Sweet St. Louis

  I’ll ride up front,” Ant said. “But it looks like Sharron was planning to,” he added. She was already standing at the front door.

  “She always gets to ride up front,” her father snapped. “Get on in the back, girl, so this auto mechanic can see how smooth my car rides.”

  “He doesn’t need to ride up front for that,” Sharron argued.

  Mr. Francis wanted to test the boy and see what he was made of, but Sharron was getting in the way.

  “Okay, well, how ‘bout I let you drive and then we can both sit in the back?” he suggested.

  Sharron sighed and finally conceded. “I’ll sit in the back,” she huffed.

  Ant chuckled at it. Mr. Francis was no cream puff.

  “What kind of car do you have?” her father asked Ant up front as soon as they pulled off and into the downtown streets.

  “A seventy-nine Chevy.”

  “What color?”

  “Cranberry.”

  “You fixed it up?”

  “You know it.”

  “With those bouncing hydraulics?” Mr. Francis asked with a grin.

  Ant smiled, used to people assuming. “Naw, I don’t mess with them. Every old car doesn’t have to have that. But I do have a nice steering wheel and a CD stereo system.”

  “So why did you get an old car; because you know you can fix it up whenever you want to?”

  “Not only that, I like the space inside old cars. Them bucket seats and cup holders take away a lot of the comfort inside, I think.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Too many gadgets can take away from the basics of a good ride and a relaxing feel. How long have you been into cars?”

  “Since I was a kid. My uncles, older brothers, and my father did a lot with cars. So I just picked up on it.”

  “You already knew that you would be a mechanic from a young age.”

  “Not really. But I got certified. I have one uncle who is certified, and the rest just know what they’re doing from trial and error.”

  “So, you were the one who took it to that next step?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sharron sighed loudly from the back seat. “Can we stop talking about cars for a minute,” she asked them jokingly. She was pleased that they were getting along so well, but enough was enough.

  “Okay, well, what would you like us to talk about, honey?” her father asked her.

  “Anything else.”

  “Anything like what?”

  “Like sports or something,” she commented, just for the hell of it.

  Her father nodded, looked at Ant, and asked, “How do you think the Rams are gonna do this year?”

  Sharron and Ant broke out laughing. Her father had character. Ant didn’t find a problem with getting along with him at all. But he sure saw where Sharron got her inquisitiveness from. It ran in the family.

  They arrived at a small red brick house on the central west side of Memphis that looked like a peaceful area. The neighborhoods definitely had more space for comfort than in St. Louis. It almost seemed as if the farther south you traveled, the more land you had available between houses.

  They unloaded the car and took the luggage into the house, a small well-kept place with nothing fancy. When they finished, Ant looked around and thought, Now what? I guess I can lay back and rest for a while on the sofa.

  “What do you like to eat?” Mr. Francis asked as soon as Ant sat down and relaxed in the family room.

  “Ah, it doesn’t really matter to me. As long as it’s good food,” he joked.

  “What does ‘good food’ mean to you? You know Sharron don’t cook much. She’s been spoiled by too many cooks in her family.”

  “Daddy!” she hollered, overhearing him from the stairs. She walked back down to join them in the family room and said, “I guess I can’t leave you alone for one minute with Anthony.”

  “Well, it’s the truth. And honesty is the best policy,” her father told her. “Let a man know what he’s gettin’ into before he gets into it”

  “And what about a man letting a woman know what she’s gettin’ into before she gets into it?” his daughter countered.

  “I agree with that, too,” her father responded. “Your mother let me know what she was thinking every step of the way, and she wanted me to tell her what I was thinking. So if you have a man who can’t express himself to you, then you don’t have a real man.”

  That comment rang Ant’s bell. If you have a man who can’t express himself to you, then you don’t have a real man. It made perfect sense. Just like a man who couldn’t defend his family was not a real man. Or a man who could not pay his bills. Or a man who had no mission in life.

  “What do you think about that, Anthony?” Mr. Francis turned and asked him.

  Ant smiled, and was up for the challenge. “Your daughter made me express myself. So I guess that’s what women need to do. It makes sense to me.”

  Mr. Francis turned back to his daughter and smiled. “There you go,” he told her. “Sounds like you got a real man.”

  Sharron smiled, feeling all warm inside. She knew her father would like him. Ant seemed relaxed around her father as well.

  “So, what do you think?” Sharron asked Ant, once they had time alone outside her father’s house.

  Ant daydreamed about the peace, quiet, and wonder of being with a woman on her turf. He was at her mercy and with no car to get away. Yet, he felt perfectly at home with it. Many married men never felt that comfortable!

  “What do I think about what?”

  “My father.”

  “What about him?” Sharron was ready to throw a fit when Ant smiled and said, “Naw, he’s cool. He’s talkative. A lot of older men don’t talk that much to you, they talk at you.”

  Sharron smiled and said, “I didn’t know you knew the difference.”

  “Yeah, I know the difference,” he said. “My boss talks to you, so he finds out what’s going on in your life because he cares. But a lot of older guys talk at you, and they never hear shit you have to say about yourself. They too busy trying to tell you how they think you should live.”

