The Secret to Success (2 page)

Once I got off the phone with Melvin I quickly hopped in the shower. When I got out I threw on my jogging pants and hoodie, headed down the stairs and out the door. I was half way out of the door when suddenly I heard him call my name. “Eric, do you know what your mother did with the steak?” “What steak?” I replied without hesitation. I headed toward the kitchen trying to keep a straight face. I kept thinking about what Melvin said, “Stay calm and act like nothing happened.” “Are you sure you have no idea what your mother did with the steak?” “Yes sir, she didn't mention anything to me about no steak.” “All right,” he said. “I'm about to go over Melvin's for a while.” I walked out of the door slowly as to suggest everything was normal, but I knew if they found out I threw a party at the house and barbequed the steak, I was a dead man walking. I had a feeling my father didn't buy my story and as soon as my mom got home from Chicago he was going to check with her to find out what really happened. If they put all the pieces together, I was going to have to get out of the house before my father killed me.

“Stop being so paranoid. You know how mean your old dude is, if he thought for one second we had a party at the house last night, he would have murdered you by now,” Melvin said jokingly. “You haven't said a word since you been here. For real E, you need to chill out. Tomorrow morning everything will be back to normal.”
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“Hello, how are you?” Melvin's mom said as she picked up the phone.

I got quiet and went to the stairwell so I could hear Mrs. Brown's conversation. I can't explain it, but somehow I just knew that it was my mother on the other end of the phone. My heart started racing again. It was early evening and that was around the time my mom generally made it in whenever she drove home from Chicago. Also, the tone in Melvin's mother's voice didn't sound like she was speaking to a close friend.

“As a matter of fact they were together late last night,” she told the person on the other end. “Not a problem, have a good evening, I'll talk to you soon.” “Eric, that was your mother, she wants you to come home.”

“I knew it! I knew it. I shouldn't have listened to you. I knew I shouldn't have thrown a party at the crib,” I said while pacing the floor. “We probably left all kind of evidence. Man, he is about to kill me. I knew I shouldn't have listened to ya'll fools.”

“Stop acting like a punk and calm down. You want me to go with you?”

Trying to impress Melvin, I lied, “Naw, I ain't scared of that dude. Let me get my jacket. I'm good. I'll call you if I need you.”

“You know I got your back,” Melvin said sincerely.

Even though I knew he had my back, I was not in the least bit comforted by his words. He didn't have to face my father, I did. On the way home I cut through the neighbor's yard taking my usual shortcut, but then backtracked and took the scenic route. It didn't make a lot of sense to rush home for a butt whipping. As I walked toward the house I told myself, “Party or no party, right or wrong, he wasn't going to put his hands on me again.” I was the only kid on the block still getting whippings in high school. I was 16 and still had to wear long-sleeved shirts to school to hide the bruises on my arm that I got from trying to protect myself from the belt. It actually looked worse than it felt. What hurt the most was the fact that my classmates would joke on me about it. When I walk in this house if any one of them says something about me getting a whipping, it's on!

As I grabbed the knob on the screen door and walked through the garage into the house, I kept telling myself to relax and act normal. I deliberately went through the garage and not the front door because it gave me a few extra minutes to gather myself. I paused for about 30 seconds to calm down, gain my composure, and practice saying, “What's up ma, Mrs. Brown said you wanted to talk to me.” I must have practiced saying, “What up ma, Mrs. Brown said you wanted to talk to me,” a million times before I mustered up enough courage to walk into the house, and into the family room to face my parents. As I walked into the family room, the sight of my parents struck fear in my heart. I opened my mouth and all the moisture evaporated and my voice began to crack, “Mrs. Bbbbbbrown, I stuttered, ssssaid you wanted to see me.”

“Yes, I talked with your dad yesterday and he said that the steak was missing. Do you know what happened to it?

“No ma'am.”

“Well, that's strange because your father and I found beer bottles in the backyard and the grill looks like someone cooked steak on it recently. I am going to try this again! Did you have a party here last night?” she pressed.

“Party? No ma'am, I didn't have a party here last night.” I tried to keep a straight face, but it was difficult because my mom always knew when I was lying.

“Stop lying. Eric, I am so damn sick of you. How could you have a party in my house, eat the groceries your father and I worked for, and have absolute strangers in my house? What in the hell were you thinking?” she screamed. I didn't say a word; I just stared at her.

“Eric, do you hear me talking to you? I asked you a question, what in the hell were you thinking? I want an answer and I want it now!” I didn't flinch, I just stood there with a blank look on my face.

