Team Mom (4 page)

Lois Gregory, a woman in her early seventies, had just finished dinner in the kitchen of her home. She lived alone and actually enjoyed it. A few times during dinner she heard voices outside her home, and after she put her dishes in the sink, she went to her front door and opened it to look outside. When she peered outside, she noticed a group of young males standing in front of her home. They noticed her, even though she was trying to conceal herself behind the screen door. One of the males, who was wearing jeans with the right pant leg rolled almost all the way up to his knee, decided he was going to be the spokesman for the group.

He said, “Can we help you?” His boys thought his ass was funny.

Lois Gregory told them all, “Get away from here. Didn't I tell you boys, I don't want you around my house?”

All of them laughed and spewed out some disrespectful comments, which she refused to hear.

The male with the rolled-up jeans started to show out and nodded his head up at the screen door. “Like we care what you say. And I am not a boy. I'm a man.”

Lois grabbed the front door handle nice and tight in case she needed to shut the door quickly before she said something else, even though her screen door was locked. “A man?”

He said back to her, “You heard right.”

At this stage in her life Lois wasn't about to start letting any disrespectful fellow just talk to her any way he wanted. She couldn't exactly tell their ages, but she was going to treat them just the way they were acting. “What are your names? I bet your parents don't even know you're out here,” she said.

They looked up at her screen door, and there was a pause before they began to laugh again. The same guy said, “We don't know their names.” He pointed to one of his friends, who seemed like he couldn't stop smiling for some reason. “At least he don't.” Then he pointed at another dirtbag. “And he don't, and most definitely not him.”

Smiley boy said, “Aww, you don't know yours, either, and that's real talk.”

“Well, that's the problem, then. Now, get away from my house, before I call the police,” Lois said.

The leader of these guys just wouldn't shut up and leave. He said, “The police don't scare me.”

Lois said, “Well, they should, because I will have them lock you up.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. Now, get away from my house. You don't even live around here.”

Mr. Spokesman stood there for a moment. As he paused, he looked at his boys, then back up at the screen door and Lois. This time he spoke very slowly. “You better watch your mouth, old lady, before I come up there and beat you like they used to back in slavery.”

The group laughed and drew together in a circle as a car made its way down the street in their direction.

It was Mr. Tall. He was inside some kind of Buick with two doors. When he noticed the group in his neighbor's yard, he rolled down the window of his car with his hand. He paused a few seconds once the window was all the way down and looked the group up and down right before he gazed up at the door of the house. He couldn't see Lois directly but could tell she was behind the screen door. “Everything okay out here?”

The guy talking all the smack leaned forward and squinted his eyes to see in the car. “Oh, is this the police you were talking about? Old Otis here?” he wondered aloud.

Once again his followers laughed at their fearless leader.

Lois snapped, “Hush your mouth and respect your elders.”

“Fuck you, old lady,” he said back.

Mr. Tall didn't blink one bit before he spoke. “Okay, you fellows better get out of here before they have to call the meat wagon for you.”

The boys laughed again, and it was evident who the leader of this crew was, because his ass wouldn't stop talking. He said, “What you going to do, old man?”

Without letting them know, Mr. Tall moved his hand to the passenger's seat and picked up his pistol and hit the hammer hard. They heard it click.

Mr. Smiley was not as dumb as he looked. He said, “Oh, shit. That's a gun.”

“Sure is, and it's pointed directly at your ass,” Mr. Tall confirmed.

“Let's go,” said the leader. He looked up at Lois as they walked away and growled, “You better watch yourself.”

Mr. Tall responded for Lois. “And you should too.”

Lois and Mr. Tall watched them fade into the darkness, which was quickly falling.

When she was sure they were gone, Lois opened her screen door and her face appeared. She waited a beat before she spoke.

“Thank you again, Mr. Tall.”

“No problem, Lois Gregory. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes, I'll be okay. If I wasn't so tired, I'd invite you in for a while.”

He smiled and said, “If I wasn't so tired, I'd come in too.”

They both smiled and just thought about the possibilities of spending time together.

Mr. Tall was firm when he told her, “Lock them doors and keep them locked, okay?”

“Will do,” Lois responded, right before she turned around to go back in the house.

He said to her, “If you need anything, I'm right down the street, okay?”

“Like you always are, Mr. Tall. Like you always are.”

Mr. Tall looked in the direction in which the young men had walked, waved at Lois, then drove slowly down the street.

