A Cold Piece of Work

by Curtis Bunn

  Gerald spent that night with Sonya. Michelle was tired from an afternoon wedding reception, but she summoned the energy to go out for drinks with Solomon at Café Circa on Edgewood Avenue, behind famed Ebenezer Baptist Church.

  He was surprised to run into his boy, Ray, there. “Yo, what’s up?” he said as they embraced. “Who you here with? Your wife?”

  “Nah, one of my boys came in from out of town, so we swung through here,” Ray said. “I’m about to take him back to his hotel now.”

  “Oh, cool. Listen,” Solomon said, “this is Michele Williams.”

  “Oh, my goodness. So you really do exist? Nice to meet you,” he said while shaking Michele’s hand.

  The three of them chatted for a while before Ray excused himself. “That’s my boy right there, headed out the door,” he said. “Chasing a woman, no doubt. Let me grab him so you can meet him. Be right back.”

  Ray headed for the door and Solomon and Michele headed for a table near the back, before the restrooms.

  “What’s it going to be tonight?” Solomon asked.

  “I’m thinking something simple, but strong—those people worked my nerves today,” she said. “I’m glad it was a noon wedding. Anyway, I’ll have Grey Goose and cranberry. Can’t get more simple than that.”

  It was so simple that Michele had three of them in an hour. “You okay?” Solomon asked. “That’s a lot for you.”

  “I’m good. They are kinda weak, but good,” she said.

  “Your son, he’s something else,” Solomon said.

  “Oh, boy, what did he do?”

  “He didn’t do anything,” he said, “but he asked me today if I was going to marry you.”

  “No, he didn’t. I guess he likes you, huh?”

  “He told me that, too,” Solomon said. “I’ve spent a lot of time with him and he’s a special kid. Always a great attitude. A little spoiled—I wonder why—but not rotten.”

  “What was your answer to him?”

  “I told him that until your mom gives me some booty, I’m not marrying her,” he said, laughing.

  Michele reached across the table and hit him on the arm. “Very funny,” she said, laughing. “You’d better not talk to him like that.”

  “Nah, I told him that I wasn’t sure about that,” Solomon said. “But I told him that I’ll be there for him. That’s when he said, ‘I like you, Coach Money.’ We did a fist-bump and moved on.”

  Michele smiled for a moment and then a different look came over her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Well, I do know… Can I have one more drink?”

  “Sure. You okay?”

  The server made her way to their table and Solomon ordered one more round.

  “Michele, you all right?”

  “I’m really emotional about my son,” she said, using the napkin under her glass to wipe away a tear. “I want him to be alright and I’m really glad you’ve been there for him like you have. He needs that in his life.”

  “You don’t have to cry about that; I love that kid, so I’m going to be around—as long as you allow me to,” Solomon said.

  Michele shook her head and wiped her eyes. She looked down at the table, not into his eyes.

  “Solomon…” She finally looked up. “Don’t hate me for what I’m about to say.”

  “Hate you? Why would I hate you?” he asked. Then it hit him— Michele was about to end their courtship. Why else would he “hate” her? Another woman was going to disappoint him. Shit.

  “Come on, don’t tell me you’re seeing someone else?” he said. Normally, Solomon would not even put himself out there like that. But he just didn’t care. “I guess I’d deserve it, but please don’t tell me that.”

  “Solomon, that’s not it,” she said. He was visibly relieved.

  “Then nothing you can say would make me hate you.”

  “That’s what you say now,” Michele said.

  “What is it?”

  “Solomon…you…are…Gerald’s…father.”

  He stared at her for several seconds without speaking. The expression on his face was blank. It was like he was frozen, like all the noise in the room went silent. Finally, he calmly stood up and went over to her side of the table.

  Bending over to get closer to her ear, he said, “What?”

  She did not look up at him. She looked straight ahead, across the table, where he had been sitting.

  “Michele.”

  She looked up.

  “Say that again. It’s loud in here. Maybe I didn’t hear you right,” he said.

