by Dijorn Moss
Later on that night, at an hour when no one called unless it was an emergency, the phone rang. The phone woke Titus and Grace out of their sleep in a panic.
“Hello?” Grace asked, half asleep.
Deep breaths.
“Hello? Who is this?”
Deep breaths.
“I’m hanging up!”
The unknown caller beat Grace to the hanging up, and two minutes later the phone rang again.
“You’re going to have to get that under control, Titus,” Grace said, with her back turned toward Titus.
Titus wanted to play coy, but his wife was too smart, and an insult to her intelligence would have added unnecessary tension. Titus remembered when the phone rang at all hours of the night at his parents’ house. The callers were desperate women who wanted to be soothed and comforted by their pastor. Titus ignored the phone calls, while his father didn’t.
Chapter Nine
Chauncey
Chauncey did not care to miss a Saturday night shut-in prayer service, especially a week before the Men’s Retreat. The six-to-midnight prayer session that followed the men’s prayer breakfast made for a powerful evening. It would set the tone for the week that lay ahead, to the point where he even contemplated whether or not he should go through with his date. Of course, Gabrielle, a woman he’d met on Soulmates.com, seemed to be too nice of a woman to defer their rendezvous. He reveled in the fact that the future Mrs. McClendon could be on her way.
Chauncey sat in his champagne Cadillac and drummed up a beat on his steering wheel while in the parking lot of John’s Incredible Pizza. He had been to Buena Park on many occasions as a result of church picnics at Knott’s Berry Farm, but he had never been to this pizza spot, which seemed childlike. He took Gabrielle’s word that this was the perfect meeting place.
Lord, I pray that nothing is wrong with this woman. Though she may look a little young, I pray that she is of legal age. I also pray that she doesn’t have any addictions or mental instabilities and that she has always been a woman. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Chauncey concluded his prayer, and a gray minivan with a dented front bumper pulled up. It was clear that the minivan had not been to a car wash in quite some time. The passenger side door slid open, and juice boxes and empty water bottles fell out. A boy who looked no more than three years old jumped out of the minivan and landed on the juice boxes. He was followed by a little girl who was not much older than him, with hair as wild as Patti LaBelle’s in 1983. Then there was a teenage girl with long braids who got out of the front passenger seat. Chauncey felt a twinge in his stomach at the sight of her and the possible connection.
Lord, Jesus, give me strength. Please let these kids belong to someone else.
Of course, God, who, Chauncey was convinced, had a sense of humor, did not honor his request. Gabrielle, his date, emerged from the driver’s side of the minivan and walked to the passenger side and picked up the little boy, holding him in her arms. He recognized her from the pictures.
Chauncey turned on his engine with the intent of driving off before he was spotted, but when he looked into the rearview, Gabrielle waved at him.
Dagnabbit, I’ve been made.
Normally, Chauncey did not endorse lying, but in the time that it took Gabrielle to travel over to his car with her children, he thought of three possible lies. He had started applying meat to the bone of one of them when Gabrielle arrived at his driver’s side window.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Gabrielle said through the window.
Her smile convicted Chauncey. The least he could do was carry out his original plan. Chauncey got out of the car and put on the fakest smile possible. “God bless you.” He gestured toward Gabrielle like he was about to hug her, but he could not maneuvered around her with the baby in her arms.
“Say hello, Troy,” Gabrielle said to the young boy she held in her arms. She then started to wave Troy’s hand for him.
“God bless you, little man.” Chauncey stuck his hand out for a high five, but Troy instead grabbed Chauncey’s bottom lip.
“Don’t do that.” Gabrielle smacked Troy’s hand away.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Chauncey said with a chuckle.
“Well, you ready?” Gabrielle asked.
Chauncey tried to think of the various lies he had conjured up. But all he had was gibberish. “Yeah, sure,” he replied.
“Okay, well, let’s hurry.” Gabrielle started to walk toward the entrance.
