Single Mom (23 page)

Denise looked around at everyone inside the room. “Wait a minute,” she said, “I didn’t come down here to have this thing just brushed under the rug. My son was
attacked
on
school premises
, suspended, and told that he would be expelled, then police officers asked
us
who, what, when, and where, and now I take off a second day from work for you to tell me that everything was a
mishap!
Oh, no, you’re
not
getting off that easy!” she ranted.

Denise wasn’t going to be denied her battle that morning. I wasn’t planning on leaving so early myself. We both wanted an explanation for their actions. Denise and I were actually in agreement with each other!

“First of all, where are
Michael Riley
and
his
parents?” she asked them.

The principal looked to the disciplinarian. The disciplinarian looked like a high school football coach in a dark suit. He could have used a tailor to make his suit fit his broad shoulders a little better.

He said, “I spoke to Michael Riley, and he informed us that he witnessed the attack, and that it was unprovoked on Walter’s behalf.”

“Did he
also
tell you that he was involved in it?” Denise asked him.

The disciplinarian looked to the vice principal, a tall woman in a gray business suit. “We were planning on having him back in our offices to answer more questions about the incident today,” she told us.

“And will there be any police officers around when you’re asking
him
questions?” Denise jarred them. I began to wonder what her lawyer was there for. I guess he was the silent voice, carrying the long, legal stick of the law to crack heads when the opportunity presented itself. I was curious to see the guy in action just in case I would need the experience for future reference in a possible custody battle.

The principal decided to speak up again. “Ah, Ms. Stewart, if you will, you have to understand that this was something we’ve never had to deal with before, and we didn’t know exactly how to handle the situation.”

“Yes, you did,” Denise calmly responded. “You knew how to handle it. You said, ‘Let’s get rid of this black troublemaker and make him an example for everyone at our school.’”

It was a beautiful setup on her part. All of a sudden, it felt awfully stuffy in the room. We could all use some fresh air and some bottled spring water.

Then her attorney decided to join in with the discussion. “Will any of this show up on Walter’s permanent record?” he asked the principal.

“Ah, no it will not,” the principal answered eagerly.

“It shouldn’t show up on
any
record,” Denise snapped.

“It won’t,” the vice principal informed us.

“And do you have any security at the school that would extend to the students while inside of the schoolyard?” Mr. Fields asked.

The principal looked to the disciplinarian, who quickly turned red. I guess security was part of his responsibility.

“Ah, yes we do,” the broad-shouldered disciplinarian answered.

“Have the police found the other party involved in the stabbing yet?”

“Hopefully, they’ll have him in custody by later on today.”

Mr. Fields then questioned the vice principal. “And you say that you’ll be talking again to the other student involved?”

“Michael Riley,” Denise added. It seemed as if she had memorized the name, and she was making sure that she wouldn’t forget it.

“That’s correct,” the vice principal answered.

“And is he a white student?” Mr. Fields asked.

At that point, the principal started to turn red. “I see exactly where you’re trying to go with this case, ah—”

“Attorney Melvin Fields,” Denise’s lawyer filled in for him, with a quick extension of his card.

The principal took it in hand and continued with his response: “Mr. Fields, we don’t look at this as a racial incident. We see this as a freak occurrence at our school that will
definitely
not happen again,” he assured us. “There were just a lot of mistakes that were made in handling it.”

Mr. Fields nodded as he rose from his seat. “I understand. I understand that perfectly. These kinds of mistakes are always made.”

“Especially when it comes to dealing with black people,” Denise interjected. “Black
boys
in particular.”

It was obvious that the school officials hadn’t had sufficient time to get their stories together. I was quite sure that they didn’t expect for Denise to come at them with a lawyer so fast. Had they known, I believe they would have been forced to counter with a lawyer or two of their own that morning.

Mr. Fields headed for the door and addressed the principal before we left. “By the way,” he said. “We’ll be back in touch.”

I was wondering what would have happened had Denise been a poor single mother with no lawyer, and her son’s father happened to be a jobless black man who was nowhere to be found. In fact, had that been the
case, Walter would have never been allowed to enroll at the Oak Park Junior High School. Education and economics were definitely power in America, no matter
what
color you were!

Before we all made it out the door, Walter’s teacher, a twenty-something recent college grad, apologized for everything. “You really are a good kid, Walter, and I hope to see you back in school soon,” she said to my son.

Denise turned and shook the teacher’s hand. “Ms. Walker, I want to thank you for your support on this, because my son is
not
some street thug, and I want
everyone
to know that. He’s a good kid with a good head on his shoulders, and I will
never
let someone try and wipe their hands with him and label him a bad kid. We have to be supportive of our youth and let them know that they are loved, and that they can make it in this world.”

Ms. Walker nodded. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” she responded as we walked out.

When my son, Denise, her attorney, and I all made it back outside to the school’s parking lot area, I asked Walter again if he would be okay.

He nodded and mumbled again, “Yeah, I’ll be all right.” I never remember seeing him so glum before.

Attorney Melvin Fields reached to shake my hand before heading to his car, a brown Lexus coupe. “It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Perry,” he said to me with a smile.

I shook his hand and nodded to him, full of concern.
It’s good to
finally
meet you
, I thought to myself, repeating his comment to me.
Had Denise been talking to her attorney about me? And to what extent?

I thought again about calling my own attorney.

Denise turned to me and said, “I’ll keep you updated on everything.”

“Please do,” I responded.

We all made it to our separate cars and pulled off. I then wasted no time at all getting on my cell phone and calling my lawyer, only to get his answering machine.

“John, this is Walter. I need you to call me ASAP at my office. Something’s come up with my son and we need to go over some things. I’ll fill you in on everything when you call me.”

