Single Mom (33 page)

He said, “This shit ain’t funny, man. I mean, this girl is
fine. Fine
fine! I’m just not ready to be somebody’s daddy.”

Larry was getting close to thirty himself, and I was about to reach the forty mark. How old did we need to be before we were “
ready
” to become fathers?

I immediately thought about Denise and
her
sons’ fathers. I said, “You know what, Larry? I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. It seems to me that a lot of us black men need to grow the hell up. I mean, we come up with all kinds of stupid-ass excuses, even with ‘
fine
,’ educated,
good
women, to run like a damn ghost is after us when it comes to being a father.

“When is this shit gonna stop, man?” I asked him rhetorically. “Because evidently, this sister wasn’t ?
fine’ enough
for her baby’s father not to leave, if
you’re
in the picture so soon.”

I was really worked up, thinking about all of the struggles that single mothers had to go through to raise kids without a steady man around to help them.

Larry just stood there and nodded his head to me. Then he looked at me and said, “He’s dead, man.”

I was confused. I asked, “Who’s dead?”

“The baby’s father. He got hit in the chest by a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting. He was visiting family in Gary, Indiana.”

“Hmmph,” I grunted. “That’s another thing,” I commented. “Some of these sisters have to stop choosing to be with these knuckleheads out here.”

Larry shook his head at me. He said, “Naw. This guy was a straight college boy, working for a master’s degree. They were making plans to get married when it happened.”

I calmed myself down, feeling like a fool for jumping to conclusions. “I guess I owe the brother an apology then,” I said. “So, how do
you
feel about all of this?”

Larry gave me a blank stare. “What do you think I’m talking to you for? I mean, I’ve met her family and
everything
now. It looks like I’m stepping right in as the good brother who takes over the family. But I feel like I need to slam on the brakes for a minute. You know what I’m sayin’?”

I began to smile again. I said, “Trust me, brother, all kinds of things are gonna run through your mind before it’s all over with. It damn sure has with me.”

He said, “Yeah, this sister told me she’s never been without a boyfriend since she was fourteen.”

“How old is she now?”

“Twenty-four?”

“And she’s been with this guy for ten years?”

Larry frowned and responded, “Naw, man. She’s just fine enough to pick right up where she left off,” he answered with a chuckle. Then he got serious again. “She was with this last guy for three years. He didn’t even get to see his daughter’s birth. And I’m the first guy that she’s dated since.”

I thought about all of the different emotions involved in Larry’s situation. All I could do was shake my head and mumble, “Damn!”

Larry nodded. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

I said, “And you still got involved,
knowing
all of this?” It didn’t seem like the Larry that
I
knew.

He said, “Honestly, the shit just happened. I was on a panty chase like the next man, and then
wham
, she just laid it all out on me.”

“She didn’t tell you up front?” It was getting more interesting by the minute, and both of us had to be going.

“She basically needed some companionship, if you know what I mean. But she didn’t want just anybody, so I guess I said all the right things to her.”

I couldn’t imagine that. Larry was no Casanova. I guess the girl was just in the cards for him to handle. “So she went from a master’s degree to a truck driver, hunh?” I asked, teasing him. Larry had rode me enough about the oil-and-water thing. I felt it was ironic that he was finding himself in the same situation.

He smiled and said, “Naw, she’s just a nice girl from a nice family. She’s not into all of those degrees and whatnot. She liked this guy
before
he decided to do all of that. She just wants a nice, caring man.”

I nodded with an even bigger grin. “And she considers
you
‘a nice,
caring
man’?” I asked.

“I guess so.”

I said, “Yeah, you’re in trouble now, brother. It’s time to grow up,
for real!
This is a sign from God.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” he said. “But we
all
got that good man in us. It just takes a while for him to come out. So maybe this
is
my sign. And if it is, then I got to thank God for giving me a
fine
one!”

I shook my head. I asked, “How come you’re so stuck on this
fine
thing?”

