Big Freedia by Big Freedia & Nicole Balin

Author:Big Freedia & Nicole Balin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

CHAPTER 20

RECONCILIATION

MY BRUSH WITH DEATH changed me. The thought that I could have died without seeing my dad didn’t sit right with me. I dug up the receipt with the phone number and dialed my dad’s wife, Karen. She invited me to their home in Norco, a few miles from where my grandparents had lived in St. Rose. I agreed to go the following weekend.

Getting ready that day to see my father after twenty-one years scared me to my core. The anger and confusion I felt toward him had been locked away for so long, I was terrified to face it. I was twenty-five now, and the last time I saw him I was four. I still didn’t know the reason for his incarceration. Would I like his new wife? Shit, I was a gay Bounce rapper. Would he even want me for a son?

Scanning my closet, I finally decided on white pants, a brown shirt, and some matching brown boots. I wanted to look nice for him, but I wasn’t ready to tell him that his son was one of the most well-known gay rappers in New Orleans.

Memories of my grandparents rushed back as I drove the road I had gone down so many times. Granny Ruth and all her food, the trips to Kart N Carry with my grandfather.

When I got to the house, I sat in the car for a moment, contemplating what I would say. There is no script for reuniting with an estranged dad after twenty-one years. Standing at the front door, a Curtis Mayfield song sounded from inside. I tucked some stray hairs back into my pompadour and knocked. A petite light-skinned woman with a warm smile and gorgeous blue eyes greeted me.

“I’m Karen,” she said, and came out to hug me.

Behind her came my dad. His brown Kangol flat cap hung so low, it almost covered his face. When our eyes met, I actually gasped for air. He had the same smile and bright eyes that I remembered, but prison had hardened his face. For the first time in my life, I thought about what that must have been like for him, to be sitting in a cell for nearly twenty years, without his son.

The silence was almost unbearable. “Poopie,” he finally said, opening his arms. As we embraced, I could feel his shoulders trembling. I couldn’t hold back my tears either. In that moment, nothing mattered except that I was with my dad again.

“I missed you, Dad,” I said, taking a step back but still hugging him for a minute.

“Me too, son,” he said, slightly stilted. Then he managed to get out, “Are you doing okay?”

“Just fine, Dad,” I said. We spent the next few hours catching up on our lives. Over a feast of gumbo and crawfish, I told him I was a choir singer and a decorator. He didn’t ask if I was gay and I didn’t offer up the information. Some people think that’s crazy, but that’s the way it is in my family.

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