Ms. Walker nodded. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” she responded as we walked out.
When my son, Denise, her attorney, and I all made it back outside to the school’s parking lot area, I asked Walter again if he would be okay.
He nodded and mumbled again, “Yeah, I’ll be all right.” I never remember seeing him so glum before.
Attorney Melvin Fields reached to shake my hand before heading to his car, a brown Lexus coupe. “It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Perry,” he said to me with a smile.
I shook his hand and nodded to him, full of concern. It’s good to finally meet you, I thought to myself, repeating his comment to me. Had Denise been talking to her attorney about me? And to what extent?
I thought again about calling my own attorney.
Denise turned to me and said, “I’ll keep you updated on everything.”
“Please do,” I responded.
We all made it to our separate cars and pulled off. I then wasted no time at all getting on my cell phone and calling my lawyer, only to get his answering machine.
“John, this is Walter. I need you to call me ASAP at my office. Something’s come up with my son and we need to go over some things. I’ll fill you in on everything when you call me.”
I made it back to my downtown office on the seventeenth floor of Chicago Federal Savings Bank by eleven-thirty, and I felt exhausted. I had three afternoon meetings to attend that day, two with clients, and a late-afternoon meeting with the chief executive of accounts regarding new bank policies.
Half of those damn internal meetings were not even necessary. We could all read the memos on our own. Meetings were just used as a reason to show off the boardrooms and order food, if you asked me. It was a big waste of time and money to fool the staff into believing that they were really involved in something of importance. However, by your third meeting, you pretty much know the name of the game as a “bullshit your workforce” policy. Over my three years of working at CFS, I had been in nearly two hundred meetings and was simply tired of all the pep talks and evaluations.
I was one of the few black executives, not only at my bank, but at many of the larger banks in Chicago. Unfortunately, I had been around plenty of black men and women who did not have the emotional toughness or stamina to make it through the many games of corporate structure. It wasn’t only what you knew, but how you used what you knew to get ahead. You had to be confident and secure with your ideas, know the language, and be able to explain yourself under tremendous pressure.
Many black men, more so than the women, it seemed, could not stomach the racism. However, I was able to push ahead despite it. The old boys’ club stood on the grounds of no mercy, no retreat, which would immediately factor out anyone who could not stomach being tough-minded for at least ten hours per day. I had been well schooled, and therefore, I was hard to intimidate. After being raised by my father, going head-to-head with him for the majority of my life, I could virtually run CFS and go toe-to-toe with anyone! However, that didn’t necessarily mean that I enjoyed my work. Most of the time, I found myself being rather bored with it.
From my office window, I had a perfect view of the famous Sears Tower. Whenever I got bored, I loved to stare out at that tall, black building and think about my place in the world. Maybe I really needed to become an entrepreneur and run my own ship like my father, or even Denise. Sometimes I actually envied her. She was more a people person than I was, yet she had the drive and self-determination of an owner.
I thought about her comments concerning our son that morning, and I had to admit that she was a hell of a mother. She and her lawyer had successfully played a game of left jab, right cross, as in a boxing match. Denise jabbed the school officials and kept them off guard with her emotion, and her attorney was the big legal knock-out punch.
I was impressed. I was also apprehensive about going up against them. Denise truly loved her son, and she had a long-term invested interest in his success. I don’t think I realized that before. Raising kids took much more than just rules and regulations; it took a lot of heart, persistence, and adaptability. Suddenly, I longed to have that challenge, and to raise my son.
My wife called me and broke me from my daydream. I had called her from my car phone after contacting my attorney, and left her a message as well. Beverly immediately wanted to know how things had gone at my son’s school that morning.
“Well, I must say that I gained a lot of respect for Denise. She really knows how to handle herself,” I admitted to my wife.
To my surprise, Beverly responded, “I figured that. Denise is a very strong woman.”
“And who told you this?” I asked lightheartedly. Beverly had never had a full conversation with Denise.
“Well, to successfully raise two black sons in America, during the nineties, a woman would have to be strong,” she answered. “I know that my older sister Elaine is strong, raising my niece, Karla, by herself.”
Elaine was indeed the strongest of Beverly’s kin. And the oldest. I was cornered again by a heavy feeling of guilt. What had absentee fathers done to help single mothers in raising their children? Money was hardly everything. What about the importance of moral support and physical presence? And what about the importance of fatherly love?
I said, “So, you believe that she’s been successful?” I would agree with it, I just wanted to know what made Beverly so sure.
My wife thought about it before she answered. She said, “Elaine told me once that life isn’t so much about what happens to you, because things are going to happen to us that we can’t really control from the time that we’re born. Life is more about how you respond to the things that happen to you, or how you go about accomplishing what you want to do in this short time that we have in the world. So yes, I believe that Denise Stewart has done a heck of a job with what she’s had to live with.
“Some of the strongest people in the world have had to fight through hell, so that they can make it to their heaven,” Beverly told me. “And that idea of heaven is different for every one of us.”
Right as she finished her statement, I got a call on my other line. “Hold on for a minute, Beverly. This may be John Ford. I left a message with him before I called you this morning.”
