Single Mom

by Omar Tyree

  “No, you surrounded me with things. So I was always searching for love; love for myself, as well as love from others.”

  My father stopped eating and wiped his mouth. I knew what that meant; it was time to go to war!

  He said, “I know one thing, if he still doesn’t see all that we’ve tried to do for him, then we need to stop trying to force ourselves on him. And it’s a shame that kids are growing up to disrespect their parents like they’re doing nowadays. I guess the last days are really here.”

  Beverly held my arm at the table before I jumped up and hit the roof. My father was pulling himself from his chair. I said, “Good, let’s take a drive and get this thing settled.”

  He looked startled. I guess I had never stood up to him before. My mother was always in the way somehow.

  “It’s cold outside,” she complained, interjecting again. “You don’t need to be out there. We had to warm the car up for twenty minutes before we drove out here today.”

  I said, “We have coats. And we’re men.”

  My father nodded. “All right. Let’s talk then.”

  “Talk about what?” my mother insisted. “We can talk about whatever we need to talk about right here.”

  Beverly said, “It’s not a “we’ kind of talk, Mrs. Perry. It’s a father-and-son kind of thing.”

  My mother looked at her pregnant daughter-in-law, ready to respond, but thought better of it. My father and I then grabbed our coats and headed for the front door.

  “Well, how long are you going to be out there?” she asked.

  I looked at my father and answered, “As long as it takes.”

  My father looked at his watch and responded, “We’ll be back before six.”

  I didn’t look at my watch to see how much time that would give us because I didn’t care. I planned on driving my car, and I wasn’t letting my father out until I said everything I wanted to say to him.

  “Well, make sure you drive carefully. Okay?” my mother asked of us.

  “I will,” I told her. Then I gave Beverly a hug and a kiss. She gave me a quick stare. I said, “Okay. I remember.” She was telling me to keep my composure.

  As soon as I walked out the door and down into the garage with my father, he began to head for his car.

  I said, “We’re going to take my car.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Why aren’t we? I’m the one who decided to take this ride. Not you. So we should be using my car.”

  He looked over at my gray Lincoln and submitted without a word. I clicked the door open with the remote system so he could climb in, and walked over to the driver’s side.

  “Do you have temperature controlled seats?” he asked, rubbing his hands.

  “Yes, I do,” I answered.

  “Well, put it on.”

  “It is on. It has to warm up first.” The same way you have to warm up, I thought of commenting. My father had been like a statue for as long as I can remember. He rarely smiled, laughed, or seemed to enjoy himself. His life seemed to just drag along, with each new day presenting a new problem to solve.

  “What is it with you?” I asked him. “You’re a successful man, so what makes you so damn angry?” I thought of the conversation I had with my son at the Titan Hotel.

  “I’m not angry,” my father answered. “I’m just disappointed.”

  “Disappointed in what? In me?”

  He looked me in my eyes and said, “You should be disappointed in yourself.”

  “Well, I got news for you. I’m not disappointed,” I responded. “I think every day about finding new ways to enjoy my life. You need to learn how to do the same.”

  My father nodded. “Yeah, I see. You’re going to become like all the rest of them; laughing, drinking, and wasting their damn lives. I knew it all along. That’s just how you wanted to be, no matter what I tried to teach you. You went right out and got some damn girl pregnant.”

  “And I love my son,” I told him. It didn’t even bother me anymore. The reality of my son was his problem, not mine. I had done enough alienating, and I wasn’t planning on doing it anymore. My entire life had been about alienation, from my parents, from the black community, from women I was attracted to, and from the world in general. I just never felt a part of anything. And I didn’t want to feel that way anymore.

  “These illegitimate kids are the main ones out here doing crime, going to jail, and just screwing up the image of hardworking, good black folks,” my father snapped.

  I said, “And that’s exactly what I don’t want my son to add to. That’s why it’s so important for him to be loved and accepted by his father and his grandfather, instead of being frowned on and shunned.”

  My father looked away, feeling guilty. He knew that he was wrong. “And what about his mother? What kind of woman is she?” he asked me.

  “She’s a hardworking, successful businesswoman who cares very much about her sons. But you never gave her a human chance. You wrote her off without ever even meeting her.”

  He looked at me and asked, “She has two of them, and both are out of wedlock, right?”

  He knew the answer already, so I ignored the question. “The point is, she hasn’t and will not give up on the struggle to raise her kids correctly, no matter how they got here. Nevertheless, she needs support from the men who helped create her children, just like black people need support from the greater white society who created their situation of underclass poverty.”

  “Junior, these nonworking, shiftless welfare folks created their own poverty by not sacrificing time and effort to get educated and dig themselves out of the pits of the ghetto,” my father responded. “Plenty of these poor white folks did it. And many of them were in the same situations that we were. Especially here in Chicago. Who do you think was the underclass when the stock markets crashed? Black folks didn’t have millions of dollars in it.

