Read Online The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier - Free Book Online

wasn’t what I had expected—we were ill at ease with each other, didn’t like each other one bit—so…I opted to move on. Hence the “premeditated,” “painstakingly designed” plan washatched in my head, pretty much as charged. What I devised was a new approach to an old procedure for bucking out of the Army by pretending to be nuts. According to Army tradition, crazy folks had to be separated from the herd and ultimately sent away—in the best interest of the herd.
    The dramatic hurling of the chair was the act chosen to initiate that process. Which it did. But another key ingredient lay at the heart of this mistake. It had a hand in the sculpting, shaping, molding, timing, editing of everything that added up to the total event, including the selection of chair-throwing as an opener. That key ingredient was inside of me. A weakness. A flaw that resided deep within. And on the afternoon the chair flew, my behavior, to my sorrow, spoke directly to the absence of character. To the presence of weakness. To the flaw that sometimes operated independent of my better judgment.
    I had access to alternative pathways out of the Army. Why did I choose the approach that was a huge mistake? Was it more macho? Yes. Was it more exciting? Yes. Was it more dangerous? Yes. But most of all, it was far more irresistible to demons inside me whose existence I hadn’t yet become aware of. Oh, I suspected even then that my choice was lacking in character. But I went for it anyway. And I didn’t just suspect, I knew for sure , that my choice was of dubious value as a tactical advantage. But I went for it anyway. Reaching, it seemed, to grab hold of an intangible too complicated for the understanding of my teen years.
    The alternate pathway out of the Army promised none of the charismatic power of my favored option. In no way was it atestosterone-kicker. It was the truth, and it was therefore dull. It was plain. It wasn’t seductive. It didn’t boogie. No euphoric highs or valley lows. No wooden chairs. No smashed bay windows. As so often happens, the absence of room for kicking the dog and disturbing the peace caused dogs to be kicked and the peace to be broken.
    What transpired between the Army and me over the torturous months that followed was fascinating, bittersweet, and somewhat scary. Many of the go-rounds between the head psychiatrist and me had a hold-your-breath, cat-and-mouse quality to them. He and I each took as much as we gave. He was white, looked to be about mid-thirties, had serious eyes and an easy smile. He got me to focus on a me inside of me that no one knew, including me. In turn I taught him stuff he hadn’t known, including things he’ll never forget. From him I learned that on some occasions it’s possible to see more than meets the eye. In some small yet meaningful way we were teachers to each other.
     
    BY THE TIME I was eighteen years old, I was back on the street in New York, struggling once again to survive on a dishwasher’s pay.
    If I could have pulled together the scratch, I would have headed back to Nassau—that’s how big and fierce the prospect of another winter loomed over me. I even wrote directly to President Roosevelt for a loan, hitting him up for the hundred dollars I figured it would take. If I had succeeded in that effort, I probably would have spent my life at some low-level jobtaking care of tourists, spending Sundays sitting on a rock outside Nassau town trying to catch me a big fish. So even in my lack of luck, once again I was very lucky.
    One day shortly after my discharge, as I was scanning the want-ads for dishwasher openings, an article on the theatrical page of the Amsterdam News , a New York paper, caught my attention. I was between jobs and my pockets were nearly empty—so empty, in fact, that if no dishwashing position was available, I was ready to glom on to any kind of work that a black kid with no education might qualify for.
    The page of want-ad boxes faced the