Single Mom (40 page)

My father looked away again. We drove in silence for a couple of miles. I always drove the same route when I needed to think to myself, along Lake Shore Drive, down and back again. It always soothed my mind.

“You know, we never did talk much,” I commented. “It just seemed like you were telling me what or what not to do half of the time.”

“That’s a father’s job, to give his son guidance. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do with
your
son?” he asked me.

I nodded. “But at the same time, I’m just trying to be there for him when he needs me, to let him know that he’s not alone in the world, and that he can count on me to help him,” I answered. “I want to be able to talk about anything he needs to discuss with me. And it just doesn’t seem that you and I ever had that same type of relationship.”

“That’s because you spent so much of your time trying to do the
opposite
of what I told you.”

“Well, did you ever stop to think about supporting something that
I
wanted to do?”

“I supported you all of your life,” he snapped at me.

I got angry and snapped right back at him. “I’m not speaking about monetary support, what I mean is
moral
support! The kind of support where you sit down and say, ‘Look, son, whatever it is that you want to do, I’m behind you all the way. So I want you to put forth your best effort.’”

I turned and glanced at him, awaiting a response. He smiled and nodded his head. He said, “I remember when I was about fourteen years old. My father asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I said that I wanted to go into politics and become the mayor. I thought it was a pretty good idea. And he said, ‘That’s a profession for beggars. If you want some
real
power, then you start up a strong industry, buy some property, build influence in your community, and then you’ll find that the
mayor
will work for
you
.’”

That small reflection said a lot about my father,
and
about a grandfather whom I had never met. He had died of a heart attack the year before I was born. He was sixty-two years bid.

I said, “So you’re still trying to find a way to control the mayor, and I guess you’ve found out that it’s not going to happen.”

My father didn’t say a word. In a way, I felt sorry for him. However, maybe he was finally ready to understand my point of view. So I used the opportunity.

“I don’t ever want to hold such an uncontrollable goal over my son’s head,” I told him. “All that can do is break a person’s spirit, or have them kill themselves trying to reach it.”

“So what do you think, that you should settle for less?” he asked me.

“Not necessarily for less, but for whatever will ultimately make you secure. Even if it’s an eight-dollar-an-hour job.”

My father grunted. Maybe I should have said eleven dollars.

He said, “That’s the reason why so many black people are in poverty now.”

“No, we’re in poverty because we’ve been denied so many opportunities at higher-paying jobs, because of our color, that many of our kids have stopped reaching for higher goals as a reality. I mean,
you
even used white faces to meet and greet for your real estate business.”

He saw my point and backed down a bit. “Even if they won’t give you an opportunity, you can still
create
your own method of making a better living. DuSable was a fur trader.”

I nodded. “Yeah, and unfortunately, many black men have started to do exactly that with drug selling,” I responded. “Just like the Kennedys built their empire off bootlegging. But they didn’t end up in jail for it. And what I’m saying is that we’re going to have to find a way to make integrity count a lot more than salary.”

“Hmmph. Good luck on that,” my father commented. “An honest man can still be a dirt-poor man.”

I shook my head and frowned. There was a lot of baggage there between us, and so much to consider in regards to my misguided education about the world. Money and the drive toward power had always influenced my decision making, but after being reunited with my son, I wanted to be able to enjoy many of the smaller things in life, like playing miniature golf, tennis, and video games while sharing quality time with my son, my wife, and other loved ones.

I said, “With the way things have been going between us, I’ve just come to the conclusion that we’re probably never going to agree on much. However, that does not give you grounds to disrespect the things I do or the people who I love. And as long as you respect that, that’s all I can ask from you. Because I’m a grown and responsible man just like you are. And if that means that you’d rather not be involved with my son, then I’ll keep you two away from each other.

“But I’ll tell you this,” I added, “whether I have your support or not, my son is going to have an opportunity to succeed at whatever he wants to do, and I
will
be there to support him in it.”

My father looked at me and asked, “Are you planning on attaching him to
your
estate?”

I was surprised that he was asking. I answered, “Well, he
is
my son, isn’t he?” While we were on the subject, I asked, “Am I
your
son? Am I still attached to
your
estate?”

My father nodded. “Of course you are.” He didn’t look at me when he said it, because he hated to admit that he needed me to continue the Perry legacy. I was his only child, and it became ironic to me how so many wealthy people of history had only a few, if
any
, heirs. Therefore, their wealth was either lost or separated between extended family members, which in my father’s case, weighed more heavily on my mother’s side of the family, who were not Perrys at all.

“He seems like a smart boy,” he commented in reference to my son. “Maybe he
could
become something special.”

I said, “He already is, and he always
will
be something special.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because his mother and I won’t have it any other way.”

My father gave me another nod. “Maybe I can get used to him.” My son and I were all that he had, and he was painfully realizing it. My father needed to face the music and dance to it whether he liked the song or not.

“Maybe you
need
to get used to him,” I told him, to nail the point
home. “But from now on, it’ll be on
his
terms and not on yours. So if you want to relate to my son and get to know him, you’ll have to do so by participating in things that
he
likes to do.”

“What does he like to do?” my father answered me.

I leveled with him and said, “I’ve just begun to find that out myself. And that’s sad.”

I didn’t have much to say after that. My father didn’t either. Nevertheless, I was pretty satisfied with the outcome of our talk. He realized that I was my own man, and that I was going to support my son whether he liked it or not, and since he grudgingly admitted that my son
was
indeed his grandson, I could finally come clean about Walter’s share of the Perry estate without so many insecurities about it. Then again, I could not help thinking that it would have been more
manly
, so to speak, to make my own way for myself and for my son without my father’s wealth. So despite my want and need to establish respect and independence, I was still playing the role of a legitimate “Junior.”

