The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive and Reconnect With Their Fathers

by Sampson Davis

  And that’s how it happened that when the time came for me to go to high school, my mother decided without consulting me to send me to University High School in Newark. University was a magnet high school, perfect for students who were college-bound. At first I was furious at her. The members of my junior high “posse” had been dying to start at Plainfield High. We were going to run the place. But the wheels were already in motion and I was set to start at University High in September 1987. I took the news hard after realizing there was nothing I could do. I would have to move back to Newark and live with my uncle Rahman so I could be close to my new school. I hated the idea. That was the last time I ever lived with my mom.

  But I recognized that getting away from all the instability in our apartment was a reprieve. Things were shifting in our household, and not for the better. So I decided to look at this as an opportunity. I vowed to visit my sister regularly. Looking back, a part of me regrets ever leaving her alone with my mother.

  As time went on, I didn’t see Mecca as much as I should have. Then I started to hear that she was getting into trouble at school for bad behavior, and her schoolwork was suffering. When I took a closer look, I realized that she was going through a lot at home. Mom didn’t have a reliable babysitter anymore, and as a result, she had taken to bringing Mecca along to some places a little girl had no business being. Mom’s addiction had taken over, and she was no longer being discreet about the company she kept.

  By the time I realized how bad things were with my sister, I was already on my way to Seton Hall. I wanted her to start doing better in school and to reverse the bad habits I could see she had picked up, but I didn’t know how to motivate her.

  So I decided to expose her to something different. I wanted her to see what education could do for her. Even though I was immersed in my college workload, I often brought Mecca to campus on weekends. She was eight or nine by then.

  Although I was now taking tough classes like organic chemistry and getting A’s in them, I still had never mastered the art of hair-braiding. Luckily I had a number of female friends who volunteered to do Mecca’s hair for me. I also confided in them about Mecca’s behavior, and they offered to teach her how to be a lady, something I knew I couldn’t do.

  It excited Mecca to come to Seton Hall and hang out with me and her newfound college girlfriends. I urged her to do well in school, promising that if she brought home a good report card I would buy her a new pair of sneakers or something else she wanted. I got on my soapbox often, telling her how important education was, the way that Mom had lectured me.

  I even talked to her about sex. I knew somebody had to do it. I didn’t even want Mecca to have boyfriends, let alone sex, so I tried my best to scare her away from sex with my fatherly talks. “Sex is something for grown-ups,” I told her. “You’ve got to respect your body and never let any boy disrespect it.”

  And the surest way to do that, I told her, was not to have sex. “Your body is your temple. It’s a prize and you can never give a prize like that away so easily.” A girl had told me that line once, when I was trying to get into her temple, and I thought it was effective, so I passed it on to Mecca.

  But I did tell Mecca that if she ever did have sex, she better protect herself. I worried about her constantly once she became interested in boys. But I couldn’t control everything.

  Mecca lived with my mom until she was fifteen, and they fought frequently. With all that was going on in my mother’s life, she wasn’t able to be the mother to Mecca that she was to me. Finally, Mom gave her permission to move in with her cousin in Philadelphia. Within a few weeks, I felt as though all my hard work had come undone. Although her cousin tried her best to watch over my little sister, Mecca decided to have sex with a man in his early twenties at her cousin’s house when no one was home. She got pregnant after that one encounter and returned home. The cycle of fatherlessness continued in our family. Like our mother, Mecca had created a baby, Inasha, with a man who wouldn’t be a real presence in his child’s life.

  Now in her twenties, Mecca has grown into a take-charge, street-smart mom shaped in the ever-recognizable mold of our mother. But there’s no doubt that Mecca listened to the messages I tried hard to instill in her. Sometimes when you plant a seed, it takes a little while before it starts to grow. She’s a responsible young mom who has stayed away from drugs, with her own apartment in the Newark area, a car, and two jobs.

  I’m touched to see that the time I put in, as a worried older brother, has paid off. “Rameck was the only father figure I ever had,” says Mecca, who’ll promptly correct anybody who suggests she grew up without a father. “I’m accustomed to having a father. Rameck is my father. That’s who I call when I need someone.”

  Helping to raise my sister taught me that parenting isn’t easy. No matter what you tell kids and how much love you give them, they still will make mistakes. But I also learned that no matter how many mistakes they make, as long as you keep loving them and telling them the right thing, they will find their way back to the right path.

  My experience with Mecca changed me. I started to ponder the power of fathers. Although I’d been raised in an environment where fathers weren’t plentiful, I was getting old enough to realize the necessary role that fathers play in a child’s life.

  Where was the kind of dad that you saw every day when you came home from school? Why was he missing from my world?

  A dad that you saw every day, I began to realize, could help you a lot more than one you saw only every once in a while.

  An everyday dad can keep a child from seeking the answers to life’s questions in the streets. An everyday dad can remind a kid, over and over again if necessary, about the importance of practicing sports. He can show a son how to treat women with respect, so a boy won’t have to copy what he sees in movies and music videos. Or show a daughter that she’s loved, so she won’t feel the need to fall into bed with every boy who tells her she’s cute.

