I had a crisis of confidence last week because I was one of several people who were deceived by a con man.  I had been told the “The Teddy Bear Coder” was going to be published, and I was off the charts with excitement.  And I shared my joy with my friends. 

It turned out that he is a criminal.  He is being investigated by the FBI.  He took a good friend of mine for, all told, nearly $30,000.  There’s little chance she’ll ever see any of that money again.

That prompted me to post the following:

Okay… I don’t like to talk badly about others.  I particularly don’t like to talk badly about people I thought were my friends.  I’ll be removing him from my Friends List, however, in a moment.

I’m posting this to explain why I am feeling embarrassed.  I barely know the man in question, but someone I know and love and trust implicitly does know him, and she was a part of the company that was supposed to publish “The Teddy Bear Coder.” She was very excited to publish my book.  Now she wants nothing to do with Prince of Cats any longer.

I’ve been feeling proud the last few weeks.  I never had any delusions that I would make any money on the book.  It wasn’t about that.  It was the idea that I might be able to put a toe into a world of which I’ve always secretly wanted to be a part.  I wanted to be a real writer.  No…  I have no interest in self-publishing.  It’s not about that.

I’ve been feeling proud that I’ve been spending half an hour a week talking on the phone to one of my greatest heroes.  I felt as though he was beginning to take me seriously as a writer.  Part of this was because the story he coached me through writing was getting published.

I’m not naïve, I don’t think.  I had no delusions that he was talking to me because I’m a significant writer.  I pay him for the coaching.  I like to think, though, that he wouldn’t have accepted me as a student if he thought I was beyond help.  And when a publisher came to me, sought me out, to publish what I had written… I glowed.  I was Shining like a star in a not-too-distant galaxy.

I felt like I had made it.  I had accomplished what I have dreamt of for more than 50 years.

Now it turns out my book is not going to be published because the man who was going to publish it appears to be a criminal.  I have more than this article for evidence of that assertion, but I am keeping those communications private.  I emailed him to tell him the offer to allow him to publish it is now gone.

I don’t feel stupid.  I behaved based upon the most reliable information I could get.  I feel embarrassed.  If I didn’t want to hide away from the world before, I want to dig a hole in my house now and let no one but Speedy Shine near me. I don’t feel like I can show my face when I spent so much time being so proud, and all that happened was that I was deceived.

I should have been quiet.  I shouldn’t have shared my joy until it all happened.

It would be easy to understand why you might lose respect for me now, but I hope you can find a way to grant me a little grace for my errors in judgment.

I’m going to be quiet for a while now.  I’m fine.  I’m just sad and ashamed.

I’m sorry to have made more of myself than I was due.

This prompted several of my friends to say kind things that helped me to feel better.  For example:

Name Redacted:

Fred Eder I don’t comment on your posts often…if ever…but this one got me.  Certainly, honor your feelings of shame and disappointment, but please know that the person who deceived you is responsible for what happened. You are not to blame.

The world is cruel sometimes to gentle souls like yours and it is unfair.

What I admire most about you, tho is that you walk through these times with humility and grace.  It may not feel like it on the inside but that’s what it looks like on the outside.

So much gets thrown at you from a world that just doesn’t know how to handle a gentle soul like yours and yet, rather than making you bitter, you take the lumps, learn from the experience and continue on. This is strength.  This is integrity.

This is uniquely you.

I thank you for living through all of the ups and downs and showing the rest of us how it’s done.

As much as you may feel embarrassed, the rest of us are out here filled with admiration for you.

That made me feel better.  It’s not hard to imagine why.

Another comment came from the man I believe is her husband, although he may only be her boyfriend.  I can’t even keep my own relationships straight, so keeping up on the status of other relationships isn’t going to happen.

Second Name Redacted:

You’ve got lots of people showing you support and take some solace in that.

The criminal you thought was a publisher won’t publish you.  This is a good thing, though a setback.

as many, many, many, many of my favorite authors have explained….  It took them numerous submissions before they got published.

