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Sweetspeare's Sirens: Epilogue/Prologue

 
   
 
 

“The story you are about to read is almost true. Only the names have been changed to protect the contrite.”--Raejean Corliss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         “This is ungranulated, unadulterated, unabridged fantasy. It was made up and played out. Believe it if you want to. Fuck you if you do.”--Pierce Trotter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue/Prologue

 

 

 

 

 

January 7, 1984

 

 

 

I almost laughed at Raejean’s funeral. Seriously.

I had to clench the insides of my cheeks with my teeth. Think grave thoughts. Remember how solemn the occasion was. Stop considering the absurdity of it all.

Not bursting into laughter wasn’t easy. But I knew that if I laughed it wasn’t going to be one of those silent rolling chuckles I could keep. The laughter was going to be rambunctious. Rabid. Mad. So I clenched. Thought about how my wild, maniacal laugh would sound as it rolled through the pews over the heads of the mourners, bouncing off brilliant stained glass windows. A dancing discord.  I fought to retain the roar. Knowing that the only person in this sanctuary who would have understood was lying stiffly in a coffin, dead. Dead. So I bit the insides of my cheeks and dug the nails of one hand into the flesh of the other to ward off the threatening hysterics.

I even tried to cry.

 

It was all too ridiculous. Raejean was 33. She was talented. She was brilliant. She was beautiful. She was my best friend. She was gone. A .22 slug through the heart. Self-inflicted. It was as tidy as that type of suicide can be. And, classically Corliss, it was thought through and well planned. Before she shot herself, Raejean cleaned her new Old Town greystone from carpet to chandelier. The dishes were washed and put away. Both her guest and master bathrooms were scrubbed and scoured. Brand new monogrammed bath towels, neatly arranged, hung from the towel racks. Her bills were paid. A dozen-and-a half individually written suicide notes, all composed in iambic pentameter, were sealed in hand-addressed off-white envelopes stacked on her white Norwegian oak nightstand, awaiting distribution to family members and close friends. Like me. Roy, her estranged spouse, got two suicide notes. One was private. The other generic and instructional. A To-Whom-It May-Concern note of cordiality for any and all who may have felt slighted because they didn’t get a personal ode to her self-demise.

That was Rae. She didn’t want to leave anyone feeling left out.

 

I seldom go to funerals or weddings. I’m not comfortable at either. Both are ceremonies of perplexity: We don’t know what happens after death. Half the time, we know all too well what happens after marriage.

Raejean’s funeral was unlike any I had ever read about or heard of. It was pre-planned. Pre-arranged. Pre-paid. In her posthumous instructions, laid out in the generic suicide note, Raejean designated the funeral home she wanted to handle her body. She specified the church, the day and the hour for her last rites. The funeral ceremony was to be racially integrated, of course. Two men of the cloth would administer the services in what amounted to a pepper and salt tag-team approach. “The Urban Prophet,” the Rev. Billy Crowe, president and founder of Mission JAB, which Raejean once described in her column as “the most militant and momentous of the moderate Civil Rights organizations,” was one. The other was Father Robert McNicholas, an activist Catholic priest, nationally known for his liberal theological and humanitarian views. Raejean’s instructions spelled out every detail for her funeral, big and small. She decreed just who was to deliver her eulogies, how long they were expected to speak--and in what order. She had visited Oak Woods Cemetery and selected the site where she wanted to be laid to rest. Her burial plot was bought and paid for months in advance. Except for the death date, her slate-gray, green-marbled tombstone had been engraved weeks ahead. It read: “My life was metered and measured from there to here.”

            

And that was it. For Rae.

But what about me? Where was I going? Where had I been?

It was a long story.  No.  In retrospect, my life was a long series of short stories, warped and wefted. Encompassing me as I sat there facing Raejean’s death. Propelling me to wander back through my life.  Compelling me to wonder deeply about my life.

Was the tapestry intact or was the wholecloth threadbare?

 

 

 

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 8

 
 

    My Afro wasn’t one of those gigantic spheres that blocked the view for people sitting behind me in the movie theater. But it was big and beautiful—except when I was writing. I had a nervous habit of playing with my hair while concentrating. Unconsciously, I pinched and twisted it between my thumb and fingers into braid-like baby spears that, after a while, created a big, burly Afro sprouting dwarf dreads. Samuele didn’t like the look.

“What is wrong with your head?” he asked.

I was writing. Right then, the existing world was all in my mind. I didn’t hear him. He thought I was ignoring him. He furiously banged the palm of his hand on the wall of my cubicle, disturbing the insurance-company quiet in the office.

“Pierce, did you hear me? What’s wrong with your head?”

