The Pride

by Wallace Ford

  I was only too happy to get out of the kitchen and see the Water Club itself. I couldn’t wait to see the rich and famous of New York City and the world dining under the stars that shone through the skylight over the main dining area. It certainly didn’t matter to me that the cacophony and madness that is any New York City restaurant on a Friday night made the place seem like Bedlam with good food. On that Friday night, as I served wine to actresses and appetizers to Wall Street wizards and entrées to CEOs and desserts to supermodels, I finally felt that I had arrived in New York City. And now I was sure that I never wanted to leave.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sture

  Now introducing …

  I remember the end of that evening. When the last guests had been served and all the tables had been cleaned and set for Saturday’s brunch service, I sat in the now dimly lit dining room sipping some Felipe II brandy, and simply inhaled the wonderful, sentient experience of finally being where I wanted to be. The pianist in the bar just off the dining room was playing George Shearing’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” in a haunting, yet lilting style, and the million billion lights of Manhattan reflected off the waters of the river. Off in the distance I could even make out the microdots of lights that were jumbo jets circling Kennedy Airport, bringing more dreamers like me to America at that late hour.

  It was at this moment that I had my own personal revelation, an epiphany of sorts. The outline of my personal dream came to me. If I could have anything in this wonderful world amidst this explosion of humanity , I would have a restaurant like this. I would serve fine food and great wine and mingle with the best of the best in the world. I would bathe in the reflected starlight of my guests and friends and patrons and be more than happy. I would be fulfilled. At that point all I knew about the restaurant business was how to wash dishes, but one night in an actual restaurant told me that my dream was the right one for me.

  And it was at that point the owner of the Water Club, Buzzy O’Keefe, happened to come by, checking on his restaurant before closing up for the night. I later came to know Buzzy as a very smart businessman, who was able to build a successful restaurant based on his ability to understand people. That particular night he seemed to be able to read my mind, almost seeing my dreams as if they were being broadcast on a wide-screen television. I have never found out if he had the same dreams once upon a time.

  Buzzy noticed me in my late night, after work reverie and told me that he had been watching me and that he liked my work. He offered me a full-time waiter’s position and I accepted it in a heartbeat, afraid that he might change his mind before my dream started to come true and I wound up waking in the darkness of disappointment. And that turned out to be my true beginning in the restaurant business.

  I didn’t learn how to be a good waiter. I learned how to be a great waiter. I also learned how to be a great wine steward and a great maître d’. Our guests have to decide for themselves whether I have become a great restaurateur when they visit Dorothy’s, just south of the Chelsea Piers and north of the World Financial Center, on the west side of Manhattan.

  During the next decade of working my way up the ladder at the Water Club, I learned about a lot more than the restaurant business. I learned about life in the greatest city in the world.

  Working in that restaurant was like having a ringside seat at the wildest, most bizarre and most beautiful circus ever. The Water Club was a veritable epicurean carnival. The supermodels and the tycoons, the actresses and the hustlers, the sycophants and the pseudo-hip, the has-beens and the wannabees, all were part of the cavalcade that I was privileged to observe and serve. There are many jobs that an immigrant from Norway could land in New York City. I have always felt that I got the best. I have no idea what second best would be, but it wouldn’t even be close.

  Even now, as I stand on the deck of Dorothy’s, overlooking the Hudson River’s shimmering wavelets, I reflect upon my good fortune. I also reflect upon the fact that the “Law of Unintended Consequences” controls so much of life. That “law” is a term used by my friend, benefactor and business partner, Paul Taylor.

  Paul is a lawyer, businessman and a charter member of The Pride. Indeed, it was Paul who first made me realize that there was something called “The Pride.” And it was Paul who first introduced me to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

  The law goes something like this—whatever your plan might be, there is always a strong probability that something is going to happen that is totally unplanned. To put it another way, one can be assured that something unplanned will occur as the result of any plan.

  To put it yet another way—be prepared for the unexpected. And it was this law that introduced me to Paul in the first place. It was the law that resulted in my being a part owner and host of Dorothy’s By the Sea.

  Despite its cosmopolitan veneer and its ultraliberal reputation, when it comes to matters of race, New York City can be strangely conservative and segregated. As a schoolchild in Norway I read that there was a time in this country when there were signs on public restrooms, hotels and restaurants, restricting access to whites only. As an immigrant and an outsider I realize that it is easy for me to be critical because the ethnic and racial differences that we in Norway face are much greater.

  Nevertheless, upon getting off my SAS flight in New York City in the late 1980s, I was certain that the racial divide about which I had learned was a thing of the past, especially in New York City. I was also certain that since all the civil rights bills had been passed there was true integration, certainly in a major international city like New York. I could not have been more wrong.

  When I was working in the kitchens of various restaurants, I had no idea of what was going on outside in the serving area. A dirty plate needs washing. That was all I needed to know. However it was not too hard to notice certain realities when I started working the tables at the Water Club. The first time I could take a moment to look around it was obvious—the complexion and racial makeup of the patrons made me think I had made a wrong turn coming out of the kitchen and that I was back in Oslo. Where were the black people?

