by Wallace Ford
I can honestly say that I have never had any thoughts, one way or the other, about going “uptown.” I have too many white friends and black friends who wonder at the fact that not only do I go to Emily’s on 110th Street, Sylvia’s on Malcolm X Boulevard, and Londel’s on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, but that I also go to the St. Nick’s Pub on St. Nicholas Avenue for the late Monday night jazz jam sessions.
From the reactions of some of these friends, you would think that I had gone skydiving into some Hawaiian volcano or Rollerblading through some forgotten Bosnian minefield. In point of fact I don’t know of any place on earth where I can find the combination of food, camaraderie and music. So I go uptown, to Harlem. For me, it is as simple as that.
But these are the United States. And nothing ever seems to be simple. After all, the losers of this country’s only civil war seem to think that it is a point of pride to be able to fly the flag of a lost cause.
Indeed, I have read that in particularly desperate political times some people run for the office of President of the United States defending the righteousness and correctness of being able to fly this flag of a lost cause over government buildings.
This is also a country where black people can be positively adored for their athletic and musical accomplishments and arrested for “Driving While Black” on the very same day, with a gratuitous beating thrown in for good measure. This is a fascinating country indeed.
As a matter of fact, I must confess that while I truly admire, respect and enjoy the company of my black friends and colleagues, I have not, for one minute, ever wished that I were a black American. This is not the kind of thing that I would announce during Sunday brunch at Josephine’s, but as a matter of self-preservation and survival, it is not a wish that I would ever make or ever want to come true.
To tell the truth, I sometimes wonder how black people in this country are able to cope with the obvious and the discreet affronts to their very humanity on a daily basis. They see people, like me, come from all over the world, with no claim to citizenship or any special rights, and we immediately receive better treatment, and more importantly respect, than most of them will ever receive.
In some ways, it is what makes The Pride all the more amazing to me. It is difficult enough to be successful in America, no matter what your color or ethnicity. I have traveled extensively through Europe and I can state without fear of contradiction that on its slowest day the United States is a hundred times more competitive than any aspect of its European counterpart. To paraphrase the song, if you can make it in the United States, you can make it anywhere.
There is something about the American ethic, the American psyche, the American mind-set, which makes being the biggest, the fastest, the best, to be the most important achievement of all. It’s almost as if Americans intentionally disavow the concept of mortality and race headlong into tomorrow, trying to win, buy, and own everything, as if there is some permanence to these achievements. The U.S. is not a slow racetrack—it has never been, and it certainly will not be slowing down anytime soon.
I spend some of my leisure hours reading American history and it was interesting for me to find out that in the late sixties and early seventies the United States was actually lagging behind the Europeans and Japanese in terms of productivity and modernization. The decline of the American “empire” was predicted by many an observer. This so-called decline was probably born of the indolence and complacency that can affect any competitor that is so far ahead of the field—which was certainly the case for the U.S. in the period after World War II through the sixties. What a wake-up call the so-called decline turned out to be.
Since that time American industry in all of its aspects—financial services, construction, and manufacturing—has retooled, retrenched, restructured and rethought itself into an incredible economic engine. Further, all the Americans in business that I know seem to pursue success and tomorrow’s dollar as if there will never be enough, as if someone is chasing them, as if another “decline” is always around the corner. That deep-seated, well-hidden, never-articulated fear must be a tremendous incentive because it has manifested itself in a frantic, frenetic business fury that I have never seen in Europe. Maybe it exists in Japan or China, but I doubt that it could be so deep-seated in the culture and so maddeningly pervasive.
And that’s a real long way for me to say that for black Americans who face some form of prejudice, bias, and discrimination every day of their lives to be so successful in the face of such obstacles in such an incredibly competitive environment, is truly amazing. Like the members of The Pride.
I can tell you I stand in awe of these men and women who have “made it” in America. I sometimes wonder if they must be supermen and superwomen. I know that they are not, but I also know that they are very special. I have also come to learn that they are very human, subject to the same frailties and failings as possessed by those who would try to stop them and keep them down. After all, it must be hard to try to overcome your adversary every day of your life without finally becoming very much like your adversary in the process. How ironic, indeed.
CHAPTER 19
Sture
A view from the pew
Take the guest of honor at the memorial service—Winner Tomlinson. I only knew him through Paul and Diedre and through his being a guest at the Water Club and at Dorothy’s. But I also came to learn of his incredible achievements by paying attention and reading the papers.
His ascent to the very pinnacle of business achievement in this country was nothing short of amazing. It was almost as if he willed it to happen and it did. He was a force of nature, and if only out of respect, I wanted to attend the memorial service that morning.
