Single Mom (56 page)

I broke in and asked her, “And what would you like to become when
you
get older?”

“A police officer,” she answered, “because I want to lock up all these boys that be out here causing trouble all the time. Like this boy named Damen, he lives on my block, and he
needs
to be locked up.”

The auditorium broke out laughing again, but the scene wasn’t funny to me. This little girl was also a class clown, and slightly overweight. I began to wonder about her family background. I could already see it. She had a young, single mother, had been around plenty of terrible men, probably had brothers and sisters from different fathers, and her mother
was just as trifling as she was. Damn, I hated being judgmental, but I had been around her type far too long not to know!

I looked at Camellia, and she read my mind. Then I let her take control of the discussion before I got too excited in there.

“Okay, how else do we get ahead?” Camellia asked them.

“Education.”

“And what does an education do for us?”

A well-behaved girl with a long ponytail was
dying
to answer. She was all up on her toes with her hand up high. When she was called on, she stood up and said, “You get a better job and make a lot of money, and then you don’t have to have a husband to give you anything, and you don’t stay at home and wait for him to come from work.”

I sat there, shook my head, and read her, too. Her mother was a middle-class, single mom who was educated with only one child. Her mother was also pissed at her daughter’s father for not doing what he was supposed to do. I’m sorry, but stereotyping was a way of life. There was just no way of getting around it.

I was tempted to break in again and ask the teachers why the boys were not included, because I could see the direction in which the discussion was headed.

Camellia struck the match when she went on to ask, “Why do you think it’s important for women to have their own incomes?”

“Because boys are stingy,” one of the girls yelled.

All of a sudden, they all started yelling out before they were called on.

“I don’t want to ask them for anything anyway.”

“They give you babies and then they don’t want to pay for it.”

“They don’t buy the babies milk or anything.”

“And then they always in your face, asking you for stuff.”

The class clown screamed out, “And they always want to do it to you,” for another laugh.

The head teacher broke in and said, “Wait a minute, young lady! You
watch
what you say!”

The girl’s classroom teacher led her out of the auditorium. I wondered how long the girl would last in that school before they politely sent her somewhere else. I looked at Camellia to see how she was going to respond to all of that. I could tell that the head teacher didn’t like it. I read her too, and something told me that she was happily married. She had a certain levelheadedness about her that was dominant in sisters who had either a balanced social life or no children. Because once you
have children and mix it with an unbalanced social life, your emotions easily run hot and cold from one day to the next.

I forced myself to remember the teacher’s name,
Mrs.
Debra Clarke. Since I was not focused that morning, I was only halfway listening when she introduced herself to us.

“I’m sorry about that,” she apologized to Camellia and me. Once the girls quieted down, Camellia started up again.

“The reason it’s important for women to have their own incomes,” she stated—I was interested in her answer myself—“is so that we can be productive members of a household. In some situations, women are
forced
to work, but it should
not
be in opposition to our men.
Specifically
, in the African-American culture, the women have
always
worked, because we couldn’t
afford
not to. Therefore, we are
used
to working and not just being housewives.”

Mrs. Clarke nodded her head and could not hide her agreement. “That’s right,” she said. In fact, she said it twice to make sure the girls heard her. “That’s right.”

Camellia added, “It is very hard for
anyone
to raise a family in present-day America with only one income. And even if the second member of the family
does
stay at home, at least the family doesn’t have to pay extra money for day care.

“Statistics say, in the African-American community, that even with success stories like myself and Denise’s, the average single mother is forced to live below the poverty line.

“Because of a lack of education, African-American women earn the
lowest
income while having the
highest
percentage of working mothers in the country, with no or little help from their children’s fathers,” she added.

“Furthermore, the children do not receive the proper emotional balance that they
should
receive from a mother and a father.”

I looked over to see if Camellia was okay. She seemed to be getting emotional in her discussion. That was unusual for her. Mrs. Clarke looked a bit concerned herself. Camellia was emitting more raw energy than she needed to.

As far as the percentage of working mothers was concerned, I do believe that Asian mothers had us beat, with Latina mothers not far behind. However, Asian
fathers
were definitely there to help out, where Latina mothers were not much better off than we were, with plenty of absentee fathers. I knew or met enough of them through my secretary Elmira to know.

I stood up to take over before my good friend suffered a stroke or a heart attack. I said, “It seems that we need to begin doing
more
to educate our young men and our young women on how to keep a productive
family
together. It’s obviously no longer feasible for us to think as individuals. And so, although it’s important that we as women
do
get our educations, and
don’t
have kids before we are ready, and
do
earn an income that works for our specific needs, I reiterate what was said earlier, in that we
do not
do this in opposition to our men, because ultimately, it takes at least two adults to make a family. Since the men are definitely a part of making babies, they should also be a part of raising them
and/or
providing for them.”

When we closed out the discussion that morning, Camellia was still in an emotional haze.

“Are you okay, sister?” Mrs. Clarke asked her.

Camellia nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay. I didn’t get a chance to eat this morning. This diet thing can get to you sometimes.”

I looked at Camellia and knew that we had to talk. She wasn’t going to put me off anymore. And I wasn’t going to blow her off about my marriage proposal either.