“Nothing that a good shrink couldn’t fix,” I answered, thinking this was a good time for levity.

Samuele frowned at my joke while nodding in agreement with what I said.

 “Let me repeat the question,” he said, in his usual whiny, high-pitched voice, ‘Why is your hair looking like that?’”

“Like what?” There were no mirrors in my cubicle, if there were, I would not have been surprised to see that Samuele had no reflection.

“Your head. It’s a disgrace,” he said. “Either you march into the men’s room right now and comb your hair or I’m going to tell Mr. Wilson Jr. that I had to send you home because your appearance was unacceptable.”

I shook my head. This was one for Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

“I’m serious. There are people passing by here on tours. You look like some plantation pickaninny. Like Buckwheat in his Sunday go-to-meeting suit.”

“Foolish me, I thought I was a Raven writer, not a Raven Style Galore model,” I said, slapping my face in mock surprise.

Then I went to the men’s room.

“You won’t believe what happened to me at the Outhouse today,” I announced to Allison as soon as I walked in the door. Depending on what was going on at WIPE, it was either the Fun House or the Outhouse.

“Let me guess. David hit on you again.”

“No, not today, that was last week,” I said.

“And the week before.”

“And the week before that.”

Warren had been way off about David’s interest in just taking care of business. David hit on me--and several other young male employees at WIPE—all the time. I never knew when it was coming or how to deflect it when it did. But I always managed to find a way out. There was the time he summoned me to his office to give me an assignment. 

When I walked in, he was bent over the front of his desk with his legs spread wide apart, leaning on his right elbow, looking out the window as if he was enjoying the view. When I announced myself, he took the middle finger on his left hand and began circling it over the bottom of his ass—dead center. A nervous giggle muscled its way out of my mouth. David straightened up, walked around behind his desk and talked about the story he wanted me to write—as if nothing had happened.

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 7

 
 

     “I’m giving you some slack. But I want that story by noon sharp,” David said.

 “Noon it’ll be. Not a minute later,” I said, mocking Mr. Wilson Jr.’s tone of voice, with sniffles and all.

“Richard Pryor you’re not,” David said, his eyes fixed on me. I hated when he did that. Although he was slightly cock-eyed, he seemed to be trying to look straight through me. I felt like crystal. “I saw the home shots. Nice family.”

“Everything’s nice about it. Nice family, nice job, nice lady. All this niceness puts me in a diabetic coma. Our readers are next.”

“You’re missing the point, Pierce,” David said, leaning over me at my desk, giving me that look again. His generously applied expensive cologne was almost overpowering because he only inches away. I leaned back in my chair. He was a tall, lean man. About my size but a couple of inches taller. Even with the cockeye, women who didn’t know better found him attractive.

“The point is that a very nice, very ordinary Black woman has worked her way to a very important position where she can not only witness corporate power but influence it. If you learn only one thing from working on this story, make it this: ‘Secretaries are the keepers of the gate to power.’ If you’re trying to get in touch with The Man, they can help you or hinder you,” David paused motioning toward Barbara with a slight smile on his face. “Besides, the story is just three lousy double-spaced pages long.”

He was right, of course. I began typing. At that moment, I wanted to leap up and give David a high five. Sometimes he could be so helpful and then at other times he was, as Eddie Redmond described him, “the Wicked Witch of the Rest.” But, as much of a dickhead as Dave could be, he came off as the Black Knight when compared to Sam.

A few years earlier, Raven ran an autobiographical feature on Samuele Girma’s life. He was the mulatto offspring of an Ethiopian warlord who had hopped a steamer up the Suez Canal for Italy where he went to study civil engineering in Rome. His mother, Juliana Principe, was the mistress of one of Mussolini’s most prominent and powerful Representatives of the Confederazione Generale delle Corporazioni until she met Girmaye Teklehaimanot. To the shock of Italian society, the two married. Girmaye and his Italian bride moved back to his native Ethiopia in the Trigray region in the city of Axum.

When Samuele was eight, the Italian army invaded Ethiopia. Two years later, in 1936, one of the sacred, 1000-year-old Axum Obelisks was taken in ruins from Ethiopia to Italy. The 180-ton, 74-foot-tall funerary monument was reassembled and still graces Rome’s Piazza di Porta Capena today. Weeks after the Italian army transported the Obelisk out of Ethiopia, an irate Girmaye sought revenge.

During one of the Italian Army’s frequent military “show of might” parades in Axum, Girmaye charged the review stand, on a suicide mission, shouting a Tigrean war cry. Right after he pulled the pin on the grenade he held in his hand, he grabbed Mussolini’s top general in a bear hug. Both men died on the spot. Girmaye became a martyr in Axum. Juliana took her son back to Rome where they remained throughout War World II. They were about as welcome as a canker sore on the lip of a beauty queen.

