Much More Than Floods

                                             Much More Than Floods

     The cold, dark dreariness of the skies above Dover matched Devon Johnston’s mood this day. In fact, it had reflected his mood and the daily routines of both he and most of his neighbors throughout Devon’s life, but his mood had considerably darkened shortly following Devon’s return a year ago after his completion of his studies at Delaware State University.

     Four years ago, Devon had looked to college life as a chance to escape the constant gunplay and carnage, propelled by the drug trade, that had plagued the lives of he and each of the young men in the rundown area of Delaware’s capital. They felt a combination of overt and covert racism and fate had brought them down to this level. This feeling had continued for as long as any of their generation and generations before could remember. Although the civil rights advances beginning in the 1960s had made the situation more tolerable, continuing intolerance and gang-fueled violence made hopelessness rampant.

     Devon, however, had proven throughout his youth that he had the combination of native intelligence and “street smarts”that gave him the potential to do better than many in his neighborhood.  He had an abiding hope that these tools would help him to overcome his environment, and saw education as the second component of his future success. He also saw a glimmer of hope for the future springing from the fact that, throughout his teenage years, he had escaped serious jail time because he had only sold minor quantities of the area’s “chief product”--heroin-- and used it only on occasion himself. 

     Also, during his four-year “hiatus” from the area of his birth, while studying at Delaware State,  Devon straightened out his life and began living in sobriety. He returned to the neighborhood with newly-won credentials he had worked extemely hard to achieve. These, he thought, would surely punch his ticket to a medical assistant career at one of the numerous hospital facilities in the First State. Also, not only had he successfully completed his studies, he had finished near the top of his college class. 

     He returned home with hopes that becoming successful in new profession would lead him on the path of escape not only from the despair of his Dover neighborhood but also to an entirely new lifestyle in a different part of the Delmarva Peninsula. With this new sense of optimism, Devon wrote a number of letters and sent a plethora of e-mails to those his Delaware State advisors told him had the greatest influence over hiring decisions at every level in the medical assistant profession.  Devon also became a constant presence at every job fair and widely circulated his resume and the many recommendations he had received from the Delaware State faculty.

      Turned out, however, that even minor drug offenses could permanently lock the door leading to a promising career.  Sure, the contacts he made pretended that Devon’s academic success and native intelligence truly impressed them. But, he detected, sometimes beneath the surface and sometimes not so well hidden, misgivings and doubt whether someone with his “past” could become a “good fit” on their staffs.

     Confronted again with a future that promised no real prospects or opportunities to escape his hovel-populated neighborhood or the ghosts of his past, Devon returned to his former “profession.”  He became determined to uncover more “chances for advancement” to the “top echelon” of the local drug trade. 

      Devon’s reputation soon spread, and the local mob boss recruited him into what the drug kingpin called a “thriving cartel.” The mob’s new “wonder boy” began to supervise larger “teams” of dealers and execute more and more high-priced and considerably more risky “deals.”

     The promised “increased profits,” of course,  produced increased danger, with the gang leaders taking most of the profits away from the dealers and leaving them only with the risks. The gun play increased, with Devon getting close to being “exterminated” a number of times, either by police or his own “competitors” and “co-workers.” He became a “guest” of the county sheriff for longer and longer lockups and didn’t see much improvement in his future.

     The same sordid tale wound its way through the lives of most of his “associates,” as the mob leaders kept tightening their vice of control of the local drug trade. It looked like the storm clouds of despair would continue to envelope the town as the meteorological clouds increased in the skies above.

     Then, one day, the clouds darkening the skies over the town gave way to a torrential downpour. Of course, the rain dampened many of the “sales prospects” for the narcotics traffic. For some reason, though, this time the meteorological downpour seemed different.

     Magically, the rat-infested slums that had populated the area for decades suddenly disappeared. In their place, beautiful townhomes sprung up from the earth like flowers nourished by the rain.  Nearby, small but prosperous businesses opened on every corner. The business owners were not multi-national conglomerates but local residents who had found ways to put their natural talents to work for legitimate purposes.

      Staffing for the businesses came from a new police-community initiative that offered opportunities for training for those who pledged to “get with the program” and turn their backs on their former professions in the drug trade. A new cooperative alliance among entrepreneurs, police and neighborhood residents drove the drug lords away and kept them away.

     Devon received a call from Tidal Health and soon became one of its top medical assistants. Because of his initiative in helping turn the revitalized neighborhood around and his excellent academic record it did not take Devon long to get to the point where he opened his own clinic.

     He and his neighbors could not figure out what had caused this magical transformation. However, one night, as Devon drove home from a hard day on the front lines of medicine, he looked up at the community’s memorial statue of Frederick Douglass and thought he saw the statue tilt its head toward him as if to give a positive affirmation and approval to Devon’s dreams

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