“Okay,” he responded to me.
I picked him up, squeezed him real good, and put him back down. Then I looked at his mother. She was all shocked, like she didn’t know what to make of things.
“And you,” I told her with a kiss, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
When I slipped out the door, Kim said, “I wish you could see me tonight, but I’ll wait until the morning. You just make sure you come right back.”
I ran down those apartment stairs feeling like a new teenager with a pocket full of money and no curfew. I knew that the transition I would be making with Kim and Jamal wouldn’t be all peaches and damn cream, but at least it felt good when it was supposed to. Those good feelings are what get you through all the tough times, as long as you had enough of those good times in between.
I felt real good about my budding relationship with Jamal, though. I was getting a chance to start all over again as a father figure. And the best part was that I didn’t have to change any late-night diapers.
Where Do We Go from Here?
was in a game of emotional tug of war, and I needed time away from Denise to think again. The only thing was, I didn’t have any long runs for the week and no one wanted to switch with me. It’s hard to get any swaps for the longer runs at the end of the year. Everyone wants that extra money pouring in before the holiday season. Longer runs, like anything else in America, meant longer pockets.
What made my situation worse was that Denise was constantly calling me up to chitchat. It seemed as if she was finally opening up to me. I was confused about that because I thought we were supposed to be slowing things down. I guess because of the problems she was having with her youngest son, Walter, we were heating up again.
I was thinking about Denise and her boys while loading my truck at the shipping docks. I had a short trip to make that day to Champaign, Illinois. I spotted Larry walking toward me. We hadn’t been talking as much as usual. I had cut back on some on my longer runs to be more available to Denise, so Larry began to team up with other guys for the income. For whatever reason, he seemed eager to talk to me that morning.
“Hey, man, you got a minute?” He was looking around and speaking in a hushed tone, like a man who wanted some privacy.
I was apprehensive and curious at the same time, wondering what he wanted to talk to me about. Usually, we only talked about sports, the job, and women, and not necessarily in that order.
Larry asked, “How do you deal with seeing a woman who has someone else’s child?”
I immediately started to grin. “Why, you’re seeing a woman with a kid now?”
He smiled back at me, still speaking quietly. “It’s only been over a month, but I feel like she’s sucking me into this thing. Her little girl is just starting to walk, as cute as she can be.”
I didn’t know we were talking about an infant. I said, “How old is she, nine, ten months?”
“Yeah.”
I cracked up laughing and couldn’t help it. I imagined rock-headed Larry holding a baby girl in his arms.
He said, “This shit ain’t funny, man. I mean, this girl is fine. Fine fine! I’m just not ready to be somebody’s daddy.”
Larry was getting close to thirty himself, and I was about to reach the forty mark. How old did we need to be before we were “ready” to become fathers?
I immediately thought about Denise and her sons’ fathers. I said, “You know what, Larry? I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. It seems to me that a lot of us black men need to grow the hell up. I mean, we come up with all kinds of stupid-ass excuses, even with ‘fine,’ educated, good women, to run like a damn ghost is after us when it comes to being a father.
“When is this shit gonna stop, man?” I asked him rhetorically. “Because evidently, this sister wasn’t ?fine’ enough for her baby’s father not to leave, if you’re in the picture so soon.”
I was really worked up, thinking about all of the struggles that single mothers had to go through to raise kids without a steady man around to help them.
Larry just stood there and nodded his head to me. Then he looked at me and said, “He’s dead, man.”
I was confused. I asked, “Who’s dead?”
“The baby’s father. He got hit in the chest by a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting. He was visiting family in Gary, Indiana.”
“Hmmph,” I grunted. “That’s another thing,” I commented. “Some of these sisters have to stop choosing to be with these knuckleheads out here.”
Larry shook his head at me. He said, “Naw. This guy was a straight college boy, working for a master’s degree. They were making plans to get married when it happened.”
I calmed myself down, feeling like a fool for jumping to conclusions. “I guess I owe the brother an apology then,” I said. “So, how do you feel about all of this?”
Larry gave me a blank stare. “What do you think I’m talking to you for? I mean, I’ve met her family and everything now. It looks like I’m stepping right in as the good brother who takes over the family. But I feel like I need to slam on the brakes for a minute. You know what I’m sayin’?”
I began to smile again. I said, “Trust me, brother, all kinds of things are gonna run through your mind before it’s all over with. It damn sure has with me.”
He said, “Yeah, this sister told me she’s never been without a boyfriend since she was fourteen.”
“How old is she now?”
“Twenty-four?”
“And she’s been with this guy for ten years?”
Larry frowned and responded, “Naw, man. She’s just fine enough to pick right up where she left off,” he answered with a chuckle. Then he got serious again. “She was with this last guy for three years. He didn’t even get to see his daughter’s birth. And I’m the first guy that she’s dated since.”
I thought about all of the different emotions involved in Larry’s situation. All I could do was shake my head and mumble, “Damn!”