“Okay, well, we’ll talk later,” she said.
“Well, let me see if it’s him first. Because if it’s not, then I’d rather talk to you.”
She chuckled and said, “Okay, I’ll hold.”
“Thank you.” I clicked to my other line.
“Hey, man, I got your message. What’s going on with your son?”
“John! Okay, hold on for a second,” I told him.
“Beverly, it’s him, and I have a busy afternoon today, so I’ll see you at home tonight.”
“Bye, Walter,” she told me.
“I love you,” I responded.
“I love you, too.”
I hung up with my wife and clicked back over to my attorney. “Walter was involved in a stabbing incident at school …” I went on to tell him all that I knew and asked about our chances in a custody battle.
“Well, we can make a case out of anything, but this sounds like a normal parental concern, and she’s already on it,” he advised. “It’s not as if it’s neglect or abuse. And the fact that she’s already taking care of it makes it even less of a case for us. Your son is what, twelve, thirteen now?”
“Twelve.”
John thought about it. He was a young, aggressive guy from Detroit. He graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He came to Chicago about seven years ago with his family, to get away from the economic despair of Detroit and to practice his trade in a stronger metropolitan area.
He came to a conclusion and said, “Look, man, I’m not into breaking up families, because I have a wife and three kids of my own, but do you think your son would want to live with you instead of with his mother? Because if he’s almost thirteen years old, the judge could appoint a guardian ad litem, an
d your son could almost choose who he wanted to be with.”
I had to think about that myself. “So, he could actually make a choice?” It seemed too easy.
“Well, it’s not exactly that simple, because most judges are going to naturally lean toward the mother. However, the older he gets, and the more he understands what’s going on, the more the judge is likely to weigh his opinion. But it’s still not a guarantee.”
I immediately thought about showing my son how much he had to gain and got energized. “Okay, well, let me work on that,” I responded.
“Are you really sure you want to do this?” John asked me. “Why don’t you just ask to spend more time with him?”
I stopped and thought again. “I’m still not absolutely sure, but I do know that I love my son, and I just don’t want to stand by and watch him become another ugly statistic or a failure if I can do something about it. I believe he has a lot of potential, but I need more than just weekends to help him grow. I mean, at least her other son, Jimmy, has basketball to concentrate on.”
John said, “I see. Well, hey, man, if you believe you can make a difference, then do what you have to do, and I’ll represent you in court.”
I hung up the phone and was ready for anything Denise had to throw at me. If I gained custody of my son, I wouldn’t have to worry about hiding my family’s wealth so much. Denise could never really say that my son had been cheated of anything anyway. And even if she did, I could make sure that any monies gained would be set aside for my son in a trust account. I didn’t mind him sharing with his mother and brother later on down the road, I just worried about his mother taking me to court on her own accord. Nevertheless, I wanted to show my son how much he had to gain by becoming a full-fledged Perry. It was just the kind of news that I needed to brighten up my day.
Fatherhood
OU like your high school so far?” I asked my son. Wearing a blue cotton vest over a white tennis shirt, Little Jay even looked like a suburban schoolboy. We were shooting the breeze at the playground after school.
He nodded to me. “Yeah, it’s all right.”
Having to meet him at odd places made me feel like I was an outsider. I was still happy to see him though, and I couldn’t wait for basketball season to get started. Then we would really do some bonding. But we weren’t running ball that day. I just wanted to talk to him, father to son.
“Are there a bunch of white kids in Belmont?” I asked him. I knew the answer to that, I was just making small talk.
Little Jay smiled and said, “Yeah.”
“You think that’s good for you, being around more white kids?”
“You don’t get in as much trouble,” he told me with a grin.
“Yeah, you got that right. Unless you’re into taking PCP and bungee jumpin’,” I joked.
Little Jay shook his head. “People who take that stuff are crazy. And bungee jumping? You know that’s crazy.”
I said, “Good. Because anything that can ruin your health or crack your skull wide open ain’t good for you.”
We shared a laugh and watched these white kids trying hard to dunk a basketball on the courts.
“Hey, Jay, man, come over here and show us how to do it!” one of them yelled. They looked tall enough to dunk, they just weren’t able to explode off the ground. It didn’t look like they were trying hard enough to me. Dunking basketballs doesn’t naturally come with height. You have to work at it. White folks always assume that athletics comes natural for black people, and that’s bullshit! I know that for a fact. Because whenever I stopped working on my game, all of a sudden other guys were able to handle me.
Little Jay yelled back, “Naw, man, not today! Ricky can dunk! Ask him to show you!”
Ricky was a lanky white kid in a baseball cap. He had an unlit cigarette hanging from his pink lips, a suburbanite trying to be urban hip.
“Naw, man, my ankle is messed up today! I’m not dunking!” he yelled back.
I looked at my son and shook my head. “Them white boys are always gonna be asking you for demonstrations. You wait till you get to college. Then these same white folks got a nerve to complain about how much money you can make in the pros.
