He spent the following two days composing a cover letter that he would submit with his manuscript, detailing key points of Travis White’s fictitious life and showing why his story would be interesting to readers. Then, with a prayer, he mailed out submissions to five well-known publishers.
When the first rejection letter came, it was a blow to Tracie’s ego. How could anyone read his book and reject it? The next package was simply returned unopened. This scenario soon became an infinite curse. Since the beginning, Tracie had already received rejections from twenty publishers. And enclosed with all the rejections were similar form letters, which were obviously computer-generated to mail out to all rejected authors.
Lying in bed, thinking about what was happening, Tracie squeezed the sheets tightly out of sheer frustration. He truly believed that his story of contemporary racism would sell well, especially given the current political climate and the increasing demonstrations of racial hatred in this country. Such was the case in Jasper, Texas, where three white men chained a black man to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him down a country road. His body was torn apart, bit by bit, in an unimaginably horrible death. How could this kind of evil still exist?
“Tracie, you went back to sleep?” Maggie called out from her bedroom again. The strength in her voice told Tracie that she was no longer in bed.
“No, Nana. I’m gettin’ ready for work.” He did not like lying to her, so he arose immediately after saying the words.
Reaching down, Tracie turned on the radio, listening to “Jump,” Kriss Kross’s very first rap tune, remembering back when he and Little Man used to attend all the major house parties. He bopped his head to the thump of the bass, the beat of the drums, and the electric melody of the keyboard. All the instruments came together in one individual, dynamic sound. He loved the art of rhyming words: Bad, dad; love, dove; joy, my boy. It was poetry put to music.
Tracie began dressing for work.
3
Tracie slowly steered Ross’s wheelchair up a wide asphalt walkway inside Elizabeth Park. Each man had his own thoughts in the surrounding tranquility. The park was a vision of striking beauty: tall, leafy trees reaching to touch the sunny, pale blue sky, with a wide expanse of rich green grass and warm earth spread out below.
Ross raised his hand and Tracie stopped his wheelchair right in front of a little maze of rosebushes encircling a small gazebo. He had once spent many private moments sitting on the steps of the gazebo, fantasizing about how he would work hard to achieve a lifestyle free from blacks.
Warring against his sudden mounting hatred, Ross looked over his shoulder at Tracie and managed a sad smile. He was always successful at fighting back memories of his painful past every time he saw the faces of Tracie and Maggie and remembered how they had helped him come this far toward recovery.
It had taken Dr. Taylor only two days from the morning he had left Ross in the care of Tracie and Maggie to schedule an afternoon appointment with Dr. Peter Kline at St. Mary’s Rehabilitation Center. Built on 200 acres of secluded green land in the mountains of Avon, it looked more like a park than a rehabilitation center, and Ross immediately felt at peace there. St. Mary’s was shut off from the general public—a world unto itself—and he trusted that no one would laugh at him every time that he failed at taking a step.
Ross’s first impression of Dr. Kline was that he looked like an eagle, with thick dark brows that were sharply arched and a long hooked nose. His warm smile and friendly conversation put them all at ease as he guided Ross, Tracie, and Maggie on a complete tour of St. Mary’s. The facility could house only 50 inpatients, but it also had an outpatient program that treated people who lived outside the rehabilitation center. On the tour, Dr. Kline introduced Ross to his assigned physical therapist, occupational therapist, psychologist, social worker, and nurse—all of whom would report to Dr. Kline concerning Ross’s health.
Back in his office, Dr. Kline brought up the subject of the costly expenses for Ross’s medical care, but Maggie sat up in her seat and proudly said, “Me and my grandson will be puttin’ up the money while Ross gets better.”
Ross clenched his teeth, hating the reality of Maggie’s words. He wanted to ask her where the money would come from, but he kept quiet because he didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the doctor. Besides, he knew that he could not afford the cost of his own recovery, so he made a secret vow to find a way to repay Maggie and Tracie for their gracious generosity.
