Experiment in the Essay #12: Who Broke This? #52essays2017

I think I'm supposed to tell you a story about breaking a chair in the JP Morgan Chase conference center.  I didn't break it. One of my students-- or a bunch of them-- did: 17 year -old males of color, so in their bodies, so hyped up,  that decorum was like aftershave: nice on occasion, but not today.

I was working as a writing coach for a college-bound cohort, "middle-performing" young men largely from adverse circumstances, helping them plan and write their personal admissions essays.  "Middle performing" means, loosely, you're not pulling A's but you are also not trailing F's, and you have other compelling qualities besides your GPA. JPMC philanthropy was gonna make somethin' outta them all right.

We had breakout sessions after a long day to workshop drafts.  I think some took the term "break out" literally. (Do you know the adolescent refrain, "But you said ....!!!") Students not in session were supposed to be revising independently on their company laptops in the main conference room-- which was, typically, huge-- and updating their college apps. The students were getting loopy.  Too much brain in one day. 

But when I came back from my small group process, their ED, T, was very unhappy. Her name is Twinkle, and she can get more done in a day than an earthquake. She was standing next to a chair that looked like a bank vault had been dropped on it.  The florescent lights made tracks down her brown forehead. 

"Who did this?" She asked, in her angry mom voice.

The boys looked at the floor, the ceiling, the window, that little itty bit of dust on the....

When no one owned up, she snapped, "Well, you'll have to buy the chair then. All of you. How much do you think it costs?"

JPMC spends on stupid shit. This is part of corporate culture.  The boys blinked.  They honestly had no sense, but to be fair, there was an original Warhol in the hallway bathroom.  IN THE FUCKING BATHROOM.

My ED stood there with her hands on her hips and her high heels digging into the carpet.  I was waiting for her to take off her red suit jacket and start the spankings.  We'd find out later what had happened was the cushy armchair with a small fold-down work "arm" had become a parkour obstacle.  And the desk had cracked off and the chair, somehow, lost a squat leg.  Sometimes you don't even want to know how.

I could see in the boys' eyes they still thought that three minutes of athletic fun had been worth it.  

Finally she whisper-yelled, "THAT CHAIR WAS 200 dollars!  Do you know who's going to pay for it? You all are paying for it! Who's got 200?"

I know her well.  She couldn't care less about the chair or replacing it-- what she cared about was the carelessness, the lack of forethought, their disconnect from common sense about what behavior was appropriate in what environment, no matter the motive.

These boys were being groomed for survival in corporate culture, m'kay? And last time I saw an executive break a chair between meetings was never.  Of course, I rarely see them drunk, but still I think the company chairs are not what gets wrecked.  

The boys winced. They were play-serious, trying not to laugh, but also aware the liability-- and stupidity-- could be a tad serious.

I knew also that T would never make them pay.  She gave up sleep and family life for these boys; she gave up her health and the salary she could have commanded. She loved these brown boys, and she was not going to let people who looked like them break shit on her watch and feel OK about it.

Who among them had a casual 200 dollars? Which one's mother wouldn't beat him over the bill? 

She called for circling up to problem solve. Manhattan was right outside the huge windows waiting, innumerable ugly mega bank buildings like the one we were in peeking back at us. I was shoulder to shoulder with the fellows as they shifted on their feet in their suits -- all 25 of them-- while she waited in the center, arms crossed.  "Where's that money going to come from? That chair was 200 dollars!" she repeated.  

Where is that money going to come from is maybe the question all of us are asking.

Not JPMC though. JPMC makes money appear like white rabbits out of white hats, held up by black bodies. 

I was next to K, a short and slight kid who could pass for 10 but had learned everything there was to know off youtube. If you were close enough to him-- he dreamed of opening hotel chains-- you could catch his almost constant unsolicited snarky commentary, with which he deflected realities under his breath.  Because I was close enough, I heard what he muttered, "Well they got that chair at the wrong store.  Same thing at K-Mart is 20 dollars." Saw his expert Eye rolling.  At the establishment.  At the inflation. I had to try not to laugh, too, just like my boys. I bit my lip. I agreed with him so much. He was completely not flummoxed by the price tag. In fact, he thought it could lose a zero to save face. 

"Maybe we could write a note explaining we made a bad choice?"  A  reasonable student proposed, smoothing back his hair, one hand in his suit pants pocket. "Apologizing?"  

But to whom?  Was it their fault JPMC had such lopsided aesthetic priorities?  That what it is worth is determined by what did you pay?

"They got that chair at the wrong store," K said again, a little louder but with his head turned away from the circle. With a preacher's cadence and a teen's sarcasm, already understanding completely how the world works. 

Later my ED admitted to me in private she had no idea how much the chair cost, probably even more than the number she'd given, but she just wanted to scare them into not doing it again.  And also-- the parkour move had been pretty impressive, by all reports. 

But you can't have a bunch of brown n' black boys breakin' the chairs in the conference center, can yah? 

The busted chair was removed by staff by the next day, and as far as I know, no one paid for it nor, as often happens in corporate culture, did anyone miss it very much.  It was replaceable, if you had the funds. 

But as K had pointed out, Chase missed the point.  That thing didn't have to cost anything.  Instead, people-- young black men-- were paying for it with their lives. 

***

Coda: This happened when I was just gaining stepsons and before I had my own baby. These boys were, for a few years, like my sons. I loved them and love them still, and so does T, though she works for another group of kids now in education equity. They have gone on to do startlingly great things, to participate in corporate culture or critique it. And I hope they will have the chance to teach my son that some things are worth (not) paying for, if you get just the right lift and a moment of irreverent flight.