Single Mom (24 page)

“Well, it’s not exactly that simple, because most judges are going to naturally lean toward the mother. However, the older he gets, and the more he understands what’s going on, the more the judge is likely to weigh his opinion. But it’s still not a guarantee.”

I immediately thought about showing my son how much he had to gain and got energized. “Okay, well, let me work on that,” I responded.

“Are you really sure you want to do this?” John asked me. “Why don’t you just ask to spend more time with him?”

I stopped and thought again. “I’m still not absolutely sure, but I do know that I love my son, and I just don’t want to stand by and watch him become another ugly statistic or a failure if I can do something about it. I believe he has a lot of potential, but I need more than just weekends to help him grow. I mean, at least her other son, Jimmy, has basketball to concentrate on.”

John said, “I see. Well, hey, man, if you believe you can make a difference, then do what you have to do, and I’ll represent you in court.”

I hung up the phone and was ready for anything Denise had to throw at me. If I gained custody of my son, I wouldn’t have to worry about hiding my family’s wealth so much. Denise could never really say that my son had been cheated of anything anyway. And even if she did, I could make sure that any monies gained would be set aside for my son in a trust account. I didn’t mind him sharing with his mother and brother later on down the road, I just worried about his mother taking me to court on her own accord. Nevertheless, I wanted to show my son how much he had to gain by becoming a full-fledged Perry. It was just the kind of news that I needed to brighten up my day.

OU
like your high school so far?” I asked my son. Wearing a blue cotton vest over a white tennis shirt, Little Jay even looked like a suburban schoolboy. We were shooting the breeze at the playground after school.

He nodded to me. “Yeah, it’s all right.”

Having to meet him at odd places made me feel like I was an outsider. I was still happy to see him though, and I couldn’t wait for basketball season to get started. Then we would really do some bonding. But we weren’t running ball that day. I just wanted to talk to him, father to son.

“Are there a bunch of white kids in Belmont?” I asked him. I knew the answer to that, I was just making small talk.

Little Jay smiled and said, “Yeah.”

“You think that’s good for you, being around more white kids?”

“You don’t get in as much trouble,” he told me with a grin.

“Yeah, you got that right. Unless you’re into taking PCP and bungee jumpin’,” I joked.

Little Jay shook his head. “People who take that stuff are crazy. And bungee jumping? You
know
that’s crazy.”

I said, “Good. Because anything that can ruin your health or crack your skull wide open ain’t good for you.”

We shared a laugh and watched these white kids trying hard to dunk a basketball on the courts.

“Hey, Jay, man, come over here and show us how to do it!” one of
them yelled. They looked tall enough to dunk, they just weren’t able to explode off the ground. It didn’t look like they were trying hard enough to me. Dunking basketballs doesn’t naturally come with height. You have to work at it. White folks always assume that athletics comes natural for black people, and that’s bullshit! I know that for a fact. Because whenever I stopped working on my game, all of a sudden other guys were able to handle me.

Little Jay yelled back, “Naw, man, not today! Ricky can dunk! Ask him to show you!”

Ricky was a lanky white kid in a baseball cap. He had an unlit cigarette hanging from his pink lips, a suburbanite trying to be urban hip.

“Naw, man, my ankle is messed up today! I’m not dunking!” he yelled back.

I looked at my son and shook my head. “Them white boys are always gonna be asking you for demonstrations. You wait till you get to college. Then these same white folks got a nerve to complain about how much money you can make in the pros.

“Hell, if they didn’t love the black athlete so much, these ball clubs wouldn’t pay them millions of dollars to shoot a basketball in the first place.

“What do you think about that?” I asked my son.

He hunched his shoulders and said, “Sometimes it seems like they get a little greedy.”

I looked and frowned at him. “Greedy? Shit! You know how much these ball clubs and sporting goods companies make off these black athletes?” I snapped at him. “Even these colleges are getting paid; coaches, scouts, and everybody involved. I think it’s only right that these boys get their millions. Jordan
deserves
thirty million a year!”

My son nodded. “Yeah, I would say
Jordan
deserves it, but not a lot of these other guys. Jordan sells out arenas everywhere he goes, Jordan and Shaq.”

I smiled. It sounded like my boy had been doing his basketball business homework. But I wanted to talk about more than just basketball with him. I wanted to know what else was going on in his life.

“So, what have you been doing with yourself, you know, with your free time and whatnot?” I asked him.

He said, “Nothing really. I’m just chillin’, going to school, and doing my homework.”

I knew he was probably working on his game whenever he got a chance to, but I had to force myself not to ask about it.

“What about your little brother, Walter? What has he been up to?” I asked.

Little Jay shook his head and smiled. “My mom is thinking about suing his school,” he told me.

“
Suing the school?
For what?”

“Walter got stabbed in the hand at the schoolyard by another kid that didn’t even go there.”

I frowned. That damn Walter kid was dying to be a roughneck. He had always been asking Little Jay about my gang affiliations. Jay didn’t have much to tell him though, because I never talked about it with him. The only reason his little brother even knew was because Neecy had run
her
mouth.

“What was Walter doing, talking trash?” I asked my son.

“Naw, it was some white boy who was talking trash, and Walter was taking up for him,” he answered. “And then the school suspended Walter and not the white boy. My mom was pissed off about that. That’s when she called up her lawyer.”

I started laughing, imagining Neecy up at her son’s school with a lawyer, telling them white folks off. “So Neecy lookin’ to get paid now, hunh?” I joked.