After Maggie and Tracie left early in the evening, Ross became exceedingly depressed. He remembered what Dr. Taylor had told Maggie: “At the early stages of therapy, patients normally feel like they aren’t making any progress and often need someone to cheer them on.”
As the days passed, Ross lay in his bed and hardly moved. It was easier to just watch television all day with his roommate, Bob Brenner, than try to learn how to walk all over again.
But Bob would become Ross’s very reason for trying to walk again, fighting to regain a normal life. He was probably in his early twenties, although he looked to be somewhere in his mid thirties, with disheveled curly blonde hair and pale blue eyes that always appeared to be staring up at the Angel of Death. A quadriplegic, Bob never left their room either. Nor did he ever speak.
At the end of Ross’s first week at St. Mary’s, while Tracie was reading interesting magazine fiction to him, they were interrupted by Gary Segman, the muscular black physical therapist assigned to assist Ross and Bob. He entered the room yelling, “Come on, Brenner, you’ve been lyin’ on your ass for nearly two months. It’s time we get you better and out of here. All the nurses are furious they have to keep feedin’ you like you’re some baby.”
Ross did not like what he had heard. Sure, it was easy to bully a handicapped person when you were healthy and as big as an ox. When Gary started for the door, Ross called him over to express his feelings.
“What’s his story?” Ross asked in a whisper, but wanting to scream, “Why not pick on someone your own size?” But he concealed his thoughts, for the therapist seemed to grow to the size of a giant as he approached Ross’s bed.
Gary answered in a deep, low voice, “Car collision killed his family on their way to Florida for a winter vacation. Brenner was the only survivor.” He paused to think. “On Brenner’s first day here, he yelled at me, ‘I have nothing to live for, so leave me the fuck alone.’ Some people use any excuse to give up!” He sucked his tiny yellow teeth, rolling his beady, unsympathetic eyes upward.
Ross had mixed feelings about what he had heard, so he just nodded, and Gary left the room. Even if the therapist’s tough behavior was just an act to motivate patients, he terrified Ross, who wondered how someone like that could get a job caring for anyone. After all, people did have feelings and the wrong words could further depress them. However, with Bob’s story being partially similar to his own, Ross knew that the therapist was at least a little right: He, too, was limiting himself with excuses. Had he not also lost things dear to his heart? Was he just going to lie in bed waiting to die, like Bob? Did he have anything to live for? Yes! he thought. He wanted to live and learn why—through all his many losses—God had sent Tracie and Maggie to comfort him in his desperate time of need.
As if he had read Ross’s mind, Tracie frowned and asked, “Do you got a special excuse keepin’ you in bed?” He thumbed back at the white curtain separating Ross and Bob. “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch, man. You want to end up like him?”
Ross’s sad green eyes gleamed with tears, as he shook his head in silence.
Unfolding Ross’s wheelchair, Tracie patted its seat. “Then you better start doin’ somethin’ about it. It’s almost time for physical therapy and you don’t want to be late.”
Ross let Tracie help him get up and get dressed to make his first appearance at the gym. Through hard training with the therapist and many, many visits later, he would regain feeling and movement in his legs. Although he became frustrated and embarrassed whenever he co
uld not do a particular exercise, nothing was ever as impossible to do as it seemed before he gave it enough tries.
In the present, Ross thought about how he could not have made the long journey to recovery without the tremendous support of his friends. Although the very first drive to St. Mary’s was so long that it had exhausted her, Maggie still visited on weekends, family nights, and for special events. She called Ross every night to inquire about his progress, his successes as well as failures, and to bless his tomorrows. And Tracie drove his old-model yellow Horizon to St. Mary’s every day to work out in the gym with Ross.
Today was much like all others. On a bus ride to Elizabeth Park, in West Hartford, Tracie accompanied Ross and nine other patients, their families, and several nurses. The trip was a form of therapy in preparing the patients to resume regular lives outside the rehabilitation center. They had been at the park for an hour already; the other patients were all split apart, spending time alone with their families and friends.