“Son, your mother asked you a question,” he chimed in. I pretended as if I did not hear a word he was saying. “I know you hear me talking to you son…I said your mother asked you a question!” He typically used a different tone of voice when he had to repeat himself. He was from the old school and believed that when an adult spoke to a child, the child was supposed to acknowledge he or she was being spoken to. I knew the drill. If you did not respond the first time, he would ask you a second time a bit louder, giving you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you didn't hear him. He was not necessarily trying to scare you by projecting his voice; it was more of a warning. Generally, I would surrender. I would play the dumb role like I did not hear him the first time, and the second time say, “yes sir” and answer the question. Not this time. In a strong and demanding voice he said, “Boy, you better answer your mother.” Before I knew it I snapped and my mind went blank. I was physically in the room, but mentally I was long gone.

“You can't make me,” I murmured under my breath as I bit my bottom lip and shook my head as if to say “not this time—not this time.”

I knew what I was doing was dangerous. I had heard stories of how his 6 foot 8 inch 250 pound frame had annihilated men twice my size, but I was tired of living in fear. Before I knew it, I was racing toward him in an attempt to get past him and into the garage. But as I made my initial move out of the family room toward the hallway he blocked the pathway and moved in on me. He had an obvious advantage in both reach and size but I thought I could offset it with my quickness. I launched toward him in an attempt to knock him down and give me enough time to run through the hallway toward the door leading to the garage. As I went to push him, he grabbed my arm and before I knew it had me in a headlock gasping for air. I tried to use my lower body strength to force his legs from under his body, but it didn't work. The next thing I knew he was hitting me with some serious blows to the body. Helpless, the only thing I could think to do was pray. I didn't go to church and I was definitely not a Christian, but I figured I had nothing to lose by calling on Him. “God if you can hear me—Help! This dude is about to kill me!” Within in a matter of seconds, I was able to push both of his arms toward his body and loosen the cobra-like grip he had me in. I began to pull my head back in an attempt to regain my balance. The only thing I wanted to do was try to create enough separation between us so that I could make it out of the house. Once I was completely free from his grip I pushed him away and ran toward the garage. I made it safely into the washroom and slammed the door shut behind me to give myself a few extra seconds. I ran through the garage and exited the door to the far left. I figured he would go through the front door and try to cut me off but I was too quick; by the time I made it out of the garage, I noticed he and my mother were just getting to the porch. Once I made it to the street I knew I was in the clear because there was no way either one of them could catch me. I stopped running once I made it past the mailbox and into the street. I turned and faced my mother. All I remember thinking was, I waited four years to say this. It was late in the afternoon, and as luck would have it, on this particular Sunday, it seemed like all our neighbors were outside. It felt like a scene out of a movie. All the neighbors stopped what they were doing and all eyes were on our family. Tears began rolling down my face uncontrollably and I exploded, “I hate you, I swear to God I hate you! You watched him put his hands on me and you didn't do nothin'. You never said nothin' to him. You should have protected me! I hate you!”

My mother yelled back at me but I was in such a haze I couldn't hear anything but my rapid heartbeat. “You put him before me, you put him before your own blood,” I shouted. Then he interrupted in an attempt to put his two cents in. “Who you talking to?” he growled.

“Shut up talking to me! You don't mean nothin' to me! If I see you in the streets, I'm killin' you!” The neighbors looked on in astonishment with their mouths wide open. We lived in a diverse community at the time and it was quiet for the most part. Lathrup Village (the suburbs) was the complete opposite of our old neighborhood on the west side of Detroit. In Detroit, it was nothing to hear sirens racing through the hood in the middle of the night, or the sound of bass pounding out of the local drug dealer's car as they drove up and down the block.

By no means were we the Huxtables. We had our challenges, but I don't think any of us ever thought it would come to this. Just before I took off running, I stopped everything and stared at my mom thinking, “How could you betray me? How could you put your husband before your own son? How could you keep that secret from me all those years?”

“I'm sorry mama I never meant to hurt you. I never meant make you cry but tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet.”
– Eminem

My body felt numb. In my anger, I said things I never thought I'd say to the one person I loved more than life. I never intended to hurt my mom. I guess I held it in so long that when it finally came out; it came out with no regard for anything or anyone.

Tears ran down my face as I thought, “Not in a million years did I ever think that my mom would lie to me. It hurt my heart watching her stand there on the porch next to him after he just tried to kill me. It was like she was saying, “No matter what, right or wrong, I am going to support my husband and I don't care how you feel.” Never in my wildest dreams did I think she could do or say anything to hurt me as much as when she kept the secret from me. I was wrong, this hurt just as much.

Once I snapped out of my trance, I realized I had to make a decision, and I had to make it quick. The question was,
“Do I run to my right, east towards Telegraph Road, or do I run towards the left, west towards Lasher Road?”
I decided to run west.

