by Omar Tyree
So there we were, two grown adults who had been dating for a year, and didn’t know the first thing about each other’s families.
I said, “How about that? You haven’t met any of my family members either. I have a couple of wicked uncles. One of them even led me into this truck-driving business.”
Denise laughed and said, “That sounds like a good place to start to me. Let’s get the tough ones out of the way first.”
I joked and said, “I’ll call them up tonight.”
“You do that.”
We made some more small talk before Denise had to run for a bite to eat, and I had to get back to my driving. I was hungry my-damn-self, but I had a schedule to make. However, my hunger for food could wait. My deeper hunger for love was more important to me, and for the time being, it had been satisfied. That made my driving with an empty stomach a lot easier to handle. Denise Stewart loved me, and she was no longer in denial. I felt like a man with a winning lottery ticket. And before I could blink, I had cleared the accident and traffic was moving full tilt again. Hallelujah!
November/December 1997
Basketball Season
was rushing with Jamal to make it to Little Jay’s first home basketball game at four-thirty. He scored 11 points and had five rebounds and two blocks in only sixteen minutes of their first away game. They won in a close one, 55-53. Little Jay scored some crucial baskets, and already the coach was willing to give my son, the freshman, more playing time. It was hard to keep a guy out at the high school level when he was 6′5″ and could play. That would have been like committing athletic suicide. Natural height was a hard thing to come by and very tough to make up for. Either a kid had the size and the ability to play against tough competition, or he didn’t. My son had what it took, physically and mentally.
I paid six dollars for both of us to get in. Jamal and I slid through the gym doors and marched up into the stands to find ourselves some good seats at half-court. We had only missed the tip-off, and no one had scored yet.
“Which one is Little Jay?” Jamal asked me. With me talking about my son so much, Jamal was as eager to see him play as I was. It would be the first time that the two boys would meet each other since I had taken on the role of becoming Jamal’s guardian, so to speak. I promised to take him to every home game with me.
“He’s number forty-four in white,” I answered.
Jamal looked around and said, “I don’t see number forty-four.”
Damn, this kid is sharp! I thought to myself. I smiled and said, “He didn’t get in yet. He’s on the bench right now.”
“Oh. So, when does he get in?” Jamal was about to start up with his million and one questions. I didn’t mind it though. At least he would make good company.
I said, “As soon as his team starts losing.”
This older white guy who was sitting in front of us turned and looked at me with a grin. “You’re talking about Jimmy Stewart?” he asked me.
“Yeah, that’s my son,” I told him. I was the proudest man in the gym!
He nodded. “Your kid has a game. I saw him play in the summer leagues. If he keeps his grades in order, he’ll be going Division 1 in four years.”
I chuckled, but I didn’t like the sound of that. It was as if that white man was expecting my son to have academic problems. I spoke up and said, “Yeah, he’ll be ready. He’s right at a three point oh grade point average now.”
The white man nodded his head again. “If he can maintain that or do better, and score over nine hundred on his boards, he’ll be raring to go. I figure by his senior year, he can put up twenty-four points, grab fifteen boards, and get five blocks a game. And this is a good school to do it in. It’s well respected in the college circles academically.”
I started wondering if that guy was a college scout. He made everything sound so mechanical, as if we were talking about experimental machinery or race cars. I hated when guys talked about high school sports like that. Those damned newspaper and magazine writers were the worst! They used to write nothing but negative stuff about me. “He needs better footwork and ball handling. He doesn’t really have a shot, he’s more of a scorer than a shooter.” I averaged 18 points, seven rebounds, and three steals a game, but I guess that wasn’t good enough to get any respect from those guys. And the thing that got me was that none of them could play. However, that was how the system looked at these kids, as names, numbers, and future projects. That white guy had definitely taken my mind off the game. I started drifting off again, thinking about my own years of high school ball and how I had messed up my opportunity to be a name and number.
I snapped out of it when Jamal finally shouted, “Little Jay is getting in! Dag, he don’t look little to me!”
I started to smile and got my head back into the game. My son’s team was down 18-7 at the start of the second quarter. As soon as Jay got in, he blocked a shot, ran the floor, and got an alley-oop dunk at the other end. The fans went wild! But I hoped my son wouldn’t become a dumb jock. He was already behind in school a year.
It was weird, sitting there at my son’s second high school game and thinking so negatively about his future. All of a sudden, all I could think about was his grades. I never thought that way before. Not seriously. When I talked about grades, I was basically going through the motions, even with Jamal. Most people would ask about school grades as if it was the weather, and then go right back to talking basketball. So none of us took academics seriously until it was too late.
After it was all said and done, Little Jay played twenty-two minutes off the bench, scored 16 points, pulled down eight rebounds, and blocked three shots while forcing a couple of steals. His team won another close one, 62-59. Their shooting guard, a 6′3″ senior, was the lead scorer with 21 points. He had 23 in their first game.
The white man sitting in front of me stood up and smiled. “A three point oh and a nine hundred on the SATs, and he’s definitely in.”