  “It’s true, Solomon.”

  He turned and walked to the small nearby bathroom. He was so rattled he had trouble locking the door behind him.

  Solomon turned on the cold water, leaned on the vanity and looked into his eyes through the mirror. The thoughts in his head were jumbled. His emotions were crashing against each other.

  He put some water in his hands and rubbed it on his face. With some paper towels, he wiped his face dry. With that, he settled some. But he still had a litany of questions.

  Composed, at least outwardly, he returned to the table. Michele had broken down to where the server with the drinks and the couple at the adjacent table asked if she was okay.

  “Michele,” he said to her, calmly, “this is messing me up. How did this happen—didn’t we use condoms? Are you sure he’s my…son? Why are you just telling me this?”

  “Let’s leave—we shouldn’t talk about this here,” she said.

  Before the server returned, Solomon calculated how much the drinks cost and put the money on the table. He stood up and extended his hand to help Michele from her chair, which gave her at least a little sense that he did not hate her enough to abandon the chivalry that was embedded in him.

  He opened the car door for her, closed it behind her and wiped his face as he made his way to the other side. When he got in, he shut the door and looked straight ahead. Neither of them said anything for about a minute.

  “Solomon,” Michele said, finally, “you’ve been living with what happened with us and I’ve been living with something hanging over me, too. I—”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” Solomon said, turning to her.

  “How could I tell you? You disappeared. When I found out I was pregnant, it was almost two months later. You hadn’t answered my calls, e-mails, text messages. You were gone,” she said. “I’m really not trying to make this about me, but you don’t know what it’s been like for me to raise him alone, to have people ask, ‘Where’s the daddy?’ and for me to have to say things like, ‘Girl, he’s doing his own thing’ or ‘Getting himself together’ or just plain ‘I have no idea.’ That’s what it’s been like for me. You know how embarrassing that is, how reckless it makes me appear?

  “And think about the fact that I’ve had to answer my son’s— our son’s—questions about his father.”

  “Well, he told me what your answers were: ‘He’s no good,’ etc.,” Solomon said.

  “I did say that, out of frustration because as much as I’d like to be, I can’t be a man for him and that’s what he needed,” Michele said. “The few men I dated after I got myself together were not worth whatever they paid for their shoes.”

  “Okay, but we used condoms, Michele,” Solomon said.

  “Not that night, that last night we were together, the last night I saw you,” she said. “You don’t remember? We got caught up in the moment, I guess, which is stupid for mature adults. But I can’t even imagine myself without Gerald, so…”

  “I’m doing my best to not sound like I’m trying to run away from this, but I have to ask: How do you know it happened that night?” Solomon said.

  “Because, for one, as you said, we used condoms every other time,” Michele answered. “Two, I had not been with anyone other than you. Period.”

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “I’m a father?”

  “To be honest, that�
�s why all those emotions I spoke about a while ago came up when I saw you. Do you know how amazing it was that Gerald was bragging about this ‘Coach Money’ and it turns out that ‘Coach Money’ is his father? The same man who disappeared on me? My heart practically jumped out of my chest when I saw you that night.

  “More than for even myself, I wanted you for Gerald,” she added. “Boys need men to help raise them, if at all possible. After I found out you were in Atlanta, I tried to get contact info for you, but there was none. So I was faced with the reality that I would have to do it alone.

  “Okay, so now there you are, his father, at that banquet about three months ago. What was I to do then? I was angrier than I realized; I thought I had let that go after so many years, but seeing you brought it all back up. Then I had a big issue because Gerald liked you and he needed a man in his life. That’s why we had to get out of there that night. I could hardly breathe.”

  “Unbelievable,” Solomon said. “This is unbelievable. I love the kid, I can tell you that. When I first saw him, I told Ray that he reminded me of myself as a kid. There were even times when we were out together and people would say, ‘You look just like your daddy.’ He had to say, ‘He’s not my daddy. He’s my coach.’ Thinking about that now makes my stomach hurt.

