The Waking

by H. M. Mann

  Maybe I should be a teacher.

  From that point on, the GED class rolls. Dr. Taylor doesn’t look at his notes as much, and he even leaves the front of the room to walk among us. We discuss history, and a few other inmates start to raise their hands and ask questions. Dr. Taylor gives us what he calls the “raw data,” and we trace the effects on American life today. Information on the Reconstruction turns into an argument on Pittsburgh’s urban renewal, and the Emancipation turns into a discussion of Juneteenth.

  “You mean they didn’t know they were free?” a brother in the front row asks.

  “Lines of communication back then were nothing like they were today,” Dr. Taylor says.

  “So,” another brother says, “so they might have been slaves for years before they knew they were really free?”

  Dr. Taylor nods.

  “That’s messed up,” says yet another.

  “Now Reconstruction did a great deal to alleviate these problems—”

  “By creating segregation,” I interrupt.

  Dr. Taylor shrugs and nods. “That’s one way to look at it. Plessy versus Ferguson was—”

  “The establishment of segregation,” I interrupt again. “It led to Jim Crow laws, which led to whites-only water fountains, which led to segregated schools, which led to the Civil Rights marches, which led to Dr. King, and Malcolm X, and the Civic Center and the demolition of the Hill District.” I take a breath. “It’s all connected, all of it. Where we’re sitting, why we’re in here, why a lot of us are gonna come back here. It’s all connected. History isn’t just facts and dates. It’s causes and effects.” I look down at my hands. “And we’re the effects.”

  And I used to be so quiet!

  After class, Dr. Taylor stops me before I can leave. “I’d like you to take your GED as soon as we can arrange it.”

  Probably so I don’t interrupt his class anymore. “Why?”

  “I think you can pass it. And I think you should be taking community college courses toward a degree. You can take them here, you know. I’m teaching an American history survey course that begins in late August, and I want you in there.”

  “I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

  “Yes you would, Emmanuel,” he says. “You’re further ahead than many of the students I taught in the real world.” He smiles. “You have a grasp of history I rarely get to see. It’s a small class, so there will be plenty of time to have discussions.”

  “Okay.” I look up at this spectacled man. “How long does it take to become a teacher?”

  He polishes his glasses. “I could see you as a teacher. To be frank, though, your felony convictions would preclude your finding employment.”

  I sigh. Yet another effect.

  “Unless …”

  “Unless what?” I ask.

  “Unless you go on to get an advanced degree, maybe even a doctorate.”

  “I can’t see that happening.” I mean, I haven’t even passed the GED yet.

  “I can. Some of the most gifted professors in this country started their careers, so to speak, in prisons.”

  “But I think I can help … No, never mind.” I turn to leave. “Thanks anyway.”

  “What were you going to say?” he asks.

  I turn back. “I can help kids like me, people like me.”

  “You could come back here.”

  “What?”

  He laughs. “I didn’t mean it that way. You could teach here.”

  “Here?”

  “You’d have a captive audience.”

  That wasn’t funny.

  “And it wouldn’t necessarily have to be here.” He pats my shoulder. “Think about it.”

  And that’s all I think about for the rest of the day, and I’m still thinking about it the next morning. I like the power of being heard, of being listened to, of being understood. I could make a difference here, but I have to think about my family first. Where will my children bloom the best? Where will my family thrive? On the Hill? Or down South where there’s more room, more fresh air, more rain? I know I shouldn’t write off the Hill, but there’s so much to be done. And I’m only one man.

  “Mann?”

  I look over at Baldwin, one of the black officers. “Yeah?”

  “Visitor.”

  As Baldwin escorts me to the visiting area, I ask him, “Who is it?”

  “Some old lady.”

  So it’s either Auntie June or my new cousin. But when I walk in, I see Mary, who looks up and sees me. A few tears fall from her eyes, sliding down her soft cheeks. And despite the other inmates and families gathered around other tables, I let my own tears fall.