“You listenin’ to me?” Ross heard Tracie say, but he blushed, as he smiled and shook his head. No, he had not heard anything at all. He had been too engrossed in the past.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Ross said.
Tracie rolled his eyes up to the sky. “I said, I might can get you some kind of job at Heavenly Delight.”
On the bus ride over to the park, Ross had informed Tracie that the staff at St. Mary’s had recently met to discuss the kinds of job positions best suited for him. “My greatest assets are these,” Ross had said, waving his hands around in the air. “They said I can do almost any kind of work with my hands.”
But he had also been warned that businesses were quick to reject handicapped people, although in a discreet fashion, and he looked anxious now as he asked, “Think they would hire me?”
Tracie smiled, his dimples sinking in. He had dressed in comfort for the hot day. He wore only a white T-shirt, white denim shorts, and a style of brown sandals that was currently very popular.
“Yeah, I’ll put in a good word for you, if you’d like.” He had an excellent six-year business relationship with his manager, Nick Wright. Last month, he had been promoted to assistant manager of Heavenly Delight, a restaurant whose soul food menu was received famously by most of the locals.
Ross nodded in a hurry. He had lived at St. Mary’s and away from his apartment for two months. He could only imagine how far past due his rent was. And although a job at a soul food restaurant could not compare to running his own literary agency, he had to start somewhere.
Tracie resumed pushing Ross’s wheelchair, and Ross soon spotted a group of boys playing basketball far away at the bottom of a steep green hill. He suddenly regretted never doing normal things, like making friends other than Frank Burke, his one and only mentor and partner in publishing, who had died and left him alone. “I never learned how to play basketball,” Ross thought aloud.
“You kiddin’,” Tracie said, stopping the wheelchair again.
“No.” But Ross’s mind strayed away from the subject at hand, as he smiled at other familiar areas of the park. Across one of the surrounding side streets was the mansion that Frank and he had once shared.
Just as quickly, Tracie forgot the subject of basketball, as he noticed Ross’s happy expression. “I got this vibe you spent some good times here, in West Hartford,” he said.
Ross was really just as much a stranger to Tracie as the day they had first met. There were so many questions that he wanted to ask, like where did Ross get such a fancy wardrobe? Today, for instance, Ross was dressed in a short-sleeved green-and white striped polo shirt and stylish white slacks, an outfit that belied his current lifestyle on Hexter Street.
When Tracie had once tried to start a conversation about his past, Ross quickly changed the subject, as if he was hiding something. Tracie then took his thoughts of speculation to his Nana, who fixed him with an I know you better not! stare.
“Tracie, let Ross be to get right. He been through a lot, and he still got a long ways to go.”
Ross wished that Tracie could be more like Maggie. She accepted him for no more than who he was right then: someone trying to regain his ability to walk. Although she had witnessed firsthand his blatant prejudice in their first meeting, she’d apparently kept their heated argument secret from Tracie, who seemed to know nothing other than her important decision of helping Ross reach his goal.
“What you thinkin’?” Tracie asked.
“West Hartford is beautiful—that’s what I’m thinking,” Ross lied, laughing lightly, before deeply inhaling the fresh warm air in Elizabeth Park. Avoiding Tracie’s usual suspicious questions, he started wheeling himself fast down the black walkway in the direction of the basketball courts.
“But you don’t know how to play the game, remember?” Tracie yelled, running and catching hold of the rubber handles at the back of Ross’s speeding wheelchair.
“You’re right. But I enjoy watching!”
The two men soon joined a crowd of onlookers cheering on two teams at athletic war on the basketball court. And then, borrowing a ball from a friendly group of teenagers, Tracie steered Ross to a nearby deserted court.
Handing the ball to Ross, Tracie said, “Take a shot.”
“I already told you that I am no good at this game.”
But Tracie fixed Ross with a serious look. “Stay behind the white line—the foul line—while you shoot.” He suddenly wondered what kind of childhood Ross must have had that prevented him from learning how to play basketball.
