by Penny Dixon
‘Me hurting you?’
‘No.’
‘You like it?’ I like to hear it. Like to know when I’m doing a good job.
‘U hum,’ she grunt.
I ride her like that for a while; feel her arms round me and her hips under me. Then I turn her round, lay on my back and let her ride me from the top. She rock back and forward and side to side, like she unsure of what to do. I take charge again. Thrust my hip right into her over and over till she start to cry out. I put my hand over her mouth. ‘Darron sleeping,’ I remind her. She bite my hand. That arouse me even more. I turn her back over and let her have it, hard and fast. I’m rigid. Just as the pin prick my balloon and the air start to gush out, her body goes limp. She let out a long sigh. I roll to the side of her, don’t want to flatten her. She’s breathing long and deep and I realise she sleeping. I lay on my back and look up at the ceiling. I just had a meal. McDonalds is a meal, but its not Sunday dinner. Not chicken, sweet potato, macaroni pie, vegetables, salad. Melissa is McDonalds. Jeanette was Sunday dinner.
Darron look at me from under his eyelids, head bent into his bowl of cereal, rushing it as usual.
‘If you get up earlier you’ll have time for a descent breakfast.’
He doesn’t answer; just keep shovelling in the cereal. ‘Remember I’m coming to see your teacher today.’ I feel the energy around him change, feel him tense up.
Couple years ago I used to look forward to going to his school. He was a star pupil then. All his teachers wanted to tell me how well he was doing. English, maths, science, geography, every subject the same thing. ‘Darron work so hard. Darron put in one hundred and ten percent. Darron’s a pleasure to teach. Darron is such a good example to his classmates. If Darron continues like this his grades will be outstanding.’
I used to walk out of there with my head in the air, would put my arm round his shoulder and congratulate him, tell him he’s a chip off the old block. Just like his old man. Stop by Chefette and get him whatever he want. The dollars I was paying for his fees was money well spent. I was proud of him. Proud he was holding up the Guyanese reputation as a bright and hardworking people.
Now all I’m getting is grief that he’s not trying, is mixing with a crowd that don’t even want to be in school. Now I go in there with my tail between my legs. After the first meeting, where they show me how his grades slip, I go mad at him. Take away his computer games, ground him, stop all his treats, stop playing football with him on Sundays like I used to. Tell him he’s not getting anything back till his grades pick up. Tell him how disappointed I am in him. Let him know how much he let me down.
I was angry with him. But I was angrier with myself. I’ve been raising Darron since he was three. Things didn’t work out with me and his mother. I was only twenty one when he was born and still at that place where I wanted to lay down with everything in a skirt. I was still pussy hungry. She couldn’t take it, had a nervous breakdown, couldn’t care for Darron. Her folks told me to come and take my child.
My mother told me to go and get him, said no child should have to grow up in a place where he wasn’t wanted, said it would damage him for life, that he would always feel second best, an outcast wherever he was. She didn’t want that for her grandson. She made it clear she wasn’t excusing my lifestyle. Her worry was for her grandson.
Bringing Darron to live with me changed my plans to go to university that year to do the Civil Engineering BSc at the University of Guyana. My mother said a boy need his father, she wasn’t going to be a stand-in parent while his real parents was alive. She said I should organise my life round my son. That he should be the main priority. And for the last eleven years that’s how it’s been.
I give up my university place. Find a job, get a little place for me and him near enough to my parents house so they can help me with him. A year later I start the hard road of working and part time study. Nights I was so tired after working on a building site all day I could hardly keep my eyes open. I’d put Darron to bed, sleep for two hours, get up and get out the books. Took me five years to get the degree.
Darron know all this, know that’s why it’s important for him to get good grades; get into a good university so he don’t have the same struggle I had. I’m angry that I can’t make him see it. Even after I lock down on everything with him, he just doing the same half-hearted stuff. Just getting by. Sometimes not even that.
Angry too because the other two mothers of my children think Darron is my favourite. Don’t feel I put the same into their children as I do into him. Even my ex-wife coming off with that rubbish. I know secretly they want to see him fail.
‘Which teacher I’m seeing first?’ He shrugs his shoulders.
‘What you mean you don’t know!’ I shout at him. ‘You don’t care about your education boy?’
‘It’s in the letter Daddy,’ he stammers.
‘What time does it say?’
‘I don’t know Daddy, the letter came to you. I didn’t see it.’ He almost disappear into the bowl. ‘I’m leaving now, Daddy.’
‘Make sure you wash that before you go.’ I didn’t have to do that. He always wash up without me telling him.
I don’t want Darron scared of me. I just want him to work hard now so he don’t have to mess up his life later. Don’t want him dealing with three mouths and not enough to put in them. He gets his bag from his room and go out the kitchen door. He’s avoiding walking past me. It hurt. God knows I love my son, but right now he letting me down badly.
I hear a noise in the bedroom and remember that Melissa still in there. The last thing I need now is any more complication. I’m going to tell her to go home, I have my son to see to. I have two companies to send my CV to and some phone calls to make. Even though I get tired of hearing the same message, ‘Sorry we’re not hiring at the moment Mr Spencer,’ I have to keep trying. Maybe one day when I phone somebody just drop dead and they need a replacement straight away. I need to make some money fast.
