Single Mom

by Omar Tyree

  I said, “When is gonna be the right time to talk about this? I mean, you said you wanted all of me, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to force you to do nothin’.”

  She kept repeating that as if she really could force me to do anything. If that was the case, it would be a lot less single mothers walking around.

  I said, “Trust me, Kim. You’re not forcing me to do anything. I’ve been forced to do things before, and I know the difference.”

  She calmed down and asked, “Was it tough being in there?” She was referring to my prison time without using the word around her son.

  I said, “Now, you know I don’t have to answer that. We’ve talked about this a hundred times.”

  She looked at her son and said, “Well, could you make sure that he knows. I don’t want him ever to go in a place like that.”

  When she mentioned that, I thought about my own mother. You had to be strong and consistent with your boys, leading by example, like Neecy was doing with both of her sons. You could never be passive while sounding like you’re on the job. Kids always notice the inconsistencies. Maybe my mother’s fussing while overprotecting her boys was not the right way to go, because in the end, she couldn’t protect us, and all of her fussing fell on deaf ears.

  I thought about Jamal, Little Jay, and Neecy’s other son, Walter. “Oh, he won’t be in there,” I answered Kim. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” And I meant that! It was too many black boys being sent away from society already. I guess that’s because society didn’t want to make room for them in the first place.

  I went with a sudden urge to wrestle Jamal down to the couch, where I held him tightly. Of course, he thought I was only playing with him, so he wrestled me back. In actuality, I was telling him, as well as myself, that I would take on the job of trying to secure him a healthier future than the past that I had.

  Kim smiled at us and said, “Well, I have to get ready to go. We’ll talk about this over the weekend. Okay? I’m just really surprised right now, that’s all. I have to get all of my thoughts in order.”

  I smiled back at her. I knew exactly how she felt. I had dodged many bullets the same way. I said, “All right, you do that then. That’ll give me a chance to get my thoughts in order, too.”

  Kim looked at me and nodded. “Okay. So that’s how we’ll do it then. We’ll both think it over.”

  After she walked out the door, it was just me and Jamal, face-to-face and all alone for the first time. I immediately thought about his future as a black man in America. Black men were not ready-made mules to the workforce like many women had become. It was in the average man’s nature to have a say in his livelihood, and without it, most men went to self-destruction, like my father and his health, and Neecy’s father with his drinking. Men have an innate desire to feel as if they are in control of something. In America, few black men had control over anything. So how in the hell could black boys survive without going to jail and joining in the madness of feeling caged? We felt caged whether we had freedom or not, because we had no control over anything. I thought about how difficult it would be to save Jamal from that terrible fate of powerlessness with no real power of my own. Yet I had to try anyway, and see if I could make a difference.

  “So what do you want to do first, little man?” I asked him.

  “Um, we can go get my haircut, and then we can go to the movies?”

  “The movies? To see what?”

  “I want to see that dinosaur movie again. I saw it with my mom. It was scary.”

  “Jurassic Park? That’s not out anymore. We could see if they have it out on video.”

  “Okay. And then we could make some popcorn,” he suggested.

  I never liked popcorn. I hated it getting stuck in my teeth. “If we make popcorn, I’ll let you eat it all by yourself.”

  Jamal was in love with that idea. “Oh, all right,” he told me.

  “So what barbershop does your mom take you to?”

  “My grandmom takes me to one on Madison Street.”

  Madison Street ran straight through the West Side, and all the way out to the suburbs. There was plenty of activity going on, too, all night long on that street, and much of it was illegal. I knew that personally. I had been there. There had to be at least ten barbershops on Madison, but I had an idea of which one Jamal’s grandmother took him to. Kim had mentioned the place to me before.