It all happened so fast. I wasn't quite sure where I was headed and to be honest it didn't matter as long as I was getting the hell away from them. When I got to the end of the block, I kept straight and ran through the neighbor's yard to Ivanhoe Lane. I wanted to make sure my father couldn't trace my steps. I kept running until I no longer recognized where I was. After I passed a liquor store on 11 Mile and Lahser, I noticed an empty field behind the houses. As I got closer to the field I discovered that it was a small park. The park had a few pieces of playground equipment: a swing set, monkey bars, and a metal rippled slide all enclosed by sand. I sat down on the edge of the slide trying to catch my breath. Once I regained my composure, I walked over to the swing set and began swinging. I tried not to think about the day I found out, but it was impossible.

It was a Catch-22. On one hand, I wanted to know the truth, but on the other hand, I was afraid. As far back as I could remember, certain family members tried to convince me that my mother was keeping something from me. I was really strong in the beginning; whenever someone would slightly hint about my mom and some family secret, I would dismiss it because of the ultimate trust I had in her. As the years passed, something was eating at me. I couldn't take not knowing any longer. I took matters into my own hands.

As I approached the hallway leading into my parent's room, I heard my conscious say,
“Eric, don't do it, you know you shouldn't go into your parent's room looking through their personal belongings. If you really want to know, just call your mom and ask.”
I stopped for a quick second to acknowledge the voice, but like so many other times before, I ignored it. I walked out of the hallway and slowly into their room passed the bed and toward their dresser. I couldn't decide if what I was looking for was in their armoire or the dresser and didn't have all day to decide. My father was a supervisor at GM; which meant he could pop in at any moment. I stood there for about 30 seconds when suddenly, a light came on,
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.”
My index finger was pointing at the honey pine finished dresser when I got to the last moe. I walked toward the dresser and cautiously opened the top left drawer. I wanted to make sure no one else knew I had been in the drawer, so I memorized sure where everything was so I could put things back exactly how I found them. When I opened the drawer, I also noticed a sliver box with a lock. It looked like something my parents would keep important papers in, but I didn't know how much time I had, so I moved it to the side and began looking through the papers in the top drawer. I grabbed the first set of papers and my hands began shaking. As I looked through them, I didn't see anything, so I began putting them on the top of the dresser sequentially so I would not forget what order they were in. After a few minutes of looking and finding nothing relevant, I began feeling bad for going through their things. All I saw was a bunch of junk mail and old receipts. Just as I was about to close the drawer and get out of Dodge, I noticed a piece of paper that looked like a birth certificate. I stared at it for a minute, debating if I really wanted to look at it. As I grabbed it with my right hand, my heart sank in my chest. I pulled it close to my face and studied it like an exam. The first thing I noticed was the city in which I was born. That section had Chicago, my mother's maiden name, and my father's name. The birth certificate seemed legit. It had the official State of Illinois insignia and the words, Certificate of Live Birth, in bold letters. The first section had my name, Eric Douglas Thomas, my birth date and the hour I was born. The second section showed my sex, and the county I was born in. The third line seemed legit as well. It indicated that I was born in Chicago, within city limits. Everything seemed cool until I got to the parent section. First, it listed my mom's name, her age at the time of my birth, and the city she resided in. From the look of it, my father's information was correct as well, but something seemed a little strange. My father's section didn't even contain the
relation to child
question. He just signed his name under father's name. My mom's section had the question clearly spelled out—
relation to the child, mother
.
The other red flag was the section that asked for their ages. I knew for certain that there was a four-year age difference between my parents. So I did the math, at 18 my mom was living in Chicago finishing school at Dunbar High and my father was in college at Texas Southern playing basketball. Come to think of it, my father was from Detroit, he never even lived in Chicago. So if he lived in Detroit, and my mom lived in Chicago, if she was in high school, and he was in college, they couldn't have possibly known each other. To make it worse, I already knew they weren't married at the time I was born. I started to feel light headed and my heart started racing faster and faster and I started sweating. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I started telling myself, “Maybe they were shocked when they found out my mom was pregnant and didn't know what to do. Or maybe they were too young to get married and needed more time to figure out what they wanted to do.” I tried to come up with every reason I could to justify what was happening. The only thing left for me to do was to call my mom. “Yeah, I'll call my mom and she'll straighten all this out.” I picked up the phone and quickly dialed her work number. “Microfilm,” she said in her professional voice. “Mom, I need to ask you a question!” She could tell something was wrong in my voice. “What is it son?” “If I ask you will you promise to tell me the truth?” I said in a real nervous tone. “I promise, now what is it?” she asked. “Is daddy my real father?” The silence penetrated my soul. It might have only lasted for a few seconds, but it felt like minutes. Finally she said, “No son, he isn't your real father.”