He just had to survive a meal. Across the street was Knott’s Berry Farm theme park. Chauncey likened his current dating experience to riding a roller coaster. Just when he felt like he had reached the peak, the next thing he knew, he was being plunged into the deep abyss of a flawed Internet dating system, where people could lie about their age and status.
As he entered the picturesque John’s Incredible Pizza, Chauncey’s nightmare only grew more horrific. Inside the room where children had an opportunity to make their own pizza was a banner that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TROY.
Not only had Gabrielle lied about her village of children, but she had also lied about their meeting being a date. His humiliation peaked when Troy, who still had not said anything to him, came and brought him a birthday hat to put on.
“Aww, how cute,” said some girl who Chauncey did not know.
“Well, I don’t know if that would fit on me all that well.” Chauncey examined the cone-shaped hat with the elastic string, as well as his two-piece hunter green suit, but Troy was persistent, and he even tried to put the hat on Chauncey’s head.
“Okay, okay, I’ll wear it.” Chauncey then proceeded to put the hat on top of his head.
With a birthday hat on and an uncooked pizza in front of him that needed to be assembled, Chauncey wondered if there was a bottom to all of this. While Chauncey tried to figure it all out, Troy climbed on top of him and sat on his lap.
“Are you the father?” a strange man asked.
“Heck, no. I’m not the father.” Chauncey repented to himself for the near expletive.
The man started to chuckle. “Aren’t you the lucky one!”
“Why do you ask?” Chauncey questioned.
“Tatiyana and Kaiya are my daughters.” He pointed to the two girls. “My name is Chris.” Chris gave Chauncey an awkward handshake that contorted his fingers in all sorts of ways.
“How many kids does she have?” Chauncey asked.
“She got five kids. She got a set of twins who live with their grandparents in North Carolina,” Chris replied.
Five kids without a ring. Chauncey could not fathom what would possess her to have so much unprotected sex. How could any woman in this day and age expect to be successful with five kids and no husband?
“I had to do some investigating on some Law & Order type of stuff to get to the truth,” Chris offered.
“Why did you stay with her?”
“Because she is fine, and she was getting those county checks and child support checks from the other baby daddy. I had it made while I was out of work, but not too long after Kaiya was born, I bounced. Gabbie was too much drama for me.”
Chauncey no longer saw the man in front of him as a man, but as a statistic. “How often do you visit your kids?”
“Often. At first I didn’t, but then I became a changed man.”
“What happened? Did you find the Lord?”
“Naw, child support. They tried to take a brotha’s driver’s license and everything. There’s only so many times you can quit a job to avoid paying child support before your family stops loaning you money.” The guy patted Chauncey on the back. “Take my advice. If you don’t want to pay, put a helmet on your soldier.”
It took Chauncey a minute to realize what helmet and what soldier Chris was speaking of. He did not know that such a brute was capable of a figurative analogy.
Gabrielle walked up with drinks in her hands. “Don’t be trying to scare him off, Chris.” Gabrielle sat a drink down in front of Chauncey
.
Chauncey stood up and handed Troy over to Chris, then made his way toward Gabrielle. “I need to talk to you.”
“You want to play me in air hockey? It’s impossible to score on me,” Gabrielle said.
With five kids, evidently not. With his hand on her back, Chauncey led Gabrielle outside the pizza-making room and into the video game area.
“Listen, I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work,” Chauncey said.
“Chris is such a hater. I swear!” Gabrielle rolled her eyes.
“You have a lot of kids, who you did not tell me about.” Chauncey struggled to get his words out in fear of offending the young single mother.
“Chauncey, you seem like a nice dude, but if you can’t handle that I got three kids—”
“Five!” Chauncey put his hands on top of his head in disbelief.
“What a hater, dude.” Gabrielle turned around and mouthed something to Chris, who only smiled and waved back at her.
Chauncey used this time to flee, taking off in a brisk walk toward the exit.
