Also by Wallace Ford
What You Sow
Published by Dafina Books
The PRIDE
WALLACE FORD
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Copyright © 2005 by Wallace Ford
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eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-6857-0
eISBN-10: 0-7582-6857-2
First trade paperback printing: November 2005
First mass market printing: February 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
Dedicated to my father,
Wallace Ford,
1922-1995
Contents
Also by Wallace Ford
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TRUE LOVE
CHAPTER 1 Sture My name is not Ishmael
CHAPTER 2 Sture Living for the City
CHAPTER 3 Sture Now introducing …
CHAPTER 4 Paul Mourning in the morning
CHAPTER 5 Paul What a tangled web …
CHAPTER 6 Sture Through the looking glass
CHAPTER 7 Sture A friend in need
CHAPTER 8 Sture Just like magic
CHAPTER 9 Paul Get me to the church on time
CHAPTER 10 Paul Taking that stroll down memory lane
CHAPTER 11 Paul Showtime on Riverside
CHAPTER 12 Paul Now about that church …
CHAPTER 13 Paul And so it begins
CHAPTER 14 Paul Introducing Diedre and The Pride
CHAPTER 15 Paul Watching the crowd
CHAPTER 16 Diedre Reflection on a winter’s day
CHAPTER 17 Diedre More reflections
CHAPTER 18 Sture Yet another point of view
CHAPTER 19 Sture A view from the pew
CHAPTER 20 Gordon Make way for Mr. Perkins
CHAPTER 21 Gordon More about me
CHAPTER 22 Paul Meanwhile, back at the church
CHAPTER 23 Paul Wading in the water
CHAPTER 24 Sture Standing in the shadows
CHAPTER 25 Alex and Kenitra Stolen moments
CHAPTER 26 Paul Step by step
CHAPTER 27 Diedre Slowly I turned, step by step
CHAPTER 28 Diedre Come one, come all
CHAPTER 29 Paul A journey of a thousand miles begins
CHAPTER 30 Paul Stepping up to the plate
CHAPTER 31 Paul Oh happy day
CHAPTER 32 Diedre She who hesitates …
CHAPTER 33 Diedre The revolution will not be televised
CHAPTER 34 Diedre Don’t go breaking my heart
CHAPTER 35 Diedre We’re on the right track now
CHAPTER 36 Gordon Slipping into darkness
CHAPTER 37 Gordon Life’s little pleasures
CHAPTER 38 Jerome Don’t look back
CHAPTER 39 Jerome Welcome to the Law of Unintended Consequences
CHAPTER 40 Jerome Charmaine
CHAPTER 41 Jerome Raymond Russell Beard III
CHAPTER 42 Jerome Berta’s story
CHAPTER 43 Jerome Bad moon rising
CHAPTER 44 Jerome Something about Raymond …
CHAPTER 45 Sture Meanwhile, some things never change
CHAPTER 46 Paul My mind is a camera
CHAPTER 47 Diedre E. Frederic Morrow
CHAPTER 48 Paul Remembering Bobby Coles
CHAPTER 49 Paul Welcome to my world
CHAPTER 50 Paul This old house of mine
CHAPTER 51 Paul Something’s cooking
CHAPTER 52 Paul Someone’s in the kitchen …
CHAPTER 53 Paul Samantha on my mind …
CHAPTER 54 Paul This is my beloved
CHAPTER 55 Paul Getting to know all about you
CHAPTER 56 Gordon The Dark Lord
CHAPTER 57 Gordon Night hunting
CHAPTER 58 Diedre She works hard for the money
CHAPTER 59 Diedre Dinner is served
CHAPTER 60 Diedre Getting down to business
CHAPTER 61 Diedre We’re on the right track now
CHAPTER 62 Diedre Flying high in the friendly skies
CHAPTER 63 Paul All the news that fits …
CHAPTER 64 Paul It’s the same old song
CHAPTER 65 Paul Don’t play that song for me
CHAPTER 66 Paul If I ever had a dream before …
CHAPTER 67 Paul Shared pain—shared tears
CHAPTER 68 Paul Pieces of a man
CHAPTER 69 Paul Jagged jigsaw pieces
CHAPTER 70 Paul What a difference a day makes
CHAPTER 71 Gordon Hot fun in the summertime
CHAPTER 72 Paul That’s the way of the world
CHAPTER 73 Jerome When you wish upon a star …
CHAPTER 74 Diedre Some enchanted evening …
CHAPTER 75 Diedre Slipping into darkness
CHAPTER 76 Diedre Once I had a secret love …
CHAPTER 77 Paul Now I shout it to the highest hills
CHAPTER 78 Paul A word with Edwina
CHAPTER 79 Paul Ain’t no stopping us now
CHAPTER 80 Gordon Smiling faces … sometimes … they don’t tell the truth
CHAPTER 81 Gordon If there’s a hell below …
CHAPTER 82 Diedre Have I told you that I love you?
