Derrick paused and wondered what Marcus had done.
“Well, what did he do?” he asked.
“We would much rather talk to you about it in person.”
Derrick looked down at his expensive wristwatch and read that it was just after eleven o’clock.
“Okay, I can be there in a good…twenty minutes.”
“Thank you. We’ll see you then.”
Derrick hung up the phone and felt apprehensive.
Was he in a fight or something? he pondered. Couldn’t she have told me that over the phone? Did he beat a kid down that bad?
He walked back out into his coffee shop and let his staff members know he had a run to make.
“I’ll be back in an hour or two.” He then eyed the blonde as he headed toward the door. “We’ll finish that coffee discussion the next time I see you here. Okay?”
“All right,” she agreed and smiled.
When Derrick arrived at his son’s school in the hills of Renton, southeast of downtown Seattle, he was still confused about what the principal wanted to discuss with him. He hoped and prayed that it wouldn’t be anything too major.
He parked his white Cadillac Escalade in the visitors parking lot and walked toward the school entrance feeling nervous and anxious with every step.
When he arrived at the main office, Marcus saw his extra-tall father walk in. His eyes immediately hit the floor with shame from the chair where he sat.
Derrick looked at him and relaxed. At least his son looked normal. He wasn’t battered and bruised, he hadn’t been crying, and he appeared worry-free. However, he didn’t want to make eye contact with his father, and that was understandable, considering the situation. His father hadn’t been called to the school for a picnic.
“I’m Derrick Gamble and this is my son, Marcus,” he announced to the office staff of mostly white women.
“Oh, yeah, let me get Elizabeth for you,” the secretary responded. She hustled off to the back office while the rest of the staff looked up to the tall man with intrigue.
“You used to play for the SuperSonics?” the lone black woman asked.
Derrick nodded. “Yeah.”
“And you own that popular coffee shop downtown now.”
“It has my name on it,” he stated with a grin.
“Yeah, but a lot of celebrities and athletes allow their names to be used,” one of the other women spoke up, overhearing the conversation.
“Well, not this one. I even retired from basketball to help run my own place every day now,” he added.
“So you retired from basketball to run a coffee shop?”
Derrick had gotten used to that question. “Basically, the ’Sonics weren’t going anywhere but to a new city. We couldn’t make the playoffs regularly, and we didn’t have enough fire power in the West to stay in the hunt when we did. And my career had already seen its better days. So instead of riding the broken-down car until the wheels fell off in Oklahoma, I decided to jump ship and stay here to run my business.”
It all made perfect sense to Derrick, and if it didn’t make sense to others, then that was their problem. He was even looking into franchising his shop after a few more years of studying the coffee market in other areas.
“Ah, Marcus, and Mr. Gamble,” the principal called from her back office.
Marcus stood to his feet and began to walk forward. Derrick followed behind him.
When they stepped inside the principal’s private office, she closed the door behind them and moved to shake Derrick’s hand.
“I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of your day like this, Mr. Gamble, but we really do need to have this conversation.”
She took a seat behind her desk, while Marcus and Derrick took seats in the chairs in front of her. She was a regal, hard-faced woman with graying hair, but she remained energized and youthful in spirit.
Derrick asked her, “So, what seems to be the problem?”
“Well, his fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Pavel, has been monitoring the situation for over a week now. But it seems that Marcus here has continued to use inappropriate language when addressing the girls inside of his classroom, and even more so while out at recess,” the principal informed him.
Derrick heard that and grimaced. What exact language was she referring to?
The principal continued before he could ask her. “So I gathered a list of them here to discuss with you.” She looked down at a printout of sentences and began to read them:
“‘Come here, girl, you know you want it.’ ‘I got just what the doctor ordered for you.’ ‘Take your medicine like a big girl.’ ‘Hey girl, do you think you can handle this?’ ‘Get up in line for this, baby.’ ‘I’m all night long with mine.’ ‘Call me whenever you need me, baby.’”
The principal stopped and looked into Derrick’s face. “I mean, this is all blatant material. And these are just some of the more disturbing comments that he’s used. But Marcus has constantly referred to the girls in his classroom as ‘babe’ or ‘honey’ or ‘girl,’ and I mean not like a normal ‘girl,’ but like a guy would say to a woman in a pick-up line. You know what I mean?”
Derrick was ready to explode in laughter. He had done a great job of listening to the older white woman run off a list of familiar statements to him, and with a very studious diction at that. But he maintained his straight face instead of breaking into a smile. It was no time for smiles. His son had somehow picked up his language to women, and it was now an embarrassing situation for him to have to deal with.
“Now if this inappropriate behavior continues, then I’m going to have to suspend him for three days,” the principal warned. “And if it continues after that, then I’ll have no choice but to ask you to transfer him to another school. Now some of his comments have already begun to make it back to the girls’ parents at home. But others think that it’s funny, which I’m sure has caused Marcus to continue to want to do it.
