A Cold Piece of Work (14 page)

“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.

Solomon hugged the crying Michele. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”

He hugged her tightly, as much to comfort her as to conceal the tears that ran down his face. They were not tears of fear. They were tears of relief and anger. Neither of them said anything
for a minute. They just embraced in the empty parking lot on Moreland Avenue and Hosea Williams Drive.

Solomon wiped his face. “You're okay, Michele,” he said. “It's all right. It's all right.”

He reached in his pocket, pulled out his cell phone and called 9-1-1. “I can't believe this shit,” he said. “I'm glad I took my laptop out of my car. If my laptop was in there, they would've had to shoot me.”

“Don't even play like that,” Michele said. “I'm so scared. They might come back… Where's the police?”

A few seconds later, the cops arrived, lights flashing, sirens blaring. Michele sat in the police car and watched Solomon as he described what happened to the officers. He was poised, as if he were reporting stolen fruit from a stand and not a carjacking where two young men had guns to their heads.

She watched him closely. She rehashed the drama. She opened her heart. That was the moment. She loved Solomon Singletary again, but maybe even more this time. He saved her life twice in one night, first by accepting that he was Gerald's father and then by talking some criminals out of shooting them.

The officers waited with them until the taxi arrived to take them to Sonya's house. In the cab, Michele said, “I'm still shaking. I feel like I was this close to death. I can't believe you started lecturing them. That was incredible. You…”

“You know what?” Solomon jumped in, “somehow, even in my fear, the most important things came to me and I just hoped they would listen. I guess even the most evil person has a conscience that can be tapped into.”

Michele reached over and grabbed Solomon's hand. It was not lost on them that they had endured a harrowing experience together. It cemented their bond.

“Some night, huh?” Solomon said. “I like excitement as much as the next guy. But this…”

“I know, right?” Michele said. “I needed to get out for a drink. It turned out to be one of the most important nights of my life in a lot of ways.”

“Mine, too,” Solomon said, as he handed the driver $30 for the fare. When they approached Sonya's door, she opened it.

“What took you so long?” she said. “And why are you in a cab? What's going on?”

Michele and Solomon looked at each other. “What's wrong?” Sonya asked. “I thought you all would be smiling and happy.”

He extended his arms and hugged Sonya. “Good to see you; it's been a long time.”

“Same here. Come on in. Will somebody tell me what's going on?”

“You have anything to drink?” Michele asked.

“Yeah, some juice and water,” Sonya answered.

“No, some alcohol,” Michele said.

“I thought you just came from having drinks. What's going on, Michele? Solomon?”

“Can I see…my son?” he answered. “Michele, please tell her what happened before her head explodes.”

“Come this way, Solomon,” Sonya said, leading him to her spare bedroom, where Gerald slept. “Michele, I'll be right back.”

At the bedroom door, Sonya slowly opened it so as to not awaken the child. “There's your boy.” Her and Solomon's eyes met. He smiled and she went back to the living room.

Solomon stood in the doorway for a moment. He went from a single man responsible only for himself to a father of a soon-to-be eight-year-old…in an instant.

He left the door open so the hallway light could illuminate the
room enough for him to see Gerald. All the obvious physical features he did not notice before were as blatant as a flashing neon sign then: his complexion, his nose, the shape of his lips. Even the way he slept—on his right side with a pillow between his knees—was the way Solomon often rested.

He was his son, all right, and to see him as such raised emotions in Solomon he never experienced. And pride, too.
That's my son,
he thought to himself. He leaned over and kissed Gerald on his forehead. Then he just stood there staring at him.

Meanwhile, Michele was giving Sonya the details of the evening. “So, you're telling me you had guns pointing at you and Solomon started talking about being a father to them?”

“That's what he did,” Michele answered, sipping the vodka and cranberry her cousin quickly made for her. “I couldn't do anything but cry. I'm not being dramatic—they acted like they were going to kill us. It was like a dream. It's still a dream. The whole night is. But Solomon basically said he just learned he is a father and he wanted to see his child. Then he told them to look at me, that I represented their mother. You believe that? But I don't know how or why, but it worked.

“One guy acted like he didn't care; he wanted to shoot us. But the other one…something Solomon said registered with him. I don't know what, but after a while, he told us to get out of the car. And even then, I was so shaken I couldn't even undo the seatbelt. Solomon had to come around and let me out.”

“Oh, my God,” Sonya said. “I can't even believe this.”

“Me, either,” Michele said. “This has been a crazy night. A great night and a scary night all at the same time.”

Solomon reentered the living room just then.

“I could use a drink, too,” he said. “A big one.”

S
onya had to go into her secret stash of liquor in the far reaches under her kitchen sink. She was so thrown by the events of the night that she started drinking, too, and they killed the half-empty bottle of Grey Goose.

“I have a question,” Solomon said, his speech slightly slurred, his eyes reddening by the minute. “Who in their right mind hides liquor under the kitchen sink? That's some country stuff right there.”