My name is Marvin Harris. According to my father, a
man can be measured by three truths; His intent, his actions, and his heart.
All too often, we fall sway to those things that are outside the parameters of
each. We search for clues as to who we are and wallow in the mire of retrospection.
My dad was a dreamer, and he imparted in me the
ability to dream. He had faith in mankind despite the hate and callousness
witnessed every day. He believed that while there are those who would choose to
wallow in the catastrophe that ultimately man would rise to any occasion. He
also touted the Yin to every Yang, and that balance was imperative.
There is a theory that a dream is a reality that has
yet to manifest. Dreams do not become real because there are those who do not
try hard enough. No, dreams are manifested by those who forsake all else to
make thought real.
The most important thing in my world as a
seven-year-old was speed. Not the speed of cars or jets, but of a boy or girl
who could run the fastest. In my neighborhood, speed was everything. We lived
in a small rural community halfway between Athens and Atlanta, Georgia.
Every other summer, my cousin Samantha would stay the
summer with us. She hated being called Samantha and preferred Sam. The only one
she allowed to call her Samantha was my best friend, Taruane. He hated being called
Taruane and preferred T. The only one he allowed to call him Taruane was my
cousin Sam. Sam and T were a year older than I was. Their eight-year-old legs
were just faster than my seven-year-old legs were.
Sam was tall and thin, and very pretty. Whenever she
visited, the uptick in male visitors at my house increased. She was a tomboy
through and through. She was aggressive in a competitive kind of way. I think
she fought and beat almost every boy in the neighborhood at least once. Every
boy that is, except T.
T was a little taller than Sam and was the only boy
she couldn't beat in a fight. He was naturally more muscular than most boys in
that we knew. He was a wisecracking, salt of the earth kind of guy.
When we raced, the races always took place in the
middle of the street, and that was the one place which I was not allowed to be.
Whenever I was caught in the street, my Ma would embarrass me in front of
everyone.
"Marvin, you get your little narrow behind out of the
street!" she would yell. "If I have to tell you again, it'll be with a switch!"
The laughter would erupt, and my confidence and
self-respect would wither. It seemed that every summer since I was four, there
would be a reminder that I was inadequate. However, the day I turned eight, my
whole world would change. This year, Sam and her mom drove down during winter
break. It was my second birthdate, being a leap year baby.
My dad was rarely home because his work kept him away.
I used to tell everyone he was a spy on secret missions. He made a living that
kept us in an upper-middle-class home. Every chance he got, my dad would
reinforce that I am only limited by my imagination.
On the morning of my eighth birthday, some of the
neighborhood guys showed up with T to challenge Sam. It was unusually warm this
winter, and kids were out playing. They all lined up in the street while I
stood on the sidewalk hidden by the parked cars.
Sam yelled, "Go!" We all took off. From my house to
Mr. Miller's house was the chosen route. It was about 100 yards.
Now, what I am about to describe is going to sound
crazy. Have you ever felt like you have stepped outside of your body and were
able to see the events unfolding before you? I could actually see the race
unfold before me.
Sam took an early lead. The other boys quickly fell
behind. The first boy tripped, fell, and skinned his chin on the asphalt. The
second just stopped as he grabbed his side in agony. T was determined to catch
Sam, but she would not relent.
The race for second was between T and me. The burning
in my lungs and the pain in my legs grew with each beat of my heart. I was
about to give up and give in, but then, something happened. The burning
sensation in my legs, and the pain in my mind faded as an energy I've never
felt before coursed through my body.
The pain and agony were replaced with a smile and
elation. I outpaced T and ran as fast as I could. I caught up with Sam and our
eyes met as I made it to Mr. Miller's house first. I actually won the race. My
first time ever.
Everyone was attempting to catch his or her breath as
they stumbled in the street. My legs felt heavy, but good, as the adrenaline
wore off. Sam smiled as she looked at me, as if she were so proud. I shook my
head to wave off her acknowledgment. I wasn't ready for the teasing of me
running on the sidewalk while they raced in the street.
While we were breathing heavily, a black sedan pulled
up in front of my house. Some men in dark suits with earpieces got out and went
into the house with guns drawn. Sam, T, and I hurried back to the house.
Inside, you could hear a commotion. They were
ransacking the house. They flipped over the table with my cake. They destroyed
the wrapped gifts looking for something. They carried out several boxes and my
dad's computer. It seems that my dad was the project manager and programmer at
a secret government installation called ARC: America's Rebuilding of
Communities. Somehow, he locked down the facility and was the only one capable
of unlocking it.
I later found out that ARC was built to withstand
chemical, biological and nuclear warfare. It was supposed to be the country's
failsafe to the end of the world. My dad had yet to transfer control of the
artificial intelligence and security protocols over to government officials.
There was no way inside unless you knew the password.
