Prime Choice

  At halftime when were leading 27-0, the guys came to me and said, “Good prayer, man. Good prayer.”

  Even Damarius was talking about God being with him. Most of the guys were asking me about my relationship with Him. I didn’t know what to share, but I spoke from the heart.

  We won the game, but more importantly, guys were being drawn to Christ. My risk of showing how I felt about the Almighty was paying off. To God be the glory.

  Two weeks later we had completed our third victory. We were now getting ready for the state championship game. We were slated to play Salem High School in Conyers, Georgia, Lance’s school. I’d been hoping his team would get knocked off earlier so we wouldn’t have to play them, but I was ready to give it my all. I was going to be a leader during practice.

  When Coach gave us a break, I saw Damarius huddled over, like he was about to die. I hurried over to him. Then he started scratching around the seat of his shorts. He was moving his leg from side to side, just squirming. I extended my arms and shrugged my shoulders, giving him that look of bewilderment.

  Then he leaned over and said, “Man, you gotta take me to that doctor again. I ain’t straight.”

  “What? D, man, what’s up?”

  “I don’t know, Perry. It ain’t no burn or anything.”

  “Man, you been using protection? I know this lil’ problem you got ain’t come from Ciara.”

  “No, no. She been trying to play hard to get, so I just been having fun in other places. I’m just keeping it real. Don’t be looking at me like that.”

  “You done got another disease. What you gon’ do about that?” I asked him.

  “You think it’s a disease?”

  “You ain’t acting normal! I don’t know that much about STDs, but scratching and squirming ... I don’t know.”

  “Can you take me?”

  “We gotta finish practice first, so you gotta wait.”

  “I don’t really need practice today.” He gripped between his shorts and fell to his knees. “It’s like a sore or something. I don’t really feel good.”

  He didn’t want me to put his business out there so I asked Coach to just sit him on the sidelines and then we got special permission to leave early.

  When we were on the way to the doctor’s office, he was acting like I couldn’t get there fast enough.

  “I can’t explain it. The sensations for the last couple of days haven’t been too good. I don’t know if I done scratched up my flesh or what’s going on.”

  “I can’t believe you got me taking you to the doctor again. Tell me, D, was the sex worth it?”

  “It was then, but it sure ain’t right now. And I don’t know which one of them nasty girls I’m gonna have to go off on. They done gave me something where I have to take medicine again.”

  I didn’t wanna say it to him, but he had better hope it was curable.

  After his tests, Dr. Hanceby motioned for Damarius to come into his office.

  “Come on, man. Come with me,” Damarius said to me.

  “Man, those are your test results. I don’t wanna go in there,” I said emphatically, knowing I didn’t want to know his business.

  “Doc, is it okay if he comes, you know, like last time?” Dr. Hanceby replied, “Yes, if it’s okay for me to share the results with the both of you.”

  “Yeah. It’s straight. That’s my boy. What’s going on with me?”

  “You have herpes,” Dr. Hanceby said with a serious expression to Damarius.

  I didn’t exactly know what herpes was, but I knew it wasn’t something he wanted to have. The doctor wasn’t looking optimistic. Damarius wasn’t getting the picture.

  “So what I got to take, Doc? What I gotta do to get rid of this? My mama got a medical card. I could do the copay. It hurts, seems like it’s getting bigger. The back of my leg feels numb. I just need something.”

  “Well, young man, I’ve got good news and bad news for you. Which do you want first?”

  “Just give it to me straight, Doc. What’s up?” Damarius asked.

  “The good news is I can give you some medicine to take care of what’s ailing you now.”

  “Well, it ain’t no bad news,” Damarius said while standing up and hitting himself on the chest, like he was proud of himself.

  “Herpes isn’t something that has a cure at this time.”

  All of a sudden, my friend started frowning. Finally he took the doctor seriously and just remained still.

  “Well, I thought you just said that you could give me medicine to get rid of this.”