  I often wondered why a question like this would even come to the mind of one of the finest sons of Bergen, Norway. And I realized that the answer was simple and so very obvious.

  When I came to America, I had seen black people on virtually all the sports programs and in many movies and television shows. Black music, black fashion, and black style seemed to me to be very real aspects of American culture. As someone observing America through various media presentations, black people seemed to me to be a major and significant component of American culture, a far greater proportion than the 12 percent of the population that black people represent.

  It was with a dawning realization that I finally noticed that very few black people came into the Water Club as guests. Over the years, I learned that it was not just the Water Club—it could be Lutece, the Gotham Grill, “21,”—it was almost as if someone had hung a “Whites Only” sign on the door that only blacks could see and read.

  A dozen years later I am still trying to come to grips with this New York City phenomenon. Many books have been written and many books will be written about it. It correctly characterizes New York City as the most diverse and cosmopolitan city in the world. Yet this city is virtually segregated at the highest levels of commerce, culture and social intercourse.

  True to the Law of Unintended Consequences, it would stand to reason that, at a place like the Water Club, the de facto segregation was noticeable. And, true to the Law of Unintended Consequences, and in a strange and almost predestined way, it would stand to reason that I would come to know Paul Taylor and learn about The Pride.

  It would also stand to reason that meeting Paul and learning about The Pride would open yet another new and exciting chapter in my life.

  CHAPTER 4

  Paul

  Mourning in the morning

  I can’t remember when I fell in love with the night. I know that I
am a true night person. I have to work too long and too hard through too many daylight hours for that to be actually the case. But it must have been more than long ago that the night became a real part of my life.

  I cannot tell you when I became enamored of reading and writing and thinking and loving and dreaming in the middle of the night. I just know that it is a part of me, and that nighttime will always be a part of me.

  And so it is no surprise to me that I am wide awake, without the benefit of caffeine or anything else, considering the wonder of it all. I am not usually given to boundless introspection, but I have noticed certain changes in my life and myself as of late.

  In another room, on an upper floor in the Harlem town house that is my home, is the absolute treasure of my life, my baby son, Paul Jr., now two years old—“the last gasp of the baby boom” some of my friends have called him—and yet, it was just over three years ago that my life began to change, forever. My story begins on a very specific day that I will always remember.

  There was a memorial service scheduled for that day. But as I attended my friend Winner Tomlinson’s memorial service on a cold January morning, new beginnings and baby boys were definitely not on my mind. Far from it.

  After all, I was a member of The Pride, that select group of black investment bankers, corporate executives, government officials, lawyers, entrepreneurs and assorted professionals who were determined to make it in America. We stalked the majestic canyons of Wall Street and prowled the murderous halls and treacherous boardrooms of corporate America. And we have more than survived, we have prevailed and succeeded, even beyond our wildest dreams.

  And, although I have hated funerals and memorial services for my own personal reasons, I planned to attend the Tomlinson memorial service at the Riverside Church that day, because Winner had been my friend and because, as a charter member of The Pride, it was all about business. I simply had to be there.

  Actually I am getting a little ahead of myself, and if I am going to tell this story right, I have to go back down the stairs of my Harlem town house and pour myself a proper glass of Graham’s Malvedos Vintage Porto (1984). One cannot very well tell a good story without at least a few glasses of good port wine—that’s a given.

  Also, before starting, I want to look in on my son, just because that’s what my father would do, and because it’s what all fathers do—look in on their sons and daughters and make sure that everything is all right. Even when they know that everything is all right, it still makes sense to check.

  Paul Jr. is resting comfortably and Miles Davis is going through his progressions of “Seven Steps to Heaven” on the CD player in his nursery. Paul Jr. has been listening to good music on a regular basis since the third month after his conception. He has been listening to Beethoven, the Soweto String Quartet, Cesaria Evoria from the Cape Verde Islands, Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, John Coltrane, Gary Bartz, Dave Brubeck, Thelonius Monk, and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. It is no wonder that the boy loves music, as does his daddy (and his mommy, but to a significantly lesser extent).

  As I go back to my study to savor the port wine and consider the beginning of my story, I feel very much in the mood for Stan Getz, “Desafinado” conjuring up the right mood. I have always found this Stan Getz selection to be melodic and mysterious in a sambalike way.

  It begins at the memorial service at the Riverside Church for Edwin “Winner” Tomlinson, undoubtedly the most successful black businessman of his time. And now, at the age of fifty-one, in the newborn infancy of his prime, he was dead.

  Who was he? He was a black lawyer in New York City just like me. He was a friend, running buddy, drinking companion and sometime professional colleague. But he was so much more.

  Sometime in the eighties, in the heyday of the capitalist era, Winner decided that billing life by the quarter hour and hunting and gathering clients was not the life for him. He left the life of ordinary lawyering to saps like me. And he never looked back. Not for a single solitary moment. At least that’s how it always seemed to me.

