Then he asked me something that I thought was odd: “Do you have a comb?”
“What?”
“Do you have a comb?” he repeated as he took his hand and rubbed it over his closely cropped hair.
I nervously looked in my gym bag, despite the fact that I never let anyone use my comb, which I felt was like a toothbrush. But he was a handsome man, and there were always exceptions. I searched but couldn’t find my comb, and I began to apologize.
“That’s okay,” he said with a smile. His manner was different from that of any man I’ve ever met. He had a supreme self-confidence. When he spoke, he looked at me with a penetrating gaze, and I barely heard what he was saying because I was staring at his sensual lips.
We both stared at each other for a couple of nervous moments, and when we started to go our separate ways, I suddenly turned and asked him if he had any plans that evening.
“No, I don’t. What’s going on?”
Fridays in Fayetteville usually meant a beer run to Oklahoma with one of my fraternity brothers. They didn’t sell Coors beer in Fayetteville, which made it seem like it was some expensive champagne. I asked Mason if he felt like riding the thirty miles to Oklahoma, and he quickly said yes. My stomach was filled with nervous energy as we walked to my car, which was now a royal blue Mustang.
It was a crisp, cool evening, and the autumn leaves were at their most brilliant; the campus trees appeared on fire with colors of gold and red. I felt like I was driving though an autumn postcard.
During the drive, I learned that Mason was from northern California, right outside of Oakland, and was a highly recruited athlete. We talked about sports and cheerleading, as well as who was screwing whom on campus. Of course, we covered male-female liaisons only.
It was around eight when we arrived back in Fayetteville. We had actually stopped the car to take a leak in opposite directions while viewing the gathering dusk. In a bold move on my part, I invited him back to my apartment to drink the beer, and he smiled and said, “I was hoping you’d ask.”
When we got back to my apartment, I put on Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” and then Norman Connors’s “You Are My Starship” as we sat on my pale green sofa drinking beer.
I got up to use the rest room once again, then stopped in my tiny kitchen to get a couple more beers for Mason and me. When I closed the refrigerator door, Mason was standing directly in front of me. He smiled as I gave him a beer, and I was starting to feel nervous.
“Do you consider yourself open-minded?” Mason asked as we walked back to the living room. I could feel his body heat shadowing me as I walked a few steps in front of him. I felt like heat was being applied to a sore muscle.
“Sure.” I smiled as I plopped down on the sofa.
“Are you certain?” he asked as he sat down next to me. This time he was sitting so close that our knees were almost touching.
“Yes, of course I’m certain. Why do you ask?”
Without responding, he grabbed my face, gently cupping it, and then he kissed me. It was a warm, wet kiss, and I realized that this was the first time I had ever kissed a man. It felt right, like the most natural thing in the world; what I had been waiting for all my life. Aided by the juicy fullness of his lips, Mason continued to kiss me, moving his tongue down my throat with authority.
When we stopped for a few moments, Mason pulled me close to his well-muscled body and whispered, “I think I’m in big trouble” with a wicked smile. His voice was soft, in strong contrast with the deep-voiced way he had previously been speaking. I didn’t say anything, but I was smiling all over. For a brief moment, I closed my eyes as the music took control of me, then suddenly realized that there was no music playing in my apartment.
THE NEXT MORNING, I was awakened by the sounds of the Razorback marching band and a shattering band of light seeping through my bedroom window. As I rubbed my eyes, I suddenly remembered crawling into bed with Mason the night before and that I had to be on campus for an alumni pep rally before the football game.
I wondered what had happened to Mason, and if I had dreamed the entire wonderful and unbelievable encounter. I looked around my bedroom for a note with maybe his phone number and couldn’t remember if I had given him mine.
I showered and headed to campus, where hours later I was leading cheers amid a sea of red-clad, hog-hat-wearing Razorbacks fans. But I wasn’t thinking about the cheers or the game—the only thought my head had room for was Mason Walker.
