CHAPTER EIGHT BUSINESS LOAN
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Business Loan
Benny sat in front of the loan officer’s desk and slid his hand down his thigh, wiping away the sweat pooling on his palm and holding down his jiggling knee.
‘Well,’ the loan officer said, drawing Benny’s attention away from the nameplate on his desk with Martin Florentine spelled out in golden letters, ‘your business plan looks pretty thorough.’ The papers Drew and Cora had put together lay strewn across the desk and Florentine shuffled them together.
‘Did you have professional help with this?’
Benny cleared his throat. ‘Yes. I had a lawyer look everything over.’
‘It’s good to see the effort you put into your application. It helps the bank to have confidence.’
Benny took a deep, slow breath to calm his nerves and focused on the small details in front of him, like the blue veins under the man’s thin, wrinkled skin, the sunspots on his forearms, the thin gray hairs that sprouted a good two inches back from where his natural hairline must once have been.
‘And it’s nice to see a vet take advantage of the GI opportunities like you have. GI training, GI house mortgage, and now a GI business loan. Good for you, son.’ He flicked through more papers. ‘You’ve obviously thought a lot about this and you’re very well prepared.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Benny’s leg began to bounce again, and he shifted his weight and crossed and uncrossed his ankles.
‘You definitely qualify for the loan, but with a house-building scheme, there are some parameters that you have to work within.’
Benny leaned forward, his fingertips drumming on the armrests. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing to be concerned about. It’s just that the FHA—’
‘The who?’
‘The Federal Housing Administration. The people who back the GI house mortgages.’
‘Okay.’
‘So, the FHA stipulates that once you’ve built your housing development, you don’t sell the houses to inharmonious racial groups.’
Anger pricked his blood. ‘Inharmonious?’
‘Their words, not mine.’ He tapped a book on his desk, The Underwriter’s Manual, to emphasize his point. ‘They won’t back a high-risk development.’
‘But why does mixing the neighborhood make it high risk?’ He focused on pronouncing the words, controlling his temper.
‘Because they say so,’ the bank manager said. ‘All Negro developments are considered high risk. And high risk means no loans.’
Benny pursed his lips and bit his tongue. He thought he’d hidden his disgust, but Martin Florentine leaned back and held up his hands in appeasement, telling him he had not.
‘Look, there’s nothing you, me or the bank can do about it. We can’t loan you the money if you can’t sell your houses, and you can’t sell your houses if no one can get a mortgage. All I can say is, if you’re thinking about letting the coloreds in, don’t. It’s just not worth the trouble.’
Benny felt blood flood his face. ‘I thought it was illegal to zone for color now.’
‘Well, this isn’t exactly zoning. It’s just stipulating the terms of a loan. And when you make it whites only, you’re not zoning either. You’re just using a private covenant to restrict the community.’
‘Zoning without zoning.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s how it’s done.’ Martin Florentine went over the rest of the terms, the repayment scheme, the government guarantees, but it was all white noise to Benny.
‘What if I get the loan and something goes wrong?’ he asked. ‘Like, I can’t keep to one of these terms?’
‘Repayment terms?’
‘Any terms.’
‘Well, that’s the beauty of the GI loan. Government backed. It’s like having Uncle Sam co-sign this for you.’
He handed Benny the paperwork and showed him where to sign.
Benny’s mouth went dry. What good was this loan if they couldn’t live in the houses? ‘Do you mind if I take these with me and have a lawyer look them over? No offense, it’s just a big commitment.’
Florentine smiled. ‘Of course. Be my guest.’ He collected the papers and laid them in a manila folder that he handed to Benny. ‘It’s this level of care and seriousness that gives me faith in your business. I wish all my applicants were so conscientious.’
Benny drove straight to Uncle Drew’s, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the boys on the street who watched him storm inside.
‘I need a restrictive covenant to get a loan,’ he said before Uncle Drew could ask him how it went. He flung the unsigned documents onto the desk. ‘If we do this, it’ll all be for nothing.’
Uncle Drew’s face clouded and, without a word, he sifted through the papers.
‘Every single time,’ said Benny through clenched teeth, blood pumping. ‘Those sneaky SOBs have all the bases covered.’
Uncle Drew reached for his glasses and read.
‘They don’t even need the zoning laws to keep us out. The developers couldn’t integrate even if they wanted to.’
When Gloria had spoken so hotly against segregation, he’d thought she was unique.
Now he wondered how many more were out there like her, hating it but unable to help.
His chest squeezed at the thought of her, and he ran his hand through his hair, pushing her from his mind.
Anger was an easier pain to navigate. ‘It’s the government doing this to us. ’
Drew looked up from the loan paperwork. ‘Inharmonious racial groups,’ he said over his reading glasses.
‘Exactly. Code for whites only,’ Benny spat.
‘Yes, but it doesn’t say whites only. It says inharmonious racial groups.’
‘So?’
‘So, words matter in the law. Not what’s implied, but what’s actually written down, and a Negro only development would be a harmonious racial group. You’d be complying.’
The back of Benny’s neck began to tingle. ‘But … but I won’t get a loan for a Negro development. They’ll say it’s high risk.’
Uncle Drew shook his head. ‘You already have the loan. In a few months’ time, you’ll decide which harmonious racial group to sell to.’
‘But won’t I have to give the money back?’
‘Not according to this.’ He held up the loan agreement.
‘You will have followed this to the letter of the law.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
‘Officially, they can’t declare all non-white neighborhoods high risk.
They’re supposed to judge them on their individual merits.
And they can’t call in your loan because you sell houses to lawyers and doctors and veterans and the like who happen to be colored.
The folks buying won’t get a mortgage, but we knew that anyways. ’
‘Lawyers?’ Benny said, raising his eyebrows.
‘That’s right, neighbor. You’d better be reserving one for me.’
The red-hot anger that had scorched through Benny since he’d left the bank settled and cooled to a chill of excitement. He looked at Uncle Drew, whose mouth tipped up into a shrewd smile. ‘If they want a harmonious racial group, then that’s what they’ll get.’
Benny picked up a pen and twirled it around his fingers, adrenaline surging, heart thudding. There was progress that you won in court or on a protest line, loud and public, and then there was this. Take a stand, write your name, and quietly turn a tide. ‘So, where do I sign?’