“Chauncey! Chauncey!” Gabrielle shouted, but Chauncey did not break his stride.
He was through with online dating, and he was through with his search for a wife. At least for now.
Chapter Ten
Quincy
Two Days until the Retreat . . .
“I can’t take this, Lord,” Quincy said, as if the Lord were sitting in the chair across from his desk. He lifted up his desk calendar, which was covered with scribbled-in meetings and deadlines. He removed a copper key from underneath his desk. He then proceeded to unlock the bottom drawer, and a bottle of 150-proof vodka rolled. It was more of a gut check. Could Quincy face down his temptation another day and not give in?
“Two hundred eleven days,” Quincy said to himself. He had no patience to work twelve steps; he had just made up his mind to rid himself of anything toxic. Quincy did not classify himself as an alcoholic. He had moments of weakness and moments when the pressure of a multimillion-dollar contract got to him. In those moments Quincy found solace in the bottle. For the last 211 days, Quincy had found strength in God and in a support system that included Karen and his three brothers of the Gospels. Quincy had seen the results that his faith could produce. He had ridden out the recession virtually unscathed, and to God be the glory.
Quincy had come to the realization that Karen would never be able to understand why he was so embattled and so bitter. It was not a simple case of a disappointed father whose daughter had gotten pregnant and thus had put her plans for world conquest on permanent hold. It was more of a revelation that Quincy had fallen victim to the playboy theory. The theory was that if a guy was a player, then when he became a father, he would automatically have a daughter. That way he would be condemned to spend the rest of his life fending off cold-blooded players like himself who had their eyes on his daughter.
There was a knocked at the door. Quincy knew it was his daughter because she always gave three quick knocks on the door.
“Enter!” Quincy said.
Sasha opened the door with a solemn look on her face. “Daddy, I know you’re disappointed.” Sasha took a seat on Quincy’s lap like she was a little girl.
“You need to expand your vocabulary. I was disappointed when you quit the varsity basketball team. I was disappointed when you forgot my birthday. Honey, I’m furious!”
“I made a mistake. You and Mom have made mistakes as well,” Sasha said.
“Your mother and I have made some mistakes, but we are adults, and so are you. Just because we were going through things does not give you the right to get pregnant,” Quincy snapped.
“It was stupid, Dad. I get it. But didn’t you do stupid things in college that you later regretted?”
Quincy thought about the time when he and his friends used to randomly steal the Bob’s Big Boy statue and place it on people’s front lawns. He thought back to the time he took a job as a door-to-door knives salesman, which lasted all of two days. He thought about those things before he responded to Sasha.
“Yes, I’ve done some stupid things, but none of them were life altering, like what you have done.”
Sasha’s only response was a shamefully bowed head and a slump of the shoulders. Quincy could not let her off that easy. She had to understand the repercussions of her actions. She needed to know what she had lost and what still could be gained.
“I mean, I’m not trying to be funny or nothing, but didn’t you and your mother have a talk about your womanhood and how precious it is?”
“She did have the talk with me, but I think it would’ve been better if you’d done it.”
“I don’t know about that. All I would’ve said is, ‘Don’t march your soldier into battle without a helmet. ’” Quincy shrugged his shoulders.
“Daddy, I need you by my side. I don’t know if I can do this without you and Mom.”
“What you need is the Lord. I’m by your side, princess. Your mother and I both are, but I’ve seen God do some amazing things. I’ve seen Him turn the most undesired situation into a blessing.”
A knock on the door interrupted their father-daughter moment. It was Karen. She always knocked on the door like a woodpecker before entering. She must’ve figured that the several knocks gave someone ample enough time to brace themselves for her entry.
“Sasha, there’s some guy downstairs that’s here to see you,” Karen said.
“A guy downstairs?” Quincy’s stomach turned into another knot. “What guy?” Quincy’s head made a sharp turn, and he stared at Sasha.
