A Kind of Freedom

by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

  “I don’t know a thing.” She paused. “Now you doing good. Don’t go fooling around with Tiger and get yourself back in trouble, T.C. I mean it. Malik needs you. We need you.”

  Tiger was right on both counts. T.C. had checked the buds just the other day, and they were cloudy as a glass of ice water. He chopped the branches off all twelve plants, trimmed the leaves so only the buds were left to dry. In another week or so, they’d be open for business.

  Not only that, he and Licia were still kicking it together real strong. He’d worried that the momentum from a few weeks ago would whittle down, and she’d be back to going ham on him, worse than that, barely speaking to him, but no. Every morning first thing, he called her to check in, make sure the baby was still inside, see if she needed anything. He’d gone with her to buy that car seat too, and a pair of baby Jordans he thought his little man shouldn’t be without. Then she’d invited him to the doctor’s appointment last week, and he’d heard his baby’s heartbeat, steady as the rhythm of God. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he didn’t wipe them.

  He was bagging up his first batch when he got the call from Licia’s mama.

  “You betta get over here to Ochsner, T.C. Labor’s starting, and it’s going quick.”

  He hung up the phone, then scrambled around the house looking for a suitcase among his mama’s piles of shit. Once he found one as old as he was, he stuffed some sweats and a T-shirt inside. Licia had told him he could expect to stay up to a week sometimes depending on how the baby was delivered, and he stopped in the bathroom on his way out for his toothbrush, left a note for his mama, and hightailed it to the bus stop for the 94.

  By the time he got to the fifth floor, there was an IV in Alicia’s arm and something like a shower cap on her head. He was nervous to see her that way, but the nurse pulled him aside and reassured him: The baby was showing signs of distress, not moving as much as expected. Licia had done great carrying him, and he was big enough; it made sense to just pull him now.

  T.C. nodded in silence, not sure how to formulate what he was really thinking. Finally he just said it. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “She’s going to be fine, sir.” The nurse handed him some hospital scrubs and a cap, and he dressed, then sat outside waiting for anesthesiology to administer the spinal.

  Then the same nurse came out and led him to the operating room. The doctors had already lined the curtain up at Licia’s stomach. He hustled over to her. He kept looking around for her mama or her sister, but it was just the two of them there. He took her hand, let her squeeze his as hard as she wanted.

  “Are you in any pain?”

  She shook her head, biting her lip. “Just scared,” she said.

  “Can you feel this?” the doctor called out from the other side of the curtain. T.C. peeked back, watched as the doctor dug a scalpel into the bottom of Licia’s belly. “Because we started.”

  Licia shook her head. She seemed to calm down after that, but T.C. tried to think of something to say, to take her mind off of the fact that she was getting sliced into.

  “I know you wanted to do it the other way,” he whispered.

  “It’s cool, however they can get him out healthy.”

  He was about to tell her not to worry, that the baby was going to be fine, that everything would be now, but a minute later, the doctor called out to them again.

  “Baby here in a second, Daddy, if you want to see.” He looked at Alicia to see if he could leave her. She nodded for him to go, her eyes wide and bright. He peeked behind the curtain again, and there he was, not anything like what T.C. was expecting amid the blood and goo, but he was his, long as a Lewis and red as one too, screaming like a banshee.

  “You want to cut the cord, sir?”

  “Sure.” T.C. asked them if he was aiming the scissors in the right place three times before he snapped them shut. Then the nurses weighed the baby, wiped him down, wrapped him in a blanket, and handed him over. He was tinier than T.C. could have imagined. T.C. guessed he was expecting something the size of one of those newborns on TV, but Malik could fit in the palm of just one of his hands. He carried him to Alicia and she burst into tears before she even saw his face. She couldn’t hold him because of the drugs, but T.C. held him out to her.

  “Look at what we did,” she said. “Let me see him. He’s perfect, isn’t he? Did they say he was perfect?”

  “They said he was perfect.”

  “Can you believe it?”