Ross unsuccessfully threw the ball up at the orange hoop and Tracie laughed, running after the ball as it bounced away.
Tracie forced himself to look serious again, as he returned to his friend’s side behind the foul line. “You not concentratin’. First, guess how hard you got to throw the ball to get it through the hoop.” He bounced the ball a few times against the dusty black pavement. After squinting up at the hoop for a brief moment, he threw the ball through it with a slight jump and the dirty white net snapped.
The ball bounced back toward Ross and he caught it in the air. Imitating all of Tracie’s previous movements, he threw the ball as hard as he could and it almost entered the hoop.
“See, you feel where I’m comin’ from,” Tracie cheered. “Before we’re finished, you’ll be ready for the NBA.”
Ross sat down on his bed, gaping at what he nervously clutched in his hand: a little pink eviction notice that had been tacked to his front door when he’d returned home from St. Mary’s yesterday. Not only did he not have enough money to pay for his overdue rent but he also had no income. Tracie had brought up the subject of possibly getting him a job at Heavenly Delight, but that was a month ago. Now, he believed that his friend’s attempt was unsuccessful.
Convinced that he could not always wait for Tracie and Maggie to do everything for him now that he could get around by himself, Ross dressed in his favorite suit and took a bus ride downtown.
After filling out an employment application in a popular civic center shoe store, he used his new cane to limp over to the pretty young manager standing behind the cashier counter separating her from Ross and at least two dozen noisy customers. “When will I hear back from the store?” he asked.
But the woman’s surprised glance dropped to Ross’s cane, and he could tell that she was lying when she forced herself to smile. “Mr. Crass, if you meet all our qualifications, we should be contacting you in a week.”
Twelve other store managers that Ross approached for work had looked just as surprised as the shoe store manager to see his handicap, and Ross returned home without a job and furious. He hated his limp, a point he had stressed to Dr. Kline on his last day at St. Mary’s. But the doctor had explained that Ross’s left leg might never heal as perfectly as his right leg and that the dark wooden cane would better support his steps.
He would always remember how the store managers had looked at him, as if he were an alien being that had originated from smelly t
oxic waste. That is how I treated blacks, he thought sadly, recalling the days of his youth. It’s a horrible feeling.
Boarding the bus for his return home, he tried with all his physical strength to walk normally, willing himself away from relying on his cane for support. He clenched his teeth in frustration, trying harder to concentrate. Taking a step with his left foot and following after with his right foot, he had to use the cane for the necessary support. His slow, deliberate movements attracted the attention of the other passengers—the limping man pretending he really didn’t have a limp, although it was obvious to all. The truth was that he was ashamed of the limp and the cane—they were symbolic of a curse, a scarlet letter for him to wear out for all to see—to the extent that he didn’t want to be Ross Crass. For the first time ever, he considered himself an outcast within society, one who did not belong—the same way he had once regarded the entire black race. But wouldn’t it be an easier life if he could only trade his handicap for black skin? Walk among others in the black community without a limp, without any appearance of being different?
Now Ross folded up the eviction notice, pushed it down deep into his pants pocket, and stared at the square brown clock on his nightstand. It was 11:50 a.m., and Maggie would worry if he was late for their noontime lunch. She had telephoned earlier that morning to arrange for him to eat with her. She was such a sweet person, Tracie too, but Ross knew now that he must quietly leave them or they would certainly feel obligated to pay his overdue rent. His mind was already made up. He would accept no more charity from his friends.
When Ross arrived at Maggie’s apartment, she was busy setting the kitchen table and singing along with a classic Original Gospel Soul Stirrers record. The kitchen was spacious, with white walls and dark brown counters, and cabinets. A stove and refrigerator shared one wall and were located across the room from a washing machine. The small square kitchen table was covered with a yellow-and-white checkered cloth.
A CHANGE OF HEART: Book 1 of the Hartford Series Page 6
