Chapter 52
By the time Marcus was thirty-one, Leroy's courier business had grown to twelve vehicles and seven staff and had expanded beyond courier work into logistics management for several small businesses in Kingston. Leroy ran it with the same total commitment and practical intelligence that had characterized everything he did not from theory but from watching what worked and doing more of it.
They met for lunch every week, still. Sometimes with Sandra and Nia, sometimes just the two of them the continuation of a friendship that had been forming since they were children in the yard. Marcus had, by now, a deep respect for what Leroy had built: not just the business but the knowledge, the understanding of how organizations functioned and what they needed to sustain.
'I want to run the programme properly,' Marcus said at one of those lunches. 'Fund it properly. Staff it properly. Not as a school initiative. As an independent organization.'
Leroy looked at him over his food. 'You want to register it?'
'I want it to be something that doesn't depend on my employer's goodwill or a school's available hall. Something that has its own foundation.'
'Non-profit?'
'Community development organization.'
Leroy thought for a moment, in the way he had always thought not long, but completely. 'I'll help you with the structure. I know someone who does this work.'
'I was going to ask you anyway.'
'I know you were,' Leroy said. He pointed at Marcus with his fork. 'But you were going to ask carefully. You always ask carefully when you need something. You were your mother in that respect.'
'She doesn't ask at all.'
'She eventually does,' Leroy said. 'It just takes a while.'
Marcus had thought about that for a moment. 'I don't want to need too much from you. You have the business, you have the kids'
'Marcus,' Leroy said. 'Stop managing it. I want to be part of this. I've wanted to be part of something like this since we were nine years old. This is what I've been waiting for. Tell me what you need.'
He told him.
Leroy helped him incorporate the Kingston Voices Project as a non-profit community development organization. He introduced him to his accountant and his lawyer. He sat on the founding board, as treasurer, with the total commitment he brought to everything.
The day the registration came through, Marcus called Leroy.
'Done,' Marcus said.
'Done,' Leroy said. 'Now it's real.'
'It was real before.'
'Now it's on paper,' Leroy said. 'Which is the kind of real that protects it.