Practicing What You Preach

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  “Sasha—” Marcus began speaking again after he reached his count of ten.

  “Marcus, either you can keep Aaliyah or you can’t. If you can’t, then don’t worry about it. I’ll get—”

  “I’ll keep her, Sasha. Okay.” He knew Sasha was headed toward dumping Aaliyah on anyone she could get to take her no matter how incompetent that person was. “I’ll keep her, but I’m in a wedding on Saturday so I need you to bring two of her dressy dresses with her.”

  “Sure, no problem. I mean, you buy her so many clothes and dresses it’s not like she doesn’t have a closetful. Most of her clothes still have tags on them. I believe that child has more clothes than me, and you know how I am about clothes. So, can I bring her over right now? I’m sort of short on time.”

  “Sure, Sasha. You can bring her over now.”

  “Thanks, Marc,” Sasha said, calling him by the name she used when she was feeling in friendlier spirits.

  Marcus hung up the phone and went to his study, that special place in his home where he usually went to pray, study, or just be alone with God. He sat down in the chair and looked up. “God, please help me. You know I’m trying hard down here. I just don’t understand. I’m doing what You said to do in Your Word. I’m doing what You say right now, acknowledging You in all my ways. I know You never promised this road would be easy, but I really don’t understand sometimes. Lord, if I’m wrong or doing something wrong, please help me to see that. Please order my steps in Your Word. Teach me. Lead me. Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. I desire to walk in Your will. And God, please touch Sasha’s heart so she will be the woman You have called her to be. Not the woman I think she should be, but what You have called her to be. Help me to be more patient and forgiving. This I pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  Marcus thought back to the beginning. How happy he and Sasha had been once upon a time. He reflected on all that had happened, and how much things had changed.

  Chapter 8

  Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

  —Ecclesiastes 9:16

  1993

  Marcus was seventeen and beginning his junior year in high school. He was never one to be mistaken for the athletic type. Unbeknownst to most people at his school, Marcus was really great at shooting a basketball. It was defending the ball from an opponent that caused him the most trouble.

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Brother Man said, his comment directed at Marcus after he and five other friends finished playing a spirited game of basketball at the park. It was a community park that served as the official dividing line between the rich section of the neighborhood and the middle class. The four of them from the middle-class section were walking back to their side of the divide to go home.

  Brother Man’s real name was Darrell, but everybody (with the exception of a few of his teachers) called him Brother Man. “Here’s what I don’t understand. How come you can shoot the ball and hit the goal almost every time, but you don’t seem to be able to dribble the ball and chew gum at the same time, forget about dribbling the ball and walking. Why exactly is that?”

  “I keep trying to tell y’all that shooting the ball is mathematical,” Marcus said. He understood math better than anyone in school, which was why he could hit the basket almost every time he shot the ball. “It’s the same thing with shooting pool. Both are a lot of geometry and mathematical principles with touches and flashes of science mixed in.”

  “Ah, man, you keep trying to sell us that brain stuff,” Brother Man said. “I know my moms is telling you to try and push that junk on us just so we’ll do better in school. I’m telling you, I don’t need to know math or English or science, and I especially don’t need to know no world history. Not where I’m headed. ’Cause in case you haven’t heard, the Brother Man has got mad skills.” Brother Man pretended to shoot a basketball, then acted like it had hit nothing but net, with the appropriate hand follow-through and the required hamming it up afterward. “Brother Man is headed for the NBA and slated to become the next Michael Jordan, y’all mark my word. I’m telling y’all, watch and see what I say.”

  “Well, you still need to know math and English,” Marcus said. “You still need to know how to read and to count. How else are you going to know when you’re being cheated out of your money or signing away your best interest?”

  Brother Man started laughing along with Slim Jim and Pretty Ricky, the two other guys with them from the neighborhood. “That’s what you hire accountants and lawyers for,” Brother Man said. “Geez, and here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one out of all of us.”

  “Well, let me give you your word for the day: embezzlement,” Marcus said as he proceeded to walk away from them, headed toward his house.

  “Embezzlement? So what does embezzlement mean?” Brother Man asked.

  Marcus stopped and turned, flashing Brother Man his signature smile, the one he used when he knew he had the upper hand. He then said, “Look it up in the dictionary.”

  “He can’t,” Slim Jim said as he began to laugh uncontrollably. “That would require him knowing how to spell.”

  Brother Man threw a sharp look Slim Jim’s way. “I know how to spell. I just don’t know what some of these stupid words mean off the top of my head.”

  Marcus grinned as he walked backward while talking to and facing his friends. “That’s good! When you get home, look that word up,” he said, directing his comment to Brother Man. “Embezzlement, a form of the word embezzle.”

  “Fine. If you won’t tell me, I’ll go home, look in the m’s and find what the word means myself.”

  Marcus shook his head. “You might want to check in the e’s.”

  Brother Man frowned. “E’s? Where does an e come from?”