I know part of the trouble for Darron is that he don’t like living here. I had to give up the big three bedroom house we had when the money stop coming in. Look at what savings I had and cut my suit according to my cloth, as mama used to say. This two bedroom place not going to be big enough for when Derrick and Marcie come in the summer holidays. At this rate I don’t even know if I can afford for them to come. Can’t see how I’m going to afford the plane fare, before I even think about food and things for them to do.
I feel like God put a heavy rock on my back. It’s weighing me down, pressing me into the ground. If I don’t take Marcie this holiday Jeanette just going to use it as one more thing for the divorce, and Icilda will have me up in court for child support. And Darron’s school fees due again September.
I hear the noise in the bedroom again. I stop staring into space and go to find Melissa. She in the shower.
‘You find your clothes?’
‘Yes by the side of the bed.’
I lean on the wall and watch her soap her body. Watch her spread the soap round in slow circles and feel my rod getting stiff. I only have an hour to get to Darron’s school. I don’t have time for this; but my head’s pounding, my cock’s throbbing, my skin feel like prickly heat. She bend over to pick up the soap. I see her round hole and the crack at the top of her pussy.
I take off my boxers, step into the shower with her, glide against her soapy back, slide into her from behind, her legs spread wide, water beating down on us. I start to move in and out when I remember the condom. The last thing I want now is another baby. I go to the cabinet but the mood gone. The thought of more children turn me off. ‘Sorry I have to shoot – appointment at Darron’s school.’ She look disappointed.
‘Look how you let me wet up my hair for nothing.’ Her thick head of single braids dripping water all down her back. I find her a towel and try to wrap it round her hair. I stop and let her do it. Memories of drying Jeanette’s locks too fresh in my head.
&
nbsp; ‘I’ll make it up to you.’ It sound like an apology.
‘When?’ she want to know.
‘Soon. You want some breakfast?’
‘Just some coffee.’
I leave her to dress while I make the coffee and get ready while she drink it. By the time the two of us finish, it’s time to leave. I drop her at her house five minutes from me. She rent a room in somebody’s house. They work away a lot in the week so she mostly have the house to herself. She get lonely, that’s why she start coming my house. That’s what she say.
When I meet her she was trying to reach a tin on the top shelf at the supermarket. I help her. We talk a little, she tell me where she live, I said drop by some time for a drink. Exchange numbers. I ignore all her texts asking if I was in, could she come over? One day she just turned up. That was three months ago.
I drop her off and turn my attention to the school.
I just pull off when I get a call from my sister. ‘Yeah Princess, I can’t talk now. I’m on my way to Darron’s school.’
‘Again? I keep telling you to send him up here. Grant, have you made a decision yet?’
‘I’m still thinking about it.’
‘Don’t you see that it would solve all your problems?’ She sound impatient, but these days she always sound impatient.
‘Listen, I’ll call you when I finish at the school.’
‘Make sure you call, Grant. Don’t let me down. I put a lot of time into this already.’
‘But Princess, I can’t do anything before my divorce come through anyway.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘I’ll call you later. I’m at the school now.’
I walk up to the school entrance, my stomach turning over like it’s me in trouble. Like it’s me not doing my homework, me not completing assignments. In a way it is me. The way the teachers look at me, the stare that say ‘Your child is failing because you’re a bad parent, you don’t know how to get him to do what you want, and if you can’t, how you expect us to?’ The glare that’s dripping with judgement. Having a child in school is like I’m back at school. The teacher can send for me. If I get a letter from the head teacher I know is something big. My heart still beat faster when I get a letter from Darron’s school.
My palms are sweating. I wipe them on my pants. I’m in work clothes. White shirt and dark pants. I don’t want them thinking Darron’s from a home that don’t care, that he live with ignorant parents. I try to give the best impression, especially as we don’t belong here. Being Guyanese, it’s like people watching you all the time, waiting for you to put a foot wrong, waiting to point a finger at you and say, ‘What else do you expect? He from Guyana.’ I spend years trying to build a good reputation and Darron doing all he can to tear it down.
I show the letter to the receptionist behind the desk.
‘Take a seat Mr Spencer. I’ll get the teacher for you.’
She gives me one of those “you-can’t-control-your-own-child” looks as she walk away. I glance around and sit in one of the four chairs, arranged round a small low table with magazines and information about activities at the school, feeling uncomfortable. In no time she’s back with Darron’s tutor.
He’s a big man. At least six feet two. Probably more. With a head shaped like a lump hammer and eyes set way too high on his face. Maybe that’s to make sure his nose have enough space to spread out. You’d expect thick lips on a face like that but his are thin and flat like someone forget to blow them up. He have big ears that stick out. One’s a bit higher than the other. He’s like a building designed by five different architects who don’t meet to compare the drawings before they build it.