Larry looked at me as if I was crazy. He said, “Wait a minute. Now your woman is fine, right?”

I saw where he was going with it and cut him off. “Yeah, but that’s beside the point. I got into her because of her knowledge, her inner strength, maturity, and everything else about her.”

“But
initially
, you were attracted to her
physically
. Am I right? Remember, I was there when you met her,” he reminded me.

I started to smile. A vision of Denise’s fine self in her charcoal suit at the McCormick Center flashed in my mind.

Larry said, “Shit, man, women talk that stuff all the time: ‘Why I gotta be all of that?
You
ain’t all of that?’ It’s simple to me, because when you finally make that decision to settle down, you want to make sure that you got all you need in the looks department
at home
. Otherwise, you’ll be thinking about every fine woman who passes you by in the street. And that shit is torture.”

“Larry, that’s maturity again,” I told him. “Because no matter how fine you
think
this girl is, there’s
always
gonna be somebody finer!”

Larry smiled. “Yeah, I understand that,” he responded, “as long as I don’t have to see a finer woman every day. Because if
that
ends up being the case, then I gots to come home and tell my lady to get
her
act together! You know what I’m sayin’, Brock?”

I shook my head and grinned. I just didn’t know what to do with Larry. But we both had to get back to our trucks and hit the road.

I said, “Hey, man, we need to have a part two of this. Maybe even a part three. So if you need to talk to me some more, you just let me know.”

Larry said, “Oh, I will. You can count on that.”

We said our good-byes and climbed into our trucks. Larry had given me a hell of a lot to think about. I felt like a woman watching a soap opera. I couldn’t wait to hear his next episode. It seemed like the older
you got, the more drama there was. And to think that
teenagers
thought
they
knew everything. Shit, they had a
long
way to go!

I headed for Interstate 57 South to Champaign, and had an urge to call Denise on my cell phone before I could travel thirty miles. She decided not to sue Walter’s junior high school, and to settle things out of court. I couldn’t blame her. Many people hear about dramatic money cases in the beginning proceedings, but rarely do they ever hear reports on what happened years later, and they were
not
all happy endings.

Denise was looking out for the integrity of her family’s future, and I respected her for that. She wanted both of her boys to appreciate succeeding because of their hard work and not by default. Many irresponsible people would have simply run with the money, despite the long-term harm it could have caused to their family. Lifestyles can be easily complicated with an unexpected boost of wealth, and much of that new money can be taken for granted, especially if you never learned how to earn it. Denise made perfect sense. Then again, I figured her career in finance would have made her the perfect recipient of any extra monies. I couldn’t imagine her wasting anything.

Before I knew it, I found myself on the phone with her. “Are you extra busy right now?”

“Yes, but I can call you back on my lunch hour.”

“One o’clock?”

“One o’clock.”

“All right, then. I’ll make sure to get myself ready by twelve fifty-five,” I told her.

“Yeah, you do that.”

I hung up and felt an urge to call her right back and tell her that I loved her. Larry got me thinking about my own level of commitment, and I came to the conclusion that I actually
did
love Denise. I loved her not only in a man-to-woman way, but in a spiritual, purposeful way, where no lust was involved. She was just a great person, trying to fight and win the battle of life. So I got right back on that phone.

“Denise, it’s me again.”

“Okay, I can see that,” she answered with a chuckle. “Did you, ah, forget something?” she asked me.

Perfect
, I thought to myself. “Yeah, I forgot something,” I told her. “I forgot to tell you that I love you.”

Right after I said it, I started feeling anxious, as if I shouldn’t have.
Was I pushing the buttons too fast again?
That was exactly what I was
concerned about not doing. Immediately, I started trying to explain myself:

“And what I mean by that is—”

Denise cut me off and said, “You don’t have to explain it. I understand. And I feel the same way.”

I was surprised when she said that. “About everything?” I asked, just to make sure that we were on the same page.