My mom, aunt, cousin, and I were taken into custody
and continuously questioned. They were trying to determine if my father had
shared the codes with us. After three days of questioning, we were released.
The government tried for months to compromise the
facility. They tried saws, drilling, explosives, acids, and lasers. Try as they
might, there was nothing that could penetrate the security. Some of the
greatest minds in the world attempted to access the facility, but they all
failed.
Because this project was responsible for the
employment of 80 percent of the town when it shut down, my mom and I became
instant social pariahs. It seems that builders, programmers, construction
workers, etc. were shuttled to the site in buses with blacked-out windows to
perform their work and then returned to their pickup sites at the end of their
shifts. There were only a handful of people who knew its exact whereabouts.
The government seized our house, bank accounts,
insurance settlements, as well as everything else. Mom and I were left
destitute. My dad was charged with treason. The majority of the town shut down.
Very few of the businesses remained. Most of the workers got jobs at the quarry
a few counties over. The town was little more than a ghost town.
My dad's friend, Charles Williams, was one of the
unfortunate ones. My dad got him a posh job as a shift manager on the project.
Charles was unskilled and when the project was shuttered, he got a job with the
county doing road maintenance, which meant digging ditches for runoff water.
Charles was a short, stocky man who looked a lot older
than he was due to his drinking. He was balding and had cracked, leathery skin.
His hands were rough, and he had yet to acclimate having to now perform
physical labor.
We received one more visit from the government. It was
at this time that we were informed that my dad was not missing but was in fact
dead. He died of congenital heart failure. Moreover, when he died, he took all
of his secrets with him. The government was desperate for information that we
just didn't have.
When we lost everything, and with this new revelation,
my mom just kind of checked out. There would be times when she was completely
unresponsive. Mom and I went from house to house looking for a place to stay.
We were about to head North to Detroit to stay with her younger sister, Sam's
mom, when Charles made her an offer.
He asked her to marry him. Charles had always had a
thing for my mother. Three months later the two were married. My mom continued
to check in and out, which essentially meant I was left alone with Charles.
Charles was a bitter man. He was bitter and childish.
He truly believed that the sins of the father should be visited upon the son.
He blamed me for losing his job, and for my dad marrying my mom. My life became
a living hell. I was bullied at school and I was bullied at home.
One day while on my way home from school, when I was
about to get the crap kicked out of me again for the umpteenth time, I heard a
voice from outside the crowd of fist and feet pummeling me. It was T.
"I think you better let my boy up," said T. "If you
don't one of you will take his place!"
"Who the hell do you think you are?" said one of the
boys. "You're nothing but a delinquent!"
"Yep!" said T. "Delinquent enough to kick your ass!"
And with that, T kicked him in the stomach. The boy
doubled over and fell to the ground. The boys helped up their friend, and they
all ran.
T had as much right as anyone to be angry. When the
project closed down, his dad abandoned his family. T took a job running numbers
and began running with a tough crowd. However, through it all, he never stopped
being my friend. My best friend.
"Man, you gotta stop lettin' those guys kick your ass,"
he said. "I mean stand up for yourself. This is almost becomin' a daily
occurrence. It's embarrassing."
"That's easier said than done," I said. "Especially
when there is five of them and one of me!"
"Iunno! If you could just figure out a way to hurt
their fists more with your face!" T said as he laughed. "You'll be all right."
"Very funny," I said. "Hey! Do you mind if I crash at
your place? It is payday and I'm sure Charles is drinking away part of his pay
envelope."
"Today might not be the best time," he said. "My mom
is meeting with the guy she hired to find my dad."
"Dude, I'm sorry!" I said. "For everything!"
"It's crazy that people are blaming you and your ma
because your dad died!" he said. "The place he worked was a secret, and it
stayed that way. Even if it did cost the government millions upon millions.
Hell, I even heard they used to blindfold the employees as they bused them to
and from work."
I walked home and found the house dark. Charles' house
was smaller than ours and seemed even smaller when he was berating me or
kicking the crap out of me, as there was nowhere to retreat. As soon as I
walked through the door, he started in on me. He slurred his words, and I knew
he was drunk.
"Where da hell you been?" yelled Charles. "You was wit
dat no count boy who run da numbers? Yo' momma done tol' ya ta stay away from 'em,
didn't she?"
"I got jumped again," I explained. "T was there to
help."
He stood there in the dark. I could hear him breathing
hard like he had just climbed a flight of stairs. He was mumbling something
about me being just like my dad. He then mentioned something about hate. His
eyes seemed to glow red as the moonlight caught them from the window.
"Youse a pansy!" he yelled. "Um shamed dat people
think you ma son! All you do is read dem damn books. Like yo' asshole daddy!"
"My dad wasn't an asshole!" I uncharacteristically
yelled back. "He was a great man and an even better father!"