I made it back to my downtown office on the seventeenth floor of Chicago Federal Savings Bank by eleven-thirty, and I felt exhausted. I had three afternoon meetings to attend that day, two with clients, and a
late-afternoon meeting with the chief executive of accounts regarding new bank policies.

Half of those damn internal meetings were not even necessary. We could all read the memos on our own. Meetings were just used as a reason to show off the boardrooms and order food, if you asked me. It was a big waste of time and money to fool the staff into believing that they were really involved in something of importance. However, by your third meeting, you pretty much know the name of the game as a “bullshit your workforce” policy. Over my three years of working at CFS, I had been in nearly two hundred meetings and was simply tired of all the pep talks and evaluations.

I was one of the few black executives, not only at
my
bank, but at many of the larger banks in Chicago. Unfortunately, I had been around plenty of black men and women who did not have the emotional toughness or stamina to make it through the many games of corporate structure. It wasn’t only
what
you knew, but how you
used
what you knew to get ahead. You had to be confident and secure with your ideas, know the language, and be able to explain yourself under tremendous pressure.

Many black men, more so than the women, it seemed, could not stomach the racism. However, I was able to push ahead despite it. The old boys’ club stood on the grounds of no mercy, no retreat, which would immediately factor out anyone who could not stomach being tough-minded for at least ten hours per day. I had been well schooled, and therefore, I was hard to intimidate. After being raised by my father, going head-to-head with him for the majority of my life, I could virtually run CFS and go toe-to-toe with anyone! However, that didn’t necessarily mean that I enjoyed my work. Most of the time, I found myself being rather bored with it.

From my office window, I had a perfect view of the famous Sears Tower. Whenever I got bored, I loved to stare out at that tall, black building and think about my place in the world. Maybe I really needed to become an entrepreneur and run my own ship like my father, or even Denise. Sometimes I actually envied her. She was more a people person than I was, yet she had the drive and self-determination of an owner.

I thought about her comments concerning our son that morning, and I had to admit that she was a hell of a mother. She and her lawyer had successfully played a game of left jab, right cross, as in a boxing match. Denise jabbed the school officials and kept them off guard with her emotion, and her attorney was the big legal knock-out punch.

I was impressed. I was also apprehensive about going up against them.
Denise truly loved her son, and she had a long-term invested interest in his success. I don’t think I realized that before. Raising kids took much more than just rules and regulations; it took a lot of heart, persistence, and adaptability. Suddenly, I longed to have that challenge, and to raise my son.

My wife called me and broke me from my daydream. I had called her from my car phone after contacting my attorney, and left her a message as well. Beverly immediately wanted to know how things had gone at my son’s school that morning.

“Well, I must say that I gained a lot of respect for Denise. She really knows how to handle herself,” I admitted to my wife.

To my surprise, Beverly responded, “I figured that. Denise is a very strong woman.”

“And
who
told you this?” I asked lightheartedly. Beverly had never had a full conversation with Denise.

“Well, to successfully raise two black sons in America, during the
nineties
, a woman would
have
to be strong,” she answered. “I know that my older sister Elaine is strong, raising my niece, Karla, by herself.”

Elaine was indeed the strongest of Beverly’s kin.
And
the oldest. I was cornered again by a heavy feeling of guilt. What had absentee fathers done to help single mothers in raising their children? Money was hardly everything. What about the importance of moral support and physical presence? And what about the importance of fatherly love?

I said, “So, you believe that she’s been successful?” I would agree with it, I just wanted to know what made Beverly so sure.

My wife thought about it before she answered. She said, “Elaine told me once that life isn’t so much about what happens to you, because things are going to happen to us that we can’t really control from the time that we’re born. Life is more about how you
respond
to the things that happen to you, or how you go about accomplishing what you want to do in this short time that we have in the world. So yes, I believe that Denise Stewart has done a heck of a job with what she’s had to live with.

“Some of the strongest people in the world have had to fight through hell, so that they can make it to their heaven,” Beverly told me. “And that idea of heaven is different for every one of us.”

Right as she finished her statement, I got a call on my other line. “Hold on for a minute, Beverly. This may be John Ford. I left a message with him before I called you this morning.”

“Okay, well, we’ll talk later,” she said.

“Well, let me see if it’s him first. Because if it’s not, then I’d rather talk to you.”

She chuckled and said, “Okay, I’ll hold.”

“Thank you.” I clicked to my other line.

“Hey, man, I got your message. What’s going on with your son?”

“John! Okay, hold on for a second,” I told him.

“Beverly, it’s him, and I have a busy afternoon today, so I’ll see you at home tonight.”

“Bye, Walter,” she told me.

“I love you,” I responded.

“I love you, too.”

I hung up with my wife and clicked back over to my attorney. “Walter was involved in a stabbing incident at school …” I went on to tell him all that I knew and asked about our chances in a custody battle.

“Well, we can make a case out of anything, but this sounds like a normal parental concern, and she’s already on it,” he advised. “It’s not as if it’s neglect or abuse. And the fact that she’s already taking care of it makes it even less of a case for us. Your son is what, twelve, thirteen now?”

“Twelve.”

John thought about it. He was a young, aggressive guy from Detroit. He graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He came to Chicago about seven years ago with his family, to get away from the economic despair of Detroit and to practice his trade in a stronger metropolitan area.

He came to a conclusion and said, “Look, man, I’m not into breaking up families, because I have a wife and three kids of my own, but do you think your son would want to live with you instead of with his mother? Because if he’s almost thirteen years old, the judge could appoint a guardian ad litem, and your son could
almost
choose who he wanted to be with.”

I had to think about that myself. “So, he could actually make a choice?” It seemed too easy.