I Left My Back Door Open (33 page)

“I fooled you and a bunch of other people and I probably could've fooled that reporter.”

I asked, dryly, “So, are you going to come clean with Sarita now?”

Phil shook his head. “We got too many knives in the house.”

“It's just such a betrayal, Phil. And now you've got me drawn into it. Tell me this is just a bad dream.”

“You don't have to say nothing to nobody.”

I hunched forward, resting my elbows on my thighs and holding my head in my hands. “It will be brought up for the next hundred years. And I will have to pretend, just like you.”

“Pretending is a lot safer than getting killed. Besides, it's over between me and Kim. It was just a one-time fling. We don't talk anymore. So why not let sleeping dogs lie?”

“I just can't live inside a web of lies.”

Phil sighed and rested his elbows on his thighs also. “What would you do at this point? If you were me?” He faced me and cupped his chin with his hands.

“I don't know. I'd probably go into couples counseling.”

“I do need counseling, living with Sarita.”

“You need to consider Jason, too. How can you lie to your son and still look at him in the face?”

“How can I lie to him?” Phil asked, widening his eyes. “The question should be how can I tell him the truth, without going from a hero to a zero?”

“You do have a point.”

Phil groaned. “I'm just gonna get the hell outta this marriage. It's all over but the leaving, anyway. No, I know what I'm gonna do,” he said decisively. “I'm gonna give Sarita a choice. I'm gonna either get me a computer and get on line and talk to women on the Internet, or else me and Sarita can go into counseling. She can choose whichever one she wants. Now, you don't have to say squat. I got it all figured out.”

“It's not my place to say anything, except I do have to tell Lupe the truth. But you're just a name to her.”

“I'm sorry if I put you in a bad light with your reporter friend.”

“She'll be pissed off, but she'll get over it. I'll leave a message on her voice mail tonight.”

“Thanks, Dee Dee. So, me and you are cool, then, right?”

“Nobody's cool,” I answered, “but we gotta live with it.”

“Can I check out the news before I bounce? I wanna catch the sports.”

“There's the remote. I've gotta run to the bathroom.”

“Dee Dee, come quick,” Phil shouted as I washed my hands.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Ain't that the security guard I met at your radio station that time?”

“Freddy?” I asked, wiping my wet hands on my sweatpants. I glimpsed the familiar moon face before they cut to a commercial. “Yeah, it's definitely him,” I confirmed.

“He's coming up on the next segment.”

“What happened to him?”

“He rescued a lady who had a heart attack and crashed into the shoulder on the Dan Ryan,” Phil informed me. “Freddy drove across two lanes of traffic to help her. His call to 911 saved her life!”

“Wow, our Freddy!” I marveled.

“The lady was driving a van with kids from D.C.F.S.”

“Were any of the children hurt?”

“No, not seriously. A young brotha pulled over and helped Freddy calm the kids down. I heard about it earlier on the radio, but I didn't have a face to connect it with. I didn't realize.”

“Be quiet,” I interrupted. “I want to hear what he says.”

I watched as Freddy looked solemnly at us from the TV.

“I done what any decent person would've done. I was raised to treat people the way you wanna be treated. It was just that simple. I ain't nobody's hero.”

“A lot of people would disagree,” the blonde reporter cut in.

“I'm just somebody who done the right thing,” Freddy insisted.

“What about the young man who helped you?”

“DeAndre is a wonderful example of African-American youth. He's renewed my faith in young black peopled.”

“Well, I'll be black,” I commented to Phil. “I can't believe Freddy said that.”

“DeAndre and I got to talking. He's never had a father to take him even to a Bulls game. And he lives a stone's throw away from the United Center. Maybe I can take him and all the kids that was in the van to a game,” our Freddy added.

“I don't think Freddy Johnson is going to have much trouble getting a bunch of complimentary tickets to a Bulls game, do you? This is Katelyn Meyers reporting live from the South Side. Back to you, Paul.”