  T.C. shook his head. The baby’s eyes were closed, and T.C. kissed his closed lids.

  “This is your mama,” he said. “And I’m your daddy, and we love you. We gon’ always be here for you, you hear? No matter what.”

  T.C. walked out to the waiting room feeling even taller than normal. MawMaw, Mama, and Aunt Ruby had joined Licia’s people in there. They seemed to be trying to distract themselves from waiting with an episode of Judge Judy but they jumped up when they saw him.

  “Twenty-two inches.” He pointed at himself, and they laughed. “Seven pounds, fifteen ounces.”

  Everybody shrieked.

  “He gon’ play ball like you, T.C.,” Licia’s mama said.

  “That would be real cool,” T.C. said. “Real cool.”

  He walked with his own family to the cafeteria, his mama talking nonstop while they waited on the elevator.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about, boy, that baby is as fine as you were. Real fine, you hear me? Look just like you. When I get home I’m going to pull out your newborn picture, put them side by side, and you’ll see. He got that same head shape, you got to mold it though so it flattens out, and that same nose, you got to squeeze it with your fingers, not so hard that it hurts him, you hear, but just to straighten it out. My baby, a daddy.”

  She paused; he could tell that whatever she was thinking was as amped-up as her speech. This was the woman who had started him on basketball, the one his friends wanted to holla at, the one he’d been so proud of those years she was around. She had come back.

  “We got to exercise his legs ’cause big thighs run in our family, don’t they, Mother?” T.C.’s mama went on, turning to MawMaw, who was holding her up as if she were the one who needed a cane. When MawMaw didn’t respond, his mama kept on.

  “I’m just so happy,” she repeated. T.C. stood on the other side of her, and she squeezed his hand. “You’re going to be a good daddy, none of that here today, gone tomorrow mess. You know how I know? Remember when Miss Patricia took her grandbaby in? T.C. used to go over there every day and just hold him. What kind of eleven-year-old boy got any interest in a baby? My son did. And this one’s named after Daryl too. He’s gon’ be the light of your life.”

  When they reached the cafeteria, his mama went off for a doughnut, and he and MawMaw and Aunt Ruby picked a table and waited.

  It was rare to be sitting in silence with Aunt Ruby there—she usually talked enough for the whole family—but it seemed as if they were all still in awe. He fumbled with the sugar packets on the table. After a while he asked them what they were thinking.

  “Oh, nothing, just ruminating. Not every day you become a great-grandmother, is it?” MawMaw asked.

  Aunt Ruby smiled. “No, it’s not,” she repeated. Then she paused, wringing her hands. “Times like these, I really miss our parents.”

  T.C. was surprised to hear her bring them up. They had died before he was born, and neither MawMaw nor his aunt mentioned them much. All he knew was that their father had been a doctor, the first black doctor in all of Louisiana or something like that, and that MawMaw and her mama hadn’t been close when she was a girl, but something had happened along the way to change all that.

  “You miss them too, MawMaw?” he asked.

  “You never stop missing your parents, no matter how old you get.” She paused. “No, I expect I’ll take this grief to my grave. But I just k
now they would be so proud. Things have changed so much in this world. People don’t do things in the same order they used to,” she chuckled.

  “Maybe they never did them in that order,” Aunt Ruby cut in, laughing too.

  “I guess not,” MawMaw said, “but our parents, even though they were sticklers for the rules, I have to think they would be proud, despite themselves.”

  “They would,” Aunt Ruby said, but it came out more like a question.

  “I hope so,” T.C. said, setting the sugar down.