  Sharron smirked. “Hmmph. You wait until he really talks to you.”

  Ant smiled. “What, he’s rough?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Is it true that you can’t cook?” he asked.

  “Oh, I can cook. I just don’t like to do it that much.”

  Ant looked at her from the cement steps they sat on and said, “I guess I have to accept the fact that you’re not a dedicated cook then.”

  “Just like I have to accept the fact that you’re not a doctor or a lawyer,” Sharron countered.

  He looked at her surprised. “You wanted a doctor or a lawyer?”

  “No. But a lot of women fantasize about that. And that just gets in the way of them being happy with their man.”

  “So you won’t drop me after you get your nursing degree?” he joked.

  “Hell no,” she answered. “You know how hard it is to find a man as dedicated to his job and as fun to be with as you are? I wouldn’t give you up for the world,” she told him. “To hell with a nursing job!”

  Ant laughed, knowing how quickly things can change in life. “Yeah right,” he told her. “If I told you that I didn’t want you to go to nursing school, you’d drop me in a heartbeat.”

  Sharron said, “No I wouldn’t. I’d just ignore you. But why would you tell me that, though?”

  “I wouldn’t. But some men would.”

  “Why? I just can’t understand that,” she commented. “If anything, they should be glad that I’m making my own money.”

  “Yeah, and that’s the problem. Some guys can’t take a woman having her own life. But then they complain when they end up with women who are too dependent on them,” he explained.

  “What about you?” she asked him.

  “I like when a woman has her own life. Because I got other things to do. And if I have a woman who gives me the space that I need whil
e she does her own thing, then I can build up a business without worrying about her ridin’ me all the time.”

  “What, like your own auto repair shop?” Sharron guessed.

  “Yeah. Something like that. That’s how my boss was able to build up his place. He had a woman who pushed him and allowed him to do what he needed to do.”

  “You think I’m like that?” she asked him.

  “I know you are. Otherwise you would have complained already. Because I work late hours sometimes.”

  “You two ready to eat?” Mr. Francis stepped outside and asked them.

  “Yup. Perfect timing, Dad,” Sharron told him, standing up. “My stomach was just starting to growl.”

  “Mine, too,” Ant said, standing up to join her.

  They all sat at the dinner table and Sharron proceeded to say a quick grace before they ate.

  She don’t normally pray before she eats, Ant thought to himself. I guess she’s doing this for her father. He made a note to ask her about that later on. And when she made a run up to her bedroom, Mr. Francis had another minute alone with him.

  “So, how many years you think you got left?” he asked across the table.

  “How many more years I got left?” Ant repeated. What is he talking about? Did I miss something? he thought to himself.

  “You know, playing the field with different teams and whatnot?”

  Ant smiled, understanding what her father meant.

  “I’m retired already,” he told him.

  “Are you sure? You don’t lie to yourself, do you?”

  “No, sir. I can’t lie to myself. That’s when you’re really lost.”

  Mr. Francis nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. And nobody’s perfect.

  “Now, I’m gonna ask you another question before Sharron gets back down here. Do you think you could ever love my daughter?” he asked.

  An easy question.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And does she love you?”

  “Well, she acts like she does, but she never said it to me.”

  “And do you act like you love her?”

  Ant thought about it for a minute. He thought about all of the quality time he had spent with her. The pain of lying to her. All of the things he had expressed to her about himself. The thoughts that he had about her. And the retirement of his player lifestyle to maintain what they had together. He said, “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  Sharron reappeared and interrupted their candid conversation.

  “Okay, what were you two talking about?” she asked with a smile. She noticed their hesitancy when she walked back into the room.

  “Some things you don’t have to know,” her father told her. “This here is man talk.”

  “But I’m your daughter,” she protested.

  “Exactly,” he countered.

  Ant started to laugh.

  “Does that mean you would have more to talk to me about if I was a son?” Sharron asked her father.

  “No, that just means that I have different things to talk to you about because you’re a daughter.”

  Sharron didn’t know how to argue with that. She said, “I see,” and sat back down at her seat.

  When it got late, her father left them alone to call his own companion and to catch up on things.

  “We’ll do a lot more tomorrow,” Sharron promised Ant. “Let’s go to the family room,” she told him. She sat their dishes in the kitchen sink and led him to the small, well-kept room with a brown sleeper couch and a 19-inch color television with VCR attached.

  “What, you think I was bored?” Ant asked her. He wasn’t. “I would have been tired today anyway. I needed to chill,” he told her.

  “Just in case you were, I wanted you to know that.”

  “Were you bored today?” he asked her back.

  Sharron smiled and said, “Of course not. What woman would be bored on the first time that her man meets her father?”

  They took a seat on the couch, real close to each other.

  “So this is a big deal for you?”

  “Was it a big deal when you introduced me to your mother?”

  Ant smiled.

  “All right then,” Sharron piped.

  “So, I guess I gotta sleep down here on the fold-out bed, right? Because we didn’t talk about calling no hotels or nothin’ since we been here.”

  She smiled and asked, “Would you hate me for it?”

