Manchild in the Promised Land (62 page)

“Oh, Claude, you sound as though you've no faith in people. And after all you've been through!”

“Yeah, man, all that I've been through has shown me what people are, and just how much faith you can have in them.”

“No, Claude, I want you to meet this man.” He started telling me something about Reverend James. Lou said that Reverend James was not only a unique person but a patron saint for the community around 126th Street and Madison Avenue. He told me how this guy sacrificed himself and gave most of his salary away to people who were suffering. He made the guy sound almost like a black Jesus.

“Lou, are you sure you've really peeped this cat? This guy sounds more dangerous than any of the other preachers I've known.”

“Yeah, Claude, I know it's hard to believe that such a person exists.”

“No, man, it's just hard to believe that such a person exists in Harlem. I've been here all my life, and I never met anybody like that, man—and? preacher too.”

“Claude, I keep telling you that the man is a minister, and I wish you'd stop calling him a preacher.”

“You mean to tell me, the man is a colored minister, and he resents being called a preacher?”

“No, it's not that he resents being called a preacher. It's just that I don't like the way that you've described that preacher clique. You make it sound like it's something somewhat disgraceful, a preacher.”

“Okay, man, this minister, how old is the cat?”

“Oh, I imagine Reverend James is about forty-five, something like that. He's a very energetic man. He has a heart of gold, and he has a love for people that I've seldom seen anywhere.”

“Lou, do you know Ernst Papanek? He was at Wiltwyck.”

“Oh, yeah, I know Mr. Papanek.”

“Weli, man, this cat's got the greatest love for people I've ever seen in anybody. He's been through a whole lot of stuff, in Germany, with the Nazis, and all this kind of business. Nothing has taken it out of him. He maintains this love throughout everything. He's impressed me more than anybody I've ever met as a person who has a great amount of love for his fellow man.”

“Well, I don't know, Claude. I don't know Mr. Papanek that well, but I wish you would come by and meet this man.”

“Yeah, Lou, I'm kind of curious about this guy. I want to see this preacher, just to see what he looks like.”

He said, “I keep telling you, he's a minister, not a preacher.”

“Well, the minister. I want to see this minister. All right?”

“Yeah, and, Claude, I wish you wouldn't refer to him as a preacher when you're talking to him. This guy is something else.”

“Oh, yeah? You're getting into this slang thing in Harlem, huh, Lou?”

“The ‘something else'? All the boys say this.” We had a big laugh. Lou worked as a probation officer in Juvenile Court, and I told him that maybe the boys were having a greater influence on him than he was on them.

I had made an appointment to go around to the church on 126th Street and Madison Avenue and meet Lou's patron saint. I don't know what I expected, but I went to the church that night. Lou introduced me to the minister, Reverend James.

He wasn't what I had expected. He was about medium height, a gaunt man with a very serious-looking face. At the same time, it looked like a kind face, as if the seriousness was not something that was intentional. It seemed as though his face had been made serious by the life he had lived, all the things he had seen. He looked like somebody who might really know things.

I sat down and talked to him. I didn't know that anybody with such a gigantic intellect existed in Harlem. When I first met him, I wanted to talk for hours to the guy. I could have gone on and on, and this man would still have been able to talk. Somehow I had the feeling that talking to him that night was more profitable than sitting in the library and reading for weeks. He seemed to know so many things. I hadn't met too many ministers. I'd met a lot of preachers, and the preachers were phonies. They were guys hollering about God and spouting all this nonsensical holiness.

I had expected something like this. This was my idea of the colored preacher. But he wasn't like that, far from it. We sat there for a long time, and he never said anything about God. This sort of puzzled me. I didn't think there was a colored preacher who could sit and talk for more than three hours without saying anything about God. But this man was doing it. It seemed as though there was far more to the man than I could see in that visit. But that one visit was enough. I knew I wanted to talk to him again.

He knew a hell of a lot about politics. He could run down the Civil War, shot for shot. It was just astonishing. We talked about things in the Harlem community. I expected him to look down on the Harlem community with an attitude that was partially one of disgust, partially one of sacred disapproval. But he didn't. He looked at the Harlem community somewhat analytically. More than that, he showed a sympathy for junkies that most of the people didn't have.

As a matter of fact, Reverend James seemed to know a lot about street life that I never expected any minister to know. It's not something that you read in the papers or that sort of thing. He just knew people. He understood human nature, and he knew the kind of people who became involved in street life. When he talked about them, he talked about them as people, not as things, fallen souls, or that sort of nonsense. He seemed to be a person, somebody who really knew what was going on. As a matter of fact, at first I suspected him of being an ex-hustler or something like that; but after talking to him, I knew that this couldn't be the case.

Before I realized it, he had me listening to him without any doubts and without any skepticism. I wanted to ask him something about drug addicts, but I didn't want him to suspect that it was about anyone related to me. I hesitated to say anything. I wasn't close enough to him yet.

After a while, I started coming by to see Reverend James just about every other day. I used to like to sit and talk to him. I'd listen to him for hours and hours, and he never got boring. The man knew so much.

As time went on, he kept telling me about school, and why I should want to go to school, this sort of thing. But now I had a bigger problem, and I wasn't too set on going to school, not right away. As a matter of fact, I figured I'd need at least a year, perhaps not to solve the problem, but merely to figure out what I should do about it. So one day, I happened to mention to Reverend James that I had a
younger brother named Pimp and that I wanted to do something for him. I told him that Pimp had had some trouble in Harlem, and I was afraid to leave him here all by himself, out in the woods.

He said, “Well, what kind of trouble are you afraid of?”

“Well, he might get involved in some of the vices.”

“What vices? Like drug addiction.”

“Yeah, that's a possible one, the most probable one, I suppose.”

“Has he gotten involved in it?”

