Single Mom (11 page)

“Ah, excuse me, we’ll have the check now,” I said to our waitress.

Beverly still had not said a word.

“Well, I guess we need to go home and get changed,” she finally commented as we all stood. I guess she was going to try and ignore the issue, but
I
sure wasn’t. I made a mental note to give Denise a phone call the first thing that evening.

When we walked out to the car, I asked my son, “Is Brock your mother’s boyfriend, or just a guy that she knows from somewhere?” I knew better than that, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it. If Denise had the man around the kids, then he was
definitely
more than just a friend. She rarely mixed her personal life with her sons. Even when I dated her, I wasn’t around her son, Jimmy, much.

“Well, they go out and stuff, sometimes,” Walter answered.

Beverly gave me the evil eye. She let my son inside the car and shut the door in order to have a word with me before I continued with my interrogation.

“Walter, please, let it go,” she said. “Let’s just have a good time with him today.”

“Let it go?” I asked her, a little too excitedly. “How can I let this kind of thing go? I didn’t even know about this man. I told
her
about
you
.”

Beverly sighed and said, “Look, we’ll talk about this later on. Okay? It’s not fair for you to keep asking
him
questions about it. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

I childishly said, “If he thinks he knows everything else, how come he doesn’t know what’s going on here?”

On that note, Beverly shook her head and climbed in the car. I got in after her, planning on holding my tongue for the rest of the ride. My wife was right; it was no sense in taking anything out on my son. He didn’t have any control over anything. I still wished that he had told me about “Brock” a lot earlier, though. A year seemed
far
too long to be left in the dark.

We bought a pair of quality tennis rackets and two tubes of tennis balls from a sporting-goods store before going out to play miniature golf. I had gotten over the initial shock about Denise’s friend, but I still planned on calling her before I went to bed that evening.

Once we got Walter on that miniature golf course, he turned into your average twelve-year-old kid, competing against us on strokes, while maintaining an overconfident and youthful swagger.

“I’m
Tiger Woods!” he joked, like in the popular Nike commercial. I had to laugh at that one. He was beating us both; me by four strokes and Beverly by six, as we neared the eighteenth hole.

“Well, then, loan me a million dollars, Tiger. You can afford it,” I joked back to him.

Walter looked at me and frowned. “No way, partner. No freeloaders allowed.”

“
Freeloader?
I said
loan
me a million dollars, not can I
have
a million dollars.”

“All right, but you have to pay fifteen percent interest on every year that it takes you to pay me back,” he told me.

I looked at Beverly and she broke out laughing.

“You mean to tell me that you would make money off your old man?” I asked with a smile.

He looked at me and said, “Business is business, Dad. I can’t break the rules for nobody.”

Beverly laughed again. My son knew that I worked as a corporate accounts executive at Chicago Federal Savings, but I never realized that he understood banking so well. I was actually proud of him. Unfortunately,
on my part, I was forever underestimating him. I guess that’s what can happen when you’re not around a child as much as you could have been. You can easily underestimate, or even overestimate, their potential because you’re not that familiar with their normal levels of acceleration and retention. I think his mother’s career in financial consulting, however, accounted for a lot of his knowledge on money. That was one of the many reasons why I could never tell her I was the son of a millionaire. I kept thinking that she would eventually try and take me to the bank.

I said, “Okay, what if, ah, Moesha wanted to borrow a million dollars? Would you charge
her
fifteen percent interest?”

“Who,
Brandy?
” he asked me.

“Yeah, Brandy,” I said. Her television sitcom about black adolescence and family was so popular that I had forgotten the young singer’s real name.

“Oh, man, I would charge her
twenty-five
percent interest!” he answered excitedly. “She has her own TV show,
and
she got a record deal. She’s
paid!
”

I looked at my wife and said, “The boy sounds like a money mogul.”
And maybe it’s even in the genes
, I pondered to myself. My son was beginning to remind me of his grandfather,
my
father, Walter Perry Senior. My father had made a killing in suburban real estate over thirty years ago during the mass American migration from the big cities, mainly white migration. My father was one of the few black men to capitalize on suburban property by using white partners to do most of the meeting and greeting with home buyers and developers, while he masterminded the game plan and bought up more property. Of course, his white partners eventually caught on and started their own companies, but by that time my father had already become a multimillionaire. In fact, I was surprised that not that many people knew about it. My father had done an excellent job of remaining behind the scenes with his wealth, and I had done an equally good job of keeping my inheritance under wraps from Denise. Nevertheless, I had to admit that sometimes I had nightmares of her finding out and taking me to court for millions. Therefore, I made sure that I was never late or short with giving her money for my son. I also had to make sure not to give her too much extra, because I didn’t want her getting too curious about my wealth.

• • •

When we got back home that evening, Denise’s phone call was at the top of my list of things to do.

“Where are you going?” Beverly asked me.

I didn’t want to make the phone call from our bedroom and have my wife listening in, so I planned on making the call from the den.

“I’ll be back up in a few minutes, honey. Go ahead and go to bed.”

Beverly gave me an inquisitive look. “You’re not planning on calling Denise tonight, are you? I mean, it is kind of late, and we
all
have to work tomorrow.”

It was close to eleven o’clock, and my son was well on his way to dreamland. I was beginning to wish that my wife was too, because I needed to make that call to Denise while the questions were still burning. It was eating me alive!

“Look, I’ll just be up in a few minutes,” I repeated. I knew that an argument about it would only waste more time.