  “It’s like, knowing this now, how could I have not figured it out? He’s seven years old, with a birthday coming up. I last saw you eight years ago. And I recall you giving me really vague answers when I asked about his father. I—”

  “I didn’t know what to say, Solomon,” Michele interjected. “I didn’t know if I would ever tell you. That was something I’ve been struggling with for years. I thought, ‘If I ever saw Solomon again, would I tell him he’s a father?’ Sonya told me that I should. But I thought that if you were married with kids, I wouldn’t want to throw that into your family. But I also thought that’s exactly what I should do; you deserved confusion and drama because that’s what you caused me.

  “In the end, Sonya made me realize that you gave me the most precious gift I could ever have. It wasn’t intentional, but you did. So, having Gerald really is the main reason I even gave you a chance to be back in my life. It was more for him than for me.”

  “Well…I don’t know what to say. I’m shocked and I’m scared and I’m a little excited, too,” Solomon said. “I mean…damn! This is crazy. What do I say to Gerald? What do you say to him?

  “He’s about to be eight years old. I haven’t been there for him. How do I explain that? How do I go from his coach to his daddy? I’m gonna have to discipline him at some point. How do I do that? When do we tell him?”

  “Solomon, all your questions are valid. I don’t have the answers to any of them, including when we should tell him. I mean, do you want to tell him?”

  “Do I want to tell him? Damn, right,” he said. “Look, if he’s my son, I want to be a father to him.”

  And in that instant, a measure of pride came over Solomon. He was a father. The impact of it hit him and turned all his angst into something different.

  “I don’t know what it is I feel right now,” he said. “But, while I didn’t ever give being a father or having someone call me ‘Dad’ much thought, right now I feel like there is some power with that. I was trying to have an impact on Gerald. Now I must have an impact on him.”

  “I’m really glad and relieved to hear you say that,” Michele said. “I didn’t plan on telling you this tonight. It just came out—but it had to at some point… Now the big thing is, how do we tell him?”

  “Well, we should do it together, I think; especially since you told the boy his daddy wasn’t any good,” Solomon said.

  “That’s not like me, but I was so frustrated at the time; I wish that I hadn’t said those things. But you’re here now and we’re going to have to, together, explain everything to him,” Michele said.

  He stretched across the car and hugged Michele and kissed her on the side of her face.

  “I’m a father. Unbelievable,” he said. “Shoot, I also have to tell my parents. That’s going to be interesting, but they’ll be more excited than anything. But I know my mom; she’s going to want me to take a DNA test. We had a cousin who found out when his daughter was sixteen that she wasn’t his daughter. You talk about something devastating? It destroyed him.”

  “I don’t have a problem with a DNA test. Solomon, I dated you for six months and didn’t even think about touching another man,” she said. “And after you left, I didn’t date another man for more than a year. So, unless this was an Immaculate Conception, that’s your son.”

  “I believe you, Michele… Oh my God, I’m a daddy, a father,” Solomon said. “I’m not as shocked anymore—and I’m a little excited about it. We have to tell him tomorrow. I don’t want to wait. I’ve missed almost eight years; I want it to be official, and it’s not official until Gerald knows.”

  “Okay. Let’s go to church and do it after that.”

  Solomon started the car. “Let’s go to Sonya’s house; I want to see him,” he said.

  “Solomon, he’s sleep,” Michele said.

  “I know. I just want to look at him as my son.”

  Michele pulled out her cell phone and called her cousin. “I knew he’d be sleep, but we still want to come over,” she said. “Why? Because Solomon wants to see his…son.”

  He could hear Sonya’s scream fly out of Michele’s cell phone. “Calm down, girl,” Michele said. “Calm down… Yes… Yes. We’re both happy… I’ll tell you all about it later. We’re on our way… Okay… Okay… Bye, girl.”

  “She handled that well, huh?” Solomon said.

  “She’s pumped and I am, too,” Michele said as they drove up Moreland Avenue. “I was so nervous about all of this. It’s such a relief to tell you.”