Coach and Shonda Black sat in the back of that sports bar and had at least four shots apiece with a plate of steamy hot wings and fries. Shonda revealed that she didn't have a ride home, because her girlfriend had dropped her off, and asked Coach for a lift. Even though Coach was taken aback that he was now her ride, because normally after drinks at the bar it was straight home to bed for him, it was cool. He felt good to have such an unexpected great time. Shonda lived only a block away from the football field, so dropping her off wasn't too bad, anyway. Coach had an idea before taking her home. As he drove past the field, they pulled into the parking lot to chat some more.

“Sometimes, I come out here and sit,” Coach told her.

She said, “In the dark?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

She looked around in the darkness. Couldn't even see the field. “What's it do for you?”

“I don't know. But it does something, you know, just knowing when I'm out here with the kids, I'm helping on some kind of level, other than locking these young boys up.”

“Being on the streets really got to you, didn't it?”

“Can't lie,” he admitted. “It was getting hard looking into the eyes of these young men once you throw them in that cell. I don't care what anyone says. If you haven't looked into a young black boy's eyes when he's thrown in jail and haven't realized he's confused, scared, and knows there's a better way but hasn't been taught what that way is, then you are really part of the problem.”

“Oh, shit, Coach. You getting deep up in here. You don't mind, do you?” Shonda pulled out the bottle of tequila, cracked it open, and took a swig. “Fuck a shot glass this time.”

Coach shook his head and laughed. “Damn, girl.”

She had to wait until the burn from the tequila subsided before talking. “What?”

“You are enjoying yourself tonight, aren't you?”

“Told you, I have to. Son's gone to his friends for the weekend and no work tomorrow. I can sleep in as late as I want. Yeah, I'm enjoying myself tonight.”

Coach pushed his head back on his headrest. “I ain't mad at you.”

Shonda put the cap back on the bottle. “So are you going to get in any trouble being out drinking with the team mom?”

Coach turned to look at her. “What kind of trouble?”

“Uh, I don't know. From a lady who might be at home, waiting on you, perhaps?”

He kind of smiled. “Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

Shonda thought about what he had said, then looked over at him. “Are you a player, Coach?”

Her question surprised him. “What?”

“Just trying to find out if you are a player or not. I mean, you're a handsome man. Hard to believe you don't have a woman to go home to. Where's your woman, Coach?” she teased.

Coach looked at Shonda, then back out into the darkness. “Dead. She's dead.”

Shonda looked at him. He had her complete attention.

“She died in a car crash about three years ago, along with our twin boys, that she was carrying.”

Shonda was still. She wanted to say some kind words to Coach, but they wouldn't come quick enough. The quietness now was eerie and spine-chilling. She didn't know what she should do or say. She just handed him the tequila in the brown paper bag.

Coach looked at her. “Thank you.” Then he took a hell of a swig, put the cap back on, and handed the bottle back to her.

“You're welcome,” she told him. “You're welcome.”

Anyone could imagine that it took a few minutes to get back to the high energy of the night. Shonda felt it was on her since she was the one who was responsible for the break in the action.

“So, Coach, answer this question. . . .”

“Okay . . .”

Shonda had a coy smile on her face. It was too dark to see, though. But the light sarcasm was quite apparent in her tone. “What did you think of my outfit today?” She started to laugh.

Coach was quick. It was as if he wanted to forget about what he had just told her. “I think you pissed some parents off. That's what I think.”

“I'm not worrying about those women. Please, they all can be fly too if they hit the gym once in a while. Besides that, how did it look? I mean, did it make
you f
eel some type of way?” Coach noticed the brown paper bag with the tequila still in Shonda's hand and grabbed it. “Yeah, can't lie. Everything was in place real nice and tight,” he said. “I'm sure your man has his hands full.”

Shonda was shocked at his quick jab. “Please! What man? I'm doing me. Have been for the last fourteen out of the twenty-eight years I have been living on this planet.”

“Why so? Twenty-eight? Geez.”

“One reason is my son. He barely knows his father, and I don't want a lot of men around him like that. That would be wrong on so many levels. I mean, it's not every night I can get away and sit in a truck with a man and drink tequila. But if and when I do get a chance, I like to enjoy myself and have a good conversation and leave it at that, and I'm good. And yes, I'm twenty-eight.”

Taking in her words, Coach nodded in agreement.

Out of the blue there was an awkward silence. But the silence had some energy. Energy that they hadn't felt in quite some time.

Shonda spoke first. “You know about being lonely, right?”

“Yeah, I do,” Coach said.

“Exactly,” Shonda murmured, letting the energy inside the truck say whatever else was on her mind.

Coach understood the energy's message loud and clear. “Exactly,” he repeated right before he turned to kiss her.