But there was more. I had also heard the comments of some of the less than discreet white patrons at both restaurants when they assumed that they were out of earshot of anyone who would care when they referred to Winner as a “black-assed nigger” and a “colored buffoon.” My blond hair, blue eyes, and Scandinavian accent give me the perfect camouflage in these kinds of situations. Most of my white friends, colleagues and patrons just cannot imagine having a close, personal friendship with a black person and it came as little surprise to me that many of these same whites would utter the most foul and tasteless comments about black Americans. Even about the members of The Pride. Even about Winner Tomlinson.
Experiences like that have helped me to realize that in the boardrooms and executive suites of Wall Street and corporate America, there were minefields, booby traps and trapdoors waiting for the members of The Pride every day. Somehow many of them foiled their adversaries, at least enough times to keep up a winning percentage. Personally, I have found that singular and collective achievement to be absolutely incredible.
Clearly Winner had prevailed and it just could not be too cold for me to come and pay my respects to him and his family. His feet of clay would be something to contemplate on another day but not this one.
As I entered the church I could see Paul and Diedre engaged in an animated discussion about …? Well, who knows? While they are my business partners and friends, I have been determined to stay out of their personal life.
But one could not help but observe what an “interesting” non-couple they were. Of course they had been married and of course they had been seriously estranged for years. That is, before the completion of the “Paris Peace Talks.”
Legend has it that after he and Diedre had been divorced for about ten years, Paul appeared at Diedre’s condominium apartment door with a bouquet of Sterling roses, a bottle of Pommery champagne and round trip Concorde tickets to Paris with a suite at the George V waiting. Legend also has it that he simply refused to take “no” for an answer and that they spent a weekend in Paris sorting out their differences. They had become human and humane to one another ever since, acting something akin to the way civilized couples behave once they are no longer a couple.
What most people didn’t know, because they don’t pay attenti
on, or because they are easily deceived, or because they believe what they want to believe, is that Paul and Diedre danced around the slightly glowing embers of passion and love almost daily. They tried to pretend that there was nothing there but friendship. They dated other people. They were strictly about business in their business together. And somehow they just managed to sit together at the memorial service for Winner Tomlinson.
But if you really paid attention, you could see arcs of some nameless energy pass between them from time to time, usually for a reason apparent only to the two of them. I make my living knowing and understanding people, and it has always been clear to me that if Paul and Diedre live to be a hundred years old, they will still be “a couple” no matter what.
Though I do have to confess that it is fun watching them pretend that there is nothing going on between them. And once you know, it is hilarious watching them act as if they are just pals, just friends. And on a serious note, it is reassuring to know that real love can never die and that it never really goes away. It may wear many disguises and hide from the misguided and the deceived, but true love never goes away.
It was comforting to think about such things that winter morning as the crowd in the Riverside Church started to settle down. Soon the Tomlinson family would file in and take their appointed positions in the first two rows of pews. And then it would be time for the services to begin.
CHAPTER 20
Gordon
Make way for Mr. Perkins
I was born in New Rochelle, New York. New Rochelle is the home of the mythical Rob and Laura Petrie and the legendary Coalhouse Walker. I don’t really give a shit about it one way or another, but it passes for a conversation piece in some circles.
I have to admit that attending Winner’s memorial service made me feel strange in two ways. First, it always unnerves me when contemporaries die because it could always mean that I could be next. That is a concept I just don’t like. Never have. Never will.
Second, there is nothing I can do at a memorial service except be there. I really don’t give a shit how it sounds, but the truth is that there is nothing that I can do for the “dearly departed” and most of the crying and moaning and wailing is phony anyway. And in any event, there are deals to be done, money to be made, and none of that is happening at anybody’s memorial service. I feel like I am losing money every moment I am sitting at one of these jackleg events—just like the dinners, banquets, and receptions that I have to endure so often.
I knew that this was one of those functions that I “have” to attend, so I was there, with my knucklehead wife, Kenitra. She is a great decoration for the arm and I know I have everybody’s attention with that pretty bitch in tow, but she has really been getting on my nerves lately. But that’s a story for another time.
Like I mentioned, I was born in New Rochelle, historically one of the first real suburbs of New York City. I was an altar boy at the Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church in town, and went on to New Rochelle High School where I graduated with honor.
In grade school, I was the fat boy that you always teased. I grew up almost thinking that my real name was “Fat Butt” or “Melon Head.” No one ever thought that I had feelings that might merit consideration. It was a tough lesson, but I learned—no one is on my side but me.
By the time I got to high school the fat started to redistribute itself around muscle and mass. I became a star fullback/linebacker on the football team. I still love to hit, I just don’t get the chance very often.
I was also an All State wrestler in the heavyweight division. No one dared to call me “Fat” anything, of course, but I never forgot that the people who are kissing your ass today might be kicking your ass tomorrow. It’s a lesson that my father never let me forget. And I have always tried to take his advice, even though he has been dead for ten years now.