After the game, a young lady I had been casually dating, Cherri Jones, met me down on the field all ready to spend the rest of the weekend with me. I had decided that I would never be seen in the stadium wearing my cardinal and white cheerleader uniform without a beautiful young lady holding my hand.
But on this day I didn’t want to be with Cherri; as nice and beautiful as she was, she was starting to get on my nerves with her constant need for touching and kissing.
When we got back to my apartment, she laid her head on my shoulder as she gently stroked my face and I gazed at the television, half listening to it, half listening to her, thinking of Mason, when I heard a knock on my door. I jumped up from the sofa to open the door. I figured it might be one of my fraternity brothers who lived in the same complex, but it wasn’t. It was Mason, standing there with a huge smile on his face. He was preparing to walk in and hopefully give me a hug and kiss, when he noticed Cherri sitting on the sofa.
Mason stopped and asked me if I knew where some guy whose name I didn’t recognize lived. I asked him if he knew the apartment number. I guess I made up a number and told him to check the directory on the front of the building. He smiled and left.
Now I really wanted Cherri out of my apartment and back in her dorm, especially when she commented on how fine Mason was and how he acted like he knew me. I told her she was crazy and that I wasn’t feeling well and maybe I should take her back to campus.
When I got back to my apartment, I prayed Mason would come back, but there was no knock at the door. All night I kept playing “You Are My Starship” and LTD’s “Love Ballad” as I drank beer and thought of Mason.
The next morning I went to St. James Baptist Church, the only black church in town, with hopes of seeing Mason. I had seen athletes there several times, and he had mentioned that his father was a minister back in California. I didn’t see Mason or any other athletes, but I did see the back of Cherri’s head and I left immediately.
I spent the day wandering around my apartment, my body filled with nervous energy, hoping that Mason would again knock at my door. Just before dusk arrived, I went to the stadium to run and work off my anxiety. After running a few laps, I noticed some guys at the end of the field playing catch. One of them from the back looked like Mason. I stopped running and just stared down the field. A few seconds later, as if my hope had willed him to, Mason turned around. When he saw me, he smiled but didn’t come toward me. Instead, he turned and kept tossing the ball to a white guy.
I decided I wasn’t going to leave without speaking to him, so I ran a few more laps. Sweat was sliding into my eyes when I heard someone running up behind me and calling my name. I stopped and turned to see Mason standing directly in front of me with a huge smile.
“I thought I’d never see you,” he said.
“I was beginning to feel the same way,” I said nervously as I allowed my tired body to collapse onto the hard Astroturf field. Mason joined me, and in the empty stadium covered in a silver dusk, our eyes looking toward the sky, we talked and talked. I felt calm and certain that life had now decided to be fair. That I wouldn’t have to spend my life looking for love only to end up brokenhearted. On that evening the full cycle of infatuation began and ended, and I started to fall in love with someone who would love me back for the first time in my life.
CHAPTER 9
On a sunny Saturday in May, I graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and more than twenty of my family members were present. My mother, gran
dmother, and Aunt Gee and Uncle Charles from Atlanta were in the crowd of well-wishers. The only close family member missing was my middle sister, Zettoria, who was in a Little Rock hospital busy delivering my first nephew, Corey Lynn. I was not pleased when I found out that my sixteen-year-old sister was pregnant, but after I saw my nephew for the first time I couldn’t be mad at her.
I was especially happy to have my mother at my graduation. She had experienced serious medical issues during my senior year but had instructed everyone in the family to keep it from me because she didn’t want anything to affect my school work and pending graduation. It was not until after her successful surgery that Aunt Gee filled me in. Of course, I was extremely upset, because the thought of life without my mother was unbearable.
After seeing my family off the next Sunday morning, I loaded up my Mustang and followed Butch Carroll on a six-hour drive to Dallas and my new job as a sales trainee for IBM. Butch, who had received a new silver Camaro from his parents, had gotten a job with Foley’s Department Store in Houston and had rented a small trailer and agreed to haul some of my junk.