Beyond the stigma of being a widow and an only son of an infamous assassin, Samuele had to live with the racism in fascist Italy. The natives had never gotten over being conquered by the Moors in the Middle Ages. Nearly half a century later, they were still outraged at the Italian Army’s defeat in an attempted invasion of Ethiopia in 1890. They carried, what for some, was an understandable hatred for Africans. Sicilians, who routinely denied they had Black blood deeply embedded in their veins, were particularly vehement.  So, Samuele had grown up being taunted as “the poor Moor.” In his late teens, he left Italy for the states, settling in Chicago.

After a few years and a lot of hard work, his English was fluent with a barely detectable accent. He studied journalism at Roosevelt University and right out of college landed a job at WIPE. After a brief stint at Hep, he was transferred to Raven where he worked his way up. By natural disposition, Samuele Girma was sour. He seldom smiled or joked. He was generally inflexible. He was good at making sure all deadlines were met. Behind his back, we called him “the Moor Fascist.”

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 6

 

    After much litigation, since his wallet was missing and there was neither suicide note nor proof that he had purposefully made the jump, Mr. Wilson Sr.’s extremely generous insurance policy was paid in full. Grieving but with renewed determination “to build an economic empire in my father’s name,” Mr. Wilson Jr. finally had enough capital to convert The Reverie into reality.

“Mr. W. Jr. spent nine million dollars to turn the Midnight Mansion into the corporate offices of WIPE. If he had not been a Black man, he would have been recognized as the financial genius he is, years ago,” Maceo said.

Genius or not, like Henry Ford or J.C. Penny and other great self-made men, Mr. Wilson Jr. was a bitch to work for. You either did it his way or you didn’t do it at all. He knew what he wanted: Money. His employees knew what was expected of them: To help make him money.

Mr. Wilson Jr. made his money by adopting established magazine formats from the Luce family and forging them into new Negro publications in his own image.

Since the earliest Negro newspapers in the 1700s, the Black press served as an avenue for protest; first, as a call to end slavery, later as cry against Jim Crow laws and lynching. Back in the early 1940s when Woodcock Wilson Jr. and Woodcock Wilson Sr. started Colored Cavalcade, they broke with the Negro press tradition.  Rather than always reacting to white oppression, Colored Cavalcade ran essays by Negro intellectuals and activists.  When Mr. Wilson Jr. later began publishing Raven magazine three years later, he dictated that its format focus on Negro achievement.  Raven and the other WIPE publications served as the antidote to the steady diet of bad news reported about Blacks in the white media.

Raven was miscegenation of print and photojournalism. There was more space dedicated to photography in the magazine than there was to text. Every edition of Raven was chockfull of stories about the first Black to achieve this and the first Black to accomplish that. It featured well-heeled and well-educated Negroes in black and white and color photos. The story didn’t matter nearly as much as the subjects who were always Black and beautiful. These people were succeeding against all odds; overcoming all obstacles. Their success was there for other Negroes to see, read and emulate. For those who were not quite as singularly successful, each month there was the Raven’s Spectacular Souls column, which featured seven Blacks that were hired or promoted to first positions by Fortune 500 corporations—firms that could then be approached by Mr. Wilson Jr. or his advertising sales director.

“Folks look at this building and Mr. W. Jr.’s wealth and take it all for granted,” Ernie said to me one day while I was in his office seeking advice on how to write a transition between paragraphs in a story I was working on. “It looks easy now, but it wasn’t always that way. Even after the man got circulation way up on Raven and Hep, he had trouble selling advertising. He couldn’t get past the secretaries in those castles in the sky.”

Ernie got up from his desk and walked past me. He looked out to make sure no was one in earshot. Just to be safe, he quietly shut his office door. “But, I don’t care what you think about him as a boss, the man is cunning when it comes to business. Mr. W. Jr. began finagling his way into becoming the first Black on one strategic corporate board after the next. He’d spend more than a year religiously attending meetings, not making any pitch whatsoever and generously donating. After a while, he’d become friendly with the CEOs on the board who ran big corporations. Soon, they began approaching him, asking, ‘Woody, are we advertising in your magazine?’ And, two or three months later,” Ernie said, “they were in.”

“Slick,” I said.

Ernie smiled in agreement.

My smile fell away as I thought about Mr. Wilson Jr., the boss, not the Black business pioneer. “But he’s such an asshole,” I said.

