Single Mom

  Little Jay smiled back. “I guess we’ll see,” he said.

  I nodded and grinned. Like father like son, I thought to myself. “Yeah,” I said, “that’s exactly what I told him.”

  Jamal asked, “Little Jay, can I get trophies in the summer league?”

  My son looked surprised. First he said, “It’s Big Jay to you.” Then he answered, “Yeah, you can get a lot of trophies in the summer leagues.”

  “Or, if your grades aren’t right, you could end up in summer school,” I added.

  Walter overheard it and smiled. “I never been to summer school,” he bragged.

  “That’s good,” I told him. I really wanted to say, “So what?” Like father like son with him, too. That never-been-to-summer-school stuff sounded like something his father would say. Then again, what was so wrong with being proud of your schoolwork? I was sure proud of Little Jay’s grades, and Jamal’s. I just wished I could have realized how important schoolwork was when I was their age.

  Brock said, “Well, we’ll see you later on, Jimmy.”

  Jamal looked confused. “Your real name is Jimmy?” he asked my son.

  Little Jay nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Do they call you J.D., too?”

  Sometimes kids can kill you with their innocence. They just don’t realize what they’re saying sometimes.

  Little Jay looked at me and shook his head, but he never answered the question. He would have been a J.S., and that didn’t even sound right.

  “I’ll see you at home, Little Jay,” Walter said, teasing his older brother. Then he and his new bodyguard started heading out the door.

  “You like him?” I asked my son, referring to Brock. It was obvious that Brock was around them enough.

  Little Jay nodded. “Yeah, he’s all right. What do you think?”

  I smiled. My son didn’t know how pleased I was for him to ask me my opinion. He really looked as if he cared, too. I loved it!

  I said, “First of all, how does he treat your mother?”

  “Real good,” he answered.

  I nodded. Jamal went and grabbed someone’s ball and starting heaving it at the nearest basket. Little Jay began to laugh. I was standing there daydreaming. I thought about how it could have been if I had done right with his mother. I hated when I thought about that, because it was nothing that I could do to change things. I had even made an oath to call her Denise for my New Year’s resolution, and so far I was doing a damn good job at it.

  “Dag, he making them,” my son told me, still watching Jamal.

  I looked over at Jamal and watched him shooting and dribbling as others watched and marveled. He was not even seven, and he could shoot the ball over his head like a teenager. Many teenagers lacked the form that he had.

  I shook my head and felt guilty again. What would have happened if Little Jay couldn’t play basketball? Would I have cared as much as I did about him? Would I have been as involved? Denise had asked a good question.

  I said, “Jay, have you ever felt that I was using you with this basketball thing?”

  He looked at me as if I were drunk. “Using me? How?”

  “You know, with my excitement for you playing basketball and all.”

  He smiled. “Naw. I mean, I’m not making any money off it, and I don’t know if I will,” he said. “If I don’t make the pros, then I’m not going overseas to play. I’ll just find something else to do.”

  I looked at my son and laughed. I was laughing because I was proud of him. He had a realistic perspective on things, and realism always helped people to focus.

  I joked and said, “That’s your mom talking, ain’t it?”

  “It’s the truth though,” he told me. “I got a long way to go before I start thinking about that. Right now I’m just thinking about the play-offs and school.”

  I said, “What about girls?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said with a sly grin, “I meant to tell you; remember that girl I told you who was in my algebra class.”

  We had gotten a chance to talk more in detail about his social life. “The one who runs cross-country track?” I asked. She was the only girl he had mentioned.

  Little Jay said, “Yeah.”

  I thought about my own relationship with Kim, but Kim was a sprinter. “What about her?” I asked him. I thought he was ready to tell me that he made it to home base with her. I had mixed emotions about that. On the one hand, as a guy, I thought it would have been nice to hear that my boy had scored, but as a father who had been through it all, I was terrified of my son getting some girl pregnant before he even graduated from high school. He definitely didn’t need to go there. So I prepared myself for a detailed discussion about protection, traps, sexual responsibility, and everything else that I could think of.

