A Man Finds His Way

by Freddie Lee Johnson Narrated by Peter Jay Fernandez

Overview

Author of the best-seller Bittersweet, Freddie Lee Johnson is also a professor who holds a doctorate in history. A Man Finds His Way is the dramatic tale of one who is trying to keep history from repeating itself. When an outspoken black activist and anti-Semite plans to visit his university, history professor Darius Collins is the only black man to protest. He knows that condemning one minority at the expense of another solves nothing. But at the same time, Collins must save his teenaged son, who has become a political pawn in a deadly racial conflict.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

An African-American professor faces an onslaught of troubles in his personal and professional life in Johnson's follow-up to his debut, Bittersweet. Darius Collins's existence is an ongoing exercise in crisis management-his girlfriend dumps him as the novel opens, his relationship with his ex-wife amounts to a series of bitter skirmishes and he's thrust into the middle of some nasty racial politics at his Cleveland college when a group of students tries to enlist his support in bringing a notoriously anti-Semitic African-American leader to speak at the school. Life goes completely haywire, though, when his adolescent son, Jarrod, is accused of rape and Collins learns that his ex-wife is a former lover of the corrupt politician who is trying to frame the boy. Johnson does a decent job of juggling a plethora of subplots, with the best stretches coming late in the book when the author focuses primarily on Jarrod's plight. The breezier sequences concerning Collins's romantic life don't sit easily beside the serious political and family dramas; the shifts in tone mar the book's rhythm. Nonetheless, Collins is an intelligent, well-drawn protagonist with believable strengths and flaws (upon glimpsing a more successful colleague, he remarks, "I was happy for Tyler. Truly I was. I also wanted to snatch him by the collar and beat him to a pulp for having the life, wife, and kids that should've been mine"), and the book offers a thoughtful take on some tough contemporary issues in job politics and race relations. 5-city author tour. (Jan.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Johnson's (Bittersweet) protagonist is a college professor who must come to terms with a series of life-changing events: his girlfriend leaves him, his colleagues refer to him as an "Uncle Tom," and his son has been accused of a vicious crime. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170703326
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/06/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

IT'S BEEN ALMOST SIX MONTHS SINCE MARCY AND I started seeing each other, and it's time to take our relationship to the next level. So tonight I'm going to tell her. She needs to know that she's the best thing to come into my life in a long while. She deserves to hear that she's the sun that shines on my face. In her lies the promise of my better, brighter future. She's becoming the center of my world, the joy in my laughter, the sweet contentment filling my heart. And I want to be with her only.

Once we've finished dinner, slipped into our comfy clothes, and snuggled together on the couch to kill the last of that gallon of chocolate chip ice cream, I'm going to cut off the TV, look straight into her eyes, and confess the truth of what I'm feeling.

I carefully position a small portion of parsley next to the salmon fillet on Marcy's plate, sprinkle some chives onto the steaming red potatoes, smooth a thin coat of butter onto the asparagus, and set the plate down in front of her.

"My goodness, Darius," she says, looking beautiful behind the burning candle. "Your culinary skills are enough to make a woman swoon."

I place my finger beneath her chin, gently lift her face upward, and brush my lips across hers. "Not just any woman," I say softly. "But you."

Right on cue, the DJ on the jazz radio station puts on a classic cut by the late great saxophonist Junior Walker, who belts out a sexy tune that adds more steam to the moment's building romance. I hurry and fix my plate, sit down across from Marcy at the small dinette table, and take hold of her hand. She squeezes mine tenderly and I kiss her palm.

"This is the highlight of my week," I say. "I'mreally glad to be here with you."

Marcy half smiles, then looks away. I'm disappointed that she doesn't affirm my statement with a similar response of her own, but she said she'd had a rough day at work and is probably just tired. Today was an overloaded Thursday, so I know how she feels.

After giving two lectures at Erie Pointe University this morning, chairing a panel discussion this afternoon, and making a presentation to the Cleveland Black Historical Society this evening, I was whipped. But I wanted to see, smell, and feel Marcy so bad, I persevered through my exhaustion. I sent out an e-mail canceling Friday's classes, fought through the construction forever clogging Ohio's lousy highways, got frisked three times at Cleveland-Hopkins Airport, and endured a claustrophobic sixty-five-minute flight, sitting between a fat man, a bulkhead, and a screaming starboard engine. Minutes after landing at Baltimore-Washington International I plowed through the meandering human herd, rented a car, and tore down 95 South to Marcy's home in Fort Washington.