“If you think its rough around here now, you should have been here back in the days when he wasn’t rich and influential. He’d fire people coming and going,” Ernie said. “Sometimes he’d let go 20 employees at a time. You’d leave work for the weekend and a Western Union telegram would be waiting on you at home informing you that ‘your services are no longer needed. STOP. Don’t bother to return to WIPE on Monday to collect your personable possessions.  STOP. They will be mailed to you at your place of residence.  STOP.’”

“Heartless,” I said.  Mr. Wilson Jr. had fired Ernie on two separate occasions, hiring him back a few weeks later both times.

“That’s why he’s where he is today.”

“How have you managed to take it all these years?”

“You’re young. You’re idealistic. You don’t fully understand what’s ahead for you. Either you bend or you break. Some choose not to bend. To stand tall. They end up literally or figuratively broken. I’ve chosen to bend so that I may choose my time to stand tall.”

“Isn’t that a choice we always have?”

“Not always.”

*               *               *               *

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 5

 

    In late 1970, Mr. Wilson Jr. purchased what had been the Midnight Magazine mansion after its owner, Editor and Publisher Clyde Douglass, in a mid-life crisis, decided to go west. He bought Doug’s place at what turned out to be a premium, becoming the first Black to own a building on Chicago’s Gold Coast.

“He showed them,” Barbara frequently boasted about the purchase.  Meaning, he showed the Gold Coast Real Estate Association that his clout was equal to that of its protesting members.

Once the building was his, extensive renovation was done. “Mr. W. Jr. wanted the building to look like a world class office building, not just some converted Gold Coast party house,” Ernie told me. “He wanted Black people to see the building and be proud. He wanted white people to see the building and be dumbstruck.”

What Mr. Wilson Jr. wanted, Mr. Wilson Jr. got.  The hand-carved entrance doors were relocated to the inside and replaced with glass and polished brass revolving ones. The photography studio, where scores of Midnight Honeys bared all for the camera, got a pretty dowdy makeover. Whenever I’d go there to check out the photography layout for one of my stories, I’d find myself wishing I were a time traveler who could visit the recent past.

The ballroom, where celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Gloria Steinem to Rev. Crowe had boogied, was transformed into the cafeteria. With the aid of a sliding opaque glass partition, its front could become a formal dining room. It had sliding glass doors to the balcony, which was off-limits to employees, except during business lunches or receptions.

The Raven offices were on the third floor where the Honey Dorm used to be. Mr. Wilson Jr.’s office topped off the stately building, transforming the penthouse where Doug had cavorted with many a Honey and Honey-to-be. It was at once an office space and private quarters. The majestic hand-carved  entrance doors now stood as the portal to Mr. Wilson Jr.’s duplexed executive suite. A high-yellow, big-breasted secretary, in her 20s, with a gap between her front teeth, sat at a desk just outside his complex guarding entry. At another desk just inside the executive suite, sat another high-yellow woman, in her late 30s, with a wide gap between her front teeth and triple-D breasts. She was Mr. Wilson Jr.’s administrative assistant.

He had a cavernous office with an elevated desk made from glistening ebony wood that was trimmed in, we were assured, “legally imported” ivory elephant tusks. There were three matching modern sofas upholstered in genuine zebra skin. A four-foot diameter spiral staircase led to the upper level of the suite which was Mr. Wilson Jr.’s private complex. It secreted a bedroom with a shower, an exercise room and a completely mirrored nook with a classic Koken barber’s chair custom-upholstered in emerald green leather.

Although it was nearly 25 years in the making, it was literally a dream come true. While stacking magazines to sell in his father’s store, young Wilson Jr. experienced a vision. In it, the white magazines turned Black and rather than his putting them out for sale, others did the job while he supervised.

One month, he and his father were selling chitterlings, chickens, fresh greens and dry goods. The next month, the meats, milk and produce vanished. So did the magazine racks, the candy counter, the canned foods and the cases of Coca-Cola. Used desks and Corona typewriters took their places. Mr. Wilson Sr. ditched his entire business to fund The Reverie by investing the $727 numbers payoff and mortgaging himself from the manicured tip of his goateed chin to the glossy tips of his black and white spats. Three years later, when bill collectors were hounding father and son, the staff detected in Mr. Wilson Sr. a hands-up surrendering.

The morning after St. Patrick’s Day, the old man’s body was found floating belly up, in the eternally green waters of the Chicago River.

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 4

 
 

    I searched, wondering who would know me at O’Hare. At a table halfway across the lounge, I saw a hand waving at full mast. Although the lighting was low, I could tell it was Warren from the bushy profile. He motioned for me to join him.

“I see you’re stuck here too,” I said as I sat down at his table.

“Yeah. And I really need to get back to the Motor City tonight.  I’m sorry I didn’t take the train.”