  He shook his head with a grin. “I’m definitely gonna hate you for this. I came all the way down here to Memphis to sleep on a damn pull-out bed.”

  “It’s not all like that. We’ll get a hotel tomorrow night then,” she promised.

  “And what about the next night?” he asked.

  “We’ll stay in the hotel for the rest of the weekend. Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Awww, don’t be mad at me,” she whined, kissing his cheek.

  “Stop that before your father comes back,” he teased her.

  She smirked and went after his neck.

  “Now, what are you gonna tell him when this shit gets out of hand?” Ant warned.

  “I’ll say, ‘Daddy, I’m a grown woman now. I’m not a little girl anymore,’” she said.

  “If that was the case, I wouldn’t have to sleep down here while you stay up in your room.”

  Sharron shook her head and leaned away from him. “Is this bothering you that much?”

  He smiled. “Naw, I’m just teasing you about it.”

  “Yes it is,” she said to him. “It is bothering you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t keep talking about it.”

  Ant was just thinking how quickly he could go from scoring with women, almost at will, to sleeping on the couch. Funny how things change.

  “Well, like they say,” he commented, “you have to make sacrifices for what you really want in life.”

  Sharron smiled and said, “You’re willing to make sacrifices for me?”

  “Are you willing to make sacrifices for me?” he asked her back.

  “Of course I am. What do you want me to sacrifice?”

  “Your bed,” he joked.

  Sharron took it seriously. She said, “All right. I’ll sneak back down here when my father goes to sleep.”

  Ant shook his head and said, “Aw, naw, you not gettin’ me embarrassed and shot to death. No way.”

  “My father’s not like that.”

  “Have you ever been caught with a guy before?”

  Sharron frowned and said, “No. I wasn’t even having sex before I left home. You’re the only guy I ever brought back with me.”

  “You don’t know how your father would react then.”

  “He wouldn’t shoot you, Anthony.”

  “Does he own a gun?”

  She smiled again. “He has two guns, a rifle and a thirty-eight.”

  Ant laughed and said, “You stay in your own room then.”

  However, once the moon had been shining for hours, and the air was filled with the sound of good sleep, Sharron disobeyed her man and her father and snuck down the stairs. Ant didn’t need her to. He accepted it. It was a part of life, and a part of growing up, accepting that he couldn’t have everything his way. That was a lesson too many young couples had yet to learn.

  “What are you doing down here, Sharron? I want to live,” Ant told her, barely conscious.

  “Shhhsssh,” she whispered. “Be quiet then.”

  “I’m all right, though. I don’t need you down here,” he told her.

  “But I want to be here.”

  “Aw’ight. But I’m telling you now. I’m not touching you.” And he was serious, falling back to sleep on her.

  Sharron laid there and stared at him while he slept, thinking again about the irony of her life and the songs of Lauryn Hill:

  I sometimes watch you in your sleep excuse me if I get too deep

  The Sweetest Thing.

  Sweet like the mornings down south, hearing the birds chirp loudly with few cars driving
by to disturb the mood, was what it felt like to wake up with your man in your arms and in your hometown. What else could a woman ask for? That kind of sweetness you want to protect. Sharron went with the moment in the morning, long before her father was up and about, and whispered, “I love you,” into Anthony’s ear.

  Anthony smiled, hearing for the first time what Sharron had wanted to say to a caring brown man outside of her father for years. He cracked his eyes, just enough to search for her ear, and returned the favor. Of course, since he was a man, he had to camouflage it.

  “You got me in love with you, too,” he whispered back.

  What else could a woman ask for? But to keep it home.

  “Will you love me tomorrow?” she whispered again.

  Anthony smiled at her a second time. “If you can, then I can,” he told her.

  “But can you love me as much as I love you?”

  He said, “I already do.”

  And she kissed his cheek with glee and smiled as bright as the sunlight, oblivious to corniness, because the silliness of love was a reality. Ask the couples who have been married for thirty years or more how it felt when they first started.

  Then Anthony jumped in alarm. “You hear that? Your father’s up. Go back to your room before he shoots me.”

  Sharron shook her head and climbed to her feet. “He’s not gonna shoot you. We didn’t do anything anyway.”

  “Well, just sneak back up to your room to make sure.”

  That time, she listened to him and crept back up the stairs to her room.

  “What do you two have planned for the day?” Mr. Francis asked them at breakfast. They were having eggs, bacon, grits, wheat toast, and orange juice.

  “I’m taking him downtown to Beale Street, Main, and the National Civil Rights Museum,” Sharron answered.

  Her father nodded and said, “Good. And he can meet Lucille when you two get back.”

  “How is she getting over here if I have the car? You need me to pick her up?” Sharron asked.

  “No. She knows how to catch a cab. You think I go out and get her every time she comes over here?”

  Sharron shook her head and said, “Dad! I don’t believe you.”

  He said, “Believe it! Because I’m not driving Ms. Daisy.”

  Anthony sat there and broke out laughing. Watching Sharron’s relationship with her father made him realize he could be as straightforward as he wanted with her. She was used to it.