I was tempted to say a few harsh words to that guy for telling the truth so bluntly, but I thought against it. The truth needed to be faced and swallowed raw. I had done time in jail and had been away from my son for not dealing with the truth. The truth was that we all had responsibilities to take care of in order to make it in life, no matter what. I had to realize that every action in the world has a reaction, and every non-action has a consequence.
As fans began to flow out of the stands and made their way to the exits, Jamal and I waited for Little Jay inside of the gym while the teams changed back into their street clothes.
Jamal looked up at the basket and said, “I hope I can dunk the ball when I get big.”
I looked at him and said, “You have to work at it, just like anything else in life. The shorter you are, the harder you have to work.” That was like everything else in life, too. Nothing was fair and nothing was equal. I found myself in a real cynical state of mind that day, nevertheless, the facts were the facts.
Little Jay walked out of the locker room with a few of his teammates. Even though his high school was mostly white, there were only four white boys on the basketball team, and only one of them started. I guess that showed who was working the hardest at playing basketball. Most of those NCAA Division 1 colleges were white, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at their basketball teams. I used to swear up and down that Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., was a black university. They had an entire black basketball team, and a black coach, way back when I played ball. I even dreamed of going there.
I shook my son’s hand and said, “Good game, Jay. You’ll be a starter before the season is over with.”
He said, “Next game I’ll be starting.”
I smiled. “That’s pretty ambitious thinking.”
He said, “Naw, the coach told me already.”
When I thought about that, I was really pressed about his grades. He needed to get on the ball immediately if he was going to be a starter. A freshman starter would attract college scouts like a starting gun
at a track meet.
Jamal asked him, “Can you teach me how to dunk when I get big?”
Little Jay looked over at him. “It depends on how tall you get.”
I corrected him and said, “It depends on how strong your legs are. I’m sure a lot of these short track and gymnastic guys can dunk. A lot of football running backs can dunk, too, and they’re not the tallest guys in the world. They just have a lot of leg power to get up in the air.”
Jay nodded his head and agreed with me. “I got a white guy in my gym class who’s five-ten and can dunk with two hands. He’s not too good at basketball though. He plays soccer.”
I smiled. “See that? But we think that white boys can’t jump. They could jump if they worked at it.” I guess I was really getting into work ethics. That white man had done a job on me. But again, it was the oldest truth in the book: hard work pays.
I said, “So how are your grades looking, Jay?” I was so focused on talking to my son about his grades that I forgot to introduce him to Jamal. “Oh, yeah, this is my little man, Jamal Levore. I’ve been staying with him and his mother. This boy has skills already. And he’s smart.”
Little Jay said, “Oh yeah. He looks like a point guard.”
Jamal said, “That’s the guy who dribbles the ball, right, and passes inside? I can do that.” He was already picking up on what I had taught him, and studying the game well at only six years old.
Little Jay started laughing. “Yeah, he is smart.”
“So how are your grades looking?” I asked my son again.
“I’m trying to get a three point oh this semester,” he answered. We began to walk toward the exits.
“Aim for a three point five or something,” I advised him. “You always aim for the best. That way, if you don’t achieve your ultimate goal, you’ll still have something to be proud of. But if you get used to aiming low, you’ll be satisfied with too little, and start talking that ‘I got lucky’ stuff whenever you do better than you expected. You have to expect to do well. Ain’t that right, Jamal?”
“Yup. I’m gonna get straight A’s.” So far, he only had two B’s out of six grades. Yet, I took it for granted that Jamal would do well in school. It’s funny how that works. Once a kid shows a parent potential, they never let the child live it down. Yet, kids who need an extra push were always being carried along to the next grade without being challenged to do their best. That attitude in education circles needed to be changed from the parents and from the school system. All kids should be challenged to do their best. It was a sad situation that they were not.
It was also funny how my mind was changing. I was thinking like a damn nerd. But since I was no longer a kid playing the game of basketball, my understanding of academics was five times clearer. As the saying goes, If I knew then what I know now…
Once we made it out of the exit door, their star shooting guard hollered, “Aw’ight, Jay! I’ll catch you later, man!”
“Aw’ight, Speed!” Jay yelled back at him.
I got curious. I asked, “Is he going to college next year?”
“Yeah, he signed at Illinois already,” Jay answered excitedly.
“So his grades are good to go then.”
Jay said, “Yeah, his mom had him taking college courses during the summertime.”
I grinned. “Good idea. Maybe we need to do that with you.” Suddenly I had new respect for their star shooter, and for his parents. They had him on the ball.
I wanted copies of Little Jay’s report card, but I wasn’t going to ask him about it. I was planning on waiting to ask his mother. I couldn’t let the same thing that happened to me happen to my son, even if he had to sit out a year to focus on what he needed to do in the classroom. I’d rather him hate me early and love me later on than to be all lovey-dovey while he screwed up his grades and ended up not being eligible for college in four years.