  Solomon did not respond. His attention was on the two young men standing at the corner of Moreland and Hosea Williams Drive. Several weeks earlier, a convenience store clerk was shot and killed a block from there. He remembered driving by and seeing the news trucks camped out one night and all the stuffed animals and flowers there the next night to honor the fallen man.

  And before he could bring the site to Michele’s attention, the two young men rushed the car, brandished guns and demanded Solomon open the locks on the door. They were being carjacked. Michele screamed.

  “Oh, shit,” Solomon said as he leaned away from the driver’s side window.

  He quickly looked to see if any other cars were approaching the red light; there were not any. For a nanosecond he considered speeding off. But just as quickly he pondered Michele getting shot. Or himself.

  So he hit the locks release button and both “pants on the ground thugs” jumped in the backseat.

  “You know what’s up?” the one behind Solomon said while sticking the gun into his neck. “We taking this bitch.”

  He was talking about the car, but Michele thought he was referring to her, and she screamed again. “Shut the fuck up,” the guy said in the seat behind Michele. “Don’t you open your mouth again! But you can open your purse.”

  The robbers delighted in their morbid humor and laughed. They were in their late teens or early 20s. One wore a scarf on his head, the way Tupac did. The other wore a New York Yankees cap turned to the side. Clearly they were veterans of robbing and carjacking. Their comfort level and confidence were apparent.

  “Turn right here into that parking lot and put the car in park,” one said.

  “Here, just take what you want. We’re getting out,” Solomon said.

  “You ain’t running shit; we running this,” the guy with the gun at Michele’s head said. “I should blast yo’ ass.”

  “Wait—let’s get the money first. Give me the wallet,” the other guy said.

  As he unbuckled his seatbelt to reach for his wallet, Solomon looked into Michele’s eyes and saw tears and fear. And something came over him.

  “Yo, this is real talk,” he said. “Get that gun off of my neck. You don
’t want to shoot me and you don’t need to. We’re giving you what you want.”

  “You think we playin’?” the guy behind Solomon yelled. “Nigga, gimme your money. Then you’ll see who’s not gonna shoot somebody.”

  “Hey, man, I just learned I’m a father tonight,” Solomon said.

  “So what the fuck that mean to me?” the guy yelled back.

  Solomon leaned away from the gun. “Look at me, man. You look like my cousin. We can’t keep doing this to each other,” he said. “Where’s your father?”

  “I ain’t got no father,” he said angrily.

  “So you want to put my son in that position, too?” Solomon said.

  “Man, fuck what he talking about,” the other guy said.

  “Yo, look at her,” Solomon said to the guy behind Michele. “Doesn’t she look like your sister or mother or aunt?”

  “Hell, no!” he yelled back.

  “Well, wait a minute,” Solomon pleaded. “Wait a minute. She told me about thirty minutes ago that her son is my son. I just found this out. I need to be a father to this kid, man. Don’t do this.”

  “Yo, shoot that nigga,” he said to his partner in crime.

  “Don’t do it. You can take the car and the money. We ain’t done nothing to y’all,” Solomon said. “Why take another man’s life? Why take us from our child? Man, you know that ain’t necessary. We getting out the car and ya’ll can go on. But you ain’t shooting me and you ain’t shooting this woman. I got to be a father to this kid, man.”

  The guy pulled the gun away from Solomon and they stared at each other for a few seconds. “Come on, man, let’s go,” he said to his partner.

  “What? Man, we got to shoot these fools,” the other guy said.

  “No. Let’s just dip,” he said. To Solomon, he said, “Get the fuck out.”

  “Come on, Michele,” Solomon said. “Come on. Open the door and get out.”

  She was so shaken she could not get her seatbelt loose. Solomon reached over and unfastened it for her, jumped out of the car and hurried around to her side to help her out. The robbers jumped in the car’s front seats without even taking their money and sped away—the one guy pointing a gun at them as they drove off with Solomon’s Saab 9.5 convertible.