For some reason, I didn't want to tell him. But I didn't see any point in lying to him. I said, “He's had a few small bouts with it.”

Reverend James smiled and said, “Yeah, those small bouts are frequent in our community.” He started telling me that a person must have a strong attitude toward himself and toward life in order not to become engulfed in the vice of our community. He'd said something about a strong spiritual attitude.

I said, “Slow down a minute, Reverend James. I haven't done much thinking about this spiritual thing, and I haven't done too much thinking about this religious thing either.”

“You haven't done too much thinking.”

I looked at him for a while. I said, “Yeah, that's a possibility also.”

He said, “Now, your brother, I would imagine that he has done less thinking than you. All youngsters in Harlem are confused in their thinking. Their thinking is influenced by their environment, by external values—not their own, but the values of the community, the people around them.”

“Yeah, that's true.”

“They form their attitudes on the basis of these things. If one boy doesn't want to use drugs, but everybody else is using drugs, he's going to feel as if he's somewhat left out.”

“Well, yeah. I've heard all this before.”

He told me a little more about drugs and the attitudes toward them. It made Pimp sound so weak to me, it made him sound almost hopelessly lost. I said to myself, I never thought about it this way. It's an attitude in the community. It's fostered by the community. It's the thing to do. I'd been somewhat aware of it, but I'd never given it too much consideration. Aloud I said, “But, look, I came up in the same community and through the same thing.”

He said, “Yeah, I'm still wondering about you. It's something of an oddity. You came up in Harlem, and from what I've heard, you've
had a pretty reckless life, far from dull. It seems as though you've been undaunted by all these experiences, and I'm wondering why. You seem to be a pretty intelligent young man, and you can be strongly impressed by some things. That's going to take a little time to figure out, but in the meantime, let's get on with the problem of your brother. Look, why don't you bring him around and introduce me to him?”

“Oh, that's fine. But I couldn't introduce you to him as a minister or as somebody that's going to help him.”

“No. What does he do?”

I told him that Pimp was going to school and that he was working. I said I thought there was no problem that he would go back on drugs now, but I didn't feel as though I could leave the city without being certain that he was out of the woods and on his way.

Reverend James said, “Well, you've been here all this time. Has your presence here prevented him from getting on drugs?”

I didn't answer that question. I said, “I couldn't go and leave him. That's all. I couldn't do that.”

Reverend James said, “Okay, bring him around when you get a chance.”

I promised him that I would.

The next time I saw Pimp, he told me that he had stopped going to school.

“Why, man? I thought you went for it.”

He said, “Yeah, but I didn't like what they were teaching me, man. They didn't give me the courses that I wanted to take.”

“You could always change.”

“Yeah, but I messed around in these for eight weeks. I just got tired of that typing and all that kind of stuff.”

“Uh-huh. Well, so what are you gonna do now?”

“I'm gonna wait until the next term starts, then I'm going back.”

“Okay.” I felt a little bad about it, but I knew that I couldn't force anything on him. I didn't mention Reverend James.

About a week later, I went uptown to see the folks. I said, “How's Pimp?”

Mama said, “He's eatin' a lot of sweets.”

It was a big blow; it sort of knocked me down. It didn't really frighten me; it just made me very tired. I was depressed. It knocked all the heart out of me, all the fight. All I could do was say, “Well, it
doesn't mean that he's usin' stuff, Mama, just because he eats a lot of sweets.”

Mama wouldn't look up. She was doing one of the neighborhood kid's hair. She said, “No. No, it doesn't really mean that.”

I could hear in her voice that she knew that it was more than just the sweets thing. I said, “You find any works around?”

“No, I didn't find anything.”

“Well, that's not so bad, Mama. I'll talk to him and let you know if it's for real. Did he come home from work yet?”

Mama didn't say anything for a while. I waited, and I knew before she answered. I knew because she waited so long. She said, “He didn't go to work.”

Then I got nervous. I said, “Mama, has he still got his job?”

“I don't know. He just said he was feelin' bad and wasn't goin' in today.”

“Well, Mama, where is he?”

“Oh, he said he was going around Ellen's house. I don't know. Sonny Boy, I don't know where that boy is. I don't know what he's doin'. I don't know nothin' no more. I just don't know. Sometimes I think I'm better off not knowin'. I don't want to know nothin' no more. I don't want to be hurt no more. I don't want to be havin' your daddy tellin' me about I'm a big fool and about? knew it all the time.' I don't want to know nothin'.”

I said, “Yeah, well, I got to find him.” I jumped up and ran out of the house. I was frantic. I just had to find Pimp. I felt as though he was just getting started again, and if I could find him in time, maybe I could save him. Maybe I could do something. Maybe I could stop him.

As soon as I got on the street, I spotted him. He was coming up to the stoop. He was hanging out with some boy from 143rd Street by the name of Joe Norris. I asked him, “Pimp, where you goin', baby?”

He said, “Hey, Sonny. How you doin'?”

I could see he was high and trying to fight it. I said, “Look here, Pimp, why don't you go on upstairs, man?”

He said, “For what?”

“Because you look tired, man. Why don't you go on upstairs and lay down and take it easy?”

Joe Norris said, “Hey, Sonny, how you doin'?”

For some reason or other, I just wanted to hit him. I didn't say
anything to him. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been in a fight in the streets, but I wanted to hit him. I knew I had to put my hands on something, so I grabbed Pimp.

This was how it was with me and the anger thing. It would start building up, and I would think that I had control over it. Then, at the height of this “control,” I'd just lash out at somebody. I grabbed Pimp by the arm and said, “Come on. Let's go upstairs, man, ‘cause I want to talk to you anyway.” I went on toward the stoop.

Pimp said, “Yeah, Sonny, I wanted to talk to you too. I need some money, man. I blew my job.”