CHAPTER 83 Sture Don’t tell me I’m dreamin’
CHAPTER 84 Kenitra What’s the deal—what’s happenin’?
CHAPTER 85 Diedre As we stroll along together …
CHAPTER 86 Jerome Keep your eyes on the prize
CHAPTER 87 Jerome Circle the wagons
CHAPTER 88 Jerome Mine eyes have seen the glory …
CHAPTER 89 Diedre Who knows what evil lurks …
CHAPTER 90 Paul The natives are restless
CHAPTER 91 Paul Way down yonder in New Orleans
CHAPTER 92 Gordon Crosstown traffic
CHAPTER 93 Diedre When the hunter gets captured by the game …
CHAPTER 94 Sture Hot fun in the summertime
CHAPTER 95 Sture If these walls could talk …
CHAPTER 96 Paul Stolen moments
CHAPTER 97 Diedre Storm clouds are gathering
CHAPTER 98 Diedre Picking up the pieces
CHAPTER 99 Diedre Imitation of madness
CHAPTER 100 Paul Excuse me while I kiss the sky
CHAPTER 101 Gordon The circle of life
CHAPTER 102 Diedre Sunflower
CHAPTER 103 Paul Somewhere beyond the sea
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wanted to avoid clichés in writing every aspect of this book, including the acknowledgments. But some things simply cannot be avoided. I really do want to thank my friends, family and colleagues for their support and inspiration.
Special
thanks goes to four charter members of The Pride for providing you, the reader, with some assurance that the fictional world described in this book bears some resemblance to the real world in which they work and have succeeded—Bernard Beal, Chief Executive Officer of M.R. Beal & Company; Cathy Bell, Managing Director of Loop Capital Markets; J. Donald Rice, Chief Executive Officer of Rice Financial Products Company; and Christopher Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of Williams Capital Group.
I really must thank and acknowledge my literary agent, Marie Brown, who was the first person to encourage me to write a novel and without whom there would only be some unconnected meanderings unworthy of any reader this side of solitary confinement. My sincere gratitude is also extended to Karen Thomas, my editor at Kensington, who has gently introduced me into the not so gentle world of publishing and has helped this rookie writer stay on his feet. Also, special thanks to Walter Moseley, who will not remember his words of encouragement to an aspiring novelist that were taken to heart and helped to inspire the completion of this book; and to Patricia Means, the publisher of Turning Point Magazine who was an early believer.
Finally, I have to acknowledge the past, the present, and the future. My friend Herschel Johnson, who died earlier this year, was the person who first inspired me to write during our early days at Dartmouth. Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who also died earlier this year, was a friend who taught me that graciousness and excellence when combined create greatness. My wife, Connie, is a source of motivation for this book. And my son, Wallace III, teaches me every day that tomorrows have the promise of great wonder and infinite possibility.
TRUE LOVE
The romance of dreams
Is the ecstasy of anticipation
Never really knowing
Even after waking
Never really knowing
What is a dream?
And what is real
And what happens
When dreams
Really do come true?
—WF
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish
For wealth and power, but for the passionate
Sense of potential, for which, ever young and
Ardent, sees the possible. What wine is so
Sparkling, so fragrant, so intoxicating, as
Possibility?
—Soren Kierkegaard
CHAPTER 1
Sture
My name is not Ishmael
Every story has to start somewhere, and mine starts the first time that I saw New York City. My name is Sture (pronounced “Stude” as in “Studebaker”) Jorgenson, and I am from Bergen, Norway, a small town not too far from Oslo. Until I came to New York City, Oslo was the biggest city that I had ever seen.
There is only one serious high-rise in Oslo, and from the observation deck of this hotel/office building you can see the harbor, you can see the Eggar Bryge, which is the Norwegian version of the South Street Seaport. You can see the incredible Viegeland Park statuary garden that, if not one of the seven wonders, is certainly one of the seventy wonders of the world. At night there is a small coverlet of lights that modestly covers Oslo from the hills to the sea. And then there is New York City.
The first time that I saw New York at night, it seemed as if the sky and earth had changed places and that the stars and all of the lights of the heavens were at my feet. The lights, the lights, and the lights—the incredible, passionate embrace of electricity and luminescence—when seen from above resembled nothing so much as an infinite array of constellations designed by the unfettered genius of an unseen hand.
At least that’s what I remember thinking as I looked out of the window of an SAS jet coming into Kennedy Airport more than a dozen years ago. The lights were something more than a spectacle, however. To me they were an invitation to imagine the possibilities of my own dreams coming true.
