Dirty Old Men [And Other Stories] (Zane Presents) (39 page)

Derrick said, “So…he’s excused from class for the rest of the day?”

The principal nodded. “He’s been given all of his homework and his assignments for the day, and he’ll be all caught up for tomorrow. Ms. Pavel has said she has no problems from him regarding his work. It’s just his
mouth
that gets him into trouble. So I figured that either you take him home early to talk to him, father to son, or I’ll have to suspend him right now. We simply can’t have that here, and I wanted to give you a fair warning.”

Derrick nodded in silence. He immediately understood that she was giving
his son a break. She could have suspended Marcus on the spot. But Derrick was also concerned with how long they had allowed the language to go on before they contacted him.

“Well, if he does this again, you can contact me immediately,” he offered.

“I hope he doesn’t,” the principal commented sternly.

Derrick could read her body language and her serious tone of voice. Marcus had already reached the end of the road without realizing it. And the next incident would get him suspended.

Shit! That’s just fucked up,
Derrick thought to himself.
She’s only giving him this one chance. That’s like a set-up.

However, he couldn’t complain about it. He knew that the white woman was judging them both now. It was a set-up for father
and
son. It was like having to stop a cigarette smoking habit, cold turkey, in one day. Nevertheless, they had no choice in the matter.

Derrick stood up tall and said, “Thank you. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

As Marcus followed his father out of the school and into the parking lot to his truck, he had no idea what to expect from him. Derrick hadn’t said a word.

As they approached his truck, the father wondered what the principal expected from him. He surely would not whip his son, if that’s what she expected. But obviously, she expected a drastic change.

Maybe he is around too many grown-ups and situations with women,
Derrick mused.

Marcus had been allowed to hang out and do his homework at the coffee shop after school. But maybe having so much exposure to adults wasn’t such a good idea for a young and impressionable boy. And maybe it wasn’t so cool for Derrick to openly entertain so many women around him. His defiant dating practices were quickly being tossed back into his face.

As father and son drove away from the school, Derrick commented, “I’m gonna have to start taking you to an after-school program instead of the coffee shop.”

Marcus didn’t say a word either. He was fearful about what to expect. “Or maybe I can get you into a YMCA sports program after school,” his father added.

Marcus turned to face him and was excited by the suggestion. He had been thinking about getting into a youth basketball league since the moment he had arrived out in Seattle. Only, he was bashful about not being so great at sports. He figured his father would soon teach him how to play better.

“But first we need to deal with these
comments
you’ve been making at school,” Derrick stated, and changed his friendly tone.

“Marcus, there’s a difference between what grown-ups can do and what kids are allowed to do. You know that, right?”

Marcus eyed him and nodded. “Yes,” he mumbled meekly.

“For instance; you can’t drive this truck. Your feet wouldn’t even touch the pedals. And you could barely see over the wheel,” his father told him.

Marcus understood him with a nod. His father drove a big truck and he was a tall man.

Derrick continued, “Kids are not supposed to smoke cigarettes, drink beers, hang out in bars, go to certain movies, or certain events. And how would you feel if you had to play a game of basketball against a bunch of teenagers. Would you like that?”

Marcus thought about the speed, toughness, height, and skills of teenagers on a basketball court and shook his head. Without getting his growth spurt, he could barely see himself getting a shot off.

Derrick continued, “I know I didn’t like playing against older guys when
I
was a kid. I wanted to play against kids my own age until I was strong enough to hang with teenagers. But once I was able to bang inside with the older guys, I knew that I was ready for it.”

So far, Marcus felt comfortable. His father hadn’t jumped on him hard yet about his language at school.

“So, you picked up some of those things from me, right?” Derrick suddenly asked his son.

He was smiling when he asked the question. Marcus didn’t know what to make of it. Was his father trying to set him up before he pounced on him or what? Therefore, he remained apprehensive when he spoke.

“Yes.”

Derrick continued to smile. He was amused by it. He didn’t realize his son was paying that much attention.

“You’ve been listening to me talk to women all this time? And you’ve been sitting over there taking it all in, like a mini tape recorder. So now I have to watch what I say around you, because what I talk about with women is all
grown-up
stuff.”

Marcus didn’t deny that point. It
was
grown-up stuff that his father talked about. He didn’t even know if he
liked
girls the way his father liked
women.
He found that girls seemed to respond to it all, so he used it to gather their collective attention. However, Marcus did have some questions about grownup dating habits, conversations, and terms that confused him. He looked at his father, with his heart racing from nervousness, and he decided to ask him about it.

“Ahh…if it’s grown-up stuff, then how come you call women ‘baby’ all the time?”

Derrick couldn’t stop himself from smiling. It was his first frank talk with his son about the birds and bees. And the boy was only nine years old. Derrick couldn’t remember having any conversations about sex with
his
father until after he had gotten an STD at seventeen in high school.

“‘Baby’ is just a figure of speech to let a woman know that she’s
sweet
like a baby,” Derrick explained to his son.

So far, so good. Marcus then thought about it more.

“Well, how come, umm, women say it to guys, too?”

“It doesn’t have a gender to it,” Derrick told him. “There are girl babies just like there are
boy
babies, right?”

Marcus nodded. “But how come I can’t say it?”

The word seemed innocent enough to him. Babies were babies. So what was the big deal?