I interviewed for 2 web design positions in Feb…. I seriously thought I’d get one…

they decided otherwise.

It left me in a funk, depressed, and like the stilts I’d be walking on were kicked out from under me.

You’re a fantastic writer.  There’s a publisher out there for you.

The criminal wasn’t it.

make it through today, and tomorrow, and maybe your mood will shift again.

all that you felt when you thought you were going to be published IS STILL TRUE.

the glow was always you, not them.

The pride was legitimate.

Your hard work is legitimate.

Try to focus on the feelings you had before to get you through the now.

That helped me to refocus a bit.  My embarrassment was waning a little. 

Then one of The People On The Porch added:

Third Name Redacted

Joy in abundance makes us exuberant.  We have the drive to share.  So you did. Who wouldn’t?  You were not remiss in any way, Fred. No need to feel humiliation or self-blame. Don’t give up hope for The Teddy Bear Coder.  Its time is still now.  Press on and Godspeed!

And… I recovered a bit from my depression.  That prompted me to post the following:

None of us exist alone.  None of us CAN exist alone.  It’s simply not possible.  We are a community that works only when we continue to support each other in all the ways we can so that the species thrives.

I spoke with a good friend for an hour… It was HER birthday, but she spent an hour of it taking care of me.  I spoke with my coach, who reminded me that we all need each other if this is ever going to work.

I have you.  You have me.  We can’t do everything for each other, but we can all do a little, and we can all make a difference.  And that little difference is much bigger than we believe.

I can’t thank you enough for all you did for me while I was ready to hang up my career as a writer.  I was going to just exist until I didn’t anymore… But you picked me up off the mat, and I’m going to write all night now.

The Teddy Bear Coder is going to become a complete novel.  It may, in fact, become an entire series.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m going to write because you let me do that.  You matter.

This has been an extraordinarily long way around to deciding I need to pay attention to some other writers who have said things better than I can.  I’m going to give you their words, with their permission, tonight.  I’m not alone.  Here’s someone who is not even on my Friends List, whose words caught me on Facebook.  He kindly allowed me to use them.

Woke, a child of the black community, birthed by mothers and fathers who, after being deceived for long lengths of time, couldn’t afford to “sleep” on the system.

She was young and tender, akin to the blindfolded statue depicting justice, but more radiant and pure. She walked, whispering among us, keeping us alert.  Teaching us, by word of mouth and shared experience, to be savvy, smart and attentive. At times she even showed us how to be daring and courageous.  She taught us to see the grift, avoid the three-card molly and other trickster moments perpetrated by this wayward state.

Then one day they took her.

Our delight, our little light, our secret love, our whisperer of well words, they took her, as they did with all things we created.  Things they coveted.

They stood among the abused mothers and fathers and took their child, their justice, their Messenger to us She who was born to help us stay alive and well within a system designed to kill us and grind our bones into powder.

They took her and threw her in a cell with Blues, Jazz, Rap and R&B.  They made her take a seat next to Soul Food, Mathematics and Science.

They abused her, and redressed her in heavy sackcloth, black and oily with the weight of their own transgressions.

We cried when we couldn’t find her.

We damn near rioted when we saw what they did to her.

I don’t know what will happen if they don’t release her.

Woke is our child, our whisperer of well words, telling us how to live in the light between the shadows the depraved cast.

All else is sackcloth.

— Donley Ferguson

I was going to add my own commentary to it, but another of my friends wrote something better than I can write, so I’m using the words of the philosopher, Jesse Rogers, who was once a Person On The Porch.  I miss him. 

“I speak these words not because it is something I personally claim to have felt or experienced.  I speak them because I acknowledge that I have countrymen like the author, Donley Ferguson, who have and do feel this way. I want to amplify the message because when people express pain or suffering with such vulnerability and openness, I think empathy is a better response towards my fellow Americans than mockery or derision.”

In the spirit of remembering we’re not alone, I’m leaving you this evening with one of the greatest bits of flash fiction I’ve ever read, once again from Shoshana Edwards, who is one of the greatest writers I’ve ever met.  She’s going to remind us that hope can be found in the strangest places.

