Translation Project: A Short Story on Derrlye G. Peace

Mr. and Mrs. Peace were so happy on May 3rd 1952 when they brought another baby boy into the world. It was a boy! "We have another baby boy again after a long time" Mrs. Peace said to her husband. Maybe they did not think of having another child after the first male child of the family was born, no one was sure of that. His parents lived in a small house very close to the airport. Anytime a plane was coming, it felt as if it was going to land on top of their house because of its proximity to the airport. But anyway, this new baby came and they named him Derryle Glen Peace. Derryle was born into a poor family. The family was considered poor because they could not afford the good things of life but at the same time, they were never hungry. They never had their lights cut, or their water disconnected. The bills were paid on time.

His mother loved him so much and up till now he can still remember all the good things his mother taught him how to do when he was a child. His mother taught him how to tie his shoes at the age of three. Derrlye was a happy child and everything went on well. But his happy peaceful life with his mother was cut short. Death robbed him of his mother’s attention, love, and care. It happened so fast that when Derryle was four years old, he was already a motherless child. It was so devastating for every member of his family. No one expected Mrs. Peace as young as she was to die at that age. It was said that she died two days to her 29th birthday. And the death of his mother made everyone miserable for a long time. Derryle practically watched his mother die. He could still remember even though he was a child of four. He knew his mother was dying because every night he watched her cry helplessly from the excruciating pain of the terminal disease she had. There was nothing he could do than to watch his mother go through the sleepless nights of pain and sorrow. When his mother died, his grandparents rescued him by taking the responsibility to care for him and his elder brother who was six years and eleven months older than him. Derryle did not know what it meant to have the love of a mother because death did not allow him to enjoy one. But his grandmother was always there for him. In fact, she was a God sent into his life.

Derryle was growing very fast and strong that all the members of his family were happy including his grandparents, who were very fond of him. But his grandfather was a man who had no soft side. He was a hard working man and very caring that he never allowed Derryle and his elder brother to go to the corner shops to get anything. Instead, he always provided soda for everyone. He would also visit the farmers market to buy fresh fruits for the family. He understood what it meant to eat healthy. His grandparents were retired and they were living on social security, and so, Derryle was able to have a normal upbringing.

As a child, he saw his grandpa always carry pocket knife and a handkerchief in his pockets. And so, as Derryle grew, he began to do that too. Not that his grandpa ever attacked anyone with it, but that was one of the things he loved to do. Derryle learnt it from him and still do that as an adult. Another good thing he learnt from his grandpa was how to dress well and shine his shoes. In fact, his grandpa was a very fashionable man who was always conscious of his looks. While Derryle was growing up, he also learnt from him how to be a hard working man like plumbing and artwork. He emulated his grandpa in some many ways and in so many things that he never regretted he did so.
As for his grandma, she was a seamstress. She would bring out the sewing machine and pretend she couldn’t pass a thread through the needle, and she would ask Derryle to help her do it. Of course, at a point, he understood that she was teaching him how to sew.

As he was growing up in North Park Dallas, he started to see his elder brother read in the house. Even though his grandmother also read the bible in the house, yet Derryle’s acquisition of literacy started with his elder brother who taught him how to read and write. They had a dictionary, newspapers, and the Bible. And his grandmother was always asking him to look up the meaning of words for her in the dictionary. In fact, newspapers and the bible were major things that his grandma read. Derryle was a unique child who was very serious in acquiring literacy to the extent that when he was in first grade, he already had a library card.

Among other things that he loved to read were Comic Magazine and Dallas Express newspaper. Not only that, TV show was one of his favorite stuff he used to watch then even though at a point, all that his family had was one television, but he still managed to watch his own programs when his grandma was not doing that. He loved to watch TV show like Jeopardy, and movies like Green pastures and Imitation of Life. Green pastures was the first black movie made at that time. This movie was their own because it had all black casts and he loved it. However, Imitation of Life was about a black girl who was so fair skinned that she passed for white. And for that reason, she denied her own mother because she was black, and out of sorrow, grief, and disappointment, her mother died. And so, each time Derryle watched that movie, he was heartbroken. He would wonder why a girl should treat her mother like that. He would wonder why she was not proud of herself and her mother. He would wonder why she thought she lived in her own kind of world; a world of denial, a world of deceit, and a world of imitation.

However, two weeks to his 16th birthday, he went in search of a job in a grocery store in order to support himself. When he got to the store, he met the manager of the store whose name was Pat Abel, a white man.

“Good day, I am here to find out if you are hiring”. He inquired.

“Of cause we have positions” responded the manager.

“Please may I have the application?” Derryle asked.

The manager looked at him searching his face for what Derryle could not understand. He went in, brought the application and handed it to him. Derryle filled out the application, and when he got to the line where he was to indicate his age, he wrote that he was already sixteen. He lied.