  “The e is silent. The same way you’re going to be if you don’t do better in school and get serious about your education,” Marcus said. “Because all this noise you’re making is going to go straight out the window when you find out you’re not going to be able to get into a college unless you pass the high school exit exam, graduate from high school, and get a certain score on an ACT or SAT test.”

  “I keep telling you, I’m going to be so good I won’t need to waste my time in college.” Brother Man started pretending that he was dribbling a basketball again. “The scouts are going to be flocking to snag me. Coach Nick told me some people are already taking note of me. I’m going straight from high school to the NBA. Forget college. None of these colleges pay you to play. And I ain’t about to let some college make all that money off of me and my skills, everybody including the coach getting rich, while I don’t end up with a dime in my pocket. Paying my room, board, books, and classes, but I won’t have enough to take a girl out because I don’t have a car or the money to buy gas or to buy me or even her a Happy Meal. Nope, not going out like that. Then if I get injured while playing in college, what am I left with? No money and no chance at the NBA.”

  “What you’ll end up with is an education that no one can take away from you. They’ll give you a scholarship to further your education, and that education belongs to you,” Marcus said. “And you’re going to need that college degree even if you do plan on going to the NBA. That way, if things don’t work out with your NBA dreams or if they do and you end up getting injured and can’t play, you’ll have your degree to fall back on.”

  Brother Man shook his head, then shot his imaginary basketball at Marcus. “Not going to happen. Look at me.” He held his hands out as he drew attention to his body by beating his chest a few times. “I’m in great shape. I’m not lanky or a geek like you.”

  Marcus smiled. “You still need your education. I’m not going to say you won’t make it to the NBA. But it sure would be bad to make all that money and have some geek like me come along and embezzle it because you can’t read or you can’t count. That’s all I’m saying. Trust me: there are plenty of folks out there waiting, p
raying, and looking for people just like you to take to the cleaners.” Marcus pretended to throw the imaginary ball back at Brother Man. “And you can take that to the bank.” Marcus walked up to his house, unlocked the front door, and walked inside.

  Fifteen minutes later, his doorbell rang. Marcus couldn’t hide his surprise when, thinking it was one of the guys he’d just left, he opened the door.

  “Sasha?” Whenever Sasha was around, which wasn’t often since they didn’t run in the same circles, it was as if his brain took a temporary leave of absence. “Sasha.”

  Sasha was two years younger than Marcus but only one grade behind him. She lived in virtually the same neighborhood as he, Brother Man, Slim Jim, and Pretty Ricky, except that her house was in the wealthier section across the divide. Growing up, she didn’t have much to do with or say to Marcus, but everybody knew she was crazy about Pretty Ricky and had been spotted on their street a few times throughout the summer. But Pretty Ricky didn’t seem to give Sasha the time of day.

  “Don’t get me wrong, now. Sasha’s fine,” Pretty Ricky had said. “But I’m not interested in no jailbait.”

  Sasha was a cheerleader and had been since the seventh grade, second runner-up in the school beauty pageant in eighth grade, and voted Most Beautiful, Class Favorite, and Homecoming Queen in the ninth grade.

  Then there was Marcus, who still rode the school bus. Sasha’s mother took her to school and paid someone to pick her up every day after school. Or Sasha would ride home with some of her friends who had their own cars and drove to school. Marcus knew this because the bus he rode was the one she would have ridden had she ridden the bus, which she never did.

  Sasha smiled. She had the most beautiful smile. “Hi, Marcus,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. Hi. I was just shocked to see you standing here. Are you looking for my mother? Because she’s not home yet.” Marcus concluded she had to be looking for his mother, maybe to sell her something. The cheerleaders did a lot of fund-raisers.

  “No, actually, I was looking for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes.” She took her hand and, like a choreographed move, pushed her hair that rested on her chest to the back. She crinkled her nose as she smiled. “I’m sort of in need of your help.”

  “My help?” Marcus’s voice squeaked.

  She smiled even more. “Yes, your help. It’s algebra. I just don’t get it. That’s why I didn’t take it in my freshman year. My mother hired a tutor to help me, but I still don’t get it. I hear you’re a whiz with this kind of stuff. Mercedes tells me you helped her. She was the one who suggested I get with you.”

  “Mercedes suggested you get with me?” Marcus realized he wasn’t being cool at all. Here was the hottest girl in school, almost (after Mercedes to everybody else, but not to Marcus), and Mercedes had told Sasha—a girl he had dreamed would one day come to his front door, ring the doorbell, and ask for him—that she should get in touch with him. Marcus was starting to think the power of prayer his mother and the pastor at church always preached about really did work.

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus said. “I keep repeating what you’re saying. I did help Mercedes, but I didn’t know she thought all that much of me. She rarely speaks to me when I pass her in the hall at school. I really didn’t think she even remembered me, let alone have anything nice to say about me.”

  “Oh, Mercedes speaks very highly of you. Anyway, I was wondering if you could possibly help me with this algebra stuff. I have to pass this class, Marcus. If I don’t make a passing grade this semester, I’m off the cheerleading squad. Please.”