  How did it happen, I wondered, that people stopped expecting men to be full-time, devoted dads? It’s not unusual to hear single mothers say, “I don’t need a man, I can do bad by myself.” And it’s not unusual to see men who fill their days with the pursuit of women, drugs, or liquor—men who concern themselves with everything but the job of taking care of their children.

  I needed to look no further than my own father to see how an extraordinary man could get sidetracked by the unhealthy messages in our community.

  My dad, I knew, could have had it all. A great career, a good middle-class life. And it was obvious from his generosity and attentiveness that he would have been a devoted dad to Quamara, Daaimah, and me if drugs hadn’t stolen him from us. I could truly empathize with him. Heck, I’d almost gone down a similar road. In high school, my friends and I frequently got ourselves into trouble. I was just fortunate that I got steered back onto the right path.

  Sometimes I remembered how my uncle Sheldon used to tease me: “Your father’s not your real daddy.” That stuck with me for years. It wasn’t until I started being around my father more that I realized how alike we really were. I’m a doctor by training and believe in science, but if there ever was a doubt about genetics, being around my father wiped away any doubts I may have had.

  I may not have inherited his looks, but I certainly inherited some of his personality traits. He had been a top student, like me. And he had tried his best as a youth to shun that brainy reputation, just as I did. The very reason Dad developed his drug habit was his desire to be part of the in crowd. I could relate to that. When I had whipped out that knife on that crack addict, I was trying to be cool, to gain respect—just like my father had.

  I realize now that my father’s open, loving approach balances out the more practical influence of my mother’s side of the family. My mother’s insistence on good grades and Ma’s sturdy, tough love gave me the perseverance to achieve my goals. The Hunts firmly believe that everyone has to swim on their own, and that there’s no sense in enabli
ng anyone’s bad habits. They gave me determination, which translated into my ability to push past my father’s obstacles and achieve more than he did.

  On the other hand, I’ve learned the power of pure, forgiving love from my father. I’ve seen his family extend a well-intentioned helping hand over and over, even when people take advantage of it.

  The very reason I’ve shown the endless capacity to forgive and encourage my father is, I’m sure, because he showed such warmth and unconditional love every time he laid eyes on me.

  My father’s influence gave me the compassion to keep loving him, despite his relapses. And there were many.

  Dad went to drug rehabilitation programs many times. Every time he got out, he found a good job quickly. I think it was because my father was such a genuinely nice man that he always bounced back. People were always rooting for him to kick his habit, so they bent over backward to help him.

  Dad would work for a while, earning good money, but then he’d mess up and get fired. It was a never-ending cycle of disappointment.

  Every time he would get out of rehab, though, I would cheer him on. “Dad, you can do it this time,” I told him.

  “I’m going to try, son,” he would say. I don’t know if he believed it himself.

  But I believed in him. I tried to be positive and upbeat, because I always wanted to convince him that this was going to be the last time.

  Sometimes when I encouraged him to get off drugs, he told me he felt defeated. It was then that he suggested that perhaps his sole purpose on this earth was to serve as an example to me.

  “I don’t know the reason God is taking me through this, but I have to believe that a part of that reason is for me to show you what not to do,” he would say. “Maybe that’s my role on earth—to show you what not to do.”

  I couldn’t accept that. “That’s a cop-out, Dad,” I would tell him. “You’re so smart. You’ve got so much going for you, you’ve just got to turn your life around.”

  I knew the dangers of his addiction and I was scared for him. “You could die, Dad. You’ve got to stop.”

  “I know,” he would reply unconvincingly. “I’m trying.”

  I never gave up. Throughout high school and college, I kept cheering him on.

  Fate’s a funny thing. More than once during my childhood, it put me in the position where I had to serve in a caretaking role to the men who rightly should have been fathering me.

  But the bond between my father and me isn’t fragile. It has survived a million disappointments. I never stopped hoping that my father would one day have the life that he deserved.

  Chapter 2

  ALIM BILAL

  The Beginning

  IREMEMBER WHEN RAMECK first told me he wanted to be a doctor. He was in high school.

  I told him to go for it. I never let on that his words had sent icy shivers down my spine.

  I knew medical school wasn’t free. And it’s a sorry moment when a father realizes he can’t help his child. Back then, I was a drug-abusing ex-felon who had no idea where to find the money to help Rameck’s dream come true. That hurt me so bad. I felt like less than a man. As Rameck’s father, I felt a responsibility to pave the way for my son, my smart, bold man-child who had kept his grades up, his nose clean, and had managed to avoid the traps that ensnared me. But since I was bouncing in and out of rehab programs at the time, I knew there was nothing I could do. I felt worthless.

  During Rameck’s high school years, I managed to keep a job—but just barely. I worked as a supervisor with the Newark water department, supervising crews at excavation sites. It was a steady job, but it just didn’t feel right. Going to that job every day reminded me that I had blown every chance I had ever gotten to achieve the dreams of my own youth. I had lost a college scholarship, and nothing had ever come of my desire to become a world-class chemist. So I kept using drugs to make myself feel good. I had a government job with good benefits that paid the bill for me to go through drug rehab several times. But I always relapsed.

