Single Mom (44 page)

She said, “I remember when your high school basketball coach called me. He was so concerned that you were losing your focus. You remember that?”

She was bringing up a lot of things that I wanted to forget. My high school coach had basically begged me to go to a junior college to gain a sense of maturity in the hopes of making it to the Division 1 level, but I looked at junior college as an admission of failure and didn’t want to go.

“Yeah, I remember that, too,” I told my mother, painfully.

“That’s why I am so excited that you’re sharing with these boys, because they’re gonna need it. And not just for a couple of years, but until they are old enough to stand up on their own, as good men. You hear me? Boys
need
fathers!
All
of them! And I don’t care if you’re with their mothers or not!”

I raised a brow, and my mother went on to correct herself.

“It would be
nice
if you all were strong enough to make a decision about a girl and stick to it,” she said. “But I can’t
make
you do it. And just because you can’t get along with the woman does not mean that you can’t love the son. He’s
your
flesh and blood. So I would
never
allow Denise to keep Jimmy away from you, no matter
how
wrong you were, because you still have the ability to do right.

“So if you want me to tell you what kind of Christmas present that
I
want, then here it is: you keep doing what you’re doing with these boys. And you love them just the same, whether they can play basketball or not. So that when they get older, they can know what it means to be a responsible man who loves, cares, works hard, and tries his best to do what’s right.

“You hear me, Jimmie? So let
that
be my Christmas present. For as long as I live.”

I looked into the glassy brown eyes of my mother and nodded to her. “Okay,” I told her. “I’ll do that.”

She nodded back to me and said, “Good, because that’s all that I want.”

I left my mother’s house with Jamal, close to eight o’clock at night. By the time we would have made it to a store to buy anything, it would have been closing time.

I said, “Hey, Jamal, do you want to rent a movie?”

Of course he did. He said, “Yeah,
Alien Resurrection
.”

I smiled. “We can’t rent that one yet. That just came out in the theaters.”

“So when can we rent it?”

“Probably next summer. We can see it at the theater though. But not tonight. We’ll go see it this weekend. All right? And maybe your mother will want to go. So pick another movie.”

“Umm …”

I said, “I’ll tell you what, we’ll get to the video store
first
and let you pick what you want. But I don’t know if I want you watching horror movies. You pick a comedy or something.”

When we got to the video store, Jamal and I picked
Toy Story
together. I wanted to see that movie myself, because of the different kind of animation that they were using. We got back to the apartment after nine. Then I went and called my son.

“Hi, Denise. How’s everything going?”

“Fine. And how are things going with you?”

“You won’t hear me complainin’,” I told her.

“That’s good to hear. Complaining rarely leads to positive results anyway.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” I told her. “Is my son around?”

“Of course he is.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“Hold on,” she told me. It was sad that I couldn’t talk more to my son’s mother, but that’s just the way that things were. Neecy had become less worried about me visiting my son at her house, but I still didn’t feel comfortable over there, so I chose not to. I figured it was best for us to keep a respectable distance.

Little Jay jumped on the phone and said, “What’s up, Dad?”

“You tell me. I see your school plays Lewis Academy tomorrow. They have a pretty good team this year.”

“Yeah, I know,” he answered.

“What do you think y’all will do?”

“Well, we’re gonna play to win. We haven’t lost yet.”

I smiled and nodded. My son’s high school team was 6-0. “That’s a good attitude to have,” I told him. “So, what was your last test grade?”

“An eighty-four.”

“In what subject?”

“Algebra.”

“Did you find out how you went wrong?”

“Yeah, I could have gotten a ninety-two. I messed around and rushed a couple of problems.”

I grinned. It’s funny how right you can be once you start to use your head. I asked, “Were you running out of time when you answered them?”

“Naw, I just thought I knew it, and it turned out that I left out some things.”

“Well, you know what you need to do on the next one then. If you get a ninety-six, it’ll bring that eighty-four up to an A. That’s how it works, right?”

“Yup.”

“So how is school otherwise?”

“It’s all right. I can’t complain.”

“Good. You got any girls chasing after you yet?”

He laughed and seemed hesitant to respond. We had talked about girls with no problem before, so I realized that something was up.

“Your mother’s sitting right next to you?” I asked him.

“Yeah, sort of,” he answered with another laugh.

I laughed with him. My mother was right. There were some things where fathers were able to relate to their sons, where mothers couldn’t. Talking about girls was one of them. My mother was also right about choosing to be with a girl, and being strong enough to stick it out with her. That was a lesson I had to learn, among many others.

“All right, well, I’ll see you after the game tomorrow,” I told my son. “We’ll talk about it then.”

“All right then, Dad. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Before I could hang up with him, I got curious. I asked, “Have you went all the way with a girl yet? All you have to answer is yes or no, and we’ll go into detail about it tomorrow.”

He answered, “Naw.”

“Have you gotten close?”

“Not really.”

“Have you
thought
about it?”

He laughed again. “Umm, yeah.”

“Well, you know, take your time, man. And whatever you do, don’t listen to those other guys, because a lot of them will lie about it. I’ve been through that stage myself. If a guy says he’s had six girls, he’s probably only had two,” I told him with a chuckle.

Little Jay said, “I don’t know about that.” He sounded like he doubted my logic.

I smiled, and knew exactly who he was talking about. “That guy Speed is a senior. So don’t try to compete with him. You hear me? Just play your game and do your scoring in basketball. Because if you hold out long enough, and don’t get tied down, by the time you get in your twenties, you’ll have the pick of the litter with women. Especially if you go pro. Oh, man!”

Little Jay burst out laughing again.

I started to envy the boy. I asked, “Has your mom started bugging you about it?”