“So I called you here today to allow you to take Marcus with you for the rest of the afternoon to have a real father-to-son talk with him about inappropriate language. Then he can come back to school tomorrow and start over. But I’m really concerned about this,” she concluded.
She then paused to hear any comments from Derrick. She had done all of the talking and was ready to listen to him now.
Derrick said, “So…he’s excused from class for the rest of the day?”
The principal nodded. “He’s been given all of his homework and his assignments for the day, and he’ll be all caught up for tomorrow. Ms. Pavel has said she has no problems from him regarding his work. It’s just his mouth that gets him into trouble. So I figured that either you take him home early to talk to him, father to son, or I’ll have to suspend him right now. We simply can’t have that here, and I wanted to give you a fair warning.”
Derrick nodded in silence. He immediately understood that she was giving his son a break. She could have suspended Marcus on the spot. But Derrick was also concerned with how long they had allowed the language to go on before they contacted him.
“Well, if he does this again, you can contact me immediately,” he offered.
“I hope he doesn’t,” the principal commented sternly.
Derrick could read her body language and her serious tone of voice. Marcus had already reached the end of the road without realizing it. And the next incident would get him suspended.
Shit! That’s just fucked up, Derrick thought to himself. She’s only giving him this one chance. That’s like a set-up.
However, he couldn’t complain about it. He knew that the white woman was judging them both now. It was a set-up for father and son. It was like having to stop a cigarette smoking habit, cold turkey, in one day. Nevertheless, they had no choice in the matter.
Derrick stood up tall and said, “Thank you. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
As Marcus followed his father out of the school and into the parking lot to his truck, he had no idea what to expect from him. Derri
ck hadn’t said a word.
As they approached his truck, the father wondered what the principal expected from him. He surely would not whip his son, if that’s what she expected. But obviously, she expected a drastic change.
Maybe he is around too many grown-ups and situations with women, Derrick mused.
Marcus had been allowed to hang out and do his homework at the coffee shop after school. But maybe having so much exposure to adults wasn’t such a good idea for a young and impressionable boy. And maybe it wasn’t so cool for Derrick to openly entertain so many women around him. His defiant dating practices were quickly being tossed back into his face.
As father and son drove away from the school, Derrick commented, “I’m gonna have to start taking you to an after-school program instead of the coffee shop.”
Marcus didn’t say a word either. He was fearful about what to expect. “Or maybe I can get you into a YMCA sports program after school,” his father added.
Marcus turned to face him and was excited by the suggestion. He had been thinking about getting into a youth basketball league since the moment he had arrived out in Seattle. Only, he was bashful about not being so great at sports. He figured his father would soon teach him how to play better.
“But first we need to deal with these comments you’ve been making at school,” Derrick stated, and changed his friendly tone.
“Marcus, there’s a difference between what grown-ups can do and what kids are allowed to do. You know that, right?”
Marcus eyed him and nodded. “Yes,” he mumbled meekly.
“For instance; you can’t drive this truck. Your feet wouldn’t even touch the pedals. And you could barely see over the wheel,” his father told him.
Marcus understood him with a nod. His father drove a big truck and he was a tall man.
Derrick continued, “Kids are not supposed to smoke cigarettes, drink beers, hang out in bars, go to certain movies, or certain events. And how would you feel if you had to play a game of basketball against a bunch of teenagers. Would you like that?”
Marcus thought about the speed, toughness, height, and skills of teenagers on a basketball court and shook his head. Without getting his growth spurt, he could barely see himself getting a shot off.
Derrick continued, “I know I didn’t like playing against older guys when I was a kid. I wanted to play against kids my own age until I was strong enough to hang with teenagers. But once I was able to bang inside with the older guys, I knew that I was ready for it.”
So far, Marcus felt comfortable. His father hadn’t jumped on him hard yet about his language at school.
“So, you picked up some of those things from me, right?” Derrick suddenly asked his son.
He was smiling when he asked the question. Marcus didn’t know what to make of it. Was his father trying to set him up before he pounced on him or what? Therefore, he remained apprehensive when he spoke.
“Yes.”
Derrick continued to smile. He was amused by it. He didn’t realize his son was paying that much attention.
“You’ve been listening to me talk to women all this time? And you’ve been sitting over there taking it all in, like a mini tape recorder. So now I have to watch what I say around you, because what I talk about with women is all grown-up stuff.”
Marcus didn’t deny that point. It was grown-up stuff that his father talked about. He didn’t even know if he liked girls the way his father liked women. He found that girls seemed to respond to it all, so he used it to gather their collective attention. However, Marcus did have some questions about grownup dating habits, conversations, and terms that confused him. He looked at his father, with his heart racing from nervousness, and he decided to ask him about it.
“Ahh…if it’s grown-up stuff, then how come you call women ‘baby’ all the time?”
Derrick couldn’t stop himself from smiling. It was his first frank talk with his son about the birds and bees. And the boy was only nine years old. Derrick couldn’t remember having any conversations about sex with his father until after he had gotten an STD at seventeen in high school.