It was a hectic, stressful journey, but the sensual tigress staring out at me from Marcy's eyes offers strong hope that my efforts will be rewarded with lots of rambunctious lovemaking. I pour us some more wine, and we start eating. Marcy picks at her food, sighing every now and then.

"Is everything all right?" I ask.

She looks up and smiles. "Yes and no," she answers, shrugging.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shrugs again. "Not really. I've just got a lot on my mind. It'll be all right."

I take a swig of wine, dab the corners of my mouth with the cloth napkin, get up, and step quickly over to her stack of CDs. I search through them, find one filled with the smooth, sultry tunes of balladeer Peabo Bryson, put it on, and hurry over to Marcy. I wait till the music begins and extend my hand to her.

"What's this all about?" Marcy asks.

"It's about me trying to bring a smile to your face." I bow slightly and say, "Can I have this dance?"

Marcy's eyes glisten as she smiles. "Yes, Darius. You most certainly can."

I wrap my arms around her and we start moving in slow love circles toward the center of the darkened living room. The two table candles are like distant stars, their pinpricks of light casting our long, willowy shadows onto the walls. Peabo's voice soars as he pleads with heaven to help him resolve his heart's dilemma. Marcy hugs me tight and grinds her pelvis hard into mine, refocusing the desires of my stomach onto the mounting hunger in my crotch.

"Darius, I care so much about you," Marcy says, kissing my neck. "And I never, ever would hurt you on purpose."

"I feel the same way about you, baby." I hug her tight and whisper directly into her ear, "I have a lot to tell you. I was going to wait, but now's as good a time as any."

"I have something to tell you also."

"Okay," I say. "Go ahead."

Marcy stiffens slightly. "No, Darius. You first."

"Okay," I agree, gulping down a knot of fear. "Marcy, you're fast becoming the most important person in my life."

She turns her face into my shoulder and cries softly. I stroke her hair, savoring the warmth slowly spreading through me as my baby cries her tears of joy.

"Go ahead, baby," I say, patting her back. "Just let it flow. I'm right here with you."

She turns her head to the side and speaks in a soggy voice. "Oh, my God," she laments. "I had no idea it would be this hard."

I laugh softly and squeeze her tight. "There's nothing hard about caring for you, Marcy. If anything, it's wonderfully sweet and easy."

"Darius, please don't talk like that."

I hold her shoulders and gaze into her eyes. "But I have to, baby. Don't you understand? For the first time in a long time, I'm feeling alive again. I'm not just lurching from one day to the next, but looking forward to the future. I'm cherishing every breath I take as another moment to be with you."

She shoves me away and bursts into tears. "Why do you have to make this so difficult?" she demands.

"Difficult? What're you talking about?"

"Breaking up!"

For a long moment, I imagine myself being sucked into the whirling blades of a jet turbine and spit in pieces from the exhaust.

"Marcy, I, I don't understand. I'm not breaking up with you."

She stomps over to the CD player, cuts it off, and turns on the lights. "It's not about you, Darius. This concerns me. I'm breaking up with you!"

I shuffle back to the table, grab the bottle of wine, fill my glass to the brim, and slosh it down. Marcy crosses her arms tight over her chest as she sobs and paces back and forth in the living room.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I've been trying to find a decent way of telling you, but there just isn't one."

I plop down in my chair, shove aside the now-cold salmon, and try to shake the disbelief from my head. "Marcy, would you mind telling me what's going on?"

"I'm sorry," she offers. "But I just can't do this anymore."

"Can't do what?" I nearly shout.

Marcy stops pacing and looks directly at me. "There's no need to raise your voice, Darius. I didn't want it to be this way, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't figure out how to let you down easy."

My jaw falls open. "Let me down easy!"

The multiple indignities of my sudden has-been status, realizing that I've been floating in a dreamworld, and angry embarrassment for having stupidly exposed my feelings spin my emotions into a tornado.

"Darius, please don't be mad," Marcy implores. "I tried. I really did. But I can't go on living a lie. I care about you, but I love Stan."

"Stan!" I blurt, springing up and knocking the chair backwards. " 'Just a friend Stan'? The one who I wasn't supposed to worry about? The one who was just a fun colleague?"

She grabs a tissue off her coffee table and honks into it. "Make fun all you want, Darius. No matter what you think, I tried really hard to fight these feelings. But Stan kept persisting. He just wouldn't take no for an answer."

"So what!" I snap. "Did his refusing to accept 'No!' mean that you had to give him a 'Yes!' "

"It's not that simple. He was our most important client. I spent hours working with him. We got to know each other, and then . . ."

