The Pride

by Wallace Ford

  I had to marvel at how, in one sentence, she managed to make sure that I remembered that she had been the first black partner at one of the top law firms in America, that she held a very, very important job in the biggest city in America, and that she was a confidante of the first black mayor of New York City.

  Bonita Woolsey was one of those people that you could stand being around for about … ten nanoseconds. After that she seemed to be the manifestation of all annoyances. There was her braying laugh, her phony veneer barely covering the nudity of her hypocrisy and her unbridled ambition. And probably worst of all was her clear disdain for everyone and everything she surveyed. She was possessed of the unshakable belief that Bonita Woolsey was the undeniable center of the only universe that counted—hers.

  What I remember most about her that morning was her … teeth. After all, I had to be cordial, my business, and that of some of my best clients, was connected to the peremptory whims of the esteemed Ms. Woolsey. I have always felt that I could stand the company of anyone if business was involved.

  So I was prepared to converse with Bonita and to make sure that at the end of our conversation I had done everything to make sure that my business interests were unimpeded and unscathed. But her teeth! My God!

  All of her front teeth seemed to wander in boldly independent directions, making her smile seem something straight out of a Salvador Dali painting, perhaps during his mescaline period. But on this particular morning there was—could it be?—something was clearly stuck between her two front teeth.

  Was it this morning’s whole wheat toast or, heaven forbid, last night’s collard greens? There was no way of knowing, and that was information that I simply never wanted to know. There is such a thing as too much information. This was a living, breathing, braying illustration.

  But her particle-ridden smile was hypnotic, and as we chatted, I felt myself trying to resist staring. It was like trying not to look at a hairy mole that resembled Mount Everest or a scar in the shape of a palm tree or a tattoo of the image of the Virgin Mary on someone’s neck.

  “If it was going to be an easy job, Bonita, Mayor Dinkins never would have needed to choose you.” I felt my eyes wander toothward.

  I simply had to find a distraction. Anything would suffice. I could feel myself approaching the precipice of disaster, which beckoned, begging me to make the jump into the abyss of mockery and perdition. It was simply too early in the day for this kind of bullshit.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Taylor. But to tell the truth, the private sector never seemed more appealing. When Mayor Dinkins gets reelected this year, I have promised him one more year and then I’m back at S & S, unless a better offer comes along.”

  “That’s understandable, Bonita. You have certainly served your time.” I remember thinking, why is she telling me this? And then I found out.

  “I know that our conversations are always off the record, but this is really and truly off the record, okay?”

  “Bonita, my lips will be sealed for eternity.” A few more cars were pulling up to let off passengers in front of the church. The press was starting to stake out their positions for their television cameras and still photographers.

  The sun was bright and it was still frightfully cold. I continued my silent, subliminal prayer for someone, anyone, to rescue me from the impending risk of embarrassment and professional doom. No one came.

  “Frankly Paul, I am seriously thinking of going back to the practice of law. Of course my former partners at S & S will have been back in a heartbeat. But I think that I am ready for new challenges.”

  “You have already overcome so many challenges, Bonita (I suddenly, and with horror, realized that a subtle insult might be perceived and prayed that it would fly below her radar. It did.), what mountains are left for you to conquer?”

  I must confess that at this particular moment I had not a clue that this conversation was about to take a more than serious turn. After all, I was just making conversation and trying to stay occupied until the doors of the church opened. I was also trying not to stare at Bonita’s many and multi-angled teeth.

  “Let me get right to the point, Paul. We can talk about this later. But I want you to think about us being partners. With your experience and my contacts we would be quite a team. I think ‘formidable’ would be a good word, don’t you? I can make money at S & S, but I don’t kid myself, I can be there for one hundred years and I will be a partner in name only. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if that is what I want anymore. What I do want is a chance to find out how good I can really be. I know that this is something out of left field for you, and that we have to make time to talk about this. But think about it for now, will you?

  “Here comes Mayor Dinkins now, I have to go. Speak to you soon. Ciao!”

  Bonita turned on her stiletto heels and I was truly one stunned buffalo soldier left in her wake. I was reminded of the expression from some old Stepin Fetchit-type film character, “Well slap my face and call me stupid!” And frankly, I could have not been more shocked if Bonita had done just that.

  There was no way that I could even begin to fashion a response to her non-proposal. Although, I must confess that even that at that moment, despite my having something less than warm and fuzzy feelings for Bonita, the practical aspects of our alignment, as she so succinctly pointed out, had some real advantages. Of course, Winner Tomlinson’s memorial service was neither the time nor place for such discussions. But given the flow of events in the near future, it was a discussion that I did not forget. But at that moment, it was time to go into the church.

  CHAPTER 12

  Paul

  Now about that church …

  The Riverside Church is a colossal monument to God built by the colossal fortune of John D. Rockefeller Jr. He was the eldest male heir of the greatest businessman and possibly the most rapacious entrepreneur in American history. We will never really know if he built Riverside Church to atone for his father’s many sins. It may be that he felt that it was more important to fulfill an edifice complex, a construction/ building disorder that was clearly transmitted genetically in its full glory to his son, Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York State a few decades later. Or maybe John D. Jr. just liked Gothic cathedrals. Or maybe he just felt like it.