Larry nodded. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
I said, “And you still got involved, knowing all of this?” It didn’t seem like the Larry that I knew.
He said, “Honestly, the shit just happened. I was on a panty chase like the next man, and then wham, she just laid it all out on me.”
“She didn’t tell you up front?” It was getting more interesting by the minute, and both of us had to be going.
“She basically needed some companionship, if you know what I mean. But she didn’t want just anybody, so I guess I said all the right things to her.”
I couldn’t imagine that. Larry was no Casanova. I guess the girl was just in the cards for him to handle. “So she went from a master’s degree to a truck driver, hunh?” I asked, teasing him. Larry had rode me enough about the oil-and-water thing. I felt it was ironic that he was finding himself in the same situation.
He smiled and said, “Naw, she’s just a nice girl from a nice family. She’s not into all of those degrees and whatnot. She liked this guy before he decided to do all of that. She just wants a nice, caring man.”
I nodded with an even bigger grin. “And she considers you ‘a nice, caring man’?” I asked.
“I guess so.”
I said, “Yeah, you’re in trouble now, brother. It’s time to grow up, for real! This is a sign from God.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” he said. “But we all got that good man in us. It just takes a while for him to come out. So maybe this is my sign. And if it is, then I got to thank God for giving me a fine one!”
I shook my head. I asked, “How come you’re so stuck on this fine thing?”
Larry looked at me as if I was crazy. He said, “Wait a minute. Now your woman is fine, right?”
I saw where he was going with it and cut him off. “Yeah, but that’s beside the point. I got into her because of her knowledge, her inner strength, maturity, and everything else about her.”
“But initially, you were attracted to her physica
lly. Am I right? Remember, I was there when you met her,” he reminded me.
I started to smile. A vision of Denise’s fine self in her charcoal suit at the McCormick Center flashed in my mind.
Larry said, “Shit, man, women talk that stuff all the time: ‘Why I gotta be all of that? You ain’t all of that?’ It’s simple to me, because when you finally make that decision to settle down, you want to make sure that you got all you need in the looks department at home. Otherwise, you’ll be thinking about every fine woman who passes you by in the street. And that shit is torture.”
“Larry, that’s maturity again,” I told him. “Because no matter how fine you think this girl is, there’s always gonna be somebody finer!”
Larry smiled. “Yeah, I understand that,” he responded, “as long as I don’t have to see a finer woman every day. Because if that ends up being the case, then I gots to come home and tell my lady to get her act together! You know what I’m sayin’, Brock?”
I shook my head and grinned. I just didn’t know what to do with Larry. But we both had to get back to our trucks and hit the road.
I said, “Hey, man, we need to have a part two of this. Maybe even a part three. So if you need to talk to me some more, you just let me know.”
Larry said, “Oh, I will. You can count on that.”
We said our good-byes and climbed into our trucks. Larry had given me a hell of a lot to think about. I felt like a woman watching a soap opera. I couldn’t wait to hear his next episode. It seemed like the older you got, the more drama there was. And to think that teenagers thought they knew everything. Shit, they had a long way to go!
I headed for Interstate 57 South to Champaign, and had an urge to call Denise on my cell phone before I could travel thirty miles. She decided not to sue Walter’s junior high school, and to settle things out of court. I couldn’t blame her. Many people hear about dramatic money cases in the beginning proceedings, but rarely do they ever hear reports on what happened years later, and they were not all happy endings.
Denise was looking out for the integrity of her family’s future, and I respected her for that. She wanted both of her boys to appreciate succeeding because of their hard work and not by default. Many irresponsible people would have simply run with the money, despite the long-term harm it could have caused to their family. Lifestyles can be easily complicated with an unexpected boost of wealth, and much of that new money can be taken for granted, especially if you never learned how to earn it. Denise made perfect sense. Then again, I figured her career in finance would have made her the perfect recipient of any extra monies. I couldn’t imagine her wasting anything.
Before I knew it, I found myself on the phone with her. “Are you extra busy right now?”
“Yes, but I can call you back on my lunch hour.”
“One o’clock?”
“One o’clock.”
“All right, then. I’ll make sure to get myself ready by twelve fifty-five,” I told her.
“Yeah, you do that.”
I hung up and felt an urge to call her right back and tell her that I loved her. Larry got me thinking about my own level of commitment, and I came to the conclusion that I actually did love Denise. I loved her not only in a man-to-woman way, but in a spiritual, purposeful way, where no lust was involved. She was just a great person, trying to fight and win the battle of life. So I got right back on that phone.
“Denise, it’s me again.”
“Okay, I can see that,” she answered with a chuckle. “Did you, ah, forget something?” she asked me.
Perfect, I thought to myself. “Yeah, I forgot something,” I told her. “I forgot to tell you that I love you.”
Right after I said it, I started feeling anxious, as if I shouldn’t have. Was I pushing the buttons too fast again? That was exactly what I was concerned about not doing. Immediately, I started trying to explain myself:
“And what I mean by that is—”
Denise cut me off and said, “You don’t have to explain it. I understand. And I feel the same way.”
