I was numb for a few days after learning that E had suddendly died. I mean completely numb. I remember talking with JR and the phrase that came out of my mouth was that I had bad luck when it came to fathers. See, my natural father and I had been estranged for now going on 15 years. My grandfather was the one who pratically raised me but at the same time he was the grandfather. I had been somewhat envious of JR because he and his dad Lou inspite of their constant disagreements, they still were able to have a true bond of father and son. E, being my mother's lover and companion for hell 15 years pretty much was like my substitute or surogate father. He was there to do things for me that Frank was never there to do. He bought me my first pack of condoms, he illustrated to me what love with a woman could be like, he was througly educated, and had a pretty much flippiant attitude towards antisociety. Antisociety was basically the society which he felt surpressed the underdog and kept the weak weak. There were a lot of things about E that I admired but there was also one thing he said that really struck me negatively, when he said that he was supposed to have been my father. As much as I loved E and respected him and yes even looked the other way at some of the things he did and said, that was one statement that really always struck me as odd. Frank, evidently was supposed to be my dad, what ever the reason, he was supposed to be my dad there was nothing I really could do about it. I respected both men so much to the point were I actually dedicated a part of my masters thesis to them both. But now that E was gone, my grandfather was now the man I had to look to to call father-- despite the fact I called him GW. As I was trying to figure out what was going to now become of my decision to go off to DC, I had to come to grips with a few things. Ma was devestated and even me going out of the house for a long period of time really was a bit much for her. She was completely lost as E, her religion, suddenly died. It was terible to have greif in the house-- and by greif I think I need to qualifiy that, expressive greif. See I really couldn't emote or express my greif in the traditionally sort of ways because E was married. Plain and simple. He had a family in another state which was really having to cope with the traditional things associated with untimely demise. So for us, Ma and me, there was no funeral, no one really to comfortort her at work, no one to legitimately say, I am sorry for your loss. For me going to my nighly frat meeting and announcing this almost was a sham because my brothers knew I was greiving but how do you tell them that your mother's secret lover died and you had called this man your stepfather for 12 years also died in the same vessel. Somehow or another, people must have made the connection because a sympathy card came to the house. I remember going to work and my boss, Mrs. Watson was like why are you here? The truth was simple, I had vacation time, no sick time and I had to be at work. Somehow she made me go back home because I couldn't funciton. Hell I am surprised I was able to drive to work in the tears I had. In late september, I had to do something for me because things were gowing steadly downhill. The fish, Aqua, that Ma and E bought suddenly learned a consistent side stroke. The green plants were turning brown and even Oscar the dog was looking a little thin in his skin. He and I had to form a tempoary partnership so the that he and I both could eat. Going to Howard was completely out of the question because suddenly, I had to become the man of the house @ 25. I really couldn't afford to greive as long as my mother for the simple fact that life goes on for the living. Because we were at the other side of the equation, well we had to go forward. So I had to lead by example. There were two trips I was going to take in the next few weeks. One was going to be to the mountians to go white water rafting. The other was going to be to the million man march. Stragely Ma had to negogiate the rafting trip. Why do you have to go rafting she asked-- to me it was simple. I needed to see what life was like again. I needed to be among people who weren't depressed. I needed to have fun again. I couldn'd do that in a house filled with death. So me, Robin, her brother, his girlfriend, her ex boyfriend all piled in an SUV and off we were to the North Carolina mountians. There I felt like the fith wheel because I had no one there really to be like with me. But again I did have the scenery and the wather and just the peace of mind. It wasn't all that bad. The quiet calm was relaxing. Then also the rapids-- well if I was depressed before, I really didn't have time to be depressed for long because between dodging rocks and waves, I was really preoccupied. There though, I really found that my relationship with Robin had taken a different turn also. She was a bit more well bossy. I never liked being bossed or bullied too much but I just decied to store this for future reference…
A few weeks before the the MMM, I needed to get clearnece with Mrs. Watson. To me this was history making and I really felt I needed to be there. The march was positioned as a march of atonement. For me, it was a way of releasing deamonds I had. My deamonds of hate for my dad, E, and even myself.. I needed to go the the million man march not for the message of frakahann but just for me. To say that I was a man, I was multidismentional and I stood for something. I was destined for greatness along with other brothers. It was only a matter of making the decision to take the first step. For me, to claim my greatness, this was my first step. With offical clearence from my boss I as well as one of my co-workers Coach were set to go. Coach and I came from two different parts of the rail road tracks but at the same time were almost like brothers. He too was an only child raised by his mom. He was 35 and I was 25 and he had done a bit more with his life than I had. He actually played pro baskeball oversears and made some mistakes which brough him back to were it all began, Durham, NC. He was a proud black nationalist who didn't have a college degree per see but a street degree which made him more intellegent than any of my degrees stacked up. When he found out I was going to the march, he appeared shocked. In either regard, he and I were the only ones who went to washington from our school and it really was on the hush.
It was Sunday night, the day before the march and I was like well ambivilant.. I wanted to do but didn't know how I was going to go.. I had no way up there that was organized at least but I knew I had to go. We all met at St Agustines College in Raleigh. My mother knew the bishop there before I knew it, I discovered he was frat. Next thing I knew, with about 40 dollars I am in a car with six brothers from the Nation of Islam riding to DC. I had never really been to DC, didn't know my way around, nor knew where I was going. It was just fate and destiny which put me at the right place at the right time. My politics didn't jibe too much with some of the brothers from NOI but I had to remember who brought me to this dance… This was put to the test when I was challenged by one of them about my wearing my Kappa gear. I let it go because this wasn't supposed to be about brother vs brother but brother for brother. At the hotel room as I saw them getting ready, I kinda started to realize just who I was with, brothers on a mission just in need of direction…. As they were saying I'll pray for XYZ, they also made sure they placed caveots on those prayers. This made me develop a personal philisophy on prayers, never let someone pray for you until that prayer has been specified by you. Don't just pray for me, you make your pray the right prayer. That said, I put a little distance between me and the brother from NOI and found my Kappa brothers. We did our thing, we posed for pictures, sang a few frat hyms and then dispersed. OK I thought.. This was a photo op, what are we going to do at the Million Man March? I was on my own. With camrea I started making my way thorugh the sea of black men and before I realized it, there were a lot of us, I mean we took over DC. There were folks trying to make a buck or two selling mmm gear but still there was no fooling around. For the first time in my life I saw brothers helping brothers, boys becoming men, men becoming agents of change and quietly I was transformed. From this march I realized that I was a conduit, a link in a long chain of success throguh adversity. Someone helped me and people would still contiue to help me but no now I had to do my part in the helping. I had to be that hand up for somebody… my link started with my dad, then with Rayomnd, then with GW, then with E, then Lou, then back with GW and now I had to pull some brothers thorugh. My life link, my chain of men was far from perfect and nowhere near complete…… In fact the Million Man March was my starting point. Beleifs were formed and political ideology was born. It was now only a matter of time before all this got put into pratice...
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