  It stands like some granite sentinel across Riverside Drive from Grant’s Tomb. As I entered the church that morning, I couldn’t help but think about medieval times in Europe when huge cathedrals were built as part of a socio-political effort on the part of the powerful to keep the powerless occupied.

  After all, idle hands are the workshop of the devil and political dissidents. Revolutionaries and dissidents of varying pedigrees and radically differing degrees of success have been known to also show up when there is some of that nasty idleness lying around.

  The royalty of a particular era would get together with the reigning religious leaders to declare the need for the construction of a monument to God and His everlasting glory. The church would openly and actively support such an initiative from the pulpit. In turn it would support the taxation and control over society by the State that royalty would have to impose in order to finance and complete such a project.

  Since a project like the construction of a gothic church literally took centuries, this meant that generations of the poor and powerless would be employed as poorly paid, but busy, masons, carpenters, stonecutters, glaziers and bricklayers.

  While the Riverside Church did not take generations to complete, there is no doubt in my mind that John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his inherited fortune represented a part of America that could be called royalty. After all, he was the son of the same John D. Rockefeller who engaged in price-gouging and shockingly monopolistic strategies that strangled any hint of competition. And he was the son of the same John D. Rockefeller who employed the rather interesting labor relations tactic of having his employees shoot and kill striking workers (along with their wives and children) at one of his
silver mines.

  John D. Rockefeller probably never felt the need to receive approbation from anyone. On the other hand, John D. Rockefeller Jr. had the luxury of reflection and contemplation. He did not need to build a fortune. His task was to institutionalize it, nurture it, and humanize it. And maybe, at the end of it all, maybe that’s what building the Riverside Church was really all about. Only John D. Jr. himself knows, and he is certainly not telling anyone anything anymore.

  CHAPTER 13

  Paul

  And so it begins

  As I sit listening to Miles Davis riff his way through “Silent Way” with a young Chick Corea, I still can remember so many details of Winner’s memorial service. I certainly remember how cold that day was. I don’t think I will forget my sunrise dalliance with Lisette anytime soon. And it would be hard to ever forget that surreal and bizarre encounter with Bonita Woolsey.

  As the doors of the church opened, the chilled early morning mourners eased their way past the massive wooden doors, searching for their assigned seats so that they could assess the status which had been accorded to them and to others. These things were important to some people.

  I was simply looking for my seat, which I knew would be in a “special” row, given my relationship with Winner. As I turned to go down the center aisle, however, I happened to run into Ed Koch, the former mayor of the City of New York.

  Ed Koch had been defeated by David Dinkins in his bid for a fourth term as mayor. He had been mayor for so long that some younger New Yorkers thought Koch’s first name was “Mayor.” When he was first elected mayor by a coalition of blacks and Puerto Ricans and liberals who found him to be far more progressive than the more “questionable” Mario Cuomo (who later became governor of New York), it was fully and absolutely expected that Ed Koch, the never-married Greenwich Village citizen and native New Yorker, would move forward in the liberal tradition of Robert Wagner, John Lindsay, and Robert Kennedy.

  Ed Koch fooled everyone. He turned out to be the Democratic Mayor of New York who had no problems endorsing Ronald Reagan. He turned out to be the Mayor of New York City who actually bragged about closing the hospitals in the historically black communities of Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant.

  Ed Koch turned out to be the Mayor of New York City who wanted to be portrayed as the one white politician in New York City who would “stand up” to the swarming black and brown mobs who always wanted something, who always wanted more, more and more, who always wanted something for nothing. He was the one Mayor of New York City who would call a spade a spade (so to speak), and not bother to apologize. He was Rudolph Giuliani before there was Giuliani.

  Koch was elected at the end of the Sordid Seventies in New York City. It was a time that had witnessed the President of the United States telling the town and its indomitable people to “drop dead” during its legendary financial crisis. It was a time when the moniker “Sin City” had replaced John Lindsay’s “Fun City.” Being the astute and seasoned politician that he was, Koch decided that he would found his administration on the twin pillars of High Ideals and Good Government. By getting the reformers and good government types on his side, he would be free to show his real colors when the time suited his purposes.

  Prior to his actual inauguration as mayor, he decided to demonstrate his belief in Good Government by selecting only “The Best” as the commissioners who would preside over the Byzantine complex known as New York City government. He established an almost infinite number of screening panels, one for each of the over thirty departments.

  These panels were composed of experts who, in many instances, were in serious need of a life. After all, the Parks Department panel was composed of people who spent their every waking moment worrying about New York City parks (to each his own). Each panel was supposed to interview every possible nominee to be commissioner of their area of expertise. It was not a pretty sight and only the brave need apply.