A waiter came by to take my order. “I’ll have a Harvey Wallbanger.”         

“Another Cutty on the rocks for me,” Warren said.

After we were served our drinks, Warren started filling me in on WIPE without my asking. He’d worked there for a little more than four years before taking the public relations job in Detroit. Before joining Hep magazine, he had worked at the Amsterdam News in Harlem for five years. “WIPE is a great place to work. You’re going to love it,” he said, checking his watch.

I swirled the straw around in my glass and then took another sip of my drink through it. I wasn’t sure I was interested in the job and I didn’t feel comfortable running through the pros and cons with someone I’d just met.

“The rehabbed mansion is beautiful. The old man put a lot of money into the place. And they keep getting more and more beautiful women working around there too.”

“I noticed. There seemed to be a nice number,” I said, my interest in the conversation rising.

“A young man like you will have a great time around there. You can play as hard as they make you work. Just be careful not to hit on any of Mr. W. Jr.’s women.”

My right eye twitched. Who were Mr. Wilson Jr.’s women and how did Warren know they were interested in me at Raven?

“The job is yours for the taking,” he said.

“This was the strangest job interview I’ve ever had,” I said, opening up. “I spent the first 15 minutes of the interview badmouthing the joint and then I’m offered a job out of the blue.”

Warren laughed. “It’s the way you’re dressed.”

“What?” I asked.

“I chatted briefly with David while you were still in the interview with Samuele and Maceo. That was the first thing he said to me.”

“What?”

“He whispered to me, ‘You should see the size of the bulge in those tight knit pants he’s wearing.’”

My eyes went straight to my crotch. There was a big bulge.

“David is homosexual,” Warren said.

I didn’t know what to say. So that’s what was going on. “How many of the women there are Mr. Wilson Jr.’s and how do I find out who they are?” I asked.

“There are usually no more than a handful. You’ll figure out who’s who. Just go slow.”

I nodded.

“Oh,” Warren said as if it had just occurred to him, “if she’s high yellow, has huge breasts and a big butt, she’s more than likely one of his. If she has all those qualities and a gap between her front teeth, she is one of his.”

I motioned to the waiter to bring us another round.

“Don’t worry. David’s a pro. He doesn’t let his pleasure come before business.”

That made me feel better. At the time.

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 3

 
 

     “His mother was reading the Bible and when she read, ‘Verily, verily I say unto thee,’ she thought verily was someone’s name and proudly gave it to her firstborn.”

“I’d read that in Raven.”

 “Come,” David gestured. “Let me show you the balcony.”

The balcony ran the entire width of the mansion. Overhead, in the center, a specially-designed black, gray and green flag, “the colors of money,” with the company logo, fluttered from a pole stationed up high. 

“We have a spectacular view of the lakefront. If you look to your right,” David said, placing his hand on my shoulder and ever so gently repositioning my stance, “you can see the Drake Hotel where the Magnificent Mile ends and the Gold Coast begins.”

I stepped slightly out of his reach to take in the sight. Even on a snowy, gray day, the view was commanding. All of a sudden I felt the 20-degree temperature. A shiver flashed through me.

“In the summer, there will be tables out here. If you’d rather lunch…” David ran his hand across an imaginary table then motioned towards an imaginary chair, “instead of in the cafeteria, well…you can.”

“Cool,” I said, stepping back into the cafeteria to escape the cold.

We continued our tour. David showed me the mailroom. “This used to be Doug’s underwater grotto. Mr. Wilson Jr. chose to have it filled with cement so it would become more utilitarian.”

“I’ll bet the staff would have decided otherwise.”

David smiled. Before I got a chance to make another comment, we ran into a wiry, intense man with long, bushy sideburns that flowed into a matching mustache.

“Warren,” David beamed. “I thought you were gone.”

“On my way out of here, right now,” Warren responded, gesturing with a head nod. Both hands were full. One clutched a big brief case and the other an overnight bag. “The snow’s coming down harder.”

“Have a safe trip. See you the next time through,” David said to Warren after introducing him to me.

“God willing. Talk to you soon.”

“Looking forward to it,” David said, waving goodbye. “That was Warren Hall. He used to be an associate editor for Hep. About two years ago he got a highflying job at Armstrong & Stryker, the biggest public relations firm in Detroit. He’s the first Black to work there. Making a lot of money. That’s one advantage to working here.”

“What?” I asked. I hadn’t been paying close attention. A fine sister, standing in front of a Jacob Lawrence painting about the Negro migration, had caught my eye.

“The good thing about working here is that we have such respect in the profession that you can always translate this into another job in the business,” David said. “Of course, the best ones don’t leave.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was serious or not.