  Marcus found it interesting how people in his age group didn’t seem to care about making good grades for good grades’ sakes. Many of them were motivated more by sports-related requirements, other social engagements, or money paid by their parents for A’s, B’s, or C’s. In a few cases, some parents were so desperate they even paid if their child just came home with a D. Only a handful of his peers seemed self-motivated, wanting to make good grades for the pride of what you can achieve if you put your mind and heart to it. He just didn’t get it.

  His mother often told him how no one ever had to pay her to make good grades. How she was harder on herself than anyone else, even when she got a B. “We knew education was our ticket out of poverty and into us contributing to a productive society. If we were ever going to attain our dreams, we had to do our best,” his mother had said. “That’s why I’m so proud of you, Marcus. You get it. You get what this is all about. Short-term pain for long-term gain. That’s what life sometimes teaches us.”

  Marcus looked at Sasha, who now had placed one hand on her hip as she waited for his answer. “I can help you if you want,” he said. “When do you want to start?”

  “Tomorrow. And my mother said for me to tell you she’s going to pay you.”

  Marcus adjusted his body to appear a little taller, a little more debonair than he really was. “You can come anytime after six. And you don’t have to pay me.” He bowed as though he were bowing before a queen as he said, “It’ll be my pleasure to assist you.”

  “Right. Well, that’s what you say now.” She giggled. “You don’t have a clue how much trouble I can be,” she said. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow at six.” She turned to leave.

  Later, when Marcus looked back over his life, he realized what prophetic words Sasha had spoken that day. And had Marcus only listened to her, he might have saved himself a whole lot of trouble later.

  A whole lot.

  Chapter 9

  Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.

  —Ecclesiastes 10:6

  Sasha and Marcus began her algebra lessons the following day after she came home from cheerleading practice. It was the beginning of September and the leaves were starting to change. There was just something different about autumn air. At least, Marcus thought so. When he opened the door for Sasha, he felt that the air was cleaner, crisper than even he had ever noticed it to be.

  “My mother’s not home yet,” Marcus said, trying to decide what he should do. He and his mother, Sharon Peeples, had a great relationship and talked about everything. She had told him and his younger brother not to have anyone in their home when she wasn’t there.

  Sharon was a single mother. She had raised Marcus and his four siblings practically single-handed. His father had been to see them maybe three times since he and his mother divorced. She’d moved from Dallas to Birmingham when Marcus was five in order to keep her job, which ended up being outsourced overseas four years later anyway. Marcus and his younger brother, T. J., were the only ones still living at home now. Born on November fourth, T. J. was exactly one year and two days younger than his older brother Marcus.

  T. J. usually sneaked off to hang out with his buddies after school. He knew what time his mother got home, and he always made it in the house by the time she arrived. She had no idea he was disobeying her by being with “those thugs,” as she had called them when she had forbidden him to hang out with his so-called friends anymore.

  Sasha stood outside his door wearing a short cheerleading-practice outfit and high heels. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I know you told me to come over after six. But we finished practice early today. I was just so excited to get started, I couldn’t wait. Besides, I sort of have a little emergency that popped up at the last minute. I figure if we could get started earlier, we could finish up early enough for me to handle it. But I have to get this algebra or else I’m sunk!”

  Marcus looked at his watch, a gift his father had sent him two Christmases ago. It was five thirty-three. His mother normally got home around six—six-fifteen if traffic was backed up. Sasha being there almost thirty minutes early shouldn’t be too bad. And he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Besides, she was a girl. He was sure when his mother said she didn’t want anybody in her house whenever she wasn’t home, she was merely wanting to keep out the boys who would tear up the house.

  Still, Marcus didn’t like dis
obeying his mother even on small technicalities. He saw how hard things were for her. He tried his best not to be the cause of any added stress or problems in her life.

  That’s one of the reasons Marcus stopped tattling on T. J. It was really stressing his mother out. Marcus tried doing what he could with his brother. He went so far as to tell their older brother, Ronnie, who talked to T. J., to no avail. His mother gave so much of herself. Marcus knew there were times when his mother went without just so her children could have. She had sacrificed her life for them, given them more than she would ever let them know. But Marcus knew.

  He had seen her many nights mending an outfit just so she wouldn’t have to buy herself anything new to wear. He saw the day his mother dropped her head when T. J. came in excited, asking—begging—for her to buy him a pair of Michael Jordan tennis shoes because all of his friends owned a pair and he was the only one who still hadn’t gotten any. How she cried later that night after T. J. told her she was just being mean, how he was the laughingstock of his class because of how he dressed.

  Marcus knew his mother couldn’t afford a two-hundred-dollar pair of shoes. She was taking her lunch to work every day just so she could give them money to buy their lunch. He knew all of this, not because she had burdened them with this information but because he had paid attention. He saw her when she prayed to God to provide the money to pay the light bill because their electricity was scheduled to be cut off.