The Cager

By Robert T. Floyd Jr.

Zena Johnson is a young black girl, growing-up in the 1970’s under the watchful eyes of her parents in Boston, Massachusetts. Following a love affair that leaves her with a broken-heart, her parents decide to send Zena to New York to further her education. An exciting job offer lands Zena in Vienna, Austria where horizons seem endless. Returning home for the Christmas holidays, an unusual meeting occurs when Zena encounters a professional basketball player from Philadelphia who plays for the Atlanta Hawks. The developing love affair between the couple spans the ocean, as Zena’s mate decides to play basketball in Europe. Moreover, Zena’s mate possess an innate ability to decipher and decode numerology structures in scientific data which attract the attention of foreign adversaries. Life seems wonderful in the European capitol, however a disaster at home turns their world on its head. The decision to leave behind a world they had come to embrace causes vacillation and indecision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669867890

Robert T. Floyd Jr.

Robert T. Floyd is an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War. He returned to serve as a Police Officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Subsequently he served as a Correctional Officer with the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, DC Englewood, Colorado, and New York, NY. He has completed college work at Villanova University and Temple University. He resides in Colwyn, Pennsylvania.

Book preview

1

Zena

I grew-up in the Roxbury section of Boston in the 1960’s. Odessa, my mom, stressed the importance of education, being independent, not relying on a man. My dad, Clive, worked at the shipyard in Chelsea, he liked drinking and hanging in the bars on Columbus avenue and Tremont street. Odessa had to fuss with him to get him to do what she wanted. We went to church on Beacon Hill. As we passed the projects on Columbus, Odessa would say that was nothing but a baby factory. I guess one could say I had a sheltered childhood. We moved from Roxbury to Dorchester when I was thirteen. Odessa protected me from the boys in the neighborhood that liked me. We would walk through Park Square on Sunday’s following church, showing-off my best dress. Clive almost never went with us, he said he wasn’t trying to impress white folks. For a young black girl, it was all-right, because it made me feel like somebody.

Following high school graduation, I went to Northeastern University, where I met Reggie. He was a sociology major. Odessa was suspect from the onset, but that was to be expected. Clive asked so many questions when Reggie came over to take me out, that it scared him half to death. Reggie suggested that maybe we should be just friends. I didn’t like that idea. Reggie was tall, 6’ 5", a neat dresser and an athlete. During breaks from class, we’d go for walks along the Charles river. They really kept the grass trimmed in the spring. Once in awhile we’d walk across the bridge on Massachusetts avenue into Cambridge to use the library at MIT. I’m no saint, therefore I must confess, I lost my virginity to Reggie in a cubicle at that library. Reggie said he loved me, and I loved him too. Another time we made love on the grass alongside the river. It was so romantic. We dinned at fine eating establishments in Harvard Square.

In one of my urban studies classes we discussed stratification, and the affects of racial segregation. Living in a city all your life, you never really take a hard look at things like that. People just live in their neighborhoods. Roxbury was all black, except for the store owners. Dorchester began to integrate around the time we moved there, now it’s mostly black. South Boston has always been Irish, as a matter of fact the Irish make-up the largest ethnic group in the city. Little Italy is located in the north-end. Places like Waltham, Quincy, Framingham, Brookline, and Chestnut Hill were just names we heard on the news from time to time. I used to wonder where the white girls were from that walked the streets at night around Massachusetts avenue and Columbus? Odessa would die if I turned-out like that.

Reggie took me to a basketball game at north station, The Boston Garden. The Celtics are my favorite team. Some of the older blacks from the neighborhood say the term Celtic represents an ethnic group from central Europe, described by their ancients as tall and blond. I didn’t care about that, I just loved the way they raced up and down the parquet floor, driving the opposition right into submission. At half-time, the Celtics had a twenty point lead, that increased to thirty during the third quarter. None of these teams could beat the Boston Celtics, that’s why we have so many championship banners hanging from the Garden ceiling.