“Of course.”

“Did you tell her anything?”

“Yeah, but you know …”

I smiled. “You didn’t have anything to tell her and you felt uncomfortable about it anyway,” I said, filling in for him.

“Yup. That’s it,” he answered.

I could imagine. I was a young guy, too, once. The last thing you want to do is talk about girls with your mother until you’re old enough to handle the embarrassment.

“Well, look, I’ll see you tomorrow then. And hey, I love you, man,” I told him.

“I love you, too.”

When I hung up, I noticed that Jamal was eavesdropping on the conversation.

I said, “Come here, man.”

He walked over to me. Then I grabbed him and spun him upside down. “I love you too, little man. You hear me?”

“
Yes
,” he squealed through his giggles.

“You’re my new little homey. And you leave them little girls alone, too. They’ll be around for as long as you’re living. Probably longer. They live longer than we do anyway.”

He broke out laughing, trying to free himself. I let him go and sat him down on the couch next to me. I said, “Okay, let’s shake on it.”

Jamal extended his hand. I took it and pulled him into a bear hug. He broke out laughing again. Damn it felt good! I just wished that I was able to feel that fatherly love a long time ago. I wanted to stand up on a tall building and share it with the world. F
ATHERS, LEARN TO LOVE YOUR BOYS,
AND
YOUR DAUGHTERS
! And the love that they’ll give you back will be unconditional!

was giving Denise, myself, and her two sons an early Christmas present by taking us all out to the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers game at the United Center. The tickets were an arm and a leg to get, but I figured they were well worth the price, especially with Larry Bird coaching the Pacers. Indiana, a longtime Chicago rival, would be fighting for the lead in the central division of the NBA, for home-court advantage in the play-offs. That meant more games for the United Center and Bulls fans, as well as national exposure and business opportunities for the city of Chicago. So I talked to a few contacts on the job and got in touch with a bookie/ticket salesman for a five-ticket package. They were some good seats, too, right at half-court! It doesn’t get any better unless you’re sitting at courtside. I invited my uncle William, my father’s youngest brother, along with us.

Denise and her sons had already met my parents. Things went fairly well with them. My parents could see that Denise was a decent, hard-working woman, and that both of her sons were well cared for and respectful. Then Debra talked to Denise long-distance from Arizona. They clicked immediately. I was pleasantly surprised. My sister rarely had much to say to the women I’d dated in the past. She never considered any of them intelligent or independent enough, especially my exwife. I guess my sister
would
click with Denise. Actually, I expected as much. Denise was a real go-getter. My uncle William, however, was another story.

Mr. William Brockenborough never let my sister and me call him “Bill” or “Willie.” It was always “Uncle William.” He had aged well physically, but underneath his youthful energy, expression, and truthtelling speckles of gray hair, he was a cranky old man with a biting sense of humor. He also had five children, my first cousins, by three different women. He married and divorced two of them, and was still with the third, with no plans of getting married a third time. “I got too much life still left in me for another marriage,” he liked to tell me. Maybe he wasn’t the best example to have around Denise and her sons. Nevertheless, he was my family, just like Nikita was
her
family.

“Light ’em up!” my uncle hollered as soon as Michael Jordan got his first touch of the ball. He sat on the far right, next to Jimmy. Walter sat in the middle, and Denise and I were at the other end.

I had no idea how things were going to play themselves out. But I
did
know that my uncle William was a Jordan fan, like the rest of the sports world, while Denise seemed to despise Jordan because of his lack of interest in black community-related affairs. She felt that Jordan represented all that was wrong with blacks in sports in the nineties. Too many of them were shopping around for unlimited sponsorship and more money than they knew what to do with. Then they would spend the money recklessly, and only a few of them felt any responsibility to their communities.

I couldn’t really argue with her about that, but I was still a supporter of sports. Maybe I did need to be a bit more concerned about black athletes. After all, they
were
children of the black community
before
college and
before
the pros. Denise had a damned good point!

“Shit!” my uncle commented. “That damn Reggie Miller shoots that ball like a machine gun! A damned Uzi!”

Jimmy and Walter were getting a kick out of him already. Most guys did. Women, for the most part, would much rather stay away from him. They never knew when he was about to say something inexcusable.

“This is one of the uncles you were telling me about?” Denise asked me on the sly.

“In the flesh,” I told her with a smile.

She looked at me and frowned. “In the
mouth
would be more like it,” she responded with a chuckle.

I laughed myself. Then I overheard my uncle asking Jimmy if he wanted to be like Mike.

“Naw, I’d rather be like me,” Jimmy answered.

That brought a smile to his mother’s face. “That’s right. He doesn’t
have to ‘
be like Mike
’ to play well. He can be
better
than Mike,” Denise spoke up for her son.

I looked at her fearing that she had fallen into a more familiar man’s game of trash talking.

“Better than Jordan, hunh?” my uncle responded with a nod. “So you want to be like Kobe Bryant then; that young blood who plays for the Lakers?”

“No, he said he wants to be like himself,” Denise repeated.

I don’t know what it was, but Uncle William always seemed to bring out the fire in women. I guess he just wasn’t built for the new sisters of the nineties who had plenty to say and were not holding anything back.

“These young black men need to stop
following
other people anyway. Especially
Mr. Jordan
,” Denise added. She was paying my uncle more attention than she was the game. That was to be expected though. Denise only agreed to go because she considered it a “family outing.” I felt that she should try and make more of Jimmy’s games in the future if she had the chance. I know I planned to, whether his biological father was there at the game or not. Why shouldn’t I have an opportunity to see the boy play just because of his relationship with his father? I wasn’t there to intervene. I just wanted to support him and enjoy his talents like anyone else.