There was pretty much a routine case on the agenda. A developer
wanted to build a cheap apartment building smack dab in the middle of a middle-class
African-American neighborhood. There wasn’t any way to “pretty this one up.” I received
numerous calls from the concerned neighbors, and three or four letters
expressing dismay at the prospect. They all promised to be at the planning
commission meeting.
I included the letters in my report and mentioned the calls.
I included some statements on neighborhood stability. My thoughts were pretty
clear.
Unfortunately.
I arrived on time and took my place with the commissioners
at the head of the table. There was only this one item on the addenda. I was surprised,
to say the least, to see that none of the neighbors involved in the case showed
for the hearing.
There were four men in the audience. Three I didn’t know.
The forth owned the largest reality company in town and one of the banks. I
knew he had a mean streak. He had once killed a major development for the city
through his influence with the utility commission. Seems that the land sale was going to
a rival firm.
He was the stereotype small town businessman who would receive
a Rotary award at lunch, evict a family buying a house on contract from him at
noon for missing their first payment in years, and take a neighboring widow a
sack of tomatoes from his garden that evening.
It was a not-too-well-kept secret around town that he
was a mean one. And I posed a target for his wrath.
After the Chairman opened the hearing for discussion, he
ambled to the podium, took a deep breath, and turned to me.
“It seems,” he said, “that the only person in the room who
is against this project is this young man from Little Rock. I don’t know how
they do things in Little Rock. I don’t live there. Never wanted to. I like Malvern. This young man doesn’t.”
He continued in this vein, listing my inadequacies until he began
to approach his regard of my Sainted Mother and her child-raising abilities. As
I started to rise, the Chairman shut things down and called for a vote. I’m sure
I don’t have mention how it turned out.
On the way home that night, I resolved to abandon this sill
dream the next day. I wasn’t going to stand abuse like that. No one could treat
me that way. I could go back into the Navy, or go on to California. To hell with
this racket. It wasn't the last time I would form this resolve.
Dawn rose. I rose. I went to work with the conviction that I
would leave the business if and when I damned-well chose. No two-bit hustler
would chase me away. I don’t have to tell you how that turned out. I would
prevail and, as the story goes, there are always obituaries that don’t make me cry.
In short, I prevailed.
I would become a little more diligent about learning whose
bank was going to finance projects in the future and which banks held mortgages.
And I would respect the stance of others. Later, I ran into the man who had
been the most vocal neighbor before the hearing.
When I asked what happened to him and the others, he looked at
the ground. “Nothing,” he said. “We just all have mortgages along with jobs
that were hard to come by and can be hard to keep.”
They don’t teach case studies like this in graduate school.
I always figured it was worth a couple of hours of credit. I learned to survive
and to keep on keeping on.
Oh, and the asshole in question got his second “Man of the Year,”
award a few years later, I seem to remember.
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| The treacherous will be with us always. |
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