Beverly sighed and said, “Walter, you need to calm down and think this thing through. Now just sleep on it and call her tomorrow. Okay, honey? I mean, we all had a good time today and I don’t think that you should ruin it with this late phone call. She
does
have a right to go on with her life, and I’m sure that she wouldn’t have her kids around anyone who would have a bad influence on them. Now just stop overreacting to this thing and come back to bed.”

Beverly was being quite persistent. I stood there frozen for a moment. My wife did have a point, but I still wanted to make that phone call. The next thing I knew, Beverly had pulled me back to the edge of the bed and was rubbing my weak spot through my pajamas.

“Is this phone call more important than
us?
” she asked me. “Because I want my husband in bed with me,
right now
.”

Before I knew it, I had a hard-on. That’s a damn good sign in any marriage! As long as your partner can get you aroused in two seconds flat, every problem in the world has the ability to fade into oblivion without extensive headaches or the need for psychological therapy.

I smiled and asked, “Do I need to close the door then?”

Beverly smiled back at me. “I don’t think it would be good for
us
to be a bad influence on little Walter, either. So I think it would only be right to close the door,” she told me with an extra little squeeze on my tool.

I forgot all about that phone call to Denise. I went and checked to see if my son was asleep in the guest bedroom. Once I saw that he was asleep, I crept back to my bedroom, softly shut the door, and happily climbed into bed with my wife.

“So, what do you think about my son now?” I asked her as I kissed her bare stomach and worked my way up.

“I think he’s very bright, as I always did, but he’s also a little rough around the edges, just like you’re being with my nipples,” she answered with a smile.

I chuckled and softened up my foreplay. “Sometimes it’s good to be a little rough,” I told her.

“Yeah, but don’t overdo it. Okay?” she said with a hint, as I worked my way back down. “In some places it’s good to be gentle and polite.”

I chuckled again and went on about my business of enjoying my wife.

D., what’s happenin’, partner?! I ain’t seen you around I here for a long while, dawg! What’cha been into? I see your old lady’s been doing fine. She got her own office down on Halsted Street in Greektown. I saw her down there just last week.”

I shook Barry’s chubby hand and smiled at him. I was on the near West Side, close to ten o’clock on Monday night. I was planning to visit an old girl I used to see before reporting to my new job by eleven-thirty. The night-shift position I was starting was at a paper company in that same area.

Barry lived on the near West Side all of his life, shooting the breeze on the street corners and selling good weed. I met him years ago, around the same time I started seeing this girl, Kim. I used to hang out all over Chicago. Since I played basketball in high school, and I had gang affiliates from the Disciples spread out all over the city, I could go any-damn-where I pleased!

I said, “I’ve been doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, man, just trying to keep these ends meeting.”

Barry nodded. “Yeah, we all gotta do that.” He looked as out of shape as he used to, with his fat, meaty head and bowlegs.

“You still selling that good weed you used to sell?” I asked him. I was just curious. I wasn’t thinking about buying any.

He looked at me and frowned. “Shit, dawg, I’m still
livin
’ ain’t I? And if I’m livin, I’m sellin’ it. Why, you want a dime bag?” he asked me.

I shook off the temptation. “Naw, man, I gotta get ready for this new night job in a few hours. I’m gon’ try out this midnight shift down at this paper company on Roosevelt.”

Barry started laughing. His teeth looked like they needed some serious cleaning. Maybe he’d been smoking too much of that weed of his and not brushing his teeth much. I’d had to start taking better care of my body and hygiene once I rededicated myself to keeping a job. Then I started noticing all of the poor habits of the other guys. I don’t think I paid it much attention before.

“The night shift, hunh?” Barry asked me. “Man, I’ve been working this night shift out here for twenty years,” he said, referring to selling weed on the streets. I don’t think he ever got arrested for it either. He always kept his money low-key. I don’t even think Barry ever owned a car. He just borrowed them when he needed to.

“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll check you out some other time,” I told him. “I’m on my way to Kim’s spot before I make it to this job.”

He started smiling again. “You still knockin’ Kim, hunh?”

“Naw, not really. I just looked her back up recently.”

Barry nodded. “Yeah, well, it do sound convenient and all, especially if you’re gonna be working the night shift on Roosevelt. You can just pop on past Kim’s spot, get yourself some food and ass, and roll back out for work.”

He made it sound like I was a damn swamp leech, but that’s exactly what I was planning on doing, establishing a convenient association with an old girl I used to screw.

I said my good-byes to Barry and headed to Kim’s apartment. First I had to buzz her on the intercom to get into her aged-looking, four-story building.

“Who is it?” she asked through the rusty, fake silver box. It shocked me. I didn’t realize how loud the thing was.

“It’s J.D.”

“Okay,” she answered, buzzing me in.

I made my way up the musty, narrow staircase to her apartment on the third floor and stopped before I knocked on her door. She had a son, too, a six-year-old. I was wondering if he was there, and if he was asleep. I didn’t feel like staring into the curious eyes of her kid. He always made me feel guilty about sleeping with his mother. And he always wanted to play with me as if I was his father. That just made me think about spending more time with my own son.

“Long time no see,” Kim said when she opened the door. She was
wearing a one-piece blue dress that stopped at her smooth, muscular thighs. It was the kind of dress that you could easily slide right off whenever you decided to get busy. I tried not to stare when I first walked in, but I couldn’t help it. Kim had run track all her life and she had the best body, except for Neecy, that I had ever wrestled buck naked with. Kim wasn’t that bad looking in the face either. In fact, she was pretty, she just had an ugly attitude that could scare guys away from her. She always liked
me
, though, and I wasn’t afraid of her.