I was mixed with joy and regret as I left Fayetteville. Joy because of the accomplishments I had achieved at the university, and regret because I was leaving behind the first man I had fallen in love with and who said he loved me.
Mason had stirred such strong, delicious feelings within me that I’d almost turned down my coveted position at IBM in order to remain close to him as he completed his education.
My relationship with Mason was a good, but not perfect, first love. It wasn’t perfection because like many gay relationships, our time was shrouded in shame, secrecy, and stolen moments. He had become the first person in my life who displayed his love for me (though in private) not only emotionally, but physically as well. Our sex life was amazing. No longer did I have to leave a dance daydreaming about being with one of the handsome men on campus. I knew there would be a knock on my door before morning arrived.
After a glorious fall semester, Mason’s girlfriend from California transferred to the university, and her presence caused enough friction to threaten our relationship. I never met her, and she didn’t know that I existed, but I saw her hanging around the athletic complex and coming in and out of the jock dorm. I still saw a lot of Mason during the spring semester, but not as much as I had come to expect after we first met. Once again I had to become comfortable with the pain and disappointment of being alone, since now I was less interested in keeping up the pretense of being involved with a woman although I still took women to fraternity sporting events.
Mason, on the other hand, dated several women, both black and white, and was close friends with one of the most homophobic athletes on campus. When I look back on my relationship with Mason, I realize that his actions would prepare me for future loves.
I convinced myself that if I couldn’t be with Mason totally, then Arkansas was the last place I wanted to be. It was time to move on, and perhaps absence would indeed make the heart grow fonder.
I HAD NEVER PLANNED A CAREER in sales, especially in the highly technical arena of computers. I thought about going to law school, mainly because I thought it would bring me the middle-class life I craved. I was pretty certain I could have my pick of law schools because of my grades and extracurricular activities. I even got calls from recruiters from several law schools urging me to apply, but I missed several important admission deadlines because of all my commitments. It was the late seventies and affirmative action was in full force, and I knew I was a prize catch. Today, I would have a hard time getting a lot of these schools to even look at my application, much less pressure me.
I had been lucky when it came to grades at the university. Several semesters, in many classes, my grades would hover between A’s and B’s, but because many professors knew who I was from my campus activities they would give me the benefit of the doubt; if I had an 88 or 89 average, say, which was usually a B, I would get an A–, which still translated to four points. One summer session, I was expecting to finish with a 3.00 average but ended up with a perfect 4.00. I had developed the gift of gab that would help me with my grades and would later help me with my sales career.
IBM had recruited me because of my grades and accomplishments, and because I had scored the highest of any minority student on their technical aptitude test. The white recruiter told me in disbelief, “In all my years of giving this test, I’ve never seen a Negro student score this high.”
I think I scored high on the test because I didn’t feel pressure to do well after the recruiter had told me during our initial interview that he didn’t think I would do well because of my liberal arts background, but that I should take the test anyway. Before the test, he had told me he would recommend me to IBM Office Products, which sold typewriters and didn’t require a technical aptitude. IBM salary offers were almost double what journalism graduates were being offered, and I thought I could work for a couple of years, save some money, and then go east for law school or journalism school.
Deep down I know I really took the job because of the reactions of my peers and professors when they found out I had been offered a job by IBM. They were all impressed, with many telling me I’d be foolish to turn down such an opportunity, and I, with my low self-esteem, was impressed that they were impressed.
Still, it amazes me when I think back on getting a job with IBM, a company very concerned with image. For my final interview with the branch manager, I wore a black open-collar shirt with a gold chain around my neck. My suit was a well-worn navy blue double-knit number with a matching vest. In addition, I had one of the largest Afros ever known to man, which I would braid nightly to ensure height and bounce.