  “That’s medicine for the outbreak and for the symptoms. It will go away temporarily, but for now you’ll have this for life.”

  “I’ll always have these outbreaks?” Damarius asked in a deflated tone.

  The doctor slowly nodded. It wasn’t something that could kill my boy, but it was a lifetime disease. Regardless of what he thought about his few nights of passion with different girls before, clearly, he should have wished he could take all that back.

  “So, D, you gon’ tell Ciara this, right?” I asked as we drove home.

  “Heck naw, man, and you ain’t, either,” he said forcibly.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How selfish! Damarius went on to say that he’d work it out, and that he didn’t care about my thoughts on the subject.

  When we got to his house, he said, “Man, thanks for the ride, but stay out my business. Everybody ain’t no goody-goody like you.”

  “D, don’t feed me that bull. I think you’re a punk if you don’t tell Ciara what she has been exposed to,” I said.

  “What, so you gon’ front on me like that? Shoot, Perry, stay out my business and my life. You ain’t nobody’s daddy!”

  He got out my car and slammed the door. We were through. I didn’t care.

  Though it was windy, I was out in my backyard shooting hoops. With the championship game right around the corner, I had too many thoughts running through my mind. I was still out when the sun went down, looking up at the Georgia sky. I took the chance to feel closer to God.

  As I turned my face toward the sky when I made a sweet three-point shot, my nose brushed against the wind. To me that felt like God saying, “Boy, I got you! Keep following my path, and you’ll be straight.”

  “Lord, just help me keep it real for You,” I prayed. “Help me be a Christ-like example ...”

  Before I could finish praying, I heard a car pull up in my driveway all fast. Quickly, I looked up and moved out the way. Cole came rushing over to me.

  “I know something’s wrong. What you done did, man?” I asked jokingly.

  “Man, I messed up everything.” Cole was a bundle of nerves.

  “What you talking about?” I asked, as I tried to make sense of what he was not saying.

  He just paced back and forth. He was mumbling to himself, with his hands pointed toward the sky. He was making circles. He was making me nervous!

  “Cole, stop. Tell me what’s up.”

  “It’s Briana.”

  “What about her, she hurt or something?”

  “She might be pregnant.” He fell to the ground.

  I just took the ball and threw it against the backboard. “Man, you serious?”

  Brianna was in the eleventh grade, and Cole had just agreed to accept a full scholarship to the University of South Carolina. The two of them didn’t need to be nobody’s parents. This was a hot mess. Then I realized he said that she might be pregnant.

  I asked, “So this isn’t confirmed?”

  “No, no we’re not sure. I remember when she told me she didn’t want to. But dang, she was looking all good. I nibbled on that ear, it was on! You know I love me some Briana. I couldn’t resist! The temptation was there, man. I think she might be pregnant. Her period was supposed to be here last week, and it ain’t here yet. What am I gon’ do, Perry?”

  Why’d he have to ask me for advice? I wasn’t trying to get in none of this. I’d lost a friendship giving Da
marius advice in his situation and I wasn’t gon’ get caught up in somebody else’s drama and lose another pal. No way!

  “You gotta handle this,” I told him.

  “Perry, I just need you to come over to her house with me, man. She said Tori is over there helping her take tests or whatever. I just need you to come over there with me. Please, Perry? You don’t know how this feels.”

  I was so relieved about that. With Damarius’s consequences, it made me happy that I was still abstinent. And Cole had tipped in another reason why my way was the better way.

  “I can’t drive my car, either. Can you drive my car?”

  “All right, man, give me the keys.”

  I didn’t wanna fuss at him as we drove to his girl’s crib. He was already feeling miserable enough, but why did my boys have to be so stupid? I hoped this was a false alarm. I hope he’d learned something.

  When we got over Briana’s house, we didn’t have to ask any questions. Tori was sitting there holding Cole’s girl. Both of them were crying. I just looked over at Cole, put my hand on his shoulder and gripped it tight. He needed to keep it together and hold up. He was going to be a daddy. He had to step up and be the best one he knew how.

