Single Mom by Omar Tyree

Author:Omar Tyree
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 1998-03-21T22:00:00+00:00

Where Do We Go from Here?

was in a game of emotional tug of war, and I needed time away from Denise to think again. The only thing was, I didn’t have any long runs for the week and no one wanted to switch with me. It’s hard to get any swaps for the longer runs at the end of the year. Everyone wants that extra money pouring in before the holiday season. Longer runs, like anything else in America, meant longer pockets.

What made my situation worse was that Denise was constantly calling me up to chitchat. It seemed as if she was finally opening up to me. I was confused about that because I thought we were supposed to be slowing things down. I guess because of the problems she was having with her youngest son, Walter, we were heating up again.

I was thinking about Denise and her boys while loading my truck at the shipping docks. I had a short trip to make that day to Champaign, Illinois. I spotted Larry walking toward me. We hadn’t been talking as much as usual. I had cut back on some on my longer runs to be more available to Denise, so Larry began to team up with other guys for the income. For whatever reason, he seemed eager to talk to me that morning.

“Hey, man, you got a minute?” He was looking around and speaking in a hushed tone, like a man who wanted some privacy.

I was apprehensive and curious at the same time, wondering what he wanted to talk to me about. Usually, we only talked about sports, the job, and women, and not necessarily in that order.

Larry asked, “How do you deal with seeing a woman who has someone else’s child?”

I immediately started to grin. “Why, you’re seeing a woman with a kid now?”

He smiled back at me, still speaking quietly. “It’s only been over a month, but I feel like she’s sucking me into this thing. Her little girl is just starting to walk, as cute as she can be.”

I didn’t know we were talking about an infant. I said, “How old is she, nine, ten months?”

“Yeah.”

I cracked up laughing and couldn’t help it. I imagined rock-headed Larry holding a baby girl in his arms.

He said, “This shit ain’t funny, man. I mean, this girl is fine. Fine fine! I’m just not ready to be somebody’s daddy.”

Larry was getting close to thirty himself, and I was about to reach the forty mark. How old did we need to be before we were “ready” to become fathers?

I immediately thought about Denise and her sons’ fathers. I said, “You know what, Larry? I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. It seems to me that a lot of us black men need to grow the hell up. I mean, we come up with all kinds of stupid-ass excuses, even with ‘fine,’ educated, good women, to run like a damn ghost is after us when it comes to being a father.

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