On my first day at IBM, my fashion fiasco continued when I wore a modest Sears & Roebuck gray pin-striped suit that had a certain shine to it, with a pink shirt and a brown and blue clip-on tie. I didn’t know how to tie a regular tie.
My first manager, Leon Creed, a well-dressed black man, called me into his office after our first lunch meeting. Leon was fair-skinned and had green eyes and straight auburn-colored hair, and I didn’t realize he was African American until he told me he had attended Howard University. Then I took a closer look at him and realized that he was black.
“Lynn, have you ever heard of Brooks Brothers?” he asked.
“No sir, I haven’t,” I said.
Leon told me he was giving me an advance on my first month’s salary and suggested I take the afternoon to go to a store called Brooks Brothers and see a man whose name he wrote down on a card. “Tell him I sent you, and don’t leave until you’ve spent every penny,” he instructed.
As I was leaving his office excited about my new wardrobe, Leon had one more piece of advice. “Lynn, when you leave Brooks Brothers, burn that suit,” he said, and smiled.
On my first day at IBM, I had my first dress-for-success lesson. The first of many lessons I would learn.
“MY NAME IS LYNN HARRIS, Dallas branch, and I don’t know what in the hell I’m doing here,” I joked in a classroom designed like those found in many Ivy League law schools. My fellow classmates warmed me with their laughter, but I was serious. What had I gotten myself into?
I was in Endicott, New York, for my first IBM training class, and on the first morning we were instructed to give our name, the office where we worked, and our academic background. Everyone who preceded me proudly announced impressive educational résumés from some of the country’s top universities. In addition, the majority had advanced degrees, and those who didn’t had backgrounds in engineering. I was one of three African Americans in a class of forty-six.
One of the conditions of employment with IBM was the successful completion of a sixteen-month training program, which was considered tougher than most MBA programs. I was suddenly ashamed of my University of Arkansas degree and my family background once again. Failure loomed as a real possibility in a situation where I desperately wanted to succeed. Now it didn’t matter what my college G
PA had been or what I had scored on an aptitude test. IBM was not playing. A valuable lesson about competition in the real world was on tap for me in this quiet, upstate community.
A score of seventy-five was required to pass the course. I didn’t think making a seventy-five would be difficult, even though the material was extremely difficult. The memorization skills I had acquired in college were not going to help here.
I studied with every free moment I had for the first test. I scored seventy-three. I made a lot of dumb mistakes, partly because I didn’t know how to use a calculator correctly. In college I had had only one math course, something called Math for Liberal Arts Students. I think they just wanted to make sure students could add and subtract.
After my exam came back, I called my boss, and he already knew I had failed the test. He was supportive and told me he knew I could do it. Some of my classmates were actually afraid that their scores in the low nineties would disappoint their managers. All Leon, my manager, wanted me to do was pass the course, so all I needed was a seventy-seven on the next exam since they average the two scores. I assured Leon that I would make that and more. In many ways, I wanted to do well not only for myself, but for Leon. He was the first black sales manager in Dallas, and he and his wife Susan had quickly become my surrogate family and among the few friends I had in Dallas.
The next week I studied harder than I ever had in my life. I felt it was next to impossible for me to fail the second exam. Afterward I was so confident that I called Leon and assured him that I had passed with flying colors. He told me he was happy that I was so confident, but if I failed, it wasn’t the end of the world. I ended the conversation by saying, “Don’t worry. I aced the test!”
Leon responded, “Well, well, no matter what, you’ll be just fine.”
When my second exam came back, I was devastated by my score: seventy-four. Again I had made dumb mistakes. I stared at my test paper and was stunned that I had failed a class I had worked so hard to pass. My classmates around me bragged about their scores, but no one asked me what I had made. I guess they could tell from my stone-faced daze. After everyone had left the classroom for a celebration, I remained seated at my desk as tears started to run down my face uncontrollably. Not only had I failed, but I had let Leon down and embarrassed my race in front of my white Ivy League–confident classmates. I felt lower than low.
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