlook—the very ruin of the place, the fading light in teachers’ eyes, the bleakness all around. Maybe he didn’t notice it as much when he was here, or maybe it was the blight, closing in, that kept him running, and he saw it only in passing. Now he smells despair everywhere, and it makes his nostrils burn.