‘Good morning Mr Spencer. Thank you for coming in to see me. My name’s Mr Adams, I’m Darron’s form tutor.’ I shake the large soft hand. He can probably tell from mine that I work outside. The voice is quieter than I expect. As we make our way to his form room, which is empty so we can talk with more privacy, he almost float across the floor. I can see why the students call him “Lurch”.
It’s not as bad as I expect. Darron’s grades slowly creeping back up. They still have two big worry though. His maths and English still letting him down badly. Can I help, give him some extra help at home, get him a tutor? I say, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ I can help with the maths but English isn’t my strong point either.
Mr Adams say, ‘We know you’re a graduate and have aspirations for Darron to follow in your footsteps but he must get these basic subjects back on track. It’s not that he’s lacking ability, he’s lacking application. The last six to eight months he’s been a different student. Still popular but with a creeping insolence. Did anything significant happen then?’ I don’t want to ask what insolence mean. He might think that’s why Darron’s no good at English. I must remember to look it up on the web when I get back. I tell him nothing significant happened.
They know he’s a good boy and they just want home and school to work together. Can I monitor his homework more closely? Can I check he has the right books for lessons each day? Can I get him the extra help? I say yes to everything, wondering where I’m going to get the money from to pay for a tutor. And it’s none of their business that six months ago is when Jeanette leave me. Take off back to Guyana with my daughter, Darron’s sister.
An hour later, I Skype my sister in New York.
‘What happened at the school? What they say about Darron?’
‘They think he should have a tutor to help with his English and math.’
‘But Grant you can help with his math. I don’t know how you going to manage with the English. You see, if Darron was here all that would be taken care of.’
‘I know Princess but you know it not that easy to…’
‘You have to make a decision, Grant, even if it’s to say no. She’s not going to hang on forever. She has another offer on the table and…’
‘Then maybe she should take that one because I don’t…’
‘Grant!’ She sound irritated. ‘At least come and meet her, don’t just make your mind up on a picture.’
I pause for a while to think about it. My situation not getting any better; my money’s real low, even with the down-sizing. Nobody have any job to offer me, the little bits of work I’m getting can’t even buy a good month’s worth of grocery, I owe the bank, soon I won’t have rent money. I’m praying hard but God don’t seem to be listening.
‘You still there Grant?’ Her voice cut into my thoughts.
‘I can’t come yet, I can’t leave Darron by himself right now.’
‘That mean you coming, right? At least I can tell her that. At least she’ll know that you’re definitely interested.’ She sound relieved. ‘I have to run now but call me soon.’
‘It might not be for three months. I have to sort out Darron.’ I have to let her know I’m not planning for next week, and I want to give myself time to straighten things out so I don’t have to make that trip. But things don’t get any straighter and by the time I board the plane for New York, Melissa moved in, been here nearly six weeks.
I click off Skype and stare at the screen. It’s like a couple of guys with a hammer each beating at the side of my head. I put my hands there and feel the pulse strong, like the veins want to pop out, make a break for freedom. I drop my head and try to think. I’m trying hard to see the positive side of what Roxanne want me to do, what she see as a win-win solution for everybody. She’s into all that corporate management speak: ‘But don’t you see, Grant, this is the perfect win-win solution?’
She’s five years older than me and have the kind of life I want, but don’t manage to get yet. She’s married, with two beautiful girls. She and her husband have good jobs. He manage a chain of restaurants, she’s an investment banker. At forty she in a senior position and bring in very good money. She help me out sometimes but her money always have strings attached. I don’t want to go there again unless I have to. I love her, I admire her, but we do
n’t always see eye-to-eye.
It’s hard to admit that what Roxanne see as a win-win situation, I see as a kind of prostitution. Marrying someone for a green card, living with them for two years, getting them to look after my children. My blood run cold. My children will be involved. I’m going to have to work something out before I have to lower myself to that. I pour myself a Hennessey and start surfing the web for jobs.
An hour and two Hennessey later, my cell ring. It’s Melissa. She want to come over, want to cook for me instead of just cooking for herself. She’ll bring the ingredients. Is the best offer I have all day. I say yes with a delight she might mistake for something else. She’ll be a nice distraction from the chaos going on in my head.
That’s how it start. She come and cook for me and Darron, stay and watched TV, stay in my bed, give me something warm and loving to hold on to, make herself available whenever I want her. She and Darron have a lot in common, talk the same language about movie stars, musicians, celebrities. He grateful that she here. It take some of the heat off him.
A few weeks later her landlords give her notice, they’re selling up and moving away. She say if she move in she can help with the rent and some of the bills. She say it make better sense than her trying to find somewhere else and still be spending so much time with us. She say it will only be till I got back on my feet. She say she love me but that it don’t matter if I don’t love her. She say she happy being with me and Darron.
She answer the phone one day when my sister call. Roxanne flip out. What me playing at? What about our arrangement? Was I going to let her down without even telling her? What me doing with this child? What she have to offer me apart from what’s between her legs? Can’t I stop chasing skirt long enough to think about my future? Don’t I want a better life for my children? She’s phoning to find out if I want her to book the flight. I tell her yes.
