Giovani Bernard knows why, and how far, he has run

FORT LAUDERDALE – On a Saturday afternoon in September 1980, Yvens Bernard boarded a 25-foot wooden fishing boat in the Haitian city of Port-au-Paix to begin his life. He was 19.

For a week, the little boat with Yvens and 19 others rocked violently in the Atlantic, a passage of fear and sickness, until its captain docked between two drawbridges on the Miami River. On one side was downtown Miami, booming with office buildings and high-rise condominiums, all painted bright white, their good life so gleaming, it hurt Yvens' eyes.

Little Havana was on the other side, low-slung, proud and striving, but more Cuba than America. Little Havana couldn't hold the dreams of Yvens. And he was nothing if not a dreamer.

Yvens and his shipmates left the beaten-up boat and ran half-naked through the streets of Miami at 3 a.m., seeking a pay phone to call relatives. They'd used their clothes to plug the ship's leaks. Now, 35 years later, he cleans delicate fabrics for money. As Yvens himself might say, "That is life. Like I always tell my kids, America is a land of dreams come true.''

Dreams are fickle, though, beautiful but transient. To get to this front counter in this sunny place required Yvens to make a resilient and faithful journey that was often difficult, sometimes desperate, but never hopeless. Not unlike his passage from Port-Au-Paix.

Yvens has seen his son play pro ball once, two years ago on a Thursday night in Miami, when Giovani sliced the Dolphins for an improbable 35-yard touchdown run that showed all his creativity and determination. But Yvens says he won't go to Super Bowl 50 if the Bengals get that far.

"For me to leave (the cleaners) everything has to be working perfect,'' he says.

He has been this way from the time he clambered from the boat. A week after he arrived, Yvens was cleaning toilets at an IBM office building. Not long after that, he met Josette Liberius. She knew of Yvens before he arrived, because she lived next door to his mother in Delray Beach.

During the 1980s, about 800,000 people of Haitian descent lived in the U.S. Some 55,000 got here the way Yvens did, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. About 85 percent of the "boat people'' settled in Miami. Most, like Yvens, had family waiting for them when they arrived.

Josette got Yvens a job at the dry cleaners where she worked. Together, they worked from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the cleaners, then 7 to 11 at night at IBM. "We became friends'' is what he says. Then, fairly quickly, much more.

"It was meant to be. She was the perfect woman for me. I love everything about her,'' he recalls. They married.

They worked endlessly, 16 hours a day, six or seven days a week, to support themselves and family members still in Haiti. They'd been at the cleaners nearly three years when the owner had them over for his annual Christmas party. The two previous years, he had favored Yvens and Josette with small gifts of appreciation.

"I thought he was going to give us a bonus,'' Yvens says. This third year, he gave them something else: the keys to the cleaners.

"Me and Josette couldn't believe it. Our own business, in Boca!'' That was a Sunday night. They came to work Monday morning.

The death of a mother and the life they knew

Maybe it was their backgrounds. Poor in Haiti is unlike poor almost anywhere on Earth. "My family had seven kids. Food always hard to get,'' Yvens recalls. "Sometimes we don't eat for a couple days.''

Attending school was no easier. Yvens recalls days when he would get to school and be turned away because his parents couldn't afford the $3 a month the school required.

Maybe it was that Yvens and Josette didn't want their own children to want for anything. Whatever the reason, they were as vigilant at that cleaners as Yvens is at his current location. Josette was working at the shop barely three hours before Yvenson, the Bernards' older son, was born; ditto Giovani. Three days after bearing each, she was back at work.

The Bernards made a lot of money. Yvens had no trouble spending it. The family lived beyond its means. "I want my kids to be right there with the other kids, even though I couldn't afford it,'' Yvens says now.

Gio remembers the years he spent living in Boca Raton as "the time in my life when everything was perfect. We had the pool and the backyard, my mom, my dad, my brother, a neighborhood full of friends. Video games, the convertibles (a BMW and a Porsche), a Jeep Cherokee. My brother had a T-bird.''

It all ended without warning. Josette had been ill awhile. Not that anyone knew. If hard work were a family trait, so was not complaining. About anything. One day, Josette was opening the refrigerator door and collapsed. Yvenson held her. Gio called 911. Josette had thyroid cancer. She died later that day. Yvenson was 14, Gio was 7.