  He looked up. His mama had glided more than walked back with a bib for the baby she’d picked up in the gift shop.

  grandmama’s baby, it read in blue cursive letters. She sang the words aloud. Then she looked at T.C. with more tenderness than he remembered seeing even ten years ago when he’d been named high school player of the year. Nobody drafted kids straight out of high school then, so he chose LSU. Six months later he was home for spring break, playing pickup ball with Daryl, and he twisted his right knee, tore the ligament. His doctor told him to wait out the season, but Coach Domingue played him anyway. Back then, he listened to everything Coach said, he was so happy to be wearing the same uniform Shaquille O’Neal had worn, but the second game of the season he fell again, fractured a bone in the same knee this time. LSU paid for the operation, but he was never the same after it, and when the school realized he changed, they did too. A few months later, Katrina hit and Daryl died, and T.C. was bottomed out.

  He walked back to the elevator now though feeling like a different man than the one who had walked into the hospital a few hours earlier, as if he had been reacquainted with the boy he’d been, who’d held so much promise, but the promise wasn’t specific to basketball or anything really, it was all encompassing, and there was no way he wouldn’t be able to parlay it into something real. He didn’t know what it would be, but it would have to be more than bagging groceries, selling weed even. No, he’d finish this last batch, then he’d start thinking about next steps.

  He didn’t go home for the next four nights. Alicia’s people asked to relieve him, but there was nowhere else he wanted to be. He and Licia fell into a routine in that hospital room, taking turns waking up every two hours, watching old movies, and in a state of delirium, speaking the characters’ names instead of each other’s. Mostly, they just stared at the baby and imagined different versions of his future, reminisced on different aspects of their own lives that might apply to him, the height he’d get from his father.

  “But now that I think about it, I don’t want him to play ball. Too risky,” T.C. said.

  Or the intelligence he’d inherit from Licia, who was just a year from finishing nursing school.

  “A doctor,” she said. “Not a nurse, but a doctor.”

  At the root of it, they didn’t care, not yet; the child they’d created had come out perfect, and it had plucked them both out of the realm of ordinary existence and elevated them to the level of gods.

  The night before they were scheduled to leave, Aunt Sybil came to see them. She walked in in her fancy suit and sharp heels clanking against the linoleum. T.C. used to put on a collared shirt for her visits, but all he could think now was that her shoes would wake Alicia, who had finally fallen to sleep.

  “I come bearing gifts.” Aunt Sybil handed him a giant bag.

  “Thanks,” he pulled out the onesies, socks, and sailor suits. “We appreciate it.”

  He let her hold the baby, then when Licia stirred, they walked the portable bassinet up and down the hallway.

  They talked about the delivery for a while, when he’d come back home; Aunt Sybil noted it was a good thing he could make it for the birth, said MawMaw was beside herself; Sybil hadn’t seen her so happy ever since PawPaw died. When the pleasantries were over, she turned to him.

  “I never had my own kids, and you know I hate telling grown people what to do, but the real reason I came out here is for you. It’s always nice to see a new generation come in, but you’ve got to do right by him, T.C. He’s too beautiful to let him down.”

  T.C. laughed the silly, nervous laugh Aunt Sybil had elicited from him his whole life.

  “I know that, Aunt Sybil,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’m not just worried about you, son. I’m worried about that child. Well, I’m worried about the both of you. I want to see you do something productive with your life.”

  They turned the corner to walk back in the opposite direction.

  “I wanted to run something by you, T.C. You know I closed my own practice and started working at a firm.”

  “Yeah, Mama told me the man got you.”

  “Yeah, well the man pays the bills, let me tell you. Nothing like a paycheck every two weeks.” She laughed, a polite chuckle. “Anyway, they’re looking for a mailboy. It’s not much, but if you do all right there, you could rise up to paralegal. Then, if that seemed like a good fit, I have enough stowed away to pay for you to go to law school.”

  He laughed. “Law school? I barely made it out of the twelfth grade.” He laughed again, but she cut him short.

  “That’s because your focus was off. Basketball is great as a hobby, but you can’t rely on it. I told your mama that when you were a boy, but no, that made too much like sense. Anyway, here we are now, and I have an opportunity for you.” She stopped walking, gripped his wrist. “Don’t answer me now. I want you to think about it, really think about it, ’cause if you take it, I’m going to need your commitment. You know I’m just starting out at this place, T, and I’d be putting my neck out for you.”

