Single Mom

by Omar Tyree

  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.

  “I guess I’m gonna find out sooner or later. Ain’t that right?” I asked my mother with a grin.

  She didn’t see the humor in it. She started to shake her head and walk away to her room. “You should have known that when you first started going over there. I knew it from the first phone call she made!” my mother hollered from the narrow hallway. I was sure she did know. I knew it myself. Kim was a needful woman. It was another truth that I had ignored.

  I got over to Kim’s house an hour before work, to get my missing clothing together. Kim didn’t have too many words for me when I walked in. The silent treatment usually meant bad news. She was watching television on the couch with Jamal, and he was on his way to dreamland. He got reenergized when he saw me though.

  “Hey, J.D.,” he said to me. He was so tired that he tripped over his feet trying to get up and run to me. I told him to call me J.D. because that “Mr. Jay” stuff reminded me too much of “Bentley” on The Jeffersons.

  I scooped him off his feet and said, “Time for bed, little man.”

  He turned it into a game and tried to wrestle his way back to the ground, but by then I was halfway to his room. It’s amazing just how playful kids can be. I never remember Little Jay having so much energy. He seemed more reserved than the average kid. Jamal and Walter were high-energy boys. Young kids seemed to be getting more energy as we got closer to the year two thousand.

  I got Jamal ready for bed and asked him if he had done his homework. I had never asked him that before. Obviously, the conversation with my son was still fresh on my mind.

  Jamal said, “I wrote my name in cursive today.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, how do you spell it?” I asked him.

  “J-A-M-A-L.”

  “Okay, now what about your last name?”

  Jamal smiled and said, “L-E-V-O-R-E.”

  I was surprised. I thought he was about to spell B-O-O-K-E-R.

  Kim walked in on us and tucked her son into bed and kissed him good night on his forehead.

  “Good night, little man,” I told him as his mother clicked off the light.

  “Good night,” he mumbled to me.

  As soon as we walked out of his room, I asked Kim about her son’s name. “His last name is Levore?”

  “Yeah, that’s his father’s last name,” she told me.

  The next thing I knew, I was feeling jealous. Kim had given Jamal his father’s last name, and my only son didn’t carry mine.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked her. She was still moping around like she had an attitude problem.

  “Nothin’. I’m all right,” she grumbled. “I just expected a phone call from you, that’s all.”

  I shook my head. I had to get ready for work. I didn’t even want to go into that conversation. I had been on the move too much to stop and call Kim that day.

  I looked into the hallway closet and found my blue work shirt. It was the only one that was still clean. I had some serious washing to do.

  “You need to buy your own clothes hamper instead of throwing everything in trash bags,” Kim fussed at me.

  “All right. I’ll buy one tomorrow,” I said. I still wasn’t looking forward to any discussion on phone calls. I got dressed in a hurry and ended up with another ten minutes to burn before leaving for work. I was itching to ask Kim more about her son’s last name.

  I looked over at her sitting on the green couch and noticed that she was rolling up a fat joint.

  I asked, “Why you gotta do that tonight?” Her smoking was really starting to bother me. Kim seemed to smoke whenever she had a few hours to herself. It was a good thing they didn’t test urine at her job, because she would have been fired on the spot. Employers had been testing my urine for years. If I wanted to keep a job, I couldn’t even think about smoking weed anymore.

  She said, “Because I’m stressed out right now.”

  “Because of a damn phone call?” I snapped at her. I couldn’t believe that shit! Women can be so fucking petty sometimes!

  Kim stared at me. “Don’t raise your voice while my son is asleep. In fact, don’t raise your voice at me, period.”

  “Well, what about you smoking while your son is asleep?”

  “What about it? You see I got the fan on?” she answered me.

  “What if he woke up in the middle of the night or something, and caught you out here with a joint in your mouth?”

  Kim shook her head. “That boy sleeps like a brick, just like his father used to. You see how hard it is getting him out of bed in the morning.”

  I shook my head back. “You just don’t care about him, do you?”

  “What?!” she shouted. “Don’t tell me I don’t fuckin’ care about my son! Who do you think been raising him for six years?”

  “Why did you give him his father’s name then?” I asked her. It was a sneaky way to slip that question in there.