  “No contact,” Baldwin tells me.

  I want to tell him that we’ve already made contact.

  “One hour.”

  I sit across from her, wanting so much to take her hands, to kiss those silky cheeks, to feel the lives of our children growing inside her, to hug her until neither of us can breathe.

  She wipes tears from her eyes. “Manny. You look wonderful.”

  I can’t speak. I just want to drink her in. She’s put on a little weight, her face a little fuller. But those eyes, those dark eyes. God, I’ve missed them. They’re like the eyes of God Himself or something.

  “I hope you don’t mind me dropping in like this.”

  I shake my head.

  “They, um, frisked me, but they didn’t find the babies.” She giggles, and it’s a sound that fills my soul with hope. “Aren’t you gonna say anything?”

  “I love you.”

  She drops her eyes. “You’re gonna make me cry some more, Manny.”

  “I don’t mean to. I don’t want you ever to cry again. I want to hear you giggling for the rest of our lives. I want you to be my wife.” Shoot. I just proposed to her in jail, which has to be a step worse than proposing on a collect call. “Sorry I had to say this to you here.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She waits for Baldwin to turn away and squeezes my hand, releasing it a moment later.

  I will not wash this hand for as long as I can. “Do you, um, accept?”

  “Yes.” She smiles.

  “Um, Auntie June—”

  “We’ve already discussed it, your Auntie June and I,” Mary interrupts. “We’re going shopping tomorrow. I can’t let her pick out the ring, can I?”

  “No.” Her eyes are full of stars, full of the Alabama night.

  “Now tell me, who’s this Olivette Somebody on your visitor’s list.” Her eyes flash like lightning. “When I got here, they said, ‘You Olivette?’ and I was like, no. I’m Mary, Manny’s fiancée. I’ve never heard of this person.”

  “Neither had I until I got to Mobile.”

  “She lives in Mobile?”

  “It’s not like that. She lives in Homewood, and—”

  “You got another girl just down the street?”

  I take a deep breath. “No. Olivette is a cousin of mine who left Mobile over seventy years ago to come up to the Hill. I put her on there just in case, you know, she might want to come visit.”

  “Oh. What’s her last name?”

  I have to spell it for her.

  “I’ll look her up for you. Maybe I can get her to come visit with me on Sunday. I’m coming on Sundays and Thursdays until you get out of here whether you like it or not.”

  “I like it, I like it.”

  “And I’ve already bought the babies a few things …”

  Thirty minutes later, my head is swimming. I didn’t know babies needed so much stuff! Whatever it costs for one baby, I’ll have to double it from now on.

  An hour goes fast when you don’t want it to end, and I watch the minute hand ticking closer to the twelve. “It’s almost time,” I whisper.

  “So? We’ll just pick up this conversation on Sunday. Oh, I left you some money in the bank here in case you need anything, you know, in case you get the urge to write me. I like getting mail.”

  “I wish I cou
ld. Maybe I can find a typewriter around here.” I smile. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Oh, and call anytime. If I’m not there, Mama promises to take a message.”

  “Really? After that phone call the other night?”

  She nods. “Your Auntie June is so good at calming her down. It’s like magic or something. You aren’t going to change me into a Baptist, now.”

  “I wouldn’t want to change you for all the world.”

  “Time’s up, gentlemen,” the guard announces.

  “Gotta go,” I say, and I stand. “See you later.”

  She smiles. “Sunday. I love you, Manny.”

  “I love you, Mary.”

  On the way back to the Pod, Baldwin asks me, “What does she see in you, man?”

  I don’t answer because Mary now sees a man in me. “Why’d you say she was an old lady?”

  Baldwin shrugs. “It’s something I do for fun.”

  “Oh.”

  After I pass my GED the following week, I start taking a food preparation and commercial cooking class through Aramark, the company that feeds us every day. Mary says I might have a job waiting for me at the Crawford Grill since I now have so much experience in food prep from being on the American Queen. I try to tell her that I stirred more than I cooked on that boat, but she doesn’t want to hear it.