"I was so in love, I never stopped crying for a year,'' Yvens says. He cries now, in the telling.

Things didn't unravel immediately. Yvens, being Yvens, continued to work 25 hours a day, partly in tribute to Josette. Guardian angels began popping up in the boys' lives. "Mrs. K'' watched them after school. Parents of their friends drove them to baseball and football practice, and ever more frequently Yvenson and Gio would spend nights and weekends at their homes.

Colleen Wilson was the original angel. "Like a spiritual mother to Gio'' is how Yvens describes her. By the time Gio was 8 or 9, he was spending three or four days a week at the Wilsons, whose son T.J. was Gio's good friend. Colleen Wilson remembers that Giovani loved video games, but disliked the beach. He was always wearing the latest in Nike Jordan sneakers. (Purchased at considerable expense and sacrifice by Yvens, whose downward spiral continued.)

Wilson remembers waking Gio up on Sunday mornings, for church. He also went with the Wilsons on vacation, to Disney World and Universal Studios. Gio helped with the family chores on Saturdays, and chided the Wilson kids for being reluctant to help out:

"You don't appreciate your mother!'' he'd say. "Get your act together.''

An odyssey of bad choices and barely eating

Wilson also recalls never having to tell him to do his homework, or get ready for practice. "Gio was very self sufficient at age 8. Wise beyond his years.''

One thing he didn't do was invite the Wilsons into his apartment when they dropped him off. They never knew how bad it was. And that it would get worse.

Yvens couldn't manage two sons and the business. "When (Josette) passed, she left me with a BMW convertible, a Porsche convertible, a house with a pool and a business with a lot of potential. Money here, money there. I was rich. I lose control of it.''

Three years after Josette died, Yvens started dating a divorced woman with kids of her own. The way he tells it, they went on trips to New Jersey and Key West. The old work ethic left him, replaced by a need to medicate his grief with momentary pleasure. "I was out of control for a good three years,'' Yvens acknowledges.

How out of control?

He says he paid the mortgage on his girlfriend's house and supported her children, partly because he didn't want the responsibility of another marriage and partly because he didn't want Yvenson and Giovani to know he was dating. They dated two years before Yvens broke it off.

By then, he had sold everything. A sad odyssey of bad apartments and dollar-menu dinners ensued. "We just did what we had to do to make it to the next day,'' Gio remembers.

Meantime, Yvenson would be leaving for Oregon State University, on a football scholarship. A terrific high school outfielder, he had been drafted in Round 2 by the Minnesota Twins and offered a $100,000 signing bonus. With the encouragement of his Pops, Yvenson turned it down. It was an amazing show of love from a down-and-out dad.

"I knew the money could make a difference right away,'' says Yvenson, seven years older than his brother. But he saw it as a short-term fix. His father agreed. Yvens wanted stability for his older son, maybe because at that time, Yvens had anything but.

"I didn't want him to rent an apartment, keep moving, blah, blah, blah,'' he says. Yvens told his older son, "Follow your heart, do what you love. We can wait another four or five years'' when if everything worked out, Yvenson would secure a big-money NFL contract.

For help, a father hands off to a game

Yvens and Giovani began their odyssey then. They lived in apartments mean enough to make Yvens wonder why he ever left Haiti. Occasionally, they didn't eat. When Yvens couldn't pay the utility bills, they had no water or electricity. When he couldn't pay the rent, he slept in his car and Giovani stayed with friends.

Football has made Giovani wealthy. Back then, it saved him.

It wasn't the game, even as Gio excelled, first as a linebacker, then after he stopped growing, as a running back. It was the connections the game afforded. Colleen Wilson's kids played football. Cris Carter's son, Duron, played Pop Warner with Gio. The NFL Hall of Famer took an instant liking to the mannerly, hardworking kid. Carter got Gio a free ride to a private high school, Fort Lauderdale's St. Thomas Aquinas, a football powerhouse.

It cost Yvens nothing but a school uniform. "Thirty-seven dollars,'' he says, smiling. "Brown pants, light blue shirt.''