“About everything,” she answered. “But we’ll talk about it at lunchtime. Okay?”

I said, “Okay, yeah, ’cause you have business to take care of. I’m sorry. I lost my head for a second.”

“
I
don’t think so,” Denise responded. “I think that you’ve found it, and I’ve found mine. So one o’clock.”

“One o’clock,” I repeated.

I hung up the phone and didn’t know what to do with myself. I needed a damn drink to calm my nerves.
What the hell did I just do?
I asked myself. I felt good about telling Denise I loved her, but also confused. Did she tell me that she loved me in code simply because she had someone in her office and she didn’t really want to discuss it? Was she going to tell me that she loved me again when I talked to her at one o’clock? Were we finally going to decide on where we were heading in our hold-tightly-and-release-again relationship? I was a nervous wreck! I asked myself,
What the hell happened to all of the confidence I once thought I had with this woman?

Suddenly, I began to smile. It was a beautiful and sunny day outside, the end of September. I had just told my young friend, Larry, that black men needed to grow up and smell the coffee in regards to committed relationships and fatherhood. And I assumed that I would be taken to the test when Denise called me later on that day. But I felt as if I was ready. I was ready to go to that next step, to be a happily committed man
and
a father, whether they were my kids or not.

As fate would have it, when it came time for my important phone call, I was in the middle of a traffic jam. I needed to radio Dispatch to inform them of the situation and to find another route to take if I needed to. Sometimes it took three and four conversations to straighten everything out. I didn’t need that in the middle of my talk with Denise. But that’s life for you. Not much comes by easily.

“What’s going on?” Denise asked me. She heard the racket in the background as soon as I answered the phone.

“There was a three-car accident that they’re trying to clear up on 57 South,” I told her. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, so I didn’t expect too many interruptions. I was only running thirty minutes behind schedule.

“So, you feel the same way that I feel about you?” I asked her. I tried to sound as lighthearted about it as I could, while still getting down to business.

“I feel
exactly
how you do,” she answered. “I’ve had to do a lot of thinking lately, and I can’t lie to myself anymore about what I want.”

“And what is it that you want?” I was cool, calm, and collected, sitting high in my Volvo White tractor in the middle of traffic on 57 South.

Denise said, “I want someone to share my love, my struggles, my good times
and
my bad times with without feeling guilty about it. I want to be able to live my life without apologizing for wanting to be with a man. And I no longer want to lie to myself by saying that I
don’t
need one. We
all
need each other in different ways to make our lives complete whether we like it or not, and I’m just now coming to grips with that reality.

“The question is, ‘Are
you
willing to deal with the realities that I have?’”

“No, the real question is, ‘Are
you
willing to allow me that opportunity?’ Because
I’ve
been ready for that for a while. I understand that you have two sons, and they have living fathers, but up to
this
point you were not willing to allow me a chance to integrate myself into the pot.”

“But I did do that,” she responded. “If I hadn’t, you would have never gotten so close to my sons. I mean, you’ve eaten dinner with us
plenty
of times!”

“Yeah, but that was all under the guise of your ‘friend.’ Now am I right or am I wrong?”

“Well, what else was I going to call you?” she asked.

She had a point, and I had no answer. We both went silent while I was caught up in traffic.

“How do things look on the road now?” Denise asked, as if reading my mind.

“It doesn’t look much better. I got another mile or so before I reach the accident.”

We were casually getting away from the subject. There was no easy
way of closing out the conversation without coming to some conclusion, I just didn’t know what that conclusion would be.

I spoke up first, like the traditional man had been trained to do. “So, now that we have all of this out in the open, what’s next?”

Denise said, “Well, I believe I need to reintroduce you to my sons as my companion, and more than just my friend.”

“Do you feel comfortable with doing that?”

“Well, it’s not as if they didn’t already have their assumptions about it. We’ve talked about it.”