  “Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, a black man, founded Chicago, but now we’re the underclass!” he snapped. “It’s because we’ve stopped working hard and got used to somebody giving us something instead of going out and earning it. Now this woman laid down and spread her legs. You didn’t rape her, did you?”

  My father was as good at dramatic performances as my mother was. I said, “I may as well have raped her. I got her pregnant and walked away. That could be considered a rape; a rape of humanity, bringing a child into this world without the balance of the two people who created him.

  “That’s why it was so important for me to attend the Million Man March when I did. I needed to atone for the things I’ve done in my life. And I still do.”

  My father grunted. “Is that how you really feel?” he asked me.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Well, how come you didn’t marry this girl then?”

  “For the same reason that white folks won’t marry us. Plain ignorance,” I answered. “I was raised not to associate with her type, whatever that means, and so my involvement with her was only temporary, which wasn’t right.”

  My father looked away again. We drove in silence for a couple of miles. I always drove the same route when I needed to think to myself, along Lake Shore Drive, down and back again. It always soothed my mind.

  “You know, we never did talk much,” I commented. “It just seemed like you were telling me what or what not to do half of the time.”

  “That’s a father’s job, to give his son guidance. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do with your son?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “But at the same time, I’m just trying to be there for him when he needs me, to let him know that he’s not alone in the world, and that he can count on me to help him,” I answered. “I want to be able to talk about anything he needs to discuss with me. And it just doesn’t seem that you and I ever had that same type of relationship.”

  “That’s because you spent so much of your time trying to do the opposite of what I told you.”

  “Well, did you ever stop to think about su
pporting something that I wanted to do?”

  “I supported you all of your life,” he snapped at me.

  I got angry and snapped right back at him. “I’m not speaking about monetary support, what I mean is moral support! The kind of support where you sit down and say, ‘Look, son, whatever it is that you want to do, I’m behind you all the way. So I want you to put forth your best effort.’”

  I turned and glanced at him, awaiting a response. He smiled and nodded his head. He said, “I remember when I was about fourteen years old. My father asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I said that I wanted to go into politics and become the mayor. I thought it was a pretty good idea. And he said, ‘That’s a profession for beggars. If you want some real power, then you start up a strong industry, buy some property, build influence in your community, and then you’ll find that the mayor will work for you.’”

  That small reflection said a lot about my father, and about a grandfather whom I had never met. He had died of a heart attack the year before I was born. He was sixty-two years bid.

  I said, “So you’re still trying to find a way to control the mayor, and I guess you’ve found out that it’s not going to happen.”

  My father didn’t say a word. In a way, I felt sorry for him. However, maybe he was finally ready to understand my point of view. So I used the opportunity.

  “I don’t ever want to hold such an uncontrollable goal over my son’s head,” I told him. “All that can do is break a person’s spirit, or have them kill themselves trying to reach it.”

  “So what do you think, that you should settle for less?” he asked me.

  “Not necessarily for less, but for whatever will ultimately make you secure. Even if it’s an eight-dollar-an-hour job.”

  My father grunted. Maybe I should have said eleven dollars.

  He said, “That’s the reason why so many black people are in poverty now.”

  “No, we’re in poverty because we’ve been denied so many opportunities at higher-paying jobs, because of our color, that many of our kids have stopped reaching for higher goals as a reality. I mean, you even used white faces to meet and greet for your real estate business.”

  He saw my point and backed down a bit. “Even if they won’t give you an opportunity, you can still create your own method of making a better living. DuSable was a fur trader.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, and unfortunately, many black men have started to do exactly that with drug selling,” I responded. “Just like the Kennedys built their empire off bootlegging. But they didn’t end up in jail for it. And what I’m saying is that we’re going to have to find a way to make integrity count a lot more than salary.”

  “Hmmph. Good luck on that,” my father commented. “An honest man can still be a dirt-poor man.”

  I shook my head and frowned. There was a lot of baggage there between us, and so much to consider in regards to my misguided education about the world. Money and the drive toward power had always influenced my decision making, but after being reunited with my son, I wanted to be able to enjoy many of the smaller things in life, like playing miniature golf, tennis, and video games while sharing quality time with my son, my wife, and other loved ones.

  I said, “With the way things have been going between us, I’ve just come to the conclusion that we’re probably never going to agree on much. However, that does not give you grounds to disrespect the things I do or the people who I love. And as long as you respect that, that’s all I can ask from you. Because I’m a grown and responsible man just like you are. And if that means that you’d rather not be involved with my son, then I’ll keep you two away from each other.

  “But I’ll tell you this,” I added, “whether I have your support or not, my son is going to have an opportunity to succeed at whatever he wants to do, and I will be there to support him in it.”

  My father looked at me and asked, “Are you planning on attaching him to your estate?”

  I was surprised that he was asking. I answered, “Well, he is my son, isn’t he?” While we were on the subject, I asked, “Am I your son? Am I still attached to your estate?”

