Читать книгу So You Call Yourself A Man - Carl Weber - Страница 15

It was late and I was watching Ving Rhames play the new Kojak when my cell phone rang. The caller ID had my home phone number on it, and I immediately turned the sound up and switched the TV from Kojak to BET, where music videos were playing. I was hoping to give my wife the impression I was at a strip club. I know what you’re thinking. Why the hell would I want my wife to think I was in a strip club? Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than telling her that I was at my former mistress’s house babysitting the son she said was mine.

“Hello?” I raised my voice, trying to speak louder than the 50 Cent video on the TV.

“James, honey, it’s me!” she yelled back to make sure I heard her.

“Hun, you’re gonna have to speak up. I can barely hear you with this loud-ass music.”

“What time are you coming home?”

“Three, four, depending on if we decide to go to a diner. We just got to the club about an hour ago. We’re not doing anything, Cathy, just looking, honest.”

“I know. I’m not tryin’ to bitch. I just wanted you to wake me up when you come home.”

“Wake you up for what?” I didn’t like the sound of that. Cathy tried to act like she wasn’t, but my wife was a jealous woman…a very jealous woman. She was always snooping around my shit, checking my phone, my pockets, and my car. She never found anything because I wasn’t doing anything, but you’d be surprised by the coincidental shit that got me in trouble.

“You’ll see.”

“Come on, Cathy. What you gonna do, give me the sniff test again?” I laughed, but I was only half-joking.

“No, baby, I’m gonna give you the hardness test, so be prepared to stick your plug in my socket. You got a problem with that?”

A smile crept up on my face. No, I definitely didn’t have a problem with that. We hadn’t had sex since the night Michelle sprang the news on me about Marcus being my son, and I was in definite need of some stress relief.

“No, ma’am. I don’t have a problem with that at all. Matter of fact, I’m about ready to blow a fuse right now.”

“Well then, I’ll see you when you get home. Don’t forget to wake me up.” Now that’s what I was talking about. I couldn’t wait to get home.

I hung up the phone and turned the TV down just as Marcus walked into the room, wearing a Pull-Up and dragging a blue stuffed bunny behind him. Believe it or not, this was the first time I’d seen him, other than a picture or the quick peek in his room when I arrived.

On my way in, Michelle had rushed out the door to a waiting cab. “He’s asleep and he shouldn’t wake up before I get home around four, but if he does, take him to the bathroom then give him some juice in his Lion King sippy cup. He’ll go right back to sleep after that,” she said over her shoulder. “Oh, and the dog’s in the laundry room. Let him out in the backyard to do his business if he starts to whine.” Ain’t that a bitch? Not only was I babysitting, but she had me dogsitting too.

“Mommy! Where’s my mommy?” Marcus was on the verge of tears.

Suddenly, as I stared at him, a chill ran through my body. This had all just seemed like a bad dream, but now here was this kid, in the flesh, needing, wanting, and crying. Up until now, I’d pretty much convinced myself that there was the possibility that I was Marcus’s father, since I was at the scene of the crime, but not the probability, since I wasn’t the only one she was having sex with. I mean, damn, we’d only had sex without a condom that one time.

Now that Marcus was standing in front of me, I finally got a good look at him and saw that there was some resemblance to me and my people. He wasn’t a dead ringer like my sons, James Jr. and Michael. They looked just like me. Ain’t no denying those two. Marcus, maybe he could be my son, but I still thought he looked more like the other guy Michelle was screwing. She’d admitted to me once while we were dating that she went raw-dog with her boyfriend Trent almost every time.

Either way, I was in no position to stand up to Michelle and insist on a DNA test. Things at home were going too well between Cathy and me to take any chances. If there was the slightest chance he was my son, I didn’t need any drama, especially from Michelle. That girl would take the phrase “baby mama drama” to the next level.

“What’s the matter, little man?” I tried to rub his head.

He stared at me for a few seconds, obviously confused. The tears began to run down his face. “I want my mommmy!” he wailed.