My father was a master sergeant in the United States Army and served in the European theater during World War II. One of the lesser known facts about American history is that the threads of racism have been so deeply woven into the fabric of the American heart and soul that, even during the course of the life and death struggle with Nazis and rapidly spreading world fascism, the American armed forces had serious official restrictions regarding black soldiers participating in combat. Combat was the domain of The White Man. Any other approach would defy the Forces of Nature.
Although many young black American men wound up serving and dying in combat anyway, there were many like my father, Master Sergeant Julian Perkins, who were deemed fit only to handle supply and support functions. This resulted in an illustration of what my erstwhile buddy, Mr. Smart Ass Paul Taylor, calls the Law of Unintended Consequences.
The intent of the policy of segregating black and white troops during World War II was hardly benign, in that it was created in the wicked pit of racism and hatred. The unintended consequence was that not as many black soldiers died in World War II as might have been the case if the more “enlightened” policies of the Vietnam War had been in effect. Ain’t that a bitch?
And there’s more. As a result of that bullshit policy, a lot more black men survived the war, and a lot more black children were born into the time of the First Great American Baby Boom and the era of unlimited possibilities that was the United States after World War II. Going even further with the absurdity of Paul’s Law of Unintended Consequences, the young black men who survived World War II were self-selected—many of the brightest, most ambitious, law-abiding citizens with the greatest potential of the pool of young black people in America at that time.
Another “unintended” result was that Julian Perkins, a young man just up from Charlotte, North Carolina, didn’t learn any specialized combat skills that wouldn’t have had any utility in the real world anyway. Instead, he learned skills related to supplies, logistics, record keeping, and accounting. In other words, he learned skills that would be much more important than shooting, demolitions or bayoneting in the coming peacetime business/boom environment.
After the war my father completed the requirements for his high school diploma, went to Hampton University, courtesy of the G.I. Bill, yet another illustration of Paul’s law. Ultimately he became the comptroller for a small trucking firm in Westchester County and there he met and married my mother, the former Aretha Patchett, the only daughter of lifelong schoolteachers in nearby Mount Vernon. And it was in Westchester County that I was born.
My mother and father told me that everyone knew that I was special, almost from the time that I was born. I was speaking before I was a year old and reading before I was three. I entered Blessed Sacrament Elementary School in New Rochelle at the age of five and by November of my first year in school I was in the second grade.
My father may have been the initial beneficiary of Paul’s Law of Unintended Consequences, but I know that my father was a summa cum laude graduate of The School of Hard Knocks. He and his family had survived the Great Depression and World War II and white people by being tough—always tougher than the other guy. And from the time I knew anything, I knew that there was no other way.
I know now that my father was tough on me because he wanted me to be ready for anything. And tough is what I became. At a very early age I knew, just knew, that I didn’t give a shit about anybody, nobody but my mother, my father, and myself. After that, everyone just had to get in fucking line. That’s just the way it is with me to this very day.
But you can ask anyone. I do not bullshit. I cannot bullshit. I don’t try to trick and smile and weasel my way into anyone’s good graces. I am who I fucking am, and I don’t really give a shit whether you like it or not. Just don’t fuck with me. Because, simply put, I am not someone to be fucked with.
Just ask my ex-boss who used to work for me. You heard me right. This asshole was the head of the municipal bond trading unit at Goldman Sachs, which was where I worked when I first got out of business school. After a couple of years of being one of the top performers I asked this idiot about a raise
and what kind of time frame I could anticipate before I would be considered for partnership.
I will never ever forget being told in no uncertain terms that there was “no fucking way” that I would ever even be considered for partnership at Goldman Sachs. I also recall being told that if that was on my mind, I should just pack up my shit and get out right then and there. I have to tell you, for one of the few times in my life, I was just stunned into stone fucking silence.
I don’t remember all of the details of what happened next except that I did call my soon to be ex-boss every kind of motherfucker I could think of while packing up my shit and going out the door. At that moment I had no idea of what I was going to do next.
Of course what I did do next is borrow some cash from my now ex-father-in-law and set up G.S. Perkins and Company. Initially, we got our business doing the same municipal finance deals that a lot of other black firms were doing. But I could see that diversification was going to be the wave of the future and that the white folks were going to try and strangle the municipal golden goose as soon as possible.
So G.S. Perkins is also into asset management and we are currently negotiating with Merrill Lynch about co-managing an investment fund that focuses on biotech industries. I am also in serious discussions with Bear Stearns concerning co-managing another fund that focuses on the internet. As the Chairman and CEO of G.S. Perkins I can tell you that we are doing very well indeed.
So well that about three years ago I hired that dumb asshole from Goldman Sachs who told me to pack my shit. One of my most pleasant experiences in recent memory was calling him up while he was in Akron, Ohio, on firm business and telling him that he was fired and that all of his corporate credit cards were canceled. So he would have to get home the best way he could.