  “You have experience in food service,” she tells me, “and just putting where you have it from will get you the job.”

  I tell her that I also washed a lot of dishes.

  “You’re not going to be a dishwasher, Manny. I’ll bet I’ll be handing you orders in no time.”

  I’m taking the food classes anyway. I want to last at my next job.

  In addition to the classes, NA meetings, religious services, Positive Life Awareness meetings, and even some anger management counseling, I read. A lot. It’s like getting an entirely new education. I read James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, Roots and Queen by Alex Haley, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Native Son and Black Boy by Richard Wright, and Whippins, Switches & Peach Cobbler by Brian Egeston. I wish Egeston would write more books. The brother speaks to me. Officer Jones loans me her copy of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and I spend an entire week trying to understand it. I mean, I’ve been to Kentucky and Ohio, but it may take me a lifetime to understand what Morrison’s trying to say to me. And if Flake was right, I’ll have a long time to re-read it.

  Some of what I read disturbs me, though. James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time messes me up. Baldwin, who had to go away from the U.S. to Paris so he could understand the U.S., says that the white man’s religion is destroying black people because they’re worshiping a white god, yet he also says that the Nation of Islam is dangerous. It seems like such a contradiction. Don’t worship the white God, and don’t worship the “black” God either. I don’t know much about the Bible, another book I’m studying, but I do know that God is light, not white. He’s in the lightning, He’s in the sun, He’s in the moon and stars. He is light, and what is light? Roy G. Biv. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. There’s no white in there, and there’s no black in there. Yeah, most of the paintings and drawings I’ve seen show God and Jesus as white, probably since white artists did them. White is the absence of color, a blank page, and black is just too much color, I guess. I look at my body most days and see Roy G. Biv. Luckily, Baldwin doesn’t leave me hanging. He says to just love each other. Just love each other. Simple. Plain and simple. I can deal with that.

  A few weeks into September, after I’ve already been struggling but enjoying Dr. Taylor’s class, Mary visits one Sunday with Olivette Howard. I know it’s her the second I walk into the visiting area, and not because she’s sitting next to Mary.

  Olivette Howard has my mama’s face and eyes.

  She nods at me as I sit. “Turn your head side to side, boy,” she says, and I do. “Yep. You’re my kin. Nice to meet you, cousin Emmanuel.”

  For the next hour, she tells me stories of Africatown, of how she and her husband started Curley’s Restaurant on the Hill in the 1930’s, how she and her husband eventually owned three restaurants, how strong her sons are, and how much she misses Africatown. Mary sits quietly watching us, smiling, laughing, and patting her stomach while Olivette starts throwing names at me rapid-fire, names of all the people I’m related to down in Mobile, some of the names familiar. I try to slow her down with “Yeah, I met her” and “Isn’t he about six-two with a little goatee?” but Olivette keeps rattling on.

  Olivette leans in. “I brought a scrapbook of all this for you to see, Emmanuel, but they wouldn’t let me bring it up. I’ll make you a copy and give it to you as a wedding gift.”

  When the hour ends, I get permission to help Mary out of her chair since she’s showing. “She’s got two in there,” Olivette says as she stands. “You’re gonna need four hands, Emmanuel.”

  As Olivette walks away, Mary whispers, “How did she know that? I never told her that.”

  I smile. “She just knows. Get used to it.”

  But I don’t know much about history. I barely pull a C at midterm, and it’s only because Dr. Taylor gives essay exams where I can write forever and get some partial credit. There’s so much to know, so much to connect, and this is only a survey course. I keep telling myself that I’ve been out of school for nearly half my lifetime, that I need to re-train my brain, that I need to concentrate. But it’s so hard sometimes. I can’t stop thinking about getting out before Mary has the babies. Her due date is December 8, and my release date won’t be until December 21. I may be thirteen days too late. I discuss my problem with Dr. Taylor after class, and he suggests writing a letter.