  “She wants to go see a movie with me this weekend.”

  I was relieved, so relieved that I broke out laughing. I said, “A movie, hunh? Well, you remember what I told you. You take your time. This is just a high school thing, so don’t get too serious.”

  “Yeah, I know. My mom wants to meet her, too,” he told me.

  I smiled, imagining how Denise would act while I watched Jamal steal the basketball from another kid. “He’s quick, ain’t he?” I asked my son.

  “Yeah, he looks like he got game already, especially for his age. He would probably make the six-year-old all-star team,” Little Jay said with a laugh.

  I jumped in with the fun. “Yeah, he probably has junior high school scouts watching him right now.”

  We shared another laugh. Then I got back to business. I said, “Taking this girl home to meet your mother is a good idea. I know you don’t want to, but mothers are good judges of character. They can see things that we tend to take for granted, or just plain miss, especially if the girl looks good.

  “Is this girl a winner or a beginner?” I asked him. “Winners are good to go, but beginners still need some work in the looks or in the attitude department.”

  Little Jay laughed and answered, “Oh, she’s a winner. She’s definitely a winner! I was surprised she even liked me.”

  “Why?”

  He slowed down and thought about it. “Well, she’s kind of smart. Her father’s a doctor, and her mom’s a dentist. I was thinking that she might just look at me as a basketball player and wouldn’t want to talk to me.

  “But once we started talking and all, I told her that I don’t really walk around thinking about basketball all the time. You know, when I’m off the court, I’m just a regular guy. And she said that she could tell that I was humble. Then I told her that my mom wouldn’t let me get a big head anyway.”

  “Yeah, your mom hasn’t come to any of the games this year either,” I mentioned.

  “That’s because she knows that you’re gonna be here,” he told me.

  I said, “Damn. So, she don’t even want to see me.” My feelings were hurt.

  Little Jay tried to explain himself. “Naw, I don’t mean it like that, I’m just saying that she knows that you’ll be here to cheer me on, that’s all. She’s not trying to avoid you or anything.”

  I felt a little better, but not all the way. I said, “Well, how do you feel about that? Don’t you want your mom to come out to your games?”

  He got quiet for a second. He said, “I think about it sometimes. But Mom is so busy doing so many things that a lot of times I just don’t feel like bothering her about it.”

  “Bothering her? Shit, man, you’re her son,” I told him. Then I thought about my own neglect. “I oughta smack myself upside the head for not doing what I was supposed to do, but just because I’m back in the picture now, that doesn’t mean that your mother shouldn’t come out to see you at all. What the hell happened to her team spirit?”

  Little Jay said, “She got burned out from having to lead by herself for too long.”

  I was shocked. I was surprised that he actually had an answer. I guess that he would have one since he had lived through it with her.

&n
bsp; I broke down and said, “I’m sorry, man. If I could just—”

  Little Jay shook it off and said, “Don’t even worry about it. I’m doing all right. Especially now.”

  I said, “You think I had anything to do with that?”

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely! Even my mom said it.”

  “She said what?” I asked. I wanted to know Denise Stewart’s exact words. She didn’t have many good things to say about me.

  “She told me, ‘I’m glad that you’re able to reconnect with your father, because whether it’s with basketball or not, you just have had a whole different attitude about things lately, and I’m actually jealous.’

  “Then I kissed her forehead and said, ‘Don’t be jealous, Mom, you know I’ll always love you. And if I ever get on TV, I’ll do the same thing every other guy does: ‘I love you, Mom!’ Then she said, ‘No you’re not, because I’m gonna be in the stands.’ And I told her that I was gonna say it anyway.”