“So how did things go?” Beverly asked me later on that evening. We were in bed again.

“I’d say it was an eight out often,” I told her with a smile.

“What would have made it perfect?”

“Well, nothing is perfect,” I answered her. “It went a lot better than I expected it to go, actually. I expected a
three
out often.”

“Mmm hmm,” Beverly hummed. She seemed preoccupied with something.

“Is everything okay with you?” I asked her. I leaned over and rubbed her belly.

“Ah, yeah, I’m okay.” Her hesitation meant that she wasn’t.

“Now,
I know
that
you know
that I know you a lot better than that. Now what’s on your mind?” I teased.

“Ah, I really don’t want to talk about it right now.” If it was bothering Beverly as much as it seemed, she was going to talk about it anyway. She had always been low-key in her response to things. Nevertheless, she always aired her concerns. So I sat and waited for the inevitable.

“Your mother told me that your father had an affair once. She said he probably had more than one, but she’s not certain. How do you feel about that?”

I was speechless. I knew that it was true, I just never allowed myself
a chance to think about it too often. “What do you want me to say?” I asked my wife. “It was something that happened, and I don’t try to dwell on it.”

“So how can he act like he’s so perfect?” she asked me. Beverly seemed really hurt by it, as if she had lost a ton of respect for my father. I began to wish that my mother had kept the information to herself. I guess she was attempting to prepare Beverly for the many struggles of marriage. However, I do not believe that the love-and-keep-your-family-at-all-costs approach of my mother’s generation works at all on the wives of the nineties. She had only made things more difficult.

“Because he still provided for his family and did the things that he was supposed to do.”

Beverly responded, “That’s the same thing your mother said. But what about his vow to his wife and family?”

The conversation was going nowhere. “What was supposed to happen, Beverly? You think that my mother should have gotten a divorce? You think that would have made everything perfect again? What was done was done.”

Beverly turned away from me. All I could do was become frustrated. I said, “Why are you angry at
me?
I didn’t have an affair.”

“Yeah, but you still have the same nonchalant attitude about it. ‘
What was done was done
,’” she repeated.

I said, “Okay, I’m sorry I said that.”

“But you meant what you said though.”

“Look, am I being punished for what my father did years ago? Because if I am, then this is ridiculous. And please don’t bring up Denise again. I thought we had gotten over all of that.”

Beverly gave me the silent treatment. I was just about ready to get up and sleep in the guest room. I didn’t need that extra stress. I had just won a major battle with my father that day, and I felt that I deserved an opportunity to enjoy it.

Beverly pulled my hand back to her stomach. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It must be the extra hormones.”

I smiled. ‘Yeah, people told me about that,” I said.

“But it’s still wrong,” my wife added.

“I know it is.” I really wanted to continue the conversation, but I figured it would be of no use, especially while Beverly was still pregnant. I felt that most divorces failed to settle anything. It was a false illusion that legal separation would somehow lead to something better. Unfortunately,
in many cases it didn’t. Divorces only seemed to lead to more divorces, family problems, and insecurities.

“My father had an affair once, too,” Beverly admitted. The wall was tumbling down. She said, “And the family was never the same after that. Sometimes I wished they
did
get a divorce.”

I could only imagine what was coming next. I was being sucked in for the kill.

Beverly said, “It just makes me think that
all
men are suspect.”

I wanted to pull my hand away and couldn’t. I said, ‘You know that’s not true.”

“So what makes it happen then? Why do so many men do it?”

I felt like it was her hormones talking again, and honestly, I didn’t want to answer her question. “I’m sure you can come up with plenty of answers to that yourself,” I responded.

“But I want
you
to answer my question.” To make matters worse, she turned and faced me.

I couldn’t even look at her. I felt guilty for
all
men.
Men cheat because sex, to them, is as natural as breathing. And it has absolutely nothing to do with love and commitment.
But I couldn’t tell my wife that. She knew that anyway. Most mature women knew it. Yet they would fight it until they entered the grave. Nevertheless, all men were not cheaters. And many of them were committed wholeheartedly to their wives and families.

I wish that I was innocent enough to look into my wife’s desperate eyes and tell her that the average man never even thought about another woman, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t the man to answer that question. I had too many strikes against me, and as crazy as it sounds, I didn’t want to put a hex on myself by saying that I would never cheat. It just seemed like too much pressure to live with. But what the hell, I had taken a woman to the altar and said “I do.” That was pressure enough. I had already
made
the commitment. I guess that was why so many men considered marriage the ball and chain. They had to ask themselves the question,
Can I actually deal with not having any other woman for the rest of my life?
And many of them were responding, “Hell no!” That was the truth, and nothing but the truth; a truth that most women didn’t want to hear.

“You really want an answer for that?” I asked my wife, stalling.

‘Yes, I really do.”

I nodded. I said, “Men and women have different biological functions.
You do understand that, right?” I was attempting to figure out an answer as I went along.

Beverly just stared at me. She wasn’t going to help me out at all.

I added, “Most young women desire long-lasting love affairs from the beginning of their interest in boys. For boys, on the other hand, much of their early dating boils down to experimentation, confidence, and practice. And once a lot of these young guys get any kind of consistency going with women, they are just really reluctant to give that up. Therefore, it takes a lot more maturity for a man to bring to a close his free-roaming sex life. As for young women, they are more interested in trying to
keep
a man, so marriage makes more sense to them.

“Am I making any sense to you?” I asked my wife.

“So once a man decides that he
is
mature enough to get married, and then he turns around and cheats, what happens then?”