My son looked hesitant to laugh with me. Maybe it was because I had called his mom “Neecy” again. She had probably drummed the name “Denise” in his head like she was doing with everyone else.

“I mean, Denise,” I said to him.

He smiled. “She just wants people to use her proper name,” he said to me. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that, is it?”

“Naw. I guess not,” I responded. “I hear that actor Laurence Fishburne don’t want people calling him Larry anymore either. But, you know, that’s just something I’ll have to get used to.”

He said, “I know. You’re used to calling her that.”

I started to laugh again. Little Jay wouldn’t even say the word “Neecy.”

’You think your mom is like a drill sergeant sometimes?” I asked him. My son just laughed it off. I couldn’t even imagine living with his mother anymore. She had gotten used to being a mother for too long. I even wondered how she treated her truck-driver friend. I had to admit, that single mother job could really harden a woman. Either that or make her desperate for a daddy. I started thinking about my relationship with Kim and
her
son. I was spending more time with them than I ever planned to.

I said, “Jay, ah … you ever feel angry at me for not being around?” I had a lump in my throat, but I felt it was only right to ask him. I had to get it out in the open.

My son nodded and looked away from me. “Sometimes, yeah. Like, when my friends had their fathers there to watch our games and stuff.”

I asked, “So it feels good to have me in the stands, then?” I knew the answer to that, too. I just wanted to hear it from my son’s mouth.

He grinned and said, “Of course. It feels good when anybody’s in the stands for you, because Mom was busy most of the time, doing other stuff.”

“She never came to any of your games? She used to come to all of mine.”

He smiled and said, “Yeah, she told me. But, naw, she’s been to some of my games. She said I’m a lot more coordinated than you were. She said you used to get fouled and knocked around a lot.”

I broke out laughing. “That was my strategy, to get their big men in foul trouble. I used to take the ball right at them like a crazy man. That doesn’t work against
you
though,” I told him.

We sat and watched those white boys trying to dunk again.

“They gon’ need to work out with some ankle weights or something,” Little Jay commented, shaking his head and grinning.

’Yeah, or
something
,” I agreed with him.

I looked at my watch. It was after four. “You, ah, got your homework to do, right?” I didn’t want my son sitting around too long at the playground. I just wanted to see him. I had some things to do that day myself.

“Yeah, plus my brother is home by now anyway,” he answered. “Mom’ll be calling any minute now to check up on us.”

I stood up from the bleachers and said, “If she ain’t called already.”

Little Jay stood up after me. “I’ll just tell her I was out here talking with you,” he said.

I stopped in my tracks. “You gon’ tell her what?” I shook my head and said, “Naw, naw, man, don’t blame this on me. You knew where you had to be.” I didn’t want Little Jay picking up any bad habits on my part. No way was I going to allow that. Making convenient excuses was how I got myself off track years ago.

I said, “Jay, I love you, man, and I love being around you, but never make excuses for what you
know
you’re supposed to be doing. It took me
years
to learn that lesson, and I
damn sure
don’t want you following in
my
footsteps. I don’t care if you
were
hanging out here and talking to me.
You listen to your mother, ’cause she’s done a damn good job of raising you.”

For a second there, I couldn’t believe what I was saying, but it was true. If my son was going to have a chance at playing professional basketball, then he was going to have to stay focused on taking care of business and staying out of trouble, even if it meant he couldn’t shoot the breeze with me.

I waited for him to respond to me.

He dropped his head a little. “Yeah, I know,” he mumbled.

He looked like a big kid who had just been told that he couldn’t go to the circus. I felt guilty. I guess Little Jay really did like his old man being around him. I felt good about that part.

“Come on, man, let me walk you home,” I told him, tossing my arm around his shoulder.

He got his books together and started walking with me.

I looked into my son’s choirboy face and said it again, “I love you, man.” I was proud to be his dad.

Little Jay looked back at me and responded, “I love you too, Dad.”

Shit, I can’t lie! After my son said those five words to me, I felt like a kid my-damn-self! What the hell was I thinking all of those years when I was away from him? I thought about fatherhood for the rest of that night. I also thought about Kim’s boy, Jamal. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was forced to. I was in a position to be a father figure for him. I was being given an opportunity to start from scratch, without all of the late-night diaper changing and feelings of uselessness. I knew that Kim could use my help with Jamal. It was no doubt in my mind.

After making a few runs, I got back to my mother’s that night and started getting ready for work. I couldn’t find any of my clothes.

“What are you looking for?” my mother asked me. “You know you took most of your clothes over to that woman’s house. And everything you left over here is dirty.”

I had finally taken Kim’s spare key, but I still didn’t consider myself to be officially living with her. I guess I was having my cake and eating it too.

My mother said, “You know what, Jimmie, you’re doing the same damn thing that gets a lot of these young couples in trouble today. Now, I’ve tried my best not to say anything about it, but either you’re gonna commit yourself to being a part of this woman’s life, or you’re not. You
can’t have it both ways and live in both places. It just ain’t fair, Jimmie. It’s not!”

I didn’t have the time nor the energy to argue with my mother that night. Besides, she was telling the truth again. I was getting nothing but the truth from every angle, just like I had been getting for the majority of my life. However, I had always chosen to accept some of those truths and act on them, while ignoring the others. That’s the way it is with a lot of people.

I broke down and admitted it to my mother. “I know, Mom. It’s already been on my mind. Trust me.”

“So what are you gonna do about it then?” she asked me.

I wasn’t prepared to answer that question yet.
Knowing
the right thing and actually
doing
the right thing were
miles
apart.