Free Skill Set by Vernon Rush Page B

were in season. For all this, Daniel paid a percentage of his hourly wages which, in his case, amounted to sixty dollars a month, including meals. He had to provide laundry soap for his bed linens and clothing and, of course, quarters for the machines at the laundromat around the corner. Daniel lived in a room alone for about six months then Hampton suddenly got busier than ever, and he found himself with a roommate named Franklin Thompson, a gregarious, cheerful, overweight African American who laughed all the time, even when nothing was funny. He even laughed in his sleep but that didn’t bother Daniel who kept telling himself laughter was better than a lot of things he could think of.
    A non-threatening married couple were the resident managers of the rooming house operating under the auspices of the YMCA. Marge and Bert Majors were their names and they had lived in Hampton, Iowa, most of their lives, both from farm families and raised on the corn and wheat their families grew as income-producing crops. Both were the oldest siblings in their respective families and grew up within 8 miles of each other, so they had known each other ’s families forever. They had not been blessed with children of their own, so once in a while one of their “ roomers ” slipped into their need to nurture - and they could not hide their favoritism. Daniel was one of those lucky young persons and his own dearth of parental love and concern was usurped by the avalanche of affection Marge and Bert lavished upon his fair blonde head. The more they catered to him, the harder he worked at his job and at being a “ perfect ” tenant. Franklin, nicknamed Frankie or Frankfurter, noticed the favoritism and even though his black eyes flashed briefly with a twinge of jealous resentment, he was actually happy for Daniel, who had disclosed enough of his childhood feelings of being unwanted and unloved to incur Franklin’s sympathy. Daniel let Frankie know he appreciated his loyalty in different ways; sometimes he’d share the extra dessert Marge served him when no one else was looking and other times, Daniel made up Frankie’s cot for him before he got out of the shower. They never said much but there seemed to be an osmosis transfer of mutual concern for each other, both different types of below-average personalities: Frankie was at a disadvantage because of his skin color, so he used his bright white smile and gregariousness to disarm suspicious prejudiced white persons. Daniel was at a disadvantage because he began every encounter with his head down and expecting to be short-changed or left out or blamed. And so it was that he learned to expect negative treatment and that’s what he got. In a way, the same was true for Frankie, and it was this common thread that bound them together for a lifetime. They watched each other’s back and maintained this habit even into their adulthoods.
    As time slipped over the hills of memory, Daniel started going to night school three evenings a week. He was a studious young man and much to his surprise, discovered he could actually understand the mathematical concepts the instructor from the local community college was explaining and he went from the basics of math to the more advanced principles of diplomatic strategies and psychological perceptions and from there to tenets of political beliefs and then he found his niche. He discovered he was invisible. He was a chameleon and as long as he kept his persona indeterminate and apologetic in posture, people tended to forget he was there. He could listen and remember things and make notes about different personality types and once in a while, he discussed some of his tentative conclusions with his instructors, who were always shocked this soft-voiced, apologetic loser-type knew so much about personality types. It didn’t take long for him to gravitate toward more involved methods of investigating, which included agents working for the Federal Bureau of