“My boyfriend, Dwight. I flew him down here to meet you guys,” Sasha explained.
Quincy wished that his daughter’s boyfriend was front page news..
“Sasha, what’s wrong with you? Why on earth would you think that it’s okay to fly your boyfriend down here? We’re still adjusting to the news that you’re pregnant!” Out of disappointment, Quincy moved Sasha off of his knee.
“Dad, we’re going to be a family. I talked to him about it, and he wants to be a father.”
Anyone who had known Sasha longer than five seconds knew that she came from wealth. Most men would’ve headed for the hills in Dwight’s situation. Quincy vowed to find out what the ulterior motive was behind Dwight’s visit and his willingness to become Sasha’s baby daddy.
“Sasha, honey, it’s rude to keep your guest waiting. Your father and I will be down in a minute,” Karen said. As soon as Sasha left the room, Karen closed the door behind her so that she and Quincy could have some privacy. “You can’t hide in here all day. You got to come out and face this,” she said.
“Boyfriend? Another secret she kept from her parents. So much for openness. I can’t understand it. We’ve always raised her to take responsibility for her actions.”
“At least she knows who the father is and we don’t have to go on Maury.” Karen tried to fix her earrings. “Look, we both have done stupid things, and what Sasha did was just as stupid, but we can’t be divided now. We need to pull together as a family.”
The issue between Quincy and Karen regarding their affairs was still very sore. They had spent this past year trying to believe that what happened was an isolated incident. What happened was a moment of weakness and a desperate plea for salvation for a marriage that had become cold.
“Come on, babe. I need you to make it through.” Karen took Quincy by the hand, and he willing left his office.
As they walked down the winding staircase, Quincy got a good look at the possible father, and he took a deep sigh. Unless Sasha was about to kiss him and turn him into a prince, Quincy was staring at a broken version of Lil Wayne.
“Daddy, this is Dwight.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Quincy said the lie effortlessly.
“Yeah, Sasha has told me a lot about you. She told me that you’re a go-get-it type of dude. A true hustler.” Dwight tried to give Quincy an urban handshake, which only entangled his fingers. Dwight then released Quincy’s
fingers and stood with his arm around Sasha’s shoulders.
Quincy shook his head. “I’m a businessman. I build things, while hustlers take shortcuts. I don’t equate the hard work that I do to that of a hustler. It’s just hard work.” Quincy could tell that his comments rocked Dwight like a body shot from George Foreman. “Well, we got a reservation for three.” Quincy looked at Sasha. “Sasha, honey, let’s go.”
“Where y’all eating at?” Dwight said.
“We are having dinner at the Four Seasons. There’s a Popeye’s about five miles from here.”
At dinner it was clear that Dwight was a fish out of water. The only reason he did not violate the restaurant’s strict dress code was that Quincy made him pull his pants up and put on a collared shirt and a sports coat before they left the house.
Even the meal was something that Dwight was not used to, and he took only a few bites of his baked chicken before he flagged down the waiter. “Hey, do you got any Rooster?”
The Asian waitress looked at Dwight quizzically. “Rooster?”
“Yeah, Red Rooster Louisiana Hot Sauce.” Dwight did a poor hand gesture to convey what a hot sauce bottle looked at like. “Never mind,” Dwight mumbled, abandoning his request after the Asian woman shrugged her shoulders.
“So, Dwight, how did you and Sasha meet?” Karen asked.
“At a Sigma party,” Dwight replied.
“You’re a Sigma?” Quincy asked.
“No. I’m a DJ, so I do all their functions.”
“So you don’t even go to Berkeley?” Karen asked.
Dwight shook his head. “No. Like I said, I just do the parties.”
Karen and Quincy gave each other disapproving looks. Sasha couldn’t have picked a worst candidate for the father of his grandchild.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Sasha asked.
“I guess I’m confused about where we went wrong as parents, because for you two to talk about having a child when you’re still, for the most part, children yourselves is baffling to me.”