  I nodded. Sometimes I had to remind myself that I was actually talking to a six-year-old. Jamal had seen a lot in his six years, and he seemed to know all of the answers. He spoke with a lot of clarity, too. When Little Jay was his age, I got a bunch of shoulder hunching and “I don’t knows.” Maybe Neecy was just as negligent with Little Jay in his earlier years as Kim was being with Jamal. It didn’t help much that I wasn’t there to do my part, or Jamal’s father not there to do his. We were definitely negligent! Yet some kids were much harder to ignore than others. Jamal Levore was the hard-to-ignore type. I wondered if his father had ever spent any quality time with him.

  “You ever go to the movies with your father?” I asked him. It seemed real easy to talk to him.

  He said, “No. I don’t like him. He’s mean. And he don’t buy me toys for Christmas, and for my birthday.”

  I chuckled. “Buying toys isn’t the only thing that fathers do.”

  “I know, but he’s just mean, and he always tells my mom that he don’t want to watch me.”

  I felt like an iron crowbar had slapped me across my face. How could a kid talk so freely about his father’s negative attitude toward him? Jamal seemed unaffected by it. But I knew that he had to be affected. There was no way he couldn’t be. However, his willingness to talk about it would benefit him in the sense that someone could always reach him. All you had to do was ask and listen.

  I thought about my own son and had to be honest with myself. With Little Jay’s passiveness, it was a damn good thing that he grew so tall and mastered the art of basketball. Otherwise, he would have been a really hard kid to reach. Basketball was bringing a lot of attention to him, even my own.

  I went out on a limb and asked Jamal if he liked me.

  He looked up at me and smiled. “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “Because you’re fun,” he told me. He didn’t miss a beat.

  “What if I wasn’t fun?”

  He finally paused and gave me the hunched shoulders. “Then I wouldn’t like you.”

  I laughed and stood up to get ready to go. “Well, I’ll make sure that I’m fun so you’ll always like me. But you have to listen to me when I tell you to do something, too. Is that a deal?”

  He nodded, standing up beside me. “Yeah.”

  “All right then, let’s shake on it,” I told him. I extended my hand, and he shook it. “Now, let’s go get this haircut.”

  As soon as I stepped outside with Jamal and rounded the corner for the bus stop, I spotted Barry, the weed man. He was cruising by in the passenger seat of a black Ford Explorer. He rolled down the window and smiled at us.

  “I see you’re becoming a family man. How you like it?”

  I thought about it. “It’s something we all need to get used to,” I said.

  Barry nodded. “Tell me about it. I got three of ’em myself.”

  “Do they know you?” I asked him. In the 1990s, it seemed like a sad but relevant question to ask a brother.

  Barry said, “You damn right they know me.” He seemed offended by it. But I didn’t care about his feelings. Brothers had more ego than character sometimes. Not to say that I had made a full turnaround, but at least I could see the difference in the two words.

  I asked Barry, “Do they really know you, like on an everyday basis?”

  Barry smiled and shook his head. “Man, I ain’t around them every day like that. I got business to take care of. But they do know me. I’ll see you around. Aw’ight?” he said in a hurry. Then his young driver pulled off. Barry caught
me at the wrong time and had jumped on the wrong subject. I knew damn well he didn’t spend any time with his kids. The only reason he even mentioned them is because he saw me with Kim’s son.

  When Jamal and I caught the bus to Madison, I noticed how people treated me with a lot more compassion. They were all willing to give me a helping hand with him, and they were a lot more talkative than usual. I don’t believe I paid much attention to that when I was with my own son years ago. I began to wish that I could do it all over again. Then I realized that I was doing it all over again with Jamal.

  One woman even asked me, “He looks more like his mother?”

  Jamal had them small eyes like his mom’s, and a pretty-boy face. I nodded and said, “Yeah, he looks just like his mom.”

  That made me want to have another son who looked more like me. Little Jay didn’t. He only had my brown skin and my height. Then again, Neecy’s father was tall and dark brown, too, so that wasn’t even something I could brag about.