  My father nodded. “Of course you are.” He didn’t look at me when he said it, because he hated to admit that he needed me to continue the Perry legacy. I was his only child, and it became ironic to me how so many wealthy people of history had only a few, if any, heirs. Therefore, their wealth was either lost or separated between extended family members, which in my father’s case, weighed more heavily on my mother’s side of the family, who were not Perrys at all.

  “He seems like a smart boy,” he commented in reference to my son. “Maybe he could become something special.”

  I said, “He already is, and he always will be something special.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because his mother and I won’t have it any other way.”

  My father gave me another nod. “Maybe I can get used to him.” My son and I were all that he had, and he was painfully realizing it. My father needed to face the music and dance to it whether he liked the song or not.

  “Maybe you need to get used to him,” I told him, to nail the point home. “But from now on, it’ll be on his terms and not on yours. So if you want to relate to my son and get to know him, you’ll have to do so by participating in things that he likes to do.”

  “What does he like to do?” my father answered me.

  I leveled with him and said, “I’ve just begun to find that out myself. And that’s sad.”

  I didn’t have much to say after that. My father didn’t either. Nevertheless, I was pretty satisfied with the outcome of our talk. He realized that I was my own man, and that I was going to support my son whether he liked it or not, and since he grudgingly admitted that my son was indeed his grandson, I could finally come clean about Walter’s share of the Perry estate without so many insecurities about it. Then again, I could not help thinking that it would have been more manly, so to speak, to make my own way for myself and for my son without my father’s wealth. So despite my want and need to establish respect and independence, I was still playing the role of a legitimate “Junior.”

  “So how did things go?” Beverly asked me later on that evening. We were in bed again.

  “I’d say it was an eight out often,” I told her with a smile.

  “What would have made it perfect?”

  “Well, nothing is perfect,” I answered her. “It went a lot better than I expected it to go, actually. I expected a three out often.”

  “Mmm hmm,” Beverly hummed. She seemed preoccupied with something.

  “Is everything okay with you?” I asked her. I leaned over and rubbed her belly.

  “Ah, yeah, I’m okay.” Her hesitation meant that she wasn’t.

  “Now, I know that you know that I know you a lot better than that. Now what’s on your mind?” I teased.

  “Ah, I really don’t want to talk about it right now.” If it was bothering Beverly as much as it seemed, she was going to talk about it anyway. She had always been low-key in her response to things. Nevertheless, she always aired her concerns. So I sat and waited for the inevitable.

  “Your mother told me that your father had an affair once. She said he probably had more than one, but she’s not certain. How do you feel about that?”

  I was speechless. I knew that it was true, I just never allowed myself a chance to think about it too often. “What do you want me to say?” I asked my wife. “It was something that happened, and I don’t try to dwell on it.”

  “So how can he act like he’s so perfect?” she asked me. Beverly seemed really hurt by it, as if she had lost a ton of respect for my father. I began to wish that my mother had kept the information to herself. I guess she was attempting to prepare Beverly for the many struggles of marriage. However, I do not believe that the love-and-keep-your-family-at-all-costs approach of my mother’s generation works at all on the wives of the nineties. She had only made things more difficult.r />
  “Because he still provided for his family and did the things that he was supposed to do.”

  Beverly responded, “That’s the same thing your mother said. But what about his vow to his wife and family?”

  The conversation was going nowhere. “What was supposed to happen, Beverly? You think that my mother should have gotten a divorce? You think that would have made everything perfect again? What was done was done.”

  Beverly turned away from me. All I could do was become frustrated. I said, “Why are you angry at me? I didn’t have an affair.”

  “Yeah, but you still have the same nonchalant attitude about it. ‘What was done was done,’” she repeated.

  I said, “Okay, I’m sorry I said that.”

  “But you meant what you said though.”

  “Look, am I being punished for what my father did years ago? Because if I am, then this is ridiculous. And please don’t bring up Denise again. I thought we had gotten over all of that.”

  Beverly gave me the silent treatment. I was just about ready to get up and sleep in the guest room. I didn’t need that extra stress. I had just won a major battle with my father that day, and I felt that I deserved an opportunity to enjoy it.

  Beverly pulled my hand back to her stomach. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It must be the extra hormones.”

  I smiled. ‘Yeah, people told me about that,” I said.

  “But it’s still wrong,” my wife added.

  “I know it is.” I really wanted to continue the conversation, but I figured it would be of no use, especially while Beverly was still pregnant. I felt that most divorces failed to settle anything. It was a false illusion that legal separation would somehow lead to something better. Unfortunately, in many cases it didn’t. Divorces only seemed to lead to more divorces, family problems, and insecurities.

  “My father had an affair once, too,” Beverly admitted. The wall was tumbling down. She said, “And the family was never the same after that. Sometimes I wished they did get a divorce.”

  I could only imagine what was coming next. I was being sucked in for the kill.