“Well, I want to thank you sisters for coming out again, and I also think you’re right; we
do
need to start including the boys in these discussions,” she said specifically to me.

I said, “Yeah, because I had
two
boys for men, and both of them have a story to tell.” It was no use in me being hush-hush about it. The truth was the truth, and I had been dealing with it for close to sixteen years.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how is your marriage?” I asked her. I just had to know.

“Oh, we’re making it. And I don’t mind talking about it at all.”

“Do you have any children?”

“A boy and a girl; six and four.”

Mrs. Clarke looked around our age. “Are you around thirty-three?” I asked her. I took two years off.

She smiled. “I turn thirty-two in November.”

I smiled back. “I turn thirty-five in April. My sons are turning sixteen and thirteen.”

“Mmm,” she grunted.

Camellia added, “I turn thirty-six in July. My girl and boy are turning seventeen and fourteen.”

We exchanged more small talk about children and motherhood before Camellia and I said our good-byes and headed out the door to our
cars. I followed Camellia to hers. She had gotten a better spot because she arrived earlier.

“My car is right around the corner,” I told her. “You mind giving me a ride?” I really wanted to talk to her.

She took a deep breath and said, “No problem.”

I didn’t ask Camellia much until we made it inside of her car. Chicago wasn’t the kind of city to talk outside in February. I wanted to warm up inside of her car first.

Camellia turned on the ignition and heat and rubbed her hands together in front of the wheel.

“You really went off in there,” I commented with a smile. I wanted to ease into things.

“You think we’re making any ground with SMO?” she suddenly asked me. “It started off as a good idea, but now it seems like a welfare program. We just get more and more women who put themselves in worse situations than they were already in. I’m starting to feel the same way you used to feel. I mean, after we’ve discussed everything that we need to discuss, what’s the use if we’re still going to be single mothers? It’s just like welfare, a continuous cycle.”

I just let her talk. She seemed ready for it.

She said, “I thought about calling my kids’ father this weekend, just to see what he had to say for himself.”

I couldn’t let that opportunity pass me by. I asked, “Why didn’t you?”

Camellia nodded and answered, “I am. I’m planning on tracking his ass down if I have to. But if he’s so screwed up that he can’t offer any help, and I’m not talking about the money, because he doesn’t have any, just his input and concern, then I’m gonna have to find some other way for a man’s presence.

“I mean, this thing is just not working,” she told me. “Monica and Levonne have been suffering for years with all the things that I’ve been running and doing. That’s probably why everyone has become so separated in society now; we’re all doing too damn much and not taking care of the most important things. I
can’t
be in a million places, and I
can’t
be a million different things.”

I smiled and put my hand on my friend’s shoulder. “I got your back, girl,” I told her. “This has been very hard, for all six of us,” I said, including our children. “I came to that same conclusion. We have to stop acting like these superwomen they have us cracked up to be, because we’re getting broken down from every angle.”

Camellia took another deep breath and shook her head. “So where
do we go from here, Denise? Is this something we need to look forward to from all of our families now? Can we change the damn world somehow? I mean, what do we do? How do we change the cycle?”

I thought about it. I said, “Brock asked me to marry him Friday night.”

Camellia nodded and smiled at me. “I knew. I could feel it. You just didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t have an answer yet.”

“Do you have one now?”

“Hmmph, I have the only answer,” I responded. “My mother told me, ‘Brock is a good man.’”

“I knew it was gonna happen after the Thanksgiving dinner,” Camellia commented. “Once a man accepts your family, no matter how crazy they are, then he’s ready for that next step. Because
none
of these families are perfect.

“So, anyway, when is the wedding? I’m the maid of honor, right?”

“Of course you are. And you’ll be the first to know the date. But first I have to tell this
good man
that I
will
many him, before he gets nervous and takes his ring back.”

We sat there and laughed. Then I asked, “And what about you? What are you planning on doing with your social life?” I was dead serious.

Camellia smiled, showing the ray of hope that she used to preach. “I’m right behind you, girl. I got someone in church who’s been asking me out for months, and I’ve been steady ignoring him. Well, I’m not gonna ignore him anymore. But I’m not rushing into anything either.”

“You can’t,” I told her.

“One day at a time,” she said.

“One day at a time,” I repeated.

Camellia got excited and said, “And if Reuben Gray messes with my daughter again, we’re going to have
two
weddings this year, because I’m sick and tired of these trifling young boys screwing and leaving. If they want to keep humping like a dog, then they’re gonna learn how to
sit
and
stay
like a damn dog!”

I broke out laughing and said, “Amen to that, girl. Amen to that!”

That was the Camellia that I knew—she was always looking ahead and on the bright side.

HAT’S
that big old smile for, Brock?” Larry asked me at the shipping docks in Cicero. Since his involvement with the mother and daughter he was seeing, we talked more often. I say that he was seeing them both, because once you get involved with a mother, you date her
and
her child. That’s just the way it is, and if it’s not, then you’re not all that serious about the woman, or she’s not all that serious about her child.

“I feel good,” I responded to Larry. “What, I can’t feel good about myself and the future?” It was six
A.M.
Monday morning, at the crack of daylight. We both had early runs to make.