“I have to lie to get this job. I just need to survive and so I have to lie right now”. He thought to himself.

“Are you done?” asked the manager.

“Yes “.

He took the application from Derryle and later offered him the job. So he got his first employment in April 3rd 1968. But as a boy who never lied before, he started to feel guilty. He became very uncomfortable. He was scared because his instincts told him the manager would find out one day and that would be a criminal offence. He was restless because telling lies had never been a part of his life. Not because he was a pastor or anything near that, but because he had a good upbringing and was an honest boy. He made up his mind that to tell the truth about himself. So Derryle had to fight his subconscious mind, or even suppress it, but it didn’t work.
“What if he finds out I lied about my age? What would he think of me?” he asked no one. “No, I must tell him the truth about myself right now before he finds out later”. He cautioned himself. All he wanted was to confess and free his conscience. A stitch in time saves nine. On that same day before he started work, he walked up to the manager and demanded he would like to talk with him. “Look I am not sixteen but will be in few weeks time. I lied”. He confessed. The manager on the other hand told him not to worry about it.

It is not as if Derryle did not have relatives who could help him if he had approached them, but he wanted to learn how to be independent. He had three uncles and two aunts but still, he had to work to fend for himself. The fact that his manager did not deny him the job made him conclude that not all white people are bad. He got that conviction that there were some good ones anyway.


One thing that Derryle did not like at that time period was that he was called "nigger". This happened each time he went to the bus stop to take a bus to somewhere. A white person would shout at him “Nigger!” and that really upset him. That made him angry any time he was called that name. But there was nothing he could do. He would look at the person and look away. He hated that name. Another thing that was very obvious then was that, each time crime was committed and it was being published in the papers, it was always different. If the report had crime and picture or pictures, it was a black person or people depending on the number of people who committed the crime that week. But if the page of the newspaper had crime and no picture, then the crime was committed by a white person. The blacks always had their faces published on the crime pages of the newspapers. Those were the two things he never liked.

When he was done with his high school, he got admitted into East Texas State University which is now called Texas A&M University-Commerce. In the summer of 1972, another tragedy struck again, he got a message that his grandmother, his only confidant and companion died, and his world came crumbling right in front of him. His world started collapsing and life began to make no meaning to him anymore. His only source of hope for tomorrow was gone.

In the university, he joined a fraternity group where he felt like home especially when he got a fraternity brother who was always there for him. Derryle came to school with student loan which of cause he would be made to pay back when he graduate. On the campus, he became an active student. He was always going to the post office to get mails and distribute to his fraternity members. One day, he brought mails and began to distribute as usual. And so he gave a mail to one of his fraternity brothers who became very upset. He asked Derrlye a question he could not understand.

“What is that?” asked his fraternity brother.

“Your mail of course I got it from the post office”

“Throw it away” said his fraternity brother.

“Why would I throw it away?”

“Because they knew it was a credit card before they gave me. They want to put me completely in debt”. He responded with anger.

His fraternity brother was angry because he was in a way deceived by the credit card company. He did not realize what it meant to take a credit card. And because of that, he did not even want to see any mail from them. He continues

“Look Derryle, I am going to tell you something today and now that will help you to go through the university without taking a loan”.

“What is that?” Derryle was eager to know.

“You need to get a job. Just get a job instead of student loan”. He advised. And that did the magic. Derryle got a job, and that was how he was able to pay his tuition and took care of himself. That was how he was saved from taking student loans that he would have paid through his nose after graduation. However, as a student, he became popular on campus. He loved to read and write because he had already developed reading culture with the help of his elder brother. He read and wrote poetry. But one thing he never liked to read was novels. He hated English and history with passion, and it was one of the reasons why he never read Shakespeare all his life.

Derrlye’s life in East Texas State University Commerce was mixed with good and bad feelings. But his good days were more than his bad days. He experienced at that time when the blacks and the whites were put in the same dormitory to live together for one day and after that, they were separated again. Among his experiences was the woman he met on the campus whom he dated and married. But unfortunately, the marriage crashed, and so he was single again for another eighteen years.

After living for a long time without a wife, he felt that his life was not complete. In fact, he needed a woman to call his own. He needed a wife, a life companion. And so, he met another woman who was married and divorced with a daughter. They became best of friends and they finally got married. Marrying this woman was the best thing that ever happened in Derryle’s life. He loved her so much that he can’t do without her. All that he lost in his mother and grandmother were found in his dear wife. Two in one!

Today Derrlye Glen Peace is a man who is always happy and very hard working. He is one of the most well dressed employees in Texas A&M University -Commerce today. He carries a pocket knife and handkerchief in his pocket anywhere he goes, and shines his shoes just like his grandfather did. He is very energetic and agile. He talks and walks with confidence. Some years ago, he got a wonderful job in Texas A&M University-Commerce, and he is currently the Director of the Alumni Relations! What a journey of life!!!