  Kim calmed down a bit. She said, “So I wouldn’t forget who did it.” It was just that simple to her.

  I asked, “Have
you had that many men?” She made it sound like she was some kind of whore. I didn’t like how that sounded at all.

  She said, “No, but I usually try and forget about the sorry-ass men I did have. That’s why I keep changing my phone books, to get rid of old numbers and fucked-up memories.” She smiled at me and took her first drag of the joint.

  I knew it was time for me to get out of there then. Kim was showing her true ghetto-bitch colors. I didn’t want to go to work smelling like weed anyway, but something stopped me from leaving. I walked over and grabbed the joint out of her hand and put it out in the ashtray.

  “What the hell are you doin’?!” she yelled at me.

  “Don’t raise your voice while your son is asleep,” I reminded her. Then I said, “Look, if you got something you want to say to me, then you settle that shit with me. Don’t sit in here smoking weed and getting attitudes if you’re not gonna express what you’re feeling about shit, because being high ain’t gon’ change a damn thing.”

  Out of the blue, Kim started laughing. I knew the weed couldn’t have gotten to her that fast. She said, “Oh, check you out. Mr. Righteous. As if you’re perfect.”

  “Yeah, but at least I’m trying,” I told her. “I thought that you wanted to try, too. That’s the only reason why I keep coming over here.”

  Kim dropped her head and got quiet on me. I guess she realized that she was wrong. She looked back up at me and said, “I’m doing the best that one person can do. Okay?” She looked at me real hard, as if I should feel guilty about something. And I did feel guilty. My son didn’t have my last name because I hadn’t been there for him. I guess I didn’t deserve it.

  I looked into Kim’s face and asked, “Are you giving up on me already?” It sure seemed like she was. It had been only a few months since we started seeing each other again.

  She answered, “I don’t know. Should I?”

  I thought about it. “Why would you?” I asked her.

  “Because I’m tired of the damn letdowns.”

  I nodded. I understood exactly how she felt. I was tired of being denied a job or being the first man laid off because of my jail record. “I didn’t give up on trying to find a stable job after getting out of prison,” I told her. “Just imagine how that shift felt, having to tell all these employers that I went to jail for armed robbery thirteen years ago.”

  Kim nodded to me. “Yeah, you’re right. That is tough.”

  “But what I’m trying to tell you, though, is that you can’t sweat the past, you just gotta keep pushing for your future. That’s how I was able to get back on the right track,” I told her.

  She said, “Well, answer this question for me then, Jay. Am I on that right track for you, or am I just a quick stop in the bushes?”

  Damn! I thought. She blew my mind with that question. I tried to answer it the best that I could. I said, “I would like for us to be on that same track, but you gotta be willing to work with me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard all that shit before,” she responded. “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about, I don’t need any more letdowns.”

  Then she stood up and started rushing me. “Go ahead to work, Jay. I don’t want you to be late on account of me. Just go ahead and do what you gotta do.”

  I didn’t like her rushing me out of the door like that, but she did have a point. I was nowhere near making a decision about where she and her son fit in my chaotic life. But I was starting to care about them, I just didn’t know how involved I wanted to be.

  The issues of family and fatherhood lingered on my mind for that entire night at work. I even decided to ask my boss, Roger, about it. He had been married to the same woman for twenty-five years. He was bragging that night about his son catching two touchdown passes and returning a punt for a touchdown in his third high school football game of the season.

  “How ’bout that, Jimmy? My boy’s making a name for himself even with that candy-armed quarterback throwing him the ball this year.”

  I smiled and said, “Yeah, I can’t wait for my son to start basketball season.”

  “You think he’s ready for varsity this year?”

  “Yeah, he’s ready. I’m just wondering if Chicago is ready,” I bragged.

  “My boy has six touchdowns in three games already. If he keeps that up, he’ll end up with more than twenty for the season,” Roger responded.

  He was too energized about sports to talk about family affairs at the beginning of our night shift, so I waited until later on when things were winding down.

  I caught him in his office after six in the morning. “Hey, Roger. Can I talk to you about family for a minute?”

  He looked at me surprised for a second. Outside of our sons and sports, we never even mentioned family. “Yeah, why not?” he answered me. “What kind of problems are you having?”