  “Who would I write it to?”

  He smiles. “Write it to the world, Emmanuel.”

  “I meant, who do I send it to?”

  He looks up. “I’d make two copies, one for the warden, and one for me.”

  “You want to read it?”

  He nods. “And if it’s as good as I think it’s going to be, I’ll be sending it to the Tribune-Review.”

  “The newspaper?”

  “I’ll even type it up for you.” He looks at the clock. “We ended a little early today, didn’t we? Hmm.” He nods at a desk. “Get started.”

  “They’ll be coming for me.”

  “So you have some make-up work to do. I’ll cover for you.” He hands me a little essay notebook. “I’ve got some essays to grade anyway. Take your time.”

  I stare at the blue lines on that little notebook for ten minutes. How did Dr. King do it? And how can I do it? I’m nothing like him. Okay, I’m a little like him, but I’m too militant. A militant pacifist? No. A mighty man of peace? That sounds crazy—

  “Having trouble?” Dr. Taylor asks.

  “Yeah. If I can just get it started …” I’m sure it will all spill out.

  “Why are you here, Emmanuel?”

  “I’m, um, trying to write this essay.”

  He smiles. “I meant, why are you here, on this earth?”

  “Oh.” I write “Why I’m Here” at the top of the page, close my eyes, and say a little prayer. “Okay, y’all, wherever you are and whoever you are, give me the words …”

  And then I open my eyes, and my hand begins to fly …

  My people were stolen from their native country in 1860 and taken to Mobile Bay, Alabama, where some stayed and built Africatown. Others migrated north to industrial centers like Pittsburgh.

  I’m from the Hill, born after the building of the Civic Center destroyed an entire way of life, two years after Dr. King died and riots destroyed what was left of the Hill.

  My father, a Cajun from Louisiana, left my mother before I was born. I’ve never met him, and that has cost me a great deal. I may never meet him, but if he’s reading this, I want him to know that I’ll be all right and that I’d still like to meet him.

  My mother never recovered from the shock of his le
aving and became a heroin addict. One night when I was only four years old, my mother was murdered in our apartment at the Bedford Dwellings, a housing project since torn down by recent so-called urban renewal on the Hill. Her case is still unsolved over twenty-five years later. To the man who killed Glory Mann, I hope I never meet you.

  I was raised by my aunt, a godly woman, a saint who I never learned to love because she wasn’t my mama. I dropped out of school in the ninth grade and ran the streets, dealing the very drug that addicted my mother, and I later let it addict me.

  One night back in May, I left the Hill, violating my probation, taking a journey beyond my wildest imagination to Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, New Orleans, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile Bay, and Atlanta, names that echo the struggles of my people.

  I have learned much, and I have been cured of my addiction to heroin. I don’t think I could have been cured any other way. I would be dead by now if I had stayed on the Hill.

  So I am here in the Allegheny County Jail, which did not rehabilitate me several times before, for the last time. I will not return to this place once my sentence is completed because I have rehabilitated myself without the help of the judicial system. I did it on my own.

  But that’s not quite true. I’ve had lots of help, from folks like Flake from the Hill, Luke Slade from East St. Louis, Illinois, Rose, Penny, Rufus from the American Queen, Mrs. Letitia Walker from Savannah, Georgia, Mrs. Genevieve Broussard from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Mississippi Red of the Illinois Central, Maxi Kazula and the rest of my many relatives in Africatown, Alabama, Bobby Hughes of Beulah, Alabama, Moses Green of Trimble, Georgia, Jeff Pettis of Roanoke, Virginia, my Auntie June Mann of the Hill, my mother Glory Mann, and Mary Moore, the girl who prayed for me and always had a candle lit for me at St. Benedict the Moor.

  I have earned my GED, I’m taking a community college class, I’m studying commercial food preparation, I’m reading at least a book a day, and I’m clean. I’m about to become a father and get married, and I have a job waiting for me at the Crawford Grill when I get out.