  I smiled. Before my eyes, Little Jay was growing up, fast! He had more confidence about himself, he talked more, he carried himself with more authority, and he was very logical. I was just awed by him. Did I have anything to do with all of that? I still wasn’t sure. Maybe I needed more confidence myself. When I looked at Jamal again, knocking down his final shot from nearly the foul line, I had my answer. I was a new man on a mission, and the rewards from dedicating myself to fatherhood were already paying off.

  Marc “Speed” Wilkins walked over and shook my son’s hand on his way out. “Good game, man. You’re gonna have to do it again on Friday. It’s gonna get tougher and tougher for me to score. Everybody’s gonna be trying to shut me down, so you’ll have to keep steppin’ up. All right, freshman?”

  Little Jay smiled. “Yeah, all right.”

  Then Speed nodded to me before he headed to the door.

  A few other teammates and spectators spoke to my son on their way out. Then the head coach walked up to us.

  “How are you doing, Mr. Daniels?” Coach Melecio was an old white guy in his fifties with plenty of gray hair and a trimmed mustache. He was Italian, with lots of youth and fire still in him.

  I shook his hand and said, “Three more years, Coach. You think you’ll get a state title before he graduates?”

  The coach nodded. “It depends on the point guard situation,” he told me. “We have another shooter who’s a sophomore right now who’s got more range than Speed, but our point guard play needs help.” Then he looked at Little Jay. “But your son will definitely do his part.”

  “I know he will,” I said.

  Little Jay just smiled.

  “And if he keeps his grades together, he’s guaranteed a Division 1 free ride.”

  I nodded, but I hated those words “free ride.” I’d rather use “scholarship,” it sounded more established. That “free ride” shit sounded cheap. There wasn’t a damn thing free about a scholarship! Those Division 1 colleges made you work your ass off to get them, and to keep them.

  “Yeah, well, he’s taking it one semester at a time,” I told the coach. If I had my way, I’d have my son attend a school where the coach was a strong black man, like John Thompson at Georgetown, or John Chaney at Temple. There were a few other good black coaches out there, but Chaney and Thompson had been doing their thing for years. And it wasn’t that I was particularly prejudiced, I just liked the connection that older black men had with younger black men, like fathers and sons or nephews and uncles. The world was about more than just basketball, and I felt that black men could relate to one another’s strengths and struggles a lot more readily. Then again, there were plenty of older black men who I didn’t relate to or learn anything from, while my boss and I got along just fine and talked about everything. He was an older white guy, and Polish, so maybe it didn’t make a damn difference what color they were, just as long as they were men who were willing to care. My high school coach cared a lot about me, and he was a white guy, too.

  Coach Melecio nodded. “Well, keep doing what you’re doing, because this kid is seriously talented,” he said with a hand on my son’s shoulder.

  I smiled and said, “Yeah, we figured that out already. It takes more than just talent to be the best, it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of practice. You hear me, Jamal?”

  Jamal had rejoined us once the basketball was gone. He smiled and nodded.

  The coach looked at him and asked, “So is he the next one?”

  I responded, “Yeah, the next doctor, lawyer, or whatever he wants to be.”

  Coach said, “That’s the right attitude to have. My son’s a lawyer. My other son works in the movie industry out in Hollywood.”

  “Is that so?” I asked him. White folks always had something extra going on. I wanted to create that type of extra talent with my kids. We didn’t have to necessarily play basketball or football. There were plenty of things young black men could learn how to do and be successful at.

  I usually talked to my son in the gym until we were literally kicked out of the place, because it was cold outside. Sometimes I wished I had a car instead of having to catch trains, buses, and cabs, and whatnot, then we could just ride around and talk inside the car.

  We all started walking toward the exit door.

  Coach Melecio said, “I heard you played basketball for West Side in the early eighties.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, we lost a close one in the state tournament. I was heartbroken.”

  “Not everybody gets a chance to win the big game. It’s just twelve kids out of hundreds, year after year.”