"Iffen he was so damned great, where da hell is he?"
he slurred. "Oh yeah, dat's right he died to get away from your sissy ass!"
"I'm not a sissy!" I shouted. "One day, I'll be rich
and famous, and I'll take my mom out of here!"
"Da hell you say," he said as he leaped across the
room and pushed me to the floor. "You gon' take my woman from me? Like he did!"
He began to pummel me. I was adept at covering up due
to all of the bullying around town. Between that and his drunkenness, I was
able to avoid any real connections. But that didn't dissuade him from swinging.
This went on until he heard my ma on the porch. He quickly got up and stumbled
to the door.
When she entered the house, he attempted to kiss her.
She avoided him and commented about him smelling of booze. She persuaded him to
take a hot bath, and she promised to cook him something. She asked me how my
day was and went into the kitchen. It was as if she was on autopilot.
Such was my so-called life. As the years passed, T
began to move up in the numbers organization. He became something of a real
hustler. When T and Sam were 14, Sam no longer wanted to visit us. She instead
invited T and me to visit her. We caught the bus to Detroit.
It was kind of odd that Sam just decided she didn't
want to come back to visit. It was what she didn't say that led me to believe
that Charles was the reason. She assured both T and I that he never touched
her. She just didn't want to give him the chance. She said he would leer, lick
his lips and make off-handed comments like "What a fine woman she was turnin'
inta." It was this year that Sam became consumed with all things Japan.
It was also this year that I realized that Sam and T
were sweet on one another. Over the next four years, the three of us tried our
hand at martial arts. Sam had actual lessons, whereas T would learn what he
could from the local YMCA and try as he might to teach me. I couldn't attend
myself due to my pariah status. I was a horrible student for anything physical.
I knew my strengths lied in academics.
The two of them attempted to make their long distance
love a reality. Nevertheless, they were like cats and dogs or oil and vinegar.
I mean they would be fine until it was time for us to return home and then a
big fight would ensue, with me caught in the middle.
No matter how hard they tried, theirs was a love not
to last. When they turned 18, and Sam graduated from high school, she told us
she was going to spend a year in Japan to study martial arts with a master.
Before she departed, she and T were inseparable. But when it was time to go,
they had another of their infamous fights. She told him she never wanted to see
him again. When we returned home, T enlisted in the United States Marine Corps,
and I was accepted to the University of Georgia having graduated from high
school a year early.
The next four years went by very quickly. T and I
wrote to each other often. I think I received a total of eight letters from
Sam. Once on each of our birthdays. I kept her informed on T's activities, but
she never asked about or commented on him in her letters.
It seems that T was becoming a regular G.I. Joe. He
was indoctrinated into a program to train with Army Rangers and Navy Seals. He
was traveling the world doing God knows what for his country. T had truly left
his questionable past behind. I was so proud of him.
After I completed my undergrad work, I was accepted as
a Ph.D. candidate in the genetics program. My dad's death still haunted me, and
it is the reason I wanted to study genetics. At the urging of one of my
professors, I also completed medical school and became a resident at Cook
County Hospital with a specialization in research.
While researching tissue regeneration, I stumbled upon
a process to reverse the effects of degenerative brain maladies. After months
of trial and error, I was able to extend the applications to the central
nervous system, and the treatment was beginning to show very promising
theoretical results on physiology as well.
I was being sought after to consult on a myriad of
medical issues. There was a child who almost drowned, a state senator who
suffered from a pharmaceutical "accident," and a farmer who volunteered for
early human testing due to being kicked in the head by a horse. While on a
hospital team building exercise on an Army base, I was asked to consult on a
soldier who went into anaphylaxis shock due to multiple bee stings. There was a
100% recovery rate for each patient.
My career slowly but surely began to take over my
life. I had to force myself to visit my Ma and continue my martial arts
training. I wanted so much to shock T when he returned home with how far I had
progressed. Imagine my surprise when a television station wanted to interview
me because of the state senator's recovery. His people spun a drug overdose
into an adverse reaction with two medications. The public will never find out
that the medications in question were cocaine and alcohol.
Thus, began my flirtation with celebrity. The hospital
assigned me a publicist and increased my funding for research. The drug
companies began to court me aggressively: symposiums in lavish locales, gifts
of sports cars, use of villas all around the world and the offers of cash.
I spoke at length with my Ma about how to proceed. I
wanted her away from Charles, but she stated he was insistent that he could
take care of his wife himself. I accepted a deal from one of the larger
pharmaceutical companies with some very pointed clauses. I would be a 70%
stakeholder of my process but would supply it on a case-by-case basis to ensure
that it could not be mass-produced or co-opted.
I was still in negotiations about how to turn over my
process when the hospital administrators informed me I would be receiving an
award for my accomplishments in medicine. The ceremony was to take place in a
week's time. Ma showed up without Charles.