“Allen, wake up. Allen. Allen!!”
It took a few seconds before Allen could get a clear picture of the face before him. It was his mother, Lena. This would have comforted him, had the expression on her face been a little friendlier.
“Allen, have you been up here all day?” asked Lena sounding like a mother who was about to give her son a scolding. Allen just rubbed at the pieces of crud that had accumulated in his eyes while he was sleeping. He wished he could have stayed asleep. In his dreams he was the Man in the Corner Office. Now he had to wake up to the real nightmare.
“What time is it?” he asked groggily.
“It’s dinner time already, and you’re still in your pajamas! Now this is just a crying shame. Get up from that bed and stop feelin’ sorry for yourself! And while you’re at it, you can come downstairs and get your dinner.”
Allen didn’t move. He just lay there rubbing his hand over his eyes, hoping his mother would just walk away, but she didn’t. Not satisfied with Allen’s response, Lena then grabbed Allen’s arm and tried pulling him up, which caught him off guard.
“Alright, I’m getting up!” groaned Allen as he began to rouse himself.
“And make sure you wash your face before you come to the table. Don’t nobody want to eat, lookin’ at you with all that crust all over your face”, Lena fussed. And with that, Lena turned on her heel and marched out of the door and down the stairs.
Allen sat on the side of his bed for a few moments, thinking about whether or not he should change his clothes. “It wouldn’t do any good now. In a few hours, it would be time to go back to bed anyway”, he told himself. He tried to concentrate on the moment, and not the other things that were filling his head right now. Like about how the recent dialogue between him and his mother made him feel like a little boy. Here he was, a Harvard Graduate, and instead of being out and about on a new job, conquering new territory, and learning new skills, he was in the same spot that he had been in before he left for college. The worst part was, Allen didn’t quite understand why.
He got up, grabbed some things from a dresser and started towards the bathroom, where he washed his face and put on a clean t-shirt. Then he reluctantly headed down to the dining room of his parents two-story brownstone. When Allen got to the entrance, he could see his father, Vernon, already sitting at the head of the table with his paper. Upon hearing Allen’s footsteps, Vernon looked up momentarily and cleared his throat, before returning his attention to his newspaper. Then Lena came out with three plates of food and set them on the table. Allen hoped the silence would continue long enough for him to finish his meal, but not long after they said the grace, his father started in on him again.
“So, you come in here and can’t say good evening to nobody?” Vernon grunted.
“Good evening, mom. Good evening, Dad”, said Allen straining to be polite “There. Are we straight now?” he added with a bit of attitude.
“I know you’re not tryin’ to cop an attitude with me!” retorted Vernon ready to rumble.
“Vernon, please. Leave the chile alone! Can’t you see he’s upset?” pleaded Lena.
“He’s upset! If he is, it’s his own fault. He don’t have no right to take it out on us”, Vernon grumbled.
“See! I knew you would bring it up again. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything”, sighed Allen, rubbing his hand over his face in exasperation.
“Don’t give me that. You want to come in here and give me and your momma an attitude, but we weren’t the ones that turned down that $40,000.00 a year job. That was you! Now you want to mope and moan about the house like a spoiled brat, cause you can’t get the job that you want!”
“Let’s all calm down...” Lena tried to interject.
“They wanted me to be their head maintenance man! I didn’t interview for that position and I certainly didn’t go to school for that. Can’t you see they were insulting me!” snapped Allen slamming his fork down on his plate.
“Oh, I see. You too good to do that kind of work right? Big Harvard man ain’t supposed to do that kind of work right? Well, I been doin’ that kind of work all my life to keep a roof over your head, food in your mouth, and clothes on your back. When I started workin’ for the city, I couldn’t think about what type of job I wanted. I knew I had to work to take care of my wife and my child. I did what I had to do.”
“Why are you taking this so personally?! I’m not saying...”
“Vernon, Allen, enough!” Lena scolded. “Vernon, Allen is a grown man. He made a decision, and we have to respect the reason behind it. I’m sure he wasn’t trying to insult you. And even you have to admit, that we did not pay as much money as we have for that degree, just so Allen could babysit buildings.”
“I know that, Lena,” said Vernon taking a much calmer tone, “but it takes time to get where he wants to go. They’re not going to take some wet behind the ears know-it-all kid and make him president of the company. He gotta start somewhere. And a job’s a job. I mean look at what’s going on out there! Bigger and badder corporate fellas being laid off. This ain’t no time for pickin’ and choosin’!”
“He knows that, Vernon” said Lena turning to her son, “Right, Allen?”
“I have the know how to do the jobs I’m applying for. I have the experience. I did a lot of solid work on those internships.”
“Allen, I think you have to be more flexible, too”, suggested Lena.
Allen let go of a big sigh.
“Now just listen. I’m not saying to leave the financial field, but you can open up your options a little more. Maybe the job that you want is not what God wants for you. There might be other jobs in the financial sector that may be even better for you. Do you have to work at one of these big firms? Why not a small one? What about working at a bank? There’s lots of different things you can do, baby.”
“I understand what you’re saying, mom, but I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do ever since high school.”
“I know, but sometimes God makes two paths that lead you to the same destination.”
“But what if I take another path and I wind up some place where I don’t want to be?”
“That’s a possibility. And there’s also the possibility that God could lead you to a place that’ s better than you could ever have imagined for yourself. But you have to keep praying and keep trying. Sitting at home lying in bed all day isn’t going to help.”
“I know, but it seems like every time I go for an interview people act like...I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like I’m offending people and I don’t know what I’m doing that’s causing it.”
“Don’t so much worry about people. God has ways of using people in spite of themselves. It’s like your grandmother used to say: you just do your best and let God do the rest.”
“I guess”, said Allen sadly.
“Who knows, this may be a blessing in disguise. You may even want to take some of this free time you have and start working on your MBA. You never know.”
“Lena, we ain’t even finished payin’ for the first degree, which hasn’t helped so far as I can see, and you want him to go back and get another. Hmph, if he goes back to school, he’s going to be paying out of his own pocket.”
“Vernon, God is letting this happen for a reason. Allen, you need to pray about it, and ask God to reveal what your next step should be.”
Allen tried to focus on eating his dinner to no avail. He merely ended up pushing his food about his plate. Later that night when he went to bed, he was still thinking about those interviews. While Allen appreciated his mom’s advice, he didn’t really think prayer was going to get the job done. He just couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong. If he could just put his finger on it and fix it. Sure he was high strung, but as he matured, he had been able to tone some of this down. He’d been working with Tim for weeks to polish his interviewing skills, and even went to an interview workshop, where he was given some extremely positive feedback. And then he thought about the Towne an
d Farber debacle. How could they offer him a facilities management job? Sure he was a relative rookie to the financial consulting field, but so were a lot of other new graduates who had gotten jobs. Tim had told him about one of their white classmates, Troy Lackman, who had gotten a job at Fisher-Pinkerton Advisors without having any experience at all. Not to mention he was the class alcoholic during his whole tenure at Harvard. If anyone should have been offered a facilities management position, it should have been him! Then Allen thought about his connections. Maybe his references were really dogging him out behind his back. Then he thought back to what Jim said the night of his graduation celebration. But it couldn’t be that. This was 2008. This new generation of white people had grown up seeing African-Americans operating competently in different fields. Or had they? They had gone to school with and lived near African-Americans for most of their lives. Or had they? They understood the dangers of allowing racism to divide society. Or did they? No. This was the era of the rainbow, the advent of the post-racial society. After all, weren’t there white people who liked rap music, and dressed hip-hop? Or was it that simple?
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