“So, are you going to come aboard?” he asked, pointedly, his voice dropping from baritone to base.

I hesitated. I hadn’t expected this. “I need to think about it.”

“Of course. Call me next week and let me know what you want to do. You’ve got a plane to catch. You’d better get going unless you want to spend the night here.”

I hurried back to Maceo’s office where I’d left my bags. I thanked him and Samuele for the interview before rushing out. 

The going was slow to the airport. I’d creep a few yards forward then stop. Creep a little more. Then wait. Although I had allowed for plenty of time, I began to worry if I’d make it before my flight departed. I dropped my rental off at Hertz 25 minutes before my plane was scheduled for take off. I raced to my departure gate only to discover I wasn’t going anywhere. All flights at O’Hare were either delayed or cancelled. 

There was no indication when my airplane would be leaving. I wandered around the airport for 10 or 15 minutes. O’Hare was a boring place. The shops and stores, all run by cronies who were major contributors to Mayor O’Shea’s political coffers, offered little other than the tried and true to a captive clientele.  The merchandise was standard. The food was bland.  A bunch of shaven-head Hare Krishnas were dancing and soliciting by the newsstand. I stopped by The Skyway Lounge, which was the biggest restaurant and watering hole at the airport.

“Pierce!” I heard a voice calling.

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 2

   

     “As we walk around, be sure to notice all the beautiful art throughout our building. This is the most extensive and expensive collection of original Black American art in any corporate setting in the world. We have all the brilliant Black artists,” David said, gesturing grandly at a life-size figure. “That’s an Elizabeth Catlett. I thought Mr. Wilson Jr. was going to have it on display outside my office.”

I stopped to study the piece. It was a polished wood sculpture of a woman standing with her right fist raised in a Black Power salute. I had aced a Black art appreciation class at PSU by talking the talk. “Superb. The carved openings near the top and center of this figure are a penetrating juxtaposition to the protruding contours of the female anatomy,” I started to say, imitating art critic speak, as I examined the work. Not knowing David or his sense of humor, I checked myself and quietly admired the incredible piece, allowing a simple, “Beautiful,” to be said aloud instead.

“But since Verily,” David looked around and whispered, “is Mr. Wilson Jr.’s favorite, he got Homage to My Young Black Sisters.
 
 “As a booby prize, I got Archibald Motley’s The Liar,” David said, pointing at the painting hanging between his office and Samuele’s.
 
I did a double take, trying to shake off the “six in one hand, half a dozen in the other” thought crossing my mind. From where we stood, David’s office was to the left of Samuele’s. So I couldn’t tell whose was what.

 “I guess I shouldn’t really complain. He is an important Black Chicago artist. The colors are so vibrant. The composition is so complete.”

I agreed with him about the colors and composition but thought the exaggerated lips and the image of everybody hanging out at a pool hall was downright Minstrel. Tinsel Town had perfected the images of Motley’s men and put them to action. As Al Jolson had given them voice.  Before that, there had been a century’s worth of newspaper cartoonists with like-minded illustrated illusions. I decided I’d best play along. I pursed my lips and raised an eyebrow as if I was expressing some appreciation of the work, then thoughtfully nodded.

“Of course, Mr. Wilson Jr. has the Geraldine McCullough and Richard Hunt sculptures positioned to greet you as you enter his penthouse suite.”

Again, I nodded. At the time, I had no idea who Richard Hunt was but admired his piece. I was familiar with Geraldine McCullough because Raven had run a spread on her a few months earlier, as an arriving Black woman sculptor. I believed, like LeRoi Jones, that every middle-class Black American should have original African-American paintings or sculptures adorning the crib.

“Maceo is only the third executive editor of Raven. The first was Walter Gates. He is this white man Mr. Wilson Jr. needed to help get the company situated,” David said, motioning for me to take a seat at a table as we stopped in the cafeteria. “Mr. Wilson Jr. launched Colored Cavalcade out of the back of his father’s store. Once the publication really got off the ground, Mr. Wilson Jr. wanted a better office space for his business, especially since he was about to start another magazine.

Raven was going to be a big step up, rather than relying on freelancers, he’d have to have three or four writers and editors. He also wanted to move closer to the Loop. This was in the late 40s, not long after the war. A Negro, trying to get a lease at 25th and Michigan Avenue, was bound to be challenged by special circumstances. That’s where Walter became useful.”

“They leased it to the white man.”

David smiled and nodded. “Mr. Wilson Jr. checked out the place by slipping on some coveralls and pretending to be Mr. Gates’ janitor. Then he sent Walter over to conduct the business transaction.”

“How did the realtors react when they discovered Mr. Wilson Jr. was the actual owner?” I asked, lighting up a Marlboro.