  By the time Rameck expressed his desire to be a doctor, I was in my forties and the father of three children. Heroin had been a part of my life since my fateful first year in college, when it seemed like I gambled away my whole future in one fell swoop by acting recklessly during my Christmas visit home. I went looking for my old friends from high school and found them in an apartment getting high on heroin. When they told me to give it a try, I didn’t have the backbone to say no. I promptly got hooked, and college became unimportant. Two years later, I was headed to prison for armed robbery.

  During my freshman year, I also dated two different girls, both cheerleaders from different high schools. That’s how Rameck and his half sister, Quamara, came to be born just a few weeks apart.

  In the annals of fatherhood, it wasn’t the greatest of starts: I had two children by two different teen mothers and I was on my way to prison before I had even turned twenty-one.

  Disappointed isn’t the word to describe how my family felt, as they watched my life swiftly unravel after high school. Shocked is more like it.

  My siblings thought I was a genius when we were kids. They boasted that I could take any electronic item apart and put it back together again. I loved looking inside radios and telephones to see how they worked.

  I’m the second oldest of six kids. We didn’t have much, we lived in the projects, but my family was certain that someday I was going to be rich and important. I loved math and science, and my family just knew that I would grow up to be a famous scientist. They had me thoroughly convinced. I went through my childhood believing in the destiny that my family envisioned for me.

  My parents, Fred and Winnie Jones, met and married in North Carolina. Neither one had a high school diploma when they decided to move north in 1961 with their children in search of better opportunities. I was eight at the time.

  Newark, they decided, was the place they would settle. We got a brand-new apartment on Prince Street. It was in the projects, but it was nice. Five bedrooms, everything new, and we were one of the first families to move in. I remember a time when our apartment complex was a closely knit community where everyone looked out for one another. But over time, drugs and alcohol crept in to pull our little community apart. Our family wasn’t spared.

  My mom was strict, with high expectations. She wanted the best for us, and was determined that we wouldn’t go to public school in Newark. A resourceful woman, she found a job in a church rectory, cooking and cleaning for the priests. It helped her get a tuition discount so her six children could go to Catholic school.

  Mom believed sincerely in the power of education. She herself only went to the eighth grade when she was in North Carolina, but after we moved to Newark, she went back to school. She earned her high school diploma, and then enrolled in college. She became a registered nurse.

  My father got a job in Hackensack as a printer, and he worked there for decades, until he retired. He went to work every day and didn’t do much more than that, as far as I’m concerned. He was a quiet, withdrawn man. He loved us, we know that. But his emotional absence helped me form some opinions, early on, about what kind of father I would become. My father suffered from alcoholism. He wasn’t able to break free and teach me some things that would have helped me negotiate life. I made myself a promise as a child that I would never be that type of father.

  My dad was named for his father, Fred Jones, who lived in North Carolina and, from what I could see, shared the same type of loner behavior. He lived by himself and didn’t say much.

  I had the same name. But I didn’t want to be like them. Somehow I knew, at an early age, that children shouldn’t receive the silent treatment from their father. I wanted my dad to be more than just a provider. A good father, I believed, has got to be someone who listens, someone who communicates, and above all, is a great teacher.

  My parents were a good-looking, well-dressed pair when they were young. Yet everything wasn’t pretty behind the scenes. My father’
s alcoholism made him abusive. Once when I was a teenager, my mother took him to court for domestic violence, and the lawyers actually put me on the stand to testify against him. Later my parents reconciled and stayed together for several more years. My father was, after all, a good provider—better than most.

  Our mom knew the dangers that lurked in our low-income neighborhood and she tried her hardest to insulate us from them. She had us baptized Catholic and made our church and school the center of our world. She strictly enforced her rules and curfews, and made sure we concentrated on our schoolwork. Everyone in our neighborhood complimented Winnie Jones on how well behaved her children were. She took pride in thinking she had the perfect kids.

  But she couldn’t insulate us completely. One day when I was in elementary school, two boys attacked me on the way to school. They stole my lunch money and knifed me in my side. Doctors had to remove my spleen as a result of the stab wounds. That day changed me. I knew I had to toughen up or else I would get run over.

  Although I still kept my grades high, I started rebelling in my own way. Around my junior or senior year of high school, the Black Panthers came to Newark. And with them came the black Muslim movement. I loved listening to all the black awareness rhetoric. It sounded so revolutionary to me.

  Members of the local mosque would drive into our neighborhood in vans and pick up anyone who wanted to go to their Masjid temple. I always climbed on board for the ride. Coming from such a demeaning and depressing area, we were some angry kids in those vans.

  I soaked up all the knowledge I could at those meetings at the mosque. In my senior year of high school, I started following the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. I remember coming home and convincing the rest of my siblings to join the Nation of Islam. They weren’t happy when I told them to stop eating pork, but over the coming years, I would recruit all five of my siblings to Islam. We all wore the required Muslim garb. My brothers and I wore the clean-shaven look, with suits and bow ties, and my sisters covered their hair and bodies with long scarves and tunics.