But the good never came without the bad for the Bernards, whose American Dream came and went like the tides. Father and son had to move to Fort Lauderdale. They settled in a nasty, two-room apartment on the first-floor of a two-story cinderblock building. Yvens slept in the living room, Gio in a tiny room in the back.

"We showered and funny water came out'' is Yvens description.

Meantime, Yvenson ("Ev'' to his brother and dad) was thriving in Oregon, mostly oblivious to what was happening back home. Yvens passed his survival instincts on to Gio: Never complain, keep working, good things will happen. "You might not have money, you might not live in big house,'' Yvens says. "But things is good. You succeed. You going to find trouble. You fight through it.''

Yvenson learned the truth during his last year at Oregon State. He'd come home for the holidays. He was an NFL prospect, agents were wining and dining him. He slept in the foyer of the two-room apartment. "A place that belonged in a Third World country'' is how he describes it. "Rats and feces. I'm taking a shower and water is coming down from the apartment upstairs.''

Yvenson was distraught enough that he moved his father and little brother into a nicer apartment, complete with a master bedroom for Gio, who by then was a sophomore in high school. It was the first time since the family lived in Boca Raton that Gio invited friends over. "It was sweet,'' Gio recalls. "Flat screen (TV), food in the fridge at all times.''

Then the landlord stopped paying the mortgage and lost the apartment building. Yvens and Giovani had to move again. Security, it seemed, worked best as a concept.

Football intercepts a boy, delivers a man

And yet Gio had constants. Cris Carter, his friends, St. Thomas itself. School was a refuge, an impregnable fortress where Gio mingled with the Other Half, and thrived. "It made me forget about everything that was going on at home,'' says Gio.

And there was football. St. Thomas won a couple state titles, Gio was its star running back. He committed to play at Notre Dame, then coach Charlie Weis left, so he signed with North Carolina.

Long before that, football was his core and his lifeline. Yvenson had been a star at Boca Raton High. His uncle Paul had played junior college ball. Paul Bernard was a tough guy and he wanted his nephews to be tough, too. He'd be at Yvenson's high school games, yelling at him to be tougher. When Ev wasn't tough enough in Uncle Paul's mind, he'd be invited up to Paul's home in Boynton Beach, for some extra lessons.

After one game in Ev's sophomore year, when Paul felt his nephew's tackling lacked, the two went to a sporting goods store and bought shoulder pads. Paul was 28, Ev was 15. They ran what's known as the Oklahoma Drill. Paul recruited his two sons, who lined up three feet apart, in between Ev and his uncle. The object was for Ev to fend off his cousins and tackle Paul.

Yvenson wasn't entirely successful, but Paul's point about toughness had been made. Several years later, Paul attempted the same lesson with Gio. "Huge mistake,'' Yvenson recalls.

Yvens is a bit more blunt: "Paul tried to stop him. He run Paul over.''

Paul Bernard, 42, arrived in south Florida via creaky boat, two years after his brother Yvens. Paul is a carpenter living now in Lake Worth, Florida. He does high-end interior trim work. He has worked on Mar-a-Lago, the legendary Palm Beach mansion-turned-club now owned by Donald Trump. What makes him proudest is the role he played in the football careers of his nephews.

"Football is a religion to us. It's what we do,'' says Paul. Now, when Gio doesn't play well, "the whole family is upset. To us, ain't no such thing as a 'big game'. Every game is a big game.''

When Gio was at North Carolina, his Pops would call his cell phone at halftime. These days, the calls come three hours before every game, often when Gio is on the team bus. "I need touchdowns from you,'' Yvens might say.

"Like he's some fantasy owner or something,'' says Gio.

The saints who stood fast over a Bernard

Gio starred at St. Thomas, as he had at every level of football. He was also living parallel lives. St. Thomas is a private, expensive ($10,850 a year tuition) and highly successful place. Think of it as the Moeller or St. Xavier of Florida. Imagine Giovani Bernard, taking a shower in funny water in a "Third World'' apartment, then going to school at a place like St. Thomas.

As always, he adjusted and adapted without complaint. Even his closest friends had little idea of his living conditions. Part of that was Gio's stoicism. Another part was, he wasn't home a lot. He spent the last year and a half of high school living at the home of his teammate, James White.