  The final part of Koch’s Good Government plan was that he would interview the top three survivors of this veritable Iroquois Gauntlet. As fate would have it, he found himself interviewing me, one Paul Taylor, a young, black, Ivy League-type, who was a candidate to be Commissioner of the New York City Department of Human Rights. In 1977, that position really meant something. Legends and leading lights like Eleanor Holmes Norton had held the job in the past. I had no way of knowing that Ed Koch had other plans for that job in the future—namely, evisceration.

  I remember that we met in the basement of a nondescript office building on Park Avenue. I also remember that I was focused and locked in and ready for this job interview. At the time I really wanted to be the next Commissioner of Human Rights of the City of New York. I had come to feel that it was my destiny. I had already convinced myself that I was by far the best person for the position.

  I had read everything about the job. I had done my research. I had already drafted a series of bold and brilliant new initiatives and proposals that I was going to put into effect in my first ninety days in office.

  I knew everything about the job. I was ready for anything that the new mayor could ask me. I wasn’t arrogant or cocky. I was just supremely confident. I was ready.

  And then, after shaking hands and going through some perfunctory résumé questions, he asked his first substantive question, a question which I presumed was meant to begin his serious inquiry into my qualifications for the position of Commissioner of Human Rights for the City of New York.

  “Do you have any white friends?”

  There was a moment of shock, disbelief, and realization before I could say anything. I felt as if I had either lost my hearing or my mind. I tried desperately to recover my equilibrium.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you have any white friends?”

  I have had many interviews and conducted many interviews before and since that fateful meeting. One thing I have learned is that there are times when you know that you have the job or client, no matter what, and there are times when you know that even if you could stand on your head and spit gold doubloons, you are not going to get the job.

  Initially I was shocked that Ed Koch, someone that I knew, albeit tangentially, could ask such a stupid, asinine, bullshit, racist and idiotic question. I could not believe my ears! And then I composed myself and got a grip. I recognized the situation for what it was.

  Ed Koch had no intention of appointing me to this job. His mind had been made up long before he came into the room. And then the perverse streak that I harbor and nurture, a side of me that is rarely exposed to the light of day slipped its leash and made its appearance on center stage.

  “Actually Mr. Mayor, there are very few people who I call friends, and none of them are white But, I do know a few white people if that would help. I think I can actually remember their names if you give me a minute to think.”

  No response to the response. And I must confess to some disappointment as I was hoping to engage in a little rhetorical fandango with this knucklehead who presumed to dupe so many millions. Ed Koch had an agenda that would not be denied, and his mind-set was certainly not going to be disturbed, much less derailed, by a wisecracking nonentity who wasn’t even going to be in his administration.

  “What do you think is the reason for the high level of anti-Semitism in the black community?”

  A Greek chorus in the back of my mind started chanting, “Oh shit!” over and over. The issue was no longer whether or not I would get the job. The question was would I have to fight my way out of the small cubicle in which this interview was being conducted? Koch was not a small guy. And I knew that his biography was lavish in its reference to his being a real deal combat veteran. But the perverse side of me was not going to back down. No way. The fun had just begun.

  “Well, Mr. Mayor, it’s not that we black people hate Jews. We just hate all white people and in many instances , particularly in the ghettos where we live, Jews are usually the only white people that we see. Actually, the black Jews in Harlem don�
�t have a problem at all.”

  There were some perfunctory parting words and that was pretty much the end of the interview. Not only did I not get the job, I didn’t even get a “regrets” letter thanking me for my interest. After that dance with the devil, nothing that Ed Koch did as mayor ever surprised me.

  As I was escorted to my seat by a white-gloved usher (about five rows from the front, immediately behind the Tomlinson family members) there was not too much time to dwell on my Ed Koch saga. As visions of the former mayor evanesced into forgetfulness, I do remember thinking that Winner would have loved the white glove touch, although in his earlier years he had been nothing like a white glove type of guy.

  It was getting close to showtime. It was time to absorb and observe. The memorial service for Winner Tomlinson was another occasion and another reason for The Pride to gather.

  CHAPTER 14

  Paul

  Introducing Diedre and The Pride

  The Pride is the term that I have used to refer to the black men and women, like lions and lionesses, who have risen to prominence on Wall Street, in corporate America, and in the canyons of its law firms, accounting firms and management consulting agglomerations. Being in New York, I am, of course, speaking of the New York version of The Pride. But The Pride is in Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, New Orleans, Oakland, San Francisco, Denver, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. Actually, The Pride is to be found all over America.

  As a charter member of The Pride, I know that we are the beneficiaries of the seismic changes that hit America in the sixties and seventies. It was a change that allowed some black men and women to actually achieve on the basis of their ability and some limited opportunity.

  The Pride consists of some of the most interesting, talented, intelligent, bizarre, insufferable, heroic, treacherous and memorable people that I can ever hope to know. I don’t kid myself, whatever I see in The Pride, the good and the bad, is in me too.