Shonda reached up and put her arms around his neck and enjoyed the moment of being in the arms of a man. There was no lack of appreciation from Coach.

After a minute or two, Coach backed off. “Whew. Damn, we better go,” he said.

Shonda tried to gather herself. “Yeah, it's getting late.”

Coach put on his seat belt, pulled out of the parking lot, and drove off.

Shonda ran her hand through her hair and looked up at him. “Where are you going? My place is the other way.”

Coach turned on his car radio, and the grown and sexy hit “Come and Talk to Me,” by Jodeci, hummed through his speakers. “My place,” he said.

Things really weren't supposed to end up like this, but Coach and Shonda spent not only Saturday night together but all day Sunday too. They would probably have kept the connection going longer, but motherhood and the daily grind for Coach on the job pushed them apart.

Coach was a mile a minute at work, scheduling meetings he normally hated to attend and answering e-mails with requests that were long overdue. When he felt someone standing over his desk in the squad room, he looked up.

“Don't mind me, son. Keep working, if you have to. I understand it all too well when you get in a groove. Should I come back some other time?”

When Coach's eyes focused on the man standing before him, he couldn't place him. But he was sure he'd seen him someplace before. He just smiled and tried to remember.

“There ain't no need for you to rack your brain trying to remember who my old ass is. I can tell you. My name is Theadore Tall. I met you over there at the church the other day. I spoke up about playing football back in the day, and you invited the community to a game and promised you'd provide transportation in a fancy van.”

When Theadore Tall took off his hat and smashed it into his chest, Coach remembered clearly who he was. Coach stood tall and reached out to shake his hand. “Yes, Mr. Tall. What can I do for you?”

Mr. Tall went into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “Well, you gave me this card and told me to come see you if I needed. I came by to tell you that my house was broken into the other day, and I'm wondering what can really go on down here to make these break-ins stop. I don't have much, and I'm okay with that, but what I do have, I would like to keep.”

Coach walked from behind his desk. “You weren't injured, were you?”

“Shoot, no. They came in through my back door when I went out to the store.”

Coach talked to Mr. Tall for a while and tried to soothe him so that he would feel like he was getting good service from the police department. Coach introduced him to his captain, who set him up with an officer who would take his report about the break-in.

Mr. Tall wasn't too happy about having to sit down and explain in detail that he'd been broken into. But, when he informed them it was the third time in three months, he was told that his home was a priority and was assured that there would be a squad car making its presence known at least once a day. When he finished with the report, he went back out to see Coach at his desk.

“Not too painful?” Coach asked.

Mr. Tall said, “Well, my ass started to hurt in that chair. Other than that, things are fine.”

“That's good to know.” Coach smiled. “You know, you remind me of my grandfather. No disrespect,” he assured him.

“Aww, boy, I'm not sensitive like that. Hell, I know I'm an old man, and I'm glad to be one. Especially today, I'm cool with being on my way out. Wouldn't want to be alive the way this world is headed in ten, twenty years. Nope, not me.”

Coach started laughing.

“What? What did I say?” Mr. Tall said.

“My grandfather used to say the same thing.”

“Well, how long ago was that?”

Coach thought about it. “About fifteen years ago.”

“Um, we'll see. Time is even shorter than I predicted.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Coach agreed.

“So, how is that football team going? I hope you know I am taking you up on your kindness. I want to see the first game.”

“First game is in two weeks. I will post it down at the church.”

“Two weeks?”

“Yes, sir. Boys are chomping at the bit right about now.”

“Well, they gotdamn ought to be.”

Coach could see the fire in the old man's eyes. “Wow. After all this time you still got passion for the game, That's good, Mr. Tall.”

“Let me tell you something.”

“What's that, Mr. Tall?” Coach had a fondness for Mr. Tall and was truly interested.

“They used to lock me up in the locker room before the game, right up until kickoff.”

“Why is that?” Coach wanted to know.

“Because I couldn't handle my emotions, and I would run into my teammates during the warm-up and knock them the fuck out.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I'm serious, son. I will have to show you all the write-ups I have. You know, you had to be a bad boy to get in the news in the sixties.”

“I guess you did,” Coach admitted.

“Ain't no guessing. Back then the only time a black man could get in the paper was when they were stringing his ass up to a tree.”

“Look, why don't you come out to practice some time? There's a real nice shade tree where you can sit and watch the action,” Coach told him.

“Shade tree?” Mr. Tall questioned.

“Yes, sir.”

“Fuck that. I'm wearing my cleats, and I'm working the field with you. What time you coming to pick me up?”