  I didn’t want to go right into talking about my situation, I just wanted to talk about families in general. I asked, “Well, what do you think about the American family in general? Is it strong, weak, or what?”

  He looked at me and said, “Actually, it stinks. I think America has too many people more concerned about themselves. We spend too much time talking about raises, overtime, advanced degrees, better neighborhoods, and all that other hoopla for the sake of the children, but we’re actually spending less and less time as a family unit. That’s the reason why I took this night-shift position three years ago, so that I could see my boys play in the prime time of their lives, high school. Because once they go off to college, they’re gonna start becoming their own persons, and everything they do in sports then will be recorded on tape anyway.”

  I thought about Neecy not being able to make it to many of our son’s basketball games, and about the two of us as a couple.

  “What do you think about couples today, you know, just men and women?” I asked him.

  “Well, it’s all the same thing to me. If you grow up in a household where overtime and five degrees were a priority, they end up being a priority with you. So we have a bunch of kids today who get married and never have any time to really enjoy each other’s company. That’s what love and marriage should be all about, enjoying each other’s company, not income, stocks and bonds, and what preschool Junior’s gonna go to. You know what I mean?”

  There was no way I could see myself climbing back into the picture with Neecy, so I thought about Kim and my situation with her. “And what do you think about single mothers?” I asked.

  Roger looked at me and paused for a second. “Well, Jimmie, I don’t know what your situation is with your son’s mother, but there shouldn’t be any single mothers if you ask me. I had a great uncle right here in Chicago who married a woman with four children. And my father told me that he thought to himself, Why in the world would Uncle John do something crazy like that? But you know what, my father told me that all of those kids loved Uncle John like he was the only father they ever had. And at the end of the day, Uncle John was a very proud man who could stand tall as an example of what a good man should be. He didn’t get all into the ego of having kids of his own, as long as he was able to contribute a piece of his soul and goodness to developing decent human beings. And now he has a truckload of decent, God-fearing grandchildren. And they are all my good cousins.”

  I figured there was nothing in the world I could say to rationalize my situation to Roger. I decided to keep my mouth shut. I was tempted to ask him what kind of woman his uncle had married. I doubt if she was as heart-worn as Neecy and Kim were. I hate to stereotype, but it seemed like white women took things a lot easier than black women did. Maybe they were less opinionated, and they didn’t have the baggage of society repeating how strong they were supposed to be. It was as if America was telling black women that they didn’t need a black man because they were so damn strong on their own! My mother wasn’t strong enough to keep her three, hardheaded boys from getting into all kinds of trouble in the streets, nor were many other black mothers. Most of the guys I did tim
e in jail with never even mentioned having a father in their lives. I never thought of it that way before, but it looked like a setup to keep black men and women apart while weakening their families.

  I kept debating whether Kimberly Booker was worth being with, considering her smoking and attitude problems, while there I was, a onetime convict, who was getting a second chance on his own life. Who was I to be so picky? I was a straight-up hypocrite, getting myself a second chance while denying one to Kim.

  I thought, Yeah, maybe Roger is right, the American family stinks! And I could smell the stench all around me.

  True Companionship

  ENISE called me over to her house after midnight, so I knew that whatever it was, it was important. I didn’t have to work the next day, so I rushed right on over to Oak Park, planning on staying up with her all night if I had to.

  When I pulled up to her door, Denise was waiting for me on the front steps with the lights out.

  “Is everything okay?” I whispered to her. She obviously didn’t want to draw any attention to herself.

  “I just needed to talk to you in person tonight,” she told me as we stepped inside and quietly closed the door. I followed her to the family room where a very dim lamp was left on.

  “Is Walter doing all right?” I asked her. Denise had told me about her son’s incident at school. I figured that had a lot to do with her distress.

  “Yeah, he’s okay. They let him back in school and apologized to him. I’m just concerned about whether I should take the school to court or not?”

  I wanted to get all of the facts before I agreed or disagreed with her. I asked, “How much are we talking?” We took a seat on the sofa.

  “Between two and eight million,” she answered.

  I nodded. That was all the facts I needed to hear. If her boys weren’t asleep, I would have even whistled. Two to eight million dollars was a considerable amount of money!