“Hell, if they didn’t love the black athlete so much, these ball clubs wouldn’t pay them millions of dollars to shoot a basketball in the first place.
“What do you think about that?” I asked my son.
He hunched his shoulders and said, “Sometimes it seems like they get a little greedy.”
I looked and frowned at him. “Greedy? Shit! You know how much these ball clubs and sporting goods companies make off these black athletes?” I snapped at him. “Even these colleges are getting paid; coaches, scouts, and everybody involved. I think it’s only right that these boys get their millions. Jordan deserves thirty million a year!”
My son nodded. “Yeah, I would say Jordan deserves it, but not a lot of these other guys. Jordan sells out arenas everywhere he goes, Jordan and Shaq.”
I smiled. It sounded like my boy had been doing his basketball business homework. But I wanted to talk about more than just basketball with him. I wanted to know what else was going on in his life.
“So, what have you been doing with yourself, you know, with your free time and whatnot?” I asked him.
He said, “Nothing really. I’m just chillin’, going to school, and doing my homework.”
I knew he was probably working on his game whenever he got a chance to, but I had to force myself not to ask about it.
“What about your little brother, Walter? What has he been up to?” I asked.
Little Jay shook his head and smiled. “My mom is thinking about suing his school,” he told me.
“Suing the school? For what?”
“Walter got stabbed in the hand at the schoolyard by another kid that didn’t even go there.”
I frowned. That damn Walter kid was dying to be a roughneck. He had always been asking Little Jay about my gang affiliations. Jay didn’t have much to tell him though, because I never talked about it with him. The only reason his little brother even knew was because Neecy had run her mouth.
“What was Walter doing, talking trash?” I asked my son.
“Naw, it was some white boy who was talking trash, and Walter was taking up for him,” he answered. “And then the school suspended Walter and not the white boy. My mom was pissed off about that. That’s when she called up her lawyer.”
I started laughing, imagining Neecy up at her son’s school with a lawyer, telling them white folks off. “So Neecy lookin’ to get paid now, hunh?” I joked.
My son looked hesitant to laugh with me. Maybe it was because I had called his mom “Neecy” again. She had probably drummed the name “Denise” in his head like she was doing with everyone else.
“I mean, Denise,” I said to him.
He smiled. “She just wants people to use her proper name,” he said to me. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that, is it?”
“Naw. I guess not,” I responded. “I hear that actor Laurence Fishburne don’t want people calling him Larry anymore either. But, you know, that’s just something I’ll have to get used to.”
He said, “I know. You’re used to calling her that.”
I started to laugh again. Little Jay wouldn’t even say the word “Neecy.”
’You think your mom is like a drill sergeant sometimes?” I asked him. My son just laughed it off. I couldn’t even imagine living with his mother anymore. She had gotten used to being a mother for too long. I even wondered how she treated her truck-driver friend. I had to admit, that single mother job could really harden a woman. Either that or make her desperate for a daddy. I started thinking about my relationship with Kim and her son. I was spending more time with them than I ever planned to.
I said, “Jay, ah … you ever feel angry at me for not being around?” I had a lump in my throat, but I felt it was only right to ask him. I had to get it out in the open.
My son nodded and looke
d away from me. “Sometimes, yeah. Like, when my friends had their fathers there to watch our games and stuff.”
I asked, “So it feels good to have me in the stands, then?” I knew the answer to that, too. I just wanted to hear it from my son’s mouth.
He grinned and said, “Of course. It feels good when anybody’s in the stands for you, because Mom was busy most of the time, doing other stuff.”
“She never came to any of your games? She used to come to all of mine.”
He smiled and said, “Yeah, she told me. But, naw, she’s been to some of my games. She said I’m a lot more coordinated than you were. She said you used to get fouled and knocked around a lot.”
I broke out laughing. “That was my strategy, to get their big men in foul trouble. I used to take the ball right at them like a crazy man. That doesn’t work against you though,” I told him.
We sat and watched those white boys trying to dunk again.
“They gon’ need to work out with some ankle weights or something,” Little Jay commented, shaking his head and grinning.
’Yeah, or something,” I agreed with him.
I looked at my watch. It was after four. “You, ah, got your homework to do, right?” I didn’t want my son sitting around too long at the playground. I just wanted to see him. I had some things to do that day myself.
“Yeah, plus my brother is home by now anyway,” he answered. “Mom’ll be calling any minute now to check up on us.”
I stood up from the bleachers and said, “If she ain’t called already.”
Little Jay stood up after me. “I’ll just tell her I was out here talking with you,” he said.
I stopped in my tracks. “You gon’ tell her what?” I shook my head and said, “Naw, naw, man, don’t blame this on me. You knew where you had to be.” I didn’t want Little Jay picking up any bad habits on my part. No way was I going to allow that. Making convenient excuses was how I got myself off track years ago.
I said, “Jay, I love you, man, and I love being around you, but never make excuses for what you know you’re supposed to be doing. It took me years to learn that lesson, and I damn sure don’t want you following in my footsteps. I don’t care if you were hanging out here and talking to me. You listen to your mother, ’cause she’s done a damn good job of raising you.”