That was a more difficult question. Derrick could see where his son was confused about it. “Baby” wasn’t a bad word by itself. It was all about how you
used
it.

“Well, if you say, ‘Hey, that’s a pretty baby,’ and you’re actually talking about a
real
baby, like an
infant,
then that’s okay. But if you tell a girl in your
class, ‘Hey, baby, come here,’ then that’s grown-up talk that your teachers are not gonna like. Because that girl in your classroom is not actually a baby anymore, and your teachers and the girl’s parents are gonna understand that you’re using it in a grown-up way. And they’re not gonna allow you to do that, because you’re not a grown-up yet.”

With that answer covered, Marcus stopped being nervous. His young mind was moving fast to comprehend it all.

“But the women at your coffee shop call me ‘baby’ all the time, and I’m not a real baby either,” he commented.

Derrick finally stopped smiling. The contradictions were getting serious. He looked away from his son for a minute and at the steering wheel. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to get them to stop saying that to you then, if it bothers you,” he mumbled.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Marcus told him.

Yeah, but they’re still acting fucking fresh when they call you that,
Derrick mused. He knew exactly which women his son was referring to, and they were all fresh-minded.

I wonder how much they really think about my son becoming a mack daddy?
He had never really thought about it before. “Like father, like son” was a real issue. And Derrick remembered that he had fucked a few grown women as a teenager himself.

Shit!
he blasted. It was more honesty than what he wanted to deal with at the moment. His son was still only
nine.

“You know what, I’m gonna tell them to call you
Marcus
from now on. You’re nobody’s baby.”

Marcus told him, “My mom calls me ‘baby,’ too.”

Derrick eyed his son and smiled again. “Well, you
are
her baby. She can call you that for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not.”

“But it doesn’t bother me though,” Marcus reiterated.

“Yeah, but you still can’t say it to the girls in your school, because the teachers and parents will consider it
wrong. Period!
You hear me?”

His son nodded. Then he thought about his next question.

“Now what else you wanna ask me about grown-up stuff?” Derrick asked him on cue. “Because I don’t want you going back to school confused about
anything. Now you heard what the principal said, right? She’s ready to suspend you next time. So you need to understand everything you
can
and
can’t
say at school.”

Marcus looked back up to his father and asked him, “Did my mom ever call
you
‘baby’?”

It was a crafty question. He wanted to know how close his parents were. So Derrick took a deep breath and told him.

“Of course she did, at one time. I mean, she won’t call me that
now,
but you know…”

“You don’t like each other anymore?” Marcus asked him.

Derrick had to stop and take another deep breath. “We still like each other; we just understood that we wouldn’t work out as a couple, that’s all.”

His son nodded his head again. “You don’t work out with a lot of women.”

It was another blunt observation that had caught the father off guard.

Damn, this kid is mature as hell,
he thought.
But how could he not think that, with all the women he’s seen me around?

“Well…I like women, son. I’m not gonna lie to you about that,” Derrick admitted. “But again, I’m a
grown man,
and I can
choose
to like whatever I want. And when you get your chance to be a grown man, then you can choose whatever
you
want. But while you’re still young and in school, nobody’s gonna allow you to
do
that. That’s just the way it is in life. You don’t see
me
going to school now, do you?”

Marcus shook his head and stopped. “Umm, but some older people go to school.”

“Because they
choose
to,” Derrick insisted. “But young people
have
to go to school. Do you think you can live out here by yourself, and pay your own bills like other grown-ups do?”

Marcus paused and thought about it. He tried to imagine what he could do to make a living. Maybe he could sweep up restaurant floors. His father made him sweep and empty out trash baskets at the coffee shop on some days.

Derrick cut his son’s thoughts short. “No, you can’t, Marcus. You’re
nine years old.
You can’t even get an apartment yet.”

Marcus smiled at the idea. His thoughts had been busted.

“Now let’s deal with these other things you said at school,” Derrick alluded.
“Now what do you mean when you say you gon’ give a girl what she wants?”

Marcus shrugged his shoulders like the innocent kid that he was. “I’on know, like…make her feel good and stuff.”

Derrick had to hold back his smile again. It was time to be a responsible father and set his son straight, even though the conversation was awkward.

“Make her feel good, how?”

“I’on know, wit’…grown-up stuff.”

“
Exactly,
” Derrick pounced on him. “That’s why you shouldn’t be
saying
it. You don’t know what you’re talking about. And what did the doctor order for little girls in your class?”

Marcus quickly became gun-shy again. His father was now giving him the hard reprimand that he expected.

“Nothing,” he whimpered.

“You said you had what the doctor ordered, right? So what do you have?” Derrick pressed him.

“A dick,” Marcus answered meekly.

Derrick wasn’t expecting that. So when his son looked up to catch his eyes, they were
both
shocked by it. The father was so stunned that he had to look away.

“You don’t
use
that word,” he told his son sternly. But he couldn’t look at him when he said it. “That’s a
real
grown-up word, and you
know it.
” He then looked at his son and added, “And if I ever hear you say it again…”

Derrick then paused, feeling guilty. But so what? He was a grown man who reserved the right to
be
grown.

“When you get to be of age, you’re gonna find that there’s a right and a wrong time to use certain words. But since you’re still in
grade
school,
now
is definitely not the
time
for it. You hear me?”

Marcus nodded obediently. They were now pulling onto Interstate 405 toward downtown. Derrick was far from finished with him.