I also found myself trying to imagine all of the millions upon millions of stories that were unfolding that very moment, even as the plane was coming in for a landing. If Oslo’s nightlights were a shining coverlet, then New York City’s made up a huge, multicolored duvet of gleaming possibilities and endless dreams.
Even though I had lived my entire life in Norway up to that point, I could not help but be aware of the “eight million stories that could be found in the Naked City.” I had seen so many American movies I felt as if I had been to New York a hundred times prior to this, my first visit. But no book, no movie, no television show, no magazine, nothing prepared me for the sheer wonder of the reality that is New York City.
After the lights, after the spectacular spectacle that is visual New York City, after all of that, there is the city itself. And there are the people of the city. My first impression was that of being on a carousel while witnessing a bizarre bazaar of the greatest urban gathering in history, a gathering that resembled a psychedelic kaleidoscope.
As a visitor, I could take in the view or I could stay on board the carousel. I chose to get on board, and I had no idea of how much my life would change from that day onward. And I had no idea about how much I didn’t know when it came to the people of New York City.
CHAPTER 2
Sture
Living for the City
As I made my way through customs and immigration at Kennedy on my first day in America, I had no idea that a dozen years later I would be the manager and part owner of Dorothy’s By the Sea, a most popular restaurant on the western shores of Manhattan. Dorothy’s—a restaurant overlooking the Hudson River, named after the great and tragic black movie star, Dorothy Dandridge.
I am fascinated that my partners felt that she symbolized all that should not be forgotten about blacks in America—spectacular possibility bound up in the limited universe of a constricted reality. And on that day at Kennedy Airport, I never dreamed that as the manager of that restaurant I would be a partner of some of the most prominent members of The Pride.
Many people are not familiar with the term “The Pride.” I have heard it used in private gatherings and not so public conversations. My partners introduced me to the term and I have been told that it refers to a relatively select group of black professionals in New York City and elsewhere in the United States—African-American men and women who make their living as investment bankers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and corporate executives. Many of them are graduates of some of the finest universities and colleges in America and all of them are impeccable professionals.
As an immigrant from Norway with limited dreams and even more limited skills, there is no way that I expected to learn anything about The Pride—I didn’t even know of their existence. And, as I have come to learn, most white Americans that I have met know nothing about this fascinating group of men and women. And that is one more thing I find to be so maddening and interesting and wonderful about America—anything is possible.
Of course, when I settled in on the convertible sofa in the living room of my sister Ilse’s apartment in Queens later that day, I had no way of knowing that I had begun an adventure that would teach me about the restaurant business, the American criminal justice system, and, of course, The Pride. All I wanted was sleep to wash the jet lag off me so that I could wake up and begin the greatest adventure any young man from Bergen, Norway, could possibly hope for.
I spent my first few days craning my neck in wonder, gazing at the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. I made an effort to see every tourist site and all the sights that I could find.
After a few days, however, Ilse made it very clear that, brother or no brother, if I wanted to be able to keep craning my neck every now and then, I needed to find a job. That was the only way I could maintain my legal immigrant status and my temporary residence on the convertible couch in her living room. Having a very modest educational background, and discovering that my knowledge of Norwegian history had limited value in the job market, I looked for and found a
job that fitted one of the few skills that I had that was in demand in New York City in the 1980s—washing dishes in restaurants.
I worked in short order diners, hotels, and restaurants featuring every kind of cuisine imaginable: Turkish, Slovenian, French, Egyptian, Brazilian, Ethiopian, Italian, South African, Colombian, Ghanaian, and Guatemalan. After a while, all scraps and leavings truly did look alike. And then, by chance or fate, I got a job working at the world famous Water Club.
Located on the banks of the East River and not too far south of the United Nations, the Water Club is built on floating piers that abut the East River Drive. It is, in effect, a huge barge tethered to the edge of Manhattan. The Water Club gently floats on the multidirectional currents of the East River, offering spectacular views of New York’s waterways, bridges, floating traffic and the East Side skyline. All of this is combined with great food, an exquisite wine list, and good service. The combination has made the Water Club one of the most popular and successful restaurants in the United States. Indeed, in operating Dorothy’s, I always have looked at the Water Club as the standard that we seek to emulate.
One thing I knew from the time I got off the SAS jet at Kennedy Airport was that even though my sister Ilse loved me dearly, there was no one who was going to support Sture Jorgenson except Sture Jorgenson. So I used the one talent that I had discovered when I had my first job in Norway—I can work very hard.
And I worked very hard at the Water Club. I washed dishes on double shifts, weekends, holidays. I washed dishes when other dishwashers wanted the night off. After a while I became friendly with some of the waiters.
One evening, one of my new waiter friends called me over and, barely containing his excitement, told me of his great good fortune in securing a date with a double-jointed contortionist from Belarus who worked at the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The circus was leaving town in two days and she had the night off. My newfound best friend begged me to substitute for him.