“‘Baby’ is just a figure of speech to let a woman know that she’s sweet like a baby,” Derrick explained to his son.
So far, so good. Marcus then thought about it more.
“Well, how come, umm, women say it to guys, too?”
“It doesn’t have a gender to it,” Derrick told him. “There are girl babies just like there are boy babies, right?”
Marcus nodded. “But how come I can’t say it?”
The word seemed innocent enough to him. Babies were babies. So what was the big deal?
That was a more difficult question. Derrick could see where his son was confused about it. “Baby” wasn’t a bad word by itself. It was all about how you used it.
“Well, if you say, ‘Hey, that’s a pretty baby,’ and you’re actually talking about a real baby, like an infant, then that’s okay. But if you tell a girl in your class, ‘Hey, baby, come here,’ then that’s grown-up talk that your teachers are not gonna like. Because that girl in your classroom is not actually a baby anymore, and your teachers and the girl’s parents are gonna understand that you’re using it in a grown-up way. And they’re not gonna allow you to do that, because you’re not a grown-up yet.”
With that answer covered, Marcus stopped being nervous. His young mind was moving fast to comprehend it all.
“But the women at your coffee shop call me ‘baby’ all the time, and I’m not a real baby either,” he commented.
Derrick finally stopped smiling. The contradictions were getting serious. He looked away from his son for a minute and at the steering wheel. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to get them to stop saying that to you then, if it bothers you,” he mumbled.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Marcus told him.
Yeah, but they’re still acting fucking fresh when they call you that, Derrick mused. He knew exactly which women his son was referring to, and they were all fresh-minded.
I wonder how much they really think about my son becoming a mack daddy? He had never really thought about it before. “Like father, like son” was a real issue. And Derrick remembered that he had fucked a few grown women as a teenager himself.
Shit! he blasted. It was more honesty than what he wanted to deal with at the moment. His son was still only nine.
“You know what, I’m gonna tell them to call you Marcus from now on. You’re nobody’s baby.”
Marcus told him, “My mom calls me ‘baby,’ too.”
Derrick eyed his son and smiled again. “Well, you are her baby. She can call you that for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not.”
“But it doesn’t bother me though,” Marcus reiterated.
“Yeah, but you still can’t say it to the girls in your school, because the teachers and parents will consider it wrong. Period! You hear me?”
His son nodded. Then he thought about his next question.
“Now what else you wanna ask me about grown-up stuff?” Derrick asked him on cue. “Because I don’t want you going back to school confused about anything. Now you heard what the principal said, right? She’s ready to suspend you next time. So you need to understand everything you can and can’t say at school.”
Marcus looked back up to his father and asked him, “Did my mom ever call you‘baby’?”
It was a crafty question. He wanted to know how close his parents were. So Derrick took a deep breath and told him.
“Of course she did, at one time. I mean, she won’t call me that now, but you know…”
“You don’t like each other anymore?” Marcus asked him.
Derrick had to stop and take another deep breath. “We still like each other; we just understood that we wouldn’t work out as a couple, that’s all.”
His son nodded his head again. “You don’t work out with a lot of women.”
It was another blunt observation that had caught the father off guard.
> Damn, this kid is mature as hell, he thought. But how could he not think that, with all the women he’s seen me around?
“Well…I like women, son. I’m not gonna lie to you about that,” Derrick admitted. “But again, I’m a grown man, and I can choose to like whatever I want. And when you get your chance to be a grown man, then you can choose whatever you want. But while you’re still young and in school, nobody’s gonna allow you to do that. That’s just the way it is in life. You don’t see me going to school now, do you?”
Marcus shook his head and stopped. “Umm, but some older people go to school.”
“Because they choose to,” Derrick insisted. “But young people have to go to school. Do you think you can live out here by yourself, and pay your own bills like other grown-ups do?”
Marcus paused and thought about it. He tried to imagine what he could do to make a living. Maybe he could sweep up restaurant floors. His father made him sweep and empty out trash baskets at the coffee shop on some days.
Derrick cut his son’s thoughts short. “No, you can’t, Marcus. You’re nine years old. You can’t even get an apartment yet.”
Marcus smiled at the idea. His thoughts had been busted.
“Now let’s deal with these other things you said at school,” Derrick alluded. “Now what do you mean when you say you gon’ give a girl what she wants?”
Marcus shrugged his shoulders like the innocent kid that he was. “I’on know, like…make her feel good and stuff.”
Derrick had to hold back his smile again. It was time to be a responsible father and set his son straight, even though the conversation was awkward.
“Make her feel good, how?”
“I’on know, wit’…grown-up stuff.”
“Exactly,” Derrick pounced on him. “That’s why you shouldn’t be saying it. You don’t know what you’re talking about. And what did the doctor order for little girls in your class?”
Marcus quickly became gun-shy again. His father was now giving him the hard reprimand that he expected.