The Phone

Here I sit, alone in the cell, uncomfortable in my new clothes.  I want the orange jump suit back.  It fits.  It is familiar.  It is soft.  I hate all these pre-death rituals: prayers with the chaplain, the talk with the warden, the last awkward meeting with my attorney.  I hate my last dinner, so awful.  The milkshake is too sweet; the steak is too fatty.  The potatoes are salty.  As soon as I finish, I dive for the lone toilet in the corner of the room, vomiting.

Awareness of the approaching deadline has stripped all animation from my face.  I do not recognize the man in the warped metal mirror over the sink.  The warden, the jailors, and my fellow inmates have found me to be pleasant company and a source of comfort in difficult times.  Now there is no one.  They have abandoned me to my helpless isolation and dread.

“I didn’t do it, Jenny.  I swear I didn’t do it,” I whisper.

Oh, how I long to hold her again, to feel the sweet softness of her breasts, the warm moist pleasure as I enter her slowly, the urgency of our thrusting, the blissful release, the comfort afterwards as we cuddle in each other’s arms, falling asleep together.  But there is no conjugal visit on death row.  We share a brief time together under the supervision of the warden and the priest.  We are allowed to kiss, to hug, and to talk.  And then she leaves. I tell her not to come, not to watch.  I tell her to go home to her mother, who would make her soup and sing to her, and let her cry.  But I know she will come.  It is who she is.  She will watch my final moments in stony silence, holding back her tears and screams until Momma takes her home.

My lawyer has long ago given up.  I am Black, have a gap between my front teeth, and am tall and muscular.  My mind plays the arrest over and over:  I am wearing my sweats on my way to my car outside the gym.  Me being Black and in the wrong place is enough for the cops, a close enough description from the eye witness, to let them pull their guns. They scream at me to get down, zip tie my hands so tightly behind my back that one shoulder dislocates and ignore my screams of pain.  They search my car, screaming “where is it?  Where is the gun?  Tell us now?  Did you throw it away somewhere?” I cannot stop the damn movie, even after all these years.

It is sufficient that I am Black and dangerous looking, even though my hospital scrubs are on the back seat of my car, along with my ID which shows that I am an intern at Riverpark Hospital.  My gym membership badge is attached to my sweats, but no one bothers to check with the gym, to learn that when the convenience store owner was shot, I was working out in the free weight room with a spotter.  They know they have their man.  In court, my attorney produces the evidence: the time I checked out of the hospital, the time I checked into the gym, and he calls my spotter to the stand as a witness.  But even for the jury, it is sufficient that I am Black and dangerous looking.

The movie keeps playing, and I sit here trying not to watch it; trying not to cry.

I am on death row, where I have lived for five years.  We file appeal after appeal, each one failing.  I have long since given up believing in truth and justice.  Those are not for Black men who look dangerous, Black men with tattoos, wearing sweats, walking to their car in a White folks’ neighborhood.

They walk me down the hallway, without chains, my hands free.  There are five guards, including the warden.  This is it.  They lay me on the table, strap down my arms and legs, and the doctor inserts the needle.  The curtain is pulled away from the window.  Jenny is there, stony faced and immobile, her mother sitting next to her looking anywhere but into the death chamber.  The warden reads the charges, while his assistant makes certain the phone on the wall is working, and the doctor confirms that the line is clear and the needle properly inserted. And then they leave, all but the man standing beside the phone, a useless gesture.

I feel a slight coldness as the first chemical is introduced, designed to relax me.  It works on my body, but not my mind.  The terror is still there.  What if I am wrong, and there is a heaven and a hell?  The second drug starts, and I feel myself starting to fall asleep.  Just as Morpheus begins to draw his final curtain I hear a sound, so brilliant I struggle to rise up out of the darkness. As blackness overtakes me, I identify the noise: the phone is ringing.

We are surrounded by voices not our own.  And each of them has the potential to help us.  Our voices have the potential to help others.  Sometimes, just a phone call can make all the difference.