Single Mom (34 page)

“You’ve
talked
about it?” I was curious. “And what was said?” I asked.

“I found out that both of my sons had already told their fathers about you, and of course, both of their fathers were already painting pictures in their minds as to what was going on between us.”

I started to chuckle. “Yeah, I can imagine. That’s normal for a man to do, whether he’s still involved with a woman or not. It’s like a lifelong code of male competition.”

“So, anyway,” Denise continued, “this Thanksgiving, maybe I can have you over for a family dinner. And that will
definitely
be a test, because my mother and sister will get a chance to meet you.”

“Have you told them much about me?”

It’s amazing how American relationships have become so private and fragmented. There were times where, if you went out with a guy for a year, the entire
extended
family had been around him, and most likely, you were well on your way to being married. Engagements were nothing but a preliminary hearing back then. Some couples would be engaged for a month or two before getting married. Engagements in the nineties, however, could last up to a year or two, which was plenty of time to change your mind. No wonder family units were falling apart.

So there we were, two grown adults who had been dating for a year, and didn’t know the first thing about each other’s families.

I said, “How about that? You haven’t met any of my family members either. I have a couple of wicked uncles. One of them even led me into this truck-driving business.”

Denise laughed and said, “That sounds like a good place to start to me. Let’s get the tough ones out of the way first.”

I joked and said, “I’ll call them up tonight.”

“You do that.”

We made some more small talk before Denise had to run for a bite to eat, and I had to get back to my driving. I was hungry my-damn-self, but
I had a schedule to make. However, my hunger for food could wait. My deeper hunger for love was more important to me, and for the time being, it had been satisfied. That made my driving with an empty stomach a lot easier to handle. Denise Stewart loved me, and she was no longer in denial. I felt like a man with a winning lottery ticket. And before I could blink, I had cleared the accident and traffic was moving full tilt again. Hallelujah!

was rushing with Jamal to make it to Little Jay’s first home basketball game at four-thirty. He scored 11 points and had five rebounds and two blocks in only sixteen minutes of their first away game. They won in a close one, 55-53. Little Jay scored some crucial baskets, and already the coach was willing to give my son, the freshman, more playing time. It was hard to keep a guy out at the high school level when he was 6′5″ and could play. That would have been like committing athletic suicide. Natural height was a hard thing to come by and very tough to make up for. Either a kid had the size and the ability to play against tough competition, or he didn’t. My son had what it took, physically
and
mentally.

I paid six dollars for both of us to get in. Jamal and I slid through the gym doors and marched up into the stands to find ourselves some good seats at half-court. We had only missed the tip-off, and no one had scored yet.

“Which one is Little Jay?” Jamal asked me. With me talking about my son so much, Jamal was as eager to see him play as I was. It would be the first time that the two boys would meet each other since I had taken on the role of becoming Jamal’s guardian, so to speak. I promised to take him to every home game with me.

“He’s number forty-four in white,” I answered.

Jamal looked around and said, “I don’t see number forty-four.”

Damn, this kid is sharp!
I thought to myself. I smiled and said, “He didn’t get in yet. He’s on the bench right now.”

“Oh. So, when does he get in?” Jamal was about to start up with his million and one questions. I didn’t mind it though. At least he would make good company.

I said, “As soon as his team starts losing.”

This older white guy who was sitting in front of us turned and looked at me with a grin. “You’re talking about Jimmy Stewart?” he asked me.

“Yeah, that’s my son,” I told him. I was the proudest man in the gym!

He nodded. “Your kid has a game. I saw him play in the summer leagues. If he keeps his grades in order, he’ll be going Division 1 in four years.”

I chuckled, but I didn’t like the sound of that. It was as if that white man was expecting my son to have academic problems. I spoke up and said, “Yeah, he’ll be ready. He’s right at a three point oh grade point average now.”

The white man nodded his head again. “If he can maintain that or do better, and score over nine hundred on his boards, he’ll be raring to go. I figure by his senior year, he can put up twenty-four points, grab fifteen boards, and get five blocks a game. And this is a good school to do it in. It’s well respected in the college circles academically.”

I started wondering if that guy was a college scout. He made everything sound so mechanical, as if we were talking about experimental machinery or race cars. I hated when guys talked about high school sports like that. Those damned newspaper and magazine writers were the worst! They used to write nothing but negative stuff about me. “
He needs better footwork and ball handling. He doesn’t really have a shot, he’s more of a scorer than a shooter.
” I averaged 18 points, seven rebounds, and three steals a game, but I guess that wasn’t good enough to get any respect from those guys. And the thing that got me was that none of
them
could play. However, that was how the system looked at these kids, as names, numbers, and future projects. That white guy had definitely taken my mind off the game. I started drifting off again, thinking about my own years of high school ball and how I had messed up my opportunity to be a name and number.

I snapped out of it when Jamal finally shouted, “Little Jay is getting in! Dag, he don’t look little to me!”