“They didn’t. Times were changing. By the time Mr. Wilson Jr. let Walter go several years later and made his financial interests known, the borders of Bronzeville had swelled to more or less swallow up WIPE’s offices. We were destined to be back in the Black belt. Twelve years after Mr. Wilson, Jr. had moved his offices in, Mayor O’Shea had his rubber stamp city council condemned the entire block so that the Stevenson could run through it. The expressway was as effective as the Berlin Wall for containing Blacks. As for WIPE, we moved out and back south to 35th Street—then we moved here,” he said, gesturing with both arms open, as if it was his corporation and not Mr. Wilson Jr.’s. “The second editor was Mona Adams, a brilliant Black woman who was a bitch. We convinced Mr. Wilson Jr. to demote her and decide on us.”

I nodded. “I’ve read Verily Welch since I was in junior high. He’s one of the reasons I decided to become a writer.”

“Verily is a good man, a nice man. But, he’s not that easy to approach,” David said and then smiled. “Don’t you think his first name is unusual?”

I nodded again.

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Four, part 1

 
 
 

   “We’re in a business that’s populated by professional gossips. We barter in rumor and fact.”—Raejean Corliss

Chapter Four

    “Raven is irrelevant,” I said, a few minutes into the interview. “You’re doing the same stories you were doing when I was learning my ABC’s.”

“We know we need fresh blood. That’s the reason we’re seeking out young journalists,” David said. “We want a new perspective. Times have changed and we’re changing too.”

“The magazine is superficial. It has no depth,” I said. “It has too much fluff. These are serious times for Black people.”

Maceo sat silent.  “What do you mean?” Samuele asked.

Before I could answer, David rapidly rose. “I want him,” he said, abruptly marching out the room.

What was going on?

I sat there checking out the interior decoration. Maceo’s office, like those of the other front-five at WIPE, was well-appointed. It had oversized windows with a grand view. His office, like the other top editors, boasted picture telephones—which were decades ahead of the times. There were 21-inch Zenith color television sets in custom-built Teak consoles. And there were enough potted plants around to mock the Garfield Park Conservatory. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had to admit I wouldn’t mind having an office with a picture phone, color TV and a view of the Oak Street Beach.

The interview continued, shifting directions. They wanted to know how I would like to see the magazine’s editorial policy change. They nodded as I ticked off ways I thought would make Raven more relevant. It was flattering to have these editors seek out my ideas. Maybe the place wouldn’t be that bad after all.

Fifteen minutes after he had abruptly left, David returned. He looked at Maceo and Samuele, and then said to me: “Let me show you around our lovely new offices.”

David was an engaging tour guide. He dished out company history and details, pointing out what was produced where and who did what, peppered with dashes of spicy gossip. He hinted at who was sleeping with whom as he walked me around introducing me to staff. He told me about the couple who used to work at WIPE but was fired following a domestic after the boyfriend was busted for pimp slapping his cheating live-in girlfriend.

He told me how the mahogany paneling had been imported from Kenya. How Mrs. Wilson Jr. had made a special trip, along with Samuele, to Italy so that she could personally select the marble flooring for the lobby from an Italian quarry. How he personally had recommended the interior designers to Mr. Wilson Jr. and that they were the same team who had decorated Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s Hollywood home. How the Wilson’s, Junior and Senior, got the business off the ground after hitting the numbers and a $727 payoff.

“They were selling Colored Cavalcade over the counter at their storefront grocery. They paid friends to go around to other groceries and news stands in Bronzeville and pretend to be customers, inquiring about the magazine. Of course, no one else carried it. But, thanks to popular demand, in no time flat, every grocery store and news stand on the South Side soon was prominently displaying issues of Colored Cavalcade,” David said.

I nodded. Slick move.

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Three, part 8

     
 

    The leadership of the Black Power Summit, for the most part, consisted of Black nationalists and revolutionaries with a sprinkling of Black politicians thrown in for good measure. Black Arts Movement Poet Imamu Amiri Baraka was the organizer. So whenever Baraka, and the entourage of bodyguards and flunkies who flanked him from point to point, made his way through the passionately radical crowd, a phalanx of media followed—including me. Mayor Robert H. Beckworth was front and center stage, after all Prentice was his town. But, while it was Baraka’s troupes and Beckworth’s auditorium, it became Billy’s show. 

Rev. Crowe had this unequalled talent for upstaging anyone at any public event where there happened to be media. This time, among this crowd, it would be prudent for him to raise his rhetoric. With his Afro combed out to it’s full glory and sporting a black daskiki with a red and green embroidered fist on the front, Billy took a shot at being more militant than the most militant at the Black power conference.