  “What we gon’ do?” Briana asked as she rushed into his arms. “I can’t be a mom!”

  Cole just had this dumb look on his face.

  “Why did you do this to me, Cole?”

  Then she pounded on his chest. I looked at Tori and could only thank God that I hadn’t gotten her into this same trouble. Briana just went crazy. Tori tried to calm her down. Cole tried to calm her down. She was just hysterical. She was sad. She didn’t want to be a teen mom.

  Cole finally spoke up and said, “I’ma take care of this, Briana. You gon’ be okay. We gon’ get rid of the baby.”

  As if I wasn’t feeling bad enough, those words took me to another level. Did my buddy just say that he was going to take a baby’s life before it had a chance to live? How selfish, I thought. I rushed over to the two of them and said, “No, no, Cole. There are other options. Adoption or something. Y’all can’t kill this baby. That ain’t God’s will.”

  “You need to stay up out my business.”

  “You brought me over here. I can’t let y’all do that.”

  “Yeah, right, Perry. You of all people should understand that I can’t pass up no scholarships and stuff. I don’t want my life to be over ’cause of no baby.”

  Tori came over and said, “Yeah, Perry, we gotta let them handle this. I don’t agree with that, either, and I wouldn’t do it if it was me. That’s why I’m not having sex.”

  Briana just buried her head into Cole’s chest.

  “I’m ready to get home,” I blurted out.

  Tori looked up at me and said, “I can take you.”

  It’d been a while since I talked to her. This wasn’t any time to start from where we left off. All I asked God for was peace. And I was getting a little bothered that He couldn’t grant me that. I was trying to show my boys how to walk with God, and it bugged me that they wouldn’t listen.

  Quite frankly, I was tired of being the good boy. Tired of helping everybody out. Tired of putting myself out there when it wasn’t benefiting me. I was tired of taking deep risks.

  14

  Hoping for Relief

  “Son, can I talk to you before you get ready to go?” my dad asked seriously as he stood in front of my door.

  I really missed him. Not only had he been around the house a lot less, but when he was home, he and I were in different parts of it.

  I didn’t know what he’d been planning to come in my room and say, but I knew I had to give him the benefit of the doubt and not jump all over him. Though I still I had trouble with some of the things he did, he was my dad and deep down I loved him just as much as I always had. I didn’t need to get myself worked up. At least not right before I was about to play the biggest game of my senior year.

  I was to play at the Dome in about six hours. I wanted and needed to stay focused. He came in and sat down on the end of my bed. I hadn’t remembered him doing that since I was little.

  “You know, Perry, I owe you a big apology. This has been a tough year for you. Adding family pressure is more than you needed to handle right now. I’ve been thinking these last few weeks, and I’m sorry about what you walked in on. Man, I don’t have any excuses. It was just sin. I’m trying to deal with that. Not only have I not been a good husband, I haven’t been a great father to you, either. I got to choose my own college, you know. My dad basically stepped back and told me that it was time for me to become a big man and make some big decisions. Even though he didn’t agree with my choice, he supported it. And he was paying.”

  We both shared our first laugh in a while together. It felt good. Just that small moment took so much pressure off us.

  “Son, I just came to tell you to choose the school that you wanna go to. I still plan on giving my input, but I will let you make your own decision. I’m glad it don’t have to come out my pockets, either. You’re earning a scholarship. You really should be able to decide.”

  He held out his arms. I just looked at him for a second. Then his eyes got watery. I had never in my life seen my dad cry. Not even at his own father’s funeral. I slid over by him and laid my head on his shoulder and gave him a hug. He gave me three pats on the back. It was a hug like I’d never experienced. And it felt meaningful.

  “Go get ’em out there today, partner. You the man,” he said to me as we parted.