  I said, “You got that right.” We walked out of the building and were smacked in the face by cold weather. I shook the coach’s hand again and Little Jay, Jamal, and I headed on our way to the bus stop.

  “I’m gonna have to get me a damn car,” I told my boys. At the time, I didn’t even have a valid driver’s license. I hadn’t had one for years. I just never took the time to go to the license offices to get one. I guess it was too many policemen around for comfort, but I would have to get over that to get myself a car.

  We all got on the bus for a short ride. Little Jay was getting off after just five minutes. We would have walked him home if it was warmer out. Jamal and I had to ride to the blue line train, a twenty-five-minute ride.

  I shook my son’s hand and hugged him before he got off. “We’ll see you Friday,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” Jamal added.

  “And tell your mom I said hi. Okay?”

  “All right, I’ll tell her.”

  I thought about my son, Jamal, and their futures for the rest of the ride home. I was very satisfied with the role that I was playing in their lives. If I went to church regularly, I would have testified on it. Being a father to a child was a good thing to be.

  • • •

  Jamal was so worn out from shooting baskets that night that he fell asleep on the train, and I had to carry him off. He went back to sleep as soon as we made it in. I laid him down in his room and immediately thought of calling Denise. I wanted to thank her again for letting me be a part of my son’s life. She didn’t have to do it, especially since I wasn’t able to help out economically. I guess she realized that money wasn’t all that fathers were there for.

  “Hi, I heard they won their first play-off game today,” she said to me. She actually sounded excited by it.

  “Yeah, are you gonna be at the next one?” I asked her. I figured it was a long shot, but what the hell?

  “Yeah, I’ll be there. They all talked me into it.”

  I thought about her being there with Brock and Walter. I probably would have liked the idea more if she came alone. Then again, I wouldn’t be alone, because Jamal would be with me. So I guess it was all a fantasy, a fantasy that I needed to forget about.

  Denise asked, “You called to talk to Jimmy? He just started doing his homework.”

  I wanted to ask her if Brock had eaten with them, and if he was still there, but it was none of my business. “Actually, I ca
lled to talk to you,” I told her.

  “Oh,” she said. There was a long silence on the phone, as if she wanted to ask me what I wanted to talk to her about, and she didn’t have the heart to do it, which would have been rare.

  I said, “I just wanted to thank you for not pushing me away from my son after all of these years. I mean, I know that you’ve done most of the work.”

  “Most of it?” she asked.

  “Okay, all of it,” I told her. She was still a tough-as-nails woman.

  To my surprise, though, she chuckled. “No, I can’t take all of the credit. Over these last few months, you’ve helped out a lot. I have to be honest about it. I kept thinking, When is he gonna slack off? but you never did.”

  “Yeah, at least not until basketball season is over with,” I joked with her.

  “Well, if that’s the case,” she said, “then you won’t ever stop because that boy plays basketball all year round. And if he makes it to college with it, that’ll be four more years, after the three that he has left in high school. And if you guys spend seven years together through all of those basketball seasons, then I really can’t complain.”

  I had to slow her down for a second. I said, “Denise, it’s not all about basketball. I’ve really had a chance to learn about my son’s likes, dislikes, and tendencies as a teenager.”

  “I know,” she told me. “I was just talking about that the other day. His work habits are really improving. He’s just more focused and confident now.”

  “Exactly,” I told her. “And I wanted to thank you again for allowing this to happen. I know I haven’t been no saint, but no man or family is perfect, so we all have to find out a way to make it work.”

  “Amen to that,” she told me. Then she caught me off guard. She asked, “What do you think would have happened if you and I had a daughter instead of a son?”

  I had never even thought about that, or at least not for fifteen years. Once I had my son, that was it, and there was nothing to think about.

  I thought fast and smiled. “Girls play basketball now too.”

  “Yeah, and I’ve noticed that a lot more mothers and little sisters are at those games as opposed to fathers and brothers.”