“No,” the news anchor agreed. “And, I'm happy to report that the woman's condition has been upgraded from critical to stable. The doctors say she's expected to make a full recovery and that she wouldn't have made it if it weren't for the efforts of a couple of good Samaritans. By the way, none of the kids who were in the van was seriously injured.”

With a puzzled expression, Phil said, “I thought you said Freddy didn't consider himself black?”

“He doesn't. Or at least, he
didn't
… just yesterday, when I left the station, Freddy still thought the white man's ice was colder.”

When I returned to the radio station on Saturday, Freddy was bursting with pride. My happiness for him momentarily distracted me from my broken heart. A banner reading
FREDDY JOHNSON OUR HERO
was on the wall above his desk. He showed me a plaque he'd received from the Department of Children and Family Services.

“Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. I saw you on TV; you said some good things.”

Freddy shrugged. “I really wasn't looking for the spotlight. I just wanted to help that poor woman.”

“How's she doing now?” I asked. “Any update?”

“Thank God, it looks like she might make a full recovery. They've taken her out of intensive care. They've upgraded her to stable condition. I just talked to one of her nurses this morning.”

“I'm glad to hear that she's doing better.”

“Yeah, that's what's important.”

“Freddy, with all the press you're receiving, I don't think you'll be working here much longer. I'll miss you, but I'll understand.”

Freddy rubbed his bald head and gave me a quizzical look. “Why is that? I didn't say I was going nowhere. It ain't like I won the lottery or something. Now, if I hit the jackpot, then I'm outta here. And the last Negro can turn out the lights.” He smiled.

“Yeah, but you've been on the news. With all this publicity, the job offers can't be too far behind.” I sniffed. “I smell change in the air. Mark my words, but don't quit your day job just yet, brothaman,” I cautioned. “You are a brotha again, right?” I winked.

Freddy tilted his head back and twisted his mouth like he was figuring out a chess move. “Yeah,” he finally answered, begrudgingly. “I'm gon' go 'head and give y'all another shot.”

“Good,” I said. “We need all the heroes we can get these days.”

Freddy's face flushed with pride. “I caught some of them trashy talk shows recently, and it really opened my eyes to just how many ignorant white people there are in America,” Freddy said, shaking his head. “I was shocked. I believe a lot of eyes have been opened. You and I both knew how ignorant black folks can be.”

“
Some
black folks,” I interjected.

“Anyway, you expect
us
to come out there and clown. But I had no idea that there were that many trifling white folks willing to show their drawers on national TV,” Freddy marveled.

“They're gladiator shows.” I groaned.

“Well, they made me ashamed to call myself white.” He sighed, shaking his head again. “And these white folks on these talk shows might just be the tip of the iceberg. No telling how many ignorant white folks are really out there. I decided that the only safe thing for me to do was to distance myself from white folks. I've had to disown them.”

“I'm sure you'll be sorely missed.” I chuckled. “But a brotha's gotta do what a brotha's gotta do.”

“Plus, after that black kid came through the way he done and helped me save that poor woman's life, I decided I just might as well go back to being black,” he explained.

I teased, “You're not gonna become Korean?”

“Naa, they get up too early in the morning for me. I'm a night owl.”

“Well, you're a credit to the race,” I said, patting Freddy's shoulder before heading up to the control room.

“You've been listening to Jesse Mae Hemphill, also known as the She-Wolf,” I informed my listeners. “Those were some of her early recordings from 1979 and 1980. The She-Wolf is a very special blues artist, and this set was by special request from my friend, Dianne, a blue-eyed soul sister who knows that when you make dressing or stuffing or whatever you wanna call it, you gotta use corn bread. It's as simple as that.

“And I don't have anything against pumpkins, so I don't wanna hear nothing from the pumpkin patch. But when it comes to pies during the holiday season, if it ain't sweet potato, you're committin' treason.