Of course, Little Jay and Jamal were still talking about the game while we were on our way to the bus stop. All I could think about was the future and academics. It was beating in my head like a drum. I almost wished that I could trade places with my son and do the work for him. It’s amazing how hard some people can work when they mature and are given a second chance. Most young folks don’t understand how long this so-called short life can be if you make all the wrong decisions. Funny how times flies when you’re having fun, but when you make the wrong decisions, time just stands still. Too bad I had to go to jail before I realized it.
When we got to the bus stop, I looked to my son and asked, “Your mom told you what happened to my basketball career, right?” I had already told Jamal my sad story. But I didn’t want either one of them to pity me. I wanted them both to learn from my mistake and not make the same in their lives.
“Yeah,” my son answered. “She was just talking about it again last night.”
I nodded to him. “Good. Because neither one of us wants to see that same thing happen to you. You hear me? Neither one of wants to see that.”
Little Jay looked me in the eye like a man and responded, “Yeah, me either.”
I said, “All right then. You make sure that it don’t. Because this is your life, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I reached out to shake his hand again. “Okay then, son. That’s all I’m gonna say to you about it.”
I knew damn well that I was lying! That wasn’t all I was going to say to him. I planned to ride his talented ass for four years if I had to. I wanted to watch my son play ball in the NCAA tournament on a big-screen TV. Damn I wish he had my last name! Anyway, that wasn’t just my dream. To play in the sixty-four-team tournament was something I’m sure that my son wanted more than anyone. And after four years of playing college ball, if he made it to the pros, we would both be making it.
I had changed my mind about young guys going pro right out of high school. A lot of them needed the maturity of going through four years of college, not to mention learning the academic and life skills that they would need later on in their lives, even if they did go pro. I was tired of hearing about star dummies with money, and I damn sure didn’t want my boy to become one. Nor did I want him walking away from the game talking that coulda, woulda, shoulda garbage. There were a million guys walking around, talking that “I could have” shit. I know that for a fact, because I was one of them. So if my son loved the game of basketball like I thought he did, then I wanted him to be ready to do whatever he had to do to make sure he was able to play the game for as long as he wanted to play. For the guys who made it, I realized that it had more to do with attitude, and less to do with their talent. Because every baby out of the womb comes into this world with some kind of talent, yet it’s only those who take the extra steps they need to take to succeed who strike the gold.
When I got back to Kim’s place with Jamal, it was eight o’clock. To my surprise, Kim was stretched out on the living room couch watching television.
I looked at her and asked, “What happened at work?”
“I had a headache, so I came home early.”
“You took some Tylenol?”
“Yup.”
“How long you been here?”
“About twenty-five minutes.”
I took my jacket off and smiled. “So I guess we’re all here for the night,” I commented. It seemed like Kim and I were always running around doing our own separate things. I guess that’s how most working couples are. I didn’t know, because I had rarely been in a relationship long enough to find out. I had been like a revolving door with women, and with jobs.
Jamal ran over and grabbed his miniature basketball and tried to dunk it on the refrigerator.
“What the hell is wrong with you, boy?!” his mother yelled at him. Then she looked at me and said, “See, you’re the one who got him all crazy about this basketball. That’s probably why I have a headache now.”
I said, “Jamal, calm down and get something to drink.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
&n
bsp; “Well, get me something to drink then, and pour it in a big glass.”
I made room and sat down next to Kim on the couch, where I began to massage her feet.
She got into it and moaned, “Mmm, that feels good.”
I looked at her and smiled. I whispered, “Too bad the boy’s still up and I have to be to work soon, hunh?”
Kim said, “Tell me about it. I’ve been wanting you to change that damn night shift for a while now.”
That was news to me. Jamal brought me my drink, cherry Kool-Aid, filled to the rim. Then he spilled some of it while handing it to me.
“Watch what you’re doing, boy!” Kim yelled at him again.
I took a sip to level the drink off and shook my head. “Why do you have to holler at him so much,” I asked her.
“Because he’s hardheaded.”
“He listens to me without hollering.”
Kim looked at me and grinned. “That’s exactly why these hardheaded boys need their fathers around.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Jamal definitely listened to me more than he did his mom. If she learned how to control her emotions, he would have respected her as much as he respected me. It was the same way with my mother. I believe that had my father been around and healthy, my two brothers would still be alive. A lot of women wasted too much energy when trying to reprimand their sons with shouting and nickel-and-diming, which only showed their boys how powerless and frustrated they were. Since I was a boy once, I understood that the dramatic approach rarely worked. In fact, the less you said, the more they listened, as long as you were consistent about what you wanted from them. Fathers who overdid it found their sons ignoring them like they would a woman. I was going to make sure that would never be the case with me. I wasn’t going to stand for that shit! I had been through far too much in my life to be ignored. And I knew how to get a kid’s attention if I had to, but I didn’t want to take things to that harsh physical end. I wanted to use my mind and life experiences.
I felt more connected to Jamal by the minute. It made me feel good inside to be looked up to and respected so much without having to break somebody’s face in half. I figured it was a stronger example of a real man, one who could get respect without violence.