I started to smile and got my head back into the game. My son’s team was down 18-7 at the start of the second quarter. As soon as Jay got in,
he blocked a shot, ran the floor, and got an alley-oop dunk at the other end. The fans went wild! But I hoped my son wouldn’t become a dumb jock. He was already behind in school a year.

It was weird, sitting there at my son’s second high school game and thinking so negatively about his future. All of a sudden, all I could think about was his grades. I never thought that way before. Not seriously. When I talked about grades, I was basically going through the motions, even with Jamal. Most people would ask about school grades as if it was the weather, and then go right back to talking basketball. So none of us took academics seriously until it was too late.

After it was all said and done, Little Jay played twenty-two minutes off the bench, scored 16 points, pulled down eight rebounds, and blocked three shots while forcing a couple of steals. His team won another close one, 62-59. Their shooting guard, a 6′3″ senior, was the lead scorer with 21 points. He had 23 in their first game.

The white man sitting in front of me stood up and smiled. “A three point oh and a nine hundred on the SATs, and he’s
definitely
in.”

I was tempted to say a few harsh words to that guy for telling the truth so bluntly, but I thought against it. The truth needed to be faced and swallowed raw. I had done time in jail and had been away from my son for not dealing with the truth. The truth was that we all had responsibilities to take care of in order to make it in life, no matter what. I had to realize that every action in the world has a reaction, and every non-action has a consequence.

As fans began to flow out of the stands and made their way to the exits, Jamal and I waited for Little Jay inside of the gym while the teams changed back into their street clothes.

Jamal looked up at the basket and said, “I hope I can dunk the ball when
I
get big.”

I looked at him and said, “You have to work at it, just like anything else in life. The shorter you are, the harder you have to work.” That was like everything else in life, too. Nothing was fair and nothing was equal. I found myself in a real cynical state of mind that day, nevertheless, the facts were the facts.

Little Jay walked out of the locker room with a few of his teammates. Even though his high school was mostly white, there were only four white boys on the basketball team, and only one of them started. I guess that showed who was working the hardest at playing basketball. Most of those NCAA Division 1 colleges were white, but you wouldn’t know that
by looking at their basketball teams. I used to swear up and down that Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., was a black university. They had an entire black basketball team,
and
a black coach, way back when I played ball. I even dreamed of going there.

I shook my son’s hand and said, “Good game, Jay. You’ll be a starter before the season is over with.”

He said, “Next game I’ll be starting.”

I smiled. “That’s pretty ambitious thinking.”

He said, “Naw, the coach told me already.”

When I thought about that, I was
really
pressed about his grades. He needed to get on the ball immediately if he was going to be a starter. A freshman starter would attract college scouts like a starting gun at a track meet.

Jamal asked him, “Can you teach me how to dunk when I get big?”

Little Jay looked over at him. “It depends on how tall you get.”

I corrected him and said, “It depends on how strong your legs are. I’m sure a lot of these short track and gymnastic guys can dunk. A lot of football running backs can dunk, too, and they’re not the tallest guys in the world. They just have a lot of leg power to get up in the air.”

Jay nodded his head and agreed with me. “I got a white guy in my gym class who’s five-ten and can dunk with two hands. He’s not too good at basketball though. He plays soccer.”

I smiled. “See that? But we think that white boys can’t jump. They could jump if they worked at it.” I guess I was really getting into work ethics. That white man had done a job on me. But again, it was the oldest truth in the book: hard work pays.

I said, “So how are your grades looking, Jay?” I was so focused on talking to my son about his grades that I forgot to introduce him to Jamal. “Oh, yeah, this is my little man, Jamal Levore. I’ve been staying with him and his mother. This boy has skills already. And he’s smart.”

Little Jay said, “Oh yeah. He looks like a point guard.”

Jamal said, “That’s the guy who dribbles the ball, right, and passes inside? I can do that.” He was already picking up on what I had taught him, and studying the game well at only six years old.

Little Jay started laughing. “Yeah, he
is
smart.”

“So how are your grades looking?” I asked my son again.

“I’m trying to get a three point oh this semester,” he answered. We began to walk toward the exits.

“Aim for a three point five or something,” I advised him. “You always
aim for the best. That way, if you don’t achieve your ultimate goal, you’ll still have something to be proud of. But if you get used to aiming low, you’ll be satisfied with too little, and start talking that ‘I got lucky’ stuff whenever you do better than you expected. You have to
expect
to do well. Ain’t that right, Jamal?”

“Yup. I’m gonna get straight A’s.” So far, he only had two B’s out of six grades. Yet, I took it for granted that Jamal would do well in school. It’s funny how that works. Once a kid shows a parent potential, they never let the child live it down. Yet, kids who need an extra push were always being carried along to the next grade without being challenged to do their best. That attitude in education circles needed to be changed from the parents
and
from the school system.
All
kids should be challenged to do their best. It was a sad situation that they were not.

It was also funny how
my
mind was changing. I was thinking like a damn nerd. But since I was no longer a kid playing the game of basketball, my understanding of academics was five times clearer. As the saying goes,
If I knew then what I know now
…