I was surprised when she said that. “About everything?” I asked, just to make sure that we were on the same page.
“About everything,” she answered. “But we’ll talk about it at lunchtime. Okay?”
I said, “Okay, yeah, ’cause you have business to take care of. I’m sorry. I lost my head for a second.”
“I don’t think so,” Denise responded. “I think that you’ve found it, and I’ve found mine. So one o’clock.”
“One o’clock,” I repeated.
I hung up the phone and didn’t know what to do with myself. I needed a damn drink to calm my nerves. What the hell did I just do? I asked myself. I felt good about telling Denise I loved her, but also confused. Did she tell me that she loved me in code simply because she had someone in her office and she didn’t really want to discuss it? Was she going to tell me that she loved me again when I talked to her at one o’clock? Were we finally going to decide on where we were heading in our hold-tightly-and-release-again relationship? I was a nervous wreck! I asked myself, What the hell happened to all of the confidence I once thought I had with this woman?
Suddenly, I began to smile. It was a beautiful and sunny day outside, the end of September. I had just told my young friend, Larry, that black men needed to grow up and smell the coffee in regards to committed relationships and fatherhood. And I assumed that I would be taken to the test when Denise called me later on that day. But I felt as if I was ready. I was ready to go to that next step, to be a happily committed man and a father, whether they were my kids or not.
As fate would have it, when it came time for my important phone call, I was in the middle of a traffic jam. I needed to radio Dispatch to inform them of the situation and to find another route to take if I needed to. Sometimes it took three and four conversations to straighten everything out. I didn’t need that in the middle of my talk with Denise. But that’s life for you. Not much comes by easily.
“What’s going on?” Denise asked me. She heard the racket in the background as soon as I answered the phone.
“There was a three-car accident that they’re trying to clear up on 57 South,” I told her. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, so I didn’t expect too many interruptions. I was only running thirty minutes behind schedule.
“So, you feel the same way that I feel about you?” I asked her. I tried to sound as lighthearted about it as I could, while still getting down to business.
“I feel exactly how you do,” she answered. “I’ve had to do a lot of thinking lately, and I can’t lie to myself anymore about what I want.”
“And what is it that you want?” I was cool, calm, and collected, sitting high in my Volvo White tractor in the middle of traffic on 57 South.
Denise said, “I want someone to share my love, my struggles, my good times and my bad times with without feeling guilty about it. I want to be able to live my life without apologizing for wanting to be with a man. And I no longer want to lie to myself by saying that I don’t need one. We all need each other in different ways to make our lives complete whether we like it or not, and I’m just now coming to grips with that reality.
“The question is, ‘Are you willing to deal with the realities that I have?’”
“No, the real question is, ‘Are you willing to allow me that opportunity?’ Because I’ve been ready for that for a while. I understand that you have two sons, and they have living fathers, but up to this point you were not willing to allow me a chance to integrate myself into the pot.”
“But I did do that,” she responded. “If I hadn’t, you would have never gotten so close to my sons. I mean, you’ve eaten dinner with us plenty of times!”
“Yeah, but that was all under the guise of your ‘friend.’ Now am I right or am I wrong?”
“Well, what else was I going to call you?” she asked.
She had a point, and I had no answer. We both went silent while I was caught u
p in traffic.
“How do things look on the road now?” Denise asked, as if reading my mind.
“It doesn’t look much better. I got another mile or so before I reach the accident.”
We were casually getting away from the subject. There was no easy way of closing out the conversation without coming to some conclusion, I just didn’t know what that conclusion would be.
I spoke up first, like the traditional man had been trained to do. “So, now that we have all of this out in the open, what’s next?”
Denise said, “Well, I believe I need to reintroduce you to my sons as my companion, and more than just my friend.”
“Do you feel comfortable with doing that?”
“Well, it’s not as if they didn’t already have their assumptions about it. We’ve talked about it.”
“You’ve talked about it?” I was curious. “And what was said?” I asked.
“I found out that both of my sons had already told their fathers about you, and of course, both of their fathers were already painting pictures in their minds as to what was going on between us.”
I started to chuckle. “Yeah, I can imagine. That’s normal for a man to do, whether he’s still involved with a woman or not. It’s like a lifelong code of male competition.”
“So, anyway,” Denise continued, “this Thanksgiving, maybe I can have you over for a family dinner. And that will definitely be a test, because my mother and sister will get a chance to meet you.”
“Have you told them much about me?”
It’s amazing how American relationships have become so private and fragmented. There were times where, if you went out with a guy for a year, the entire extended family had been around him, and most likely, you were well on your way to being married. Engagements were nothing but a preliminary hearing back then. Some couples would be engaged for a month or two before getting married. Engagements in the nineties, however, could last up to a year or two, which was plenty of time to change your mind. No wonder family units were falling apart.