I took a deep breath because there was no bigger pain in the ass than a child who wanted his mother. I tried to warn Michelle of this before she left, but she wasn’t hearing me. She swore up and down that he’d sleep through the night and wouldn’t get up ’til daylight.

“I know you want your mommy, but your mommy had to go to work. She’ll be home soon, okay?” I smiled at him, but he wasn’t going for it.

“I want my mommmy! I want my mommmy! I want my mommyyyyy!” he screamed, each time louder than the first. He was about two seconds away from a full-blown meltdown, but I’d been through this same thing with my boys. I knew what to do. I was going to bribe him.

“Hey, Marcus, you want a lollipop?” He shut up immediately, nodding his head, although tears were still running down his face. “Well, if you want a lollipop, then you gotta stop this crying, man.”

He sucked back tears and wiped his face with his shirtless arm. I smiled, reaching in my pocket and pulling out three Tootsie Roll Pops I’d purchased on the way over for just such an occasion. Before I could even ask him which color he wanted, he grabbed the red one out of my hand, ripping off the waxed paper. I smiled as he shoved it into his mouth.

Works every time, I thought. I never met a kid who wouldn’t take a bribe. All you have to do is find out his weakness. With some kids it’s candy, others it’s TV. I’ve got a nephew who won’t shut up unless you give him a dollar.

I picked him up, placing him on my lap. “Do you know who I am?”

He nodded his head repeatedly as he sucked on his lollipop. “You my daddy!”

I almost dropped him off my lap, I was so stunned by his reply. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Who told you that?”

He jumped down and headed toward a love seat across the room. Then he climbed up on it, pulling a photo album off the end table and on to his lap. He started flipping pages like he knew what he was doing and I walked over to investigate. About ten pages into the album he stopped, pointing at a picture. “Mommy and daddy,” he said in his rather cute child’s voice before pointing to another picture and repeating the same words.

I took a good look at each picture, and to my surprise, each photograph had a picture of Michelle and me at various times during our relationship. I was surprised she kept those pictures and even more surprised that she showed them to her son. Now, if you ask me, that shit was low. She’d already had junior here brainwashed that I was his dad. I wondered, how long had she been showing him my picture? Not that it mattered. The damage was done now.

I started to walk to the kitchen. “Come on, little man, let’s get your Lion King cup and get you some juice, so you can go back to bed and I can think.”

I swear, I’d barely turned my back for two seconds when I heard Marcus sputtering and choking. I rushed back into the living room and there he was, laying sprawled out on the floor, gagging, with his hands near his throat. My heart was doing summersaults in my chest as I dashed across the room and grabbed him.

“What’s wrong?” His lips were turning blue and he gagged. I immediately turned his back to me. In one swift movement I delivered the Heimlich maneuver, and the lollipop spewed out of his little mouth. Relieved, I had to choke back my own feelings. What the hell was I thinking about? Giving him that stupid lollipop almost killed him. Without thinking, I held Marcus close to my chest to calm both him and myself. His little heart was trotting like a racehorse and so was mine. After Marcus caught his breath again, he began crying in deep gasps.

“It’s all right son, it’s all right, Daddy’s here. You’re going to be all right,” I said in a soothing voice. I thanked God Cathy had made me take a CPR class at the Y when our boys were infants. When he finally calmed down, I said, “Here. Let’s go get your juice.”

“I wanna play with Majesty,” Marcus protested between hiccups. As if on cue, the dog began to bark from the laundry room.

“Okay. I’ll let you play with Majesty or whatever his name is for a little while, then back to bed you go.”

After Marcus drank his juice and went to the toilet, he romped around with his little mutt until he dozed off in the middle of the floor. I picked him up and carried him to his bedroom, feeling something stirring in my gut. Marcus had his arm wrapped snugly around my neck.

I laid him down in his twin bed and shook my head. Lord, what if something had happened to him while he was with me? I don’t think I could’ve lived with that. He was a good kid, even if he wasn’t my son. And if he was my flesh and blood and died…dear Lord, I didn’t even wanna think about it.