When Reggie and I graduated, I was so happy and proud of him. A short time later, he told me he was getting married to someone else. I was completely and totally brokenhearted. I was disillusioned, bewildered, didn’t want to eat, couldn’t sleep, I wanted to die. Reggie had been the light of my life, then he took the light away. Odessa said Reggie was just another sorry-ass black man from Boston. My dad took me aside and talked about the poet Coleridge. He said Coleridge was in the process of writing one of the greatest poems in history, when someone knocked at the door. After speaking with that individual, Coleridge returned to his desk, but he could not recall the thought he wished to convey in that poem. My dad said that all of literature suffered a great loss because of the disturbing knock at the door. The interruptions of life are coming, Clive went on, the question is how will you deal with life’s interruptions?

Mom decided to send me to graduate school. I ended-up at Columbia University in New York. The big-apple, Ivy League, hub of capitalism. I studied economics, philosophy, and German. I enjoyed being away from home and my parents. I had a sense of freedom and loneliness simultaneously. New York is the city that never sleeps, there’s always something going on. I noticed that our campus is in Harlem. The campus staff call it Morningside Heights, but believe me, it’s Harlem. It may be because Harlem is the nation’s largest African-American community. Yet there is so much more culture here than in Roxbury. There are all kinds of restaurants, bookstores, museums, and theatres including the famous Apollo. At the library I learned that Harlem was first a Dutch community. When the Germans moved-in, the Dutch left leaving Harlem a German community. Then came the Irish, and the Germans left. Next came the Jews and the pattern repeated. Finally Harlem became what it is today.

Since I had studied stratification at home, I took note of New York’s boroughs, particularly Manhattan. The upper west-side, from 72nd street, is inhabited by working class folks. On the upper east-side, there is a different mix, usually more affluent. Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence is in the Yorkville section. To have an address on Park Avenue, Madison Avenue, or Lexington Avenue is considered very prestigious. Central park provides the buffer between east and west, Harlem and mid-town. The northern border of Central Park is 110th street, while the southern border is 57th street. I took the subway to mid-town and walked around. I was struck by the complex emotion, strange and incomprehensible rush of people filled with energy. The awe-inspiring skyscrapers and commotion. Well, some man tried to pick me up, said he thought I was a working-girl. When I told friends at school that I was on 8th avenue, they called it Hell’s Kitchen. The lower-end of Manhattan is basically the business community. Wall street, the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and the courts. Greenwich Village fits in there somewhere. Whenever I go out, it’s usually to a movie on east 86th street. For dancing, I enjoyed club La Martinique on 57th street.

The guys I met in New York were generally nice, yet after my experience with Reggie I was very apprehensive. Not only that, most of these brothers were uneducated, their horizons were not very broad. I had no idea what I’d do about a husband, mom figured I would meet someone at school. There are so few black guys at Columbia, that notion went right out of the window. Generally speaking, metropolitan capitalist society has failed to liberate women, and black women are the most oppressed.

I decided to investigate philosophies that were not taught at school. The black struggle for justice and equality continued to reveal itself. In spite of my Catholicism, I visited a Mosque in Harlem on 125th street. I learned that 70% of the women in New York’s prisons are black. Moslem men are religiously obligated to lay down their lives in defense of a sister disrespected by a white man. My mind went to the white man that took me for a hooker down-town. Finally I was told that American propaganda is designed to lead black people to think that no matter how much hell we catch, this is still the best place on earth to live. I was beginning to understand what Malcolm X meant by Any means necessary. Inside my dorm room, I turned-up the volume on the radio. W-B-L-S New York…where you hear Marvin Gaye, Blue Magic, Stevie Wonder, The Whispers. Culture touches on action and knowledge, culminating in science and art, moral teaching and religion. Following a careful reading of Marx, I concluded that socialism can liberate the oppressed throughout the world from slavery.

Under capitalism, I’d meet a guy with decent qualities, yet lacked economic potential. A sister has to vacillate