  I kept thinking, This is just what I get. No passing down of my last name, no looks or nothing. All I had was the first name Jimmy and the skill of basketball to relate to with my son. Hell, any kid could learn to play basketball. Nevertheless, Little Jay loved me. That brought a smile to my face. I figured if I hung around long enough, Jamal Levore would learn to love me too. That bought an even bigger smile. Imagine that, a kid who wasn’t even your son growing to love you because of what you were willing to do for him, and the quality time that you spent with him. It was the same code that I had learned from being in the Gangster Disciples. The older guys looked out for the younger guys like real fathers should. However, once the love for money got to be too high of a priority, all kinds of loyalties began to be tested. As the saying goes, “Money changes everything.”

  I didn’t even know most of the new guys coming through, nor did I want to know them. I was leading a totally different lifestyle. I was never a hard-core gang member anyway, I was simply misguided, like most of them are, desperately seeking something to belong to.

  I got to the barbershop with Jamal, and a few of the barbers knew who he was already.

  “Hey, Jamal. Where’s your grandmother?”

  “At home,” he answered.

  All eyes were on me, as if to say, “Who the hell is this guy that you’re with?”

  I asked Jamal, “Who’s your favorite barber?” to break the ice.

  Jamal looked around and spotted this short, young guy with low-cut hair. He had the look of a young slickster. He had gold rings on both of his pinky fingers and a gold chain around his neck.

  “Hey, Short Dawg. You next. Aw’ight?” he said to Jamal.

  The older barbers in the shop started grumbling about the youth connection.

  “Man, we gon’ have to fire him if he keep taking all our customers away. That boy ain’t even got no mouths to feed yet?”

  “I got one on the way,” the slickster commented.

  “Oh yeah? And what do you plan on doing about that?” another one of those older barbers asked him.

  “I’m gon’ take care of him.”

  “Who said it was a him?” somebody asked. We all started laughing. I don’t think women will ever understand how men feel about boy babies. Even if you don’t take care of them, brothers are always pressed to have those hardheaded boys.

  “The doctor told me,” he answered. “So you next in my chair, aw’ight, Short Dawg?” the slickster said to Jamal again. I didn’t like that nickname that he kept using. Those nicknames were an easy way of being sucked right into the gang crowd. The wrong people start being attracted to you simply because of the name. In fact, that’s one of the first things police ask you when you get booked for jail: “Do you have any other names or aliases that you go by?”

  Jamal nodded his head and said, “Okay.” He was obviously impressed with the young barber’s coolness. I used to be impressed by those slicksters when I was young, too. So were my brothers. We all wanted to grow up and be slick ourselves one day. I learned my lesson the hard way about following those guys. A lot of them slicksters weren’t the best examples to follow. I was wondering if that young barber had something going on outside of the barbershop, if you know what I mean. Maybe he had a little extra money action in illegal pharmaceuticals.

  One of the older barbers was finished with a customer before the younger guy was, so I told Jamal to go ahead and get his haircut. It was perfect timing to get him away from a flashy influence. I wanted Jamal to learn how to honor and respect the hardworking older men who were not as concerned about flash and fast money.

  Jamal pouted and said, “I want to wait for him,” referring to the young guy again.

  I got hip on him and said, “If we want to make the movies on time, then we have to be out of here as fast as we can.”

  Jamal cheered right up. “Okay.”

  Mission accomplished, I told the older guy to give him a close fade and a shape-up.

  The younger barber gave me a look as if I was taking money out of his pocket. I said, “No offense to you, man, but we have to split.”

  He shook it off, just like a slickster would. “Oh, no problem. I’ll just get ’em next time.”

  When we walked out of the barbershop twenty-five minutes later, Jamal asked, “So what movie are we gonna see?”

  I had forgotten all about it. I thought fast and said, “Well, we can go down to the Navy Pier and see what they got playing. I think they have the Children’s Museum down there, too.”