  I’d been to the Dome a couple of times for football games, concerts and conferences. But I’d never gotten the chance to be on the field warming up. Being at the Dome where the Falcons played was a high point in my life, and I didn’t know how to contain the feeling.

  The whole first quarter I was triple-teamed. When I slid to the right defensive backs were on me. Lance’s Seminoles put up 14 points. We had nothing going into halftime. Second half, we got the ball first. They faked it to the running back, and I ran it with full speed. Our leader outran the corner and tipped in on the fake. I caught the ball, and it was over. We had 7. We had a ball game. We had hope. It was a defensive battle in the mix.

  Twelve minutes left in the fourth quarter and the score was still 14 to 7.

  Coach asked me, “Are you ready for the big play? Can you take this home? Can you at least tie this game, boy?”

  Coach gave me the ball, and I shouted. We made it near the sideline. This time our quarterback dropped it. The tight end pitched it back, and they threw it to me. The ball was a little high, but I knew I needed to make it.

  I went up and made the grab, but when I came down, a player hit me in my left knee from the right. Another player hit me from the left in that same spot. My leg just buckled on me. It felt like it was completely destroyed. My knee was weak, and I had no stability. I kept trying to move, but I couldn’t get comfortable anywhere. I counted and saw the referee come over and blow his whistle to my sideline for help. All I wanted was for my pain to go away. I didn’t care about winning this game. I didn’t care about the state championship. I didn’t care about the scouts being impressed with my performance. Again, I just wanted the pain to stop, but it wasn’t stopping.

  There was silence in the loud facility. A spirit had dawned on me. Had I shattered my knee? Was my career over? Boy, did I wish this was a nightmare. Paramedics came onto the field and over to me, touching the spot that was causing the excruciating pain. My father came over to hold my hand. Coach was there shaking his head. I knew this wasn’t good.

  “Lord,” I prayed silently, “What are You doing?”

  What seemed like moments later I woke up in the hospital. My mother was sitting in a chair crying. My father was pacing the floor yelling, “He’s gon’ be okay, Pat. He’s gon’ be okay.”

  As I blinked my eyes open, my mom came over to my bed. “Oh, sweetheart!”

  My dad stood behind her with his arm around her waist.

  “Junior, you go
n’ be all right, Son. You gon’ be just fine.”

  “Dad, what’s going on? My leg hurts.”

  “Just lay still now. I got good and bad news, Son. It’s serious, but it’s not that serious that you can’t hold it together, okay?”

  “What’s going on, Dad? Just tell me.”

  “It’s your posterior cruciate ligament. In six to eight weeks, you’ll be fine to train in somebody’s camp this summer. It’s nothing that you can’t overcome and nothing that should make these schools less interested. We just want you to relax. You’ll get healthy.”

  I should’ve known this was going to happen. With me trying to boost myself up to fit into a school. My intent might have cost me the chance to go to any school at all. A PCL tear was a pretty big deal, being in the back of the leg. Not only did it have to repair itself, but it also had to regain its strength. At least I didn’t tear the ACL. Sometimes when you get hit, getting hurt was unavoidable. Thank God this wasn’t an injury for surgery.

  I was tired of being tough. I was tired of being strong. Balling up my fists, I just hit the hospital bed over and over. I knew that ball was too high, but I went up to try and grab it for my team. Now it might’ve cost me everything, putting myself out there like that. We didn’t even win the game. The only good thing was seeing my parents together telling me it’d be okay.

  My mom told me that a lot of my teammates had been up to the hospital, but they weren’t allowing any visitors right now. I knew it was just as well. I was brokenhearted.

  The next couple of days while I lay in my own bed, my parents were supportive. My mom was my nurse. My dad handled tons of calls from college scouts. I didn’t know what they were saying to him about how their schools felt about me. I had a feeling of uneasiness. I wanted my dad to come in my room and tell me what was up so that I could stop speculating. Finally he did.

  “Dad, what’s going on? You were on the phone almost all day.”