  He nodded. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  Licia was up when they got back, and she and his aunt said quick hellos. T.C. walked Aunt Sybil out.

  “I’ll let you know in a week or so,” he said before they hugged.

  When he got back, Malik was more alert than T.C. had ever seen him.

  “What she wanted?” Licia asked.

  “To offer me some job.”

  “Hmph. Working for her?”

  “Yeah. In her new office.”

  “That’s funny, you always said you wished Sybil would give you the hookup.”

  “Yeah, I know. But the timing is off. I got some things I need to finish and then maybe—”

  “Don’t be stupid, T,” Licia cut him off. “That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, what she’s proposing, and the timing is perfect. You know Sybil wasn’t fucking with you after jail. But she came all the way out here to see the baby and offer you that job. That’s something. I mean, maybe Malik worked out that miracle himself.” She paused, cooing at the baby. “Don’t mess it up by being prideful.”

  “I’m not being prideful.” T.C. lifted the baby from Licia’s arms. “I’m not being prideful,” he repeated in a baby voice, making funny faces with his seed. “It’s just a big deal,” he said. “I gotta think about it first.”

  Alicia didn’t respond; she just looked at him hamming it up with their child, and finally she laughed.

  They were discharged the next morning. After T.C. dropped his baby off, he took Licia’s car to Tiger’s to check on his weed. He could see once he got inside that the bags were light, but he rooted through them anyway when he reached the mattress, trying to make sense of the deficit. He dialed Tiger up.

  “What the fuck, nigga? Where my shit at?”

  “Sold, mothafucka! I tried calling you, but you didn’t answer.”

  “You know Licia had the baby.”

  “I heard, I heard congratulations were due, and I figured you’d be all camped out with her and lil’ Malik, so I took it upon myself to put that lil’ nigga I interviewed to work. He went out on Monday, and by Thursday a quarter of that shit was sold. I told you my marketing campaign was what’s up. I was just on my way back to the house to reup.”

  “And give me my money.”

>   “Right, and give you your money. I mean, I took a cut for myself like we discussed, but 75 percent is for you, nigga, and well earned. You did it.”

  “Well, I had help too, bruh,” T.C. had calmed down some, knowing he was about to be paid. Shit, diapers were expensive, and as of this morning they were off Blue Cross’s dollar.

  “But you still coulda waited though, bruh,” he added. “It’s my shit. I like to label it, and I knock the prices up for some of the rare mixes,” he added.

  “Oh, I just took the liberty of knocking them all up. Sixty bucks an eighth.”

  “And people paid that much? Even for the OG?”

  “Hell, yeah, I told you, leave the marketing to me. Anyway, you gon’ be there in twenty? I’m on my way. I got some other things I want to discuss with you.”

  Tiger was manic when he arrived, scooping up the bags so fast T.C. couldn’t keep track.

  “Calm down, mothafucka. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Aw, nothing, bruh. I’m just amped, you know. My lil’ nigga said they asking about more, and we gotta take advantage of all this momentum.” He sat down on the edge of the mattress.

  “That’s actually what I want to talk with you about,” Tiger went on. “I know you just had the baby and all that, but we got a market, a serious one. I’ma need you to go get some more of them cuttings tonight, start over, maybe double up. Two months from now is too long to have people waiting, T.C. I’m gon’ be done with this batch in a few weeks max, and then how we gon’ look, dry as fuck for the next two months? Nah, I’m thinking we could set it up so we always have some in rotation. Like halfway through the process, start on the next.”

  T.C. stood up from the mattress, his hands in front of him.

  “Man, hell no. I told you when we started this it was just temporary, to get me on my feet. I got a kid now, bruh. I’m not messing with this stuff.”

  “That’s why we got lil’ Kevin on the street selling. Nobody’s even gon’ trace it back to you.”

  “Don’t be stupid, the first thing that lil’ nigga’s gon do is tell on me when he get caught.”