"Gio kept to himself when it came to his family issues,'' says Tyrone White, James' father. White is a captain with the Miami-Dade Police. James and Gio were good friends, football and baseball teammates and to-the-death video game foes. They're tight to this day. James White is a running back for the New England Patriots.

Tyrone calls Gio "a third son. He taught me about surviving, how to make it at your lowest point.''

When Giovani graduated, the Whites were there, as was Colleen Wilson and Mitzi Moore, another guardian angel when Gio was still in elementary school. Moore says when Gio signed with North Carolina, "I bought the only powder-blue shirt I could find.'' Wilson, a public relations major in college, advised Gio on how to deal with the media, and made him practice his signature, for the inevitable autograph seekers.

The guardian angels never failed Gio Bernard. Nor did he fail them. Says Wilson, "Gio came into our family to show us how to be fighters. He helped my kids set goals for their lives (and) to be over-comers. Not to just settle and say 'poor me'.''

Yvens Bernard can smile at that, and know he rode shotgun on that voyage.

"I am who I am,'' he says. The smile flashes again, equal parts happy and wary, contented and freighted with perspective. A mystery smile, from a man whose life is anything but mysterious. "I came from a poor country in a little boat and made it to shore. Managed to keep my family together. Now I'm watching my kid play pro football.''

'I am having fun'

And Gio, I ask. Describe your son. "Gio is Gio,'' Yvens says. He says the name quickly, so it sounds like Joe. "He work very, very hard. He struggled in his life to be where he's at. Joe deserves what he's got. He knows the difference between right and wrong, and I think that is life.''

Joe Bernard runs like he's being chased, and maybe he is. Memories of dire need don't go away. Ask Yvens, whose work ethic is tattooed with memories of desperation.

The night Gio signed his Bengals contract – four years, $5.23 million -- he went out to eat with Yvenson. The bill was $80. "So, Ev, you paying?'' he asked.

Gio says he won't go to The Precinct, because he can't imagine "spending $80 on a steak. But the fact that I could gives me relief.'' Most of his clothes he gets for free, from sponsors. He lived in the basement of his girlfriend's parents' house during his rookie training camp. Even now, he lives simply. He has a place in Downtown Cincinnati, and a condo he bought for Pops in Fort Lauderdale that he uses when he's down there.

He drove a minivan for awhile. NFL star, driving a minivan. Haha.

And so on. Uncle Paul explains: "He never wants to go back to the way it was.'' Once, when Gio was visiting during a Bengals bye week, Paul said to him, "Make sure you have a little fun. Balance your life.'' Gio's response: I am having fun.

"I want to make the life I had (in Boca Raton) and the life I have now last forever,'' Gio explains. "I understand the football and the income I have now won't last forever. But if I can help people, help my dad, well, that's why I am the way I am.

"A home is everything. Being able to get from Place A to Place B is everything.''

Says Yvenson, "He has always played for our family (and) to make others happy.''

When Gio was small, Josette took him to Haiti for the summer, to spend time with his aunt. Locals called him "the American boy.'' He learned to speak fluent Creole. It was another part of Gio's deeply rooted education in appreciation.

Now, he's giving back. He and Yvenson have been to Haiti each of the past three years. They are helping to fund and build a school in Josette's memory. He wants to take his teammates this offseason, "after we win the Super Bowl.''

"I want my teammates to see what it is like over there. It will change you. It changes me every time I go back. It makes me hungry for more success, so I can do more for the school. It makes me grateful for the life I have now (and) grateful for what my mom and dad did to get me from there to here.''

It is late in the afternoon on a warm November day. Yvens Bernard is at the counter at Regal Cleaners, a two-hour interview just wrapping up. He is who he is, alright. As authentic an American as Daniel Boone or Abraham Lincoln or Ma and Pa Joad. Dreamers all. Strivers all. Living and dying for a belief.

"Up and down and up again,'' Yvens says. "This is life.''

The good life gleams for him again, same as it did on that day in September 1980. "I own my own business, I have a son playing pro football,'' says Yvens. Big smile right then, nothing conflicted about it.

"America,'' he says. "Land of freedom, land of opportunity. Look at me! Look at me now!''