The Rat That Got Away: A Bronx Memoir

30. Finding My Groove

30 Finding My Groove While all of this was happening in Europe, back home in the Bronx my mother and father were proud that I had found my place in life. They were happy that I was no longer on the streets, especially because conditions there were becoming even more merciless and destructive than they had been when I left. While I was getting established in the late ’70s, the word on the wire was that Guy Fisher and his entire crew were going to jail for a long time and that they all bought brand-new Mercedes so that they could get there in style. Later in the ’80s, I would hear that things had gotten even worse, with brothers smoking angel dust and doing a new drug called crack, while the neighborhoods were falling apart all around them. It seemed, from where I sat, that even the hustlers were losing their morality and pride. On the streets where I grew up, there was no longer anything that I could identify with or claim. Creating a career in Luxembourg that could provide a living when my basketball days were finished was an ongoing challenge. Things really started moving for me in 1977 when I returned from the Roller Ball Tournament in the Bronx hosted by Guy Fisher. As a condition of my return, I had negotiated a contract that required my team to find me a job or pay me more money, and after my team won the Luxembourg Cup I asked the president of the team to deliver on that promise. After all that I had been through, I made it clear that I did not want to work in a manual-labor job like the ones my father and other black men had 178 Finding My Groove 179 been forced to take on account of racism and their lack of education. I was setting my sights higher. At that time, near the village of Steinsel, there was a big estate where the American ambassador to Luxembourg had lived. It was now the property of Marshall Weiss, who owned a shipping company and a factory in Luxembourg, and the team president accompanied me there to inquire about employment. I was very excited by this opportunity because although at age 27 I was still making money playing professional basketball, I knew that entering the business world, even on a part-time basis, would be an ideal way to prepare for my eventual retirement from the game. Never in my life had I seen such wealth. As we entered the estate, we saw a big lake with gravel driveways and walkways on both sides leading to a mansion overlooking the manicured lawns and gardens. A butler greeted us at the door and took us to meet Mr. Weiss, a tall, stronglooking man in his 60s. He looked me in the eye when he shook my hand and got right down to business, offering me a job as supervisor of shipping and receiving in his plant in the nearby town of Dekrich. He also promised to arrange for me to get working papers. In some ways, this second promise was even better news than the job offer because working papers in Luxembourg are worth their weight in gold. The government does not grant them to foreigners unless they can prove that they are able to do a job that a Luxembourger cannot. Sometimes it can take up to 15 years for an applicant to gain full residency and to receive permission to work for any employer. Mr. Weiss was willing to start this process immediately and make sure I got my foot in the door. He brought the letter of recommendation I had received from the minister of defense to the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and I received working papers, which gave me class C status and meant I could work in Luxembourg for an unlimited time. At the time I was overwhelmed by the generosity of so many people in positions of authority who were willing to extend themselves on my behalf. I remember wishing that my family and my friends could witness this in person; they would have been proud of how far I had come. I started work immediately with Marweiss International, Mr. Weiss’s firm, in August 1978. At the time, they had a one-year contract with the government of Iran to make and deliver airline protection units, which were corrugated steel structures that served as...