“Hold on. I've got a caller. Hope it's not a pumpkin eater. Go ahead, caller.”

“Hi, I'm a little nervous.”

“There's no reason to be nervous, what's your name.”

“Skylar.”

It was
my
Skylar!
I take that back. There is a reason for you to be nervous
, I thought.
Me and you both
.

“Skylar, what can I play for you?”

“I've got the blues.”

“Why is that?”

“The usual. My woman up and left me.”

“If you wanna do-right woman, you gotta be a do-right man.”

“I never dogged her. We just had a misunderstanding. She thought I was sneaking behind her back with my ex. But I just did a favor for my ex because I was being a good Samaritan.”

“There was no hanky-panky involved?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Is that the only reason that you did this favor for your ex? Because you wanted to be a good Samaritan?”

“Maybe not totally. I guess, to be honest, I was also scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“I was scared of the depth of my feelings for my girlfriend.”

“So, on some level you might've wanted to push her away.”

“Maybe. I was afraid of things moving too fast. I just came out of a failed marriage, you have to understand.”

“It's natural to be afraid. But love is letting go of fear. Jane Fonda says courage is fear that's said its prayers.”

“You should've been a therapist.”

“Thank you, but I'm happy doing what I'm doing.”

“I realize now that I'm less afraid of my love for my girlfriend than the emptiness I feel without her. I guess I needed time to be sure of what I really wanted.”

“Sounds like you care a lot about this woman.”

“I do. I love her very much.”

“I think this woman is gonna take you back.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I feel it in my soul. How about if I play ‘At Last' by the one and only Etta James for you and your one and only.”

“Thanks.”

My lonely days were over, I thought. My love had come around.

twenty-two

Later that night on the phone, Skylar confirmed that Allison had finally returned to Indianapolis the day before. He said that he was glad to have his life back. We couldn't wait to see each other. We were back in love again.

The next day, I took Sarita out to Sunday brunch to celebrate her forty-first birthday. Phil was hanging out at home with Jason, so Sarita had the whole day off from her wifely and motherly duties.

Sarita and I carried our plates of brunch food to our corner table. The Retreat was a restored Victorian on the far South Side that was an “in” place for about-something black folks looking for good food and charming surroundings, especially after church. The restaurant was festively decorated in celebration of the holiday season.

“People tend to overlook your birthday when it's close to Christmas,” Sarita said, between bites of food. “But you have always remembered my birthday. That means a whole lot to me, because all my life I've been shortchanged.” Sarita eyed her beautifully wrapped present that contained luxuries for the bath.

“I understand. My mother's birthday would've been tomorrow,” I recalled with emotion. “She trained me to remember.”

Sarita gave me a caring look. “Now, I didn't come here to see how much I could eat,” she said, reaching for a biscuit. “So at some point, help me push away from the table.”

“Girl, just enjoy yourself.”

Sarita giggled. “Easy for you to say, you look like you can fit nicely into a fourteen now.”

I shrugged. “This dress is a size fourteen.”

“How much have you lost?”

“I don't deal with scales. I just go by how I fit into my clothes. But I would guess I've released about ten pounds.”

“Released?” Sarita raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, when you lose something, you tend to go looking for it. It's a different mind-set.”

“Well, what are you doing, in a nutshell, to
release
weight?”

“You can borrow my book,
Thin Within
. But basically, you eat only when you're hungry, eat the foods you love and quit before you're full.”

“Wait a minute, now you know our people don't like to experience hunger. It's a carryover from slavery.”

“Yeah, but hunger can feel okay when you know you can satisfy it.”

“And are you saying that if I love macaroni and cheese and biscuits and pound cake and fried chicken, I can just knock myself out?”

“Yeah, if you're hungry and you stop eating before you're even nearly full. You can't stuff yourself. The idea is if you eat enough chocolate chip cookies, sooner or later you'll be cravin' broccoli.”