  With luck, consummate skill and the nerve of a one-eyed riverboat gambler, he managed to parlay his part-ownership of a barely profitable UHF television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, into a controlling interest in one of the largest home furnishing manufacturing companies in the world, with facilities throughout the United States, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia. He died with plans waiting for his approval for plants in Nigeria, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, Morocco, Cuba, and South Africa on his desk.

  I always believed that Winner’s success was all the more remarkable because he accomplished his most important early corporate coups with the support and assistance of the now-defunct investment banking firm of Wilson, Pearson and Borderon. WPB, whose very own Master of the Universe, Jake Dusenberg, had gone down in flames before the onslaught of the myriad of junk bond transaction investigations directed by the then-U.S. Attorney, Rudolph Giuliani.

  I remember the time well, and Giuliani was to junk bond traders what Attila the Hun was to the Holy Roman Empire—nothing less than “The Scourge of Christ.” He left nothing but the bones and flayed skin of Wall Street bankers, traders and lawyers in his wake—a legacy that preternaturally ambitious Giuliani parlayed into becoming mayor of New York City.

  Nevertheless, WPB sought to defy the mighty Giuliani—and the entire firm, with its 5,000 employees went down without a trace like a small stone in a big country pond. And at the end of the day, Winner Tomlinson was still standing.

  I remain amazed by those particular facts to this very day. Indeed, the story almost defies the laws of nature as they exist in these United States of America.

  There were some unattributed cocktail stories, the kind told after three or four free martinis, to the effect that Winner had somehow “cooperated” with the federal prosecutor’s office in return for what amounted to immunity from prosecution. These stories were invariably based on no known facts, only the repetition of rumor giving credence to the first rumor in the first place.

  Of course there has never been any proof of such an arrangement. And now that Winner is dead you can pretty much bet that any such proof went to the grave with him.

  There were also stories about the enduring hatred that Jake Dusenberg harbored for his former favored client. I myself have heard many stories about how Dusenberg, after he paid a record $4 billion fine and served thirty months in a minimum security prison, plotted and planned a spectacular revenge against Winner, even as he, Dusenberg, worked on high profile charitable endeavors in black communities around the country as part of his court-ordered community service.

  Once again, Winner came out the winner. He died before Dusenberg could implement whatever plot he might have been hatching. As was the case with a lot of things about Winner Tomlinson, the true story would always be the subject of conjecture, and much of that true story would be buried with him in the soil of his native Alabama, just outside of Birmingham.

  It’s strange how memory works. I can’t remember the names of all the people that were on the conference call that I endured earlier this evening, but I can remember the details of that fateful day as if they were occurring this very moment. Almost like replaying a video.

  Of course I did not know that it was a fateful day at the time. Then, it was just another day in the life of The Pride. It was a day full of the very routine and the very special.

  I do remember that on that January morning it was cold as hell and that I had made myself get up at my normal time of 5:30 A.M. so that I could complete my morning workout and still get in some work time on my computer and telephone before going to Winner’s memorial service. Getting out of bed that morning was a little more of an ordeal than usual due to one Lisette Bailey.

  It would be hard for me to forget Lisette Bailey. She was twenty-seven, five feet nine inches tall, lithe and slender with a tawny, café au lait complexion that perfectly complemented her auburn hair. That hair was spread across my pillow as I s
trove to keep to my conditioning schedule despite the allure of her somnolent beauty.

  “Paul, could you really have a reason to get out of bed so early?” A mischievous smile danced across her face, chasing the sleepy look away, replacing it with an expression that promised to awaken slumbering embers of passion. Fool that I was, I had thought that she was asleep.

  “I am sure that I don’t have a good reason, darling, it’s just that …” to this day I am not quite sure what I was going to say next, but I am sure that it would not have really made a difference.

  “It’s just that what? That you have a reason to do something other than this …? Is that what you are really trying to tell me?” and with that she threw back the bedcovers with a flourish, revealing her gorgeous body, entreating arms and long slender legs waiting to grapple with mine once more.

  “Because if that’s the case, I can just get up right now and start getting ready for work. After all, you aren’t the only one with things to do this morning.”

  The sight of Lisette, naked, warm and luminescent, virtually glowing in the predawn rendered me temporarily speechless. For a few moments I thought that my routine would be broken. After all, I have always thought of myself as a man possessed of discipline and self-control.

  I wish that I could tell you of the triumph of my remarkable discipline and that I simply continued with my workout routine for the day. Actually I returned to bed and Lisette and I continued our lovemaking from the night before. And let me say that, as always with Lisette, it was wonderful.

  A word about Lisette Bailey: just a few words actually. She is not Paul Jr.’s mother, and she is not my wife. My wife, Paul’s mother, is actually my ex-wife Diedre as well, and that is part of the longer story. Like one of those riddles that the Sphinx would tell.

  It is enough for me to say that as this story begins, I was a single, divorced attorney, in his early forties, living alone in a luxurious, remodeled town house in Harlem. My library bar is now a nursery, my gym has been replaced by a guest room, and I now exercise in an unfinished basement with no skylight to brighten my morning labors.