"You knew me too, Marcy!" I shout. "Or didn't that matter?"

She starts to answer, but I cut her off. "Why am I asking that stupid question?" I growl, throwing my hands up in frustration. "If it had mattered, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

I kick aside the toppled chair and storm past Marcy into her bedroom.

"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice tentative and worried.

"Gathering up my stuff so I can leave."

Marcy eases over toward the door and wisely stands off to the side. "Darius, please don't do this. We should at least talk about it."

I stop packing and glare at her so hard, my eyes burn. "You must be out of your mind. There's nothing to discuss."

"I'm sorry," she says, sounding more frustrated than remorseful. "I know you won't believe me, but I sincerely thought you'd appreciate being told in person."

"What I'd have appreciated is not having wasted my money on a plane ticket, stressed myself out to get here, and walked into an ambush!"

"Ambush! I resent that!"

"Good!"

"Darius, I'm trying to be up front with you. Doesn't that matter?"

"The only thing that matters to me right now is getting back to Cleveland."

I zip up my garment bag, throw it into the living room, snatch up the phone, and start dialing for a cab.

"I knew you wouldn't understand," Marcy grouses.

"What am I supposed to understand? That you're seeing someone else? Your lame excuse about not knowing how to tell me? Or how I missed seeing that you were a dawg?"

Marcy's head snaps up and she locks her narrowed eyes onto me. "Darius, are you calling me a . . ."

"If the leash fits, wear it!"

"I want you to leave," she demands.

"Not as much as I want to go!"

Why is it taking this cab company so long to answer? After several more rings, they do and I give them the address details.

"How long?" I ask.

"About fifteen minutes."

That's fourteen and a half minutes too long, but it'll have to do. I breeze past Marcy out to the front door, lean against the wall, and massage my temples, hoping I can rub away this throbbing headache.

Marcy wanders over to one of her three aquariums and starts feeding her tropical fish, which means she's upset. After I leave, she'll stare into that water world for as long as it takes her emotions to smooth out and sail her to inner peace. I'll have to satisfy myself with watching the clouds on a flight back to Cleveland, assuming one's available.

"Darius, we shouldn't end things like this," Marcy says, her voice calmer already.

She sprinkles fish food into the aquarium, taking care to make sure it spreads evenly across the water's surface.

"I was hoping we could at least remain friends."

There's close to six hundred dollars' worth of fish swimming around in that tank, four hundred of it spent by me for those two rare Burmese kissing fish. Being kissing fish, especially the rare Burmese type (which, according to the fast-talking pet shop guy, would die without their mates), they had to be purchased in pairs. So I bought them. It was Marcy's birthday. I knew she loved fish and I wanted to make her happy. Not to mention that their spectacular colors were guaranteed to turn her tank into the envy of similarly obsessed hobbyists.

"And I'm truly sorry, Darius. But you know that I'd never purposely hurt you."

On the other side of the living room, suspended like a floating brick in Marcy's largest tank, is her evil-looking piranha. When she first bought the predator it was just slightly larger than a credit card. But after a steady diet of fat goldfish, it's swelled to a medium-sized plate. It's always unnerved me to stare at it, those unblinking eyes sizing me up while that powerful mouth grins, displaying rows of sharp teeth.

"Maybe it was fate," Marcy drones. "Momma always said that the heart wants what it wants."

She strolls across the living room to the piranha and kneels down to feed the goldfish, crowded into the small tank on the bottom of the two-tiered aquarium stand. They're the victims whose sole purpose is to feed the fury floating above them. I've always considered fish to be kind of stupid, but some of these goldfish get agitated as Marcy approaches, diving toward the bottom, pushing their slower, less alert kinsmen toward the surface where doom awaits.

"Darius, don't you have anything to say? I'm trying to extend an olive branch."

Two months ago, Marcy woke me out of my sleep with a phone call announcing that she was going to accept her company's offer to transfer her to D.C. I didn't want her to go but was also worried about sounding like a selfish, nonsupportive jerk. Insisting that she stay was made all the more difficult by her constant confident assertions that the move was best for her career, so I encouraged her to pursue her dream.

"Darius, stop ignoring me! Why won't you talk about this?"

She wasn't sure if a long-distance relationship would last. I was certain it could, explaining that there were people living near me I couldn't stand and others a world away whom I considered close friends. The reasoning was sound, Marcy agreed, and we promised to protect our relationship from the wolves who would eventually be on the prowl.

Copyright© 2003 by Freddie Lee Johnson III

Videos