“If white America ain’t gonna give Black America its due, then we’ll do whatever we have to do to get our due. Do you hear me? I said, ‘if white America ain’t gonna give Black American its due, then we’ll have to do whatever we have to do to get our due,’” Crowe preached to a roaring crowd.

“Billy’s gone from talking shit to speaking do-due,” I joked with Allison as I watched him work both the audience and media.

She laughed.

I was no longer interested in working at Raven Magazine so I was all set to make my  job interview a revolunary one. I planned to give those Negroes a piece of my Black mind. They would know, from the beginning, that I believed they were old-fashioned and out-of-fashion. 

To make my point, I dressed to protest. No traditional suit and tie for this job interview. I showed up in a very mod Royal blue knit wool leisure suit. The pants were narrow legged and cuff less. The four-button modified military-style jacket was cut at the waist. The suit looked like something Richard Roundtree might be wearing as John Shaft. I wore a Navy blue knit turtleneck underneath. I was GQ on the Black-hand side.

“Damn, Trotsky, you look delicious. Don’t let any of those sisters at WIPE peel you like a grape,” Allison said, fastening the snaps on her suitcase. 

Although we had flown to Chicago from D.C. together to cover the Black Power Summit, she’d be flying home alone. She had to be back in the station at WCDC-AM later that day. I would be on my own.

“Hmmmm,” I said, savoring the thought.

“Oh, before I forget, I’ve got a good luck gift for you.”

“Really?”

“For real. Close your eyes.”

I obeyed, resisting the temptation to peek. Allison tenderly put her arms around me. She kissed me gently on my earlobe then clipped something around my neck.

“You can open up now.”

I looked at the 18-karat gold chain. A cardboard sign bearing Allison’s handwriting in big red lettering had been safety-pinned to it. It was easy to read, even upside down. It read: TAKEN.

Sweetspeare's Sirens: Chapter Three, part 7

 
 

    The brotherhood is what I was seeking when I banged out a letter to Raven seeking a position at the magazine. I was the first Black hired at the American Times Journal in DC. Several experienced and better qualified Black journalists had applied long before me. Henry Pride, the newspaper’s Mississippi-born-and-raised managing editor, had deep-sixed each one. “Didn’t you notice this is a Negro?” he’d ask as soon as the application hit his desk.

In the wake of what was becoming an annual outbreak of deadly urban uprisings, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to head up a commission to study race relations in the United States. The Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, better known as the Kerner Report, was published in 1968 pointing out the obvious: the United States was “moving towards two societies, one black, and one white— separate and unequal.”

Many well-meaning whites had a change of heart after the Kerner Report concluded that racism and economic inequity spurred the riots. Not Hank Pride. His standard hiring practice remained in the waning days of the Civil Rights era when good will towards Blacks was alive and well among many liberal and moderate white Americans. Out of deference to his age, his position and his power in the company, Pride’s wishes willed out.

As luck would have it, my letter and résumé arrived in the mail just days after old Henry had ripped open the last of the gag gifts at his retirement party. In the spirit of well-intentioned white Americans across the nation, the editors at the ATJ were determined not to be the last in their profession to hire a Black reporter.

The Editor-in-Chief at the ATJ vowed that he’d hire the first qualified Black that applied. Since I had spent most of my life within the city limits of my hometown, Prentice, there was nothing more attractive to me than a reporting job outside of the Midwest; one that came with free airplane tickets and four-star hotel reservations.

During my stint at the American Times Journal, I was treated much better than I anticipated. But I was too suspicious of the mentoring I was getting; worried that my white editors and colleagues were trying to assimilate me into something I was not. 

Not only was I the first Black journalist working there, I was the only one. There were no Black photographers. There were no Black secretaries. There wasn’t even a Black janitor. It was just me. It was only me.

After two years nothing had changed. It was still just me. I was the token Black and I didn’t like the position. And, I wasn’t performing as well as I —or the ATJ, for that matter-- would have liked. They decided it would be better for my career development if I got some experience at a daily newspaper. I decided it was time for me to go home—to my people. Since Raven was the gold standard for Black publications, I applied there first. After not hearing from anyone in three months, I started applying to other Black publications across the nation. I got a quick response.

I’d received an offer to work for Envision, an upstart Black magazine in the Big Apple. I’d agreed to go. Then I heard from Raven. They wanted to fly me to Chicago for an interview. That wouldn’t be necessary. The American Times Journal was flying me to Chicago to cover the Black Power Summit that was being held in suburban Prentice. It wouldn’t hurt to drop by, I thought.  A job interview for a position I didn’t need…this was going to be an interesting experience.