  He got real excited about that. I wanted to go to the Navy Pier on the waterfront for a while, I just hadn’t gotten the opportunity to go. So I waved down a cab and got us a ride. Of course, once we got there, Jamal was more concerned about the Children’s Museum. It was a good thing it was a Thursday night, too, because the museum usually closed at five o’clock, and we got down there closer to six. I had no idea. So by the time we finished looking around at all of the attractions inside the museum, it was too late to catch a movie. They all started at around eight o’clock. That meant that the movie wouldn’t have ended until after ten, and we wouldn’t have made it back home until close to eleven. That would have been cutting it too close for me to make it to work in time. Besides, I didn’t think it was right to have a six-year-old out that late on a school night anyway.

  “Let’s get a video movie then,” Jamal said while riding back to the apartment in a taxi.

  Unfortunately, I had forgotten to get the video card from Kim that day. Then we happened to pass a toy store that was still open downtown.

  “Hey,” I told the taxi driver, “you can let us out right here.” I figured we could catch a bus the rest of the way. There was no sense in wasting more money on another cab. The bus or train would do just fine.

  We went inside the toy store, and I knew exactly what I wanted to buy him: a mini basketball hoop. We walked right in, found one that was sturdy, and bought it. Since we were right downtown, we ended up catching the train back home.

  Jamal asked, “You’re gonna teach me how to play basketball?”

  I nodded. “If you do your homework,” I told him.

  “I do my homework,” he responded.

  “And you get straight A’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  I didn’t even know if he got grades yet, but he sure believed that he could get straight A’s. If he was serious about it, I’d help him on his way, if I could. I had no idea how rusty I would be in schoolwork after so many years of not having any. Living in capitalistic America, most grown folks knew how to count money, but beyond that, we could all use a touch-up here and there on a lot of things. It wasn’t only me who was rusty. I guess that’s why older folks love crossword puzzles so much, to keep their minds sharp. It wasn’t as if I was a brainiac to begin with. Nevertheless, I was up for the challenge of helping Jamal.

  We got back to the apartment and put the basketball hoop together. A lightweight plastic ball came with it. Jamal immediately started firing it up, and wa
s making most of his shots.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know how to play?” I asked him. I was impressed. The boy had good form with his shot. He had his elbow aimed at the basket and shot with good rotation and everything.

  He said, “I didn’t say I couldn’t play. I just wanted you to teach me to play better.”

  I couldn’t believe my damn ears! The boy sounded like a perfectionist! They were the best kids to teach because they were never satisfied. I used to be like that a long time ago, until I could finally beat Marcus playing. Once that happened, I started to get a big head when I should have kept working to improve my game, and my study habits.

  The next thing I knew, I started talking basketball and showing Jamal a few things. Kim walked in on us hours later. She looked at the basketball hoop, towering inside of the living room with all of her furniture pushed out of the way, and said, “What in the world?!” Then she looked at me and shook her head with half a smile. “So, y’all are in here just having a good time, tearing up my damn living room.”

  I laughed and asked her what time it was. I had taken my watch off once Jamal and I really got into things.

  Kim looked at her watch and said, “Quarter after eleven.”

  I was shocked! “Damn, I gotta get on the move then.” I had lost all track of time. Funny how it flies when you’re having fun. “I thought you said you would be here before eleven,” I complained.

  “I got tied up.”

  “Yeah, I bet you did.” I began rushing to get ready.

  “Well, I wasn’t the one who got all wrapped up in playing basketball,” Kim responded to me.

  Jamal asked, “We gon’ practice again tomorrow?”

  “After you do what?” I asked him.

  “Um, my homework.”

  “And get what in your school grades?”

  “A’s and B’s.”

  “But mostly A’s, if you can get them,” I told him.

  Kim looked at me, and she was impressed. “Well, isn’t this special,” she told me. “I don’t know what to say.”

  I said, “You save it for later, ’cause I gotta get out of here.” I grabbed my things together for work and was ready to head out. Then I told Jamal, “It’s time for bed, man. You’re up later than you need to be.”